Fallout Equestria: The Ranger of Seamane

Chapter 8 – Layover

“Honestly, it was surprising to see.”

The sprawling suburbs gave way to taller and taller buildings until we were standing a few blocks away from the wall surrounding Red Eye's segment of the city. At this point we stopped for a brief moment as I gave Bryn another med-x so he wouldn't be so shaky when we got to the gate. We both needed to collect ourselves, Bryn to think of what was needed to be said to get me into the place without both of us getting shot to hell. Myself, I needed to brace for whatever terrible conditions were on the other side. I looked up at my spritebot then turned to Bryn.

“Bryn, think there will be any issue with taking in my spritebot?” I asked as we finished our break.

“No, Red Eye uses them heavily, though thankfully yours seems to not be able to spew his music or speeches. Damn relief too, after hearing the music for so long it gets on my nerves.” We covered the last few blocks in silence much as the whole trip, something I was growing very used to. The approach to the wall filled me with dread. I could see figures on the wall watching us, I saw at least one individual on a Pinkie balloon watching too. The security here was tight, goddesses I really did not want to think about how hard it would be to escape if things went south during our layover. I hung back a few steps letting Bryn take the lead here.

As we neared the moat I saw a bridge of some sort lower. We were allowed to cross without issue. I was guessing either Bryn was well known or on his armor there was a symbol showing who he was. Upon entering the other side I was greeted a large pin and a large number of guards walking the catwalks as a number of slaves were lead off. Bryn headed in a different direction than them where I saw others going as well. I kept my mouth shut, this was Bryn's turf and he was the leader for now. With a couple of hand shakes and a few explanations we were let in with no issue. As we entered a bar Bryn let out a sigh and visibly relaxed. We had made it into the Alpha Omega hotel without any issue.

“Alright, we are good for now.” He turned to me, “going to need to borrow some caps from yours to pay a few bills though. One of them being you.”

I blinked, I was a bill? What was I costing him, what was the other bill.

“Come on, first lets get to my room and we will sort this all out. Going to have to report to Stern as well for showing up here without the rest of my wing.” I simply nodded to him and he guided me to a elevator, he clicked a button and we began to rise. “There is a oven in my room, stay there, cook up that meat that you have while I sort a few things out and see what it is going to run me to fix my wing.”

         “Alright, lead the way.” I said as the doors swung open to a hallway.

It didn't take long for us to get to his room, we had a decent view of Red Eye's operations here in Fillydelphia and as Bryn said there was a oven. Just as soon as we entered he turned around and left. I locked the door as he told me to and began cooking. It didn't take me very long to get comfortable with the room. Once I finished with the meat I decided to wrap some of the meat with the preserved foods hoping that the preservatives within the prewar food would maybe rub off on the meat. After five minutes of sitting with nothing to do I looked at my spritebot that was looking out the window at Fillydelphia.

“You're in there aren't you Watcher.” I said to it.

A long silence fell on the room as the oven pinged as it cooled and I looked out on the massive ruins lit with the orange glow from fires, the clouds black with soot. I felt like I was back in Oakmare during the siege.

“Yes, and this is not the first time I have seen his operation.” Watcher responded.

“I hate to say it, but, it is impressive. He has gotten factories online, hay, he is putting together a civilization.”

“One built unwillingly upon the backs others who are worked to death in droves.”

“And he has the gall to call this being a generous act, it is generous when you choose to do it yourself, not force everypony else to do your will.” I responded.

“So you see why I hate him then?” Asked Watcher.

I nodded. “You hate him because you know he sees himself as the good guy in this, when to all outside of his realm he is clearly evil.” I let out a sigh and  turned to the spritebot. “Watcher, what do you know about the elements of harmony?”

There was a long silence, “a fair bit, what do you want to know.”

“More about those who used them, was one of them a yellow filly with pink hair?” I asked as I lifted out the statuette of Fluttershy.

“Yes, that would be the element of kindness, Fluttershy. She was all for helping everyone, she was particularly good with animals, it was said she could even talk to them.” I really wished I had found a way to make it so Watchers voice wasn't that robotic voice.

“So is that why they made these statuettes of them?” I said as I floated the Fluttershy statuette in front of the spritebot. I felt more of that odd magic coming off of the statuette as I held it there.

“You have one too? I have all six of them, they were limited edition, only seven full sets were ever made.” I nodded listening to Watcher, “one set for each of the ministry mares and one for Luna.”

“Watcher, just how long have you been around?”

“Uh... a while, just thanks to the spritebots and a good network connection I have gotten to look into a lot of things. Plus when you don't have to worry about getting shot it is easier to explore.”

That made sense, even with limited time really all he needed them for was from time to time to physically move something or press a button. Nothing ever that complicated.

“For a minute there I thought maybe you were ghoul who knew a lot about the pre war government sitting up in the M.o.M. Headquarters in Canterlot.” I said with a giggle as I pulled back the statuette and put it in my bags again. The magic on these things was odd. “Hey Watcher, you ever feel the weird magic stuck on the statuettes?”

“Uh well I always thought it was just a strong enchantment to keep them from breaking, why something weird happening with yours?” I really wished I could get tone from the spritebot, but, it seemed I would have to guess on his inflections.

“No, guess just never dealt with strong enchantments before.” I looked back out as a figure darted past the windows, it was pony that had the physique of the princesses. “Um... did you see that Watcher?”

I was greeted with more silence. I guess either it spooked him or something else had come up to draw his attention elsewhere. So not just gryphons here, but, alicorns too? So the reports DJ Pon3 were accurate, Alicorns were working with Red Eye. Well whatever the case it would be foolish to attack a guest of Red Eye's. Then I saw a skywagon fly past being pulled by two ponies with metal wings, in the back there was stallion earth pony with a crimson coat and jet black mane. I caught his eyes for a second and saw a red light in place of his right eye. My heart froze for a moment as Red Eye flew past following the alicorn that had just passed my room. Time reaffirmed itself and his skywagon continued on. My heart was hammering, as I gasped for air.

