Chapter 12 Heart of Gold

Ping! Ping! Ping!

Even for all the misses, my aim was still true. I didn't let anypony diminish me. A lot had happened on this island, but that was one thing that hadn't changed. I remained cool and in control. You had to be, or something in this wasteland brought you down with it. This time, it was dignity.

Mist Haze ran down the road, in between the trees and straight for the naval vessel. The Children of Arcana came out to greet her, aiming their guns to see what they could. Scopes and barrels trained on us, we decided it was up to her now. She disappeared into a sea of robes. They took her in like on of their own, no tests, no judgement. It was clear what they valued.

Mist Haze

I was a very observant filly, my grandstag had taught me that. Don't overlook anything, don't leave any stone or leaf unturned. His way of living was what made him a good fellow. When he died of cancer, I had taken it upon myself to know what the world had in store for me. His way of living. My way of living. I didn't give up, because curiosity did not kill the cat. I had to know what there was to know, and I didn't take it for granted.

When I left on my grandstag's boat, I didn't leave because I was upset with my parents. A child running away from home because they were angry about a lie told to them. I didn't know if I was a synth. I left to find out, but I wasn't mad. Knowledge is power, whoever said that was prepared for anything. It was always more than money, bits, caps; things that are worthless if you don't know how to use them. So I came here to find out who I was and make my choice on what I wanted to do from then on.

Thinking on it, I think my choice had finally come. I was staring at the rusting hull of an old boat, the blankets covering the entryways into dwellings made within. I was staring at the grated gangways and the diamond plated walkways. I glanced between the sickly faces of ponies made ghoul for their beliefs. I saw the priests, the disciples, the ponies who took it upon themselves to lead this place. There was an obvious difference between the two groups.

Stopping when the slug-like pony rolled up to me on his scrawny legs, I knew what was happening here. Achilles Heel was a bad guy, but he was less so than this stallion who painted himself a god and made his people slaves. He was so fat he could barely move, meanwhile his people were dying as he dined with the finest the world had to offer. I looked at him with heavy eyes. My grandstag died of cancer.

Equesticles was cancer.

"So you have it then?" he smiled and clopped his shoes together.

I held it up and looked at it. The three holes meant for ancient stones, the ugly facade of a radiation ravaged mother. She was better than him in every way. "Do you need it?"

"It's not about what we need," he smiled and glugged over to me. He put his arm around me and laughed.

He first took me to a room, asking me to undress from the arcana gear. He didn't think it necessary to hide my "beauty" though I knew the real reason I was wearing it. Now I had to change the plans again. I was a tinkerer, I could change the program to deactivate the Children's defoggers altogether instead of destroying this entire ship. But that would change the future of this island, and with a stallion like Equesticles about, I wasn't so sure what I wanted now.

Leading me through the tunnels of the inner ship, I had to ponder. I saw the way his people looked at me. The younger ponies, yet untouched by the worship their lives would lead them to. I was a walking symbol of their grace. I saw a mirror in one room, a bathroom I think. Just the right angle for me to look up and pause at what I saw. To them I must be a queen. Where patches of my blue fur shone through, the rest was taken by the radiation damage of my birth. Black charred and dead skin covered me, and from it growths. Green and glowing and one might say healthy.

"Your cutie mark, miss," said a child, a colt. He lifted a wobbly leg, a hoof to touch my flank. My body must be like nature itself to him.

"Do not touch her!" roared Equesticles, slapping him.

I bit my lip and looked at the floor. Then I looked to the colt. "It could never fully develop. Not even because I was born with radiation torn skin. I have pure magic in my veins that would prevent it from happening either way. What you see is what you get."

There was a long pause, where the colt looked up at me with awe in his eyes and Equesticles had a second to reflect as well, whether he took that time or not. "She's beautiful and that's all there is to it." he told the kid. He got up and ran off.

It was funny to think that even half a cutie mark was so amazing to the lesser minded people of this society. That instead of the magic that ran through me every day like a thousand volts, they saw beauty. And not just the sick, twisted perversion of it I noticed everytime their leader took a glance at me. It was something pure in their heads.

