Fallout Equestria - Long Way Home

by SunnyDontLook

Rating: mature
Tags: Adventure, Crossover, Random, Alternate Universe, Human
Length: 140159

A man wakes up in a unfamiliar location. Little does he know that he would later change the fate of a world. This is his long way home.

A man finds himself in a strange world. He must do everything he can in his power to get back. To face the challenges ahead he will need some help from some friends he makes along the way.
New chapters posted occasionally.

Estimated word count will be probably 150k-200k
Constructive Criticism is apprenticed
Co-Author Scramblez, Edit by FunkyP0n3,QuitStalinAround

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2015-03-16 20:29:08 UTC

Chapter 1: Hard Reset

Chapter 1: Hard Reset

Chapter 1 Hard Reset

As I awoke a feeling of vertigo hit me, it felt like either a large rock or small boulder.  Then cognizance started. Next I began to feel a sensation annoyingly similar to having a foot fall asleep except in this instance it was spread around my entire body.

After a few moments of this I had an epiphany. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not stupid, however In the present circumstances such a thought is instead of par for the course, it is more a novel and revolutionary idea. So being the innovator I am,  opening my eyes the sight that awaited me was a little bit terrifying. A blood encrusted operating room.  The room stunk of dried blood plus the ever welcome smell of rubbing alcohol. The good news was that although I seemed to be in a hospital operating room, I did not feel anything wrong with me.

In the act of sitting up a small torrent of information hit my beleaguered consciousness. Little unimportant tidbits but lots of them. I’ll give an example; my name  Jake Embry. That and a lot of irrelevant information most of it in the field of particle physics for some reason.  I ruminated about why the first things to be brought to the front of my mind would be something so fundamentally esoteric. Perhaps as a sort of acid test for my brain.

I looked down at myself I was wearing a faded hospital gown with the main thing of interest being a strange device attached to my left forearm. The damned thing was made of a sturdy metal. A large black and it seemed blue screen on the top of the device displayed the word (INITIALIZING…). “ Well shit”  I said out loud.

It seemed that my habit of saying my thoughts out loud came back with a vengeance. I heard a Whirring noise concurrent with a synthesized Voice “ Subject Z-34 is conscious *pause* Subject is agitated commence sedation protocols” . My first thought was is that a fuckin’ robot? Secondly I wasn't agitated until whoever this is said they were going to sedate me. I frantically searched the room for something I could use to defend myself. quickly my eyes settled on a lead pipe  that was laying on the grimy floor.

I went over and picked the pipe up. “Feels like 8 pounds.”  Said out loud by me.

“Subject talks to self. Note added for additional psychological evaluation” The voice says again.

I respond in  the eloquent way I am known for. “ That's hypocritical as shit!” My voice is the very paragon of pissed off.

I hid myself behind the door waiting for what's his face to appear.  The robot... did I just say robot?  The automaton stepped through the doorway vindicating my current position.  I saw that the thing looked top heavy therefore one sloppily done kick later the robot was on the floor trying its hardest to get back up. I took the opportunity to tactically abuse the robot with the pipe hitting anything that looked sensitive.

The robot was rendered non functioning in short order.  I stood up and caught my breath because beating metal creatures to death is a decent workout.

---===*===---

Leaving the immediate scene seemed like a prudent idea. Pipe in hand, I walked into the hallway. The previous decrepit feeling washing over me. The hallway extended about 10ft. There was a perpendicular hallway that extended outward on both ways. The side on my right was an unlocked doors  I walked into the room, in it was a mirror and bed. I guessed this was a bedroom, the pictures of people in frames supported this conclusion. I sauntered over to the mirror and seeing an opportunity took a look at myself. The figure looking back at me was of moderate height and average build.  My blonde hair was a mess; my face had a little bit of stubble on it.  After a little bit of deserved narcissism I looked at the closet. I had never seen myself that way before now, almost a grown male.

I moved close to the knob of the closet and pulled it open. Inside rested a set of orange clothing with the name Icarus emblazoned upon them.  On the breast pocket of the shirt was the name of the owner of the utilitarian orange jumpsuit. The name in question was JOHNSON “Had to be the most generic name in the universe.” Upon uttering these words I thought to myself, “Fuck it. I’ll put it on; can’t be worse than what I’m wearing now,”  I thought in a matter-of-fact tone.

I was lucky to find out that me and this johnson person wore basically the same sized clothing.  Whilst putting on the clothing, I had a moment to think:  “Ok, I must be in an experimental facility: hence the crazy robots,” I ruminated.  “On another note...  why would you name a facility Icarus?” I pondered. “Even this insane amnesiac remembers fucking middle school mythology.”  When I finally finished  putting on the orange shirt and khakis, I found a dresser in the closet. It had a pair of wool, bleached white socks. Upon removing the sock from the dresser, I felt an immediate amount of mass settled within the bottom of their soles. Reaching inside of the socks, I felt the metallic yet warm silhouette of ammunition, kept warm inside the confines of these peculiar white pieces of cloth.

The idea of having bullets stayed present within my mind as I placed them on top of the dresser, moving the socks onto my feet. The warmth was near instantaneous, the concrete flooring having previously kept my feet within their cold embrace.

After studying the bullets, I stashed them in my pocket. Apparently the bullets were 10mm. Further futile searching resulted in uncovering a footlocker under a pile of dirty clothing. Inside was a pair of military steel toed boots, a 10mm pistol and two loaded magazines. A synthetic leather holster for the pistol and two weird injection needles, also present in this stack of odds and ends. I pocketed the syringes, put on the boots, and affixed the holster to my pants. I exited the room; a majority of the feelings of fear and anxiety having been released from my psyche.

Next on the agenda was the hunt for food and water. Figuring out where I lie in this peculiar realm was secondary although equally as important.

---===*===---

I searched a few more rooms within the facility. Returning to the operating room where I had awoken, I found nothing more than a bottle of water and a few bandages. My mental torpor was broken by a beeping coming from the device on my forearm.  The display told me it was ready to... activate?  “Why not give it a try?”  I responded dryly. Upon activation of the queer device, my vision blurred for a moment. A Heads Up Display was projected directly into my vision.  Holy fucking shit, this thing must be directly interfacing with my brain and central nervous system. A recollection came into my mind. A thought about how “awesome” it would be to have a computer interface in my mind. Conversely when such a hookup is actually established with the added bonus of being  given no warning that it would happen. Ambivalence was the prevalent attitude towards my new found enhancement.

When I looked at the device now it showed three main tabs Stats,Items,Data.  OK maybe on second thought a pip-boy(what I now figured out was the name of the device) is pretty cool. The Pip-boy displayed my health, I wondered how it knew that it must quantify subconscious sensory impulses.  I flipped it to the stats tab then onto the skills tab? As was made exceedingly apparent by the GUI, Science was really my forte; as was the Firearms skill along with Explosives.

As I moved the knob right once again a new flashing light opened up on the Data tab. “I’ll examine that later.” When I saw my perks I Stared dumbstruck at the screen

Agility Implant- +1 to Agility

Spineless- Having No spine has some advantages. Chest cannot be crippled

+1 Damage Threshold

+1 Strength

Strength Implant- +1 to strength

Mad Scientist- +10 science +10 Explosives +10 Medicine

Automatic dislike from all factions except Enclave, Steel Rangers and followers of the apocalypse.

“Why Did These Assholes replace my body parts?”

  I slowly reached around and touched my back it felt the same as last time I felt my spine through my skin. Which was somewhere back in the hazy past.

The thought of having a part of my body replaced without my consent was horrifying. In the best possible move for my future mental health I suppressed my feelings of violation. I switched to the Quests sub-tab.Contained within in it was the Quest Named:

Hard Reset- Find out about your new augmentations. COMPLETED

End of chapter one

Perk Added

Rapid Reload

All of your weapon reloads are 25% faster than normal.

Tag Skills-  Guns, Explosives, and Science

Chapter Two: Dazed and Confused

Chapter Two: Dazed and Confused

Putting my arm down I digested this new found information. After a moment of contemplation I decided my previous goals were still very good ideas. My stomach grumbled loudly, perchance alerting every being in this world to my very position. Well, figuratively of course.

“Food seems like a good idea.”

Taking a moment to soak in my surroundings yet again, the thought struck me…

“This place got a goddamn map or somethin’ ?”

I set off on exploring and scavenging the facility. The place seemed absolutely deserted. To sum up those first few minutes of my ordeal, two things come to mind. The good part was that nothing tried to kill me. Perhaps that was part of the reason for the second part. ‘Twas incessantly mundane.

After aimless wandering, I came across a stairwell that led upward. The memorable parts of this particular stairwell were the lack of lighting as well as the graffiti on the wall beside it.

And the wax melted

Is that a reference to the name of the facility? I guess it is... Wait is it written in blood?!”

I reached out and acquired some of the crimson liquid on my finger. I immediately take some between my fingers and rubbed it to check the consistency. It didn’t feel like blood.  I guess the written in blood cliche isn’t in effect here.

Walking up the stairs I observed two things.

1.  That the next floor up had the lights off.

The stairwell ended here. Indicating that either this was the highest elevated level of this place or that the stairwells were decentralized for some strange security reason.

Waiting at the top the stairwell for a second I remembered something about a flashlight feature for my fore-arm computer. That’ll do I thought as I found the button that activated the function.

  As the light arced across the room I felt a more primeval part of my mind placated as the darkness vanished in a localized area. Then I spotted a Large room with a plaque on it

Artifact decontamination and storage.

Perhaps the stuff I had on me when I was taken here is in this place.  The idea that this place was on another version of earth entirely had been growing on.  After fighting that robot. That thing was probably not something that could be found on my Earth Circa 2014.

Once I opened the door to the room  I saw that at the center of the room was a large work bench covered by objects that were familiar to me. Namely my clothing which I inspected immediately. The thing that surprised me was that they looked no different. Really just my Pair of jeans that I wore a lot and My hoodie-shirt combo. So I began undressing and putting on the clothing which belonged to me.

While I was putting on my pants I spied what looked like an old projection based computer monitor.  After finishing redressing I went in for a closer look at the wall mounted computer. Pressing the big clearly marked power button on the front of the thing It came to life. Displayed on the screen was a interface that appeared to be similar to the one on my Pip-boy.

Three entries that I could read, all contained references to project icarus and the Oceanic isolation facility.  that has to be where I am.  Something about the terminal that caught my attention was that all the entries were dated to the year 2077 yet on my pip-boy it displayed the current year as being 2280.  The conclusion I drew from this is that this facility must have been mostly abandoned, yet still functioning in some ways for 203 years, give or take a few months.

As I read further it became clear that icarus was a some sort of transdimensional teleporter.  “so someone must still be running the icarus array (what the device was called in the terminal entries) or something?  That robot probably wasn’t the only automaton in this god forsaken place.

I searched the drawers the fruits of my labor were a couple of stale powerbars. Which I promptly consumed.  The taste they left wasn’t the only bad taste in my mouth,          The Terminal entries had left me with only more questions.

Making the decision to explore the top floor of the facility. I wandered aimlessly, up until the point I spotted a corridor studded with faintly glowing emergency lights. I began moving with increased vigor down the passageway, barely coming to a stop as I practically ran into a faded map of this level of the facility. Quickly spotting the words evacuation craft launching facility among the multitudes of other locations. While the prospect of escape from this decrepit facility seemed too good to be true, I hastily figured out a direct route towards the launch bays. I itched to begin my journey on said route, if only to stop the directionless wandering.

Whilst following the route I encountered no signs of life; stillness seemed to be the atmosphere of this figurative prison. The only interesting things I observed were a few broken down robots clearly labeled Protectron 3000. Oddly it seemed they had been scavenged. Was there something useful in these robotic rent-a-cops? Perhaps I should've searched the wreckage of the one that had tried to subdue me…

As these thoughts were running through my head, I was steadily approaching the evacuation submersible dock. Drawing to about the near end of my journey, I stumbled across a room that brandished a plaque that put a comical grin on my face; a single thought now the entirety of my existence.

“I adore  gunz.”

Weapons research and firing range.

The idea of a firing range in a place where the oceanic pressure outside would crush you like an Asian bitch under an American businessman wasn't exactly comforting. “Though judging from the atomic age aesthetics, this place’s outer walls are probably a solid twenty inches of steel.” I smugly stated to no-one but myself.  Attempting trying to open it “damn it must be locked” I spoke in a defeated tone.   The door in question was constructed of sturdy metal. My first action was to back up, then shoot the lock with my ten-millimeter pistol. The folly of that idea was made immediately apparent. The bullet striking the doorknob made a loud metallic reverberation as it ricocheted off the knob coming very close to hitting me. Recovering from that little bit of terror, I re-examined the door. Noticing that the hinges that secured the door to the wall were of stock quality I wondered how they would handle a gunshot.

With the new plan in mind I moved to what I judged would be a safe distance for the shots. The gun shook slightly in my hands as I sighted in my target. Focusing intently on the target, I squeezed the trigger three times. The bullets travelled in the air for a split second before they crashed against the target. The faint smell of Cordite filled my nostrils as I exhaled the breath I had taken before firing.

I jogged wearily until I was within an arm’s reach of the door. Placing my hands upon the door. I felt the rusted paint prick my hands slightly. Placing a single hand on the handle (my other on the center of the door) I pulled inwards. The door’s damaged hinges buckled under my augmented strength, causing the door to plummet backwards; nearly crushing me beneath its imposing steel frame. As this happened I leaped back in fear of being crushed; a disappointing way to end this rather appealing journey. The small sense of victory that came to me ceased when I heard the sound of gunfire and the simultaneous plinks of bullets coming down around me. My often useless survival instincts aided me in this situation as I dove out of the sights of whatever was firing at me. Regaining my resolve I peered over the corner of my cover, my eyes resting on what appeared to be a security camera on the ceiling of the room. Realization swept my being as I saw a laser emanating from the so-called camera lock onto me. Returning to cover instantly, shots rang out where my head had rested moments ago.

I had counted a 3 second delay between sighting and firing from the turret. This gave me the brilliant idea to try and pop a shot off at it before it had time to fire again. I jumped into the doorway with my handgun held out in firing position, something happened as I tried to determine what part of the turret to fire at. The event was V.A.T.S, an automated targeting program that slowed my perception of time down to a crawl, and gave me the ability to cede control of my body so that I could actually hit what I wanted to Hit. However It was not that moment that I discovered this information. At the time all I could think about was What Part Of the turret that I wanted to Hit Which I decided was the casing.(Coincidentally it was the largest part of the turret.)

The instant I Thought “Now fire” time sped up to what I considered normal speed the shots I had selected rang out.

*Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang*

The turret exploded right after the fourth bullet hit it.

I had felt out of control of my own body while I was shooting “Okay that felt weird” but the results were undeniable. I conceded to the point that it would be very useful.

Moving cautiously into the room I was taken aback by the fact that it was filled to the brim with various types of weapons. There was a rack by in the room with various rifles cataloged and mounted vertically. The Rifle that caught my was given the name “Epilogue”

by the name tag attached to the hand grip. I grabbed the firearm and then caressed the unloaded implement of destruction in my hands. It’s polymer stock sturdy and reinforced, the barrel black steel, the receiver dark silver and the sights perfectly aligned. I looked around until I sighted what I wanted, A sling for my rifle. Letting a smirk of triumph cross my face as I attached the sling to Epilogue.

After using the sling to lay the gun across my back I looked around for magazines. I Quickly spotted a box of 30-round magazines and noted their location. I realized that getting a backpack would let me carry a lot more equipment. Luckily in a nearby cabinet someone had stashed some survival gear before whatever cataclysm had made everyone leave. The fruits of my labour were a faded military backpack and a survival knife that somebody had dropped in a dark corner of the cabinet.

Now wearing my mismatched clothing I grabbed six of the previously mentioned 5.56 magazines. While doing this my Pip-boy made a beeping noise, moving it to my face I switched it to the weapons tab.

10 Millimeter Pistol

Bowie Knife

“Epilogue” Marksman Carbine +

“No idea how it does that” I stated, staring bemusedly at the device before putting my arm down.

No other minor revelations came to me as I set my course for the firing range . Part of me just wanted to see how such a place was constructed. I was disappointed to find that it looked like normal indoor firing range.

On the end of the stalls was a door marked AMMO REPOSITORY.  Feeling like a kid in a candy store (or a brooding teenager in an abandoned military base), I trotted towards the door. Inside were oodles and oodles of bullets. I found boxes of ammunition for Epilogue including one-hundred rounds of armor piercing ammo.   I grabbed a couple boxes of ammo for the 10 millimeter as an afterthought. In my searching of this room I had come across what appeared to be grenades. Picking up the probably ordinance, I checked my Pip-boy it showed them as plasma grenades. Reading those words I let out a psychotic chuckle, I was glad no-one heard me.

Before leaving the scene of my looting I went about loading the magazines with my newly acquisitioned bullets, then setting off towards my original objective.  The quiet of the place I realized was a deranged kind of peaceful.  “Now that just won’t do” I started humming in a manner reminiscent of a serial killer.

A loud noise broke me out of my whistling. Clanking noises could be heard from further down in the hallway.  Swiftly I moved into a recessed doorway, as the mechanized sounds steadily increased in volume.

Clutching my rifle in my slightly shaking hands, waiting for the robots to come into visual range. “SUBJECT Z-34 YOU ARE HAVE BEEN ORDERED BY THE IMPERATOR  TO BE DETAINED. FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE TERMINATION.” The protectron stated in a loud monotone.

“ TELL THE IMPERATOR TO GO FUCK HIMSELF” I yelled at the robot while stepping out from behind my cover. Feeling an eldritch calm as I entered Vats, quickly selecting five headshots each at 77%.  As time returned to what humans deem as normal my body controlled by my Pip-boy fired the shots I had selected.

The Protectron fell to the ground as four high velocity shots struck it.  I strafed back behind the door way as two more protectrons came around the corner. They let out a barrage of laser bolts striking the wall in front of me.  Returning fire manually I hit the closest Protectron to me in the chest three times. Turning to aim at the other enemy, it shot me in the chest with its flesh broiling laser. Yelling out in pain I reacted as no machine would, empting the remaining rounds in the magazine at it.  Perhaps half of the bullets struck it, but it  was enough to leave the robot a smoldering pile of garbage in sea full of garbage. Sitting down in the doorway I had in before I took a moment to look at the laser wound.

It  definitely wasn’t pretty, a good sized hole of cauterized flesh just above my right ribs. So it wouldn’t kill me but it still hurt like a motherfucker. I wondered if I had any pain meds on me. That led me to start searching the aid tab Seeing something called a stimpack on there. I selected it and read a short description of the drug.

It appeared to be a  non-addictive healing catalyst. After searching my pockets for the stimpacks I Injected the syringe into the spot indicated by my Pipboy. The pain decreasing with little delay,  the entry stated that the stimpacks effects wouldn’t end for around ten minutes depending on body size and dosage.

After following the instructions about resting for the duration of the healing effects, I began to trudge closer to the evacuation center.

Finally coming to the doors of the place I noticed signs that something was amiss. Dropped bags littered the floor, along with signs of struggle. Swiftly moving into the  submersible dock part of facility. The floors were littered with corpses decayed to the point of being nearly skeletons. Most of the the corpses were wearing lab coats and business suits. What was absent was the corpses of security personnel. The decayed clothing showed signs of being torn up by bullets.

Then I noticed that the entire place was devoid of evacuation craft.

End of chapter Two

Perk Swift Learner

You gain an additional 10% whenever experience points are earned.

Footnote- Guns 50

Interlude- A Broken Mind

Interlude- A Broken Mind

“Fucking apple whiskey!” I hurled the bottle against the wall with enough force to send glass shrapnel around the room. I had already drunk two pints of it with little to no effect. “These ponies don’t know the first thing about making hard liquor.” I muttered under my breath as I walked towards the kitchen. Unfortunately my foot dragged and I fell on the floor into the pile of broken glass. Great, now my hand was bleeding and I still wasn’t drunk. My hands pushed my body off of the ground and glass shards went into my foot as I hobbled over to the sink.

The faucet washed cold water over my bloody hand and finger tips. At first my hand pulled away, but soon accepted the icy water. In the action of washing the blood off of myself, I stared blankly out the window onto Horseshoe Bay. In this light, it was kind of beautiful, although that doesn’t mean perfect. Black shriveled trees plagued the coast and landscape of this once lavish mansion. It reminded me of the coast of Indozebra, where I used to live, the way the waves moved brought back memories from a simpler time. I shook my it off and said “I need some Jet.”

After a good hit of Jet, I stumbled into the bathroom and stripped my clothes off. I opened the shower door and turned the water on to a punishingly hot setting. It had been awhile since I had looked in a mirror. The person who looked back at me had longish blonde hair, blue eyes and a slight bit of muscle. Although there was a small bit of stomach bulge that came from drinking as much as I do, but it could be avoided none the less.

I shouted in my best circus ring leader voice. “And now! For Elvis Holloway’s final act! He will get drunk off his ass and once again drown in his own self pity!” I turned on one of my favorite records ear splittingly loud and hopped into the shower. This was my reward and punishment for surviving another day in this world because honestly I can’t tell the difference between pain and pleasure. “Sure I’ll have one of these!” I grabbed a bottle of apple whiskey from the shower liquor holder (or at least it probably was.) After drinking swig after swig for personal punishment, I cried, tried to drown myself, vomited and slept for a solid 8 hours, the night of a champion.

