My winged companion and I forced small talk along the long train ride, but even small talk was difficult for my pony mind.

Everywhere the train sped by held newfound wonders, each more amazing than the last: Enormous buildings where hundreds of ponies lived, strange creatures and plants more amazing and terrifying than any I had seen before!

I pushed my gaze from the window and pulled the blanket over the sleeping foal.

“Most ponies would have abandoned him, or killed him for his stuff”

“But not us” I smiled slightly then pointed to her weapons again.

“Weapons?” I couldn’t help but ask.

She looked at me with a perplexed stare, “My battle saddle?” I just stared at it, trying to piece together in my mind how it worked.

She thought for a minute, as if unsure how to explain it to my simple tribal pony mind.

“It uses fire and explosives to push out spinning pieces of metal that go through whatever it hits” Ok, well that made a lot of sense, even to me.

“Here?” I pointed to the end of the barrel. She simply nodded to me and pulled something from her pouch.

“This is called a bullet, it’s the metal that it fires, and there are many different kinds of weapons like my battle saddle though. Some are not as big, some are bigger”

My eyes went wide, how could something be bigger than that? She smirked and began explaining everything she knew about firearms, from pistols and rifles, to energy weapons and explosives. While I’m just sitting there, my small pony mind trying to comprehend all that I was hearing.

“So… pieces of metal… and light that makes ponies ash?” My mind was spinning with the amazingness.

“How do you not know anything about guns?” She finally asked. Even though I was trying my best not to say many words, I found myself wanting to talk to this kind mare.

“In tribe, we not know outside weapons, could be taboo”

“So you’ve never fired a gun? Never even held one?” I shook my head as the train pulled to a stop.

A few other ponies got into the train with us, none with wings, and all with some kind of light armor on. They didn’t speak to us, but they did give my winged companion inappropriate stares, I wasn’t a smart pony, but I could definitely tell what they were thinking about her, and it made my fur itch.

“Look elsewhere” I didn’t even raise my eyes to them; I started to the floor with my fore-hooves pressed together.

“Easy” my companion planned a calming hoof on my back. “Don’t start any fights Tribal, there’s nothing wrong with some handsome stallions eyeing some beautiful mares” she flipped her mane.

Handsome stallions? I looked at the ponies before me, rotten teeth, chipped hooves, tattered fur, unkempt manes, ugh how in Discord’s name could she think that was handsome!?

“Beautiful mare deserve better” Wait a sec, did I just call her beautiful? For some reason my cheeks felt hot, and I diverted my gaze further to the floor.

`“Don’t worry sweetheart, she doesn’t look like she has high standards anyways… mm I’ve never had a Pegasus, and you look right for the picking to”

I was trained to keep calm, but I did not take kindly to someone insulting a lady. Then he reached a hoof towards me and I stood fast.

“Tribal, calm down…” why did she keep calling me tribal? No matter, I stepped into the stallion’s face and almost retched.

“You stink” I growled in his face.

It only took a second of reaction time, out of the corner of my eye I saw the flash of a blade and in one swift movement I was able to move the stallion in front into the path.

He screamed only for a brief moment and then was silenced by my hoof striking his throat!

The click behind me told me that she had armed her battle saddle and I moved beside her quick.

“Nice moves” she muttered, “Now here’s how this is gonna go down” The three stallions were right in front of her guns. There was nowhere for them to go and one was injured badly.

“You three are gonna sit down, not move, not speak, and we are gonna continue with our trip. When we get to where we’re going, you’re going to get out of this train and then you’re going to walk the other way. Do you understand?”

They nodded furiously and sat still, except for the one who was trying to bind his knife wound.

I dug into my bags and tossed him a small band of wraps. She gave me a sideways skeptical look.

"Blood Stains” She gave me a smirk and shook her head lightly.

The rest of the ride was in silence, my companion was surprisingly relaxed, but I could sense she was just waiting to kill them.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The train finally pulled to a stop at another station. I kept the colt close to me as my companion pushed the other stallions out first. I could only imagine what the pony in the first car was thinking as he saw us!

We waiting patiently as the train chugged away, slowly picking up speed till it was out of sight.

“Now, you three are gonna strip whatever goods you have, and you get a ten second head start to run like there’s an Ursa Major on you”

They didn’t move, until a close shot at their hooves got them to strip all their equipment down and throw it to us.

“I’d move fast if I were you. Ten… nine…” She counted down calmly as they galloped in the opposite direction, was she really going to shoot them?