"If you don't need this then why am I here?" I asked him when we got to the control room.

"You're a symbol!" he boomed as he closed the door to the larger chamber behind us. I set the idol down on the control boards. I breathed in and then out. "You saw the treachery in that synth laboratory right? How they lied to you?"

I turned to him, head tilted, "You knew it from the start right?"

"I knew Achilles had some sort of plan, or he wouldn't have brought me to this boat." smiled the stallion. "I also knew, there was no way a creature as pure as you could ever be a synth. They don't see you as perfection, they see you as something to laugh at. Achilles wouldn't want to corrupt his perfectly good synths to recreate something like you."

"I agree." said I, and turning back to the terminals, I slid the idol into its slot. "It's not something you need. It's something you want." I turned it like a key, activating every program the Children ever wanted. "You already had every piece you needed to finish it without me, right?"

"But doing it with the idol is what makes all the difference to people like them," he just kept smiling.

I lifted my hoof from the grimy floor, looking at how thin my leg was and comparing it to him. I had always considered myself beautiful. I had similarities to him it was true. We both had scrawny legs. But I was a deer pony, a radstag. We were meant to be like this, I was stronger for it. But him? He was meant to be something else and he had tarnished it without batting an eye. So when I pressed the button on the dash that deleted all the programs he had built, and replaced them with the ones Achilles had, I did it knowing I was better for it. It didn't even matter if it made me better than him, because I wasn't here to be better or worse. I was here to be equal.

"Then they'll know what we have done together."

"REBOOTING…STANDBY…"

"What have you done?!" he stumbled toward me but I easily sidestepped.

"Listen now, it's over. I tampered with the programming in the idol to delete all of yours. Do you want to know why? Because somepony like you could never fully comprehend what it's like to embrace Mother's light. I'm not a synth, I'm not a pony. Hey, maybe I'm not even a deer. But I am someone who knows who you are. You're a coward. All this knowledge at your disposal and instead of using it right you wanted to hide it away like it was useless altogether. I've changed that and your people will see. I'm a symbol right?"

"No! Faust dammit no!" he yelled.

The door opened. Sundance was at the threshold. "Sir?" he looked shaken, confused. The walls were paper thin, he knew.

"Sundance! Sunny boy!" Equesticles tried to reach out and hug him but he just fell flat on his face. "Help me. Please. Can you do that?" the leader looked up at his disciple, having fallen off his golden pedestal too far to survive.

"Who's Faust?" he asked. "Our Mother's bitter half? The false god?" Sundance had a tear in his eye as he looked away from the disgrace before him. He looked to me. He looked to the computers, sweeping the radiation emitter data and replacing it with defogging tech. "You praise her name," he said to him as he looked at me, "when Mother's glory has brought new light upon us."

I stepped forward and Equesticles grabbed my leg, "What have you done?"

Ignoring him, Sundance continued, "I know you! I know who you are! WE ALL DO! AND WE JUDGE YOU FOR YOUR SINS, AS MOTHER EMBRACES US WITH HER LIGHT. Is that not the gospel you preach?" he cleared his throat as the fallen leader looked sorry. "I judge you not by your sins but by your actions taken to get around them. You are no leader. We followed you to destruction. Mother has a new plan, Equesticles. Mother has judged you, as she should have all along."

The two of us left, leaving him to squirm and rot.

They'd heard it all. The ghouls, the leaders, everypony. Not only that, they saw me when I stepped out onto the gangway. They saw me. What happened next didn't quite surprise me but it was not what I expected either. The intercoms still buzzed and whined with their fallen leader's moans. Some thought I had attacked him and betrayed them all. The majority stood with me. I only saw a few of that majority were priests or clergies. The rest were the wartorn remains of the Children.

Some priests wanted to restore order. They held power here for so long they couldn't see that it was gone. Or they just wanted to keep it, they were so hungry for it. They turned their weapons on the crowd, they turned them on us. Sundance was barren of any ordnance. He saw a better way. So he talked.

