Chapter Two: New Faces

Chapter Two: New Faces

"Make some friends!"

"Dear sweet Celestia."

I regretted leaving the stable, as soon a we reached the surface, and I think Ace did too. All her excitement disappeared as soon as she saw Equestria. Everything was gone, the trees, the grass, the lakes, everything. There was no sun, only an overcast that stretched as far as thee eye could see.

"I can't believe it." Ace said, looking at the wasteland in shock. "Everything's gone."

I wanted nothing more than to turn around and head back, but if we go back now, they'll we weren't cut out for the job.

Might as well give it a try. Right?

I put my hoof on her shoulder, causing her to look at me, "Let's focus on the task at hand, then worry about this, alright?"

She nodded.

"Good, let's go."

We traveled for a while, looking in awe at the wasteland, wondering what it was like before this. I knew this was making Ace very uneasy. I had to keep my eye on her, if this is what happened to Equestria, who knows what we're bound to encounter.

"Hey, Gadget?" Ace asked, gaining my attention.

"Yeah?" I replied, looking at her.

"What do you think Equestria was like, before, you know, all this?" She asked, looking around at the wasteland.

"Maybe it was like the storybook, full of life and joy. Ponies living in harmony, under the sun and moon. With the Princesses watching over them."

"What do you think happened to the Elements of Harmony?"

Now that was a question. What did happen to them? Did they survive or perish from the war?

"I don't know sis." She nodded and looked away. I was afraid I said something wrong, when she looked back.

"Do you think, it will ever go back to being like that?"

That question got to me, could Equestria go back to the way it was? "I don't know, maybe someday."

"Well, I hope-" she froze, her ears perking up.

"What?" I asked, stopping.

"Listen."

I perked my ears up and listened, but didn't hear anything, "I don't-, wait a minute."

"Shhhhhrrrrriiiiiiieeeekkkkk!"

"What the hell was that?!" I cried, thinking it was some kind of creature.

"I don't know," Ace responded, "but I think it's in trouble." She sped off in the direction the shriek came from.

"Ace, wait!" I cried, chasing after her.

By the time I had caught to her, she had already stopped. She was standing over something that appeared to be struggling, closer look showed it to be a baby alligator. There was something strange about it though, it's scales looked different, and it was bigger than a normal sized baby alligator, but I shrugged it off.

"It's hurt." Ace said, and she was right. It's tail was stuck under a huge rock, struggling only made it worse for the poor thing. "Should we help it?"

"Of course not!" I snapped, causing her to flinch. "We don't know what it is, and as far as we know it's probably tricking us."

"But we can't just leave it here!"

"Ace I-"

"No!" I stepped back.

"I don't care what this thing is! This is our first time out of the stable, and you're think about leaving something to die?"

"Squeak!"

Turned our heads we saw the creature was staring at us.  It looked up at me, I saw a pleading look in it's eyes, turning to Ace, I saw her give the same look. This made my heart ache. Despite everything we've seen, I knew Ace wouldn't leave this thing to die. No matter what.

Sigh. What am I getting my self into? "Go ahead."

Ace brought out a med kit from her saddlebag, and took out a bottle of medicine and some bandages. She then carefully, lifted the rock off it's tail. After that she opened up the medicine and rubbed it on it's tail, causing it to cringe. "Shh, shh, it's okay." she calmly spoke to the baby as she bandaged it's tail. She was really good with animals.

A few moments later, it's tail was bandaged, and healed. "There we go," Ace said, "all better."

The alligator gave it's tail a couple of swings, and happily squeaked. It then proceeded to lick Ace's cheek, then took off into the wasteland.

"Well," I said, "that was interesting."

An hour later it started to get dark so we made camp beneath a tree, or whatever was left of it. Ace got a fire going while I opened up a can of soup we had a few apples for dessert, then relaxed near the fire for a bit. I gazed up at the sky for Celestia knows how long, wondering why there were no stars, and just an overcast.

"Hey, Gadget?" Ace asked, bringing me from my thoughts.

"Yeah?" I responded, "What is it?"

"Do you think there was a reason we were given this task?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm just curious as to why "we" were chosen. I mean the Overmare pretty much hates me."

"I don't know Ace, I'm just an ordinary mechanic, while your just a medic and vet who likes to pull childish pranks." I replied, smirking.

"Hey! Those were "top notch" pranks, not "childish" pranks!" She responded, pouting.

Laughing, I decided to keep this going, "Oh really? What about that time with the whoopee cushion." Ace's expression was hilarious, she tried to come up with several excuses, but she eventually gave up.

"Alright, fine. That one counts, but none of the others do."

"Oh, yeah? What about that time you put hot sauce in the Overmare's coffee?"

"Hey, she had it coming. Taking away my joy buzzer."

I laughed, "Ace, you shocked everypony there. You know that's against the rules."

Ace mumbled something that sounded like, "I know.", before yawning. "I'm gonna hit the sack, good night Gadget."

"Good night Ace." I said, as sleep overtook me.

We woke up a few hours later. We had some apples and cereal for breakfast, before continuing on our way. It wasn't long until it started raining. The winds picked up, thunder boomed, and lightning flashed. We struggled to move through it.

"Gadget!" Ace cried, her voice struggling to reach beyond the roar of the storm, "We need to find shelter!"

"I know!" I cried back, "But, I don't see anything here to shelter us. We're going to have to keep moving for now!"

Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating the wasteland around us. Sometimes we would see what looked like shelter, only for it to disappear in the blink of an eye, it was like the storm was playing tricks of us. Worse, whenever the lighted flashed, I would usually see the silhouette of a pegasus in the distance. What was really creepy is that it had two beady red eyes, and it was staring at us. Also, I saw another figure in the distance, it resembled a dragon, with beady red eyes staring at us as well, there was something about the way it looked but, it disappeared, not only that but I could've sworn when they disappeared, the two figures were glaring at each other. It wasn't until a while later that we found shelter.

"Gadget, look!" Ace cried, pointing towards something big and dark.

Lightning illuminated it, revealing it to be a cave, with determination we raced towards it.

We collapsed in exhaustion as soon as we reached the entrance, the inside was big, we struck a match and looked around, it had plenty space, 3 tied up ponies, a-

Wait, what?!

Sure enough, there were 3 ponies tied up, a closer looked revealed two of them to be donkeys, one gray, the other brown, with black manes and blue eyes. The third was a stallion, with a brown coat, black mane, blue eyes, and a shovel for a cutie mark. They looked in terror at us, and started struggling, they probably thought we were gonna hurt them.

"It's okay," Ace cried, "were not not going to hurt you."

They calmed down a bit, only to immediately start struggling again.

"Ooh, lookee what we got here! They walked right into it, didn't they?"

Turning around we both saw the exit was blocked by 3 ponies.

And they had weapons.