Fallout: Equestria - Talent Pending

Chapters

Chapter 1: Midnight Star
Chapter 2: The Crystal Empire
Chapter 3: Of Stables and Nightmares
Chapter 4: Traveling
Chapter 5: Hot Springs and Raiders
Under Edit, Review and Rewrite

Chapter 1: Midnight Star

Chapter 1
Midnight Star

The room was dark, the only source of light from the gap under the door. I was barely awake, and the sound of my breathing was the only sound to be heard, that is, until somepony knocked on the door.

“Midnight, are you up yet?” a young mares voice called through the door.

A tired groan was my only response.

“Midnight!” the voice called louder.

“Mmm… What?” I moaned from inside my dark bedroom, wondering what in Equestria Misty Veil wanted.

“Mum wants to see you, like, right now, so get up. I’ll see you later sis, I’m off to work,” the voice called, then I heard the sound of trotting hooves leaving the door.

I groaned again as I switched on my bedside lamp, slowly sitting up and rubbing the sleep from my eyes with white hooves. Yawning, I stretched and flapped my wings a few times, then checked my pipbuck for the time, 8am. I didn’t want to get up, I’d wanted to stay in bed and mope ever since my dad had died last month, but mum wanted me, so I guess I had to get up.
Dragging myself out of bed, I stretched some more, then pulled on my red and blue jacket. It was too bright and gaudy, but I had to wear it, everypony in Stable 35 had to wear it.

Eventually I opened my bedroom door, squinting at the brightness of the hallway beyond. Slowly I made my way down the hall to the living room, where my mum sat. She was a pegasus, like me, with a white coat and a two toned blue mane, which was tied in a bun with a black ribbon, the symbol of a widow. She sat on the couch reading some sappy romance novel from the Stable’s library, but she put it down when she heard me coming.

“Good morning Midnight,” she said with a smile.

“Morning mum,” I replied flatly. “Misty said you wanted me?”

“Yes dear, I’d like you to go out and socialise for once, you can’t stay cooped up in your room all the time. You also need to plan your 17th birthday party for next week,” she told me.

“I told you I’m not having a party" I exclaimed with a groan " I don’t want one, and I certainly don’t need one, especially not on that day…”

“Fine, I’ll combine my birthday party with yours then, like always. I’m not letting you miss out on having a party,” she said, dismissing my complaints. “Now go to the cafeteria and have breakfast, your sister and I are not going to bring you food anymore.”

I sighed, knowing it would be useless to argue with her. “Oh fine,” I huffed, then turned and left, not seeing the sad smile on her face.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wandered slowly towards the cafeteria, not glancing at the happy, colourful murals covering the walls of the halls. The Overmare had tasked Stable’s the team of ponies talented in painting with creating lovely murals on the walls in any place somepony might go, and every year the murals were changed. I myself was okay at painting and arts in general, but it wasn’t my special talent, so I couldn’t help them.

I thought back to what mum had said. Our birthdays were on the same day, and when I was younger, I’d have a party during the day, and she would have hers at night, but the last few years I hadn’t bothered having a party of my own, preferring to combine mine with mum’s. This year though, I didn’t want a party at all, and maybe never again…

“Hey Midnight Star,” a voice called from behind me. I grimaced; I had not wanted to run into Maple Swirl today, well not ever really, that unicorn hated me with a passion, but loved tormenting me. I just hoped Rosebloom wasn’t…

“We thought you must have disappeared, or died, we’d hoped it was the latter,” another voice sounded. I sighed, why did those two have to nearly always be together, it was bad enough with just the one of them.

“I’m not in the mood for your bullying,” I said, speeding up.

The two unicorns easily caught up and walked beside me. “So,” the pale yellow coated, red maned Rosebloom said. “I see your still the most useless pony in the stable then.” She was just starting to show signs of being pregnant, and no doubt she would use it to her advantage to get extra food or to get out of work or something.

“I guess you couldn’t sleep well enough to get a cutie mark in it,” the chestnut coated, honey maned Maple Swirl added.
I frowned and walked faster, but they kept up.

“How old are you turning soon? 17? Wow, that must be a Stable record or something, we all got our cutie marks years ago, and you still don’t have yours. How does it feel to be so useless?” Rosebloom taunted.

“I’m not useless,” I hissed through my teeth, but I knew they were right.

Everypony had their cutie marks by the time they were 12, I still didn’t have one. I’d tried everything possible, from maintenance stuff, to karate, to singing, to cooking, and I could do all of it fairly well, but not well enough to gain a cutie mark in any of it.

It was Stable rule that nopony could start working until they had their cutie mark, and I could tell that everypony was getting annoyed with me getting things everypony else got without the hard work. The only reason anypony put up with me was because the Overmare was my great-something grandma, but that didn’t stop Rosebloom and Maple Swirl, and a few others, from bullying me.

“Oh of course you are useless Midnight Star, but your younger sister on the other hoof, well, I’m glad she’s not useless, or she wouldn’t be able to make me my wedding dress for my wedding with Star Hoof,” Maple Swirl said with a grin.

“Oh don’t brag Maple dear, remember, Midnight here had the biggest crush on your coltfriend in school,” Rosebloom said, then laughed. “But then she also had a crush on my husband too.”

“Oh yeah, didn’t she, like, tell Sunset Helm that she loved him the day before your wedding?” Maple asked, as if I wasn’t there. I really wished I could have kicked their teeth in.

“Yeah, she did, but luckily he loves me and would never leave me for the likes of her.” She smirked, as if some particularly evil thought had crossed her mind. “Who would want Midnight Star anyway? She’s a useless blank flank, and besides, her wings are way to big and ugly for such a small pegasus.”

I folded my wings tighter against my sides. I’ll admit, I was smaller than most mares my age, but I wasn’t that small. She was right about the wings though, they were bigger and differently shaped than other pegasus wings, they looked more like the wings of the old princess ponies, plus they were purple tinged, not white like the rest of my coat.

The pair kept gossiping as if I wasn’t there as we approached the atrium, mostly insults and laughing at things I had done in the past. Couldn’t they just grow up and go live their lives, rather than help to make my life a misery?

The atrium was huge, 10 storeys high with a massive oak tree growing in the middle and a few clouds near the ceiling. It was the only place in the stable big enough for a pegasus to properly fly, though there were only three ponies in the Stable who were able to fly, me, my mum and the Overmare. Quickly planning my escape, I slowed a little. The two mares didn’t notice and kept walking, and were soon ahead of me as we entered the Atrium. Spreading my wings, I took off, surging up, up, up, till I was sitting up on one of the clouds. Below, Rosebloom and Maple Swirl had just noticed I was gone, not that they seemed to care, they laughed and continued on to the cafeteria.

I sighed and laid on my back to stare at the ceiling, painted blue in an attempt to mimic the sky. As much as I hated them, I knew what they said was true, I was useless to the Stable, and everypony knew it. It was in the rules of Stable 35 that nopony could start working until they had their cutie mark, so I couldn’t work until I had one.

I wished my dad was here, he could always cheer me up when I was down. He was a popular stallion, the Stable’s number 1 musician, and all his songs were played over the radio, except the few he made just for me. He was the best dad anypony could ever have, and I hated that he was taken from me so soon.

My mum was also a popular mare in the Stable, a talented seamstress. Misty Veil had taken over as the Stable’s best seamstress when mum retired last year. I sighed, and then heard my stomach grumble. I needed to eat, but I didn’t want to go to the cafeteria anymore because Maple Swirl and Rosebloom would be there. That only left one place I could go to get food.

Jumping off my cloud, I swooped down onto a little balcony, at the top of the Atrium, from which somepony could easily see everything that was happening in the Atrium. I opened to door behind me and stepped through into a cosy apartment, the Overmare’s apartment. Going to the little kitchen, I got an apple and started munching on it as I looked around the apartment.

It was the only apartment in the Stable with a kitchen, everypony else had to eat in the cafeteria. Other than that, there was a lovely fireplace, which I had sat in front of many times before, and a big, soft couch, perfect for a nap. Framed photos of ponies long gone decorated the walls, giving a snapshot of history, and a bookshelf took up a whole wall, filled with story books, photo albums, history books, and the Overmare’s private collection of romance novels. There were 2 doors in the room, one to the bedroom, and one to the Overmare’s office.

Finishing the apple, I threw the core down the rubbish chute and went back to the balcony door, planning to leave, when a voice sounded behind me. “Oh, Midnight Star! What a pleasant surprise!”

“Hey grandma,” I replied with a smile as I turned around, only to be embraced by my great-something grandma, who was also Stable 35’s Overmare.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me grandma, it makes me sound old,” she said, smiling.

“Would you rather I call you Overmare Princess Cadance?” I asked with a smirk.

“No way, just call me Cadance,” Cadance replied, pulling me to sit on the couch with her. It was easy for her, since she was a big, strong alicorn and I was just a smaller than usual pegasus.

“It feel’s weird to call you that though, it always has and it always will,” I protested.

“Oh fine, I give up, you can call me grandma then,” She said with a smile. “Now where have you been hiding? I haven’t seen you since your dad passed.”

My slowly brightening mood plummeted to darkness. “Umm… I’ve been in my room…”

Noticing my change of mood, Cadance pulled me into another hug. “You know death is an inevitable part of our lives, right dear?”

“I know… But why did he have to die so soon, couldn’t you have saved him?” I asked, a tear in my purple eye.

“You know I can’t save a ponies life Midnight, I don’t know any healing magic that powerful. What I do know is that your father, Harmonic Tune, was a fine stallion, who is in a better place now. I also know that he wouldn’t want you to be moping around, especially not so close to your 17th birthday party.” Cadance gave me a tight squeeze then let me go.

I sighed and nodded. “I guess.”

“Now, why did you come to visit?” Cadance asked.

“Umm, to get something to eat I guess,” I replied as my tummy rumbled again.

She sighed. “Rosebloom and Maple Swirl are giving you trouble again?”

“As always.”

“Midnight, you need to start standing up for yourself.”

“It’s a bit hard to do that when I have no friends, and I’m the oldest blank flank ever, and I’m the only pegasus to ever have alicorn wings. Nopony in the Stable likes me, they merely put up with me.” I told her.

“That’s nonsense, there are plenty of ponies who like you. You need to stop letting what those two unicorns say get to you,” Cadance told me sternly.

“Okay grandma…”

“Now, let’s have some brunch, you can help by cutting apples, we’ll have apple fritters!” The pink alicorn smiled as she trotted over to her kitchen.

I grinned. “Okay!” Everypony in Stable 35 knew that my grandma’s apple fritters were to die for, though most ponies only got them when she made them for parties. I, on the other hoof, got them nearly every time I visited Cadance in her apartment. She once told me that she had gotten the recipe from her good friend, Applejack. Cadance told me lots of stories from the war and before, like about how Stable 35 had been built big enough to house and feed the entire population of the Crystal Empire for over 1000 years.

Every pony in the Stable had crystal pony ancestors, but because the Crystal heart had been destroyed in a zebra attack, no-pony was crystally anymore.

In school, we got taught about how Princess Cadance had given money to Stabletech to ensure that our Stable would be completely self-sustaining, and she had been there to oversee its construction. As a result, our stable housed a small apple orchard, a wheat field, a cotton field, a farm for chickens, cows and sheep, and extensive vegetable gardens.

So I helped Cadance make apple fritters, then we sat on the couch in front of the fire to eat them. We had a plate piled high with fritters

“Can you tell me what happened to your husband?” I asked. I had always been curious about the subject, wanting to know about what had happened to the stallion in her photos.

Cadance sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. “I knew you’d ask about that sometime, personally I thought it would be sooner… Well, Shining Armour was everything you could want in a stallion and more, he was kind, caring, but most of all he loved me. Before the war, we were happy. We had two foals before the war, Valiant Knight, a unicorn who looked just like his father, and Serenity, a pegasus. She had a white coat like her father and my mane colours.”

“When the war started, they were old enough to help their father, and so they did. 12 years before I evacuated the Crystal Empire into this stable, I had another foal, Skyla, who was an alicorn and had similar colours to mine. She was your great great great great great great grandma. In that last fight when the zebras attacked the Crystal Empire, Shining Armour knew we were outnumbered.”

“Valiant had been murdered by zebra assassins two weeks earlier, and Serenity had been caught in an explosion at the edge of the city that morning, along with a dozen or so soldiers. Shining Armour put out the evacuation signal soon after, then made me leave him to take Skyla to the Stable. I tried to stay with him, but he wouldn’t let me… He told me that he would fight until our empire was safe, and then he would come and get me… But… We both knew he couldn’t win this fight, there were just too many zebras and not enough soldiers, but I held on to the shred of hope that he would come out of it alive...”

Cadance sighed, pausing for a moment. “Skyla and I were the last ones outside of the Stable when a bomb went off. Looking back, I saw that it destroyed half the castle. Shining Armour had stayed in the castle to direct our army, so I knew he couldn’t have survived. We went inside and I closed the Stable door. Many bombs went off a few minutes later. The ground shook, and we heard the rumble, but the Stable protected us, and we’ve been in here ever since.”

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I left Grandma’s apartment a while later, heading for the Sewing Room, which is where all the stables clothes were made, and fixed. Grandma had tasked me with taking a bunch of apple fritters to Misty Vale and so she could stop working and have a snack break for once.

Entering the Sewing Room, I found the Stable’s one Tailor and three Seamstresses hard at work. Misty Veil was hard at work on what I assumed was Maple Swirls wedding dress. Nopony noticed me walk in, they were too busy. Walking over to my little sister, I set the fritters on a table and watched her work.