"The time has come we atone for our sins!" he yelled. "We had with us the false Prophet! He calls for the false god. Lay down your weapons or you stand with him. And you will not succeed."

A shot rang out, clear as day. I thought it was coming for me. I'd started all this. I could admit guilt and take responsibility. Whoever had fired that shot could not. It hit Sundance straight in the chest. He stood tall, I'd give him that. Then he wasn't standing at all. It appeared to happen in slow motion. He went flying through the air, he hit the railing, he slid to the ground. Blood painted the paths of the upper decks. It dripped through the grated metal floor and it rained on the denizens below.

Some ponies screamed, others cried. I looked, seeing the colt who'd come to me earlier. He stared at me with dead eyes, emotions run cold for a moment in time. I couldn't tell what he was thinking. He just stood there. Gunfire sounded all around. It touched me, that he still had faith amidst all the tarnage. Ghouls fell dead, the ones that didn't even try to defend themselves. Lots did but these ponies didn't train their people. It almost appeared they held them back on purpose, just for moments like this.

"It all circles around!" Sundance cried. A bullet just close to his heart he should be dead and he still had more to say. "Everything comes full circle in the end! Do you want to know why none of you realize this? We refuse to preach the truth, that's why. And I stood by and just watched it happen." his voice wasn't heard, but I imagine if the guns stopped now, everypony would stop and hear what he had to say. He looked me in the eye. "It all gets a return. Some are judged for their crimes and others are forgiven. Only the good die young." He smiled as he bled out.

"No." I said.

"What?"

"I said no. I refuse to believe this is the way things are." I moved past him, the green spots on my body glowing in the heat of the moment. I felt I was moving slowly and with purpose, but the next few seconds happened so fast I must've been a blur. I climbed up the ladder, enclosed by metal bars for safety. I was on what looked like a mini below deck crow's nest, a circular platform. A radio hung by a curly wire that must connect to the com system. I hooked it with an antler and made my descent till I reached Sundance and handed it to him.

"This being has come to us through the Mist." he said, as though from memory. "She comes bearing gifts of wisdom. "Knowledge," she said, "was Her ultimate glory." We forgot, and thus asked forgiveness. She said, "You need not beg mercy for you have done no wrong." And the meek shall be punished!" Sundance yelled so loud that the radio was no longer necessary. It was a voice that carried, one that begged to be heard, one that carried over the highest rooftops and asked, why have you not listened before? "Arcane Wisdoms, Chapter 23 Article 2:3.

And I stand here now, asking, "Have you not seen the fruit you bear?!" It begs the question, if you ever knew what Light was at all. For it is a lie if you walk the Path for yourself, and not that of your fellow. It-is-a-lie!"

"They brought down the ones who sought to lead them wrong!" yelled the colt. "The false Prophet!" slowly the guns died. Slowly the priests stopped to hear. "For out of his lies came pure beauty. Something no perversion can touch."

"Mother's Gospel, Chapter 3 Article 10:6." called the ghouls.

I stepped to the edge of the gangway, placing one hoof on the railings. I looked down at all the ponies below, seeing finally that the priests had dropped their weapons. That kid still watched me. "I come here, not pretending I know your words. But I do come with the promise that I will not lie, and I will not pervert the wisdom meant to be given to you. My grandstag once said, "There brings no flood like an unattended gate." Sure he was probably talking about the floodgates in the canal connecting his home to the one I lived in before all this. But if you leave your people to rot this way, then you open the floodgates, and you do so willingly."

"Why do we continue to play this make believe game?" asked Sundance. "You would have a thought in your mind to stand with Equesticles after he tried to force convert this entire island or let them forever be washed in darkness? I was not taught that! Were you?"

"It sounds to me that Mother accepts everyone when they ask, but not when you shove it down their throats." I pursed my lips. "You don't judge them, if that's what you want to say you're doing. You condemn them and it isn't your job to do so. I have a proposal."

"Let's hear it then." said a female voice. It glided over the crowd like silk. I saw a pony wearing a cloak and a huge shawl. There were whispers in the sea of ponies.