‘Relax Moonlight it isn't like you are here against the rules. He is just a really intimidating pony who you just happen to dislike who knows nothing about you or of you. And it looked like he was on his way out of the city, see even more good news, even if there was a problem by the time he returned I would be long gone. Hay, he probably didn't even notice me as he flew past, was probably admiring his reflection in the windows or maybe was just marveling at his city. And that did the trick, I calmed down and lay down of a near by sofa. It was late, food was cooked, door was locked, and I had a spritebot that could atomize any threat that came through the door.’ I told myself. ‘This was the time to get a good nights sleep.’

*                *                *

I was woke up to a annoyed Bryn shaking my shoulder. I blinked and wiped away the drool from the corner of my mouth.

“Good you’re awake. First, your gecko stakes are damn good; second, I feel I need to apologize even though this is completely not my fault. Things have changed rather quickly here, last time I was here there weren't any of those alicorns, now that they are here I have found out something I rather dislike. The fucking green ones can read minds, as such while I got my wing fixed, by the way sorry for taking your caps while you were asleep, one popped into my head and now knows what happened and that you pose a threat to Red Eye's operations in Seamane. Well only slightly threaten his operations, you know more than they want anypony to who isn't with us.”

I blinked as my brain jump started and the adrenaline hit my system. “On a scale of one to ten how fucked are we?”

“I am fine, in fact I am going to get a bonus for bringing you here. You are about a eight out of ten.” He scratched right below his beak playing with his fur, “okay, maybe you are a nine, but, in either case you are going to have to get running.”

I was three steps ahead of him, those three steps being, I was in my barding, I had my bags on, and my guns were slung and loaded.

“Well guess I should probably just try walking out the front door then.” I said to him.

“You know what, go for it, I don't think the command has come down yet to catch you. And yeah they want to catch you. So get going,” he opened my saddlebags and tossed in a large sack of caps then he slapped my flank as I stood there with the door open.

I galloped off down the hall and pressed the call button for the elevator with my magic. As I skidded to a stop before the door I heard the sound of the elevator rising. I needed to keep calm as I left the building and out the main gate.

‘Don't act suspicious Moonlight.’ I told myself and took a deep breath, and took a few steps back from the doors. I heard the ding and the doors slide open revealing two very tall unicorns. Then their wings spread and I immediately amended that to alicorns.

“Where is Bryn's Room?” The purple one asked me as they walked out of the elevator.

“At the end, pretty much a straight shot down the hall.” I said as calmly as I could as I stepped to the side.

The two of them walked down the hall without further questioning. I slide into the elevator and hit the button for the ground floor. Thankfully there hadn't been a green one and with how much armor was on me I probably didn't look like the mental image that Bryn probably had of me. Thank the goddesses for small favors. I felt the elevator began its descent.

As the doors opened I was greeted with the bar. I walked out into it and picked my way through the guards and slavers drinking away their caps. Nopony paid me any mind as I got to the front door. I did have to note that even with the cruelty and depravity of Red Eye’s operation I felt like I was in any other town. The place had rules, everypony acted just like they would anywhere else. The only difference was a few customs, it felt strange to realize how similar things here were to Saint Clover once you stripped away the primary occupations here.

I opened it and was greeted with the same pin that we had walked through to get into Red Eye's operations. I walked to the bridge and waited for it to lower. Much to my frustration it didn't. Okay so I am going to have to find another way out of here. Time to go exploring.

As I moved through Red Eye's city I wasn't harassed by any of the gryphons or ponies. I did my best to avoid any Alicorns I saw. Several times though I did spook some of the guards here with my quiet walk. It probably helped that I wasn't wearing heavy armor. I asked around about the place and the various jobs of the slaves. The guards were more than happy to tell me in gruesome detail the horrors that the slaves were put through. I found that there were ways for slaves to earn their freedom to join the guards or even leave. The first was yard work. Which was more or less the least dangerous work with going and securing buildings or just moving supplies. Next was working the crater for radioactive supplies. That was the second quickest way to get your freedom. Though by the glow of the crater I wagered most died from the radiation before getting their freedom. Next there was stable hunting. Which you had to deal with Steel Rangers and the stables defenses so that was rather nasty too. Last was the arena fights, which was the quickest, but, easily the most deadly. After also hearing about the horrifying twisted things that parasprites were here I was also glad I had my respirator on the whole time. The things had a taste for pony flesh.

Things had been going decently well, I ended up getting to see the cybernetic doctor who was more than happy to show off some enhancements that he could give me. I almost took him up on the wings. Honestly besides the times where I had gotten horribly mangled from flying I enjoyed it. It also would help with getting home much faster, as well as help since I had to fight off gryphons and alicorns now. But, I didn't want to be put under while in hostile territory so I told him I would return when I had the caps to pay for it and some other upgrades.

Honestly the sub-dermal armor and the Monocyte breeder I was curious about getting and would be rather useful. That and optical enhancement so I could see in the dark without anything but my eyes. In the end I did leave even though my sick fascination wanted me to stay and watch a procedure or two. Hay, I even wanted to steal a few of the cybernetics so I could try to figure out how they worked. They were the most advanced technology in the past two hundred years to enter the wasteland. None the less I left and afterwords my stomach felt better for leaving than staying even if I was still far too curious.

Having found no other options of escape beyond scaling the wall I re-entered the Alpha and Omega hotel and began to ascend its great many stairs. Somehow either I had avoided detection by the alicorns, or, while I was wanted it was low priority. Or maybe they were testing me. Honestly you really stop worrying about those sort of things when you know somepony wants you dead or captive. Instead you just are thankful for the fact that you aren't either at the moment. You also pray that you luck holds out, or skill depending on the situation. On one floor I found a sort of research facility. I poked my head in and looked around a little as nopony was around guarding it. Much to my frustration I couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. It was some very advanced magic that was far removed from the basic principles I knew. Maybe that is why things like shield spells failed for me, while I had the ground work of healing, telekinesis, and pyromancy I had not a clue of how magic actually worked. Which is surprising considering how much I used it. Really though with my own magic I knew how to magnify the power or shape it. With I sigh I left the room and proceeded to the roof. Here I was going to leap off and glide out of Red Eye's empire.

