Fallout Equestria - The Wish Machine

Chapter three: A stray dog for hire

We are all the same! Yes. Whatever you say. Whoever you are. Whatever will be your smoke and mirrors tricks… you won’t change the truth. That we are not so different!

“You’re right. I’m lost...” I answered to the grinning shadow billowing around me.

Seed had told the truth. Something was wrong with me. Shellshock or not, I shouldn’t be talking to something that wasn’t real. I stared at the… thing, sighing deeply.

“What are you?” I gasped, sobs clumping my throat.

“It’s a silly question,” the tricky smile snickered. “I am whatever you want me to be. But today… I. Am. You.”

The smile cast by the shadow sickened me and billowing forward, it poked my front leg. Its shady hoof turned into puffs of smoke as it sprawled onto my bandaged shoulder. The ethereal touch sent cold shudders beneath my bald ski suffering already from radiation exposure that was eating me slowly from beneath. I closed my eyes in answer and took a long breath, gathering my spirit to reply to another creation of my mind.

“I may be a waste,” I retorted meekly. “But when one hits rock bottom, there’s only place for becoming better… don’t you think?”

Fearful, I glanced at the dark shape. I swallowed my saliva as its smile grew even further on his lips, reaching his ears and beyond, until it was nothing left but a huge maw with sharp drooling teeth.

“And, you?” it cackled. “What do you think?”

A gust of wind swept over me. For any witness, I was a dark form clenching onto the top of a telecom antenna: bending and creaking as the wind arose. When I opened my eyes again, I looked down. Vertigo struck me hard, my head and ears humming in response. The haze surrounding me slowly evaporated, falling victim to the breeze. As far as my eyes could see there were nothing but yellow and red fields, and dead forests beyond the gigantic refugees’ camp. These moribund colors kept assaulting my senses, sending chills through my bones. I couldn’t compare such sight with anything I had seen in my whole boring life. It was too much to bear, a knot tied in my throat.

“Miss! Get down immediately!” a voice roared from beneath. “I won’t repeat myself. You’re on the Ministry of Morale’s telecom property. Measures will be taken against you if you don’t comply in the next few seconds!”

I glanced down eighty feet below. As my eyes settled on a Ministry of Morale’s agent, a stallion wearing the same fleece as Agent Genepi, my heart clenched out of terror of heights. Yet, the real spike of dread came from the mouthgun aimed at me.

“You’ve got three seconds to start moving!” the stallion ordered at me with an angry pout.

I nodded diligently and pushed myself carefully toward the ground. I was still shocked by the massacre I had witnessed a few minutes ago, and coming close to an agent frightened me to a horrendous extent. The face of Balloon and Genepi was flashing intermittently before my eyes, like a hot amber brand. Scared, my descent was dampened by my hooves, quaking far too much to offer me a steady stance.  The slowly balancing armature of the telecom tower didn’t help.

A violent rush of wind fought me down. My left hind leg slipped.

My upper body rolled over the steel and rusty screws. I screamed as the air whistled in my ears, free-fall petrifying my heart. I hurtled down the tower for a second stretching to infinity, my body torn apart by my limbs crashing onto the tower’s steeps. Propelled further down, I did a last loop and saw the ground a few feet below. I shut my eyes closed and gritted my teeth, bracing for the deadly impact. I heard a cry which strangely wasn’t mine.

Then, I hit. It was a hard, breath taking and bones shattering blow… but not as violent as I had mustered for.

My body ached horribly, sending shivers down my hurting limbs. I hadn’t reached the ground, somepony had caught me before. The pony who’d stopped my fall dropped me onto the ground, stripping the deed off its apparent kindness. My jaw bit into the dust. I gurgled, sprawled pathetically in front of my savior. Shameful, I opened my eyes hoping it would be some known face. Seed? The wall of a soldier she was wouldn’t spare a second on me. She had called me a waste of time after all. Maybe Brancard, he was so kind in his own way… sort of. A pale green hide in a large brown coat welcomed me with two thundering eyes glaring down at me.

My heart froze. It was nopony but the agent that had startled my inner fear, Agent Genepi. Her hat cast a large shadow over her face, darkening her features. She bore an overwhelming expression of disgust. Or was it pity? Shock soaked my thoughts. Even the agent that had threatened me with a weapon backed away from her. She moved forward. I crawled back. I was an insect between the unplayful paws of a horrendous creature.

“Thanks?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

Shot with fright, my widened eyes didn’t twitch the slightest. I only saw the mare who had condemned another one to death. Furthermore, she was the initiator of a public execution, using the public itself as death dealer through a gruesome stoning. Something I wouldn’t have expected to see in my life, and in Equestria.

A series of trots called me back to reality, and I glanced on my side. Brancard ran onto me, before stepping back at the sight of Genepi. His jaw going limp, Brancard broke into a shaking stutter.

“Miss… Eh… Madame,” he blabbered. “Excuse my friend… for her… behavior, it won’t happen again.”

The poor caretaker stallion lowered his head apologetically.

“Please, don’t be too harsh on us,” he begged.

A heavy silence built around us. Everypony was standing stoic, waiting for an outburst from the agent mare. All those looks aimed at the three of us were terrifying. Nopony moved and only the rusty squeaking of the waving telecom antenna broke this movie-like scene.  A lightning bolt  roared in the sky above us, and Genepi walked forward. Struck with fright, Brancard gave her space, stepping away from the dreadful mare. Then he completely stopped, his limbs gripped in fear of the pony embodying the law in the camp. Genepi’s eyes fixed him with disdain. She sported an unreadable poker face that instilled fear and questions that would stay unanswered.

“Genepi…” he squeaked.

The agent trooped ahead until her muzzle nearly touched Brancard’s face. The tip of her hat rustled his brown mane running with sweat. Brancard’s colors washed off his light red features. I gulped.

The rain started drumming on the canvas of the nearby tents. When the thunder roared again she swiveled on her hooves, whipping softly the nurse pony with her tail and… faced down at me. I could finally see her eyes’ color, a dull pale violet. Glowing into the chiaroscuro ambience of the day, it contrasted with her pallid green sunken face. A vivid tension sparked into my chest like a hole sucking my inner emotions and will into a far nothingness, filling me back with pure and utter terror.

The clatter of horseshoes echoed in Genepi’s back. With teary and shaky eyes, I glanced swiftly behind her. Then, my eyes came back on her torturing stare. Two agents had showed up, along with the Sergeant Babs Seed. They looked between Genepi and me, asking silently for an explanation.

It was at that moment I saw Genepi’s hooves running with minuscule shakes. Somehow, truth found an opening in my mind. She had stopped my fall bare-hoofed, catching me with mere strength and had managed that I won’t ended up wounded. I looked up and our eyes met again, my ears low in submission. The corner of her lips were twisted in a nearly invisible caring smile.

“Thanks…” I whispered, choking on my own voice.

“You’re welcome.” She winked at me.

It was over now. She had saved me, and now she was going away, right? But she was an agent of the Ministry of Morale, she was meant to investigate. As she looked at me, I saw curiosity coming to life in her eyes. Then a frown slashed through her face… Her eyes screwed to pinprick and she lowered her head, scrutinizing me. I petrified myself like a statue. I could be victim to her potential caprices, and the idea to end like the anonymous mare encased me in immobility. Tension eating me away, I could see from the corners of my eyes the scene, stoic ponies seemingly stuck in time, awaiting for whatever tipping point it was going to be.