"Some of you might not like it." I sighed.

"Then I beg that those who do not, leave now." said Sundance, coming to stand beside me, even though his breath was growing shakier.

Ravager Blitzfire

"The countdown is complete," said Achilles, swivelling in his chair to face us. He was smiling. I glanced to Capper who had his eyebrows raised.

"I don't hear any alarms!" called Joosh.

"That must mean something else happened." Chaser nodded over to Achilles who was hurriedly scanning the radars.

Achilles turned back to his computer screens and I watched Capper slip into the lab. I looked over his brother's shoulder to see what he was seeing, a radar. The naval vessel was quiet. All the blips still congested there. They hadn't moved since we got Mist in. I suppose that meant it could be over. We hadn't thought the plan through past whether the alarms went off or not. There were blips leaving the harbor, moving more inland. "Now that's alarming." Achilles stroked his chin.

Capper was talking to Joosh when I glanced to the lab's windows. He had an elbow propped on his other arm, raised straight like a board, and his chin rested on the back of the other paw. He seemed deep in thought. "Let me know if it gets anymore 'alarming,'" I told him. "I'm gonna go see what the big deal is in there."

Capper had sat down by the time I came in and both were silent. Capper was typing on a terminal. "Whatcha working on?" I asked, but neither stirred. I put a hoof on my tomfriend's shoulder. "Cap?"

"What's that, my friend?" he murmured.

"What's got you so lost."

"Chess lives up to his name." he said without looking up.

"How's that?"

Capper finally stopped what he was doing. "It doesn't have the ease of access we once thought," he slid his paw forward through the air, insinuating a sexual action. I could imagine Chess nodding in approval.

"His programming has the key fundamentals of our synths, but there's no back door to let it integrate with our systems." Joosh explained. He rolled over to us holding a book on coding. "He's more arcana than data and our synths don't work like that."

"This compound might not have the capabilities to download him." Capper sighed.

My eyes focused on his terminal. It flickered green, the projector not fully fit to keep up with the graphics. I read off a couple lines of code, then noticed something peculiar. "It's not just a Wonderland simulator, it's a Wonderland code."

"Wait, what's that and how do you know what it is?" Capper narrowed his eyes.

Joosh sat forward in his seat and the book fell from his lap. "It's ingenious is what it is. A whole simulation based around the code that made it and the code the same way vice versa."

"It's so Faust damn complicated, I don't know if even Pinkie Pie could've made this." I breathed.

"How. Do. You. Know what it is?" Capper put his paw on my chest.

"Because I know the stallion that created it." my voice trailed off.

"I could figure out how to download him, the backdoor is in the code. It's not just a map of his program, it's literally a map of him." Joosh pointed at each script, and when he took control of the keyboard zoomed out to show a bigger picture. It was as if the creator had the intention of creating a piece of art.

"It's him. Chess. His bare bones, if I ever did see them." Capper set his paws in his lap and stared longingly at the screen, like he'd never seen anything else like it. Probably not. It was in fact an image of Chess, just in green instead of purple.

"Only one pony could have done this." I was almost inaudible if not for the cramped quarters.

Capper looked me up and down and sighed. He touched me lightly. "You okay?"

"I think I will be. Just need to take a break from everything."

I didn't get the chance. Suddenly the alarms began blaring and we all jumped on the spot. Mist couldn't have failed! We ran to the control room, Joosh too and we all stared at Achilles' face, how anxious he looked.

"What's wrong?" Capper and I both asked at the same time.

"The radar…I couldn't account for this…I couldn't." he put a paw on the armrest and gripped it hard.

"You couldn't," said Chaser. "But she could." he pointed at the screen and out came several blips from the ship. They were moving toward the ones that had come from the harbor town. Some were moving toward us, but a few from the ship split off to circle around. Then it all went blank.

"They've jammed our signal. No way to track movement right now until Joosh gets it back up." he turned to him, "Can you do that?"