Upon exiting to the roof I was met with a cold gale. The bitter wind blew around me and my breath floated away from me as the water in it formed a thin fog. The quiet howl of the wind itself was never absent up here. The height of the building had insured a constant wind would be blowing. As such the roof was clear of any debris. I looked around me and saw a Pinkie Pie balloon head anchored to the corner of the building. Looking up into it I saw a very bundled up pony with a sniper rifle aimed at me. I gave them a simple nod and the rifle drifted a bit away from me. Anonymity was a friend here. More of a friend than I had ever realized it to be. If things had been different this might have been a stealth mission to infiltrate Red Eye's empire to find something or to kill him outright. As it was, this was a simple layover that had gotten annoyingly complicated.

I sighed as I stood there, it was afternoon now and I had yet to find a better way out of the place than jumping. I hated the idea of it, I hated that my only way out was to pray that nopony decided to take a pot shot at me as I flew. Then again wasn't that the case every time Alicorn flew, or a gryphon? Yes it was, and my all logic anything flying out of Red Eye's area would be probably considered a non target. The main idea of all his defenses was focused on the ground level against steel rangers and the slaves. Nopony would look up, nopony would see me. Even if I messed up and fell nopony would notice other than whoever ended up finding my corpse in a few minutes or few centuries.

I took a deep breath as I climbed onto the centuries old edge of the building. My heart was racing as part of me panicked. The panic was about if a alicorn saw me, or maybe Bryn and they came after me. I stood no chance against Bryn with his agility. Thunderlord had been luck through his stupidity and predictability. Bryn was far smarter. Then there were the alicorns, who supposedly where each incredibly powerful magi in their own right. If they saw me they could probably easily use shield spells and telekinesis to immobilize me and strip me of my weapons. However, I had no other options. I could not open the gate, the jump from the wall was too short to get into the safety of the ruins around this part of the city. As well as if I went from the wall somepony would know something was up. Why would somepony jump from the wall instead of take the gate. If they had a death wish they would just jump in the moat or walk into the crater. No, this was the only option, I had to do this, I had to jump, I had to spread my magical wings and fly on my magic alone to safety. I shifted my weight on the edge of the roof as I wrapped myself in my magic, drawing upon the wellspring that I had found within me. I had to do this, and this was the only choice, it was that or whatever unspeakable horrors Red Eye and his forces would put me through for knowing what I should not.

I took a deep breath and shifted my weight onto my hind legs as I readied for the jump. To anypony else my dark blue field would be barely visible in the poor lighting of the roof. To me it was almost blinding as I leapt off the roof and found myself feeling like I left my stomach on the ground as I flew north east. I hadn't dared to try to fly across all of Red Eye's holdings, while I trusted my magic, I did not trust it to last me that long or for my luck to hold out that long. So in the cold wind I flew silently over the remains of Fillydelphia over the empire built out of abuse. An empire that would one day fall I told myself, though I knew not who would strike the blow to slay the great malignant beast that was Red Eye I knew that it was already in the works.

As I glided I continued to adjust my path as I recalibrated for my rate of descent as well as the rate of depletion of my magic. I was making it further than I had anticipated, but, now I was clear of Red Eye's empire and now gliding to the north. The wind had picked up and I was now more or less making no headway. As such I pushed my magic a little to give myself more momentum to fight against the wind. I wanted to make it towards Steel Ranger territory and out of the raider and slaver territory. As it was I was vaguely following a over the ground road off to my right. That was until I got shot at. When I did I started trying to maneuver my way to said road.

A second shot fired and I felt it penetrate my right flank and bury itself in my muscle. I fought back tears as my magic collapsed and I started to cartwheel through the air. A third shot didn't come. I figured whoever had shot me took me as good as dead now, or I had moved out of their line of sight. I forced myself to breath which was hard when the wind pulled the air from your mouth due to velocity. I grabbed my tail and curled myself up as I passed through what would have been a alley or sorts between rather tall buildings. Upon exiting them I wrapped myself in my magic and levitated myself, my forward momentum making me a dark blue dart flying through the afternoon sky. I maneuvered myself towards a large over the ground road where there was a large number of parked carriages. As I sunk I curled into a tighter ball and prepared for the rough landing.

The first thing I felt was a sharp pain along my back as I bounced off of the roof of one of the carriages then I smashed through a windshield of a self drawn carriage and snapped the drivers seat in half before coming to rest in the trunk with the back half of the rear seats. I uncurled myself and thanked Celestia for my shield spell working for once. So much easier to get the damn thing to work when in a panic. I laid there in the silence listening to my heartbeat in my chest, the cold biting at me where my blood had made my coat and armor wet. I needed to get that healed now before I even attempted to walk. I lay on my side still in the trunk of the car using my flashlight for illumination as I dug the bullet out of my flank. I had wished I had some Med-X for doing so. As it was I hit a few nerves and made myself reflexively kick and cry out in pain a few times. As it was I had gotten the bullet out of me, I laid back and drank down a healing potion. As I did I became acutely aware that I was still where I had landed and that if anypony was looking for me and had seen the landing would easily find me. I laid there in silence listening for the sounds of hoof steps outside, the click of guns, breathing, anything to tell me something was out there waiting for me. All I got was the howl of a cold gale.

I opened the trunk slowly to get a peek outside, and my eyes agreed with my E.F.S. that it was clear. I lifted the trunk the rest of the way and gingerly got out of the trunk. I favored my right hind leg as I started to walk on the cold pavement. I turned and looked at the menacing glow that reflected off of the dark clouds of 'industry'.

“Hey Bryn, don't know if you were playing me or not, but, seems like we might have both gotten played. Don't die on me, I want to know for myself when this is all over.” Those last words hit me, when this was all over. What was all over, the threat of Red Eye? Was that what I had just set myself to take down? Maybe it was, or maybe that was just wishful thinking. Whatever the case I had a few things to do before I left town. I was going to visit the old Stable-Tec headquarters to see if it had anything of use.