[====A====]

My motto for the longest time has been, to prevent a hangover, never stop drinking. This has helped me through a lot of years including that night. Even though apple whisky is not strong enough for humans, two whole bottles is still a bit much. I clicked off the T.V. and walked to my workbench. I often watch old clips of myself in the house, the once inactive security cameras that I fixed up myself tape Elvis during his drunken escapades quite often. Good thing he is asleep, he tends to only come out at night. Which left time for repairs and such. Every morning I must fix everything including my unstitched hands and the shattered glass piles.

I put my glasses back on and resumed the modifications on my Advanced Power Armor. “Lets see, I need to install a fixer injector for Elvis. Oh and a stimpack injector….” I continued to work for awhile fixing and shining my fathers old suit of armor, possibly the only one in the entire one in the wasteland that could ever fit me. Good thing this house came with a lot of scrap metal in the garage.

Taking good care of this and Chaos (my scoped laser rifle, also my father’s”) was at the top of my list of things to do. I also decided that one neglected detail of the armor that could be fixed was a piece of surgical tubing and an old blood pack container near the crotch that could come in handy if I had to spend a long while in the suit. Although the most important modification had to do with the battery. As it turns out, the Fusion generator running the suit didn't need all of the energy at some points.

I could freeze my hands, arms and shoulders in the suit by cutting power to all but a select few Rotaries, thus making me more accurate and allowing a bit of energy to be diverted directly to my laser rifle! It could only support about 6 shots at a time, but was cool none the less. After of course making the modification I put everything away and lay in bed. My mind the blank page, and myself the Arthur. I couldn't help but laugh out loud then shut my eyes for a long time, but didn't have the ability to sleep go to sleep. So began the mental fight against myself for another night “Maybe if I had just a little whiskey, just to take the edge off...”

End of Interlude

Footnote

Traits: Party Boy, Wild Wasteland

Current Level: 3

Perks: Lady Killer: Special Dialogue when talking to females , Confirmed Bachelor: Special Dialogue when talking to men

Tag Skills- Energy Weapons, Repair, and Lockpicking

Chapter Three: Public Transportation

Chapter Three: Public Transportation

Chapter Three:  Long Forgotten Sons

Upon observing the lack of escape craft  Cold fury filled me I was tired, hungry and aching for something other than short periods of Combat sandwiched between long periods devoid of anything resembling entertainment. The only thing keeping my head on straight was the need for vengeance on the person that took me and inserted things into my body. First things first I wanted to know why everyone here died.

Walking up to a terminal I spotted. Turning it on, I learned a crucial piece of the puzzle. The personnel were assigned to a specific evacuation pod But apparently the People in charge had  assigned a few hundred new personnel for this facility specifically project “Icarus”. Unfortunately the new personnel had not been anticipated when assigning  the escape pods. This led when to the mass slaughter around me when contingents of the  eleventh armored cavalry division (The new security people) massacred the other personnel. To get into the escape pods.

I years of failing at other tasks helping me at this moment. I try to avoid failure but when it does happen it doesn't make me freak out. I wonder what would happen if I met someone who freaked when they failed?

I spent the next half hour searching the corpses for anything useful. Now there was no questioning the fact that I found things. The question was of how do you define useful ?

in the small pile of things that I extracted from the corpses were a couple of stimpacks. “Is there even an expiration date for these things ?”. On the less utilitarian side of things was a couple of holodisks.  Long story short I entered them into my pipboy, the problem was that they were encrypted. Fortunately my Pip Boy had decryption software installed on it. The program estimated it would take two hours to unlock the encryptions code.

Thus I had time to burn and I didn’t want to spend it thinking about how I was getting home or even how I would go about escaping this hellhole. Interrupting my thinking about not wanting to think about things. Was a another predatory growl coming from my stomach. So while my pipboy was decrypting the data on those holodisks. I went about doing an equally noble task, finding the cafeteria !.

First I retraced my steps back to the map I found awhile back. Taking a moment to look for anything that looked interesting I spotted something that warranted taking a gander at. The Supply loading bays were located a great deal farther away than both the cafeteria or the evacuation dock. Leaving a marker in my Pipboy to go there later. Motivated by the possibility of food I started in the direction of the cafeteria.

Arriving there quickly sans distractions I stepped heavily onto the decayed linoleum floors of a ubiquitous location known as the american cafeteria. It deviated in no meaningful from the standard cafeteria. Striding into the pantries I gasped in awe at the vast assortment of Preservative laden food. Taking emptying a box of fancy lad snack cakes  onto a nearby table, I ripped the plastic packaging open and gorged myself on 200 year old junk food. Grabbing more of those and some sugar bombs.

While filling my stomach with things that may have been more preservative than food. I spotted an old vending machine selling Nukacola?  “The Hell”  the machine resembled a vintage cocacola machine.  Disassembling the machine was an arduous process but I was determined to get at this unfamiliar supply of caffeine. Finally succeeding at the task at hand I found about a dozen Nuka Colas. Prying the bottle cap off with my knife I tasted centuries old soda. Spitting the horrendous liquid out of my mouth.  That stuff tasted like battery acid. Looking around quickly for a bottle of water before I succame to the leftover nasty in my mouth. Eureka I lifted the recently discovered bottle of water to my lips. Never before had normal bottle of purified water tasted so divine.

Interrupting my reverie was a blast of laser striking near my head; immediately ducking down behind the counter I had retrieved the aforementioned bottle of water from. Feeling the disturbances in the air from the blooming effects of the lasers. I knew that peeking up to take at them would be tantamount to suicide. Grabbing the plasma grenades from my bag, I lobbed one in the direction of where the fire was coming from. Ears still ringing from the explosion, I jumped up Epilogue in hand to deal death to whatever survived that explosion.

What I didn't expect was another human being to wrestle Epilogue away from me; then cold cock me in the face. sending me sprawled on the ground. Quick as lighting the mysterious person, climbed on top of me. The person in question was a male who had shaved their head and was whispering in a playful tone you would use on a pet.

“You’re the best plaything I've had in a long time, but you broke my toys. So now i’ll break you.”

“I wouldn't do that if I were you” I stated in a condescending tone.

“Why ever would I want to stop this lovely game were playing” He said in a singsong voice.

“See this plasma grenade( directing my eyes towards it) It currently is without a pin. You see right now the only thing keeping us from being turned into the stuff at the bottom of a barbeque grill is the fact i’m holding pressure on a little tiny lever.  If I let go of the lever, then within 2 seconds were both charbroiled”

Hearing this he turned white and tried to run away getting a few feet, only to be vaporized by the grenade that just seconds ago was being used to threaten him.

I never knew his name. The first human you kill is supposed to leave a scar on you. Some sort of dark spot on your soul, but for me it wasn't painful to realize I had just killed another sapient creature. I was filled with happiness at the time because of the fact I had just killed a threat to me and everyone who ventured into this place. That is how I still feel today about the event. Now I know this would not be the last person I had to kill.

Leaving the scarred cafeteria seemed like a good idea, so I did just that. Heading in the direction of the Supply bay. It was part way through this trek, that my Pip-boy told me that the decryption process was complete. One of the decrypted documents was an audio file. Letting the Audio file play I continued my lonesome trek.

“ At this auspicious occasion we open the horizon to new worlds ‘The energy requirements are too high’ they said and the ever present stigma of not working directly on weapons research.

Well today the twentieth of October, 2077 Icarus will be activated. (Indistinct clapping and cheers). [cuts to next audio file in the document.]

“Dr.Stone the machine is picking up what seems to be a receiver signal.” Says a female voice. “ Thats impossible there is no other receiver station in the world.” Replies Dr. Stone? in a disbelieving voice. “ The proof is right there Doc” says the female again.

[footsteps are heard]

“  *audible gasp* My god thats impossible”. “ Those readings are coming from the transdimensional teleportation array.” Stone states.”

“ This other receiver must have the ability to open gateways like us”  the female voice states in awe.

“Using the other facility as a conduit we could actually travel to the other dimension.” Stone states.

“Being able to visit another whole universe is a much bigger opportunity, than taking random samplings from random universes” the female voice says excitedly.

“Molly can you write up a program that uses that facility as a beacon for opening gateways.”

“I’ll get right on that sir”.

“While you're doing that I’ll be writing a report about these findings”

[audio cuts off]

I was getting ever closer to the resupply dock by the time those audio logs were complete. So I began listening to  the operating procedures of the conventional teleporter system. ( Conveniently contained on the holodisks in audiobook format).

By the time I had arrived at my destination, I was pretty sure that if worse came to worse I could probably work the teleporter. Seeing the large doors of the place I hesitantly opened them. Stepping into the small warehouse I let out a little gasp at the multitude of crates stacked on top of shipping containers. I kinda forgot about looking for a cargo submarine. I found a crowbar and went about cracking open any crates with military markings. Finding large quantities of M.R.Es and little else I became more and more disheartened.

Until the moment I found a crate marked with the symbol of the eleventh armoured cavalry division. Cracking open the crate like I had done to so many other crates, I was surprised to find small metal metal cases inside the crate. My lifting of the case was uneventful but the name on the outside of the case caught my attention.

Contents- 1 unit

Elite Riot Gear.

Opening the latch on the case I pulled out the contents, included with the armour was a owners manual holodisk. Inserting the disk into my Pipboy I Loaded the instructions on how to put it on. Following the instructions I was wearing the armour within five minutes. It had a hole in the recoil dampening gauntlets that let my Pipboy screen out.  Puting the Pipboy near my face I looked at the armor stats.

Elite Riot Gear V2 Dt:24  WG:23  Effects: Guns +10 Endurance +1 Critical Chance +5

Elite Riot Gear Helmet V2 Dt:6  WG:5 Effects: Perception +2 Nightvision

        Acknowledging this overwhelmingly positive development a devious smirk most certainly crossed my face.  Moving slightly slower in my armour I unpacked a couple more crates. Coming across an explosive ordinance crate was my other big find. I filled up my bag with frag mines.

It was only after I had a bag filled with high explosives that I remembered my original purpose here. Striding confidently closer to the submarine dock facility my confidence disappeared. No submarine was docked there. “GODDAMIT”

Losing my temper isn’t my favorite personality trait. I grabbed three frag mines and threw them at a box of cooking implements. I backed up about 10 feet or so and then unloaded my sidearm at the pile.

*Boom*

The resulting explosion that knocked me on my ass brought my anger to a point of stasis.

Getting up and brushing myself off, I took a deep breath and waited for my anger to subside.

Quest completed. Public Transportation

Level Up

Educated- + 2 skill points when you level up

End of Chapter 3.

Chapter Four: Court of Appeals

Chapter Four: Court of Appeals

  Chapter: Four

Court of Appeals

A couple minutes later my anger was at a manageable level. Leaving me with the burden of thought in face of terrible circumstances. The only option with any viability was the dubious proposition of the Icarus Array. My mind was running the problems with the teleporter.

It’s Teleport away function may not even work.

The thing might have hazardous side effects.

I HAD NO IDEA WHERE THE FUCKING THING WAS.

Still it was the only opportunity presenting itself so it won by the default. Needing to find a complete map of the facility. I looked at the parts of the local map I had filled in already with my wanderings. Finding administrative offices in the filled in parts of my map I set up a marker on that location and started off towards the place.

After about fifteen minutes of monotonous walking through the expansive facility,  I entered the office. Locating a terminal on what I assumed was the receptionists desk I broke the security system on my first password guess. After a brief search in the terminals files, I found and downloaded the building plans.

Perusing the building plans I found where the Icarus array was located. “On the lowest level, Of Course.” Relegating myself for another hike down desoulate passageways that contained nothing of interest. As I took off towards Icarus thinking those thoughts. Learning shortly to regret those thoughts.

Walking downwards steadily slipping to those thoughts that assail those who are alone with alot on their minds.

This prevented me from being particular perceptive about the environment around me. This would prove to bite me in the ass very shortly. Without any sort of warning a Crazed Mr. Gutsy  came randomly through a doorway in front of me.

“Who’s ready to have their ass kicked”!? It yelled at me in a manner reminiscent of a drill sergeant.

It said while firing it’s plasma caster at me hitting me in the chest, Heating up the saturnite plating of my armour. I grabbed my ten millimeter out of it’s holster and emptied a magazine into the main body. Luckily one of the bullets struck the plasma caster as It was preparing to fire. This in turn causing a small explosion, destroying the plasma caster.

"There's nothing I like better than making some other poor bastard die for hís country!" It was not happy having it’s primary armament destroyed. Closing the distance between us as I reloaded my pistol. I learned too late that the thing was also packing a circular saw, It sliced  deeply into my leg.  Firing point blank into what I assumed was it’s optical sensor, and the rest of it’s upper chassis. My Gun giving a (then) terrifying clicking noise, I had to grab the arm of the robot that held the circular saw with my left hand. The brutal primeval part of my mind kicked in, I flipped it in my hand so that I could assume the classic pistol whip position.

Striking the but end of my sidearm against my attacker again and again, it couldn't attack because of the fact it’s only close range weapon was being held in place. I barbarically decommissioned the manic machine. After that ordeal was over my adrenaline was wearing off and I noticed the amount of blood that was flowing from the wound.

Injecting a stimpack into my leg was the action my increasingly tired mind did next.

I must admit that the next couple hours were pretty hazy, probably arising from the fact that I lost a good amount of blood.

---===*===---

Waking up on a dingy hospital mattress was frighteningly similar to the last time I had come to consciousness. The sight of my equipment laid close to my bed was kept me from freaking out too much. I slowly crawled out of bed, then starting the herculean task of putting on my riot gear. Checking my equipment in my pip-boy I found out that my armour was still in almost mint condition, Epilogue had 30 rounds of 5.56 ammunition less than when I had last observed it; the condition of the gun was only slightly decreased.  That was where the good news ended...my pistol was broken! I didn’t shed any tears but the need to find a replacement sidearm was pressing in my mind. (Quest added: Big iron on his hip).

The strangest thing was when I switched to the aid tab. I had a butt load of drugs on me. Jet,Med-x, Buffout, Hydra, and the ubiquitous Stimpack. “ Guess a side effect of stimpacks was the need to gather anything ‘medicinal’,  Yeah!”.  Looking around I seemed to be in a standard hospital although when I looked around I saw a what looked like a terminal attached to a standing tube. Upon activating the terminal interface I discovered it was an autodoc MK1.  On it’s list of functions was the implantation of cybernetics.

“So this is where my spine was replaced.” I said  in a sardonic tone.

My discoveries didn’t end there, next I spotted a shelf with three holotapes. Since they used the same encryption system as the last holodisks I found. The decryption process was nigh-instantaneous. Finding my position on the map In my delirious state I had traveled considerably closer to the Icarus Array.

The notification that the decryption process was complete made a small ding, I inspected the names of the files. The first of the files was an audio file titled To anyone who finds this… ,the second was a text file titled The procedure and finally the last was dated to just a few days ago. Promising candidate was the title of the audio file.

I turned on the first audio file while I was eating my personal breakfast of champions.(Dry Sugar Bombs)

[Audio file begins]

“I don’t want to do this but…” Voice trails off it sounds like Dr.Stone.

“Well I’m trapped here but I *pause* have a solution of sorts. Most people in my situation would probably consider suicide as an option then, quickly implement such a plan.”

Dr.Stone sounds like he is on the verge of tears.  “ Well I’m not most people. Then again most don’t have access to a cutting edge cybernetics lab.” He lets out an anxious chuckle.

“Brains have been put into vat’s before. But they have never kept the original memories and ‘personality’ intact”. Voice shifts to a more haunted tone  “but then again we haven’t tried to”.  “well If you’re wondering how i’m planning going to actually accomplish this” his voice is now full of equal amounts disdain and sarcasm. "Check the next Disk"

[The file ends here]

Having finished my dry cereal, I turned on the second audio file as I set off towards what I hoped as fell as feared would be my final confrontation in this place.

[ Audio file begins here]

“Subject is at the end of adolescence ” States a dry mechanical speaker.

“Subject has significantly higher than average intelligence” The same monotone continues.

“Subject comes from a Non-irradiated world”

“He is lacking in physical strength and agility but would be one of the best candidates acquired so far”

“Judged worthy of Cybernetic enhancement, Insertion of subject into autodoc in progress”.

The Next few minutes passed without anything worth recanting happening.

---===*===---

Finally I found something worth noting. It was the Badass Grandma of all chemistry labs. Inside was a bounty of chemicals fit for a drug kingpin. I went over to a research terminal, contained within were the recipes for all the chemical goodies you could ever want. Downloading them all to my pipboy,  I then went about trying my best to make some of these substances. Unfortunately, I lost about half of the chemicals in my experimenting process. When the smoke cleared, I had 3 stimpaks, 2 containers of Mentats and a few inhalers of Jet. This was hopefully enough to get by for now, but it proved a good learning experience regardless.

With the chems loaded in my jacket, I prepared for my final confrontation by loading a magazine of armor piercing rounds, and storing the rest of the magazines in close reach. I sharpened my combat knife with a convenient whetstone. The few grenades I had left were put in the right pocket of my duster. I was ready, maybe not emotionally but physically ready for my confrontation of Dr. Stone.

I set my maker to where I assumed was the right room and moved swiftly. My mind wondered whether or not I could actually kill stone as I moved towards the room. Our fates were now intertwined and it seemed as though one of us were not leaving alive. Although I hoped for the contrary

I was surprised to see that I had encountered little to no resistance on my way to Dr. Stone. Although the terminal outside his room was a bitch to hack. I decided I would pop a mentat to give me a nice little focus. The effects were immediate, my brain was precise and clear as though the drug rounded up all stray thoughts and focused them into one. Although the terminal was still challenging, with that boost it finally cracked. I delayed and contemplated on whether or not I should open the door, but I had come too far to turn back now. The door hummed and started to crack open…

Once the door opened I spotted 8 hostile marks on my E.F.S.  plus one non-hostile mark. I then heard the same mechanical voice that was on the last holotape that I had listened too.

“So you have arrived” It was mechanical with just a hint of smugness in his voice.

“With questions no less. Come closer now let’s talk” the voice states in an almost fatherly tone.

“ Ok I’ll talk, Just don’t try anything or you're gonna end up with a plasma grenade in your mechanized ass” I stated tersely.

Moving into the room I spotted 8 beefy robots aiming at me. While they were doing that I pulled out a grenade, continuing walking towards the middle of the room.

The voice lanced out again “Sentry bots Deactivate”.  This time I could see the abomination that had spoken the last few times. It was a robobrain modified to have more advanced manipulator arms.

“Mr.Stone I presume, we meet at last.” I say in the most diplomatic tone I could muster.

“Subject Z-34, Or would you mind if I called you Jake?” he replies in an inquisitive tone.

“I guess.” I clear my throat before speaking “ Why In the hell did you pull me to this hellhole?”

“You are better suited to what I need you to do. You doing anything less is a waste of your potential. Now what I need is someone who can go where no-one has ever gone before and returned”  He replies in his own version of a diplomatic tone.

“The gateway; You want me to go there?( I take his silence as a sign of affirmation).  To go there and return, that is what you want me to do?” As soon as I finished stating this I got a pleasant little noise and A little XP indicator popped up and moved to the right.

“Well yes actually, but you seemed to want to go there of your own volition.”

“Only as a way to escape this doomed facility.” I reply with anger.

“You on some level want to go there just because you have no idea whats on the other side. I have seen you act around here, you see any lack of knowledge on your part as a personal challenge.” He says with almost fatherly pride.

“You see me as a younger version of yourself?”  I ask astounded.

“In a way, But onto the more pressing topic. You’re probably asking yourself whether or not you want to end my existence.” *Pauses* “I will let you end me if you really want to, Just let yourself think about what you would have done if you were put in my shoes.”

“ Abducting people and replacing their organs how is that excusable.” I reply with a Righteous tone.

“Don’t you see, it was all a test to figure out if the candidates could deal with circumstances beyond their control. Judging their adaptability and will to overcome was the purpose of this all.”

“And I passed?”  I state noncommittally.

“With flying colours, no one else has ever figured out what this facility houses.” He says happily (which sounds weird when the speaker is almost all machine).

A few seconds pass without me speaking. Because of this he speaks again.

“So about that grenade up my mechanical ass?”

“I’m not gonna kill you in such a way, or anyway at all. I’m not sparing you because what you have done is redeemable, no you have ruined probably hundreds of human lives. I am sparing your life because I understand why you did such things. I put in your situation, would have as you said before done the exact same things.” I end my expository rant.

“Well said but do you want to journey to the other side now or in a day or so?”

“There is no time like the present. Fire the thing up Doc.”

---===*===---

Walking into the Icarus array chamber I let my thoughts wander about what had just happened in that place. He was letting me take two sentry bots with me to the otherside. He had modified one with a gatling laser, the other with an adaptive learning proccessor. Dr.stone had showed me how to use the pipboys radio transmitter for back and forth communication. [ Dr.stone voice comes through the radio]

“ Once you enter the center of the chamber the gateway activation protocols will begin”

“Okay is that big circle drawn in the floor where you want me to be.”

“Affirmative.  You don’t know how many years I have waited for this moment.”

“Probably quite a few years.”

“Remember to dictate the what happens when you’re there into the Pipboy!”

         “Okay I’m in position”

“As the device activates it will fill the airwaves with static so after this it’s radio silence.” He states with a little bit of disappointment. “ So good luck, Stone out.”

