My Little Wastelander

Rusty Fortune

What's happened to me? The words echoed through the mind of a blue unicorn.

A battle raged around him, several fiery blasts of magic passed him as he lay on the ground, his clothing scorched, blood dripping from his mouth. The pain was immense, a huge magical burn just behind his left shoulder, there was a persistent ringing in his ears; all other sounds muffled. Time slowed, movement was blurred.

Summoning back his strength, he rolled to his stomach, able to see the scene around him. A azure colored unicorn was the first thing he saw. Donning a dark cloak, held in place by a strange winged amulet. Her eyes glowed a threatening red. He turned his head back to see a very aggravated Twilight Sparkle, was he hallucinating, or was her coat paling, and her mane catching flame?

"You DARE come into MY town, harm MY friend?"

Rust's attention hung on the word 'friend', was one of the Elements injured? This had gotten out of hand, though Twilight seemed to be containing the situation, he effectively took his leave and passed out.

Everything was black, or perhaps just dark. He still felt conscious, as if this was some sort of lucid dream, he made himself comfortable and sat in the emptiness, soon though a world came into existence around Rust. Like some nostalgic flashback, his Canterlot melded around him, to his front of course, the Salty Chasm, holding so many good memories.

He stood up and subconsciously started trotting home. Being in a dream world, it hardly surprised him he saw some things horribly distorted, large pieces of the ground were blurred or just simply missing, leaving oddly shaped holes leading down into the void.

Passing the diner he saw only faceless bat-ponies. He left that as soon as he could. Several ponies passed him, however, they were all members of the battlement security, as he could tell by the Kevlar and red bandanna wrapped around their left foreleg, and their faces were too missing. Finally he arrived at the corner library. He smiled, there was no discoloration, no smudges, or distortions. It was perfectly as he left it. He pulled down the door handle, but to his dismay it didn't budge, and of course, no key.

"Greetings, subject."

Rust calmly turned his head towards the voice, for a moment there was nopony there, after a few seconds passed however, a tall pony appeared before him, seemingly out of nowhere. It was an alicorn, surprisingly, but what really caught Rust's attention was her mane, it looked like the night sky. She regarded Rust with a pleasant smile, but her eyes widened and her smile faded as she began to examine the scene around her, the grim red tint to the sky, radioactive clouds in the distance, the crippled city, and it's towers.

She looked towards Rust again. A disbelieving look in her eyes. "What is this?"

"I'd rather know your name before I tell you anything, and why are you in my dream?"

"I... I am Luna, Goddess of the Night. I found it odd that somepony should happen to be asleep on such a beautiful day, so I stepped in to investigate."

Rust's hummed. "Never thought i'd meet the Goddess of the Night."

"Yes... Please, could you elaborate on the situation?"

"My name is Rusty Fortune, and i'm not exactly here of my own accord."

"Rusty Fortune, yes. I have heard thy name. My sister has mentioned it, reading from Twilight's reports."

"Glad to hear i've gained some popularity." He said smugly.

A gaurdspony Rust recognized approached him, his face was uncovered and he did not wear his red bandanna. He stopped and saluted him, smiling. Luna eyed the guard suspiciously while Rust returned the smile, only with sorrow.

"Just tell me where you need me."

He remembered it now, Acid had locked him out for fun again, and this aspiring young stallion had come up to him and said the same exact thing. "Find Hacksaw at the gatehouse," Rust had told the stallion. "He'll tell you exactly where you need to be." In the end he died defending the battlements during the second largest bandit raid Canterlot had seen. This was a dream, of course, but still, could he really bring himself to send the stallion back to his grave?

"Talk to Cobalt, you know where he lives right?"

"Sure thing, thanks!" The recruit replied excitedly, only this time his voice sounded distorted slightly. He left, leaving only the alicorn and the unicorn alone.

"His voice," Luna spoke up. "What caused it to do that?"

"Because that's not how it happened." Rust sighed. "This is a sort of memory, apparently, my brain is probably having to make most of this stuff up as I go along, because my actions are deviating from what I remember happening."

The goddess frowned. "That's not healthy, it affects your mind, and not in a good way."

"I could care less about my mental health at this point. Right now back in Ponyville i'm lying on the ground with a huge magical burn on my side."

"In Ponyville? What has happened?!" The princess demanded.

"Not sure, there was a lapse in my memory I guess, I remember some azure unicorn, she wore a black winged amulet with some red jewel in it. Oh and Twilight's mane had become a flame, but she seemed to be containing the situation."

"She is not." Luna said darkly. "I'm leaving, stay or wake up, it's your choice."

Rust watched her until she vanished. "She is not."