“Moonlight, Bryn reactivated your spritebot, I have it flying to the coast for now, we need to get going and you need to destroy this spritebot before you get going. With everything that has been happening I think it best as well that I don't poke around the spritebots much in case someone is watching for you.” Watcher said from a spritebot behind me.

I turned to face the spritebot that had silently entered my space. I nodded then pulled out the five point five six millimeter pistol, then with my magic I switched it off  and caught it in my magic. Strapping it to my back I started to trot west along the highway. Like I had planned, a short layover in Fillydelphia then off to Manehattan. Now the real challenge was avoiding everypony in this damn city. There were the Steel Rangers of course, alicorns, gryphons, slavers, and raiders. Of course the only ones who wouldn’t shoot me on sight would be the Steel Rangers. Even then though, they had earned their nickname of Steel Raiders for a reason. I holstered the pistol, this was going to be a long walk, and it was going to be stressful. I bit back every bit of pain from my hurt leg.

I was right, it was going to be stressful, I thought to myself as a self drawn carriage exploded down the block at a intersection. I had managed to avoid anypony for quite a while until now. Now I was sitting between two intersections caught between raiders and Steel Rangers. At the moment I was waiting for a lull in the shooting so I could dive into the shop on the other side, another explosion cut through the air as another bright plum of fire filled the street and I made my move diving into building. The whole while my Geiger counter clicking away at the radiation that was filling the air from the exploding vehicles.

The shop in question was a jewelry store. For a moment I thought I was imagining things, certainly somepony would have looted this place. Then it struck me, why would they, who was even alive to remember this little shop? When the bombs had fallen anypony who had lived through the end was either outside of a city or well into the suburbs and away from the business and industrial areas. I sighed and resolved to not let somepony else get the fortune that was laying here in front of me ripe for the picking.

So I took everything in the store and dumped the soft metal trinkets into my bags. I noticed, much to my pleasure, that the alarm runes and spells protecting the cases had stopped working. After hitting the front room I crept back into the offices in. There was a safe, which resisted me for all of ten seconds before it flew open and I pulled more jewelry and bits into my bags. I giggled to myself as I realized somepony probably had planned to hit this place at some point before the war. Probably had exit strategies and all these big notes of what to do and how to handle things. I just waltzed right in and did a smash and grab. Too bad there was no get away carriage waiting for me around a street corner.

I didn't worry about doing a second round on the place. If had picked up anything more I would barely be able to run, and with already favoring a leg from earlier it was a bad idea to overload myself. I slide the window open in the managers office and ran out into the alley. I had found a few extra weapons within the store and actually found that I had come to the scene of a two century old heist that had just started when the bombs fell. In the managers office I had found four ponies with ballistic masks dead from what looked like exposure. There had been no other bodies in the building. I had half a mind to take one of the masks, but, I left them there. There was only so far in disrespecting the dead I would even go now. Taking those masks would have taken whatever identity they still had.

After a solid five minute run I heard the sounds of gunfire die off and I resumed picking my way through the streets. The run had been both a good and bad idea. It had warmed me up and gotten me safely away from the battle zone, but, my leg now burned. Healing potions did fix what was wrong with you for the most part, but, generally there was still some natural healing that had to be done after being wounded. I hadn't stopped yet to use some of my own magic to supercharge my own healing processes as I could. To be honest I was a bit surprised when I had found out the healing spell I had wasn't using magic to repair wounds but was in fact actually supercharging my body to heal at an insane rate. Though this also meant I had to eat and drink more to make up for the used resources. It probably had some other nasty side effect, but, with how short life can be in the wasteland, those are kind of a moot point anymore.

I wished that I had been able to continue on the highway, but, it had unfortunately collapsed and was too unstable to continue forward on. As well as I saw a number of fires from what I assumed to be raider camps on it. I was following the signs to the Stable-Tec headquarters seeing as that would probably be near a major road back out of the city. That and it would probably be one of the more secure building and maybe would have something of use to me within it. I stopped and realized the Steel Rangers probably were using it as a base of some sort at least. On the other hoof... I really didn't have any other plan on how to get out of the city. Oh and plus it would probably have lots of shiny things to take with me as well as shelter. Nopony would look for me deep within Steel Ranger held territory. Yeah I really was going to doing this. Luna and Celestia have mercy on my foolish greedy soul.

*                *                *

It was not hard to figure out what building was the Stable Tec headquarters. It was the one that had the symbol of the company just sitting there on front the building for all to see. I sat two blocks away from it sitting in a alley. The area was well fortified and patrolled by Steel Rangers in power armor. That gave them E.F.S. at very least and a lot of protection. I turned to a sewer access hole and climbed down, it was pitch black down here. I cursed at myself for not realizing this. I pulled the spritebot off of my back and started taking it apart while I held my flashlight in my mouth. I figured that the spritebot needed to be able to see in the dark so if I salvaged the camera parts that gave it that quality I could rig something up to give myself dark sight. Five minutes later I succeeded and mounted the single eye piece to my helmet where I could pull it down over my left eye. Sliding it into place and turned on watching as the darkness receded and green light filled my left eye. Next came the hard part, I examined the E.F.S. parts of the dismantled spritebot. I was wondering if there was a way to disrupt the E.F.S. of the Steel Rangers. After a few minutes my head hurt, I had not a clue how the spell actually worked and just hoped I would get lucky and not have anypony pass close enough to notice me.

With that I started down the sewer towards Stable Tec. My E.F.S. was clear as I kept creeping forward making certain my hoof steps were as quiet as can be. As I continued down I noticed that the streets and the sewer system had the exact same structure, which was perfect as the intersection that lead into the Stable Tec compound was completely empty. The absolute silence of the system made me worry for a minute as I heard nothing of hoof steps from Steel Rangers patrolling down here or the faint hum or whirring of a turret. I double checked my path for trip wires or mines to find none. Apparently either the Steel Rangers had ignored this path or had figured they would know if anypony took it via their Eyes Forward Sparkles.