Genepi stretched her hoof up to my forehead. She brushed over the bandages and gauzes covering me in my nearly entirety.

“Poor lost mare you are,” she beckoned. “You should be resting. No smile can come on such ravaged face. You must understand that we all need a healthy spirit in a healthy body.”

I fluttered at those words, I had heard them before. Balloon? He had been the kind of stallion to say so, and Genepi was also from the Ministry of Morale. Her hoof clacked against something beneath the bandages, creating a small crystalline pop. I curled up on the ground moaning as a wave of pain rammed my head. I saw white for a few seconds.

Genepi grumbled, screwing her eyes again as she sought for the sound’s origin. She began unfolding what was wrapped around my nearly bald skull. She would have done so in seconds if Brancard hadn’t jumped between the two of us. The stallion, trembling of all of his might, avoided Genepi’s blackened stare.

“You can’t do that, Madame,” he begged. “I… I can’t let her wounds get infected.”

He didn’t even fight back when Genepi shoved him aside, fascinated with what was hidden beneath my gauzes. As I knew what it was, I was once again forced back into fear. My puppy eyes pleaded her to stop, to swivel on her hooves and leave me, the ‘poor mare’, alone. She was young and relatively healthy compared to the old and cranky mare I was. She had all power here, and Seed’s deviating and surrendering stare only highlighted that fact.

Pushing me on the ground and taking her time, Genepi unfolded the remains of bandages. One by one, the bits of the medical tissue fell on the dust. She continued until the plane chunk of broken black metal screwed to my forehead came completely in sight. The remain of Balloon’s recollector shone, proving that the Ministry of Morale still had teeth plunged deep into my skin. The three agents flanking Genepi gasped in surprise at me. This was not good at all. I wanted to melt into pulp, to be liquid enough to slither in the cracks of the ground, unreachable to Genepi’s devouring eyes. With both hooves she grabbed my face, hauling me closer to her eyes. I jerked slightly, pain picking my neck, but I rapidly fall back into a dull accepting mindset. She scanned the bit and… chuckled. It wasn’t a laugh of amusement. It was closer to a kind of sadistic surprise, like a mother’s answer to her son’s expected bad grades.

Genepi released her talon-like lock and my head hit the dirt. Careless about me, she trotted around my body. After one complete tour of my starving shape, she peered a hoof at the large bulging object circling my back’s midsection, hidden beneath bandages. Tearing them apart, Genepi revealed a metallic saddlebag hung near of my shoulders. Even smeared by the mud and the days spent outside without a care for my body, it still looked perfectly functional, shiny under a thin layer of dust and mud. Curious, she touched with the tip of her hoof the lines where flesh and metal met. The contact never lasted long. Was she fearing her hoof would glue to it too?

Genepi lifted one of the saddlebag’s pockets, curious about their contents. She snickered at the sight of resting cogwheels and shiny joints waiting dully for any external stimulus. As I looked inside myself, I saw the slender mechanical arms folded and unmoving. I was still scared of them. Glancing back at Genepi, I caught her counting with silent moving lips. Curious myself yet still afraid, I also looked in. There were left enough place to store a small range of objects in there, a small fan was tossed in, I repressed a giggle. As I looked closer at the mechanisms, I thought about the possible movements they allowed me to perform. I was still an earth pony. The thought disappeared instantly as one of the arms clicked, unfolding quickly before coming back to its former idle position. I ‘eeped, wrestling me out of Genepi’s hooves, closing the pocket in my move.

Genepi glanced at me with furious but also curious eyes. I had cut her little game short. She cleared her throat with a series of small gentle cough. I took a short erratic breath and closed my eyes, covering my ears and head with both of my hooves, completely driven by an animal instinct, terror.

“Come to my tent at five o’clock,” she only ordered.

She showed me her back. Ans she walked away with her three stooges, leaving me in the mud and rain, sobbing, crying and pissing myself.

Brancard and Seed snuck closer, keeping their distance with me as they wondered how to act in my presence. They were god damn right… they had abandoned me to her! Hoofed me away and offered me to give in between that monster’s hooves! I heard ponies swear around me, the anticlimax end to my misery not convincing them. Were ponies only a fair animal to others?

“I…” Brancard broke the silence.

“Shut up!” I shrieked, cutting him off. “I’m dead… I’m so dead…”

I hit my forehead right at the place where the recollector was screwed into position.

“Everything because of you!” I hit. “You!” I hit again. “You!” Again, and again… and again.

Jolts of pure pain wracked my mind and body, cutting me down in my momentum. Brancard and Seed didn’t even stop me. Even as the frothing reached my lips and left me in a prostrate and unconscious state, they did nothing. Once I had fell on the ground, convulsing, my eyes finally looked at them. Pity had left their eyes, replaced by fear. A mirror of myself. There, knee-deep in mud and blood, I could only repeat to myself that, since the beginning, I had been absolutely lonely.

₪ ₪   Ѻ  ₪ ₪

I woke up in a tent with flashes of white ravaging my vision. My eyes ached with the tears I had shed in my sleep. My head reeled in the awful pain sparking from the recollector’s chunk. I could feel the blood pounding around this scar made of metal. I rubbed my ears, twitching at the growls coming from my empty belly eating on the nothing inside. I was starving, slowly dying as my body ate away my resources. I would leave nothing but bones under a sick beige and ill skin when they’d bury my body. Only a few days had passed and already I was a different mare, the decaying wreckage of the broken pony I had already been.

I rolled down the mattress and let myself fell on the ground. Nopony was there to cushion me this time. My bandages had be retightened onto my flank and they did nothing to ease the pain. Lying flat on the ground I stared at the furniture. A table made out of wooden and metal scraps, a saddlebag and… one big three-barreled shotgun resting on its side.  Huge dark red cartridges loomed on a slit open on the side of the loader. I finally spotted a steel ranger’s helmet, left to the dust on the ground.

“You were out for a long time,” Babs Seed snickered in my back.

I shrieked, my ears perking down as the sergeant snuck out of the shadow from where she had watched upon me. My heart pumped blood crazily in my chest while I was squeaking at the bulky soldier trooping in my direction. I would have shrunk before her if one question hadn’t forced my mind to gather its own bits together.

“What time is it?” I begged for some knowledge from the outside.

“It’s half past noon… Time to go to eat something,” she told me, hearing both our bellies growling in pain. “They are distributing rations to the refugees.”

“They?” I asked with the same mousy tone, casting away the idea that I had less than five hours before being forced to face agent Genepi again.

“The Ministry of Morale,” she stated without an ounce of emotion.

I gulped as we passed by the tent entrance, the meek light of the sun outpouring on us from the low cover of cloud. I stopped, giving a head to Babs Seed, until she slowed down and looked at me with worried eyes.

“Where are the pegasi?” I risked myself to ask, willing to change the topic of the conversation.

The answer I got back was quite unusual.

“We don’t know. No pegasi is answering the radios and with the weather being continuously the same for the past three days, we… I don’t fucking know.” She breathed in and looked at me with red eyes. “I would like to be at home, with a pint of cider in front of the tv… And ye’?”