Misty Veil was a unicorn, like our dad had been. Her mane was blue with a black streak, and beautifully styled. Her coat was light grey, again like dad. Her cutie mark was a bride’s veil, and her special talent, subsequently, was creating beautiful dresses and suits for weddings, though she also made other beautiful clothes for parties and such. I always envied her for her cutie mark, it wasn’t fair that she would get hers before me, she was 3 years younger than me!

“Your work is beautiful as always, Misty,” I said with a smile.

She jumped, startled, then turned and smiled at me. “Finally out of bed I see, and to what do I owe this visit?”

“Grandma’s famous apple fritters,” I replied, tapping the big bag on the table next to me.

“Yum! But you know you shouldn’t call her grandma anymore, right? Your too old for that,” Misty said as she joined me at the table.

“It feel’s weird to call her anything else, plus, you’ve only just turned 14, you should still call her grandma,” I told her.
She shook her head, and then smiled. “Each to her own I guess.”

“I like the dress, but I’m guessing it’s for Maple Swirl. Figures she’d want you to make the best dress possible, she only cares about herself.” I muttered the last part.

“Hey, I don’t like Maple any more than you do, but it’s my job, so I have to. I’m just glad I didn’t have to make Rosebloom’s dress, mum said she was such a bridezilla!” We both laughed at that. “You know… Mum really doesn’t want you to miss out on having a party.”

I sighed and looked away. “Look, I’ll celebrate hers then, just not my own.”

“Okay, it’s better than nothing I guess,” she sighed, then smiled. “Time to eat I think. Hey Cotton Top, Threadbare, Lace, it’s snack time!” The stallion and two mares stopped their work and walked over.

“Oh, hey Midnight,” the ever-whispering Lace said, and smiled. She was a fragile-looking pale cream unicorn with a pale pink mane and pale green eyes, everything about her was pale. She was one of Misty’s best friends.

“Hey,” I replied. “I’ve brought my grandma’s special apple fritters!”

“Thanks Midnight, much appreciated,” the blue, brown maned earth pony Threadbare said. He was an expert in mending clothes, and also Misty’s coltfriend.

Cotton Top smiled at me. “Yes, thank you.” She was an earth pony, with a brown coat and a puffy white mane. She was the oldest seamstress working in the sewing room, at 26, while Threadbare was 16 and Lace was 14 like my sister. There was another seamstress, but she was away to have her foal.

“No problem, it’s the least I can do for my sister and her friends,” I grinned, then ate a fritter in one gulp. “I’ll see you all later!” I headed to the door, as a chorus of ‘bye’ rang out behind me, followed by the sound of hungry ponies eating.

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The week before my birthday passed much too fast for my liking, but it was inevitable that it would feel too fast, considering what was going to happen. There was only an hour until the party started, and mum had made sure I was ready before her.
Instead of my usual Stable 35 attire, I wore a lovely dress. It was midnight blue with black patterns, and tiny white crystals sewn on to look like stars in the night sky, or at least, what we in the Stable thought the night sky looked like. It looked like a thick material, but was actually really light, and suited me perfectly, meaning that it didn’t only look great, it was functional, so I could run or fly if I had to. Misty Veil had made the dress especially for me, her birthday present to me. She had also made mums dress, which I had yet to see.

Misty was fixing up my mane in curls, and then gave me some purple eye shadow. “There! No stallion will be able to resist you tonight Midnight!” She grinned at me, and I found that it was a contagious grin, as I too was soon grinning.

“Midnight, can you please come here dear?” I heard mum call from her bedroom.

“Okay,” I called back, then stood and went into her room.

“Oh Midnight! You look so beautiful!” Mum exclaimed, hoof to her mouth and tears in her eyes. I didn’t reply, I was too stunned by how lovely she looked. Her dress was exquisite. The hem was black, then lightened to midnight blue, then lightened to sky blue, then to white at the top of her dress. Her blue mane was untied and wavy, laced with tiny white flowers, and she wore diamond earrings.

“Come here dear,” She said with a smile. I slowly walked over, and she gave me a small black box.

Opening it I found a pendant on a silver chain. The pendant was a small teardrop shaped diamond, but inside the drop, was a tiny, midnight blue crystal shaped like a perfect little star. “Oh, mum…”

Mum just smiled and took the necklace and put it around my neck. “It’s perfect,” She whispered. “It’s been passed down through our family since Princess Skyla.”

I stepped forward and hugged her, and she hugged me back. We stayed like that a while, until Misty came in to tell us that it was time to go. She wore a lovely grey-blue dress, though nowhere near as beautiful as our dresses, so as not to outshine the guests of honour at the party. Mum had organised it to be my party as well as hers.

We headed off to the party hall in silence, and were soon joined by Threadbare, who looked very handsome in his suit. He told us we were the most beautiful mares he had ever seen, which made us all smile, Misty especially. As we walked, I tried to rid myself of negative thoughts. I didn’t want mum to worry about me, because that would make her upset, and I didn’t want her to be upset tonight.

Eventually we made it to the hall, where the party was just beginning. The hall was done up beautifully as always, with balloons, streamers and a big disco ball which reflected the colourful lights as it spun. The Stable’s DJ, Noise Works, was in the DJ booth, playing music. There were various tables spotted around the room, covered with the best food the Stable had to offer, and there was a bar which served alcohol.

Ponies had to be 17 to drink, so I would be having my first taste of alcohol tonight. I just hoped I wouldn’t get drunk, I’d seen enough drunk ponies to know it probably wasn’t a good idea. Cadance was in the hall, and she walked over to us. “Happy birthday to you, you beautiful mares. Misty, you have really outdone yourself with those dresses; they look almost as if my old friend Rarity had designed them herself!”

Misty positively glowed at the praise. Rarity was the designer Misty had gotten most of her inspiration from as a filly, it was the best thing anypony could say to her about her work. Cadance continued to talk with us for a while, and then left us to go talk with the other ponies in the hall. Mum left us to join her friends, and then Misty went with Threadbare, probably to kiss or something, and I was left alone.

In Stable 35, a pony’s 17th birthday was one of their most important, along with their 10th, 25th and 35th. I should be happy, I was 17 now, but I couldn’t kick that sense of dread I had felt all week. It was reasonable, the dread I felt, because of what would happen tonight, but I should at least try to be happy, for mum’s sake.

An hour later, the party was in full swing, and for once, I was the centre of attention, and not in a bad way. Misty had been right, the single stallions, and some of the taken ones, were paying me a lot more attention than usual, talking to me, and getting me drinks, asking me to dance. I found I was actually enjoying myself; it was like they had all forgotten that I was just a blank flank with weird wings. For a while I could forget what was going to happen, forget that I had been dreading this day ever since my dad had died. I felt happy.

“Care to dance Midnight?” the handsome green earth pony, Jellybeans asked me, holding out his hoof. His mane was red, yellow and blue, and his cutie mark depicted the jellybeans he was so brilliant at making.

“Yes,” I said with a smile, taking his hoof. He was my latest crush, and there had been many before.

“You look beautiful tonight, Midnight,” he said, leading me to the dance floor. I smiled in reply. This was like a dream come true; I was dancing with a stallion I liked, everypony was being nice to me for a change, and for a while I could forget what had happened, what was going to happen, and just enjoy the moment.

Of course, all good things have to end, and it ended for me when I saw Maple Swirl, Rosebloom, Star Hoof and Sunset Helm entered the hall, two hours late and probably only here to drink, and ridicule me. The attention I was getting suddenly died, like a bright, lively flame doused in water. Maple and Rose were the most popular mares in the stable, and everypony did what they said, so when they came in, nopony dared give me anything that resembled positive attention. ‘Well, there goes my good time,’ I thought to myself.

Not wanting to be bothered by them immediately, I joined my mum and her friends and quietly listened to them talk about things that were going on in the Stable, like how Crystal Apple was caught sleeping with Tango, who was Dream Wish’s husband, and how Celery Leaf had managed to somehow grow blue celery. All the while I kept tabs on where Maple and Rose were in the hall, and thankfully, they stayed away from me.

“Having fun?” Mum asked, as I had been thinking and probably had a faraway look in my eyes. “We aren’t boring you are we?”

“No, of course not mum, I’m having a great time,” I smiled, hoping it looked convincing.

She frowned slightly, but then smiled. “Good, I’m glad!” And with that, she resumed talking with her friends. Cadance soon joined in the conversation with them, giving her views on why Tango might have cheated on his wife. I zoned out of the conversation for a while, until the harpist, Heart Strings spoke up.

“I believe that strapping young stallion, Jellybeans, has his heart set on Sugar Bell, Diamond Heart told me he was asking about a ring,” Heart Strings said.

‘Well,’ I thought, ‘looks like another stallions taken.’ I sighed. He’d probably just danced with me to be polite.

Hearing me sigh, mum looked at me worriedly, but I quickly smiled at her, and she soon resumed talking. How could she still be worried for me, when she should be worrying about herself.

Another hour passed and Rosebloom left with Sunset Helm. That relieved me somewhat, but that still left Maple, who had spent most of her time by the bar, probably getting smashed, as she did at most parties she attended. I had sampled quite a few of the drinks on offer, but had only found one of two that I actually enjoyed, so after a small glass of each, I was feeling a bit light-headed and decided to stick to the punch from then on.

Eventually the clock ticked over to 11:40pm, and it was time to cut the cake. The cake was beautiful, and massive. Five chocolaty tiers of pure, decadent, cakey goodness, and it had been created just for me and mum. Both mum and I were given large knives, and we cut the cake whilst Snapshot snapped away, documenting everything with photos as the ponies around us sang happy birthday. This signalled that the party was coming to an end.

As I stood with mum, eating delicious cake, the realisation that the night was almost ended hit me like a train. Putting down my cake, I turned and hugged mum. She seemed a little startled, but hugged me back. “I’m sorry,” I whispered into her ear. “Goodbye mum, I love you.”

“I love you too my dear, always know that. If you must go, then go now,” she whispered, squeezing me tight before kissing my cheek and letting me go. “Goodbye, Midnight.”

I turned and left the hall. I was a coward and anypony who saw me leave knew it. I should have been staying with mum, not leaving her side, but instead I was running away, unable to face what was to come. Unluckily for me, Maple Swirl had seen me leave, and had decided to torment me.

“Well well well, look at you, what a pretty little pony you are tonight! He-heh” I heard her behind me and shuddered. “But being really pretty doesn’t stop you being a freak, he-heh, little Midnight, or a coward!” I could tell she was drunk by the way she talked, going from harsh to sweet sounding every few words. Also, she tended to giggle a lot when drunk.

The lights in the corridor dimmed quite a lot, signalling midnight. I kept walking, but I was quivering.

“Ooh, not very long now. He-he-heh. Soon little Midnight’s mummy will be deady bye byes!” I stopped, as did she.
“Shut up,” I hissed through my teeth. I was shaking now, both from anger and a great sorrow.

“No way! The virus is killing her as we speak, little Midnight, as it will kill you, and me, and everypony else in this bucking damned Stable!” Maple laughed.

“Shut up!” I growled, but she kept on going.

“It makes no sense how this virus we’re born with knows instantly to kill us after midnight on our 35th birthday, but hey, he-he-heh, not like we’ll ever figure it out, especially not you little Midnight, no, your gonna die as a blank flank, in fact, you shoulda died tonight with your mummy!” She was overcome with fits of giggling at this point.

I couldn’t take it anymore. It was a long time coming, years of tormenting had led to this. “I said, Shut Up!” I yelled. It all happened in a split second, in a fit of anger and hate, I struck out with my hind legs as hard as I could, bucking her straight in her giggling muzzle. She gave a shriek and fell to the ground, sobbing. Looking back at her, I saw her nose was bloody and probably broken, and three or four of her teeth now lay on the ground. In my mind, it was what she deserved after all she’d done to me.

I started to move away when I heard a shout. “Maple!?” I backed away as Star Hoof rounded the corner. He saw Maple Swirl first, a look of utter shock on his face, and then he saw me. The shock changed to rage. “I’ll kill you, you bucking bitch!” He shouted, and then launched himself at me.

I took the only sensible option available and galloped for my life through the semi dark corridors of Stable 35. “Get her Starry, kill her!” I heard Maple cry out behind us. Star Hoof was the Stables best dancer, and he was therefore fast and light on his hooves. There was no way I could outrun him, my only hope of escape would be to fly away. Realising this, I changed course for the Atrium. Sensing the change of direction, Star Hoof galloped faster, wanting to catch me before I could escape, all the while shouting obscenities at me.

He tried grabbing me with his weak telekinesis, but I was able to break free each time. I wasn’t athletic, and it really showed now as my breathing became laboured. I was terrified that he would catch me. He’d probably tear off one of my wings in his anger. I couldn’t let that happen.

He was nearly on top of me by the time I got to the Atrium. Snapping open my wings, I leapt into the air, heading straight for the thickest cloud. I felt a violent tug on my tail. Looking back I saw that Star Hoof had grabbed it in his mouth, hate glinting in his acid green eyes.

Panicking, I flapped my wings harder, only to have him pull at one wing with telekinesis, pulling me slowly down. A plan formed suddenly in my mind, I stopped flapping my wings so hard so that I was pulled down into striking range. Lashing out with my hind legs, I smashed Star Hoof in the face and horn. He lost his grip on my tail with a shout of pain, and I shot up into the cloud above me.

I lay in the cloud, shaking as I got my breath back. Below, Star Hoof was shouting at me. “You better just come down Midnight! The longer I have to wait, the worse it will be for you!” Peeking out, I saw that he was attempting to climb the tree to get to me. He was obviously drunk, for one my tail smelled of alcohol, and he was having a hard time keeping hold of the tree. “Get the buck down here! You can’t stay up there forever!”