I sighed a breath of relief after another minute of crawling through the old sewer system. I noticed that the system seemed to be more of a secondary drainage system for the city when it rained. As such I found from time to time the bones of some unfortunate soul who had died down here. Nothing of use, picked clean shy of their rags. Made sense to me, the Steel Rangers probably only came down here after the rainy season and picked up anything left over to bolster their own supplies. Finally I found a ladder that lead up to another ponyhole. I climbed it and with my magic quietly opened it to check my surroundings.

To my amazement it lead to a small room. The room I was in was some sort of maintenance room that was part of a storage facility. I pushed open the door and crept out. On my E.F.S. I saw the words display “Stable Tec Warehouse”. I smiled, much better, this I figured would have less security due to the nature of the structure. I crept around more, the darkness not bothering me thanks to the mono eye night vision. I checked my E.F.S. to see if I was clear, and I was in luck once more as all was clear. I began checking the warehouse, most of the materials were of no use to me as it was to repair various parts of stables. I even found a room that was just filled with stable jumpsuits, checking them over there was none in the security style, guessed that was left somewhere else. Moving to another room I found what I was looking for, pipbucks. I grabbed the closest one and checked it over, a compact gamma three thousand. I pulled it apart using the pipbuck technicians tools double checking everything.

Once I was satisfied I grabbed two more just in case I needed parts. I set them in my bags and headed back for the sewer when I heard a heavy door start to slide open. My E.F.S. showed clear and I dashed back to my entrance, yanking the cover off and jumping down. Once down I took my time carefully and quietly moving the lid back into place. Then I started going away from where I initially entered the sewer system from.

Preferring not pop up there and now I could just head in one direction as long as I wanted to. I happily trotted for the next half hour until I reached a point where the tunnel had collapsed. Shrugging I found a ponyhole and slide the lid off of it and climbed out of the sewers. In all honesty I had expected worse to be down there, but, what could have really been living in there thanks to the rainy season having washed it clear. If it was another time of the year I probably would have had something greeting me.

I was now a good distance away from the Steel Rangers at Stable Tec Headquarters and much closer to the edge of the city. Things here were leveling off into the sprawling suburbs. I stifled a giggle remembering my first day out of Saint Clover, walking through the suburbs of Seamane. I had a hard time believing it had only been slightly over three weeks since I left. I looked at the time read out on the E.F.S. and saw it was just a bit past three in the afternoon now. I looked around and saw a corner cafe, I smiled and walked over to it, the door was gone so I just walked in. The inside of the shop must have been something to see back in the day, many picture frames sat on the walls, the few pictures I could still see featured a gray coated mare like myself with a cleft on her flank. She seemed to have been quite the performer of classical music back in the day. I headed into the back and set down my bags. As I pulled out a gecko steak and my canteen and began to to have my lunch.

I stared at the pipbucks, I wanted to put it on now. Nopony was around or after me so why would it be a problem to just put it on now? The simple answer was there wasn't a valid reason not to put it on now. So I stripped off my pipbuck zero and tucked it into my saddlebags and for the first time in two days didn't have E.F.S. in my face. I pulled the pipbuck onto my left foreleg then tightened it closed with the pipbuck technicians tools and booted up the spell matrix. After a brief flash of data a simple line of green text sat in my vision.

‘Name:_’ with the underscore blinking expectantly.

I frowned wondering how to enter my name then I said my name out loud. The text filled in with my name properly spelled. More data flashed before me as the cool blue E.F.S. from the spritebot wasn't present but instead a green one sat before my eyes. I lifted my pipbuck up and tapped through the options and found what I was looking for, with a few more taps my E.F.S. turned to a nice subtle blue. Then a notification came up that it had picked up two transmissions. First being MASEBS broadcast, I quickly relabeled it to be DJ Pon3. The second signal was the music the spritebots played, I labeled that as Red Eye Radio. I then finished my meal as I put in the ear bloom from my pipbuck and turned to DJ Pon3.

I lifted my self back up and put my saddlebags on. As I walked out of the cafe I felt things shuffling in my bags. As the thought of what was causing the shuffling in my bag a text explanation filled up my view explaining the auto sorter function that the pipbuck had reorganizing my bags. I smiled and checked around with my E.F.S., which really it is silly to see if you don't know how E.F.S. works. Because to check around with E.F.S. you do it one of two ways. Either you turn your head all around or you do a small tight circle and you look like you are chasing your tail. Most of the time I did a circle in place instead of moving my head. Honestly I don't know why, though I felt at the moment it was probably both wanting to get moving again and I was excited to finally have a pipbuck.

I walked out into the street and headed due east, the marker on my vision pointing to where I needed to go at the coast. It was going to be a long trip still, but, I was looking forward to it. I took a deep breath and began to gallop out of town. I felt lighter than I had in weeks, I felt so full of energy. I was smiling as I ran full speed for the next five miles out of town. My heart pounding I stopped with a slide and turned to face the city I had just escaped. There was Fillydelphia, heart of Red Eye's operations. I was going to return here and wrestle this place free of his evil. I laughed at myself as I began a slow pace to the coast following the highway. Almost on cue my favorite Sweetie Belle song came on the radio and I picked up my pace.

Cities are massive things. While I had a idea of their scale from my brief time going through the suburbs of Seamane and seeing the main ruins of the city in the distance. As well as having seen the sprawling ruins of the industrial sector of Seamane from Saint Clover I didn't have a real understanding of their true scale. On my walk out of Fillydelphia as well as my flight over part of the city I had gotten a better feeling for the places. I had wondered how somepony could spend their whole life within the ruins of a city or before the war entirely within the city limits. It seemed like one would get bored with it so quickly. Now I knew the truth. It wasn't the footprint of the city that mattered, it was how dense the damn things was. Fillydelphia was a very dense city. It had mile after mile of roads stitched across the land, between each road you had buildings, most of the time each building would take a hour or so to fully explore now. Most of the time though you would see much larger buildings that one could spend days investigating thoroughly. Hay, with how many rooms were in some of the taller buildings you could probably fit hundred if not thousands of ponies in each building and have a terribly huge population in a small area.