“I would like to wake up in my bed.”

Babs snorted genuinely at my confession, taking it as a joke. But I wasn’t joking, I truly wished I would wake up from this nightmare, that I would find Amethyst lying in her bed, asleep, snoring… smiling… But I knew it would not happen, this lie I was begging for, that everything I had lived until now was nothing but an illusion, would never come true.

The sergeant looked at the sky with depressed eyes, sighing for a long moment before we summed up walking down an empty street. It had stopped raining.

A ticking similar to the hand of a clock attracted my attention. My ears perked at the nearly imperceptible sound. It was constant, low but never vanishing. When I first glanced discreetly at Seed, she seemed not to hear it. First it crept me out, raising what remained of my beige fur on my skin, under the left bandages. Was I hearing things, again? Then I looked upon Seed’s armor. My eyes stumbled upon a small round-shaped counter sporting a single hand inside a one hundred and twenty degrees arc. The hand was jerking back and forth in the arc marked with a strange metric. Only thereafter I read a three letter logo next to the meter wield to Seed’s armor… rad.

“Is that…” I choked on my words.

Babs tapped on her chest, making the ticking device go crazy for a couple of second. She laughed before glaring at me with tired eyes.

“You know what it is… Or should I really remind you its meaning?” she ironized. “It’s not enough to kill us all, but enough to leave us here dying slowly, leaving its mark on our skin and health.

She coughed and spat a raspy greenish phlegm. Afar from us, a loud cry erupted and died straight away.

“Look around you,” Babs Seed asked.

And I did so as she kept talking.

“No pony here will ever be cured from those events, none will get back on track. Zebras did not condemn everypony. They just punished everyone.”

I lowered my eyes. As I walked silent next to the sergeant, I was passing by the deadened faces of many ponies. The idea of a threat we couldn’t smell, see or feel radiation until it was too late was terrifying. This powerlessness was wrecking not only me, but everypony who knew about that. We were left to die here, bit by bit.

Quickly, the issue of radiation swamping the air got swept away by a more tangible threat knocking at my door. I had to show up in front of Agent Genepi today. Put simply, I was dead. Somehow she would know about my past, she would interrogate me about the bits of recollector stuck in my head. And in the end, she would ask about Balloon’s fate. I had sinned in the eyes of the Ministry of Morale. I was to be sentenced to a gruesome death or punition. That I was sure of.

I passed a corner blindly and bumped into somepony’s flank. The stallion didn’t skimp on swearing at me in response. After a long apologetic session I stared ahead of him and saw unending queues of ponies, awaiting their turn in front of a hoof full of Ministry of Morale’s agents. They were flanked by a small group of steel rangers, probably here to keep the crowd under control. They shouted at the mass of nameless ponies, barking at everypony that they had to stay in line. Any move judged to be wrong was the warrant to be refused their daily ration.

Each time a pony walked forward, the agents used a strange looking pistol that I couldn’t describe in the distance. Aiming at the left eye of the beggar for a couple of seconds, it always stated two kinds of answer. A yes, or a no.  I gulped my saliva and a drop of sweat trickled down my neck. The agent would either ask a colleague to serve the pony a bowl filled with a slimy, greyish goo with a glass-like morsel of bread, or would send him away toward another group of tents. They were denying food to some ponies. And they were many of them.

Fearful and hungry eyes followed those sent away, escorted by a soldier. Sometimes, tears began to fall down the ‘chosen’ ponies’ cheeks, deeply apologizing for whatever he or she could have done. They even sent fillies and colts away, stupefying parents as they were forbidden food too. I bit my lower lips and turned my head. I couldn’t watch more of that show.

As the queue moved forward, I neared toward the line drawn in the dirt, meaning my turn was coming. My heart pounded increasingly and I fought back the fear growing in my heart. My breath accelerated, and the whistle my nose blew out attracted Seed’s attention. She looked down at me with perplexed eyes.

“Don’t worry, Vault,” she told me with a caring tone in her voice. “You’re with me now. Nothing will happen to you until five this afternoon.”

Thanks… Really! I needed another reminder of my death sentence.

I bit my lower lip, the stallion in front of me had been sent to the other group of tents. He had walked past me and disappeared, colors running out of his face.

It was my turn and I meekly trotted forward until I faced one of the agents. He inspected me from tail to ears, searching for parasites and other illness mediums. Being wrapped in bandages, the stallion looked at me with this raised eyebrow one usually do when found something breaking one’s daily routine. He snickered softly, lifting the gun in front of my eye. It was a scanner! I looked behind me at Seed who nodded at me, awaiting her turn. The agents grumbled and grabbed my jaw, turning my head back into position.

The tool was a strange laser pointer shaped into a mouthgun, sporting a small but detailed screen on its right side. It blazed into my left eye, leaving a burning sensation in my retina when it shot in its turquoise light. The sudden layer of pink in front of my vision stayed in my eye, highlighting a symbol printed on the side of the gun, Pinkie Pie’s cutie mark. Everypony knew those three balloons mark, we all had seen enough of the Ministry of Morale in our life.

Blinking, I rub my eyelid until a strident noise called my focus back onto the agent. His eyes screwed, frowning upon what he had received on his report. He looked intermittently between me and the screen, his expression becoming increasingly cryptic. The reflections of small red dots flashed onto his face from the screen. My head slowly dunked into my shoulders as the agent signaled his companions to come over. I heard mumbles and swallows among them.

“I’m with the Miss here.” I suddenly heard Seed explain, laying her armored hoof onto my shoulder. “And the agent Genepi has already an appointment with her.”

The agent sighed, sweeping away Babs’s argument. He looked at her with friendly eyes, then at me with… grieving pupils. A knot tied in my stomach.

“It’s not about that. I just can’t give you food, it would be a waste of resources,” he confessed, amplifying my growing fear. “We don’t fed the dying ponies.”

“Ah… ah… Good joke…”

A shudder crossed my limbs and back. I slightly laughed at the agent… until his hard look dunked me back in my depressed mood.

“You’re kidding right,” I blabbered.

“I ain’t…. Look.”

He showed me the screen mounted on his gun.

[:/Body condition unknown, high level of radiation: detected]

[:/Life Pronostic Engaged]

[:/Conclusion: Expendable]

I froze as I read each of those fateful words, once, twice... I shook my head. It…

“It can’t be possible,” I mumbled then screamed. “I took RadAway! I survived Canterlot! I haven’t even been in Balefire. It. Can’t. Be. True!”

The agent looked away, breathed in and sighed.

“I don’t even have to send you to the next shack. Just… fall back.”

A punch in the guts wouldn’t have been harder to take. His last… advice anchored me to the trashing reality. My head dizzied. My surrounding reeled. I’d have fainted if so many hadn’t looked at me, uncaring but somehow curious. They feared that my situation could be theirs. I’d have cried out to them a birthing hatred if Seed had not hugged me through her cold armor.

“Wait for me out of the queue,” she comforted. “We’re going to see Brancard after.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

“But I can’t die from radiation.” I fought back, showing off my stiff and my cutie mark branded there, a slit open black shield covering an orb which edges shone green. “This means my skin is immune to radiation.” Not really convincing, ain’t it? “I can’t fucking die from radiation, the report must be wrong. I worked for the TAD. That’s my cutie mark that got me my job!”