I knew he was right, my only way out was to get past him, and I dreaded to think about what would happen if he caught me. What was I going to do? Then it hit me, the Overmare’s balcony! Hearing a grunt from below, I looked down and saw that Star had a hoof stuck in some branches and was trying to free himself.

Now was my chance, I leapt from my cloud to the balcony and slipped straight through the door before Star could notice I’d left the cloud. I breathed a sigh of relief, and headed to the front door of apartment, intending to head home. Mum would be able to calm my racing heart.

I stopped dead. The dread returned like an avalanche. Mum was probably dead by now.

Stable 35 was cursed with a mystery disease, a virus that caused a pony to die at midnight on the day they turned 35. The Stable’s scientist had tried to cure it, to find out what it was, but they had failed. Despite that, they had managed to cure many other diseases, so the ponies of the Stable were generally very healthy.

Cadance had made it a tradition to make a ponies 35th birthday their most special, with a massive party, which ended at 11: 45pm, when everypony said goodbye. Cadance then took the pony away to some mystery place, where she… cremated the pony after they died. She wanted to spare us the sight of what the virus did to the pony. The family of the pony was then given the jar of ashes to place in the family shrine in the Stable’s massive mausoleum.

I felt tears in my eyes as I realised I was never going to see my mum again. I felt worse than when my dad had died, because at least then I had had mum to comfort me, but now all I had was Misty, and she was going to move in with Threadbare next week, so I would be left alone. I shook as sobs wracked my body. I looked around the apartment, hoping grandma Cadance would walk in and comfort me. That’s when I noticed it.

The bookcase by the bedroom door was standing open like a door. I couldn’t believe it, a secret passageway behind a bookcase; it was like something from a corny mystery novel. My sobs silenced for a moment as curiosity took over. I headed down the passage. This must be where Cadance took the ponies who were about to die so that she could say goodbye. Maybe… Maybe mum was still alive, and I could give her one last hug…

The passage was dimly lit, and long, and frankly creepy. After a few minutes I came to stairs heading down. The further I went, the hotter it got, and just as I thought it would never end, I came to a door. Bright light seeped into the passage from underneath the door, I had a really bad feeling about what was behind, and I could hear a strange sound coming from beyond, it sounded like… laughter?

Cautiously, I pushed the door open, revealing a large, bright room. I felt thick, hot air wash over me. The walls and floor were white, and there were shelves with various things on them, and at the other end of the room was some machine full of fire, but I barely took any notice of them, I was too busy staring at the scene in front of me.

My very alive mother was huddled in the far corner of the room, shaking in fear, her wings completely crippled and useless, two of her legs broken, and her nose bloody. She was covered in cuts and bruises. Standing over her was my grandmother, Princess Cadance, and yet, it wasn’t her. Her coat was now dark pink, and her mane and tail were also much darker, and flowing as if in a constant breeze. She was giggling, her face that of an insane pony. “Now now my dear, don’t struggle!” I saw she was holding a wicked looking knife in her telekinesis. It was covered in blood. “I promise it will hurt less if you don’t struggle!”

Mum tried to back away further into the wall, pleading for the torture to stop, but Cadance just smirked, revealing fangs. Through her tears, mum spotted me standing at the door, and her eye’s widened in horror. Downward the knife sliced, somehow cutting off a fore hoof. The hoof fell to the floor with a wet thump, as blood rained from the wound onto it. I felt sick to my stomach. Mum screamed a terrifying, blood curdling scream. Cadance just laughed, seeming to enjoy herself.

Without thinking, I launched myself at Cadance with a scream, only to be wrapped in her telekinesis and held in mid-air. “Oh I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Midnight Star,” she said icily, turning towards me, her magic slamming the door shut behind me. A beep from the pipbuck on my leg told me she’d somehow turned it off, probably so I couldn’t send out a message for help.

“You monster! How could you!?” I screamed at her as tears rolled down my cheeks.

“Oh, quiet easily actually my dear,” she said with a cruel smirk.

“Wh-why, Grandma… Why?” I sobbed, the anger in me subsiding as sorrow and terror took hold.

“Oh I’m not your weakling of a grandmother, no.”

“Th-then who are you?” I whimpered, unable to move.

“Well, most would call it the Jekyll and Hyde syndrome, but I am Cadance’s, well, other half, so to speak. Umm, think of it this way, I am to Cadance what Nightmare Moon was to Princess Luna, her evil, dark side. I like to call myself Nocturne, I think it sounds nice. But Cadance won’t ever know of me, all she ever remembers is watching her precious little ponies walk down that hall to die, then I take over.”

“Why?” I asked, tears dripping down my muzzle. Mum had stopped screaming now, but had thrown up over herself and was shuddering in pain.

“Because StableTech gave Cadance a task she could not do, but I could. It was the death of Shining Armour and her kids, and the hate and sorrow that she felt that brought me to life, but I was much too weak to do anything. It was only after the death of Skyla that I was able to take over occasionally and complete the task given to her when she became Overmare.”
“Wh-what task was she given?” I asked quietly, quivering in fear.

“My my, aren’t you a curious little filly, your facing imminent death, and yet you still ask questions. Okay then, I’ll tell you. Quite a few of the Stables in Equestria were set up to be experiments, and this one is no different. Stable Tech wanted to know what effect a dramatically shortened lifespan would have on ponies, so they tasked poor Cadance with killing off any pony who reached age twenty five, under the pretence that it was an illness caused by a disease that the zebra’s had unleashed with their bombs. She obviously refused, but once Skyla died at age 35, I had the strength to take over and complete the task, though I made the age 35, to match the Stable number. Cadance believes it is a real disease killing ponies off, because once they go down the hall, their never seen again. She doesn’t know why she sends them down the hall, just that she has too, to spare the other ponies from seeing them dead.”

I was shocked, it was so much to take in. Grandma wasn’t actually killing my mum, it was this evil monster living inside of her. I was suddenly certain that I would be joining mum’s fate.

As if bored of talking to me, she looked away, back to my mum, who had passed out. “Damn, it’s no fun when their unconscious.” She pouted, like a filly that had realised her bag of sweets was already empty. Grabbing mum in her telekinesis, Nocturne threw her into the flames to be cremated.

I shuddered, tears still streaming. “W-will you kill me?”

“No, I can’t. Cadance loves you too much to let me kill you outright, so I will give you two choices. One, you step into the furnace, without me having to force you. You could refuse, but you would stay locked in here to starve to death... Or maybe until you get hungry enough eat your dear old mothers hoof, or I could bring your little sister down here for you to munch on.” She smirked, and then giggled manically, waving the bloody limb in front of me.
“And… And the second option?” I asked her, trying not to gag.

“You leave the stable and I tell everypony you committed suicide because you were so distraught over your mum dying.” She put me down and I heard the door opening behind me as Nocturne telekinetically straightened my dress, which was surprisingly unharmed after everything that had happened tonight. “I think you’ll agree that option two is best, nopony gets hurt, and you don’t die. If you choose it, go and get the things you want to keep, and then meet me at the Stable door, I’ll have saddlebags for you with supplies. If you tell anypony, or try and get help, not even Cadance will be able to stop me from killing you.”

I just nodded, turned, and left, back down the hall. I felt… Well, I didn’t know how I felt. Emotional whiplash was probably the best way to describe what I had gone through since leaving the party. As I reached the end of the hall I remembered Star Hoof, was he still waiting to ambush me? Had he figured out that I had escaped? Deciding to check, I went out to the balcony and peeked over the edge. It seemed he had given up on scaling the tree, and was now pacing between the two Atrium exits.

I left through the Overmare’s Office to get home, and soon arrived at the empty apartment. Misty was staying with Threadbare tonight, so I had the apartment to myself. Inside my mind, a battle raged as I tried to decide what to do. I realised that my only option was to go along with what Nocturne had said.

Looking through my belongings, I picked only a few things to take. A family photo, the necklace mum gave me, the dress Misty gave me, and the harmonica dad had taught me to play. I also grabbed my water bottle and filled it, a blanket and my dad’s small tool kit. Thinking a moment, I grabbed dad’s dagger, it was a family heirloom, and I really should leave it for Misty, but who knew what I would find outside the stable. Donning a jacket over my Stable barding I sighed as I walked around the apartment for the last time ever, tears in my eyes. I guess every pony had to leave home sometime, I’d just never imagined that I’d leave so fully.

As I walked to the Stable Door, I pondered what I would find outside the stable. Would the remains of the Crystal Empire still be there? Would there still be snow? Were there even ponies still alive out there? I flinched when I heard a noise behind my, fearing it was Star Hoof, but relaxed when I saw it was just a cleaning bot. I watched it float past.

I met with Nocturne soon after. She gave me the saddlebags she had promised, and I put my things in. Inside I also found plenty of food, more water, plenty of medical supplies, another, larger dagger, and a gun with plenty of ammo. I’d never held a gun before, let alone knew how to use one. Seeing my apprehensive look, she smirked at me. “Better safe than sorry, wouldn’t you agree? It’s time to go, Midnight Star. Who knows, maybe with you gone I can take full control.” She seemed to remember that she’d turned off my pipbuck, so she turned it back on with a flick of magic.

And with that, she walked over to a control panel, typed in a password, and opened the Stable door. There was only inky blackness beyond and, gathering my courage, I stepped out of the stable for the first time in my life.

Author's Note

The story need's a name! Name ideas in the comments please!

Only constructive criticism please.

Thanks for reading ^.^

Chapter 2: The Crystal Empire

Chapter 2
The Crystal Empire

The first thing I noticed was the biting cold wind, whistling through the cave now I stood in. Behind me, the Stable door closed with a loud “CLANG” which rang out through the cave, the echo’s it created quickly losing volume. I shivered as my eyes slowly adjusted to the near non-existent light. The cave didn’t seem too deep, I could make out snow a few steps away from me, or, at least I thought it was snow, as I’d never seen real snow before, only in the picture books I’d read as a filly.

I took a few tentative steps forward, only to step on something that snapped under my hoof. Taking a closer look, I found a dead pony, frozen from the cold. I had stepped on its ribcage, which stuck up in the air, not covered by muscle or skin. Something had eaten most of its flesh, leaving it a skeleton, and turning, I saw the creature that was probably the culprit. A young dragon, only a little bigger than a pony, was waking up and watching me hungrily, eyes glowing bright red. It lay on a bed of gold and jewels which seemed to shine and glint even without a light source. I took a step back as the dragon slowly stood, growling menacingly at me, a thin trail of smoke streaming from its nostrils.

I trembled in fear as it took a step forward. Not knowing anything else to do, I bolted for the mouth of the cave, spreading my wings and taking to the air once out of the cave. I was immediately assaulted by the strong wind and snow; it blinded me and threw me back to the ground. Struggling to my hooves, I started forward, away from the cave, and towards what I hoped would be safety. It didn’t help that the wind was a fair bit colder than in the cave, and that it was pulling at my clothes, bags and wings. It was all I could do not to fall backwards.

The dragon didn’t follow me, it didn’t want to leave the safety and warmer temperature of its cave, and I didn’t blame it as the freezing snow whipped around me fiercely. I walked on for what felt like over an hour, straining against the wind with all my strength, hoping to find somewhere safe to shelter for the night. My hooves, ears and wings felt numb from the cold, and I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering. Just as I feared I’d never find anywhere, that I’d die out here in the snow from frostbite, the wind died. With the sudden lack of resistance, I fell forward fast, smacking my face into something big, hard, and freezing cold. I groaned as I rubbed my muzzle and stood back up.

I couldn’t see what I’d hit, but I felt it tentatively and found it to be smooth, like a wall. Moving along it, I came to a door, which I managed to open, and I stumbled inside just as the wind picked up again. Now out of the snow, I could see the faint glow of my pipbuck, and switched on the lamp function. Looking around, I saw that I was in a small old shed made of crystal. One end was clear, and the other end was filled with rusted old gardening tools, and the ground was covered in dry old hay. I quickly realised that the only way I would survive the night would be to light a fire, so I searched through the gardening tools and found a box of matches.

I somehow managed to break the wooden handles off of the tools and piled them in the middle of the shed, and then I gathered as much of the dry hay as I could and put it on the wood. Clumsily, I lit a match and threw it in the hay, watching the tiny flame grow slowly. Shuddering from the cold, I lay down near the fire and wrapped my blanket around me tightly. Slowly, as the shed warmed up, the feeling returned to my ears and wings, hopefully meaning I didn’t have frostbite. So I lay there, by the fire, trying to keep warm, as everything that had happened that night rushed to my mind. I could no longer stop the tears, I cried and cried, until eventually I fell asleep.

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The soft sound of piano music woke me the next morning. Yawning, I curled up tighter, not wanting to wake, despite the hardness of the floor. It wasn’t until I felt something pulling on my wing that my eyes snapped open. Looking around blearily, I saw that a very large white snow rabbit was trying to pull a feather from my wing. Caught in the act, he froze and dropped the feather from his mouth. I had never seen a live rabbit before, only in pictures, and this rabbit was not like the ones in the pictures, for one, he was triple the size. His sea blue eyes seemed almost to glow in the dim light, and looking closer, I saw he had little horns on his head. Maybe rabbits had evolved after the war to better survive?

I sat up slowly, not wanting to frighten him. He blinked at me, and then sniffed the air, black tipped ear twitching, then he suddenly hopped over to my saddlebags and looked at me expectantly. I guessed he wanted food, so I reached in and pulled out an apple, which was when I realised that the piano music was coming from my pipbuck. It was the instrumental version of the lullaby my dad had created for me when I was little. I remembered I had it set as an alarm. The rabbit tapped my hoof with a furry, sharp clawed paw, reminding me he was still there, so I turned off the music, got my knife and cut the apple up, giving him a piece, which he took, nibbling it hungrily.