But, this was the wasteland, two hundred years had been not kind to the population of ponykind or to anything. The initial death toll was in the millions if not more when the bombs fell. Then came the nuclear winter which wiped out probably eighty to ninety percent of all surface life. In a few short months what was a huge population of tens or hundreds of millions living within cities in these high density population areas had died out. Now there was a almost staggering amount of free space within city ruins. As such nature came back with what had survived the fall and moved into where we ponies had so foolishly thought we had conquered the world and made it work for us.

Maybe this was the punishment for our hubris of thinking we controlled the world. Hay, we did control the world back then didn't we. We had our two princesses who controlled the cycle of the sun and moon, we had pegasi who controlled the weather. Earth ponies who mastered the land. Unicorns that turned anything that the pegasi or earth ponies couldn't control into their playthings. We had mastery of science and technology. We created such advanced technology that it still worked two hundred bucking years later. Now? Now we were scraping at the dirt hoping anything would grow, tearing each other apart hoping for some scrap to eat. We had lost control of a world that really we had never controlled. The sun and moon still rose and set of their own accord as far as I could tell, the weather naturally flowed without the pegasi, the ground didn't vanish due to us not working it anymore. Hay, even with the loss of so much arcane knowledge it wasn't like we couldn't do magic anymore. It was all there, it had always been there, we had just used it thinking we could conquer it.

That was the mindset that had doomed us hadn't it? We had tried to conquer each other and the world blew up. No the world didn't blow up, our nations did, our civilization did. So what does that make the world now? Feral? No that isn't right. Feral makes it sound like the world is actively trying to kill us off. No the world was healing in its own way. Sweeping away all we had done to it. The poisonous radiation year after year slowly fading away. Ruins crumbling and soil covering up what had once been buildings. One day the world would be green again once whatever kept the cloud curtain failed too. Everything we had made and done was a tool for us to survive better. It was all planned in the past to aid the present into the future. But, even so, it wasn't permanent. Hay, even the system before the war wasn't even permanent, it was from what I recalled a very stagnant system. It consumed things like gemstones, rare metals, and crops just like the one that had produced the war. It was slower, but, it had been around consumption, not sustainability. Then came a boom in technology, then a boom in population, then suddenly there were too many mouths to feed, too many draws on limited resources, too much on the line for everypony. Then boom, it all ended, we lost. Not just ponies, everyone did. Now all we had to remind us of what constant expansion and up scaling did, and nopony listened. Red Eye was trying to rebuild that which fell apart. It was going to fail either by somepony stopping him or by its own nature. He was a fool if he thought otherwise.

Hopefully somepony stopped him before he wrecked the world more. Somepony who had more power than I did. I had the smarts to know that it had to be done, even how to do it for the most part after being in his city, but, I lacked the will to try to do anything, the power to tackle it. No I was more comfortable with the simple goal of get to my friends and hug Rose. To do what I could to slow or even stop his expansion out into Seamane. There are other ponies there that I could convince to side with me to protect their interests. But, I could think of nopony I could convince to stand with me in striking out against Red Eye in his home. Even now we still sat in a civilization that valued things over others. 'Trade would save the wasteland' is a nice notion, but, I don't think the one who coined it knew what it meant. They in all actuality meant it would give caps to them. I scoffed at myself thinking at the idea of maybe making a nation of my own to rise to fight against Red Eye, but, how the hay would I get anypony to go along with me if not with caps. I absentmindedly flipped a prewar bit over and over in front of me. No light glinted off of it in the dark afternoon, my magic held it firm against the cold biting wind. In my magic I held what had been the reason for the world falling apart I wagered. Yes there was more to it than that. The princesses had let things get out of hand with the pace of development, with population booms. But, it came down to this, greed, didn't it? I floated out a bottlecap, and here was the new world symbol for the same old world concept. Money, possession, a way to exchange things for supposed work done. Something that ponies at the top cared only about, horded it like dragons and didn't use to help others.

All of that technology and they couldn't push past using coal and other rare items. Couldn't they have found another way, maybe channeling magic directly. The sun? What about the wind or the motion of water in rivers? Because none of those gave the rich what they had wanted. No at that point society under a stagnant rule had gotten used to making money off of every exchange. While in smaller towns you might see somepony give away an apple to somepony starving or give them shelter. They, the top of society, would milk the poor pony for money and when they couldn't get another bit out of them toss them away. The problem had been much deeper rooted than the war or the resources.

I let out a long sigh, once again watching my breath float away from me in a white patch in the air. So what now? I knew there were those who would go running off to help others, even whole towns willing to take care of those less fortunate. But, still we were holding on to old world traditions. Was that it? Was that what really was the cause for the war and for our sorry state now? We looked back on the past and don't see the present or the future? Maybe that was it, we are so fixated on how the greatness of the past that we can't work towards a better future. Everypony was walking backwards into the future. What about me? Was I doing the same? Or was I living in just the present trying to deal with problems as the cropped up? I most certainly was. But, that was changing wasn't it, yes I needed to focus on the now so I didn't die. I needed to focus on the the problems of now to make a future. But, to make that future last I would need to at some point look back at the past wouldn't I?

I gave out another sigh, this was the deepest thinking I had done in a long time. Not since I had gotten wrapped up in a great deal of philosophy books when I was ten. When I had started slacking off in my duties to the family Dad had taken the books and put them in a safe telling me that he would let me have them once I had gotten back on track, or cracked the safe. He had been right to do so. What use was someone who knew all this and yet didn't act? They were worth little more than the prewar bit I floated in front of my face. The world had a place for people who thought deeply, who learned and figured out the mysteries of the world, both of the mundane and the transcendent. Now though I needed to focus on the mundane, I had real problems ahead of me. Raiders, slavers, alicorns, Steel Rangers, tribal's, Red Eye's forces. I needed to refine my magic, get better armor, bigger guns, allies, friends. As much as I wanted to toss the jewels in my saddlebags and stuff it full of ammo I needed to rely on the trait that had gotten me them as well as this pipbuck. I needed to rely on my greed and others. I hated my greed, it made me do stupid things like waltzing into a enemy base instead of hunting down an abandoned stable. But, greed was something everypony in the wasteland had. No not everypony, certainly there was some pony out there who was the embodiment of the virtue of generosity. I certainly wasn't it.