A mechanical whirring could be heard as the generator strained to meet the massive power demand.  At the same time tesla coils at the outskirts of the chamber were erratically exchanging electricity. Me I was thinking all this seemed a tad cliche. Those thoughts would be interrupted by a second of not existing except in a small pocket of space time. I was being thrust into another universe entirely.

---===*===---

As the pocket of space time I had hitched a ride evaporated it left me and my sentry bots in a room eerily similar to the one I had just left using the 11th dimension.

Standing on the other side of the room though was a four legged creature wearing what looked like high tech metal armour. It quickly spun around to face me while leveling the weapons that were attached to it’s sides at me as well.

“Hello.”

End of Chapter: four

Perks added- Comprehension:

You gain one additional skill point for reading books and double the skill points for reading magazines.

Quest perk- Chemistry Novice:

You have access to all basic chem recipes and you are 25% more resistant to addiction.

Chapter Five: Part One Domestic Disturbance In Progress

Chapter Five part one : Domestic Disturbance in Progress

After I uttered a polite greeting. The Creature still decided to start  firing an automatic grenade launcher at me. As  the first rounds from the grenade launcher exploded close to me. The sentry bot on my right decided that firing a missile at the hostile quadruped would be in our mutual best interests. The Rocket detonated against the Creature, Sending it backwards a couple feet and almost certainly killing it.

Running to the doors of the chamber. In the time I waited for my escorts to follow, I loaded a magazine of armor piercing rounds into Epilogue.  Before my wheeled compatriots reached the door, I heard the sound of gunfire and larger explosions in other parts of the building. The arrival of my escorts, with the eager rocketeer gave me the idea to just shoot first and ask questions later.

I kicked open the door and entered a long hallway. Making the arbitrary decision to pick right as the direction I would travel. This place was the antithesis of the previous facility. Hearing the sound of gunfire steadily crescendo as moved in my chosen direction down the hall. Happening upon four more of these armored ponies(?), watching a doorway and therefore aiming into that doorway.  I quickly crouched then entered Vats Targeting I locked three headshots on the closest two ponies.

While my fusillade of bullets were lancing towards their compatriots. A grenade bounced into the creatures position from the room they were aiming at a moment ago. The Ponies armored monstrosities I Fired on were dead of severe  bullet to the headitis. The remaining adversaries were turning to face me when the grenade that had landed in their midst a second earlier exploded.

Epilogue barked sharply five more times as I had switched to the enemy closest to me. My aim without vats wasn’t great but after three of the shots penetrated into it’s armor, the bar showing the hostile creatures position on my compass still stopped showing. The last enemy was bringing it’s weapons in my direction. It was luck that another armoured equine came through the doorway and fired a massive rifle into the last remaining enemy.

Then my saviour looked at me and screamed through it’s speakers. “What the buck are you”. It was now pointing the massive gun in my direction. “The guy who just saved your ass”. I hurriedly replied.

The mark indicating it stayed non-hostile on my eyes forward spotter. This saved it from being turned to paste by my lumbering escorts. “Ok I’m gonna move my gun away from you Understand?” In reply the creature nodded. “Totally independent of the fact that I gigantically outgun you. Can you please tell me who and what you are?” I said quickly.

“I’m, *stutters* I’m knight Icepick of the” she thinks for a second then says proudly “Applejacks rangers”.  I wait a couple of seconds to come up with a reply.

“Well i’m Jake Embry, Civilian Contractor.  I would’ve honestly rather met under different circumstances. But i’m pleased to meet you regardless.” I say with a light tone in my voice.

“Why are you here? Also why did you help me?” Icepick asks in an accusatory fashion.

“I’m here because the only way to escape from an aging prewar facility was to teleport here.” I state bluntly. “I helped you inadvertently, opening fire on the things in the hall was because the last time I encountered one of those guys it didn’t hesitate to shoot first.”

“Now what in the name of Celestia are you?” She asks me.

“A human, Homo sapiens sapiens !” I reply with an annoyed tone. “Now what the fuck are you?”

She says sounding confused. “I’m an Earth pony mare”

Then she says before I have time to reply. “ How do you not know that?”

“Lady this is like the second universe, that I have been transported to *pause* this week.”

“You have to be bucking kidding me !!” She practically screams at me.

"I wish that I was” I reply honestly.

Her voice does a 180 as she begins to pleads with me “Would you mind helping me take back control of this place?” I was getting really good at hearing the emotion in a voice that was projected through a loudspeaker.

“Would you give me a map?”  “Yeah”

“Replace the ammo I’m going to use?” “Yes”

“Repair my equipment?” “YES”

“Feed Me”  “YES”

After she almost blew my eardrums out with that last answer, I Replied quietly “Just point me in the direction of what you want dead”

“Are all humans this annoying” she says to herself.

“All the fun ones are. ” I say in a dejected tone of voice.

“THAT WAS RHETORICAL” She manages to scream slightly less loudly than the last time she went ballistic.

She then points a hoof in same direction I had been traveling before I had made her acquaintance. I considered it a beautiful coincidence.

She led the four of us ( Icepick,Me, Sentry bots 1 and 2) around the facility. Taking out every pony that we encountered, was actually pretty easy. But before I recant that I must tell you an observation I made. It turns out that creatures wearing heavy armor, carrying no weapon smaller than a light machine gun and having added difficulty of having to turn and face the thing they want to shoot. All these things together Made the steel rangers I was fighting really, really ineffective at close quarters combat.

Here is how we did it, first off I was in point position.  Second most of the time our group would encounter only two or three rangers at once, leaving them easy pickings for a salvo of vats aimed AP rounds.

A couple of times There would be four or five rangers, in those cases, I backed up and the sentry bots unloaded a barrage of  missiles on them.

All together we killed 30 or so steel rangers before Icepick told us to stop for a moment. “Okay Jake are the robots stopped here?”

“Yes” I say indignantly.

“Anyway this is the repair and research bay. The rest of my compatriots are probably defending the scribes loyal to the new order, which is most of them.”

"Are they the ones making the constant explosions?”

“No they’re probably only making half of the explosions” She states oblivious to the amount of sarcasm I had put into my previous question.

It was only then that the steel rangers made the first valid tactical move of the entire battle.  While Icepick and I were busy talking, the steel rangers were getting into a firing position down the  corridor opposite of our group. The hallway was ablaze as they opened fire on our position. I had time to push Icepick out of the way and hit the ground on my stomach before most of the shots fired. Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough and a bullet clipped my outer thigh causing me to cry out in pain. Fortunately what Icepick lacked in agility, she clearly made up in fire power.

She let out a accurate barrage of bullets from her sides (which I now know are called battle saddles). I, now back on my feet saw the only option for the squad at the end of the hall after that crushing blow was to close the distance. This proved mainly ineffective accept for part when one of my sentry bots  fired a missile at nearly point blank range. This once again threw me on the ground with crushing force. I would have been shot, but Icepick jumped out in front of me and ended the two Rangers lives quickly.

When the smoke cleared, Icepick was still in front of me, rump in my view making sure there were no survivors. She turned around with a smirk and said. “Enjoying the View?” Even with a lack of blood I blushed in my helmet.

End of chapter Five part one

Level Up

Perk Added

Bloody Mess

By some strange twist of fate, people who die around you die violently. You always see the worst way a person can die.   +5% overall damage,

Chapter Five Part Two: Armour Piercing

Chapter Five Part Two: Armor Piercing

“I hope you know that whatever aesthetic appeal your posterior might have is nullified by that tin can you’re wearing.” I say in monotone while I was examining my leg wound. “And the same leg too” I yelled exasperatedly.

“Are you bleeding out” She says in a worried tone.

“Not that I can tell”.

“Then quit whining about it” She says angrily.

By the time that exchange was over I had a stimpack in my hands and it was aching to be used. Injecting it into myself I felt the pain around the wound begin to ease.

“What did you just inject yourself with ?” She asks.

“Stimpack” I said as I grabbed Epilogue up from where it had fallen on the floor.

    “Is that some weird drug you’re addicted too?”

“No,it just helps me heal wounds quickly.” The explanation being uttered quickly.

“So Like an injectible healing potion.” She says.

Rifle in hand, I look down at her (The top of her head comes to the height of my lowermost ribs). “Healing potion?” I ask with disbelief creeping into my voice.

“Do you not know what a healing potion is?” She asks in a tone that would be used to question a child.

Not liking the tone of her voice one bit I Yelled “ Haven’t we already established that I wasn’t even born in this world!” Before she could reply I spoke again. “ New idea maybe we shouldn’t be having this exchange in a place where we can hear loud booms every few seconds.” My voice had lost  it’s anger by the end of that statement.

My comments must have rebuffed her, because it was a moment before she said

“Guess I’ll just lead the way.”

“Good idea.” I replied, my voice filled with sarcasm.

We Ventured down the halls with the remaining sentry bot lagging behind us as always. After a minute or two of walking, Icepick stopped us at a bend in the hallway. Around us the sounds of combat had increased in volume, prompting me to say.

“Are we at the place yet.”

  “No, but we’re close so from here on out stay quiet and if you spot somepony in armor don’t hesitate to fire.” To this I merely nodded.

Trying to be at least as stealthy as the power armoured pony, was harder to do than you think. As she came to the end of our current hallway, she poked her head around the corner then quickly pulled back behind the wall. She whispered

“Eight hostiles clustered around the entrance to the repair bay.”

I Whispered back “Should we have the sentry bot go ahead of us?”

“Unless you have a dream of being perforated by enough ammo to kill a hellhound? That’s probably a good idea”

“Was the sarcasm really necessary?” I ask in hurt tone.

I then ordered the sentry bot to roll into the hallway and fire all the rockets left in it’s stores.  As It rolled forward to execute what was probably it’s last command, I laid my last frag mine on the ground in front of of us.

The sound of rockets being fired and the resulting explosions shook the hallway. It didn’t bother me though, as I was much more worried about sprinting the fastest I could back down the hallway I had previously walked through. Icepick had heard what I had ordered the robot to do and was already a great deal further down the hall than I was.

Getting to the end of the hall just as I heard the first steel ranger that came around the corner detonate the mine that I had placed there.

Turning the corner without an ounce of grace. I found myself face to face with Icepick, moving out of her way quickly as she brushed past me. I watched as she moved into the hallway firing at what were probably adversaries. I was in the process of  moving to be alongside her in the hallway, When she backed up into me unexpectedly  .

“Oh sweet celestia that was Steel Quarry, run” She yells with fear in her voice.

     “You go if you need to, although I would rather you back me up.” I say with resolve. As I say this, I  pull  out a plasma grenade from one of my pockets. I then slide around the corner, entering vats after I could see down the hall. The sight that greeted me in the warped perception of vats wasn’t a pleasant one . A massive steel ranger easily as tall my chin was moving slowly towards me, He (I assumed it was a he) had missile launchers on either side of his torso. In the simplified thinking that vats makes you think in, I decided to lob a grenade in front of him hoping that it would kill the gargantuan pony.

The funny feeling of having returned to a normal perception of time, coupled with having your body controlled by a force other than you always made leaving vats a weird experience no matter how many times you did it. though in this instance I watched as the grenade I threw  bounce right in front of the startled Steel Quarry. The resulting explosion threw him back several feet and left his armour blackened. Then he started to get back to his hooves, leading me to frantically back up into the hallway I had just entered from.

His attempt at getting back up was stopped when I heard a loud gunshot from behind me. When my eyes sighted the shooter I was surprised to see Icepick there with her anti-machine rifle smoking. “Follow but stay a few hooves behind me” She says simply.

During  the walk through the hallway that we had fought Steel Quarry in, I saw his limp burned remains. Thinking about the fact that I had killed a sapient creature, actually a lot of sapient creatures. It left me wondering what I was becoming, as I continued to walk behind my acquaintance in something like silence. (With the majority of the steel rangers eliminated, the background fire had become only a few staccato bursts of gunfire every once in a while.)

My Acquaintance, what a strange term to describe this alien I was following, it was the best term I could think of.  I kept thinking of the implications of what I had already done for her, I Had already gone to the trouble of saving her (inadvertently). I wonder what her comrades would do to me? Hopefully nothing negative, for their well beings  .

My Ruminations were interrupted by the sound of another power armoured pony. Ice pick was already aiming at it,  I was getting my weapon to bear on the new arrival as well.

“Icepick you made it, everypony thought you were a dead mare going to check that alarm about the megaspell chamber.” Said the new arrival in a voice that sounded high pitched and happy. She continued with very little delay “ Were you the one that caused that distraction?” The as of yet unnamed pony inquired.

“Yeah I helped, but most of the credit goes to him Ironsight”. She stated with a little bit of shame in her voice. After saying this she turned around and pointed a front hoof at me. The pony Ironsight didn’t let out a sound as she finally noticed my presence. I had during the exchange between Icepick and Ironsight put Epilogue down and began a slow wave with my hand while looking at Ironsight.

Ironsight proceeded to spin up her miniguns in my direction. “NO DON’T HE’S FRIENDLY” Icepick screamed at Ironsight. The recipient of the yelling stopped reving her miniguns. “What she said” I Said loudly. Crossing my arms and glaring at the owner of the dual miniguns. Our words must have mollified her because she went from aggressively aiming machines of destruction at me to aggressively asking questions.

“What the buck is he?” Ironsight asked.

“A human being with feelings” I said loudly before turning around to walk back in the direction I had came from.

“Doesn’t matter what he looks like, he acts like a pony trying too hard to be funny!” Icepick says to Ironsight.

“Trying to be funny? I was hilarious !” I say as I jog up to them.

“Are all 'humans' as conceited as him?” Ironsight asks.

“Who’s concieted, Probably the being with the name ironsight who doesn’t have sights on their guns.” I say in a defensive tone.

“Don’t start with him, It’s not worth it” Icepick says with disdain as she begins to walk forward. “Hey why don’t I tell the rest of the rangers about your continued existence and his, well existence” Ironsight says.

    “Good idea” Icepick says to her.

“The newfound knowledge of my existence you mean?” I Inquire.

“Just go, I’ll deal bring him to meet with Elder Steamgear. Wait is elder Steamgear still around?” Icepick says the first statement with mirth, the following question with concern.

“Yes, thankfully he was with us when those led by Steel Quarry attacked.” Ironsight answers. “Anyway gotta go and tell everypony about you and ?”

“My name is Jake” I say with a little force.

“Noted” Ironsight squeaks before running off down the hall.

I follow Icepick as she begins to move in the same direction Ironsight just left from.

“What is the difference between your group and the ponies we were fighting?” I ask in a serious tone.

What followed was an earful about the ideological differences between the newly formed applejacks rangers and the old steel rangers. To summarize her lecture, the applejack’s rangers were interested in acquiring technology to help the wasteland instead of just hoarding it like the steel ranger philosophy was. In the case of her group of rangers was lead by an elder sympathetic to the ideals laid down by applejack.

When news of Steelhooves creation of the manehattan company of applejacks rangers came to the isolated contingent. The elder wanted to change the codex of our contingent making them applejacks rangers. This apparently didn’t go down well with Paladin Steel Quarry seeing as he quickly mounted a surprise counter revolution.

“Before you continue can you explain this great war you mentioned a few times?” I ask.  She was about to say something scathing when we entered the repair bay. Everypony in the room who had been saying or doing something stopped and stared at me.

“Don’t you have better things to do than stare at the guy who saved your collective asses” I said in angrily. This had the effect of bringing the ponies out of their mental torpor.

I had no time to feel smug, as Icepick started to push me towards a door guarded by a pair of paladins.  They opened the door so that Icepick could slide me into the room.

On the other side of a pony sized desk was a dignified unicorn wearing robes.

Although in all honesty my thoughts were more focused on the color of the pony he was dark purple with a midnight blue mane. The realization that the things that were killing each other with advanced weapons were diminutive candy colored equines. This led me to make the tactful move to burst out laughing.

“Wow without the armour on you guys are ridiculously cute.” I said while trying to lower the volume of my laughing.

The elder responded by glaring at Icepick and saying. “This is the creature that helped you?”

“Well in my defense he is a good shot with that rifle, when he’s not exercising his tactless sense of humor.” She said this while aiming a withering gaze upon me. She was followed quickly by Steam Gear.

“Well excuse me for using humor to break the ice” I reply in a mock offended tone.

“Jake knock your shit off.” Icepick hisses to me while kicking me in the shin.

“Jake is your name correct?” Steam Gear asks me.

“Jake Embry,lost soul.” I say in a somber tone.

“How did you get in the deepest part of this facility?” He asks with anger bleeding into his voice.

“I Rode a 11th dimensional bubble  into this plane of existence using the multi dimensional broadcasting properties of this place as a stable conduit for transdimensional travel. To answer the next question you’re going to ask I didn’t really have a reason to help your organisation aside from the fact I know nothing about this entire world.  Also a steel ranger tried to kill me.” I say all this in a tone one would normally associate talking about the weather.

“Do you expect compensation ?” Steam gear says in an accusatory manner.

    “No, I DEMAND IT” I Say the first part with a saccharine smile, the latter part in a snarl.

“I will not be insulted by something claiming to be a mythical creature from another world.” He states loudly.

“I’M NOT A FUCKING MYTHICAL CREATURE, YOU’RE THE GODDAMN UNICORN” I yell while taking off my helmet. “I’M NOT MYTHICAL ( I point at my face) I’VE BEEN CALLED EITHER A TEST SUBJECT OR A THING FOR THE LAST FEW DAYS. THE ONLY EXCEPTIONS HAVE BEEN HER ( I Point at the mute Icepick) AND A BRAIN IN A JAR THAT ABDUCTS PEOPLE.” Having let out anger that had been building for a long while. I stood there arms crossed with a smile letting my canines show, while unsettling to another human it was downright terrifying to a creature that was descended from herbivores.

“I want 150 armor piercing 5.56 rounds, a bed to sleep and a lot of whatever currency ‘ponyland’ uses!” I said as I stormed out of the room, while putting my helmet back on.

    Chasing me out of the room and past the door guards was Icepick. “You understand that you just yelled at the pony that runs this facility?” She says with unrelenting anger. Everypony around has decided that watching me quietly would somehow be in their best interests.

“He deserves it, he was being a dick” I say with conviction.

“You understand he just had a large number of ponies rebel against him. Then you come out of the blue and kill all our former comrades!” Icepick’s voice has softened slightly

“Only because you asked me too! Do you understand that I have woke up in another world! You know what I found out shortly after I woke up?” I say with my voice not losing any of it’s edge.

    “What did you find out?” She yells at me.

“I HAVE NO SPINE, THE ONLY OTHER BEING THAT LET ME HAVE A FRIENDLY CONVERSATION WAS THE ONE WHO REPLACED MY SPINE. ONLY LETTING ME TALK WITH HIM AFTER  SURVIVING A SMALL ARMY OF ROBOTS !” I pause letting my voice become softer  “I haven’t had an act of decency towards me, in all the time i’ve spent fighting for my life. The only person that has tried to be cordial with me, has also used me to fight a war for them.”

Everyone in the room stared at me as I took off my helmet.

“Hey look at the aberration, look at me. Fucking look at me you pieces of shit” I say after a second of no replies.

Shortly afterwards Icepick grabs my arm and leads me in an unfamiliar direction. I follow thinking it can’t be worse than a bunch of aliens looking at you like you were a dangerous animal. After we got out of earshot of the other ponies Icepick turns towards me.

“Do you want to come walk with me to my room, It’s not that far?” She says in the most sympathetic tone that I had heard her speak in so far.

         “Sure why not, what do you want me to do while i’m there. Let me guess... fix the leaky faucet, make your bed for yo-” I was interrupted in my ranting by an unexpected development. Icepick had sat on her rump and was messing with her helmet. With a woosh of air the helmet came off.

“Hopefully this should help you believe i’m being sincere when I say this. You know what I want you to do when you get to my room? I want you to get some sleep, maybe then you will be emotionally stable enough to have a conversation. She says with fire in her voice along with a little bit of concern. She then looks straight into my eyes “I feel terrible about the way everyone looks at you, just know that I care about the person who ‘saved my ass’”.

I had noticed that we had the same iris colour. The only difference being that hers were two times larger.  After this realization I took a moment to truly look at her. She had a light blue coat, White mane and of course blue eyes. I believe she was doing the same to me.

“Lead the way Icy.” I say with the beginnings of a smirk.

“Icy? really a pet name.” She says while moving to put her helmet back on.

“Hey it was supposed to be endearing. Also can you not put the helmet back on?”

“Why shouldn’t I put it on?” She asks puzzled.

“I like hearing your voice more without it going through a speaker.” I answer truthfully while shrugging my shoulders.

“You do like hearing my voice though, right” She says in a teasing tone.

“Just show me where your room is at.” I say with a little humor in my voice.

“So in all seriousness what is your world like?” She said while beginning to walk forward again.

        How do you go about describing an entire world; I think to myself. How about a general description and answer any questions that arise, that could work.

“Well it’s the third farthest planet from the sun, has about seven billion hairless apes living on it.”

“Seven billion humans?” She asks bewildered.

“Yep, divided among 200 or so sovereign nations.” I reply with a little pride.

“Maybe there would be that many ponies around if we didn’t unleash the mega spells” She says darkly under her breath.

I barely manage to hear her say those words I then proceeded to ask the obvious question.

“What’s a megaspell?” I ask very intrigued.

“Well it’s a way to massively increase the effect the power of a spell. I don’t know much more than that If you want to about the mechanics of one ask a unicorn or somethin’.

The mega spells that were used on ponykind were created by the zebras. Those were  Balefire Bombs, just one could flatten entire cities.”