I smiled. He was really quite cute, Misty would love him. She had always loved the rabbits in our story books… I sighed at the thought of my sister; I’d never see her again. I slowly ate my part of the apple, not really hungry, and I gave the rabbit another slice when he’d finished.

“You need a name,” I said quietly.

His ear twitched at the sound of my voice and he looked at me, as if surprised that I could talk.

“Hmm… I’ll call you Twitch” I decided with a nod. Twitch’s ear twitched again and he yawned, which is when I noticed that he had fangs; big, sharp, nasty looking, blood stained fangs. “Okay… Well that’s… Something…” I didn’t know whether to be scared or not, but Twitch seemed friendly enough so far. Maybe he didn’t eat ponies, though he obviously ate meat of some sort, as well as apples.

I finished my apple and mulled over what to do. There was light coming in a few holes in the walls that I hadn’t noticed in the dark the night before. Judging by my pipbuck, it was 6 in the morning. Usually, I would be asleep now, but I guess it wasn’t a usual day. I decided I had 2 options; I could stay here and mope, or I could go out and try to find other ponies. The latter seemed the best option, I didn’t want to think about yesterday, and moving would hopefully take my mind off of things.

Folding my blanket, I stuffed it back in to my saddlebags and stood up, stretching. Twitch watched me, ear twitching. Without warning, he jumped up onto my back and settled between my wings. “I guess you’re coming with me then” I said with a small smile, heading for the door. He weighed a fair bit, but I was used to carrying heavy things on my back. I couldn’t work back in the Stable, but I could run errands, and I was usually called upon to help move heavier things around the Stable. I hadn’t minded it; I had felt it was the only way I could give back to the Stable since I couldn’t work.

It took a fair bit of effort to open the door since the snow was piled against it, but I eventually managed to shove it open. Once outside, I spread my wings and jumped into the air, flying low and slow at first to make sure Twitch wouldn’t fall off my back. Once I was sure he had a good grip on my jacket, I sped up, flying higher. The clouds above were dark, threatening more snow to come. The landscape below was pure white, only the occasional dead tree, boulder or crumbling building to break the pristine monotony of the snow.

The shed stood in what would have been the back garden of a large, stately crystal house. I looked around for a way to go, and I soon spotted the large mass of magically built crystal buildings that was the remains of the Crystal Empire. If I was going to find anypony, surely it would have to be there. So adjusting my wings, I flew towards the ancient crystal city.

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I had seen pictures of the Crystal Empire, and seeing it now, I realised just how great it had once been. The Crystal Palace had once been a sight to behold, towering over every single building, even when they built bigger buildings to support a bigger population. Now… Well now it was just a crumbling ruin. The closest buildings to the palace were also in ruins, a tell-tale sign of the bombs that had gone off 200 years ago, but the further from the palace you went, the better the buildings looked. It seemed the zebras had only bombed the palace and not the rest of the city, probably because of the lack of ponies. After the evacuation to the Stable, only the army had been left, and they hadn’t been in the residential areas.

From my high vantage point, I could see a large, walled off area in one section of the city furthest from me, while in the area closest to me there seemed to be a marketplace of some kind, with ponies walking around, looking tiny from where I flew. It seemed that there was life in the city after all. Slowly I descended, heading for a long road which led from the city into the distant mountains. Closer to the ground, I could see that the road ran next to some old train tracks, and that there was a group of four stallions pulling two old train carriages along the tracks.

Twitch leapt off my back as I landed, hopping along beside me as I walked towards the market area in the city. The ponies pulling the carriages soon passed me, and I could see that the four stallions pulling were big and strong, and rather scary-looking. The front carriage was fancy, though very old, looking like a big cupcake. On top stood two rough looking earth ponies with very big guns and armoured barding, one was scanning the area ahead while the other glared at me.

The second carriage was a large cage, with seven shackled ponies and a shackled donkey inside. I was shocked by this. Five of the ponies were earth ponies, a dopey looking grey maned, green furred stallion, a sad looking brown maned, blue coated mare, a pair of strong looking red coated, green maned colts who were obviously twins, and a pink coated, purple and pink maned filly, who obviously came from a stable, with her tattered, drab brown stable barding, and pipbuck. She spotted me, and despite her situation, smiled at me. The other ponies were a yellow pegasus mare with a blue mane, and a powder blue unicorn filly with a sky blue and white mane. The donkey was asleep in the corner, and he was missing one ear. On top of the cage stood a brown unicorn with a red mane and tail, who glared at me too, aiming his gun at me as if to say ‘don’t try anything.’

I backed away a little, freaked out. As far as I could tell, the ponies and donkey in the cage were slaves. I had read in a history book that during the war, the zebras would enslave the ponies they captured, but, why would ponies enslave ponies? But then again… What if they were prisoners, ponies under arrest who had done something bad? But that filly didn’t look like the sort of pony who would do something bad. I stood still, watching the carriages as they pulled into the train station further up the road. I didn’t notice as a pony stopped beside me, but when I did, I jumped in fright. He was a brown unicorn with a black and blue mane. He wore a cloak, so I couldn’t see his cutie mark.

“Oh, sorry there miss, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he grinned at me, and I could see he had two scars on his cheek. He looked rough and tough, but not mean or nasty. “I’m guessing you’ve only just come out of your Stable then?”

I took a step back, surprised. “H-how can you tell?”

“Well that was obviously the first time you’ve seen slavers before. Nopony who’s been in the Wastelands a while reacts like that when they see slavers, unless they been a slave themselves. Also, your gear looks way too clean and new to have been in the Wastelands long, and I can see your Stable barding under that jacket of yours.”

“The… Wastelands?” I asked.

He chuckled, “defiantly a Stable pony. The Wastelands is what we call Equestria nowadays, since most of Equestria is just that, wastelands.” He looked down at Twitch, looking a little surprised. “My my, a snow rabbit, usually their real nasty critters. I ain’t never seen one by itself though.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, curious as ever.

“Well, they usually live in packs of four or five, or even ten, they don’t like being alone. I’ve only ever seen tame ones once, years ago. This old merchant had three, raised ‘em from babies. He had ‘em to protect his caravan while he slept. Snow rabbits are fierce, they’ve been known to take down a fully grown stallion, even one packin’ heavy artillery.”

I was taken aback by this information. Despite his fangs, Twitch seemed placid, and very friendly, but that didn’t matter right now. “Why are you talking to me? And who are you?”

“The name’s Val,” he replied with a grin.

“Val?” I had never heard such a strange name.

“Well, Valiant actually, but everyone calls me Val,” he explained. “And what might your name be?”

“I’m Midnight Star,” I said. I couldn’t quite figure out why, but I didn’t really like this stallion.

“Hmm, Midnight Star. A pretty name for a pretty filly. Well, Midnight, you look like a smart young mare, but let me give you some advice, it will hopefully help to prevent you from dying. One, if you can, go back to your Stable, you really don’t want to be out here. Two, if you can’t go back, make some friends, your chances of survival are much greater if you have other ponies to watch your back, and three, in case you don’t know, we use bottle caps as money, not sure why, probably cause their more abundant than pre-war coins. Now you can take my advice, or not, it’s completely up to you.” He grinned again, looking ahead as the train carriages pulled into the old train station.

“Now, I have somewhere I have to be. If we see each other again, and you haven’t found some friends to stay with, I might let you tag along with me, but for now, adios!” And with that, he galloped off towards the city, kicking up snow in his wake, leaving me standing there, watching him go.

“Well that was… interesting…” I thought out loud. I thought over the advice he had given me. Go back to my Stable, well that wasn’t an option, if that dragon didn’t kill me first, Nocturne sure would, and how would I even get back in? The Stable door was sealed tight and I had no idea what the code to get in was. Making friends? Well I hadn’t done too well at that in the Stable, but then, no pony had wanted to be my friend because Maple and Rose wouldn’t allow anypony to be my friend, but, maybe it was possible out here.

And bottle caps… Well, I guess they’d had pick something to use as a new currency since the factories wouldn’t be making bits anymore. But what if I bought a soda? Would I get to keep the bottle cap from the bottle or would the pony I bought it from keep it? Did they even still have soda now? They did back in the Stable, Icy Cola, Pink Lemonade and Creaming Soda currently made it, but would anypony out here even know how to make it now? Or maybe somepony had gotten a soda factory up and running and sent shipments of soda to all the towns and cities, but wouldn’t that mean they were producing their own bottle caps, and therefore rich already?… Why was I thinking so much about soda? Now I really wanted to drink some…

All of a sudden I was knocked over as a big, ugly, neon green furred, bright red maned stallion pushed past me, even though the path was wide enough for 6 ponies, and maybe a foal, to walk easily side by side. He wore very battered metal armour, and had two massive guns strapped to his back, and I could see he had multiple knives strapped to his armour.

“Keep outta the way, bitch!” He literally shouted at me, and then kept walking as if nothing had happened, tail swishing back and forth.

“How rude,” I mumbled as I got back onto my hooves. Twitch jumped back onto my back, and after I was sure nopony else was going to suddenly barge into me, I started towards the city again, making sure that I kept a large distance between myself and the stallion ahead, in case he decided to turn those massive guns of his on me.

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I didn’t really know what I expected to find in the city, and I knew that I couldn't have imagined what I did find. The once sparkling crystal buildings were dull and covered in grime, graffiti and bullet holes, the roads were covered in dirty snow and littered with rubbish and full of potholes, and the few ponies I passed glared at me angrily, as if I’d kicked them or something. Passing under a tall archway, I very much regretted looking up, as three ponies hung there from nooses around their necks, all in varying stages of decay. A sign above them read ‘Raider Scum’ in bold black letters.

I entered the marketplace I had seen from above feeling shocked, scared, and frankly, disgusted, but to my great relief, the marketplace was much better kept, the stall owners keeping their areas clean to entice the customers over. I could see multiple stalls selling weapons, a few selling food, one dedicated to armour, and a few stalls selling a bit of everything. The ponies wandering around the markets all had the same mean, rough look about them that I’d seen in most ponies so far. All of them had a weapon of some sort, even the small group of foals running around wearing similar tattered capes, and most of the ponies wore some form of armour.

Looking around, I realised there were other species here too. There was a small group of griffons in matching red and gold armour, they stood in a group near a fenced off stage at one end of marketplace. A pair of zebras were talking with a buffalo who seemed be selling luck charms or something and a donkey was running one of the weapon stalls. An old zebra mare sat near me on a colourful mat selling dried herbs and plants for potions and cures and stuff, but it was her companion that intrigued me the most. Sitting next to her, nuzzling her affectionately, was an old changeling. I had only ever seen these species in books, and while there were many pictures of them, there was only one picture of a changeling in the whole Stable, and it was in a history book my teacher had read to my class once.

The pair looked at me and smiled, but I quickly moved away, kind of creeped out by the bug-like changeling. For the next half hour I wandered around the stalls, looking at what was on offer, avoiding talking to ponies, and definitely avoiding a patch of yellow snow, when I noticed that a small crowd was gathering at the stage. Curious, I wandered over, seeing that one or two ponies had robotic limbs. This wasn't new to me, as a couple ponies back in the Stable had had them. The stage was surrounded by a tall barbed wire fence, to keep ponies from climbing up. The only way onto the stage was from a large door in the building behind the stage. A couple of the ponies in the crowd gave me weird looks when they saw Twitch sitting on my back, but I didn’t care.

On to the stage walked a white unicorn stallion. His mane was black with an neon green streak and spiked up in a wild, yet tame style. His cutie mark was a lightning bolt across a pile of gold coins. He wore a pair of dark shades and a black and white jacket, and had a smug grin on his face. Behind him I could see one or two of the ponies from the train.

“Alright ponies! Let’s get this show on the road!” He said loudly, causing the crowd to go quiet. “For those who don’t know who I am, I'm Quick Deal, an’ I run the slaving business in this here Crystal Empire. Now I got some good slaves to sell to ya today, so you all better be ready to bid high! Bring out the first one!”

The first pony to be brought out was one of the red coated, green maned colts I had seen in the cage, and I could now see that his cutie mark was an anvil. The colt looked at the crowd nervously, looking behind the way he had come to where his brother probably was.

“Now this here is a fine young stallion, strong, hardworking, and as his cutie mark suggests, he’s a blacksmith. I found him an’ his twin brother out near the outskirts of Vanhoover, where they worked their daddy’s old forge. After my boys caught ‘em, I took great pleasure in blastin’ off their dear old mummy’s head in front of ‘em. Now, let’s start the bidding at, hmm, let’s say, 200 caps. Take it away, Snap Chat!”

I couldn’t believe this was happening, it was one thing to know that slavery was a thing that happened now, but to actually see and hear these ponies trying to outbid each other so that they could own another pony, well, it sickened and horrified me. A blue Earth pony stallion with an aqua mane and tail now stood on stage, talking really fast and pointing at the ponies who bid. I could barely understand what he was saying, only the quickly rising price was clear, and as the price grew, so did Quick’s grin.

The bidders bided fast for the first two minutes, but then the bids slowed down as the price went too high for many of the ponies. Just as it looked like the poor colt was about to be sold, for 1560 caps no less, an explosion ripped through the wall of the building behind the stage. I heard a strangled scream come from the building, and then I heard a stallion shout “the slaves have escaped!!!” The ponies in the crowd were shouting angrily, guns out.