I gave out sad half sob half laugh thinking about virtues. Watcher had told me to find mine, so what they hay would mine be? Kindness? No, while I was kind to others I wasn't above wiping out a town of raiders when I had planned on just sneaking out of it. Generosity was a nice notion, but, my greed would keep me from that. Honesty? Well maybe, I had spoken half truths once or twice, but, lying wasn't something I had need to do as of yet. Loyalty? Again my loyalty had never been tested so no idea. Laughter? How the hay was that a virtue of the elements of harmony?! Magic? No, not magic either, I was not a prodigy with it, I had aptitude due to my limited training. I had been forced over the past few weeks to use it more than ever and it had like a muscle been getting stronger and lasting longer. But, I didn't know the true core of magic. I could toss something with telekinesis, or levitate myself, hay, I could glide with it. But, mastery of magic? A paragon of it? No I was not. So what guided me? What did I use to keep myself from going raider?

It hit me, maybe it wasn't one of those things, maybe it was a loose attempt to follow all of them. All six where guidelines to being a better pony. Well except magic, that seemed esoteric compared to the rest, more so when only unicorns really could do magic. Unless it had meant a type of magic beyond just magic. Mastery of a magic that was not just magic, something everypony could experience? Friendship, love, family, self value? Those all felt magical and I had felt the magic of love towards Rose as well as my family. Not the same type of love, romantic and sexual with Rose. With my family it was... I don't know some other type of love. So then, what was my main guiding principle. My love for Rose that is driving me to return to her? Is she why I want to protect Seamane? Maybe, honestly having seen how horrible things had been for her even in a small snapshot of her life I knew I wanted to put an end to raiders and slavers. So was my virtue kindness for wanting to stop horrible things from happening? Or was it loyalty for wanting to help my marefriend and the rest of ponykind? Was it generosity of giving up my own ambitions that I once held for giving it all in helping ponykind? Or was this what ever magic was supposed to be? Bucking hell I think a lot when I haven't killed anypony in too long of a time. It was due to that wasn't it that I was thinking about all this. The no physical threat to my being showing up minute after minute, day in day out. The lack of something to put my mind to that caused it to wander off like this.

I resolved that I needed to ask Watcher about the nature of the element of magic. He had admitted he knew a fair bit about them hours ago. Or maybe I was following some virtue I didn't know about. Of course there were more than just those six virtues. Look at heroes, they always were ponies who had courage, justice, prudence, and temperance. Then again the wasteland felt it deserved a more tragic set of virtues along the lines of sacrifice, compassion, perseverance, innocence, and hope. Each one of them one could be far more tragic with. The wasteland loved tragedy. The wasteland was like a mirror in its own right. One would look into it and would see the worst that they could become. So what did I see when I looked at it? I saw myself giving up, going raider or slaver for caps, doing nothing but being a slave to pleasure and caps. I shuddered at the thoughts and the fact that parts of me took pleasure in the ideas of going with that life. So what was the opposite of that? Somepony who fought against what raiders and slavers did. I would fight against exploitation which is all they were doing. They exploited ponies wish to live to take them captive, they exploited them for their own benefit.

So what did that mean my virtue was, it obviously was more complex than the simple ones of harmony. Justice was foremost in my mind, I wanted to do right by others by dealing out justice to those who violated the most basic of laws. But, that was too simple. I wasn't willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of restoring our world, I knew doing that wouldn't bring what I wanted to the wasteland, it only brought about my own end and then nopony else would be around to do what I did. That was a selfish thought wasn’t it? Why would nopony else do what you did if you set yourself as an example? Because if that worked by now we would be up to our ears in other heroes. Prudence? Ruling oneself with logic and reason? Not really, that was short sighted as well. Temperance was also kind of out of the window due to me impulsiveness. No I was not a rational creature who could always be counted on approaching things calmly. I had compassion for the rest of ponykind, hay, I was wanting to save everypony I could. Yet, that felt off too, like it was closer. Perseverance was out as well, what horrid struggle or mistake had I gone through that I had to keep on fighting for to make up or set right? Nothing I knew of. Innocence? That was never a possibility, I was born in the wasteland, I was taught since I understood words on what I needed to know to survive this world. I never really was innocent, I had always been tainted by the wasteland.

So that left me with three possibilities. One, the mysterious element of magic which seemed a bit silly unless there was a really good explanation on what the hay they meant by magic. Two, the virtue of compassion due to my care of all of ponykind and my want to help it recover and do better. Or it was the third option of courage, willingness to confront what must be confronted both physically and morally. I weighed the last two in my mind, they both called to me deeply as what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be. Who said you had to follow one virtue to live by? I gave a small nod to myself, with courage and compassion I would confront this world and try to save it in any way I could with my small body and bright mind. So I had the wisdom to find my virtue, which in its own right should be a virtue in of itself. My virtue, if I was right in my assessment of myself, being courage. For me to do what my compassion told me to do I would need one more element, the element of power, and really in our world the greatest power left to us that would not falter or fail with time was that of magic. I was going to find out what had happened to the element of magic, both the object and the virtue and do what I could to wrangle it to my purposes.

It wasn't long after I had set my new goals into my heart before some pony decided that a cheerful mare who at a glance was armed with a metal stick and two pistols was a good target. As the shot rang out I pulled out my ear bloom and turned off the radio. I got a quick tip on how to activate S.A.T.S. and I grinned. I pulled out my three guns and charged for where the shot had come from to hear more gunfire ring out and the road around me pop as I put a weak shield up directly in front of me.

“You are in for a bad day today! You just pissed off a mare in a really good mood who just got some new toys!” I yelled as I leaped over a chest high wall where the attackers were sitting in cover.