Seed frowned harshly at me. Was it due to the TAD? Not so many ponies liked that department of the Ministry of Wartime Technology… I would understand. Or was it because I was trying desperately to buy some time and hopes? She pushed me, a heavy hoof on my shoulder.

“Wait in the fucking corner,” she articulated at me, nearly kicking me away.

And I did, I hurtled my broken shape away from the queue, my head so low to avoid crossing the stare of anypony. I could hear them swallow hardly their saliva. Everypony had his turn. I sat next to a tent, sliding my back against its canvas. From here, I saw those who were given to eat, those sent to the other group of tents and those like me, meant to die. I heard a cry, a mare had received the same treatment as I. Pony not worth of being fed, not worth to be saved, left to die of hunger in the mud.

I heard a loud remark and my eyes drifted on Babs Seed, now gritting her teeth. She had been given two bowls of food instead of one.

“Why suchcare?” Babs spat more than asked.

The agent seemed surprised.

“Agent Genepi told us soldiers needed twice the usual ration to stay healthy… just to keep the situation under control,” he replied with a strangely loud voice for everypony there to hear. “She also said that… that was you who asked for such an unfair measure.”

I heard whispers. Many eyes settled on Babs Seed whose face turned from her tanned color to a bright angry tomato red.

“Are you trying to buy me?”

Babs Seed steamed, glaring daggers at her soldiers hanging around as they all glanced away with ashamed faces, partners in such crime.

“The situation should be equal for everypony… They starve, we starve!” Babs grumbled when she blasted past the agent, pushing him aside before she stood in front of her companions. “You’re such a disgrace. I’ll have you punished.”

She swiveled on her armored boots and faced down the agent nose to nose, eyes screwed, sinking him deeper into the layer of mud covering the ground. I could see her teeth gritting together. If they had been made of metal, I swear sparks would have burst out of her jaws.

“You,” she growled like a diamond dog. “Another lie like that one and I’ll have you tongue cut neat.” She paused and looked at the messy crowd, agitating about the privilege treatment the military had enjoyed until now. "And if I find that you give yourself and your… friends more than the normal daily ration, I’ll have you begging for my misericord.”

Babs took symbolically her ration from one of the stupefied Ministry of Morale’s agents, bucked down once again the agent that had stood against her, trotted past the crowd and came face to face with me. She gave me her ration. I looked at the large cup of iron with palid puppy eyes, breaking into silent tears as it was the most meaningful and tragic gift I’d ever been given… A bowl of greyish food.

“I… I just can’t,” I replied with my broken voice, staring back at her, my ears hanging low.

“But you will,” Babs cajoled. “Don’t refuse a gift something that ponies around you are begging for.”

I looked at the content of the plate, and ate it slowly in front of Babs Seed’s hungry but understanding eyes.

“Thanks…” I repeated, again and again, until I choke on the disgust the meal brought in my mouth.

The taste was awful, acrid and raspy, sliding down the throat like sludge. Kept under Seed’s gaze I refused to look up and ate the bowl, slurp after slurp, choke after choke, as slowly as I could. But in the end, I pushed down the dish and wiped the edge of my lips with a trembling hoof. My stomach wretched and clashed with the putrefied meal, its growls of hunger changed into a cry of pain. Twice I had to swallow back the pre-vomit rushing my mouth. The taste was unbearable.

My eyes blurry with tears, I finally glanced at Babs Seed who had watched over me during my fight against the craving to vomit. Her face was streaked with a strange motherly smile. But her traits were sunken, trembling and bleached by her current weakened state. As always, she seemed to cast away her problems. She stretched a hoof in my direction, offering me some help to get up. Sniffing and swallowing with difficulty, I rose on my hooves, shivers shooting down my spine.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yes… Thanks…”

We walked away from the Ministry of Morale’s stalls, leaving nothing behind but burning eyes, my coughs of pain and some ill-minded agents. The eyes of the mares, stallions and children aimed at me, the poor little mare who’d been refused access to survival, like many others. Shame poured onto me like melted lead, swamping my skin, burning and anchoring like invisible shackles. Yet, the worse was my ears as the grumbles coming from Seed’s belly weren’t muffled completely by the thickness of her power armor. Even if she tried, the soldier she was couldn’t erase the painful frown of hunger who’d settled onto her face.

I hit rock bottom when that haunting and taunting sound entered my mind. The echo never really left me.

There I understood that I was not only a waste… I was also a useless parasite.

₪ ₪   Ѻ  ₪ ₪

Depressed I stared blankly at the roof of the tent. My eyes fixed on a clock hung onto a cable, paying attention to each of the hand’s ‘tic’ and ‘tac’. Bored and depressed, I counted the two hours left to spend before my rendezvous with Genepi. My hooves shuddered all on their own at the mere idea of what she could do to me.

Would she wipe out my memory? Making me once again a ‘good’, ‘caring’, and ‘obedient’ mare. Or would she simply kill me, like the anonymous mare? I couldn’t tell.

Babs Seed snored with difficulty. Her face rested onto the top of her desk, her mouth sprawling open drooling slightly. Often, she grunted with pain, rubbing mechanically her belly dying of hunger and turned over her chair, taking a new more comfortable position.

Left to myself in this just about silence, I had begun to study Babs Seed’s physical appearance as I never did before. Dark rings circled her red and bulgy eyes, opening intermittently in one of her unconscious jerks. Her disheveled mane was sometimes tied in the joint of her armor and fell onto her muzzle, fluttering softly with her steady breath. Her armor was old and bore many war scars, indents, mended bullet holes and large slashes that had took away the dark grey paint. The steel ranger’s common outfit was utterly scary. Soldiers were pony of war encased in an armor dealing death, keeping its wearer alive as much as possible. The TAD had tested a replica once. I had put it on to test the radiation leaks. Inside, the sensation of strength and power was numbing. It had been with pain that I had given it back. At the time I wanted to jump up to the roof and run a marathon while in this monstrous engineered creation that could wage war outside our borders.

I shook my head and focused back on Seed. She wasn’t a really beautiful mare. Like many soldiers, she had gone through fire, metal, and grief, leaving them either dead, disfigured, or changed forever. Now that I had stared at her for nearly an hour, I could tell. Apart from her armor and colors, the size of her neck’s tendons beamed her bulkiness. Her tanned henna brown skin was covered with small, nearly unnoticeable scars and burns. I only had my suppositions, an explosion? Shrapnel? A mishandled grenade? She would probably never answer my curious questions.

She almost looked alike Amethyst, apart from her main features, fur and mane’s colors. She had quite the same stature and steadiness. She also had that little shakes running under their skin, leaving me to believe that they subconscious had learnt to fear the unexpected. And of course, the same expression of disturbed sleep. Soldiers truly had no time free from fear… fear of the unknown, terror of the ambushes, and stress of war. Even their wounds of war had to chase them back in their dreams.

Thus I sat silent, alone with myself, waiting for the deadline to come, it was either the Ministry of Morale or the illness. I was so alone and left in my doubts I had begun to believe the latter could be right. But it couldn’t… that’s what my cutie mark was telling me, wasn’t it? I couldn’t die from radiation. I couldn’t!