“So like nuclear weapons?” I say making the connection.

“Nuclear weapons?” she asked, now she seemed to be very intrigued.

“They’re also massive bombs.” I say dryly.

“Have your people used them on each other?” She asked with a palpable longing to know my answer.

“Well yes, but only twice. They were two of the first three nuclear bombs ever created. It was to end the bloodiest war in human history. Other than that they have only been tested.” I said watching as her cute face became a frown before my eyes. Wait did I just think she was cute...well she is cute.

“What kind of war could be so bad that you had to use such weapons?” She inquired making my train of thought crash and burn.

“Well it was a war that involved almost the entire world….” My explanation of World War Two continuing until we got to the door of her quarters.

“Finland entered the war on the side of germany after being invaded by russia before the war even officially bega-”

She opened the door and after I stepped inside I was greeted with the sight of a mostly dilapidated room, the only thing that looked like it was being cared about was a large oak book shelf.  As I was gawking at her bookshelf she had walked in and had jumped onto the bed and was sitting there watching me.

“You like my collection?” She asks me.

       “Where did you find all these?” I ask as I move to sit on the bed beside her.

“When we go out on missions, I kinda grab any book I see.” She says a little self conscious.

“Really, do the others give you crap about collecting books?” I ask with humor in my voice.

“Yeah, they think i’m wasting my time.” She says deflated.

“If it makes you feel any better I have a bigger book collection than you.” I say with mock sympathy.

“How could that possibly make me feel any better?” She replies with some sharpness in her voice, but had a smile on her face at the same time.

     “Well I had to know if you had a sense of humor, and after thorough investigation I have concluded you do in fact lack one.” I Reply in my butchered british accent.

“I do too have a sense of humor.” She said in a huff.

   “As much as I enjoy a good conversation, well actually any friendly exchange at this point.

I must ask that you let me use that bed.” I said while using my terrible accent.

“Do you usually lack stamina this much?” Icepick asks.

“Ha Ha funny innuendo, now get off the bed.”  I say dryly.

She complies and gets off the bed this leaves me in the awkward situation of do I get out and take off my armour. She breaks the silence that had fallen over us.

“I know you’re tired, but do you want to go get some food from the cafeteria?” She asks tentatively.

“There is really no need I have some food in my bag, Let me check” I say while pulling up the aid tab on my Pipboy.

“Hey I was going to ask about that, how did you get a Pipbuck?” She asked her interest piqued again.

“Doctor tone put it on me before I regained consciousness and for your information it’s a Pipboy.” I say as a started pointing to the name on the front above the screen.

“Doctor Stone was he the only other pony you have had a friendly conversation with so far? She inquires.

“Yes and I’m seeing more and more evidence that the last reality I was in is a mirror image of your world. Only with humans instead of ponies, this would be very interesting considering the last world I was in was a warped version of my own.” I say bemused.

“Well if you’re not gonna sleep can you pull out the food, I’m starving right now?”

She pleads with me.

“Fine, just give me a second.” I looked through my backpack finding a box of fancy lad snack cakes. I then threw the box at her leaving her speechless.

Pulling my pipboy back up to my face. I looked through my inventory seeing my 5.56 rounds severely depleted. This brought a grimace to my face, Epilogue being empty wasn’t a happy thought. Moving accidentally to the misc data tab on accident, I was surprised to discover a whole bunch of named audio files that weren’t there before.

At this moment Icepick chose to throw an unwrapped antebellum snack cake at my face. It struck my face dead on. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a baked good that old doesn’t break open easily, depriving her of any sense triumph her accurate shot may have given her.

Putting my pipboy down to glare at her filling covered face. She responded by sticking her tongue out at me.

“You’re impossible.” We I say to her.

We both burst out laughing. I look back at my pipboy and selecting the first audio titled

Parting gift.

[ The not quite emotionless voice of Dr. Stone plays]

“Well you’re probably wondering how I got these recordings on here and what is on them. To answer the first question you must know that the ability to download files wirelessly to a Pipboy that I put on you is obviously within my capacity, as supported by the fact you are now listening to this recording. The other question is harder to answer.

A couple of years ago I was teleporting objects randomly for study, during this endeavor I came across what appeared to be a computer hard drive. Accessing the contents of this hard drive was harder said than done, it became my obsession for a couple of months actually.

After accessing the contents of this object, I was surprised to find it contained only audio files. The audio files in question were only music, strange styles of music. I surmised that this storage device must have come from radio station of some sort.

Later on when you were preparing to leave I had the idea to download all the music contained within to your Pipboy. Now have fun with your parting gift and remember to document all that you come across in your travels.

[Recording Ends]

“He sounds nice, what did he do to you again.” She asks after staying silent for the duration of the recording.

           “Abducted me, Tore out my spine and replaced it just to see whether or not I would freak out, Sent robots after me, and now acts like i’m his long lost son because I survived his challenges with my sanity intact.” I answer nonchalantly.

“Repressed anger? Hmm that would a lot of your behavior.” She ponders out loud.

“Did you find a psychology book and then read it?” I ask nicely.

“Yes, I did.” She answers while nodding slowly.

“Do you think that gives you the skills necessary to diagnose someone elses mental health? I Ask angrily.

“You just proved my point, you clearly need some sort of support  group.” She says while reciprocating my sharp tone.

“WHERE IN HELL WOULD I FIND ANOTHER INTERDIMENSIONAL VAGABOND, NEVERMIND A WHOLE SUPPORT GROUP OF THEM!” I Scream at her.

“You’re clearly Bipolar or something !” She yells back but with pity instead of anger.

“No I just don’t want to talk about my mental health with anyone!” my voice had lost all of it’s anger by now.

“You need to or else you will end up just another bucked up wasteland monster!” She states vehemently.

`“You’re more right than you know…” I look at the floor I shouldn’t tell her about why I spared Stone yet. “But enough of that for now, I actually need to sleep and arguing isn’t helping me that much.”

“Just tell me if you need to talk, you can talk to me.” She says earnestly

“Noted, actually I have a question right now?” I ask

“What’s your question?” She responds.

“How do you take off that armour?” I ask genuinely curious.

“Well it has an enchantment in the armour’s spell matrix that lets the leg pieces detach first the rest of the outer plate armor coming off in pieces, under the main plate is recon barding.”. She answers my question happily then as an afterthought she said “Why do you want me to take it off?” She then looks suggestively at me.

“Well I guess I’m already sleeping in your bed…” My voice breaks off in mock contemplation.

She chuckles then asks me “Actually, can you help me get my armour off?” She asks meekly.

“Yeah, I can” I think for a second then speak again as I’m striding closer to her. “Can you please minimize the innuendo?”

“Yeah I’ll try?” She says as I get to within arm's reach of her.

The next five minutes are filled with her frantically directing me to remove the right pieces of the armor in the correct order. All told this showed me how much of a bitch power armour is to get off, Especially if the being wearing it lacks hands.

After getting the outer plate and exoskeleton off, “Do you want me to help you get the recon barding off?” I say awkwardly.

“What would make you think any differently?” She says surprised then looks at me. “What you have against being unclothed?”

  I merely nod. Finishing that tasking task I saw Icepick without all her armour on She had a tattoo of three ice cycles on her posterior.

“Whats with the ass tattoo?” I ask slipping into a less eloquent dialect.

“Oh that's my cutie mark, ponies get them when they discover what they're good at.”

She answers my question in a manner reminiscent of an elementary school teacher

“Don’t patronize the terrifying alien.” I say humor very evident in my voice.

“Yeah you might be terrifying if you didn't have that big flaw.” She says in a teasing manner.

“What is this big flaw?” I ask with a lilt in my voice.

“The only thing that looks more like a pony than you would be a zebra.” She says deadpan.

      “Hello ( I actually wave my arms at her) bipedal, hairless and omnivorous. Those properties separate me pretty widely from you talking candy coloured equines.” I say with an argumentative tone.

“Your facial structure is very similar, you speak in the same language as us and you don’t speak in riddles like a bloody zebra. Also we eat meat now, it just took a balefire war to discover how tasty cooked animal is.” She says matching my tone.

“Ok, you win i’m not that much of an eldritch abomination to you. Doesn’t change the fact that your entire species looks disgustingly cute to me.” By now I had started taking my armour off I had already removed my duster.

“So you accept that you aren’t scary compared to an alicorn or hellhound?” She asks expecting affirmation to her loaded question.

“Do understand the rule that what you don’t see is the thing that will kill you?” I answer with my own loaded question. I had only my pants and t-shirt on now.

She nods tentatively then looks quizzically at me.

“The innocuous outlander is more dangerous because he has an obvious motivation. The threat comes from what he is willing to do to the status quo in his quest.”I say darkly.

“And that motivation is?” She inquires seemingly unfazed by my previous dark tone.

“To Go home.” I say humbly

“Thats it?” She asks dumbstruck.

“What were you expecting, me using a massive piece of prewar tech to further some shadowy agenda.” I say sarcastically.

“Do you become more irritable when you are suffering from sleep deprivation?” She asks in monotone.

“No more than usual” I say as finally slide into the twin sized bed secure in my boxers.

“Goodnight” I say while waving her off with a hand.

“You know when I said I would let me use my bed, I didn’t mean I wouldn’t sleep on it as well. So scoot over, you actually look more comfortable without all the armour on.”

“More comfortable to you?” I say looking at her with distaste.

She took this moment to hop in the bed with me. I was quickly pressed against the wall due to a lot of the limited space on the bed being taken up by her volume.

“You’re a real host, you know what I would do in your situation.” I say angrily

“What would you do in my situation?” She answers while pointing her legs away from me. Her barrel was now pressed against my chest.

“Spare my guests dignity by making them sleep on the floor.” I say in a mock self righteous tone.

  “You’re making the assumption that you have dignity.” She says finally getting comfortable.

“touché, well atleast you’re soft.” I say in concession.

“I was right, you do wear clothes because you can’t retain heat.” She says out loud her find.

“You could have asked why I wore clothes, instead of getting me almost naked then proceeding to snuggle with me.” I say in a vexed tone.

  “Goodnight, don’t let the parasprite bite.” She says in a cute lilting tone.

Dammit I guess it’s obvious that I do think she is cute. Equally obvious is that she has developed a crush on me. The thought of her feelings towards me doesn't fill me with unpleasant feelings, It just makes me think about whether or not I’m ready to reciprocate any feelings she has. As these thoughts float around in my mind I fall into the void of unconsciousness once again.

END OF CHAPTER FIVE PART TWO

Footnote Level Up

Perk Swift Learner Rank Two

You gain experience an additional 10% experience whenever experience is earned.

Skills

Guns-90

Science-50

Chapter Six: Out of the steel cocoon

Chapter 6: Out Of The Steel Cocoon

“In three words, I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”

Waking up with my arms around a warm body I was somewhat surprised to find Icepick nuzzling me. My course of action was not yet determined when she decided to awaken.

“Is it time to get up already?” She says in a sleepy tone.

“Unfortunately yes.”  I say candidly at her.

“Go back to sleep, you’re nicer that way.” She says in a quiet tone.

“Well I have nothing if not time.” I concede while pulling her closer to me, after a few seconds falling asleep for a while longer.

After awhile I wake up with her now laying partially on top of my chest. Some gentle prodding was enough for her to begin to get off of me.

She climbs off of me, taking her sweet time. Finally, after what seemed like ages, I was free to get off of her bed. The air in the room was chilly when you were not fully clothed. As I set about rectifying this, Icepick got back in her bed and looked at me.

“Why the long face?” She says in a peppy tone of voice.

“Probably the fact that I don’t know what I’m going to do once I leave this bunker.” I say in exasperation directed towards the multiverse that I unfortunately live in.

Now, dressed in my armour once again, I look back at Icepick with sadness at the fact I would be leaving her company soon. I was feeling very ambivalent about her so my thinking, fortunately or (unfortunately) my expression was obscured by my helmet. Opening the door I walk out into the drab corridors that had been the only scenery available to me for the last few days. Letting out a sigh, I look at my Pipboy to show me how to reach the elder’s office.  I set off towards that objective, along the way I see the other inhabitants of the bunker. They avert their eyes from me in what I assume was a sign of submission.

Striding into the nexus of activity near the elder’s office, I look around at the denizens of this complex going about their business. I give a mock salute to the paladins standing guard near the door. The uncertainty displayed in their returning gaze made it apparent that they were perplexed as to what the gesture meant. They displayed no resistance to me entering the office for the second time. I briefly wondered if the two guards were the same guards that had been standing there the last time I had entered.

Waltzing into the room I spotted Steamgear typing into a terminal. His face contorted into a frown the moment he saw who had entered his inner sanctum. As I continued walking towards his workspace, he silently motioned for me to sit in a chair in front of his desk. I did what he suggested, taking a moment to wonder why the chairs here were so accommodating to the human body in their design.

“So have you thought about the future of your contingent?” I say to break the silence in a passive-aggressive way.

    “Why yes, the highest ranking members have come to a consensus about our plan of action.” He said his dignified but vague statement in a smug tone.

“Good to know at least one of us has a plan of action. Anyway have you thought about my compensation.” I say in a polite manner.

“Why yes, your ultimatum was actually quite reasonable. Furthermore, I apologize for my... previous behavior.” He said all of this in his diplomatic tone, but when he apologized it came out of his mouth like he was in pain.

“Where’d you put my shit?” My passive tone had given way to an impatient one.

“Oh, right, just go to the armory in the back of the repair bay. There you will find what you’re looking for.” He said his temper clearly being tested. After leaving him and his hate for me behind I walked to where he said the armory was located. Upon entering the room, many things became apparent these applejacks rangers were better armed than most governments back home. Lining the walls all the weapons a good dictator could want were stored here. Walking towards a box of what I assumed were grenades. Sadly before I could get my hands on some explosive goodness, a pony wearing robes like the elder approached me.

“So you’re the alien everyone has been whispering about. You don’t seem that dangerous to me.” He says antagonistically.

   “Tell that to me when your brains painting the walls horse.” I spit venomously at the newcomer.

“Oh, did I strike a nerve? I didn’t realize your… “species” was so inclined to being offended. Of course, I’ll have to make a report about your little thre-” Before he could finish his rant I had picked him up and slammed the annoying equine against a gun safe. His breath gone, he weakly struggled to escape me.

“You know, for a scribe you’re not that intelligent. Why would you insult the being that killed a good portion of your old comrades?” I say while letting the stallion drop to the floor.

“Now show me where the 5.56 rounds are at jackass.”  Snickering at the double entendre in that statement, I awaited a response.

  He points to a group of boxes adjacent the wall a few feet away. Walking away from the pony (who was scared shitless, mind you), I progressed towards the place he gestured to.  Once there, I began opening the boxes of ammo; my search for armor piercing rounds was successful.  After finding the rather elusive ammunition I refilled three of my magazines, placing an additional hundred rounds in my backpack. When I looked back after that he was gone.

My primary task complete, I began looking around for anything useful to a non-pony. The mouth grips on the pistols made it impossible for me to find a new sidearm for myself. I returned to the box of grenades I had my eyes on before that pony decided drawing my ire would be a good idea. Upon opening the box I laid my eyes upon a half dozen olive tinted grenades in apple shaped housings. When I put them in my duster pocket my Pipboy dinged. Viewing the “Weapons” section of the device, the new weapons were displayed as “Frag Grenades.”

Moving through the rest of the armory I came across a box of spark grenades, a box of .223 hunting rifle ammunition, a firearm cleaning kit and manual, and a box of match loaded 5.56 ammunition.

I left the armory with my bags significantly heavier. I now wanted the elder to give me the currency he owed me along with the map I needed. Walking swiftly through the halls I spotted Ironsight.

     “What the fuck did you do to Sparkling Scroll?” She says to me in  clearly anger.

“What the idiot deserved.  Why for the love of whatever deity you believe in would you insult the creature that killed most of your former comrades?” I say in my “can you believe this” voice.

“Doesn’t change the fact that you made him empty his bowels in fright.” She said while walking beside me.

I hadn’t stopped moving during this entire exchange. I was resolute in my quest to leave this place within the day. Her appearance hadn’t stopped my trek towards the elders office.  Continuing the conversation was going to be futile, but I couldn’t let her have the last word.

“Hey fuck you that kid was a dick.” I say with bluntness in my voice.

“We’re called foals when we’re born, dipshit.” replied Ironsight.

I believe it was at that exact moment I began to respect this whorse.

It was also at that exact moment I realized that their dialect had started to grow on me.

I walked into the elders office with Iron Sight in tow for what I hoped would be the last time in a long while. To my surprise, I found Icepick speaking to the robed pony. My sudden entrance seemed to make Icepick nervous. I once again sat down in the strangely comfortable chair, waiting for someone to speak. The elder spoke, evidently having little patience for uncomfortable silence.

“After some deliberation we have decided to extend a contract towards you.” Steamgear said to me. Before he could continue, Ironsight interrupted him.

“Why would you give a contract to this monster?” Ironsight said with more venom in her voice than I thought possible.

“Because he can move around arousing more attention than a relocating ranger contingent.” Steamgear said sternly to Ironsight. He looked at me before continuing his explanation. “Sorry we didn’t get off on the right hoof, but we need you to cause a big enough distraction to draw everyponie’s attention away from our withdrawal.”

“What do you offer in exchange for me putting a target on my head?” I asked, suspicious.

“Would the help of a large technologically advanced group on your quest home persuade you?” He asked, clearly trying to bait me.

“How about that, and at the very least a large supply of the currency you use.”

I said in the most reasonable tone I could muster.

“You understand you won’t be able to meet with us until we’re integrated with the rest of the manehattan contingent.” Icepick said to me looking right where my eyes would be if I wasn’t wearing my helmet. (She hadn’t been wearing her helmet throughout the entire meeting).

“Fine having you guys as my allies isn’t a bad idea,” I said soberly.

“So do you have a map I can download to my Pipboy?” I said with a little happiness, the prospect of leaving another place composed entirely of grey corridors leaving an enticing image in my head.

“Yes, let me retrieve it.” Steamgear said to me in a tone synonymous to mine ( most likely pleased with the my quickly approaching departure.) He began rummaging in the filling cabinets behind him.

Retrieving the map shortly thereafter, he produced a holodisk and a bag which produced a metallic pinging noise when dropped on his desk. I wondered as to how the alien holodisk could be compatable with my Pipboy. After grabbing it and inserting it into the appropriate slot on my Pipboy, it made the distinctive humming of a successful holodisk download in progress. Taking the bag into my hands, I untied the knotted top to examine its contents. Looking up with an unamused facial expression, I blatantly expressed my feelings as to this matter.

“The fuck is this?”

“I’m not sure what you’re referencing…” replied Steamgear, perhaps just as incredulous as I.

“I asked for currency, not fucking scrap metal.” I stated with the compulsory throwing of the bag at the wall, its contents spilling out onto the concrete floor. My sudden outburst caused the ponies to cringe at the loud BANG! that was made.

“I don’t think you understand; that is our currency.” Steamgear stated matter-of-factly. “Paper is too valuable a commodity to create out of the limited supply of trees and the pre-war stockpiles of paper are now little more than ash.” Placing my hand over my face, I considered what Steamgear said.

“Fine, fine,” I said feeling slightly disheartened. I held out my hand expecting one of the ponies in the room to pick up the bag and hand it to me. Steamgear looked around nervously, raising a timid hoof to point to himself.

“Do you want me to…?”

“Yes, I want you to pick up my fucking mess. Problem?”

“N-no, not at all.” He said in compliance, immediately retrieving the bag and placing it within my grasp.

Leaving the room like a bat out of hell, I jogged out without so much as a farewell to the elder. It seemed that Icepick didn’t want to me leave without saying goodbye. I continued walking until I was out of earshot of the other ponies around me. Icepick having tailed me this entire time nearly crashed into me as I stopped to speak to her.

“You seem so happy to leave, why is that?” She said in a hurt tone.

“Because I haven’t been out of a decaying facility in at least three days, along with the fact that almost everyone here dislikes me.” I said tersely.

“So you think you can just abandon the only pony who can tolerate you!” She says in a tone similar to her previous tone. “That is all the more reason you should stay by me!”

“You know I’ll be back someday. If nothing else, they still owe me some mon...er…caps.” I grinned.

Icepick broke into a grin and playfully punched my leg. “You’d better.” She stated. “And bring some books back with you! I’ve read all of mine at least three times.”

I nodded my head with affirmation, then walked towards the door with one last wave back to Icepick. Heading out of the bunker, I passed a group of paladins. I saluted again, leaving them wondering what the hell I meant by it.

“Open the door!” I said in a commanding tone.

The door sentinels opened the door hurriedly. Walking through the doorway I quickly ascertained that the facility’s entrance was on a tall mountain. The cold air assaulted me as I moved out into the wastes. When I reached the side of the plateau the bunker entrance had led out to, I observed the ruined wasteland.

Pulling up the map on my Pipboy, I located the nearby ruins of Hollow Shades. Setting a navigation marker for the nearest probable settlement, I thought about my current mission goal (which I guess was to cause as much attention as I possibly could be directed at me.) Setting off down the chilly mountain I let my mind drift. The feelings of loneliness were palpable as I continued down the lonesome road.