Joosh looked dumbstruck, his cheeks going rosy, "Well, of course I can." he ran back to the lab.

"I know who it is," I said, looking to Capper.

"Allen."

Capper Dapperpaws

We packed some supplies, extra equipment given to us by my brother. Something in him had changed and I saw the cat I knew before the war was even a concept in anypony or any zebra's mind. I hugged him before we left. "Take care of yourself?" I whispered in his ear.

"Always, amigo." he gave me finger guns. Faust I loved that tomcat.

"By now they've reached the northeast quadrant," said Mist over the radio. "We can't get them all. Whattaya say Achilles?"

"I say I do this, you get our friends to the harbor and you even got yourself the first real alliance this island has seen."

"Not just with you I'm sure, but Aviary would appreciate it." Mist laughed.

"How do you know?"

Another voice came on but not from the radio but rather from the facility's long range communications. "This is Aviary speaking. I think it's been long enough ignoring each other like this."

The doors closed behind us and I did one last bag check. Memory sphere, or rather Wonder sphere, containing ever piece of information we gathered on my little companion aboard the ship here, check. He winked at me from the trees and disappeared. He'd be back. "One last trip through the fog?" I looked down to my coltfriend.

"One last trip, then we're going home." Blitzy smiled up at me. This island had been good for us. A lot of lessons learned but a lot of cats out of the bag too.

"Now you two are gonna want to meet us at the old Pep factory off the main road." said Mist on our portable radios. "Be careful, there's some of Allen's stallions in the trees."

So the main roads were out, but back alleys were just my style. I waved Blitz on, and he followed me. Disappearing like a slinking shadow we went down the the hill and took the gravel road through the trees. There were probably still hostiles out here, but not as many as the main road and I could rely on my coltfriend to detect any coming at us with his Pip-Buck and EFS. Magic sure did come in handy, I think that's something we could all agree on.

"I mean, we all have it, regardless of race or breed," said Chess who was running beside me.

Bullets carved their way through a few trees behind us, the thinner ones shredded into shrubs. "They're here!" Blitz called. I grabbed his hoof and we ducked into the woods.

We had to take it slower here, but I had a machete and I cut us a path forward. Then I stopped. Blitz caught on fast, knowing what it was. I had seen movement in the trees. "Stallion or swamp creature?" I elbowed him.

"I don't know that!" Blitz stuck his tongue out at me and elbowed me back.

"Right."

"But I do," said Chess, whispering in my ear. "And you won't like what you find."

I tugged on my coltfriend's vest, "We better move, Chess thinks it's a swamp monster."

"I didn't say that!" he crossed his arms.

"But you implied it," I shot back at him.

"Implications are my game, my friend." he snickered.

We chased each other to the left, going around the creature and away from the road. "Ay yi yikes!" I exclaimed, my Pantheran accent coming out hard as my arm snagged on some branches, leaving a clawmark shaped cut. I gathered up the lapel of my trenchcoat and flicked my fluffy tail then hopped after Blitz.

Cutting him off before he could go any further, we stopped and I held up an arm as I slunk down and peered through the branches of the trees. I looked in both directions, my green eyes glowing in the dark. The trees were clear of signs of danger, and I could see the silhouette of the Pep factory. "It's quiet. Too quiet." I rubbed my chin as I pondered.

"Oh hush you." Blitz shoved past me and out of the trees. I rushed after him, rolling under the reaching twigs and landing on my feet beside him.

"Cat's still got game." I said to myself.

We were on the steps to the door, not intending to go in, but looking around instead when we heard the creaking of a rusty gate. I lifted my paws in fists, kitty claws equipped. "Blitz, Capper, is that you?" called Mist Haze.

"Yep!" Blitz replied.

"I've got Sundance with me. He was shot, but a health potion fixed him up fine."

"Alright, we won't shoot."

The two approached from the side of the building. Mist was fiddling with her saddle bag. Sundance was covered in bandages. From his chest down half his torso, he looked like a boxing fighter. He wore the pleather skirts of arcana gear, but nothing else. He looked like a real wasteland vet, I'd give him that. More battle hardened than I had been when I escaped my hometown with my long gone friend so so long ago. I was just a lucky cat lord, but this pony seemed to have seen some stuff.