I backed away quickly, heading to leave the marketplace and the city, back to that shed, back to relative safety, but for some stupid reason I looked back at the stage, and I instantly regretted it. As I watched, a small cloaked figure shot Quick Deal from the window above the door to the stage. The shot somehow blew Quick’s head off. Horrified and terrified, I galloped away, not taking heed of where I was going, just trying to get away. Twitch dug his claws into my jacket so that he could stay on my back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn’t long before I realised I was terribly lost. I was in a fairly dark part of the city, which looked, felt, and sounded abandoned. I slowed to a walk, breathing heavily from my wild run, and I looked around me, wondering where to go now. A slowly rusting sign proclaimed that I was standing on Quartz Avenue, and that up ahead was Rose Quartz Road. Despite the daylight, the street was dark and gloomy, but then, the clouds were pretty dark. Dirt and dust coated the once sparkling crystals walls, which would have reflected the light if they were clean. There was rubbish and debris everywhere and the snow on the ground before me lay untouched, and the silence was deafening.

Twitch jumped off of my back to stretch his legs, hopping ahead of me. I followed, not knowing what else to do as I tried to calm myself down, when suddenly he stopped, stood up on his hind legs, and swivelled around his large ears, picking up sounds that even I couldn’t hear. Twitch continued for a few seconds, then his ears seemed to lock on to whatever it was he was hearing, which was behind us. I quickly went to the side of the road, not wanting to be knocked over again by some mean pony.

Standing next to the ruins of an old taxi carriage, I watched down the street, and soon heard what Twitch had, and soon I saw what was making the sound. Several ponies, all wearing cloaks, walking quickly down the street towards me. As they neared me, one of the ponies hoods slipped and I saw that it was the purple and pink filly from the slavers cage carriage. The lead pony was looking around, then suddenly looked towards me and pushed back his hood.

“Well hello again Midnight Star, fancy meeting you here.” I now saw that the pony was Val.

“Err… Hi…” I replied nervously, realising that the other cloaked ponies were most of the slaves. I noticed one of the red coated, green maned colts, but his twin was nowhere in sight.

“Hey, I saw you walking into the city!” the filly exclaimed, trotting over to me. “I’m Harmony.” She grabbed my hoof suddenly and shook it.

“Err… I’m Midnight…” Harmony nodded and grinned at me.

“Now now Harmony, don’t freak her out any more than she has been.” Val said, pulling Harmony away by her tail with his magic. “Remember how you were after you were kicked out of your Stable?” She nodded. “Well Midnight’s just come out of her Stable so she hasn’t had time to adjust, plus she’s seen what you can do with a gun so she’ll be even more freaked.”

I was completely shocked; this sweet, innocent looking filly was a murderer? What kind of sick, evil, twisted world was this?

Seeing my eyes widen, Val smiled kindly. “Sadly, you are going to have to get used to this stuff. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is. Now, are you going to come with us?” He asked suddenly, catching me off guard.

“What?” He had said I could join him if we met again, but it had only been a few hours since then, and I still felt a strong dislike of him, and his friend had killed somepony…

“You can come with us if you want, and I think that you should, it really is your best option. The way you ran off back at the market makes you look like an accomplice, and they’ll be wanting somepony to blame so if they find you, well, let’s just say it won’t be pretty,” he said grimly.

I didn’t know how to reply to that. The other cloaked ponies were looking around nervously, anxious to leave. I tried to think about what I should do, but I was scared and confused, and my thoughts were whirling around my head with no chance of settling anytime soon. But is seemed that I wouldn’t get the chance to decide on my own anyway as we heard a shout from the end of the street. The ponies from the train had found their lost slaves.

“Follow me!” Val said before galloping off, the group following. I hesitated at first, but quickly followed when I saw that a gun was being pointed at me. Twitch bounded beside me, determined to stay with me. We galloped down Rose Quartz Road, kicking up the snow, and we followed Val through a maze of small streets and alleyways, heading for the outskirts of the city.

Chapter 3: Of Stables and Nightmares

Chapter 3
Of Stables and Nightmares

It had been a while since we’d lost our pursuers. We now sat huddled in a small, 3 room house in what would have been the poorest sector of the city. As night fell, we started to settle down for sleep. The blue unicorn filly, yellow pegasus mare and the blue earth pony mare shared the tiny bedroom, leaving the rest of us to share the living, dining, kitchen area, which was only about three times as big as the bedroom. The only other room was a tiny bathroom, and surprisingly, the plumbing still worked rather well, though the bathtub was full of thick greenish sludge which didn’t smell nice.

The red and green colt was the first to fall asleep, huddled in the corner, quietly sobbing over the loss of his twin. The green and grey stallion settled down near the colt, keeping an eye on Twitch who was now stretched out next to me as I sat in the far corner in the kitchen area. There was also another Earth pony stallion who hadn’t been on the train, he was thin, with a dark blue coat and a lighter blue mane. He was also wary of Twitch. Harmony and Val were the only ponies in the group who weren’t scared of him.

Harmony was now sitting next to Twitch, petting him, which he seemed to really enjoy. I felt nervous around the filly, she had to be about four or five years younger than me, and yet she had killed ponies.

“So what’s his name?” Harmony asked suddenly, jolting me out of my thoughts.

“What? Oh, I call him Twitch, because, well, his ear seems to twitch a lot,” I explained, and as if right on cue, Twitch’s ear twitched.

“Aww, that’s a cute name,” she replied with a smile, now rubbing Twitch behind his twitchy ear, causing him to kick his back leg like a dog might. This then caused Harmony to laugh happily. “He really likes that.”

“Yeah, it seems he does,” I said with a small smile. This was the first chance I had gotten to get a proper look at Harmony. Her Stable barding was simple and drab, the material was getting tattered and dirty, probably it hadn’t been washed in a while. It was obviously only meant to be practical, not fashionable. Misty Veil would be horrified by the shade of brown material used and the yellow edgings, I’m not much for fashion, but even I knew the brown was downright ugly. Harmony’s PipBuck looked a little different to mine too, more simple looking, and she had a large knife strapped above it, and there was a little yellow patch on her barding, stating that she came from Stable 41.

With her cloak off, I could now see her cutie mark, which was a pink heart in a rainbow blob thingy. “What does your cutie mark mean?” I asked, curious.

“Huh? Oh, my cutie mark is about my ability to help ponies feel happy and good about themselves, sort of like Pinkie Pie did 200 years ago. I can also find the joy and happiness in everything I do. My talent is also the reason I was kicked out of my Stable.” She smiled and stopped rubbing Twitch’s belly.

“Really?” I asked, surprised, and she nodded. “Well, what was your Stable like then?”

“Stable 51 was built under a mountain town that was settled just before the war started, Saddlebrook. The Stable is Earth Pony only, and is the most boring place ever. They don’t celebrate birthdays, no holidays, weddings are small and boring, though there is a cake. Pretty much everypony there is grey, brown, yellow or orange in colour, so it was a big shock when I was born pink and purple, the Overmare, Strict Monotony, and the Elders really didn’t like me, I threatened their precious monotony. Then the auto name chooser named me Harmony…”

“Wait, what’s an auto name chooser?” I asked.

“It’s this big complex machine that takes a picture of the newborn foal, and then takes a blood sample and measurements and stuff, then analyses all the data and somehow comes up with a name for the foal. Most of the time there’s two similar names that the parents can pick from, but about a quarter of the time it only gives one option, like for me it only said Harmony. 98% of the time the name the machine chooses is what the foals talent will end up being, though 2% of the time the name and talent don’t match, like there was this stallion called Celery Snap, but his talent was cutting manes, then there was Blueberry Belle, who’s talent was repairing the Stables robots.” Harmony smiled at the memory.

“That just sounds weird to me, a machine to name a foal. It should be the parents who name their foal, otherwise it’s not special.” She nodded in agreement with me.

“Yeah, I was the only one to question the system. So after I got my name, the Overmare and the Elders kept a close eye on me as I grew, fearing that I would become what they called a Frivolous Pony, a pony with no serious purpose or value. You see, the Stable was about practicality, nothing frivolous was allowed. In school we learnt only what we needed to know, reading, writing, basic math, unless your name had to do with science or building, then you were in a different class, the many, many rules of Stable 41 and a bit of history which was used to try and scare us into thinking that frivolousness was the only reason there was ever a war. When we reached 10 years old we were given our PipBucks and sent to work in something to do with what our names were so that we could get our cutie marks in that thing. I got to do a bit of everything because they had no idea where to put me. I got to work outside the Stable in the Hidden Valley, a high valley nestled between 3 mountains with really steep sides. The only way in is through the Stables back door, and its where all the fields are and trees for wood and the flock of sheep for wool.”

“Wow, so no pony ever found the valley?” I asked, finding the huge differences between her Stable and mine strange.

“Nope, and even if they did, the valley is protected by the Elite Guard at all times. The Elite Guard are the only ponies who go beyond the Hidden Valley, they train in Saddlebrook, which was still untouched since the Stable door closed. Once a month they send out scouts to find out the state of the Wastelands, and they would always come back with tales of ruin, death and destruction, and of the uncivilized Wastelanders who killed for joy, though I think they had only scouted as far as Bridleton, a well-known and very dangerous Raider nest, which Val and I plan to clear out at some point.” She paused to drink some water.

“What’s a Raider? I saw a sign that said ‘Raider Scum’ above some… some dead ponies,” I asked, shuddering at the memory.

“Raiders are, well, Raiders are ponies who aren’t right in the head. They take immense joy in capturing, torturing, raping, killing and even eating other ponies. They’re thoroughly insane and love it. Their real horrible, and hopefully, you won’t meet one. But I’ve done my part to help rid the Wastelands of them. Val and I have taken out two or three small nests, making the route to the Crystal Empire safer for everyone.” She smiled at her accomplishment while I shuddered again.

“So anyway, I spent 3 years moving between jobs, not finding my talent, until one day I was being a teacher’s aide for a class of 8 year old ponies. There was this little light brown filly with a dark grey mane and a rose streak, her name was Band-Aid, and she was really upset because the class bullies were picking on her, saying she’d spend her life making Band-Aids and never have any friends because they wouldn’t want to be friends with a pony who makes Band-Aids. The bullies were a colt named Bucket and a filly named Duster, not the best names to have when you’re bullying somepony over their name. So after class I took Band-Aid aside to cheer her up. I told her that just because her name was Band-Aid, it didn’t mean her talent would be making Band-Aids. I told her that her name could mean that she would be good at applying Band-Aids and could therefore become a great nurse. This made her really happy, and excited for what her future could hold, so she ran off to her few friends to tell them what I had said.” Harmony smiled and drank some more water.

“The feeling I got from cheering up that filly felt so good, like my whole being was filled with a joy and a warmth I’d never felt before, and I knew I wanted to continue feeling this feeling, and that’s when I got my cutie mark. I didn’t even notice at first, I had headed home in an emotional high, but one of the Elders spotted my cutie mark and the next thing I knew I was locked up in a holding cell while my parents and the Overmare were contacted. My parents got there first, and were horrified by my cutie mark, my mum even fainted. They should have been happy for me, but they weren’t.” She sighed, a tear in her eye. I didn’t know how else to comfort her so I put a hoof around her small shoulders, causing her to look up at me and smile.

“Once the Overmare got there and saw my cutie mark, she talked for over an hour with the Elders, then came over to me and my parents and said that I was clearly a Frivolous Pony, of no use to the Stable and possibly a danger to everypony there, so I was to be put to death, as was stated in the Stable 51 Rule Book. I was shocked, how could I be put to death over my cutie mark? My parents begged and pleaded with the Overmare, I’m their only daughter, and they didn’t want me to die. Eventually the Overmare and the Elders decided to banish me from the Stable instead, since they didn’t really want to kill a pony, it had been 50 years since the last Frivolous Pony born had been killed. So my parents packed me a bag and said goodbye, then one of the Elite Guard led me out and sent me on my way down the mountain. I was about ready to give up and let myself die when Val found me two days later, but he wouldn’t let me die, he took care of me and taught me what he knew.” She resumed rubbing Twitch’s belly.

“It’s now been three months since then, and I’ve grown to love the Wastelands despite the violence and the death and corruption, and I wouldn’t want to go back to my Stable for anything.” She yawned, and then grinned at me. “So what was your Stable like? Why’d you leave?”

“Well… Stable 35 was… was the Crystal Empires only Stable, so everypony in it is descendants from the original Crystal Ponies. It is a massive Stable, like an underground city with massive underground fields for food and flowers and orchards and everything a pony could need. As a foal I started school when I was 6 and we were taught all different subjects, math, reading, writing, science, music, art, history, anything you could think of we were taught. We graduated when we were 12 and were given our PipBucks, then those with their cutie marks were assigned jobs, while those without were allowed to do as they please until they got their cutie mark… I never got mine…” I looked down at my blank flank sadly.

“Don’t worry Midnight, you’ll get your cutie mark one day. If you couldn’t get it in your Stable, it just means that your destiny is something you can only achieve outside of the Stable!” She grinned.

I nodded, feeling a little better. I hadn’t thought of that, that maybe my cutie mark would only come from doing something outside the Stable, but it made so much sense now, since nothing in the Stable had gotten me my cutie mark. “Thanks Harmony, I hadn’t thought of it like that!”

“Glad I could help you feel better about it,” She said with a grin. “So what made you leave your Stable? It sounds a lot better than mine was.”

“Hmm, yeah, but it wasn’t all great, you see, it seemed like we were cursed. The ponies only seemed to live for 35 years, we were told it was some incurable disease made by the Zebras at the end of the war that we somehow got infected with. Around age 15 we were encouraged to get married and start having children, but I wasn’t able to even get a coltfriend, nopony wanted to be with the Stables oldest blank flank, and it certainly didn’t help that the most popular mares in my age group hated me, and bullied me all the time. It only got harder when my dad died about a month and a half ago. Then only yesterday, it was my mums turn to die, and the worst part was, her 35th birthday was on the same day as my 17th birthday.” I shuddered as a sob escaped. It felt like I must have left Stable 35 a couple days ago because so much had happened, but really, it had only been last night.