---===*===---

I found myself most of the way down the mountain when I saw a group of decrepit buildings. My curiosity got the best of me as I approached the buildings with Epilogue drawn. Spotting a broken chariot? I ran up to it then consequently crouched behind the chariot. Looking down the scope of my rifle I spotted a pony wearing mismatched armor with a rifle near her. Wondering how to deal with this group of ponies I deliberated for a few minutes until I watched a pony from inside the building drag a pony corpse out into the muck, then the pony just left the mutilated corpse there. It then proceeded to walk back into the building.

Watching such an act of remorseless sacrilege made me think that this group wasn’t looking to barter with me. My mind now had a task to do; formulate an attack plan.

Planning wasn’t that hard considering that I was the only variable that I had control over. The plan was composed of me sniping any pony that I saw wearing that bloody tattered armour before they got to the range that they could fight back. Sighting in the sentry ponies head I let out a breath then I squeezed the trigger. The noise broke the late evening’s silence as the bullet reshaped the ponies head. Watching the entrance intently I quickly spotted the first responder to the sound of gunfire. Lining up the newcomer in my scope I double tapped the trigger bringing the now forever nameless pony down. Apparently the denizens of the building decided to not run outside like the first pony, they instead opted to throw a grenade outside the door. The grenade detonated with a humongous bang and it left a good sized in the ground in the spot that it landed. Their unusual landscaping technique accomplished nothing in regards to stopping me, I let out a chuckle at their futile efforts.

The remaining inhabitants of the building didn’t leave the building, forcing me to do the work in regards to their extermination. The night was now upon me so I activated the night vision in my helmet. As my vision shifted to shades of yellow I moved as silently as I could towards the building. Approaching the doorway my back pressed against the wall, I pulled out a frag grenade out of one of my pockets and prepared to throw it into the building once I opened the door a little.

Opening the door and throwing the grenade inside was accomplished quickly leaving me time to back away quickly from the doorway. Pulling  Epilogue back into my hands I decided to run in using the explosion as cover. Sprinting into the building I encountered no resistance in the lobby( I had figured out the building used to be a resort hotel.), I then moved behind the receptionists desk using it as cover.

A pony wearing that terrible armor ran through the nearest hallway. It was clutching a pistol in it’s mouth. The pony had time to see a tall biped with glowing red eyes, before the very neurons that carried it’s oh shit signals in his brain were painting the walls behind him.

“You come out now and you die quickly!” A female raider yelled at me.

“Why would that make any sense at all considering my situation. Really you ponies are the most incompetent organization I have ever seen In my admittedly short life. ( My voice goes as sarcastic as possible considering i’m wearing a fully enclosed helmet.) ‘Let’s send someone outside where we know there is an adversary’ my god how stupid can you guys be.”

My rant was cut short by a fusilade of submachine gun rounds impacting the desk I was using for cover.  The pony apparently emptied an entire magazine into my cover.However when I heard the dry click indicative of an empty weapon I popped up and returned fire into the submachine gun pony. I noticed in my HUD that Epilogue was down to twenty rounds left in it’s magazine, this tiny revelation was interrupted by a bottle with a flaming rag stuffed in the top being hurled at me from farther on in the hallway. It smashed into the desk covering it in flaming liquid, me on the other hand was up and running in the other direction the hell away from the goddamn fire bottles.

Actually running out of the building itself I had time to deactivate my night vision. The reason, paradoxically the amount of light a fire generates amplified by a night vision helmet actually blinds the wearer. I had only a few seconds before another molotov cocktail flew out of the now all too familiar doorway. Deciding to walk backwards away from the entrance way I kept my rifle raised to deal with anyone who came through that doorway.

“Scared of the flame Red Eyes” The now distinctly female pyromaniac yelled out to me.

The name Red Eyes was actually pretty metal so I decided not to correct her on that “I’m not scared of rapid oxidation , I’m merely backing away from the psychotic bitch that’s throwing around the flammable shit!” I yell back.

“What are you some kind of egghead?” She says in annoyance.

I had moved around so that I could see down the open doorway by this point. Still unseen by the pony with the affinity for fire, I reactivated my night vision and sighted in the pony. Before I shot her I did two things, first I looked at her closely she was a unicorn sported a bright red coat with coal black hair. The second was equivalent to an elementary school taunt.

      .   “It’s better than not having a head!” The look on her face was well worth the extra second that the taunt took. Epilogue cracked twice her head was now for all intents and purposes gone.

Moving back towards the building once more I decided to make a proclamation.

“If you surrender and disarm I’ll let you escape with your lives.” I said with as much volume as I could muster.

My cease and desist order was met with no replies, but at this point I was already in the lobby moving swiftly into what remained of what used to be a hotel. I began going room to room looting anything that seemed useful. Most of what I found was various drugs and prewar food. After what seemed like a long period of inactivity I heard a banging against a closet door near me.

“Hey is anyone in there?” I asked the obvious yet oh so important question.

“Are you one of Degenerate Flames raiders?” The voice squeaked out it sounded like a prepubescent child.

“No I think they’re all dead. Wait a second, i’ll unlock the door for you.” I said in a comforting tone. I went ahead and tried to open the door, my initial attempts failed I decided to take a drastic measure.

“You should probably back away from the door soon.” I said with a little urgency.

“Why should I?” The kid said with a little bit of ill timed sass.

“Dude I’m gonna kick the door down in like a second, so get away from the door!” I say slipping into my 90’s  teenager vernacularly unintentionally.

Without further adieu I kick the door down my steel toed combat boots doing the deed nicely. Inside the room however was a small pony with a beige coat and orange hair( mane whatever). He took one look at me and screamed at the top of his relatively small lungs. This response made me begin to wonder if I should, in the future take off my helmet before meeting new creatures, especially ones so utterly effective at assaulting my eardrums.

“COME ON I DON’T EVEN LOOK DANGEROUS” Perhaps the sheer absurdity of that statement alone was enough to make this load adolescent quit his wailing. To take some my inherent scare factor away, I took off my helmet for the first time in approximately nine hours. The effect this had on him didn’t take long to manifest, he just stood there and studied me for a second before asking.

“Are you an alien or something?” he asked in a tone of detached curiosity.

“Either that or a transdimensional butt monkey.” I say with a trace of humour in my voice.

“What’s a butt monkey.” He asks clearly very curious.

“Someone who has shit happen to them that they don’t deserve, but at the same time can handle.” Pausing for a second to think about what this kid probably needs, after a little mental deliberation I decided to ask. “Hey kid want some food, It’s really old but it still has some of the qualities of sustenance.”

“You talk funny, anyway yeah i’ll eat some food if you got any.” He says in an upbeat tone.

I begin searching through my bag for any of that ransacked food, while i’m doing this I ask.

“Kid how in the hell did you get captured by these assholes.” I ask in a sober voice.

“Well ma and pa were guarding the front of the caravan when Flame’s raiders attacked.” [His voice had lowered to almost a whisper, he also started to tear up as well] “I hid in the wagon, I could hear the gunshots.”

He whimpers, I put my hand on his head and scratch behind his ear. (If it works for a dog or cat it’s worth a try isn’t it). He looks at me with something bordering on affection, I just give a smile while making sure not to expose my canines. I guess this gave him the strength to continue.

“I heard ma and pa get shot. When they searched the wagon they found me and took me here. I think maybe Wagon Wheel got taken here too. Have you seen a pony with an orange coat and yellow mane?” He says sounding concerned for the welfare of Wagon Wheel.

Do I tell him that I saw the mutilated corpse matching that description being dragged outside? This question was being fought over in my head as the colt,(I really needed to find out his name), Grabbed a box actually labelled ‘Junk Food’ and he then proceeded to rip open the box and commence eating. The question of what I would tell the kid could be stalled for a while, however a matter of great importance couldn’t wait any longer.

“Kid what’s your name?” I ask in a tone that conveyed more maturity than I thought I possessed.

“Bright Surprise is my name, don’t wear it out.” He said his voice unintentionally (I hoped) emulated a bad 50’s movie gangster.

My laugh was irrepressible and along with it was a statement I would probably later regret. “Kid don’t ever change”

   “Why ya laughin at me?” He said with an anger that told me that I had struck a nerve, he probably thought I was laughing at his name.

“Bright Surprise, It wasn’t your name that caused my laughter. It was the way you delivered that entire statement” I said in a tone that felt like I was an apologetic elder.

Which when I thought about the situation I was in the tone was pretty indicative of my interpersonal relationship with this ten year old boy analogue. Wait what in the actual fuck was I in the process of becoming a father figure to this colt?

My Rumination was interrupted a incessant tapping on my knee, looking down I saw Bright Surprise repeatedly prodding my leg.

“What do you want?” I ask in a vexed tone of voice.

“Do ya have anything to drink mister…?” he asked with hesitation in his voice.

“You can call me Jake, and to answer your question kid I took a couple bottles of water from the raiders. They register as purified water in my Pipboy, so drink up.” I grabbed two bottles of water from my bag and handed one of them to the colt, the other bottle I began to drink from.

After some eating of my own, I saw that the colt had fallen asleep while laying down on the cold floor. Action wasn’t necessary but I felt he needed an actual bed, I remembered seeing a few dingy mattresses in the hotel rooms. Picking up Bright Surprise while trying to not wake him up wasn’t that difficult, having a little practice in such matters helped. My thoughts drifted to the weirdly detached memories of my younger brother. I often had to  This train of thought left me feeling a faint pangs of homesickness.

Taking a moment to let these feelings pass, after a moment I decided that reloading my partially expended magazine would be a prudent step in my continuing journey.  Finding a table with another uncomfortably comfortable chair, I sat down and reloaded my firearm.

The idea to clean Epilogue registered in my consciousness, I deliberated for a moment about whether I should. Eventually I decided to start the process was because I was in a relatively safe location. Looking in the manual I started breaking the gun down into it’s base components, after a thorough cleaning and reassembly Epilogue was back up into the nineties of condition percentage in my Pipboy. Letting out a yawn, my thinking drifted to the proposition of sleeping in a centuries old mattress. Although after thinking about my last few days I realized that every bed I had slept on had been two centuries old, the important factor being the conditions the mattresses were subjected to during their lifetimes.

Oh how must suck to live your life in the ever fading shadow of a greater age. Knowing what a newly manufactured product is like but never even having the chance to see one being created. Everyone in this world is like a cannibalistic carrion animal, living only from the corpses of their long dead brethren.  After these ruminations I decided to check my Pipboy for radio signals, this was done mainly to keep my mind off the one nastiest truths in this dreadful world.

The auto tuner in my Pipboy picked actually picked up a broadcast. I sat there in the eerily comfortable chair and listened to a charismatic pony.

[Redeye’s Fillydelphia Broadcast]

“My friends, let me share with you a secret, just between you and me.  I was not always like this.  No, once I was a young colt, irresponsible and carefree.  I did not understand the need to toil, to labor.  Nor should I have.  For I was but a child, and childhood is the time for innocence.  For exploration.  For happiness and growth.

“I was lucky, fortunate beyond my deserving, to be blessed with safe places to roam, security from the fiends and horrors of the Equestrian Wasteland, and companionship in the form of my beloved dog, Winter.  Oh, the adventures we had.

“Sounds beautiful, doesn’t it.  A time of peace and joy that I can return to in my mind at the end of the day after the Equestrian Wasteland has thrown at me the worst of its horrors and despair.  Between the visions of my peaceful past and our gloriously bright future, I find the strength to go on, no matter how hard the path or heavy the load.

“But… my childhood, picturesque and ideal and safe… is that what your own children enjoy?  Tell me, Equestrian Wasteland, how many of our children today are truly happy?  Truly carefree?

“Sadly, we both know the answer.  None.  Today, Equestria is a hard, miserable, unforgiving place.  Our colts and fillies live with fear, violence, rape and death.  The bleak and poisoned world offers our children only meaningless struggle and, all too often, a cruel and terrifying end.  There is no joy out there, no hope.

“No more!  This ends here.  This ends now.  One day, yes, the New Equestria we are building will offer them that same utopian security that I once enjoyed… but we cannot wait for that while our children suffer.  The leaders of our past may have forgotten how much each colt, each filly, is to be cherished when they unleashed their arrogant wrath upon our world, but we who have lived through hell know better.  And we will not wait another day.

“As those living within lands already being reclaimed know, our nation’s young ones are, and have always been, my highest priority.  All that we sacrifice, we do for them, to give them a better place.  And in the meantime, we strive to give them what safety and security our hooves can offer.

“And more than that, dear friends.  Oh, much more.  We provide schools where they can learn, medical centers where they will obtain free treatment -- the best medical care in all of Equestria, and homes where they can live together with other children, making friends, all under the watchful care of loving, approved mares and stallions.

“Soon, the armies of the Children of Unity will come to your town.  Not as an invading army, oh no.  But as an army of engineers and teachers and doctors.  They will rebuild your schools, establish hospitals that will provide the best care in this ruined and tortured nation, and bring to you the Words of the Goddess, so that you too may know Unity.

“And once again, our children will be able to play.”

[At this point the broadcast cut out to be replaced by some “happy” music.]

“Fuck that jazz!” I say while turning off the radio as quickly as humanly possible.

My revulsion at the song played after the radio message obscured my thoughts about the radio message itself. The message seemed to have overtures of hope, the thing that worried me was the second line of the message. “I was not always like this” I said outloud while wondering how those words conveyed so much meaning, to a stranger wandering in this strange land.

Getting up from the chair with a shinier Epilogue in my hands, I decided that getting a nights rest would be a good idea. Finding a room near the where Bright Surprise was sleeping, I took off my duster and and laid my helmet on a nearby table, then I proceeded to drop onto the mattress.

Within five minutes or so I fell into a dreamless sleep.

---===*===---

As the Void of much needed sleep faded from my mind, I saw the reason for my now conscious state. The kid had decided to wake me up, however when I didn’t immediately jump up he must have decided to open my bag and begin gorging himself on the contents of my Backpack.

“Kid if you only eat junk food you won’t grow up to be Big and STRONG” I say in the parental voice I could must.

“The only food that’s left is junk food, and why do you keep calling me kid.” He said the first half with sass, the latter half curious with what kid meant.

“It means adolescent,” I say cautiously. “Anyway do you want to come with me to Hollow shades?” I ask with false confidence.

“Jake, Hollow Shades is gone, but there is a town nearby. I could show you the way I guess.” He said the second sentence with his own batch of uncertainty.

“Thanks, I don’t really know my way around.” I say while rubbing the back of my neck with my right hand.

“Yeah, do you want to eat before we go?” He says with a small smile at the irony of leading an alien many years his elder around.

I had already began eating some of the Preservative laden food.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” The colt snickered

“You can take your pick of the raider weapons.”  I said trying to keep the kid happy, I mean all male children like weapons right?

“I can?” He said in a jovial tone.

“Yeah sure, just don’t use any of them without showing them to me first.” My voice slipped into that newfound parental voice.

I got up after drinking another bottle of water, putting on my duster and shoulder plates took but a few seconds. A minute or two later I had all of my equipment locked and loaded. Now I just had to find where that pony had scampered off too. His location was made apparent by a series of gunshots. I broke into a sprint towards the where the gunshot went off, my head was filled with thoughts of brights dismemberment. Now outside in the snow I saw that my thoughts were unwarranted.

“Hey Jake you know how you said I couldn’t shoot the guns right?” He said with a voice only a child thats been caught going against it’s elders wishes can use.

I nodded my helmeted head.

He simply pointed at a dead giant ant a couple of feet away.  I walked towards him keeping the status quo of silence. Coming to arms length of him, I reached down and patted him on the head.

“Good job,” Pausing to think about the subject before I approached it. “Good to know you have no qualm against murdering things that seek to harm you.”

“What did you just say?” My speech seemed to go over his head sometimes this seemed to annoy him.

With a huff I said “You can protect yourself somewhat, I was being grateful for that”.

“Now what all did you find?” I asked while pointing at his recently used submachine gun.

“This gun, some clips for it and one of these(He pulled out a molotov cocktail with his telekinesis).” He said in a merry tone.

“Good now are you ready to show me where this town is at?” I say in a relaxed voice.

“I wanted to look for where Wagon Wheel went, Can I please?” He sounded desperate yet full of hope at the same time.

“Most of the raider bodies are out near the lobby, do you want me to pinpoint where they’re at?” I asked my companion.

“Do I still get to keep their weapons?” He asked while his mind flooded with the possibilities of what weapons his captors had on them.

“Knock yourself the fuck out” I say with a little more mirth than was probably appropriate for the circumstances. Does he really need to ask that around me?  I’m like the fun uncle. While he walked with me around the building I thought about my role in the kids life. Would I become an adoptive father? Not likely since I’m less than twice his age and an alien with little to no knowledge about how this world actually operated.

My reverie was was broken by the Brights agonized wailing and subsequent running towards the mutilated corpse. Okay the mutilated corpse created by the raiders instead of the corpse of one of the raiders.  Well as my internal struggle over the semantics of my own conscious thought, my usage of the words mutilated and corpse being the center of the debate. Meanwhile Bright Surprise’s cries continued unabated, and being the bastion of emotional support that I am, consequently a plan formed in my mind. the plan consisted of letting the kid cry himself out. So I waited there for about five minutes till he got back up and walked towards me.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THAT SHE WAS FUCKING DEAD?” He screamed at me.

      “I wasn’t sure that the corpse and the pony you described were the same, so I didn’t say anything at all. Why not leave you with a little bit of hope for a change.” I say with force but not anger.

“I DON’T NEED ANY HOPE!!!” He loudly replied.

“Yes you do, both of us do. You have lived your life in a shitty place, recently fate has decided to take everything you hold dear away from you.” I state in a dark tone my face contorting into a sad smile unseen beneath my mask. “As for me i’ve lost everything I have ever known, but if there is still a chance for my return to my loved ones I’ll continue on.” I say in a sardonic tone. “You’re young you can do whatever you want, I am also relatively young but my problem is that I don’t belong here in this world.”

“But you’re here anyway.” His voice had become softer.

“We’re both victims of circumstances, in my instance my hopes of getting back to my homeland is the primary impetus for continuing on.” I said in an expository tone. “Show me the way forward and maybe you will find you’re own way forward.” I said trying to sound sagely.

“Only if you help me bury her first!!” He stated his ultimatum resolutely.

“Okay probably a good idea anyway, i’ve gotta find a shovel to be any help. Hey while i’m gone can you start digging with your telekinesis or something. ”  I began walking into the building to look for a shovel.

After a couple minutes of checking through a decrepit maintenance wing of the hotel I found a the digging implement I was looking for. Making my way back to the front of the hotel took a little while as well. Old decaying buildings were starting to annoy me based solely on their sheer abundance in my admittedly short travels.

Arriving back to the burial sight I observed that Bright had already dug a vaguely rectangular hole about two feet deep.

“Took you long enough.” Bright said with sweat pouring off of his small prow.

“You’re lucky that you are not sitting in a locked room right now.” I say letting my annoyance at his annoyance show verbally.

“Just fuck off and help me dig this hole.” He replies in a bitter tone.

Deciding that the angry squirt was not looking to speak anymore, I began helping him dig the hole.

---===*====---

The hole that me and my nonplussed companion had dug was a full five feet deep which Bright thought was deep enough to bury his last remaining tie to his old life. The chilly air was oppressive as we threw Wagon Wheel into her final resting place. No words were exchanged as we filled the grave back full of dirt. It was about noon when we finished that unpleasant but spiritually fulfilling task.

“Let’s just go,” he said with a gesturing hoof towards him which I took to mean he wanted me to follow behind him. I followed yet another guide in an unfamiliar location on an alien world, those thoughts really never strayed far from my conscious thinking. Walking down the mountain became the only real thought in my mind as I looked around occasionally to look for danger. This I suppose was the beginning stages of my mental change towards all walking  becoming truly pedestrian.  We walked till something inevitably attacked us, we then stopped for a long enough time to deal with the threat. Most of the threats were mundane like giant ants and molerats. The ease with which we dispatched the threats made us quickly complacent to hostels showing up on my Pipboys scanner.

Somewhere around four hours into our travels a red mark showed up on my scanner. The direction it came from was off to my right somewhere in some ruined housing, that we had began running into as we pushed into the outskirts of what was once hollow shades.

“Dude we got another contact, be ready to unload on it if you spot it.” My vague instructions apparently going over well with him.  I had already turned my body towards the contact, I was waiting Epilogue in hand for whatever it was to come into view. The unknown creature answered my thoughts to a tee. With a roar this black predator sprinted out of one of the houses at us. I quickly looked down my scope at the creature, acquiring it in my sights I pulled the trigger as fast as the weapon would allow. The 5.56 rifle rounds punched large holes into the rushing creature, along with the damage being dealt by me Bright had opened up with his submachine sun. The cacophony of gunfire had caused to slow down, It still went forward to aiming it’s mass towards Bright. Making a snap decision just as Epilogue went fry, I pulled one of my pilfered frag grenades out of my duster.

“RUN, GET BEHIND SOME COVER,” My yelling seeming to affect his actions. His gun’s magazine had run out as well, he then dropped it and began running  in the direction of an overturned chariot. I really didn’t want to get the poor kid hurt but to save him required putting him in danger. As I slipped into VATs all of these emotions drained away save for my not wanting to explode the kid, I then targeted the bear accordingly.

As the oddly apple shaped bomb left my hand I watched as it lazily arced over the bear right in front of the chariot Bright was hiding behind. The bomb went off turning the already wounded bear into the equivalent of a thick red paste. The colt came scampering towards me quickly. I wondered why he was moving so fast under these now non threatening circumstances.

“Hit the deck!!” He yelled at me. For a moment I wondered why he wanted me to hit the ground, but I suppressed that thinking that he probably knows something that I do not.