I was horrifically alone among the noises, cries, screams and begs zooming through the air. Outside were ponies I never knew and would never talk to. Yet, their sudden fear of death and mental breakdowns were shared in by so much ponies that it couldn’t be left unheard. We were a big, anonymous and grieving family, which members were strangers to each other. Sometimes I understood the Ministry Mare, Fluttershy I think is her name. She wanted to care for everyone. Loneliness was an excruciating pain.

I would have sunk into that debilitating state of self-mourning for the next two hours if not for a soldier to enter inside the tent, his eyes bloodshot by the lack of sleep and stress. He shot a glance back at me. the unexpected ill mare I was, lying on a worn mattress inside a military tent, did nothing but stare at those red, teary and sleepless eyes. As I pointed Babs Seed out with my clumsy hoof, the soldier’s stare bounced away from me on his superior. I saw his ears perked in my direction, sneaking on every sound and movement I could initiate behind his back. Now I knew his problem… Paranoia. Maybe he feared I was some kind of threat. I chuckled at the consideration… this kind of consideration was better than nothing, wasn’t it? The stallion hesitated before shaking Babs’s shoulder.

“Ma’am, wake up,” he weaved forth, avoiding to wrestle her superior from sleep far too quickly. “There is something you must read.”

A scroll was visible, its tip sprouting out of his military saddle bag. I guessed it was an urgency, the pony taking no time to kick me out of the tent.

Babs Seed waked up slowly, her jaw slowly backing up to place with a raucous mumble. She rubbed her eyes, passed a hoof behind her ears, and scratched away the dried sweat that had ran over her face. The retching smell stuck into my nose. It had been an ‘eternity’ nopony had washed here, the water being accounted for and rationed. We had been bathing in filth and reeking stenches without even noticing. I pushed the back on my hooves onto my nose, trying to wipe the smell off it. I coughed, sniffing my own personal odor.

“What, initiate?” Seed shot with an angry and broken voice at the soldier.

The ‘initiate’, whatever it meant, shrunk sheepishly in the corner. He showed her the sealed scroll.

“Gimme that report.”

She snatched it off the soldier’s hoof and cracked it open with violence, tearing apart a piece of the paper. I saw her eyes ran across the writings with a maddening face. When she ended her reading, Seed closed her eyes, breathing in fits and starts trying to calm down her anger. Was it fear too that I can see hidden behind that façade?  She shook her head and turned over me.

“I must go, Vault,” she stated with her characteristic cold and unnerving voice. “Something… needs my attention.”

I couldn’t see my face. But the way Babs glanced at me from her chair was how a freaked filly would looked down at a dying corpse. I said nothing. I just nodded.

“Just go through it,” she comforted me with a high-pitched voice.

She sounded off to me. But she never gave me time to reply. She went through the flappy entrance of the tent with the soldier and disappeared. Her duty called. Me, I had nothing to answer to.

I couldn’t stay there for two hours, alone and eating on my sorrow. I had to move on, even if it was hiding myself from the truth. I found the strength to get up and crawled out of the tent. Peering my head out of the canvas, I watched upon a nearly empty street formed by the endless continuity of tents. I saw a young pony licking on the radiation burns scoring his flesh. A young filly sat next to him, her lips quaking and eyes flowing out with tears.

“I’m hungry.”

“I know.”

“Why did they say no?”

“I… It’s my fault.”

I bit in my lower lips with sadness. How many ponies had the Ministry of Morale condemned today? The only answer was far too many. I walked down the path carved between the tents, but something plucked my bandages. It was the filly. My eyes widened. Please, don’t look at me with those eyes.

“I’m hungry,” she repeated to me.

“I’ve got nothing for you,” I say, knowing the implication of my words. “I can’t help you, sorry.”

Surprisingly, the filly accepted it without a whine. She slowly returned to her brother, or I guessed he was hers and sat in silence, tears rushing her eyes. Then she broke into sobs, and I left the place.

Walking by a corner I felt something itching on my side. Curious, I found between the rags of bandages the little morsel of bread Seed had given me. Shattering like crystal, the bit rested between my hooves. I stared behind me… at the corner where I had shaken off my eyes the two weakened ponies. Should I go back? I…

The truth is I couldn’t. I buried my thoughts and walked away, head low and ashamed. I bit in the glassy piece of bread, feeling it break and crack between my teeth. I ate it all, hiding my selfish cowardliness. I didn’t even cry and I continued my wander deeper in the camp.

There were not so many things to do. No entertainment, no waterpark or fun farm, no real open space to game properly, and of course no real place to think straight without being disturbed by the ambient noise. All I could see was groups of ponies, often three or four gathered in a circle around one or two dices carved into wood. I saw ponies gambled with everything they could find, from scraps of metal to their own rations.

After a fifteen-minute walk, my attention settled on five young ponies playing jacks with small pebbles, random scraps and two pieces of wool. Three of them were earth ponies, all joking and smiling. I guessed they had set in the rules that magic was cheating. The two other ponies, unicorns, kept themselves from flaring their horns horns. They had to use their hooves for once and it even broke a smile on my face to see them struggle playing. I hadn’t played jacks since my childhood and seeing how it had evolved captivated me. When one player’s turn came on, he had to throw the jacks he had previously collected into the air, and jacks could be anything. Then he had to shout a number, take this much of the ones left onto the ground, and catch back his falling jacks mid-air. A ‘who’s got the biggest dick’ challenge to be honest. As the game built on, the risk each player was taking to ensure a victory had to increase. The winner was the one owning the most jacks at the end of the round. It was historically a griffin’s gambling game and not so many ponies were good at it. Yet, it was still fun but you needed money to play, and the players hadn’t any bits on them. The question of the loser’s fate came to me.

“Tag, you’re hit!” all voices laughed but one.

One of the unicorns had lost, sitting poorly with his two jacks in front of his hooves.

“Shit… So, what’s the forfeit?”

“You’re gonna sing for us,” the earth ponies snickered.

The unicorn sighed. I hid my smile.

“You know I’m bad at that thing.”

“We don’t. That’s why you gonna show off!”

The game had attracted attention, and already half a dozen of curious ponies like me had stepped forward, seeking for an entertainment we lacked of here.

“Alright, alright,” the unicorn said, moving his hooves up and down to calm the loathing.

Rubbing his chin he ransacked his mind. He cleared his voice, spitting away a bit of viscous saliva, and inspired.

“Okay let’s go.”

He clapped his hooves together, giving for his friends and the uncanny spectators a simple rhythm to follow. It was slow, and enough heady to fix itself in my mind. I mumbled it softly, taken in the song.

“In a world shiverin’ in agony, what is left to see

For the wondering pony, alone in discrepancy

We’ve walked the hard roads of hopes that erode

Seeking for one’s abode, in a world hallowed

The unicorn forced silence among the watchers, his voice slow and pitched like a soft plea. An ode to our shared in plight. His song paced forward.

“Wherever I may go, Whatever I can see

My eyes suffer from sleepless nights

And watch upon dead seas and a flying crow

Flying over my body, fallen from days’ frostbites”

He looked at the sky with this sad, heart breaking face, grief-stricken by those times where sun hid by the sky. When was the last time we all had seen Celestia’s star? All we had was this know shady and smoky grey layer above our head.