Harmony gave me a hug and I willed myself to calm down. “There was a massive party for our birthdays, and I had found that I was having a good time, until the clock neared midnight. I left, afraid of what was going to happen to my mum. One of the bullies found me, she was drunk and start following me, saying stuff about how I should die with my mum. I couldn’t take it anymore and I struck out, probably breaking her muzzle, but then her fiance found us and chased me, intent on hurting, or killing me. I had managed to escape into the Overmares apartment, the Overmare being my grandma, only to find it empty.”

“Wait, if everypony in the Stable dies at 35, how do you have a grandma?” Harmony asked, perplexed.

“Well… It’s because she’s hundreds of years old…”

“Oh! Is her memory and mind and stuff in a computer or a robot that then looks after everything in the Stable?” Harmony asked. “Cause I’ve seen that before in another Stable, though the robot had gone insane and killed everypony.”

“What? No. My grandma, and Stable 35’s Overmare, is Princess Cadance,” I explained.

“Really!? That’s awesome! A princess is still alive then!” Harmony exclaimed.

“Well, not really awesome, she has an evil side named Nocturne who has been killing off ponies once they reach 35 for the past 200 years. I was the first pony to discover it, and I wish I hadn’t, cause I walked into this secret room to find Nocturne torturing my mum, then killing her. I was given a choice, die, or leave the Stable, and if I had tried anything, my sister would have died, so I left, and was then nearly eaten by a dragon and managed to escape and spent the night in a freezing garden shed. I awoke to find Twitch next to me, and then we headed to the city and then everything else happened and now we are here.” I sighed, then yawned, tired.

“Hmm, you should get some sleep, I need to go talk to Val,” Harmony said, standing.

“Yeah, okay…” I yawned again, when something hit me, “Val has the same name as Cadance’s son who died in the war!”

“What?” Harmony asked.

“Before the war Cadance and Shining Armour had a son, Valiant Knight, Val has the same first part of his name,” I explained.

“Wow, so he does. Well, goodnight Midnight, sleep well.” Harmony then left me to get to the roof where Val was keeping watch. I curled up with my blanket and Twitch lying against me, and eventually I fell asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I stood in pitch black darkness. The ground seemed to be covered in some sort of thick, warm and sticky sludge. “Hello?” I tried to call out, but no sound came out of my mouth. Nervously, I started forward, not knowing what else to do. Going was hard, the thick sludgy stuff on the ground seemed to be getting thicker, and I could now smell something sweet and metallic. I tried to open my wings, just so I could hover rather than struggling through the thick sludge but my wings seemed to be stuck to my sides. I could feel my heart starting to beat faster as panic flooded me.

I picked up the pace, galloping as best I could, and eventually saw a faint light ahead, which I headed towards. All of a sudden I was blinded by a bright light which appeared out of nowhere, and I blinked rapidly as my eyes began to adjust. Finally I could see what the sludge was, and instantly regretted looking at it. My legs and tail were stained dark red from where they’d touched the sludge, which I now saw was dark red, almost black. It was blood.

The sickly sweet metallic smell assaulted my nostrils as I found I could use my wings again, and I sprang into the air, flying up to the clouds I now saw above me. I couldn’t figure out what was happening, hadn’t Harmony been saying goodnight only a few minutes ago? How did I go from that house to here? And where was Twitch? Then I realised, this must be a dream, or rather, a nightmare, as no dream could contain so much blood, unless you were a surgeon pony who dreamt of performing lifesaving surgery.

I tried in vain to rub the blood off of my legs onto the clouds, and it kind of worked, but not well. I then noticed that my cloud had drifted, and I was now above the marketplace of the city, though now there was no pony, griffon, buffalo, donkey, zebra, or even changeling there, it was deserted and deathly quiet. The silence seemed almost like it was hurting my ears, until, I heard a sickeningly familiar voice screaming for help. Leaping from my cloud I soared over the city, searching for the source of the voice.

I didn’t find the source of the screaming until I was above the rubble pile which was the remains of the palace, and there, lying on the peak of the pile, was my cut and bloodied mother, and standing above her with a massive bloody knife was Nocturne. The light began to quickly dim then, and a bullet whizzed past my head as I saw that the headless body of Quick Deal was now shooting at me from a half collapsed house. Force higher to escape, I lost sight of mum and Nocturne as the darkness closed in. I suddenly felt a sharp pain in one of my wings, I’d been hit by a bullet. I started to fall, and closed my eyes, waiting for impact, but it didn’t come.

Opening my eyes, I found myself in my not quite dark bedroom back in Stable 35. Getting out of bed, I exited my bedroom and quickly went down the short hall to Misty Veil’s bedroom. Opening the door, I found a horrifying sight. Misty was tacked against her bedroom wall like some sort of gory poster. Her stomach was cut open and her innards were hanging out, slowly falling down onto the face of Threadbare, who was also dead, his limbs torn off and scattered around the room.

Feeling sick, I fled. I knew I’d always had an over active imagination, but this was just ridiculous! I’d never dreamt anything this sick, cruel and twisted, not even after I’d read that book about the methods of torture and interrogation used by both sides during the war, highly detailed pictures included. Coming into the lounge room, I found the mutilated, rotting corpse of my dad lying on the couch. I wanted to throw up, but for some reason I couldn’t, and then, my dad started getting up. He was a zombie, and he started walking towards me slowly. I promptly left the apartment, slamming the door shut behind me.

Once out of the apartment, I saw other ponies I knew dead and strewn around the halls, and the few ponies I found alive were undead vamponies or zombies like my dad, and would try to drink my blood or eat my brain. Maple Swirl and Rosebloom were particularly persistent vamponies, who chased me all the way to the underground fields, where I finally managed to lose them in the corn field. Finally, I made it to the atrium, where Nocturne sat on a throne of raunchy romance novels… Wow, all these dead ponies with all their guts everywhere, and that’s the best thing my mind could come up with for the throne of an Evil Queen. I actually felt really disappointed in myself despite how sick and horrified I was feeling.

“Ah, Midnight, I was wondering when you’d finally come back. As you can see, I’ve been having a lot of fun, the vamponies are especially fun to slaughter.” Nocturne smiled, satisfied with herself. “Now, I am the Ultimate Queen of Evil, are you ready to take your place at my side as the Princess of Evil?”

“No way in Tartarus am I joining you!” I said, or at least, I would have said that if my voice was working, which it still wasn’t.

Then suddenly I was falling again, down a hole this time, with Nocturne smiling down at me as I struggled to get my wings to unfold, but they were thoroughly stuck again. I landed on what seemed to be a dance floor, and I now wore the dress Misty Veil had made for me. I was back at mums and my joint birthday party, and everypony was where they had been on the night, except, there was a new addition to the party. Val stood before me, wearing a tux, and he was asking me to dance. Before I could refuse he had grabbed me and we were whirling around the dance floor in a fast paced waltz. I found that despite my feeling of dislike and distrust towards Val, this was really nice, but then again, when all my dreams thus far had been nightmares full of blood, guts and gore, it wasn’t that hard for it to be a dream I liked, there was no gore, no dead ponies, no Nocturne, what wasn’t to like?

We dance for what felt like half an hour, but was only one song, and I was feeling tired and thirsty when we finished the dance. I turned to go and find some punch, when suddenly Val gave me a kiss on the cheek. Shocked, I turned back to look at him, only to find that he, and the rest of the party was dissolving away, and now I was falling again. I landed hard in the bottom of a pit filled with blood stained pony bones. Struggling to stand, I headed down the pile till I reached solid ground, and I walked down a tunnel, everything getting steadily darker as I went.

The tunnel seemed endless, and I was constantly tripping and stumbling over bones and rocks in the pitch black darkness, it was more annoying and painful than scary. Eventually the tunnel ended in a massive cavern filled with softly glowing piles of gold and jewels. I suddenly noticed that the radiation meter on my PipBuck was quickly ticking up. All the gold and jewels were radioactive, and now I saw that they belonged to a dragon. The dragon looked like the one I had found outside the Stable door, only five times as big. It roared deafeningly at me, and without warning, I was suddenly engulfed in white hot flames. The searing pain ripped through me, and I tried to scream, but no sound came out. As the pain became unbearable, everything went black.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next thing I knew, Harmony was shaking me awake, and she and Val were looking down at me worriedly. I could see the colt and stallions in the room staring at me, and the filly and mares peering around the bedroom door at me. I slowly sat up, blinking.

“Are you okay?” Harmony asked, the worry clear in her voice.

“Umm… Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” I replied.

“Because you were screaming and thrashing around in your sleep,” Val said, frowning a little.

“Oh… I, umm… I was just having a nightmare, nothing to worry about…” I said, giving and unconvincing smile, trying to not to remember the nightmares, or how handsome Val had looked in a tux…

“Well okay then…” He said, looking unsure. “The sun will be up in an hour or two, so we should move out while we still have darkness, the sooner we get away to the mountain pass the better.”

And so, we packed up our stuff and headed out after a small breakfast of pre-war tinned peaches, which somehow were still good to eat. I still felt tired as we snuck out of the city, but then, my sleep hadn’t been at all restful. After an hour and a half the sky began to lighten, though the thick cloud cover didn’t let much light through, so as we walked on, it felt as though we were in a perpetual twilight.

Author's Note

Thank you to my new editor, Downunda Thunda ^.^

http://www.fimfiction.net/user/Downunda%20Thunda

Chapter 4: Traveling

Chapter 4
Traveling

We were well into the Crystal Mountains by lunchtime. We'd only stopped a few times since leaving the city, twice to hide from the small teams of ponies sent to find us, but once we could no longer see the city, we were safe, as Val assured us that the patrols wouldn't come this far into the mountains. If I could use one word to describe the Crystal Mountains, I don't think I'd be able to pick between cold and steep. The icy plains which held the Crystal Empire stretched far below us, and the Crystal Mountains stretched high above us, the tops hidden in the thick cloud cover.

Another word to describe the mountains could be monotonous. Everything was the same, steep and cold, coloured with varying shades of white, grey, black, and a slight hint of brown here and there. All jagged rocks and big boulders and a few stunted trees every now and then. We were travelling along a rarely used track which was meant to lead all the way to the other side of the mountains, and according to Val, we would reach the other side in 3 or 4 days depending on what we might encounter. I really didn't like the sound of that. Everypony walked, Lemon Squeeze, the pegasus mare, being too weak to fly much.

Walking near the back of the group, I noticed that Val was keeping the blue blank flank filly, who I now knew was named Diamond Swirl, close behind him. Curious, I slowed down to walk next to Harmony to ask her about it.

"Oh, he needs to make sure she stay's safe, since she's the reason we were in the Crystal Empire." She replied, somehow walking effortlessly backwards as she studied the path behind us with binocular goggle things to ensure we weren't being followed. Turning back around she said "Looks all clear back there."

"But why were you after Diamond?" I asked.

"Because her dad called on us to rescue her from the slavers, we'll be getting a lot of bottlecaps for her safe return. That's our job, we get hired to save ponies, or take out raiders or bandits or slavers, and we help and save as many other ponies as we can along the way, so we freed the other slaves as a bonus." She grinned. "I doubt Diamond will ever wander off The Estate again."

"The Estate?"

Harmony nodded. "Yup, it used to be some luxury resort, but is now the home of Lord Verdite and Lady Crystal Note,their twin sons Obsidian and Aventurine, and their daughter Diamond Swirl. This is the fourth time they've hired us now. We happily work for them because they don't keep slaves, they hire ponies to clean and cook for them and to guard The Estate. They also care for the marketplace just outside their walls. Aside from Tall Tale, it's one of the safest places around Vanhoover."

"And... What's Tall Tale?" I asked

"Tall Tale is where me and Val live when we aren't on a job, his dad and little brother and sister live there too." She smiled at me. "Violet is just the most adorable little filly you've ever met."

I nodded. "Okay then."

It was then that it started snowing. More whiteness, only now everywhere, obscuring things, like a really really sharp rock that really really hurt when I stood on it. “Ow!” I stumbled, nearly falling on top of Twitch. He looked up at me, then bounded ahead, not wanting me to trample him.

“What is it?” Harmony said in alarm from behind me.

“I stood on a sharp rock,” I replied, cradling my sore hoof.

“Oh, is that all?” The blue mare with the brown mane ahead of me snickered. Her cutie mark was some dead animal, but I couldn't tell just what it was.

“Hey, it really hurt!” I said.

“Why don’t you fly above us? Then you don’t have to worry about stones” Harmony suggested.

“But I’ll lose you in the snow,” I complained, “Plus I’m not used to flying a lot.”

The mare ahead snorted a laugh, “excuses excuses.”

“Midnight, if you lose us in the snow you can just use your EFS to find us” Harmony told me, moving up next to me.

“EFS?” That didn't sound familiar to me, I tried to think of what it could stand for, Enquire Friend System? Enemy Finding System? Every Fool Sings? Elephant Friend Summoner? That would be cool, being able to summon an elephant at will.

“A pony with a PipBuck who doesn't know what EFS is? Ha!” That mare was quickly getting on my nerves. “I bet she doesn't even know what SATS is!”

“Err… SATS?” What in the hay could that mean? Single Ant Takes Salt? Signal Anonymous Target System? Sit Around The Sea? Salespony Advertising Tiara Sale?

The mare burst out laughing. I could barely make out her brown tail in front of me.

“Shut it Pebble!” Harmony snapped at her, and thankfully she stopped laughing. “SATS is Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell, it’s a function on your PipBuck, as is EFS, which is short for Eye’s Forward Sparkle. SATS helps you target things in a fight, and EFS lets you see bars of where people or turrets or robots are and wether their friendly or hostile, don’t ask me how it knows, it just does. Friendly bars are yellow, red bars are hostile.”