I slipped into S.A.T.S. It was odd to say the least when I first entered it. The world completely unmoving except where I looked, tags over parts of each potential target showing my chance to hit. The three here were garbed in what can only be described as raider armor. I cued up a shot from each of my guns, one gun for one pony. I released S.A.T.S. like I was instructed to and watched in slow motion as my trio of guns went off the three fifty seven revolver and five fifty six revolver leaving two dead bodies as I pierced their hearts and the third target turning to ash under the red glare of my beam rifle. I felt my hooves touch the ground slowly as well and then time went back to full speed. I holstered all by my five point five six pistol and checked over my would be killers. All the items on the dusted one were a bust, they went up with him. The other two had a healing potion a piece, some more ammo for my pistol, and two rifles. I did a quick check around to see if any more raiders were around, but, found no indication with my eyes or E.F.S. to say there were more.

I returned to the highway and continued east. I figured, after half an hour, that the three I bumped into were to ambush anypony going the opposite direction I had been going. Ambush anypony going into the city via this highway. Probably walked right under a raider camp while in the sewers. I pulled out a single bullet for my pistol and then reloaded the one round I had used before setting it back in the holster. Next I reloaded the one round for my revolver and finally came my laser rifle. As I checked it over E.F.S. notified me it was in poor condition. Apparently I overcharged it a great deal hence it vaporizing that pony with a single shot. I replaced the spark battery powering it and slung it over my shoulder. Better keep that shot for any nasty monster that could shrug off my pistols I thought to myself.

I found my mind wandering again as I continued to walk down the highway to Manehattan. Maybe power wasn't such a hard thing to find if I could build a weapon that powerful. Maybe I just needed to find some books that would give me a nice primer on magic. Raid a library? Hmm... a good spot would be any Ministry of Arcane Science hubs then. So then, I had to major targets a MAS hub and a MOP hub. Hay, even universities would be targets as both would hopefully be teaching Arcane Science in general as well as teaching healing spells and practices that the Ministry of Peace was known for.

I shrugged my shoulders shifting the two rifles I had slung across my back with the homemade laser rifle. I frowned as I looked at the signs on the highway, it was going to be a long long walk to Manehattan. I sat down and focused my healing spell to where I had gotten shot earlier in the day and felt the lingering pain die down as the remaining damage healed. I then patched the hole in my barding and looked up. It looked like snow as getting ready to come down. The air was cold enough and from the cold seeping into my hooves the ground would take to the snow all too well. Still though I had a few hours to go until it would be too cold to be outside. Light no longer was a issue thanks to the monocular I had.

My thoughts wandered back to earlier. The elements of harmony. They were the most powerful items of magic in this world as far as I knew. They had existed since, well as far as I could tell, forever. I doubted they were destroyed in the apocalypse. Hay, from what I remember Canterlot was just hazardous to enter but not destroyed. So I wagered the palace still held them, safely in a vault waiting for somepony to take them. That or if somepony knew the end was coming, they had been moved. Still though, Canterlot was the most likely place for them. But, from what I remembered the place was to the point of staying too long would kill you very easily and everything there had been mutated to the extreme to the point that it was a mortal danger to even cross the ruin. So, for now at very least the elements were safely tucked away in the most secure place in the wasteland. Nopony could touch them. Which was both good and bad. If there was a way to quickly restore the wasteland it would be through their vast magic. They had purified Princess Luna from being Nightmare Moon, as well as they had been used in the defeat of Discord, twice. Then a thought crossed my mind that darkened my mood. What if there are no ponies alive who can use them, the last who could died at the end of the world. The only ponies who could wield them besides the princesses themselves had been the Ministry Mares. No, there had to be something else to them, something I would have to unravel later.

Right now I wished I saw a spritebot and could talk to Watcher about this, but, no these matters weren't that important at the moment. Right now I needed to focus on getting to Manehattan, finding my friends, and returning to the Seamane region. Yes I want to fix the world, make there be great verdant fields of grass and flowers in my homeland again. To help rebuild our world. But, there were things that took priority. Those priorities being saving it from the most immediate of threats. As well as the more shameful things such as I wanted to be with Rose again. Above anything else I wanted to be with her. It hurt for several reasons, my own selfishness of wanting to be with her, to block out the world with what we did together. It hurt that I was so willing to toss the rest of the world away just for her. It hurt that I knew there was nothing I could do to speed up the process of seeing her again. Running would just wear me out and increase the chance of capture or death. Asking for help would draw attention from forces I wanted to be invisible to. Wallowing about not having what I wanted right now would get me nowhere fast.

The wind cut through me as I continued walking. I had left the outskirts of Fillydelphia and was now walking along the highway among the plains stretching endlessly away. The road I walked was the one that would take me to Manehattan, to Friendship City, to Tenpony Tower. From there I would be free to go wherever I wanted. I would have to head west again, which gave me many options, Hoofington, Fillydelphia, Vanhoover, New Appleloosa, Dodge City, Baltimare. Hay, if I wanted to I could go to the Frozen North.

But, no, that wasn't what I wanted I knew what I wanted. More than anything right now I wanted the warm embrace of Rose, her soft coat, her strong athletic body next to mine. I wanted to bury my face in her neck and block out the world for a short while. I wanted to stop feeling the strange emotions I felt while thinking about everything, the pit of sorrow that threatened to swallow me whole. I wanted to block out the horrors of the wasteland that I had seen. I wanted to shrink the world down to just her and myself.

In that moment I knew what I truly was, even if I said I was getting used to traveling alone, I was lonely the deepest level of my being. I was in the middle of nowhere, nopony knew where I was or even having the possibility of knowing who I was here. I could die and nopony would know what happened to me or who I was. The only thing that made me any different from a corpse was that I was walking, and even then, the wasteland had walking corpses as well. I let out a quiet sob knowing that I was truly and frighteningly alone and far, far away from home, family, friends, and my lover.

It sucks being alone.

Footnote: Fifty percent to level up.