He was enclosed by darkness once more as the dream ended, true consciousness returned to him slowly. The first observation he was able to make was that he was still on the ground. He groggily looked to his side to find he was in the same condition as he was before passing out. Something was wrong, Ponyville had left him for dead, and it obviously had something to do with the azure unicorn.

He spat blood onto the dirt road he lay on and began getting to his feet. The world swirled as he got to his feet, he was hardly coherent enough to stand and was going to be sore the next time he awoke. Nopony was around to sugarcoat the fact that there was a giant dome resting on Ponyville, while several red and black flags were hung throughout the town either.

Twilight had not contained the situation. The situation had contained them, more like.

***

Rust arrived at the library, which looked as if it'd been recently uprooted, and knocked on the door. Several books lay around him, he picked a few up and set them on his back.

He knocked again. "Twilight?"

No answer. He sighed as his horn lit up, griping the door handle in his magic, locked. Rust tilted his head so that his horn nearly touched the lock. After mere seconds of piddling with the tumblers, there was a satisfying click and he was able to push the door open. Yep, still had it.

"Anypony?" He called.

The shelves were empty, their contents lay scattered all over the floor. He picked one off the floor, a sort of binder with a plastic cover, a photo album.

The stallion cracked a smile as he turned to the first page. He saw the six elements. They were posing heroically, all wearing amazing-looking necklaces, aside from Twilight, who donned a tiara with a large star-shaped crystal.

"Mares." He smirked.

There was what looked like a newspaper clipping under the photo. "The defeat of Nightmare Moon, and the new Elements of Harmony!" The header read. His eyes ventured down to the description. "Six brave ponies ventured into the Everfree Forest last night, their goal; retrieve the Elements of Harmony and defeat Nightmare Moon. The six found that they each represented a specific element, honesty, kindness, generosity, loyalty, laughter, and magic. Before her disappearance, Princess Celestia had sent her protege, Twilight Sparkle, to Ponyville with the aim of watching over the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration, and to 'make some friends'. It seems she managed both, and as-" A rip at the bottom cut the description short.

He was about to turn to the next page when a high pitched voice called out to Rust. "Hey! Didn't your mother ever... Oh, Rust, hey."

The stallion looked back at the doorway, a silhouette of a pegasus stood there, it's wings outstretched. A rainbow spread across the floor towards him, carried by the sunlight. The voice, he realized, belonged to Rainbow Dash.

"Hey." He replied sheepishly, knowing how suspicious it must seem, Rust having just broken into Twilight's place of residence.

"What's going on? Wasn't that door locked?" She said, hovering over to him.

"No." He lied. "Where's Twilight? I've been looking for her."

"Where were you? Twilight was thrown out because she lost in a magic duel!"

"Ground zero. I was a little offended when I realized no one had bothered to recover me while I was unconscious." Rust grumbled. He turned and showed the mare the magic burn.

"Woah, sorry about that. I guess we got caught up in..." Dash's facial expression turned to show fiery hatred. "Being forced to do that bitches bidding."

"Rainbow Dash, language!" Rarity called out from behind her. She looked at Rust. "My goodness dear! Are you okay?"

"Jolly." He said sarcastically. "What's the situation?"

Rainbow Dash answered. "Trixie has the entire town on lock! She's been forcing us to make her banners, carry her around, feed her..."

"And I accidentally stabbed my hoof while sowing!" Rarity cut her off with a whine. Sticking her hoof the Rust's face.

"Alright, alright." Rust sighed, pulling the mare's hoof from his face. "How do we get a hold of Twilight?"

"We can't." Dash spoke up. "The entire city is covered by a dome."

"A dome." Rust repeated. He put his hoof to his chin in thought. "A straight up dome? Like a bowl? No special curves or anything?"

"Yes. Only magical." Rarity said.

"Well, you have at least one river leading out into the forest right? We can probably just swim under it."

The mares gave him a look that obviously said they hadn't considered that.

"Okay, rally the troops, I think I've got a plan."

***

Five elements of Harmony, a baby dragon, and a stallion walked about the library, tearing into books, searching for magic that would explain what Trixie was doing.

"Rust," Spike said. "We can't find anything, and Twilight has every book of magic in here!"

"Keep looking, we need to know what we're up against."

Five of the Seven individuals began to hopelessly whine, Rust managed to tune them out as he flipped through the pages of a new book, he was half through with no results when a soft voice got his attention, he turned around to face Fluttershy as she handed a book to him. On the page was a picture of the jewelry he remembered Trixie wearing. "The Alicorn Amulet".

The wearer of this amulet shall be blessed with untold powers. Even though it provides great power, it corrupts the user. Once attached, a magical lock is triggered, allows only the user to remove it.

"Hell's bells." Rust murmured. He looked to Fluttershy and nodded gratefully.