“Okay… How do I activate EFS then?” I looked down at my PipBuck. I’d only ever used it to listen to the radio, record music and some conversations, use the lamp feature and look at the map of the Stable. Harmony stopped me then grabbed my leg, starting to fiddle with the Pipbuck, and using some little tools from her saddlebags.

“Huh, your Pipbucks a bit different to mine, a little less bulky, a bit smoother, that tiny little crystal heart on the front is so cute! Oh cool, it has a broadcaster!” I nearly fell as she pulled my leg closer.

“Umm, during the war whilst Stable 35 was being built, Princess Cadance commission special PipBucks to be made for our Stable. The little crystal heart is carved from one of only two shards recovered when the Crystal Heart was destroyed. This PipBuck belonged to Princess Skyla, Cadance’s youngest daughter, and it was given to me when I finished school.” I didn’t know why Grandma had given it to me, she’d always cherished it.

“Well, I’ll have to examine it properly later. SATS and EFS were never turned on so that’s probably why you didn’t know about them, you’ll see them in the functions menu. Bring up EFS and hover over us.” Harmony trotted to catch up with the group as I did what she said, suddenly seeing about a dozen bright purple bars blink into existence in my vision. This was weird. I reached out a hoof, feeling as though I could touch the bars, but of course, I couldn’t.

Springing into the air, I flew back to the group and hovered next to Harmony. “I thought you said friendly bars were yellow.”

“Yeah, I did. Why? What colour are you seeing?”

“A bright purple, it’s a nice colour,” I replied.

“Hmm, it’s probably cause our PipBucks are different,” She smiled as we reached the top of the incline. For a while the path was relatively flat, and then we went down into a small valley. As we climbed out of the other side of the valley, the snow was getting heavier now, and the wind was picking up, it was starting to turn into a snowstorm. Val took us into a cave to wait it out.

“One thing you never want to do is get lost in a snowstorm on a mountain, it’s usually a sure-fire way to die.” He said to me as I entered the cave. There was an old fire pit dug out in the middle of the cave full of ashes and an old bone, and an old pile of slowly rotting blankets at the back of the cave, the remnants of some ponies camp. "We'll rest here while we wait for the snow to stop. Hopefully it won't last too long, I want to be at Hot Springs by tomorrow night at the latest."

"Hot Springs?" I asked, petting Twitch's head.

"It was a holiday ski village before the war, the biggest attraction being the hot springs, which were said to have healing qualities. Now it's a safe place to stop when traveling into the mountains. Old Spade and his daughter Cookie live there, they do repairs on the place, keep it liveable." He smiled at me, "Also, I think most of the ponies that we saved could do with a good bath."

Hearing this, Pebble glared at him and trotted to the back of the cave with a huff.

It was about three hours later when we could start moving again, and this time I hovered above the ground to avoid any pesky stones out to hurt my hooves. It was about two hours after leaving the cave when the sky began to darken, and another hour after that when we were walking in near darkness. That's when Val called a halt for the night taking us into another cave to spend the night. I curled up against the cave wall, with Twitch curled up next to me like a big fluffy pillow. He didn't seem to mind when I wrapped my hooves around him as if he was a teddy bear, and was soon fast asleep in my embrace. As I began to drift off, I found myself watching Val as he took first watch at the entrance of the cave, and found myself wondering what it would be like to be curled up with him, rather than Twitch, but I quickly shook the thought from my head. I believe I saw him look at me just before I drifted off, but that might have been my imagination. Luckily, I didn't have any dreams that night as I slept, or if I did, I didn't remember what the dreams were.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We were woken a couple hours before dawn by the sound of a gunshot and a very loud roar. Bleary eyed, I stumbled to the mouth of the cave just in time to see Mossy Slate, the green and grey stallion, struck down by a huge mountain lion the size of a grizzly bear and almost as white as the lightly falling snow. Suddenly wide awake, I quickly backed into the cave, tripping over Pebble who was trying to leave the cave to see what was going on. She shouted something at me as she shoved me off her, but it was muffled by the sound of Mossy crying out loudly in pain, followed by the sound of another gunshot and another roar of pain.

That's when Val galloped past us out of the cave, three different guns floating around him, held by his magical grasp. Then we heard another roar that stopped abruptly as all three guns fired, and just like that, it was all over. Peaking out the cave, I could see that the mountain lion was dead, and Val was standing over the now silent Mossy in the blood soaked snow. Approaching, I saw that his body had been slashed to ribbons by the lions claws. Eyes wide, I backed away again, feeling nauseous.

"We have to bury him somehow..." Val said, sounding sad. He turned and saw me standing there, and the others at the cave mouth. "Collect stones, all of you, Pebble, take care of the lion, since I guess that's what your talent is."

"It is. I've never skinned or eaten a lion before, I guess there's a first for everything."

Did she say eat? Oh Celestia, I think she did say eat. And why weren't they all shocked or upset that somepony had just died? Instead, they all just looked a little bit sad, as if it wasn't such a big deal. Now I felt doubly sick. Pebble trotted into the cave as the others moved away in pairs to start searching for rocks, Diamond staying in the cave. Pebble was soon back with a long dagger and approached the lion, Twitch joining her, looking for a meal. It was like I was stuck in a trance, unable to move as she slid the wickedly sharp dagger under the lions skin, blood dripping slowly out from the cut, but I then jumped with a yelp as somepony nudged my shoulder. Turning, I found that it was Val, a sympathetic look on his face.

"Hey, come help me find some rocks," he said, then started walking away. I quickly followed, grateful for the opportunity to put as much distance between myself and that grisly scene as possible. We walked for a few minutes before Val stopped, "I don't mean to sound harsh, but you need to learn to toughen up."

"I... I... How?" I asked, still in shock.

"Well for one, you need to accept that death is a regular occurrence here in the Wasteland. At any moment you, or your friends, could be dead, killed by an animal, like that lion, or a raider, or old technology even. Ponies are here one moment, and gone the next, and if you are dumbstruck every time you see a pony die, you are most likely going to be the next one to die. Also, sooner or later you will have to kill somepony, that is a non-negotiable of living in the Wasteland."

Shuddering at the thought of killing somepony, I nodded. "Umm... Okay..."

"And another thing, you are going to have to eat meat. I know that since you are a Stable pony, your diet has been strictly vegetarian until now, but to live in the Wasteland, you will have to eat whatever you can get, and that includes meat, that's just something you'll have to get over, preferably at breakfast when we eat the lion. Understand?" He looked at me, waiting for a response.

I slowly nodded again.

"Good. Now, lets go collect some stones, I hate it when I'm forced to leave ponies unburied, so I do my best to bury all those I can."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We were on the move again by sunrise, climbing up another mountain. We had buried Mossy Slate under a big pile of rocks and snow, and had then eaten roasted chunks of lion meat for breakfast. It hadn't tasted nearly as bad as I had thought it would, but it still tasted strange, and the texture just felt wrong in my mouth, but it wasn't the worst thing I'd ever eaten, no, that title was held by the muffins my sister had attempted to bake in grandma's kitchen as a little filly. Somehow, they had been burnt completely black on the outside and were completely raw on the inside. Also, she had used bad eggs without knowing, as well as moldy blueberries, and I think that the milk had probably gone off too, based off of the way it had smelt. I'd still eaten one, just to make her happy, then paid for it with a week and a half in the sick bay with really bad food poisoning.

Pebbles carried the folded up lion pelt on her back, apparently a good white pelt like that could fetch some good caps at market. I flew once more, Val sending me ahead at times to scout out the safest path for the group to travel by, but by lunchtime I was walking again, my wings not used to so much flying. For lunch we ate more lion meat. It was a thankfully uneventful trip, with no one really talking, everypony subdued. The sky was beginning to darken as we entered the small mountain valley which contained Hot Springs. I looked around curiously as we headed towards it. The biggest building by far was the huge Hot Springs Resort, which was halfway up the opposite side of the valley. Scattered around the resort were a couple dozen little crumbling cabins, and below on the valley floor were a dozen or so shops and houses which made up the village. All were in disrepair, though the resort looked to be in pretty good condition, apart from the collapsed west wing.

I could also see the massive chairlift going all the way up to the top of a small mountain. Most of it was still standing, though the chairlift chairs were barely visible, scattered in the snow. Once, long ago, fillies and colts would have sledded or skied down into the valley with their parents , and built snow ponies down on the valley floor. I sighed, imagining the fun my sister and I would have had if we'd lived before the war and our parents had brought us here.

Wiping a stray tear from my eye, I realised that we had already walked almost all the way to the resort. That's when I noticed the light brown earth pony mare with a dark brown, purple streaked mane watching us from the big wrap around balcony, a big gun on her back. Looking at my EFS, I saw that her bar was purple, hopefully meaning she wasn't going to shoot us. A big black and white husky stood next to her, tail wagging as he watched us. Coming to the entrance of the resort we were greeted by two more huskies, a brown and white one and a grey and white one, and an old grey earth pony buck with a shovel cutie mark and the same mane colour as the mare, who I assumed was his daughter.

"Hi Spade." Val said to the old buck.

"Well hi Val, Harmony, long time no see. I see you've got quite a lot of others with you this time, usually you only get one or two. Well, welcome to you all, Cookie will get some rooms ready for everypony, you're just in time for dinner. Come in, come in." Smiling, Spade ushered us all in, eyeing Twitch for a moment, but letting him come in, the huskies sniffing him curiously. Spade then led us into a large hall filled with couches and a couple of pool tables at one end, and dining tables at the other, with fires crackling in the big fireplaces at either end of the hall.

Another husky, a fully white one, slept in front of the fire by the couches. I sat down as Val and Harmony left to talk to Spade. The room was warm and had a homey feel, despite the size, though the walls had some pretty bad water damage and the couches smelled of mold and mildew. There were two other ponies in the room as well as a griffon. Of the ponies, there was an elderly, but tough looking teal coated, grey maned unicorn mare in a big fur coat which obscured her cutie mark. She eyed us suspiciously as we entered, taking a sip of red wine from a chipped wine glass held in blue magic.

The other pony was a big pale yellow pegasus stallion with a green streaked aqua mane and a cross made from red daggers for a cutie mark. He was standing by the pool table, waiting for the griffon to take her turn. The griffon had black edged white feathers on her head and neck, while her body was light grey, and dark grey wings. I saw the two of them glance at us before going back to their game. The white husky awoke and came over to sniffed curiously at Twitch, who only blinked in response before bounding up onto the couch next to me. I rubbed him between the ears, then smiled slightly as the husky jumped up to sit on my other side, begging for a pat, which I gave it.

A short while after, the mare from the balcony, who must be Cookie, came into the room with a large steaming pot balanced on her back. "Dinners ready you lot, carrot stew, come on." I stood and followed her to the other end of the hall, as did all the others.

Cookie served us bowls of a thin carrot stew, thankfully without any meat, and we all sat at the dining tables to eat, Val, Harmony and Spade soon joining us. Over dinner conversations, I learned that the pegasus stallion was named Dagger Wound, and he was Cookie's coltfriend. From what I heard, he was just as good at healing wounds as he was at causing them. I also learned that Trina the griffon and Holly Bright, the elderly mare, were traveling companions on their way to a small settlement near the Crystal City, and that there was a large increase in the activity of the ice wolves on the other side of the mountain range.

After dinner, Cookie showed us to our rooms. I shared a room with Diamond and Harmony, and I got to sleep in a slightly lumpy bed that smelled of mildew, and that's all that registered before I fell asleep.

Chapter 5: Hot Springs and Raiders

Chapter 5
Hot Springs and Raiders

I awoke with a gasp to find the room illuminated by the early morning light coming through the window. I'd dreamt that dream again, and it was basically the same, except Nocturne had had a pet giant mountain lion next to her throne of trashy romance novels. That and instead of a waltz, Val and I had danced a tango. I now looked around the room, seeing that Diamond was still asleep, curled up on her bed, and I felt glad I hadn't woken her with a scream this time. Twitch and Harmony weren't in the room, so I decided it would be best to go looking for them. Getting out of my bed and then dressing in my barding and jacket, which I didn't fully remember taking off the night before. I then left the room quietly so as not to wake the peacefully sleeping filly.

I walked down a few corridors which I remembered would lead me to the common room, and hopefully to breakfast, I was hungry and I'd rather save what little food I still had from the stable. Reaching my destination I found Twitch was sitting with a couple of the huskies by the fire while Harmony sat with Val, Cookie, Dagger and Spade at a table, eating leftover stew for breakfast. Pebble sat at another table with Lemon Squeeze, the red and green colt named Hammer, and the blue stallion named Hard Drop. I quickly made up my mind about where to sit, moving over to take the empty seat next to Harmony after I got a bowl of stew. We were soon joined by Diamond Swirl who sat next to Val, the filly seemed to be completely enamored with him, probably because he'd saved her from a lifetime of slavery, but he didn't seem to notice, or if he did, he didn't show it. I ate in silence, listening to the conversations going on around me, learning that Holly Bright and Trina had left before dawn to continue their journey, and that the ice wolves had moved into sight of the resort during the night. Cookie and Dagger were going to go out to deal with them today, and Pebble, Hard Drop and Val would be joining them.

It seemed that we would be staying here for another night, two depending on how many ice wolves could be cleared out. I was glad of that, I'd spent three nights sleeping on the hard, cold ground, but spending last night in a bed had been great, and I didn't want to give it up so soon. After breakfast the hunting group went out, and Spade went off to do something or other, leaving myself, Harmony, Diamond, Lemon and Hammer in the common room along with Twitch, the huskies having gone off with the others. I was wondering about what I should do with all this free time I now had when Harmony spoke up.

"What do you guys say to a nice long soak in the hot springs this place is famous for?" She asked us with a grin.