“Where are the smile on the filly’s face

This world’s now just our disgrace

Did we deserve all of this, a world put to agony

Where we witnesses, are only left to see”

I thought about the filly, begging for food as she gripped in my bandages. My eyes fluttered with my lips. I kept listening.

“I…”

“Oh, come on!” a pony behind me called. “Go for the fun songs.”

I turned my head. I nearly gasped. The stallion, an earth pony, was one of them. One of the Ministry of Morale’s employees, not properly an agent, but one of its workers nonetheless. He had this pinkish color in his eye and fur that reminded me the Ministry Mare, Pinkie Pie. His bright yellow and still groomed mane shone. Finally, even if he had not the same brown coat of the ‘armed’ branch of his Ministry, he still had one Pinkie Pie’s coin pinned on his chest. His cutie mark was a bright orange vuvuzela from which burst noise. He was one of the ‘fun’ workers, whose role had had to throw parties throughout Equestria, which had become creepier and stranger over the years.

Ponies put space in between. The stallion sighed, knowing this situation was awkward but legitimate.

“No, really. I’m not against a bit of fun,” he asserted. “Really…”

“What’s your name?” the unicorn singer asked.

“Magic Trick.”

Many rolled their eyes and laughed lowly. I did too, such name was like selling one self’s relation to the Ministry.

“So you want something more hectic,” the unicorn said, fighting back the smile on his lips. Then stared at his four other friends.

“No, not that one!” His unicorn neighbor warned. “Tis just coming problems.”

“Hey, I’m not the pony who asked for it.”

Four of the five players grinned back to the pink stallion who raised an eyebrow as sole answer. The unicorn stretched and cracked his hooves joints together, yawned and readied himself.

“Do you know that song?” the unicorn asked to his accomplices.

“Of course we know,” the three earth ponies broke into laughter. “And sure, we gonna sing along!”

Clapping their hooves together, the choir gave us a beat to follow, producing song from the throat, their mouths closed shut. The unicorn accompanied the rhythm with tuned nods. Only his horned friend refused to follow.

“Alrighty then…

It’s a new day rising over Equestria

Ponies awake to birds’ orchestra

Opening my windows over the city

It’s already agitating and full of glee

Descending the stairs far quickly

Kissed mom and dad dearly. Really!

Took ma bag to the dam’ school

Promise pop’, I won’t be a mule

Friends greet, let’s have some fun

Just a bit, kick down the sprite-bot!

Yeah… just a pinch!”

All together the four youngsters beamed out in one unison.

“No, no, no, don’t tell mom

Oh, no, no, don’t tell the MoM”

I saw Magic Trick pinched his lips when the last verse erupted. He was laughing. Smiles. For once in a long, long time I saw genuine smile on the face of starving ponies. It ached my cheeks to smile, unused to such spree of laughter. It was contagious.

“Teachers gonna go all wrong

Ain’t gonna buck up in my tongue

Teacher! I must go, you’re to shun

Somepony waits in the rail station

And with friends I spree away

Yeah, ma friends ain’t the ones that stay!

Idle we ain’t, ‘n ma brother is kind’ blunt

Cuz’ he’s just come back from the front

Tonight’s a party that we have to throw

To our ones dearly, we’ll all aglow!

Yeah, straight to the memory!”

“Oh come on, get your shit together and go!” the unicorn picked on his sibling.

The fifth of the young ponies raised his eyes and joined the chant.

“No, no, no, don’t tell mom

Oh, no, no, don’t tell the MoM”

One of the earth ponies took two pebbles in his hooves, striking them together, making the beat gaining in momentum.

“’Good to see Equestria again’ he said

Zebras he bled with his fella now dead

He told me war was kind of a mess

So tonight is all his to relieve stress

Ma big bro’, best bro’ in the world

Brought some zebra pot t’be furled!

Taken over one he slit open

Fightin’ on Manehattan’s border

Tonight we gonna smoke the fun

Hide the light ‘n smash sprite-bots!

Yeah… just a ton!”

Ponies sung around, hooves stomping the ground.

“No, no, no, don’t tell mom

Oh, no, no, don’t tell the MoM”

Still singing, I saw one of them shook his head toward one of the tangent street. Looking ahead I saw real Ministry of Morale’s agents looming.

“He told me broaden ye horizons

World ain’t only made of petty guns

Look at the sun, sparkling warmth like canon

Feel its light, happiness is its might

Look at the bright side, yo friends’ smiles

Life be hard, times make us feel exiles!

War may split ponykind apart

But outsmart, keep that smile in your heart

Tonight’ll be off the chart, I cuss it

Forget the reality, we MoM’s bandit!

Yeah, fuck that twit!”

The all got up and fled away, leaving the jacks behind. We still heard the last refrain until they completely disappear.

“No, no, no, don’t tell mom

Oh, no, no, don’t tell the MoM”

The ministry’s agents stormed in front of us, leaving behind an achy cloud of dust. I coughed and rubbed my eyes and hooves together. Mud had splattered on my face. My cheeks were hot from smiling, I wasn’t even crying. I felt good, this kind of relief in the chest where heavy weights were suddenly snatched away. Even for a few seconds, happiness was with me.

But, like everything, it didn’t last long. The spectators scattered across the road, returning to their daily routine. Me? I simply put my head low and started my wander all again. I would have if not for a pink hoof to stretch and reach my shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

The stallion called Magic Trick looked at me with gentle eyes. He hugged me. I stuttered at the unexpected move, squeaking to him to release me. He didn’t, keeping me in this furry lock. It was warm, touching.

“I…”

He put his hoof in front of my lips, cutting me off.

“Be happy.”

“I just can’t,” I mumbled. “I… Genepi is going to gut me.”

He gave me a hard look.

“Don’t you talk like that. Genepi is… maybe not the kindest mare in Equestria. She is harsh but fair. I’m sure she won’t do anything.”

I avoided his eyes, staring down at my hooves. I saw small droplets fell on my front kneecaps.

“It’s raining,” he comforted me.

No rain was tickling my back and ears. Despite, I nodded.

“Yeah, it’s raining,” I acquiesced.

He hugged me tighter. Slowly, I tended my front legs up to his shoulders and gave him back the affection. It was warm, living. There was no blood dripping from a cut on his neck. No cold embrace from a dead body. No absence of vitals. He was hugging me. And he was alive, appreciating his place and moment like I couldn’t. I wanted to thank him, but the words lacked in my mouth, my lungs running slow on air. Thanks… Thanks… thanks…

“The party can’t continue forever, you know!” I acknowledged. “There is an end to everything. We just have to find to good moments to thrive upon and kick down the road the parts we strived on. Be happy.”

“What’s the point in being happy?”

“You’ll be better than you prior self. And if you’re better, you’ll share your change with others. And the others will follow you. To be better. It’s an ordeal. But it’s also a lifelong achievement.”

He winked at me.

“Don’t worry, Genepi may seem like a big bad mare, but she is fair. That’s all she needs. There is worse in the world.”

I opened again my mouth, only to have Magic Trick close it once again.