I waited in awe, as did the colt next to me. Watching her follow their movements with the end of her guns until she got to one…

*BLAM* BLAM* *BLAM*

The three stallions didn’t have a chance, they all dropped after a few more short steps…

The colt was smiling wide, my companion had a sadistic smirk on her lips, me however? I just stared; those ponies didn’t have a chance, why did she kill them like that?

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

We continued our walk as if nothing had happened, the colt standing upon my back, looking at everything around us. It was a silent and un-eventful walk, other than the small radscorpion or bloatsprite. Big animals I could handle those I had seen before when I was on watch for the tribe. But killing defenseless ponies in cold blood?

“Why kill?” I forced myself to ask, almost afraid of the answer.

“'They were bad ponies, if I had let them go they would have followed us and killed us while we slept. I had to kill them or else they would of killed... Celestia knows how many other ponies, and us.

I started at her blankly, my reason slowly overpowering my anger.

Even with my small tribal pony mind, I could understand that. Sacrifice for the greater good…

“I know it’s hard to understand…” she started.

“No.” I cut her off swiftly. “When I was foal, big creature came to village, older pony distracted, knew she would die, the rest killed it, we feed on it”

She stared at me with a shocked/horrified look on her face. I couldn’t blame her, I knew it was wrong. If we had sent a warrior they could have gotten away and we could have killed the scorpions. But we had to send someone we could spare… I guess the elderly mare was replaceable…

The rest of the trip, we didn’t say one word, the colt snuggled up on my back and managed to fall asleep. How was he able to sleep upon a moving stallions back I will never know. But I was glad he was able to, he deserved as much rest as he could get.

I stopped short when I saw it, a giant blue orb around a slightly smaller city. Then I realized the dilemma we were in. We were above it!

I heard her cussing under her breath, “Luna damn it, I didn’t fucking pay attention to the map” she took a breath and turned to me. “Alright, that’s Neighberry down there, problem is, we’re up here with no climbing equipment. If I try to fly down chances are they’ll probably shoot me on sight. Any suggestions?”

I scanned below, there was no way we could jump, and flying was apparently out. We could try to walk around to the bottom but who know how long that could take?

“Slide?” I pointed to a big metal pipe that had been halved. She looked a bit skeptical.

“I think that’s a supply slide, ponies slide supplies down into the town when they can’t get down there themselves”
I smiled, told the colt to bite down on my mane and I jumped.

I heard her shouting behind me as I hit the slide and moved rapidly down it, using my hooves to slow my decent so I didn’t crash or fall out.

I shouted happily with the colt on my back. I had to admit, this was fun!

*DONK*

I hit that force field quicker than I expected, the colt laughed at me as I tapped on it sheepishly.

A pony on the other side stared at me blankly then waved his hoof, the force field opened and I slid inside onto the ground. Only to have lots of, I think, different guns, pointing at my head.

I gently scooped up the colt and held him in my hooves, then whispered in his ear. “Explain”

The colt perked up and talked rapidly, explaining what happened to Hayditch, what we did, the train ride, the slide, and finally his aunt’s name and why we were here.

Slowly they took their aim off us and led us into the town towards a small little building.

The biggest of the ponies escorting us spoke: “I’m sorry to hear what happened to Hayditch, I’m also sorry for the guns, we don’t normally have ponies jumping from the edge onto the supply slide… is that Pegasus with you?”

I nodded and he asked another question. “Is she Enclave?”

I cocked my head to the side and gave him a blank stare, I honestly had no idea what that even was.

“Does she have any kind of uniform? Energy weapons? Communication equipment?”

Again I gave him a blank stare. “What are you fresh outta the Stable?” Third blank stare seemed to anger him.

“Well we can’t let her in till we find out. Sorry”

This time my stare was angry. “She crashed from sky, injured, was chased, came with me, helped”

He looked away from me and lowered his voice but not enough so that I couldn't hear.

“Bring her in, check if she has the brand”

I looked around, was he talking to me?

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

We dropped the colt off and my Pegasus friend decided to buy some more of what she called ‘ammunition’ and left me to
wander and marvel at the enormous cottages and well-dressed ponies.

I noticed some were wearing similar outfits, I knew what uniforms were. But these I did not know, however I did know ranks, we had them in the tribe as well. So I was taking a guess that these ponies in uniform were some kind of soldiers perhaps?

I was so perplexed with everything, large cottages made of stone and metal, ponies trading little pieces of metal or supplies for other pieces of metal or supplies. I didn’t understand what they were doing, but I did spot something that drew my attention.

“Ave” I spoke to the Zebra sitting at a table, working on sharpening a knife. The word seemed to catch his attention and he grinned at me.

“Ave, true to Caesar?” he questioned. I shook my head and spoke in my native tongue, which was similar to his. “What tribe?”