"You've been through tartarus my friend," I patted him on the shoulder. Just then gunshots sounded.

"And we are not out yet." Sundance cleared his throat, then spinning around, he tossed some grenades in the direction of the onslaught. Not just one grenade. I admired his style. His pleather flapped as he jumped away and we took cover behind some dumpsters. Mist and Blitz had ducked behind a parked car and were shooting without looking.

"What now?" Mist asked Blitzfire.

"We go down that way, using the trucks as cover." he was pointing to the road leading to the harbor town. It was littered with abandoned delivery trucks, "Pep In Your Step" written on the sides of every one. "Capper, we're moving out!" he yelled to me. I nodded and smiled at the priest beside me.

"Don't fear these darkened alleys." I winked at him and swept off. The tail of my coat rustled in the wind and I heard Sundance close behind me.

Ravager Blitzfire

"There will be more the closer we get to town," said Mist a little while later. We'd all been keeping quiet as we watched the sun get closer to the horizon. Just a few more hours left till it set.

"I'm counting on it." I told her. "Don't worry, we have an ally in Aviary."

"She likes you," Mist noted.

"That's good."

There was gunfire off in the distance, the sounds of a struggle. It was in the direction of town, so it looked like Allen's ponies had finally decided to break from the herd and go completely against Aviary. "We goin' in?" asked Capper.

"It could be anypony in there, but we've got to help them," I said to him, always the knack for getting into trouble.

Perhaps it's more than that, I thought to myself as we ran into the line of fire for ponies we barely knew. Raising my gun and firing at Allen's stallions, it made me think on all the times I was willing to help ponies before this, without a second thought. Without really knowing the reason why. As my hooves snapped over loose twigs in the broken street, my heart panged with the memories. I was trying so hard to bury it, but sooner or later it was going to come out. Perhaps sooner. With that in my mind, I fought hard, blood of my enemies spraying over broken down vehicles, trees and brush.

There was a cliffside, looking over the shoreline far below, ocean crashing against rocks and leaving behind foam, only to come back to do the same again. Some hard fought unseen battle. I bit my lip as I heard Capper's paws slipping through the short grass before it turned to stone here. "Hey." I said as I watched the crystal blue sparkles on the coast. The harbor town was visible from here as well, and I saw ponies getting ready to fight. Allen would lose, but he and his were resilient, I'd give them that.

"I can't sneak up on you anymore, can I?" Capper snickered.

"No, I don't think so." I looked to him and smiled. He laughed at me and pat my mane. I tried to sneak out from under him, sticking my tongue out.

"Time to go?" asked Mist, who was more nimble than any of us. She barely made a whisper as her light hooves approached. She looked different with that large automatic weapon strapped to her back.

"What are you gonna do?" I bit my lip. We had come all this way for her after all.

"I think I have a new purpose here." she looked off into the distance.

"What, on this nightmare island?" Capper brushed her on the shoulder playfully and she shrugged. Then glancing over her shoulder she nodded to a friend.

"Nightmare's end." said Sundance. There was a second of silence, a pause as we looked at each other.

"Last I remember before you got us here, I was shoving you into a trap door." I winked at him.

"Like I said." he chuckled lightly to himself.

"Don't forget that either," said Mist as we moved away from the cliffs and toward the town, the sun setting behind us.

(Footnote: It's nice to see Mist Haze help Blitz and stand up for herself and her people. It's nice that Sundance helped her, and I hope you guys like my take on Far Harbor's Children of Atom. It's a good way to wrap up the Cumberland chapters. It's also good that Blitz was able to retrieve a quest item. This'll help in the future. Stay tuned for more upcoming chapters! Sorry it has been so long! Thank you for your patience. I will try to have Chapters 13 and 14 up asap but here are 11 and 12 for you guys to enjoy! Love all my loyal readers, thanks for sticking with it!)

Brohoof /)