“Don’t tell me that Equestria could be better first. I once met Princess Luna, she told me ‘Change thyself before changing a world, flaws come from ponies, not from nature, and everypony is bounded to weaknesses, big or small, strong or weak. It’s to us to know about our limits. Only then we’ll know what to do.”

He was wiser than me, smarter and happier. His words were comforting but not enough strong to get over my fear of Genepi. I knew she would… might shred me to pieces. Those piercing violet eyes would set on me and I would die. What’s the name of that beast already… A co… Cock… no really, that was wrong… cockatrice! Maybe Genepi would win in a stare contest. But the greenish mare would first petrify me. Then, what Balloon hadn’t done right would be her lot to finish.

“Don’t worry,” he rambled.

Magic Trick looked down at his hoof where I spotted a watch.

“Damn I’m late.” He freed me from his embrace and trotted away. “See you later! I’m sure everything will be alright. Tell her you’re my friend.”

“Bye…” I whispered, waiving back at him among the alleys of the camp.

I slapped myself. I hadn’t asked him where was Genepi’s tent. I was dumb. Yet, it still meant I have time before going to her, my executor. Dammit Vava, stop thinking about that! You had one hour left, do something useful that time.

I trotted from where Magic had left me, wandering further in the large byways of the encampment. I was desperately searching for distraction. Anything that would relieve me from the fear whirling in my chest seemed good enough.

Somehow, I managed to come back to where the Ministry of Morale distributed the rations. At this time of the afternoon, ponies had deserted the place and the temporary barracks had been dismantled. I doubted the agents had been able to distribute food to everypony from here. They had to relocate somewhere else in the camp. Thus, the place was barren, and because no tents had an opening on the plaza, forming a long square-shaped wall of canvas, I had found here an island of tranquility. Walking in, I appreciated a relative silence. I sat down in the middle, putting as much space as possible between the claustrophobia from walking aimlessly inside the narrow streets of the camp and me.

Folding my limbs below my body, taking care not to muddy my bandages, I looked down at my back. I could still feel Genepi’s hoof passing on my melted skin. I pushed the bandages aside, unveiling the Swift Justice Corp.’s piece of junk now fused to my back. Fitting over my shoulder blades, the piece of black steel and aluminium was heavy and exhausting. Acting as an armor reinforcement, the way it had melted in my skin was impeding some of my movements. I couldn’t turn myself completely… Well, I wasn’t going to watch my butt on a daily basis anyway. I was too old for this kind of youngster’s things.

Now looking at my body. I inspected and checked every inch of my skin, looking where itches were the strongest, where the skin was the more wrinkled. I saw scars, vestiges of my age and past ordeals. My hooves were soar from walking endlessly in the daedal of tents. The run from Canterlot had also been harsh on me. I look at my upper left front limb, the armband was still here, its small black orb still glowing dully with a yellow diode.

I had never tried the saddlebag. I had managed to make it work under stress and pressure. I shuddered, thinking about Canterlot, Chrome, Rusty… everypony. I had tried to help them but in the end we had been scattered and left on our own. And I had fled. I promised myself I would never go back there.

I focused on the saddlebag, trying to consciously move the mechanisms inside. I wasn’t easy. I often got a swift reaction, cogwheels put to work for a second before silencing themselves. I concentrate my attention on a metallic arm within, eyeballing it and forcing myself to think about moving it. It wasn’t really effective. The arm jerked and span inside the saddlebag but never stretched out. After ten minutes trying I changed of idea and looked at my surroundings. I needed something for the arm to fetch. The saddlebag might have been a marvelous piece of technology, but if I couldn’t use it. The saddlebag was nothing more than twelve useless pounds thrust over my shoulders. I spotted a bowl, emptied and half buried in the mud. I stretched a hoof but was unable to reach it. Something punctured my left ear, whizzing past my head. Wincing, I reached my ear and my hoof connected with something. The clatter buzzing in my eardrum, I looked aside and saw one of the arm stretched over me. It had gripped on the bowl, its three pointy fingers bloodied.

The papercuts on my ear itched, rubbing it amplifying the unpleasant feeling. While my hoof was pushing on the superficial slash, my eyes looked at the arm. I wanted it to come back to me, bringing me the bowl. But it didn’t move.

“Oh, come on. Why it’s always ‘don’t think about it, it’s natural!’, or a kind of shit like that…”

I closed my eyes, changing my strategy. I thought about the arm, trying to visualize it in my mind, trying to feel it. I snickered. Well, I guess it’s like a paraplegic trying to move his legs. Damn, I shouldn’t have said that. The bowl clattered in front of me. Opening my eyes I saw the arm moving, its joints twisting and moving up and down in some kind of fluid and beautiful manoeuvers. But it stopped straight once I had stared at it.

“Celestia on Luna turning around the moon!” I raged.

I was done with that game. I had to go…

The arm folded back inside the bag in fits and starts, moved once its tips out of the pocket and finally backed in. It was to die of exasperation. I closed my eyes and rested my head upon my hooves, sighing.

“Ahem,” burst somepony behind me.

A massive jumpscare later and a few minutes past hyperventilating, I stood in front of a strange stallion. Clothed in a dark grey and folded piece of tissue which covered his dark grey fur and brown mane, the pony looked at me with glassy blank eyes. A purse hung at his side, its leather old and wretched.

“Hi…” I stumbled upon my words, slightly not reassured by his silent and stoic stance.

He scrutinized me. Looking at the remains of bandages still wrapped on my legs, he next titled his head on the side, wondering what the big piece of metal on my back was. Then, still silent, he eyed me while his hoof reached his bag and drew out a long scroll and a paper.

“What’s your name?” he spoke.

His voice forced my hooves back. My hooves palpitated at the breath taking sound, Raucous, like two saw trying to mow down each other. I look down at the scroll in his hooves, stretching endlessly on the ground until its lower part crawled up the pony’s side up to his bag. I was close enough to peer an eye at the content of the scroll. There were countless names written down, next to a sentence, a word, or nothing.

He wasn’t looking at me, but through me. He was blind, explaining that taint in his eyes. A stroke of wind passed on us and his messy mane fell onto his face. He was tapping his hoof on the ground without any sound.

“Ah… Eh… Vault… Vault Skin, why?”

He wrote it down.

“What is your goal?” he asked with the same smoker’s creepy tone.

“I… What? I don’t know.”

“You should. Everypony has a role.”

Taken aback, I coughed and sniffed. I had caught a cold. I wiped my nose and opened my eyes again.

“I don’t underst…”

He was gone…

I woke up, my head still lain onto my achy hooves. A sudden burst of stress clacked in my chest, what time was it? Looking up at the sky, I found myself facing only clouds. Running away from the plaza, looking behind me if not black coated pony was hidden among the cracks of the ground, I rushed to the first pony wearing a Ministry of Morale’s outfit and asked him where was Genepi’s tent.

I run up to the location and found it. It was not really difficult, though. Genepi’s tent was a massive piece of fabric on which somepony had painted the widely smiling and eyeballing face of Pinkie Pie, it just needed the hated ‘forever!!!’ to complete the masterpiece.