He smiled and flashed his medallion, “Mendi, you?”

I pulled my own and held it in front of him. “I am of the Shrouded” That made him smile more.

“Good tribe, good ponies” he seemed to realize something and asked “Why did you leave?”

I felt a gut wrenching feeling, why did I leave? Just to help some pony I had never met? To explore unknown territory? Why did I leave the safety of my tribe?

“I… the tribe was safe but I wanted to help those who were not of the tribe, a winged one fell from the sky and the elders were not going to allow me to help her, but I did, and I left by my own will.”

He smiled sadly, “Admirable, but dangerous” Then he leaned in closer and spoke barely above a whisper, but still in native tongue. “Ponies around here don’t like the tribal or zebra, try to take advantage of us, be careful, trust none of them”

I nodded once and he passed me a very wicked looking blade.

“A gift between tribes” he said with another smile, helping me attach it to my fore hoof for fast access.

“Thank you” We bowed to one another slightly and I walked away.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It took me a while to find my winged friend. She was arguing with some ponies at a stand, I was guessing over what she traded maybe?

“No, no, no, no, no! Sixty caps is the deal!”

The stallion behind the counter slammed his hooves down next to the gear on the table, I recognized it as the things we had taken off the three bucks from before.

“Forty five caps and I’ll throw in a bottle of whiskey!” My companion smirked, apparently pleased.

“Deal!” He handed her a small jingling bag and then a bottle of amber colored liquid.

She walked to me, obviously pleased with herself and tilted her head back, draining half the bottle in the same motion.

“You… drink that?!” She stared at me for a moment before taking another swig.

“Of course, but I’m sure in your tribe you don’t have whiskey do you? Little goody goodies”

I frowned, “Used cleaning, or to numb” then with a fast jab I knocked the bottle from her hands, caught it within my own mouth and took a swallow.

She snatched it back with an angry look on her face then started walking away, “No strength” I muttered, “Can make better myself”

She stopped walking and stared at me, “You can make liquor?” I pointed my hoof to the bottle and nodded.

“Mine stronger, much” I couldn’t help but smile at that, I knew that some ponies continuously drank the sterilization liquid, it had some bad affects with the fighters coordination and made them quite rude, our healer told us it meant they were drunk.

“At some point I’m gonna have you make me some, but for now…” She drained the bottle in another big gulp and immediately started to sway.

She smiled at me, a smile that made my mane itch. “Well, now I am gonna go get fucked!” I knew what that word meant, so I decided to follow her to make sure she didn’t get into trouble.

Raining swayed into the nearest hotel. "Somepony's wanna fuck me silly?!" She called loudly, raising her tail high giving everypony in the room a full view of her lady parts. Most of the ponies turned away in disgust but a few ponies kept looking, with slight smiles on their faces.

I sighed and walked up behind Raining, placing a hoof on her flank. "Ohhh, that feel's good." She said suductively. I sighed again and pushed her hard so that she went skidding into the receptions desk. A loud 'thud' echoed thought out the room, and Raining struggled to stand.

I walked up to to the mare at the reception desk and kindly asked. "One night?"

She nodded and quickly retrieved a key from under the desk placing it towards me. "That will be twenty-five caps please."

I nodded and looked down to see Raining still struggling to stand. I reached into her saddle bag and pulled out a jingling bag. I placed it on the counter and the mare nodded before going back to reading a paper.

I turned around to see Raining had successfully stood up and was walking over to a clearly embarrassed stallion. "Come on, you know you want me." Raining said drooling slightly as she spoke.

The stallion stood up and quickly exited the building. Raining tried to run after him but fell after three steps. I sighed for the third time in about five minutes. I walked over and grabbed Raining's mane with my teeth before throwing her on my back and walking up the stairs towards the rooms.

I scanned the room numbers as I walked past. '34, 36, ah 38.' I took the key out of my saddlebag and opened the door.

Inside was a single bed, a desk and a cupboard with one room leading off into a bathroom. I walked over to the bed and dumped Raining off my back. I heard her trying to get my attention but I ignored her. I locked the door and walked into the bathroom.

When I came out, I saw that Raining was asleep and sighed for the forth time. No room on the bed. I walked over next to the bed and lied down on the floor. I tossed and turned for a bit not able to fall asleep. Finally I decided to get up and walk over to the desk.

I gathered up some paper and started writing.

Footnote: Level Up!
New Perk Added: Swift Learner, You learn from your experiences exceptionally quick for a simple tribal. 10% Experience for each level of this perk taken.

Author's Note

Third Chapter. Took a bit of time to get it going. Thank you to my friend Cooperdawg for proofreading and editing for me. Any idea's are welcome.