The other three looked to each other, and were soon all nodding at the idea. I had to admit, it was a good idea, I'd never gone this long without washing before, though I was amazed that my coat was still so white despite all the dirt I'd been sleeping in. "Lead the way," I said, smiling slightly.

And lead the way she did, through the twists and turns of the corridors which she obviously knew the way through, until we reach what I assumed to be the back door of the resort, leading to a path which led a short way to a building built into the cliff face behind the resort. I discovered that it was definitely colder outside than it had been yesterday, but the cold was short-lived as we entered the other building to be greeted with a wall of beautifully warm air. Coming from a Stable, I'd experienced very few different temperatures, as the Stable had nearly always been kept at what was considered the perfect temperature for everypony, not too hot, not too cold, just right. Cadence only changed the temperature a little every few months to simulate Summer and Winter, but the difference was never too great. This warmth I felt now was what I imagined a real Summer to feel like, though maybe not the slight humidity, that wasn't the best.

Inside the door, we found ourselves in a really nice cave, or at least, it was a heck of a lot nicer than any caves I'd been in so far, but then, this was only the third cave I'd been in, so it was number one in my top three cave experiences. The whole place was lit by electric lanterns, which probably ran off the generator I assumed powered the resort. Near the door was a long counter, obviously meant for selling something since there was a register, and on of those metal spinny things that had once held postcards and maybe brochures. Behind the counter against the cave wall were tall cabinets, a couple missing doors to reveal shelves and shelves of really old, off-white towels and bathrobes, as well as glass bottles of what looked to be massage oils and bath salts and other things typical of a spa. So far I had been amazed by how well all these things I kept seeing had survived so long, I would have thought that in 200 years anything material would have rotted away, but a lot of the stuff I'd seen seemed to be largely intact, like my bed last night. The only explanation I could think of was that anything that should have rotted away by now had somehow soaked up enough ambient magic from unicorns of old to survive long enough to be usable now.

Posters were scattered around the walls, advertising all the different spa treatments that had once been available here, as well as for upcoming events, such as the Snowflake Gala which had been held at the resort every year. I had to admit, it would have been awesome to come here before the war, and a massage sounded really good right about now, travelling had not been kind to my limbs. Following the others lead, I grabbed a couple towels and followed them further into the cave, though a couple partially separated chambers containing different types of typical spa and salon equipment, the whole time the temperature slowly increased, as did the humidity. Eventually we came to the biggest chamber yet, which was full of small and large pools of crystal clear water. A couple of the smallest pools at the back of the chamber were steaming, which explained the humidity, and around them grew huge bright blue, green and purple mushrooms which seemed to glow despite the light. I assumed that these pools were the hot spring the place was named after. Those were blocked off by a fence, obviously too hot for a pony, but little channels ran from those pools into half a dozen larger pools which appeared to be the pools ponies could soak in. In the middle of the camber was a huge pool, connected again by channels to the six large pools, and I was amazed to see tiny rainbow coloured fish living in there. According to Harmony, they were specially bred cleaner fish which had managed to survive here since the war. Their job was to basically eat the dirt out of ponies coats, as well as removing loose fur and eating any dead skin. I thought that sounded kind of weird, but but the fish looked harmless and were pretty, so I decided to give it a try.

There were a few completely separate pools close to the entrance by the benches where we put our towels, barding and cloaks or jackets. These didn't seem to be connected to any of the other pools in any way. Curious, I dipped a hoof in, only to pull it out of the frigid water with yelp, it was colder than the snow outside! I heard a little giggle behind me and turned to find Diamond behind me. I looked at her questioningly, but rather than reply, she pointer to a sign above the pools that I hadn't noticed which read 'Ice Pools'. I sighed, kind of annoyed I hadn't noticed the sign, but at least it hadn't been anything dangerous, like acid, that would have been bad. I then followed the others as they started getting into the middle pool with the fish. I hesitated for only a moment, but decided if the others would do it so would I. The water was nice, only lukewarm, but that didn't matter. Wading out to the deeper, and warmer, water so that it reached my chin, I soon found myself surrounded by a rainbow cloud as the little fish swarmed around me, nibbling at my coat and forcing their way under my wings, which tickled, a lot. I was soon giggling like crazy, and I wasn't the only one, Lemon and Diamond gripped with full-blown laughter while Harmony and Hammer also giggled, though Hammer seemed to be trying to hide it, probably feeling that it was wrong to laugh when his twin was gone, and I couldn't say I blamed him when I thought of what I'd left behind at my stable. I then noticed Twitch swim past me, surrounded by his own cloud of fish, which he snapped at every now and then to catch a couple in his mouth to eat.

Overall it was a pleasurable experience, and we all moved to the smaller pools once the fish deemed us clean. These pools were almost too hot to sit in, but I quickly got used to the water. I shared a pool with Harmony, while Hammer, Lemon and Diamond shared another, Twitch sat on the side of ours, not wanting to come in. "I always love coming here," Harmony said happily, leaning her head back on the side of the pool.

"I can see why," I murmured, feeling completely relaxed. Harmony had brought bath salts which apparently were completely safe for the fish to eat. The salts had caused the water to be tinged pink, and the pool now gave off a beautiful smell of roses.

"Kind of a shame we have to leave, but we need to return Diamond, and get the others settled around the Estate, and Val wants to go home for a while too, and I can't blame him, we've been away from Tall Tale for weeks now." Harmony thought for a moment then looked to me. "We also need to figure out what to do with you."

I frowned, "What do you mean?"

"Well, you're going to have to decide whether you want to stay with me and Val or not. If you do, he's going to take the time to train you in the usage and care of all sorts guns, as well as hoof to hoof combat, and really, everything that you're going to need to know for joining our line of work as well as basic Wasteland survival. If you don't want to join us, we'll teach you the basics and find you a place to live in Tall Tale where Val's dad, Silver Dollar, would look out for you and help find you a job to do." Harmony smiled at me.

"Oh... Well, I don't know what I'd want to choose," I said, nervous at the sudden choice.

Seeing this, Harmony smiled comfortingly. "Hey, don't worry, you don't have to decide until we get to Tall Tale, so you have about a week till that happens."

I nodded, silently glad for this, when she got out of the pool, I was about to follow when she held up a hoof. "Wait here, watch the main pool," she said, the went behind a curtain I hadn't noticed before. A few seconds later, the lights went out, but instead of the room becoming shrouded in inky black darkness, the room glowed.

The big mushrooms by the the hot springs really had been glowing, and now emitted strong green, blue and purple glows, which I discovered had a similar effect to a black-light, as my white coat now glowed, as did Twitch's. Remembering what Harmony had said, I turned to find the main pool was also glowing, every colour of the rainbow. I realized that it was the fish that were glowing, and I watched in amazement as they separated into groups of the same colour and swam, swirling around each other in an amazing display.

"They eat the mushrooms that fall in the hot springs and get washed down into the main pool, which is why they glow like that." I jumped, I hadn't even noticed Harmony return, but here she was next to me. I nodded, then turned back to watch.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The hot springs had been amazing, I felt so relaxed and warm and I shared Harmony's sentiment about not wanting to leave, and I sincerely hoped that we would get to spend another day there, but alas, it was not meant to be. Val and the others had manage to kill the pack of ice wolves at the edge of the valley, bringing with them near two dozen pelts, as well as a very young ice wolf pup that Cookie was going to raise. We would be moving out at dawn tomorrow, so we ate an early dinner, which sadly contained meat, and went to bed early to get as much sleep as possible.

I didn't dream that night, thankfully, and was awoken by Harmony early the next morning. We joined everyone for breakfast, more leftovers, and then we were ready to go. The cloud covered sky brightened quickly as we moved out of the valley, and we walked for the whole day, seeing nothing of much note, nothing seemed to be living in these mountains, or at least we didn't see anything. We spent the night in another cave, and the next day was much the same. We reached the foothills around lunch time the day after, and I had my first look at a land not covered in snow. It was so brown. We were almost out of the foothills by the time it grew dark, and we stopped for the night in what had once been a farmhouse. From here it would be another day and a half to the Estate if all went well, and from there another 3 to Tall Tale.

I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do, I liked Harmony, she was really nice, but I was still on the fence about Val, he was helpful, seemed kind, but I still felt like I shouldn't trust him, at least not yet. That night I dreamed the same dream again, but there was any added scene where Pebble was skinning Twitch alive and I was literally nailed to the floor, unable to help him. I'd seen Pebble watching Twitch the past couple days, the same gleam in her eyes that she'd had when she'd gotten to skin the mountain lion, and I guess I was more worried about it than I'd thought. The next day I kept Twitch on my back as I flew above the group as we traveled, I didn't want to risk it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That night we stopped at a tiny village. Half the buildings looked too dangerous to go in, and only one didn't have blood soaked carpets and corpses and skeletons and blood splattered walls, or at least I was told that was what was in the other buildings, I wasn't going to risk looking. Val seemed nervous about something, and Harmony told me the two of them had cleared out a few Raiders from here a few weeks back, but some of the blood was fresher than that. That set off alarm bells in my head and I asked why where we still staying here if that was the case, only to be told that we'd be safer inside than out in the open, which of course made sense, but, I still felt like we should be running away as fast as our hooves could carry us.

Val posted two lookouts instead of one that night, so even I would be on lookout duty at some point. I was given first watch with Hard Drop, and received a quick lesson on how to use and reload a shotgun, and then I was stationed on the balcony where I would have a good view of the open fields behind the house, while Hard Drop had the front deck to watch the town. The time past uneventfully, Twitch keeping me company, and when my time was up, Lemon came to replace me and I gladly gave up the shotgun I'd been given. Moving back inside I found where I was to sleep and curled up next to Twitch, and sleep soon took me.

I awoke to gunfire some time later. There was movement as the others in the room got up quickly, moving to grab their gear as another shot rang out, followed by a muffled cry from Pebble outside. I clambered to my hooves, clumsy in my half-sleep state. I move to look out the window at the street below only to be pushed to the side by Twitch as the glass exploded inwards. I stared in shock, not quite believing that just happened. If Twitch hadn't pushed me I'd had a face full of glass right now, and possibly a bullet in my brain. Fully awake now, I ran out of the room, following the others. I found Harmony at a broken window, shooting with a sniper rifle at the street below. "What's going on!?" I asked.

"We're under attack, Raiders, at least a dozen, I've taken out 3." She aimed and shot again. "4. Their less organised than the last lot we drove out of here."

"Well what do I do?" I asked, finding her calmness a little unnerving.

"Val got Pebble inside, he's got her and Diamond holed up in the bathroom downstairs, hurry and put on your stable barding, then get a gun and ammo and a first aid kit from my saddlebags and get downstairs, Val needs to focus on killing Raiders, and he can do that if he has to try and save Pebble too." I nodded, and hurried to do as she said.

Soon I was downstairs, keeping out of view of the windows as Hammer and Hard Drop shot at Raiders through the windows with guns I didn't know the names of. I knew some guns, rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, revolver, pistol, but the names meant nothing to me, they were all guns, they were all used to kill, some just shot further and harder than others. I quickly, Twitch following, and soon found the bathroom, and Val, who was holding a lantern, was glad to see I had a first aid kit. "Do you have any experience with first aid?" he ask quickly.

I nodded, "Yeah, I spent a few weeks learning about medicine in the sick bay."

"Good, then stop the bleeding and bandage her up, give her a Med-X too, we don't have any healing potions." And with that, he gave me the lantern and left.

Inside I found that Pebble had been shot right through the shoulder, and her left ear was now gone. Diamond was applying was applying pressure to the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Remembering the lessons I'd been given, I got to work, and soon had the bleeding stopped and her shoulder and what remained of her ear bandaged. I also gave her a Med-X, but that was a mistake as once the pain was gone, before I could stop her, she'd grabbed her gun and limped out the door to join the fight, so I sat with Diamond and Twitch in the lantern light, listening to the fighting outside.

After what felt like hours, the sounds of gunfire finally stopped. Soon after Harmony came to find us. "We got all of them, you can come out now," she said with a smile. Following her out we found Val was bandaging Pebbles leg, and Lemon was taking care of Hard Drop who'd also been shot in the leg. Hammer was cleaning his gun. Outside the sky was brightening, it was already morning.

"We're going to search the bodies for anything valuable, then we'll get moving, no more than an hour," Val said. "Keep your guns loaded, we may have missed one."

I felt repulsed at the idea of search dead ponies, even if they were the insane killers Harmony claimed, but I just knew I'd have to get over it, because it seemed that this was common in the Wasteland, seeing as no one else batted an eye, not even Diamond. And so I found myself searching a Raiders bags and barding for any ammo, caps or healing potions or other medicine or drugs he may have. Val had deemed the majority of the Raiders weapons more dangerous to the user than anypony else, so they were left in the mud. Apparently while he hated leaving ponies unburied, Raiders were another story. The Raider I searched was a mare, her beige coat patchy where fur had fallen out, and her orange mane was a matted mess. I found a full box of some sort of ammo in her gags along with a couple dozen caps. She'd had no healing potions but she did have magical bandages. I gave what I'd found to Harmony, but she told me to keep the caps. True to his word, Val made us move out after an hour. He'd found one last Raider hiding in an outhouse, and taken care of him. We stopped after another hour for breakfast before moving on again.

Author's Note

I'M NOT DEAD!!!

I'm going to try and update more, I've been busy with my uni and my Deviant page here: http://the-crusader-network.deviantart.com/

Under Edit, Review and Rewrite

I'll be going over my story and I'll be reviewing what I want to do with this story, editing things, and rewriting and adding things where needed. I don't know how long it will take, but I'm hoping to get some outside influence to help write this. I know where I want to go with this story, I'm just unsure how to get there.