Running with sweat I entered. I was quite stupid, running to a rendezvous I didn’t want to go to. But it was my education, my mother taught me to be on time, always. The tent was empty of light. A few makeshift desks lying here and there, a large locker, many paper and reports I refused to look at, fearing somepony would caught me, and one futon with a… a faceless, light blue pony plush the size of a hoof.

“That’s creepy,” I mumbled, thinking to everything but a maddened agent Genepi playing with a kid’s toy.

Genepi was nowhere to be found. Standing still, I scanned the place hoping to found anything valuable.

“Rubbish!” A mare boomed outside the tent.

Purely on instinct, I hid behind the locker. Peeping out over its side, I saw Genepi, quickly followed by Brancard. The young buck’s face was white, scared and panting. Behind him snuck Babs Seed, closing the queue.

“What do you mean, it woke up?” Genepi continued, betraying a lack of understanding and trust.

“I swear. It was my shift at the hospital area and I was in charge of a mare dying of balefire burns. She convulsed and died of complication.” He took a break, breathing loudly. “How long will you hide that we’re swimming in radiation to everypony!”

A hoof connected to Brancard’s jaw, flinging him on the ground through mere strength. Babs interposed instantly.

“Should I remember you we don’t have enough RadAway for more than thirty thousand refugees! With among them more than five thousand that won’t live to see the next week? I had to make a choice. Can’t you understand, Doctor? I have orders to apply, and pony to police.”

“So you just kept everything to yourself.”

Only Babs stopped Genepi from unleashing her fury. Brancard wasn’t even fighting, massaging his jaw. Genepi bit her lips, looked aside and grumbled.

“And what if you’re right, what happened?” she conceded.

“We put the dead body in the mass grave like you’d asked for every dead. The grave was already full and ready to be proceeded, like stated. But, before we lit up the flames, her body started moving.”

“Nonsense!” Genepi retorted. “Dead are dead.”

“The agents put the grave on fire, but I saw her… it stood up!”

“We’re not in a zombie movie, Mister Brancard,” Babs Seed finally spoke, siding with Genepi. “Ain’t gonna be any brain eating monster on my watch.”

“But I saw it rise on its hooves!”

“Yeah, keep talking,” Genepi consented. “For once I agree with Babs…”

“Sergeant Seed.”

“Maybe.” She waved a hoof nonchalantly at her unexpected ally, still staring at Brancard. “Dead are dead, Doctor. Haven’t you learnt that in school? Even Fluttershy’s megaspell couldn’t bring back to life ponies. So don’t bring me that twaddle about trotting dead. You’re just stressed and tired.”

Brancard opened his mouth, but no quick response spiked at the Agent. His lowered his eyes and shut up.

“Yeah, I’m stressed. I’ve seen in three and a half days more ponies dying that in a lifetime. Two thousand thirty one deaths, in three and a half days.” He broke into tears.

“Oh for Luna’s sake,” Babs worked up. “I know you. You served under me, Brancard. We’ve done two campaigns together against the zebras. You’ve been on a Battlefield more than once before.”

His tears rolled down his cheeks as he lifted his head at Seed.

“It’s different, they were soldiers. It was their jobs. We’re talking about civilians.”

“What happened, happened… Stop trying to do more than you can. Help the ponies that’ll survive. Just…” Seed gritted her teeth. She hated what she was going to say. “Stop pretending you can save every pony. Don’t be a Fluttershy.”

Ouch. That was a hard sip to swallow.

Sadness rushed out of Brancard’s eyes, replaced with anger. He unbuttoned his vest, breaking away two or three seams in the process, revealing the Element of Kindness’s cutie mark sewed on the inside. Three pink butterflies. Everypony liked that mark, it was one of the last symbol that wasn’t related to war or death.

“You know what it is, sergeant?” he blustered. “It’s a life commitment.”

I gulped as Brancard threw his tantrum.

“You’ve changed, Seed. Over the last eight years I know you, you’ve just slip away. I just see a heartless bitch hidden behind a crackled mask of sympathy.”

He punched the canvas used as a door and walked out, expressionless.

“What a mule,” Seed erupted, Genepi laughing in her back. “Stop that, he really does a good job… When he wants to.”

“I believe you… sergeant,” Genepi played on the word, before she turned in my direction. “Stop hiding yourself. I know you’re there.”

My ears perked up. I stood up, facing a surprised Babs Seed and Agent with a lot of hidden resources. I thought I had hidden myself well enough, though.

“How did…”

She showed me her cutie mark, a large wide and white eye, whatever it meant. Babs blasted me with angry eyes, one eyelid twitching haphazardly. She definitely hated being spying on.

“I see that you came earlier for our little… rendezvous,” she croaked.

Babs Seed cleared her throat.

“Ain’t going to be possible,” she disagreeded. “I need her on the spot.”

Babs Seed wandered forward and occupied the open space between Genepi and me.

“You worked for the Testing and Approval Department of the Wartime Tech’,” She inquired.

I nodded in return, catching the expression of discontent on Genepi’s face from the corner of my eyes.

“So you know a bit about Structural Technology?”

Still nodding, I whimpered. I had strictly no idea what it was but it was better than facing Genepi.

“I need an engineer.” She glanced at Genepi who raised her eyes, moving her hoof, telling the steel ranger she wasn’t part of that dialogue. “The Ministry of Morale, along with the steel rangers, owned all the tech to make that camp run for months.”

Probably, but she would never squish mike like an orange between her augmented armored hooves if there wasn’t a problem.

“Somepony broke the purifying crystal of my regiment. There is no water available for the camp and I need a high ranked technology specialist to retrieve one. And the only pony I know here to be one is you.”

“Y- Yes,” I squeaked.

“Can you help me?”

“Of course,” I gasped.

Looking down at me from behind Seed’s back, Genepi smirked. I believed she was purring. Why?

“But I don’t know where to look for,” I replied.

“Shattered Hoof.”

Even Genepi stopped her grimace and walked up to Seed and me.

“You mean…”

“The re-education facility has a purifying crystal,” Seed clarified. “It’s twenty kilometers from here.”

“Can’t we go in a near village and take the water reserves?” I asked.

“We can’t, Equestria is blown away and we’re in a relatively safe part of the countryside. My scouts say the surrounding landmarks and locations are completely destroyed… deadly even.

“I refuse to let you go in there,” Agent Genepi suddenly bawled, cutting us off.

Babs and I turned our head at her, surprise. A drop of sweat ran down her neck. It was the first time I saw the agent with another face other than her wide grin of delectation.

“I can’t let the clumsy hooves of a… engineer and the Steel Rangers go in there alone.”

“So, you prefer leaving us to die from thirst here…”

Genepi was thinking, her hawkish eyes looming over my face, likely searching for any idea among my wrinkles.

“Why not send with us a pony from the Ministry of Morale,” I proposed.

Seed’s hold on me tightened. I nearly shrieked. Genepi was fretting on her hooves, thinking about who sending in there with me. My meeting with her was only delayed.

“Why not Magic Trick?”

Her eyebrows stretched up and she smiled, the long and sick grin that scared me so much.

“Yes. Why not.”

Footnote: Level Up – Survivor Mare LvL.3

New Perk: Speechless – while in a dialogue, if you did not initiate it, you gain a +10% in speech for your next action in a neutral/hostile situation, only by letting your protagonist ramble over per five minutes of silence.