I laying on my stomach for only a few seconds before his order was vindicated.

BOOM

The large explosion that emanated from the chariot caused noise to ring in my ears for a moment. Getting up off the ground unscathed by the explosion I looked around for Brights location.  Spotting the small pony behind a collection of boulders I moved swiftly to thank the colt for alerting me to the explosive nature of these chariot-things.

“Uh...thanks kid, for uh telling me to hit the ground. I mean I really don’t like being riddled with shrapnel.” I Said awkwardly while rubbing the back of my neck with my right arm. I needed to get around my awkwardness around these creatures, without covering it up with barely supportable bravado. Maybe being less of a dick would be nice too? My thoughts were suddenly thrust to the back of my mind as I finally saw that the kid had a large piece of metal protruding from his neck. The wound was bleeding profusely I remembered a bit of first aid and first looked in my bag for bandages.

Finding some and remembering the healing effects of my stimpacks on myself I wondered what the application of a stimpack would do for the ailing colt. Having everything I thought I needed beside me, I used my gloved right hand to pull out the embedded shrapnel from his neck. After that the blood flow increased significantly out of his wound, before attempting to use the stimpack on him I quickly wrapped the bandage around his neck. Pulling out another of the now somewhat familiar syringes I tried to find an appropriate vein to inject it into the kid. Within a few seconds I found one then promptly injected it into him. I watched with a massive amount anxiety over whether or not the medicine would have any effect on his alien physiology. What possible negative effects could shooting a strange drug that somehow works for humans have on an alien child? nothing bad I hoped? I mean the kid has started to grow on me.

I slowly watched with bated breath as the amount of blood saturating the bandage decreased at just fast enough of a rate to be noticeably while continually staring at the wound in question. Taking a break from watching the healing of the kid, I took a moment to drink some water and eat some more antebellum food. While chewing on some of what these equines called food I took a moment to think some more about the serendipity involved with Brights body being affected in a positive way from the stimpack. Did this indicate that these equines had analogues body systems? Was there something more at work here, some cosmic game of chess? The first thought I pondered for awhile it kind of unsettled me how our physiologies were this similar. The second question just made me burst out laughing at the sheer  audacity of what that would make me.

It was becoming darker outside when I saw a strange sight in the skies above my head. It looked like a fixed wing aircraft of some type, but it had no conventional wings that I could see. Maybe the it was some kind of lifting body aircraft, wait that would require a civilisation with a multitude of advanced skills to operate an aircraft. The resources required would be crushing to almost any society, or maybe applying my terran aviation knowledge here was moving me in the wrong direction. I believe hearing one of those technicians in the ranger base talk about some enclave in the clouds.

Well by the time my contemplations were in full effect the aircraft was almost out of my sight. I wondered if I should wake Bright up? The thought was briefly turned over in my mind before I decided to just pick him up and continue walking. He was probably exhausted, considering that his small body lost a lot of blood, and the effects of a proportionally larger dose of  repair stimulant drug. That probably would leave him very tired for quite a while. Continuing down the darkened cracked blacktop, I paused to activate my night vision while keeping the kid comfortable over my left shoulder. His weight was probably only around thirty pounds. I briefly considered If I could wake him up with an adrenal injection. Eventually my thoughts drifted to the my useage of explosives in combat.

These happy violent thoughts kept me occupied till I spotted a large wall composed of random garbage with a little cement coating the outside of the wall.

The aesthetic appeal of a cobbled together wall of  rubbish aside, I wondered where the entrance to this compound was. It seemed that my answer would be given to me quickly, along the top of the walls I spotted movement. Dark quadrupedal shadows looked as though they were patrolling this settlement? military base? I really wasn’t that sure.  I continued walking the perimeter of the wall; the sentries on the walls seemed not to notice me.  After a few minutes I heard a yawning and simultaneous movement from the being sprawled out on my shoulder.

“Where are we? How long was I out?” The colt said louder than I was comfortable with.

“Outside of that place you were leading me to, I think?” I paused in my whispering, spotting a dilapidated shack farther away from the walled settlement.

“It’s been a few hours since you lost consciousness.” I said while moving in the direction of the shack, where we would hopefully plan our next move.

“Wait how can you even see, It’s pitch black outside?” He says while opening and closing his large eyes.

At the door to the shack by now, I quickly turned the handle. It opened with a squeak, letting me step inside. “Integrated night vision” I say to him while pointing at my helmet. He nodded then said.

“Can you put me down now?”

“Yeah, just give me second,” I set him on the floor after turning on my pipboy light for Brights benefit.

“Those guys out there don’t seem like a nice friendly group” I say bringing up the subject that was immediately important.

“Yeah about that we didn’t actually get to enter the place. They kinda just bought our stuff at the gate.” He says apologetically while nervously kicking the dirt in this little shit shack.

“Okay, are they just xenophobic assholes.” I ask not pleased with this little nugget of information given to me.

“I’m not sure what xenophobic means, but they don’t let ‘peasants’ in there.” He says trying to make up for his lack of foresight by being extra helpful.

“Can you atleast tell me what the name of this place is?” I ask still miffed about this miscommunication.

“The first estate” he said with a some dismissal in his voice.

After some discussion it was decided that Bright should try to gain entry based upon the fact he could fake being a helpless kid. He was then to persuade to let me in. This left me  perched up on the top of a nearby hill, rifle pointing at the gate in the case bright had some trouble with these people.

As bright walked in the direction of the gate he was quickly sighted in by the sentries guarding the gate. My helmet augmented sight could pick out the sentries lowering their weapons, because the threat level of an unarmoured child wasn’t that high. They appeared to be having words for a couple minutes then Bright turned away from the guards and began walking slowly towards my position.

I snuck over to meet him around halfway between our previous positions. When we were in close enough proximity to speak to one another he initiated the exchange.

“Jake they’ll let you in,” his voice shifted to a slightly smug tone before continuing.

“I just said you looked a little change, also I kinda told them you were my guardian.”

“Wow your powers of strategic understatement are pretty impressive,” I say while chuckling. “I gotta say I understand the surprise part of your name.” I say the latter part in a faux contemplative tone.

“Nopony thinks a colt can tell you bullshit.” He says under his breath, quite proud of himself.

My helmets microphone suite gave me the ability to hear this, I actually startled him by responding. “Nopony exactly, I am quite aware of your talent with lies of omission.”

He just looks at me in a way that I interpreted as ‘you’re a conceited asshole’.

“Ready to head over there?” He said, his impatience being the impetus of his question.

“Lead the way kid,” I say while beginning to follow the adolescent. I became more worried the closer we got to the gate. The moment when they gate sentries spotted me would have been hilarious if I hadn’t been trying to keep everything peaceful. The more senior of the two guards screamed.

“What in celestia’s name is that?” Punctuated by the aiming of a double assault rifle battle saddle being aimed in my general direction. His underling on the other hand was frantically trying to open the door.

In my best attempt at diplomacy the only thing my stressed brain could think to utter is as follows. “I come in peace?” I asked looking at the sentry pony apologetically.

It was at this point that Bright interjected, “He’s the one who helped me,don’t fire at him.” He says trying his hardest to keep bullets from being exchanged.

“Yeah I’m mostly harmless,” I then say under my breath while keeping my hands straight out in front of me. “Except to raiders and power armoured assholes”.

The guard apparently able to hear both parts of my statement looked at me inquisitively then asked. “What raiders?”

“The ones who were set up in that resort place closer to the mountain. That’s where I got this little bundle of joy.” I thusly pointed at Bright, he was now right beside me.

“You fought those degenerates,” I nodded my armored head, “and did you wipe out their encampment?.” The snobbish sounding earth pony asked me.

“Waste of ammunition but it had to done,” I said trying to sound as gentlemanly as possible. Trying to emulate another person's speech patterns puts them more at ease, that was my reasoning behind my eloquent phrasing.

“Were you aware that there was a bounty for eliminating those individuals?” He said rather politely, my words seeming to make him more averse to violence.

“Actually I didn’t know that,but if you need proof that I did the deed. Then send someone on the morrow to check the encampment.”

“Sure,sure do you want to enter our fine city?” He asks now very courteous my nod of affirmation prompted him to ask another question. “May I ask your name?”

“Jake the wanderer is my title.” I reply in my pompous yet polite tone.

“I’m the eventing guard captain, my name is Dark Sentry.” He replies merrily probably happy to state his position in his group to an outsider.

That went rather well I thought to myself as he guided me and Bright inside the compound. He was speaking about how his subordinate would be reprimanded for dereliction of duty. I kept nodding as he continued speaking while I barely listened. The town itself looked like a bunch of high end pre war houses with  some of these houses now being used for commercial endeavors. The streets were barely lit by a couple of electric light poles hooked up to some large batteries. I noticed that behind the junk of the walls was a set of brickwalls that were very worn, I surmised that this place used to be a gated community the walls I suppose were to keep up the illusion of exclusivity.  Walls that used to keep the property values high now superseded by walls made out of the consumer trash that the wealthy here kept in abundance, and for what to continue the tradition of elitism.

At some point Dark Sentry actually gave me some useful information he pointed out an inn. Why do they have an inn if keeping all out of town ponies away is their general policy? Well after asking this question he responded that sometimes the townsfolk wanted to get away from their house’s every once in awhile. I suppressed asking why you would want to stay in a motel a block from your house. These ponies in particular annoyed me more than anything I had encountered so far.  At the door to the Inn Dark Sentry left us, but not before saying some hollow remark about having a good sleep. After that Bright and I waltzed into the Inn, a sleepy looking orange unicorn mare was sitting behind a desk. Her tired exterior was immediately changed into a face that conveyed absolute terror upon seeing us (it was probably me that scared her).

“I’m here to pay for a room for a night, miss?” I say hoping my mundane request would keep her from screaming and waking the whole town. That inconvenient scenario was averted by those words because she then politely asked.

“That would be fifty caps sir?” She would have seen my bemused look if I would have been sans helmet, but alas my helmet was on and she looked funny at my lack of reply to her.

“How about I give you 20 nine millimeter rounds and you call that good?” The Inn keeper and I both looked at Bright for a second.

“That will be quite all right mister?” She said while looking at Bright with the same what the hell is happening look that she had kept on her face after my initial request.

“Surprise, Bright Surprise milady” He said while holding his right foreleg out for a shake, the mare tried to oblige but before that happened bright took her hoof into his and brought it to his lips. The mare thought this was cute and actually began blushing.  At this moment I realized I had never actually asked for his age, perhaps my estimate was off he may have actually been like twelve years old with a larger body than would be expected for that age. This led me to think that maybe keeping this kid around would be a good idea, his ability to bend the truth and appear innocuous would be invaluable compared to my eldritch appearance. Plus it was adorable that he was subtly trying to hit on the Innkeeping mare.    A pint sized womanizer would be interesting to keep around. During my thinking a smile had appeared on my obscured face.

“Miss can you give me the key to the room, and perhaps lead us to the room?”

My speaking had broken the awkwardness between the as of yet unnamed mare and Bright.

“I’m Sunrise, what is your name mister.” She said, but before I could answer Bright interrupted.

“His name is Jake he’s not from here, now can you please me show to my room Sunrise.” He stated his explanation bluntly until the latter half before turning on the charm. I honestly wondered where he had picked up this charm? Was he actually trying to seduce this mare? I really wanted answers but asking would probably set back his attempts at whatever he was trying to do, so I stayed my tongue and just watched how this would play out.

“Right this way sirs” She said with forced neutrality. Which I assumed was because of Brights advances.

---===*===---

A few minutes later I was standing in front of a mirror in the bathroom of my suite, Bright was curled up on one of the beds in the hotel room proper. I looked curiously at myself. My armour was sitting on the floor of the room. My body looked noticeably different from the last time that I took a good look at it. My body had slimmed down a decent amount on account of the fact I had been marching around for almost my entire time away from my actually home. I had unknowingly acquired a small rough beard, another change was from the strength implant my musculature had become more pronounced.  All in all I wasn’t all that opposed to the changes. I had a small realization I hadn’t felt a need to scratch a part of my body since I had woken up in that facility, this in turn caused to me remember something from a medical article. It said something along the lines of ‘ Itching is caused by parts of the central nervous system located in the spine sometimes causing the pain relief after the scratching response is desired. The phenomenon is caused by spine to skin neurofeedback.’ I posited that my synthetic spine didn’t have this annoying ability.  So as I put back on my t-shirt I thought about how these augments didn’t really have any negative consequences, perhaps other than a loss of my humanity. That might bother me more if I wasn’t the only human on this rock.

Now laying back in another strangely human compliant piece of furniture I quickly entered the much needed state of unconsciousness my body desired

Change...

End Of Chapter Six

Footnote  Level up

Perk Added

Grunt-  You gain 25% more damage with 9mm pistols ,SMGs, .45 pistols , service rifles, assault/Marksman carbines, light machine guns, frag grenades, grenade rifles, launchers and combat knives.

Discerning The Transmundane

Chapter 7

Discerning The Transmundane

“A moral compass I have, it’s just... magnetic north tends to wander”

I awoke with a start, my location not coming to my mind for a few seconds. Sitting up

 on the mattress my first thought was to check where Bright was located. Looking over to check the only other bed in the room, he was decidedly absent from his bed. Looking for him was going to be an arduous task. Getting to my feet and then stretching took a minute, while doing this a thought struck me. Did this place have free breakfasts? If they did would they have one of those waffle makers. The more skeptical of my thoughts were suppressed, namely the unlikelihood of finding a power supply in this place coupled with the scarcity of relatively fresh food made the odds of finding waffle making equipment and supplies maddeningly low.

Now up and about in a semi-conscious state, I went about putting my armour on.

You know how after you have an inanimate object for enough time and it serves you well you begin to have an emotional attachment to it. That was me at that moment, I was beginning to think of the Riot Gear as more of a bullet proof second skin. Actually scratch that, it felt more like a badass carapace made out of an advanced chitin. These happy ruminations went through my mind while I went over the increasingly familiar mundane tasks associated with living in a hellhole.

        Five minutes later I was fully equipped, walking out the door with Epilogue slung over my back I began to whistle...poorly.  Jaunty tunes aside, I was seriously wondering about the prospect of a free breakfast of any kind as I strutted down the hall in what I hoped  was the direction of the check-in desk from last night. Before long I realized that I had managed to get lost in a small bed and breakfast, granted it was an alien bed and breakfast, but that fact did little to alleviate my self-disappointment. After some wandering through the halls of this place, I came across a dining room with a couple of patrons. The ponies were talking softly in small groups before they noticed me. I tried to stop the inevitable stares, or worse, that came with my appearance by waving and starting a dialogue.

        “How’s the weather?” I say using the most generic icebreaker known to mankind.

I just hoped perhaps irrationally that the social conventions were the same.

        “Wow never seen a minotaur here before, and one without horns no less.” A white coated unicorn stallion with a pencil thin moustache said to the room.

        What I got from this was, first off these ponies must be somewhat educated, secondly I could pass as a minotaur with my helmet equipped (sometimes), lastly these ponies must be either very stupid or fearless. Thinking further on the subject I realized that the those two features weren’t mutually exclusive.

        Coming back to the goal at hand I wondered if these ponies had seen Bright.

“Have any of you seen a unicorn colt with an orange mane?” I ask to the dining ponies.

        A lime green earth pony mare turned towards me and began to speak.

“He said he was going to the sheriff's office,” She says then pauses seeming to think very hard for a second before continuing. “He also said to tell.. mmm what was his name? Rhymes with steak.. Oh! Right, Cake! He asked us to tell Cake to talk to the innkeeper before looking for him. You wouldn’t be Cake by chance?” she says wanting very badly to know the answer to her inquiry.

        “That would be the name of a pastry, madam. I am Jake of the Far North Deserts, King of the Matriarchal Kingdoms of the Far Eastern Vikings, God of the non denominational denizens of the Holy Land. Anyways, thank you for the information” I said politely.

“You’re welcome, for a waste wanderer you don’t share a lot of those degenerates tendencies.” She said gleefully, my previous conclusion towards her ignorance being affirmed at her acceptance of my titles.

I wasn’t entirely sure what she was referring to; she probably considered me to be eloquent after referencing my multiple job titles of lordship.

“Anyways I have to track down a kid, so bye” I say in the awkward way that I often speak in.

        “Ehem,” grunted the lime green Mare. “We’re called foals during our youth.”

     I walked away from this comment, flipping the bird at her without turning around. She stared for a moment, then immediately came to a conclusion.

        “Farewell to you too, Stranger!” spoke the pony as she waved him goodbye.

Jake heard the utterance of “What a Gentleman!” immediately after exiting the vicinity of the dining room.

Hurrying down the hall, I was happy to have a solid lead on where Bright had gone.  Within a minute I had found my way to the check-in desk. Sitting behind the desk was Sunrise, apparently living up to her name.

        “Hey, some mare told me to talk to you about Bright.” I said at a socially acceptable volume.

   “Um...Mr.Bright said you should meet him at the sheriffs office, something about a bounty?” She said apologetically most likely because of the only vaguely remembered message.

I thought about the information for a second then proceeded to leave the inn while she waited for a thank you or an acknowledgement of any kind. She waited in vain, moving in the streets of a town that could pass as a place in sub-saharan africa (without the talking  talking equines).

It seemed that the inbreds weren’t afraid of me in the slightest, this amused me slightly. I then began chuckling out loud at this thought, maybe laughing for no obvious reason makes you seem mentally unstable but with everything about me having an unsettling effect. It seemed silly to stop, when there were bigger fish to fry.

The sheriff's office was a medium sized brick building that looked like it used to be a pre-war police station, but the real points for originality were scored by the large star badge crudely painted on the front door. This feature of the town led me back to the point that maybe the inbreeding had indeed caused some cranial shrinkage. Upon thinking these thoughts a dissenting self righteous part of my mind argued that maybe most of these ponies are probably illiterate so having an easy to identify symbol would be useful.

Shoving the cognitive dissonance aside for now, I opened the painted door and consequently tread inside the place. Sitting at a desk was my acquaintance Dark Sentry, spotting me he broke out into a smile that seemed genuine.

“Hey is bright here?” I say in a tone that sounded like a worried parent.

“He’s with sheriff Ivory Grip,” He says then begins to speak with a little trepidation “You weren’t shitting me when you said that you wiped out that raider camp”

“I take it you sent someone to go and confirm the destruction?” I ask while feeling good about the roundabout complement. Even if the complement is for your ability to kill people, but whatever i’ll take praise where I can get it.

By this time he looked ready to speak again albeit reluctantly.

“Yeah we made deputy Wintergreen go survey the camp,” He must have sensed my slight non-comprehension. “She’s the pony who left her post, so me and Ivory Grip thought it would be a good idea for her to to do some scout’in.” he answered my unasked question with just enough smugness for a latent accent to bleed through.

“Why are you hiding your accent? If you don’t mind me asking.” I say with the curiosity evident in my voice ,even after it’s filtering by my helmet.

“Well seeing as Bright Surprise might be talk’in with the sheriff right now about this same subject, I guess it’s only right that you should know about it.( he looked like he was devoting a large amount of his brain power deciding on whether to inform me or not.) Hmm…you are his guardian, and you seem like a decent stallion.”

“I won’t tell anyone you can trust me,” I say with some sincerity, while at the same time happy that a world champion poker face is nothing compared to a fully enclosed maximally opaque helmet.

“Well to be perfectly candid i’m not actually from around here, you see I was a wanderin’ the wastes when I came across this little slice of ‘paradise’. The first pony I came across was Ivory Grip, she was guarding the gate alone. I was about your age when we first met. She asked me if I wanted a job, I asked her what the job was.” As he paused to phrase the next part of his story I interjected.

“Lemme guess she gave you a job being a city guard or deputy?”

“Stranger ya got a good head on your shoulders, I’ll give you that. Anyway she helped me in getting citizenship by sayin I was her cousin. Of course I had to start talkin’ like the rest of these ponies.”

        “So I conjecture that Bright is being given a similar offer, probably because this town is lacking competent manpower?” I ask waiting for a confirmation that I was already steeling myself for.

        “Well you see none of these prissy ponies Ivory excluded are really capable of defending themselves never mind the town proper.” He says with a tone indicating that he doesn’t like talking about the state of external affairs.

“So that camp of raiders was a greater threat than it seemed,( he nods making me I pause for a second before speaking again.) So how many capable defenders does this place actually have?” I say with a serious expression on my hidden face.

“Well there’s me, Ivory, and that kid if he joins up.” He says while rubbing the back of his neck with one of those way too flexible forelegs these ponies seemed to have.

“So this place is fucked if a hostile force actually attacks it.,” I say while thinking about the possibilities. First possibility is that I could probably take over this place for myself. Second being the possibility of selling the information about this towns shitty defence force to whatever factions want it. Third possibility I could offer to try and acquire defenders for this place in my travels. Deciding that this place worth the effort to take over myself and that these inhabitants weren’t that terrible swayed me towards the third option.

“So how about if I come across some ponies that help defend this wonderful place, I send em to you and I get paid?” I ask in the sweetest tone I could muster for the occasion.

        “Are you that greedy? Nah you must have a genuine desire to help these folks... right?” He said to me while I was shaking my head at his first remark, and then trying to convey agreement non verbally to his second remark.

“Eh whatever, that way is the door to ivory’s office?” while saying this he had moved a hoof in direction of a hallway further into the building.