"Hey!" He hollered to the group, each shutting their traps and turning to face him. "Fluttershy found it, read up."

He tossed the book over to Spike and waited as he waited for the dragon to read it out loud. Finally they looked at Rust.

Spike's face dropped as he spoke. "Trixie's the only person who can take it off."

"We need to get this information to Twilight." Applejack spoke up.

"But what about the force field?"

Rust walked towards to group and smiled. "If there's one valuable lesson that diamond dogs can teach us, it's that; if you can't go through, around, or over, go under. Spike, I need you to get me a map of Ponyville and a marker."

"Mar-kur?" The dragon said confusedly.

"Err... A piece of chalk will do."

And here I was thinking markers were such a trivial thing, apparently they don't have them.

Books were scattered throughout the room,  Rust couldn't help but imagine Twilight's face pale as she came home, unsuspecting.

"How often to you reshelve all these books?" He had asked.

"About once a month, why?"

"No reason."

He looked at the mares, they all looked back, the group was disturbingly quiet as they waited on his plan. Rainbow Dash, with her aggressive glare, Applejack, bearing a straight face, Fluttershy, eyes darting around nervously, Rarity, looking extremely pitiful, and then there was Pinkie Pie, whom Rust had just realized she had no mouth, and looked as if she was going to burst.

Spike came down the stairs quickly, setting the map and chalk at Rust's hooves.

"Alright, gather around. This is how it will happen; we'll dissipate into three groups immediately after leaving the library."

Rust found the main river leading out of Ponyville, he marked two spots on a hill where the slope made adequate cover.

"I need two separate teams at these locations, this is going to sound corny, or like the type of romantic fan-fiction, but I'm just going to combine names here."

He pointed towards Applejack and Rainbow Dash. "Team AppleDash." Then pointed towards Spike and Rarity. "RariSpike"

He ignored the scoffing from three ponies and looked at Fluttershy. "I'll take you with me, i'm pretty sure Twilight ran off into the woods, and you know the area best. We'll need to stop by Minuette's, I left my gear there."

He drew an arrow from Minuette's house to a position near the river where a house covered them from the river.

"MmmHmmMmph!" Pinkie's muffled voice came.

"Wha-? Oh, sorry Pinkie, you stay with Spike and Rarity."

The mare sat and crossed her forelegs, an agitated look on his face.

"I have no idea if there will be gaurds there." Rust continued. "Trixie may have noticed the gap too late and was too lazy to fix it, if there is, team RariSpike will make a distraction, I don't care how you do it, and you wont have to worry about being creative as long as it gets the job done."

"Team AppleDash will-" He went on, but was cut off by none other than Rainbow Dash.

"Hey, i'd rather call it RainbowJack, because AppleDash makes it sound like she's wearing the pants here."

"I... Why does that saying even exist? And no! Anyway, team AppleDash will intercept the guards if they're too much for team RariSpike to handle. Got it?"

Everypony nodded.

Rarity spoke up. "Hmm, this will be quite a dangerous mission, would it not?"

Rust tossed the question around in his head. "Maybe."

The mare hummed in response and thought for a moment. "I believe that I have just the designs for such a mission, ones I have been truly dying to try, if we can put it off for an hour or so."

"Eh." The stallion shrugged. "Sure, why not."

***

Wow. This is really comfortable. I owe Rarity way more than just a chat over tea.

Rust leaned against somepony's home. He wore a few-shades-lighter-than-black coat made from fabric he had no name for. The design was similar to the uniform Rarity had already made for Pinkie. Now, each member of the group had their own.

Rust pulled the hood over his face and nodded his head with enough force to push the dark red-lens goggles from his forehead to over his eyes. Rarity was a goddess, the sleeves came all the way down to his hooves and fit snugly and kept him cool, he wore his Kevlar under the jacket, Rarity had changed the cover fabric from brown to a grey just barely lighter than the jacket and made a tactical belt to go with.

He looked back to Fluttershy, she was dressed in a similar outfit, only with blue bunny ears, which he hadn't bothered to question. The sleeves of her outfit didn't go farther than her upper legs, a blue tactical belt was tied around her midsection and she wore boots of the same color.

Rust was right, Trixie had left a gap, the river ran freely right under the dome, however she'd thought to left guards. They were a strange sight. They were stallions, civilians, but their eyes emitted a red glow and they stood completely rigid.

He was starting to wonder how Rarity and Spike could possibly draw the guards away when Pinkie Pie ran up to one, pulled a colorful cannon out of thin air, and blasted the stallion, sending tablecloths, balloons, and confetti everywhere.

Rust shook his head as Pinkie Pie ran away, the two guards in pursuit.

"Okay Fluttershy, let's go, and stay close."