Waving goodbye at the stallion as I began to move in the direction he had pointed too. The walk through the grimy corridors reminded me of the many other times I had walked through grimy corridors. I mean is there a single well maintained, clean building on this entire planet. I guess sometimes the the most noticeable things are the things are the things you used to take for granted. My journey to the office was complete when I stepped inside the door to see who was occupying the room.

The two people in question were Bright and who I assumed was Ivory Grip, Ivory grip was a slightly off-colour white unicorn mare wearing stupid fucking aviator sunglasses and a western shirt. On her barding was a gunbelt with a revolver holstered in it. The strange thing was she was actually kinda cute, in the way that these creatures tended to be. I was starting to think that one of the prerequisites to be an authority figure in this world was to be ‘adorable’.

That was as far as my thoughts got before they both turned to me, Bright had a smile on his face I didn’t know if it was caused by my appearance or some other reason. Ivory on the other hand looked caught between trying to be cordial and wanting to unload her firearm in my general direction.

“Bright did you make a fuwind” I say while Ivory’s pupils widened.

Deciding to preempt  a future questions I extended my right arm towards Ivory.

“Yes I killed those raiders, I know what you’re offering the squirt and my name is Jake the paradigm synergizer.” I said quickly while she just stared at me bewildered, this silence fell upon us for about a millisecond before bright started to speak.

“You heard she’s gonna let me be a deputy trainee?” He said happily, I was happy that the kid wouldn’t be in that much danger but I still felt a little responsibility for the kid. If he really stayed here as a guard(in training), then this place would need to be protected if only for his sake. Maybe it was a strange thought and to be honest it would be a huge effort on my part for close to know pay off (other than that fleeting sense of accomplishment).

“How do you know about his possibly induction into the guard.” Her voice was quite feminine but it had a certain hardness to it.

“I heard you talking about it from outside the door,” Hopefully my white lie would be worth a damn I didn’t really want to erode her trust or Dark Sentry’s.

“So an eavesdropper ah…well I guess you would have found out soon enough.” She admitted.

      “Do you keep the initiative secret to keep this towns illusion of exclusivity alive?”

Trying to understand the motives of the authority here would help me to defend this community.

        “Well yes, it’s never been said so eloquently but yes that is why we keep up this facade, it’s also the reason we don’t let outsiders inside, except under odd circumstances.”

While she was saying this to me, my eyes wandered around the room, spotting bright standing in front of a foot locker with a screwdriver and bobby pin inserted in the lock. Not knowing what he hoped to find in the locker I decided to keep the sheriffs attention on me.

“So about that reward?” I asked in my helmet enhanced command tone.

In response she cleared her throat and began shifting from hoof to hoof, she altogether had a look of evasion about her.

        “Well uh the reward was five hundred caps and a key to an abandoned house here but you probably weren’t looking to live here?”  While she was saying this I perked up a considerable amount, now it wasn’t because of the offered currency that was paltry compared to a potential base of operation in a kind of secured area.

        “Fucking deal, give me the keys and show me where this place is at.” I answered her question quickly and against what she how she expected me answer. She probably thought I wanted more goddamn bottle caps.

        Our conversation was interrupted by the screech of a centuries old locker opening.

Bright turned towards us then shrugged his shoulders after that he resumed messing with the locker. Ivory and I were turning back towards each other when “Woo... four caps, and a grenade ‘Tear Gas’ hey do you know what this is.” He exclaimed while reading the tear gas canister after reading that he looked at me expecting an answer.

Luckily I had an answer, “It’s a non-lethal irritating gas, police departments use it when people riot. Well atleast that is what tear gas is where I come from.” He seemed satisfied by that explanation.

“Question?” I ask Ivory.

“What’s your question?” She responds while blowing a tuft of hair out of her eyes.

        “You have any more work for an aspiring mercenary?” I inquire while rubbing my hands together.

        “Well there is a slaver encampment to the south east of here?” She answered automatically, the information seeming to leave her lips without any conscious thought on her part.

        “What will you pay me for clearing it out,” I wanted to know so that I could plan my next move.

        “How about two thousand caps and the towns goodwill?” Her voice had acquired a saccharine quality to it that led me to believe that I was getting screwed but I decided not to voice that concern.

“Well if you mark the approximate location down for me and get me my key plus those caps, then we have a deal.”

She grinned at me.

---===*===---

Walking through the streets again with a key in my pocket and some more bloody bottle caps, I decided to try to find a weapons dealer. So I wandered the Bazaar (their name for the market place not mine) for awhile, the ubiquitous cloud cover giving this place a dreary atmosphere. Around me the townspeople weren’t bothered by my presence at all.

Below their attention perhaps. My search for a weapons trader finally bore fruit when I spotted an actual building at the end of a street a block away from the marketplace; the only thing designating it as a gun store was a crudely painted mural of a pony with a pistol in it’s mouth.

Venturing forth with my the building in front of me I was happy just to be a simple consumer, if only for a little while. I just had to minimize that incessant jingling in some way.

^000^

The shop pony was apprehensive about me until I showed him my proverbial massive coin purse. Sadly he didn’t have any sidearms with a grip designed for hands or claws for that matter, however he did have a grenades he was willing to part with for a cost.

I left that building with a heightened ability to wreck shit, always something to look forward to. Well the next thing on my itinerary was to find my new residence, remembering the location that Ivory had told me before I had left her office I knew that I needed to cross the marketplace yet again. When I was moving through the marketplace my stomach rumbled, this reminded me to top off my food supplies. Luckily there was a stall selling food with a green mare sitting behind it, deciding that the closest place to me  would obviously be the best place to buy food.

“What will it be sir…?” The vendor mare asked me as I approached the stall.

“Got any beef, some pasta would be nice as well.”

“Well I got some brahmin steak and some mac and cheese” her response was cheery with a smile as well.

“I’ll take that crap and any all of your snack cakes, wait is that beef jerky?” I pointed at meat sitting on a barrel behind her.

        “Uh yes beef jerky,( She said the word beef jerky carefully almost as if she had never heard them before just then).  That together will be sixty seven caps Mr…” She says while I practically drooled at the idea of prepared food.

I just hoped my house had a functioning range. I guess it would have to be electrical and be hooked up to one of those spark batteries. Her tapping me on the shoulder broke me out of my torpor.

“Oh yeah, just call me Jake please miss…? she looked up at me as she went about getting the things her now lucid customer had just bought.

“I’m Gumdrop by the way, also do you want the stuff in a bag?” Gumdrop saying this while looking into the red eyes of my helmet.

“That sounds good ( While I fumbled around with my bag managing to find a bag marked one-hundred caps.) Here keep the change Gumdrop.”

Grabbing the burlap sack that held my food. I was ready to depart for my new home,

but before I could start doing that she thanked me for the extra caps, I  said  some nonsense about keeping up the good work. Leaving a happy mare behind me I set off again towards my hopefully temporary base of operations.

        After a few minutes of walking in the direction of what Ivory said was the location of the dwelling. I was disappointed to come across what seemed to be an empty lot, however upon further examination the lot had the a trench that led deeper into the ground. Steep stairs leading down to a door, the visible part of the structure (namely the frame around the door). Made it look like a sturdy fifties era fallout shelter. My observations duly noted I started walking down the stairs. Setting my bags down in front of the steel door I rifled through my pants pockets for the key. Finding it rather quickly seeing as I had only one key on me, I opened the door. The inside was would have been pitch black except for the light streaming in from the open doorway. Walking inside with my pipboy light enabled I looked around, spotting a florescent light bulb hanging from the ceiling I followed the cable it was connected to. The cable was end was sitting near a couple spark batteries, Walking to the batteries I quickly connected one of the batteries to the light bulbs cable. Near instantaneously the room was flooded with that glorious slightly off white light that pervades public buildings where I come from.

With the room now lit up sufficiently I disengaged my Pipboy light.  I then looked around the medium sized square shaped concrete room. The floors were dusty but that wasn’t what interested me, in the room there were two tall lockers next to a workbench.

A ammo reloading bench was situated near that, on the other side of the room sat a table with a hot plate on top of it along with a coffee maker. Along the side of the room opposite to the door was a twin sized bed, with a decent sized book shelf. All in all this place would work for what I needed it to do. However my stomachs growling decided what I would do next for me.

                                        ---===*===---

One dinner later I was sitting on the bed reading one of the books on the shelf, I had found a lantern under the workbench a few hours ago. Reading by electric light was rather mundane however the book I was reading had piqued my interest more than the rest; titled AN INTRODUCTION TO ARCANO TECHNOLOGIE the book dealt with how to set up basic power grids and how to repair household appliances. There was an entire chapter about toaster repair, as strange as the book was the application of magical energy seemed analogous to electrical engineering. I wanted to know if this universe had entirely knew force carrier; or maybe the standard model of physics is entirely useless here.

That was a scary thought all on it’s own.

        With that nightmare fuel fresh in my mind I decided that sleeping would be a good idea, setting off early on the morrow to kill some shit sounded like a good plan.

                                ---===*===---

        Climbing out of my bunker after an early morning equipment check and breakfast, I let my eyes settle on the skies for a moment. Did that cloud cover ever go away? Fighting my urge for my body to stay static and mind to wander, I set the slavers encampment as my destination. I took a breath of air the fact that it was entirely differents worlds air still felt strange in my mind.

        Walking through the town towards the gates was slightly strange, it appeared as though not a single person was awake at seven in the morning. Passing the town gates I gave a salute to the guards guarding the gate. Now outside of the town I estimated that it would take about two hours to reach the slaver camp. My mind had room to think in the desolate atmosphere of the wastes, I wondered what I would be doing a week from now.

Hell I wondered what I would be doing a month from now. It started to dawn on me that this place was actually pretty dangerous, I mean less than three days ago a crazy chick all most roasted me. What she would have done with my body i hesitated to think about.

        On my path around an hour after I left First Estate, I came upon the ruins of a housing development. It seemed as though this neighborhood wasn’t spared the devastation that had visited this land. Deciding that it wouldn’t be a good use of my time to investigate the ruins; I continued down the blacktop towards my showdown with these slavers. What kind of people had lived there before this civilisation had decided to fuck itself with magical nukes? These ponies seemed to have reached a level of development that rivaled my homeland.  My mind was filled with these thoughts for the rest of my journey.                                                         ---===*===---

        When I was only a short distance away from the camp I grabbed Epilogue from my back and began surveying the landscape there was a hill in front of where the camp was approximately located. It seemed unguarded so climbing it seemed to be in my best interests. Before I could start walking I noticed a single individual moving approaching from behind the hill. Unfortunately there wasn’t any cover around me the only noticeable feature being the railroad tracks I had been following. The contact was still hundreds of feet away, but moving in my direction slowly.

Meanwhile I was running towards a boulder at the base of the hill, I hoped that I could avoid being detected for now.  I heard the sound of a rifle being discharged and then the sound of striking the ground around me. Slowing down and then crouching I leveled epilogue at the target; the scope showed me in greater detail who exactly was shooting at me. Before firing I saw that the assailant was a brown coated unicorn stallion wearing the angry lovechild of football padding and a fast food uniform. Epilogue sharply barked twice sending one bullet into his chest and another through it’s braincase.

One target down I lowered epilogue and decided to continue up that hill. I could was hearing yells being exchanged, apparently the inhabitants of the camp heard the gunfire exchange. However their first responders were just getting to their deceased comrade by the time I was at the top of said hill. Looking down at the camp I was surprised to find that it wasn’t a couple of tents like I assumed it would be; It seemed to be a antebellum railroad depot. The place was buzzing with frantic activity, there were easily a two dozen slavers  there. “She fucked me, goddamit Ivory” I screamed inside, now would I try to escape or would fight all these individuals. Bullets started to erupt around me, apparently my crouching skills were insufficient to render me invisible. Turning towards the slavers that had found the already slain slaver, I entered vats. The feeling of calm sweeping over me as my perception of time slowed to a crawl. Targeting the enemies that were the armed the most effectively, the total enemy count for the advanced group totaled five. Two of them armed with lever action rifles, the rest having tire irons and wooden boards.

   My Vats aimed shots rang out, slaying one of rifle wielders outright the other was hit in the chest and thrown down the hill. Seeing their better armed co-workers slain with very little effort the other slavers literally turned tail and ran, although they would have been easy pickings I turned my attention to the problem of the other slavers. Turning around I saw the slaver camp for a split second. A loud gunshot rang out and nigh simultaneously I felt something impact my chest, the bullet knocked me on my back. I stayed still for a second to check my chest. There was a decent sized dent in the plating, I could also feel a cracked rib in my chest under the dent. I thrusted the pain aside in my mind securing my rifle in my hands before crawling up to the precipice of the hill.

The sound of rustling brought my attention back to the adversaries I had spared. They were approaching me weapons lowered, I assumed that they thought the rifle shot had killed me. I stayed static long enough for them to lose their fear of me. Then a moment later I flipped over Epilogue quickly being aimed at the nearest slaver. My adrenaline enhanced reflexes popped off a series of shots, they hit their mark. The rest of the melee opponents were quickly eradicated. I took no time to resume crawling to firing position at the top of the hill. Looking once more at the camp I saw a group of slavers moving up the hill aiming their weapons in my general direction.

“Well fuck” I exclaim while sighting in more of the slavers. After some sloppy center mass shots my magazine ran dry, the slavers took this moment to return fire. I went reloading while shots pinged around me while a couple hit home, the low caliber rounds doing little more than pinging off my armoured chest. Dispatching the slavers took a little while, although I was collecting a bunch of bruises under my plating.  Looking through my scope at the closest warehouse entrance; I spotted no movement they’re probably holed up deeper in the building. Searching the corpses was my next highest priority, In all of my searching I grabbed all the useful things they had on them. Namely their ammunition mostly nine millimeter with a couple slavers having three fifty seven rounds.

^Crack^

The fucker that had sniped me last time fired again, I took that as a sign to get behind that hill. Hopefully that would give me time to come up with a plan for getting rid of the rest of them. A minute or two later I seemed to be out of that snipers range...probably.

Well if I tried to enter the building they could probably corner me and then proceed to beat me to death; so no go on that. Hey wait that place was actually made partially of timber, and I had one plasma grenade left. I guess that is the best plan I can think of, time to incinerate some equines. Steeling myself for the possibility of being hit by that damn sniper again I ran up the hill once more. Man strategic withdrawal is the best tactic ever, I then smiled a little when the lewd connotations of that thought hit me.

        I crested the hill for the… fuck it i’m not countin’ how many times I have climbed that hill. Surprisingly I made close to the entrance to the warehouse, which now that I was closer realized was a loading dock for I guess big ...chariots.  This conclusion was supported by the shipping pallets strewn around the area, one of which had some fifty five gallon drums on top of it. This particular shipping pallet also held the distinction of being the place where I was hiding behind for the moment. Letting Epilogue hang from it’s sling in front of me for a moment, I went to grab my last plasma grenade. I could see somewhat far into the building, well far enough to identify which parts were made of flammable materials.

        The place was filled with shipping pallets I could see why there some outside, the things were spilling out of the building like someone who just ate an all you can eat buffet that just got their stomach slit open. The occasional hole in the roof would feed the flames, I felt there was a high probability for charbroiled pony. Arming the explosive I kissed the  green before throwing it into an aisle between tall stacks of pallets.

        The sickly green of the plasma shot out in a sphere of hellfire, igniting any thing close to flammable along with destabilizing the pallet stacks closest to ground zero. Which in turn scattered the burning debris even more. I just stared at the inferno that was my doing for a moment before climbing up the hill to watch my handiwork from a better vantage point.

Putting the butt of epilogue against my shoulder before advancing in case that sniper shot at me once more, also if any of the slavers escaped the blaze and attacked me I would be ready.

---===*===---

          The sniper must have been evacuating or something because they didn’t fire at me while I stood once more at the top of the hill. A few minutes after the initial spark I could hear screams coming from the building. It made me simultaneously shiver while giving me the impulse to laugh. Suppressing my urge to giggle manicly wasn’t hard but the idea that I even had such an impulse scared the fuck out of me. I began walking around the building, partly separate myself from that terrible impulse and to get kill any stragglers. Thinking while doing these actions my thoughts were punctuated by explosions emanating from the building. Ok so i’m on an alien planet killing shit wearing advanced armour, acting with very little remorse. Wait...that makes me a predator, so I guess I should be on the lookout for pony Arnold Schwarzenegger. Letting out a chuckle at that, I then wanted to head ‘home’.

---===*===---

On the way back to First Estate I listed to my radio for awhile, there was this masculine pony telling the listeners about wasteland news. In between music of course; the thing that interested me the most was his mention of a heroine called the stable dweller and her massacre of some townspeople in this shithole called Arbu. He sounded pretty unhappy, maybe there was some deeper relationship between the DJ and this Stable dweller.

About a mile away from First Estate I heard something much more intriguing.

DJ what’s his face talked about an enigmatic Biped burning down a slaver camp. Apparently getting rid or slavers and scum was part of okay, but my methods were excessive. That was the crux of the issue, under what circumstances can you justify slaughter ?

---===*===---

Walking through the gates once again, I passed by Dark Sentry. He looked at me with fear in his eyes, had the townsfolk already heard of my mission success. Their knowledge would make my confrontation with Ivory more interesting.The ponies in the street seemed much more wary of me. Swiftly moving in the direction of the sheriffs office I grunted with every other step I took; when the adrenaline had worn off I was made very aware of my abused ribs.

Throwing the door open I glimpsed one of the indigenous ponies sitting at the receptionist desk, she actually attempted to hide under the desk. Striding down the hall after watching that display, I merely let out a snort at her overt terror. Looking  down the hallway, I was surprised to see Ivory standing there revolver held in her mouth glaring at me.

“Don’t get pissy, you sent me on a suicide mission!!” I yelled at her while pointing an accusatory finger at the bitch.

She puts her gun back in it’s holster before turning her head back towards me.

“A caravanner told Dark about the camp, the caravanner didn’t give any details.” She says while trying to stay calm.

“That self righteous DJ said I roasted them all alive; Do you believe him?” I ask while my anger cooled down from that flare up.

“No…..maybe?” She says with her initial confidence buckling after looking in my eyes for a moment.

“Good you passed, ya know why?” I ask in a civil tone.

“I was right?” Her voice was now returning to normal.

“You were right because I didn’t roast them all; the rest I shot.” I growl at her and perhaps at the universe for putting me in this situation.

“Well good for you do you want a trophy? You wanna flip shit well do it outside of this town.”  She continued, I wondered what she was trying to do. “You’re pissed because the extermination mission, which I must add you were fucking giddy to do when I told you about it. Wasn’t a celestia damned cake walk, and guess what to get the job done you had to massacre the degenerates. What is it? you afraid of cracking. Acting like a rookie guard who just put their first raider down!!!” She was saying in a voice oddly reminiscent of a little league baseball coach trying to get a kid to play again after skinning their knee.

“I could hear them screaming….” I choked out, the horror of my actions fully registering in my mind.

“Do you know how many screams those slavers have produced? How many more they would have made other ponies scream, if they were given the choice.”  She says with cold pragmaticism.“You wouldn’t understand, pfft” I say while walking out of the room.

“You still want the reward?” she says trying to keep me from me being bummed, but she didn’t understand that all teenage humans are intrinsically bummed. At all times…

I held my hand out towards her, while saying “Just hand over the fucking bottle caps, actually thanks for the reminder.”

As she rifled through her desk for the caps, I heard her mutter under her breath.

“He’s either a conceited asshole, or a whiny bitch.”

“You’re more right than you could possibly know.” I responded in agreement.

She let out a huff, while dropping a bag of caps in my hands with her telekinesis.

“Now can you please get out!” She says while pointing a hoof towards the door.

“Hey do you have any more jobs that need to be done?” I say, trying to stay employed.

“Not really, and if I did the job wouldn’t go to you. You’d probably try to get the city to pay for your goddess damned therapist bills.” She snaps at me, but by that time I was closing the distance to the door.

Leaving the office I was wondering where you would find such a therapist, nevermind if their physiological models would work for a human psyche. That lead back to the question of the similarities of humans and the native equines.

A yawn escaped my lips as I left the building, it seemed that marching the entire day tends to catch up with you. After quickly plotting a course back to my little bunker, I fell into a slow walking pace brought on by the amount of walking I had done in the last few days.

After a few minutes of walking thru the quiet streets I heard some poorly suppressed screams. Some heroic impulse seemed to possess me as I ran in the direction of the screams. The sounds were coming from a dark alley, activating my night vision and pulling Epilogue from my back were the only things I had time to do before entering the alleyway.

The sight that awaited me was bad, but not as terrible as It could have been. There was a mare forced onto her stomach with a hockey masked stallion on top of her. Her eyes were reddened and wet, his front hoof holding her mouth closed. It didn’t look like he had entered her yet and he never would. I ascertained all of this in a split second spread out as long as I stayed in vats. It seemed I had learned how to accomplish more complex thinking in vats, but that realization would have to wait. I dropped out of vats just as both rapist and victim realized I was there.

“GET THE FUCK OFF OF HER!!!” It looking back down at the mare for a second I realized that she was the food stand mare… and I couldn’t remember her name.

The hockey masked stallion had dismounted and had began running as fast as humanly equinly possible away from me. I then activated vats again and targeted his left hind leg. The sound of gunfire penetrated the silence of the town exactly twice. One slug had missed the slim target; the other had liquified his kneecap he fell limply to the ground. Leaving gumdrop where she was at the second and jogged over to the stallion. He seemed to be unconscious, his calm breathing supported that conclusion. I proceeded to examine his leg; the lower part of the damaged leg was very close to amputated. The leg was only held on by a few stretched tendons, the wound was continually oozing blood on the ground.

“Thank celestia you were there… uh what was your name again?” The almost rape victim says to me. I was thankful she forgot my name as well it made me feel less awkward.

“Miss I’m Jake, also I kinda forgot your name as well.” I went about saying while awkwardly rubbing my neck yet again, all the while the unconscious rapist was laying on the broken concrete bleeding.

“I’m Gumdrop and again thanks for getting that creep off.” She says exuding happiness at my actions.

“You’re welcome, now should I just grab him and give him to the guard?” I ask wondering what to do in such instances.

“Um…we could just leave and not deal with the mess?” She offers innocently.

“Good idea, wanna chill at my place?” I ask her without thinking.

“Will the guard check there?” She asks trying not to be jailed.

“Maybe, but they're not going to force their way inside with me at the doorway.” I say nonchalantly.

“Okay so your place it is, wait do think the guard will see all the stolen shit he has on him?” She drew my attention to the saddle bags stuffed full of jewelry. Would the sheriff think that this was a case of self defense? Well there was only one way to find out.

       “Follow me,” I say while breaking into a brisk jog in the direction of my bunker.

                                                ---===*===---

We slowed to a walk after we got far enough away from the scene of the shooting. Upon entering my house she stayed by the doorway while I activated the lighting.

“So this is my place,” I say simply our conversation dieing after our escape from the crime scene. I wondered why she seemed to move past such a traumatic event so quickly.

“It’s small and dingy, um yeah that sums this place up nicely.” She says to me candidly.

“I take it you don’t like the bunker aesthetic?” I say merrily.

“Yeah really doesn’t do anything for me; bunkers are just too dreary for me.” I couldn’t tell if it was sarcasm or if she honestly disliked bare concrete walls. This led my train of thought to derail slightly as I thought about the mare who lived in a bunker.

“Hello!” she bopped me on the chest before continuing. “I have been expecting a witty retort for awhile now.”

“Sorry, just kinda spaced out for a second.” I say apologetically.

“That was pretty obvious,” She said before letting out a small laugh.

“Just was thinking about an acquaintance.” I say before shaking my head vigorously, in a  vain attempt to get rid of the sleepiness that was inexorably increasing.  “Anyway you can stay for awhile but i’m gonna need some sleep soon.” I say in the middle of two loud yawns.

“That’s okay I don’t think they’re gonna be going door to door, besides I wouldn’t want to impose.” She responds with confidence, I guess her confidence is probably owed to my helping her earlier. That thought gives me a contented feeling.

“Let me unlock the door for you,” I say while doing the action.

As she was stepping out of the door she uttered one last thank you to me. It seemed that the most efficient way to help people here was the use of vigilante justice. Walking over to the hotplate I began to cook myself some more mac and cheese. As I was doing this mundane but beneficial task, my mind was thinking back to the events of the day.

Violence seemed to be the prevailing theme. I guess if these ponies want to see me as some evil vanquishing creature; I’m not going to stop them. Eating used to be an enjoyable occasion, now in this place I was beginning to detest the act. After eating I did nothing more than strip my armour off and fall into a deep sleep.

---===*===---

Waking up on an alien world was only starting to become mundane, as I stretched upon leaving the bed. Hmm… I wonder if that bed and breakfast is actually any good. Maybe I should check on bright after eating, I wonder how well he’s doing in his guard training.

                                        ---===*===---

  In short he was doing well and somewhat happy to see me; the place did serve me and it was pretty good.

While I was wolfing down some scrambled eggs, a stallion approached me.

“Do you have a moment?” The stallion asked politely; he was a white coated unicorn stallion with a top hat on.

        “I have all the time in the world.” I said between animalistic consumption of eggs, I was thinking about why I desired the protein so much. Probably from all the exercise I’ve been doing plus the demands of the strength implant.

        “Well you see I have a cousin in baltimare, and with the red eyes slavers about. I can’t find a courier to carry the message.” He seemed pleased just to explain what he wanted me to do.

        “Just how far away is baltimare? Equally important is the question of payment?” I ask two very pertinent questions.

“A weeks travel south give or take a couple days, your payment is a hundred caps now and nine hundred caps when you give him the message.”  He explains confidently

“That’s alot of caps for a letter to a relative, and he probably doesn’t know about such an agreement. I’m just hoping he’s kind enough and wealthy enough to actually pay me.” I inquire about the strangeness of the deal.

“His name is Pearldiver and he owns a large caravan company, He needs to receive this message as soon as possible.” He had lost that veneer of confidence and his desperation was now showing through.

“If he doesn’t pay me then we're gonna have a friendly chat, angry alien to weak stallion.” I threaten with a cold tone voice, indicative of the certainty of the statement.

He pulls out a sealed envelope and hands it to me with a bag of caps.

“Now do you have a map so that I can mark the destination down in my Pipboy?” I ask pleasantly trying to leave the previous unpleasantness of the conversation behind.

        “Hold out your arm please,” I did as asked.

“There you go, when will you leave for baltimare?” He asks also ready to leave my violent threats behind.

        “Later today probably,” I answer his reasonable question

“Well good day to you, good luck on your mission.” He says while quickly exiting the bed and breakfast.

        I look down for a moment at my empty plate thinking about what I just agreed to do. Being a mailman is a nice change of pace… I guess. First things first I’m gonna need some supplies for the trip. I wonder if Gumdrop is selling at the market the market today.

        I leave the diner portion of the bed and breakfast, but not before leaving a tip.

Stepping out into the streets of the town I once again looked at the cloudy skies, I miss the clear skies of my home. Shaking my head in an attempt to disperse those thoughts, I remembered what I came here to do.

        Gumdrop was selling food like nothing had happened. I guess when your is that shitty you get over things that almost happened pretty quickly.

        “I’m gonna be out of town for awhile and I need some food. Do you have anymore brahmin?” I say to her in lieu of a hello.

“Good for you why are you leaving?” She seemed worried about me, damn emotional attachment.

“I’m delivering a package to someone in baltimare.” I say while wondering why all their cities were named after fucking horse puns.

“I’m actually out of brahmin but I think you’ll like these MREs” She says enthusiastically.

“How much for like ten of those?”

“For you,” she taps her hoof on her chin for a second before finishing, “twenty caps.”

“Are they all vegetarian?” My recent cravings for meat were surfacing with a vengeance.

“Well...yes; do you still want them?” She says trying to angle in some sort of business for herself.

        “Yeah, ill buy em', but you got any more Brahmin meat?” I say with a little bit of my native drawl slipping out. Oh how I hated that little bit of accent that sometimes bled through when I was speaking.

        “I have some bloatsprite meat...if you want it; how about 5 caps a piece for the meat?” Her tone indicating that the meat wasn't a big seller.

“I'll take eight of the bloatsprite meat and ten of those MREs.” I say with a little bit of carnivorous intent in my voice. Hope she doesn't think I'm hitting on her. I guess she is kinda cute...Fuck you brain she's still an alien. Yeah well so are you, gotta get laid sometime righ-; Nope not dealing with that right now, thats future Jake's problem.

During my little bout of internal conflict she had been wrapping up my purchase; I pushed my cognitive dissonance aside to deal with later.

        “That will be sixty caps Jake.” She stated plainly while I dug in my bags to get the caps.

“There you go, I'll be gone for awhile so stay safe.” I say earnestly while I handed her the caps before leaving her stand and then slightly later her city.

                                                ---===*===---

        The next few days of my journey mostly consisted of me walking the majority of the day (and sometimes into the night) before finding a derelict building and sleeping on whatever I could find in there. The only thing of note that happened during those four days were the discovery of those zombie ponies. That ended with me a few bullets less than when I started off my trek, but it did also give me some needed target practice. By the time I entered the rest stop for the first time I had gotten good enough to hit a moving ghoul in the head from seventy five yards away while moving back wards. Without Vats no less.

        The rest stop looked quite mundane, broken windows, signs of being picked clean by scavengers years before. Ya know the works, moving into the place my compass made it quite clear that the place was full of hostiles. I couldn't hear any signs of pony habitation, but that didn't stop me from moving as quietly as possible to the door. Breaching the door with a door kick that had been perfected during my journey I was kind of annoyed to find out that the hostiles were a bunch a rad roaches. They may be able to survive a nuclear war and with being decapitated but, a steel-capped boot made swift work of them.

                                ---===*===---

I opened the door to the garage tentatively, because I had found a couple buildings with rigged shotguns set up to blast anybody who set off the trip wire. I swiveled my head a few times looking for traps. Seeing as it was all clear I moved into the room heading in the direction of the workbench I had spotted in my trap sweep. On the work bench was a book titled Twilight’s Electronics. Well I love my technical literature. While I was bending over slightly to pick up the book, I spotted what looked like an electrical switch embedded into the floor near the work bench. When the book was sitting comfortably in my backpack, I got on my hands and knees and examined the switch. The switch upon further examination looked very similar to a garage door opener.

“That's probably what it is?” my habit of saying things out loud becoming apparent to once again.

        Activating the switch, I let out a sigh as nothing occurred. As I got up a mechanical whirring hit my ears. The floor in the middle of the room opened up as what looked like a mine elevator came to a stop above the hole in the floor. So should I get into the mysterious elevator to who knows where? Eh why not this place is rather boring. When I stepped onto the platform I read a sign, It said that the thing wasn't a cargo elevator but a mass evacuation elevator. So a secret exit built into an out of the way garage, that just screams secret facility. I guess my choices are A. stay away and keep the relative safety you possess or B. go into the place in an attempt to find useful things.

        Choosing option B I activated the elevators return function. I stood nervously as the centuries old elevator descended down the medium sized shaft. At the bottom I step out of the contraption to see a mechanical door similar to the ones in the ranger base. It looked to be an airtight door, that indicated that these ponies were messing with something dangerous.

        I walked over and opened the door, a door identical to this one was on the other side of the short passage. I moved forward to open the door, but a panel with lights glowing drew my attention. It listed various emergencies in order of severity, from radiation leaks to flu epidemics it was all there. However the two emergencies that were lit up were 'Biological contamination' and 'Chemical Accident'. This jogged my memory, the Riot Gear had a re-breather system to protect the wearer from toxic outside conditions. Smiling as I pulled up the misc section of the data tab on my pipboy. Reading up on the operation of the re-breather I was happy to find it had a the ability to provide breathable air for up to three hours of continuous use. That along with the total coverage my armor provides, should allow me to survive any toxic gas.

        Turning on the re-breather I opened the door and stepped into the bunker. The air of the bunker had a yellow tint to it. A mustard yellow tint, these idiots had flooded the place with chlorine gas. I was glad to hear the faint whirring noise of the re-breather along with the louder sound of my own breathing as it bounced around inside my helmet. The entry way had opened to a hallway. As I looked down the hallway I spotted a sign; Arcane Weaponry Lab →

That drew my attention, and that was the way I went. The hallways were almost silent, but almost was the operative term. I could hear some noise coming from the pipes that hung over the corridors. Wait, is the noise coming from something that's alive in this place? Maybe it's just a machine that still works making that noise...Probably.

        My thoughts were switched to something more concrete than idle speculation. I had arrived at the door to the Lab. A small sense of deja vu struck me as I strode into the room( the door having been left unlocked.) The room was covered with rusted garbage and somehow functioning terminals. The amount of corrosion on anything didn't surprise me, chlorine is pretty reactive. While searching the room for anything still salvageable I came across some untouched white metallic cylinders. The act o picking one up caused my Pipboy to issue a beep and point me to the ammo tab of my inventory.

Alien Power Cells

        So the Pipboy registers the alien stuff as ammunition;that means that the assholes that made this thing had knowledge of alien technology. Enough knowledge to include what the cells were made for in the Pip-boy’s memory. But this place is on another world entirely, so the governments of both worlds hid the knowledge of extraterrestrials from their respective populaces. Wait if the same aliens tech existed on both worlds, either the aliens had the ability to travel between dimensions ( not to mention their interstellar travel capabilities). Or the same exact alien technology existed in both worlds.

        And if these aliens can travel back and forth, then there's a possibility of getting a ride home. But that would require a whole lot of things to work. “Fuck,” well atleast I have an idea about getting home. An idea so full of assumptions that it just might succeed. First off, find some goddamn aliens! (Wait wasn't that like the entire plot of x-files) at that moment my re-breather beeped twice telling me it had two hours of air left. Well I should probably search those terminals for clues. A hacked terminal gave me a bunch of files, the only problem was the fact that they were heavily encrypted. A bit of good news was that the terminals were hooked up to a intranet network that was administrated by a terminal in the head researchers office. And presumably the administrator had a decryption code.

        I checked the time on my Pipboy and it turned out that I had an hour thirty-seven minutes left of breathable air left. Figuring out network connections is hard work, and the fact that the atmosphere in the room was laced with chlorine didn't help matters much. With the clock running I had to find the head researchers office fast. I remembered seeing a map of the facility in the halls. I jogged over there quickly locating the room quickly enough, I then heard a queer chirping from behind me. I turned around just in time to see an eyeless insecisiod creature charge me. I didn't have time to grab Epilogue so I went into vats instead. I had never entered Vats before now without a weapon in my hands, so conseqently when I targeted the creature in vats It showed up as an unarmed attack. I knew that I can't throw a punch to save my life, so I exited Vats just long enough to grab my bowie knife from it's sheath. Now when I targeted the creature It showed me the hit chances for a knife attack. Fuck it I’m not going to live forever. I left Vats just as the creature sent me to the ground. It's body was perched over me as I fought to keep it off of me. The creatures mouth was open and salivating. With my knife still in my right hand I stabbed the thing just below the head.

The body of the creature went rigid as the knife cut into it's spinal cord. I pushed the body of the thing off of me before getting up. The chlorine breather was quadrupedal and around five feet tall. After making that observation I decided to look down at myself, the creatures clawed feet had left scratches on my breast plate and sliced up my duster a little. Well I'll learn how to sew later. Remembering my original objective I set off again for the head researcher's office.

The office was actually locked, and I didn't want to use any explosives to open the door. That along with my lack of screwdriver and bobby pin left me with the last option. The terminal that unlocked the door. This terminal was pretty hard; the password was eight letters long. After a backing out a few times I figured out the password, 'Xenoflux' I guess that the alien shit that the place worked with inspired that?

        Hitting enter on the open door command unlocked the door, which in turn allowed me to walk inside the office. Upon entering I decided that closing the door behind me would be a good idea. Hearing the strained hiss of the pneumatics in the door assured me I had a little bit of security. That thing in hallway about gave me a heart attack.

        The room itself happened to be pretty mundane there was a desk with a terminal on it near the back of the room facing towards the doorway, a few filing cabinets along the wall, and the walls were covered in posters. Walking over to the desk I looked behind it and saw the skeletal remains of a pony. Ignoring the body I proceeded to search the desk finding a holodisk labeled decryption matrix one along with a faded steel flask. Also in the desk was a bottle of cyanide pills along with a signed resignation from the researcher. So the pony was guilty about killing themselves even when fucking aliens that breath chlorine were clawing at the door. OK...thats just strange.

        The terminal on the desk was my next objective, it had an eight letter password as well and one of the potential passwords was again 'Xenoflux'. What the hell, I entered in Xenoflux yet again and to the joy of the cynical part of my mind the terminal was unlocked. Once it was unlocked there were a set of commands, first was to unlock a safe in the room. Second was a command to induce reactor overload. Third was a command to flood the base with poison gas. Under all of these was a terminal entry simply called 'Final will and testament'.

        Reading it in spite of the fact I had only an hour left of breathable air left. Inside was the researcher's moral qualms with the biological research being done on the alien specimens. He stated that these experiments were an affront to everything that was still good in the world. Those were his reasons to activate the chlorine distribution systems. He also hoped the public would find out about these secret facilities.

        Time to leave this place. Should I blow it up before leaving? Yeah why not... The hidden safe in the room contained a three fifty seven magnum revolver with a few shells along side a map of equestria with a location circled interestingly there was a box of thirty five point five six rounds labeled star-metal. After grabbing the stuff I looked back at the terminal, after selecting the overload reactor command there was an option to set a delay. Selecting half an hour delay, I then activated the overload sequence. I then clicked the safety off on Epilogue before jogging towards the door. The moment after I opened the door I noticed that there were three eyeless alien things standing outside the door. Opening Vats up I quickly targeted three head shots to the aliens standing right in front of me. As time sped up once more Epilogue lived up to it's name, ending their lives and I guess their stories. The next few minutes passed in a blur with some frantic shooting and running to the entrance where the elevator was parked. I left arrived in the garage with only five minutes before detonation.

        All out sprinting consumed me as the time ticked down. I was a two or three hundred meters away when the building imploded. I then walked closer to it so that I could survey the crater. All that was left was a smoking hole in the ground with red hot pieces of metal sitting at the bottom.

                        I then saw a few dark spots descending downward towards my position. Know idea what those things are...should probably find cover. I then ran towards a ditch I had seen when I had been walking this way.

        I had just enough time to crouch in the ditch, before the dark spots landed. They looked like ponies except they had wings and scorpion tales.

        “Investigative patrol 023 to neighvarro... we have landed at the imploded location.” I heard one of the creature say out loud, wait are they just wearing armor with a radio inside. I decided to stay quiet seeing as they didn't notice me. “There are trace amounts of chlorine gas along with signs of a reactor overload.” Silence had fell upon the group as I assumed the one in charge was given more instruction.

        “Affirmative neighvarro command, we will complete perimeter sweep.” Dammit, time to leave. But just in case I better switch to Armour Piercing rounds. As I swapped magazines one of the ponies heard the noise and looked in my direction. The pony then proceeded to yell and point it's hoof at me. I pointed Epilogue at it in turn and waited for it's comrades to speak to me. The pointer aimed it's rifles at me in turn. Faster than I would have thought the rest of the ponies aimed at me.

I just kept my weapon aimed at the one that had spotted me.

        “I don't know what you are, but you are aiming a weapon at a member of the Grand Pegasus Enclave. And that's one hell of a bad idea.” The pegasus in charge says to me while his weapons capacitors charged.

                “Well, I just want to be on my way. I'm not looking for trouble, but if you want it I can give it.” I say while thinking that a good bluff could save my life; I mean there were four of them and one of me.

        “First question, did you overload the reactor of that place?” He asks with a tone indicating that he didn't want to have a fight on his hands (or hooves rather)

        “Yes I activated the overload sequence. Because the place was flooded with chlorine and I didn't want anybody to die trying to scavenge the place.” I say trying to sound as altruistic as I could.

        “Well then how did you trigger the core if it was filled with toxic gas?” He says plainly.

“I have a re-breather in my armor, that's all you need to know.” I answer with the only way I really could, the honest way.

“That's some nice equipment for a minotaur, especially a hornless one.” He says while his underlings chuckle.

        “May I leave now, preferably without getting shot in the back?” I say while lowering my gun slightly.

        “We are supposed to take wasters that do things like blowing up bunkers for questioning. But I don't think you would like that; am I right? ( he asks the question rhetorically) Anyway we have the answers we came here for.” As he was saying this I saw him gesture at one of his squaddies.

        The squaddie was charging his weapons I could hear it. Well these winged assholes asked for it. I entered Vats and targeted the one who was getting ready to fire, two head shots locked in. The leader was going to get a bullet to the back of his head, and then one other get's two head shots. I exited Vat's and fired just as the one tasked with shooting me was fully turned around. The head of that one was turned to mush inside of the helmet, the commander had a bullet graze his helmet creating a but load of sparks but little damage. The squaddie I had targeted was now without a head as well. But as I regained control of my body the commander was firing two beam rifles at me. I felt the heat of blasts being absorbed by my chest plate, as I ducked into the meager cover the ditch provided. The pegasus that had been left unscathed thus far was now aiming a rifle with a glowing green tip at me. I fired at the commander hitting his chest and sending him to the ground. I then felt the blistering heat of a plasma bolt pass by my head. Another bolt then struck me in the chest, the armor protecting me from the majority of the damage but it still broiled my chest. I then sprinted right at the pegasus while letting out a pain filled grunt. I felt another fly past me, the pegasus seemed to be losing accuracy as I closed the distance. Before he could fire again I dropped to my knees and popped off a burst. The three rounds I let loose struck center mass; I watched as it fell to the ground. It stilled showed up on my IFF, leaving me to draw my blade and try and pry off it's armor. While I looked for a seam in the armor, my chest was screaming in pain. I finally found a button on the underside of the helmet, when I pulled the helmet off. I saw an orange coated stallion with close cropped red mane looking at me.

        “I'm sorry I had to do that, and I think that you're mortally wounded.” I say with sorrow; the fact that I had to kill all of these sapient creatures is terrible.

        He replied by spitting a blood and saliva mix at my face, again thankful for my helmet I ask. “I have a cyanide pill if you want, it'll save you some pain.” Unfortunately his life ended just as I finished saying that.

        Now I got up and walked over to the place where the commander had fallen. Activating the release on the helmet quickly this time, I was somewhat surprised to see a mare under that helmet.

        “Now what could possibly have motivated you to tell that soldier to fire on me?” I ask quickly. I needed to know why this easy to avoid conflict had occurred.

        “Standing orders are to fire on anything that hasn't been cataloged yet, and your clearly not a minotaur, plus your gear is beyond anything a fucking waste lander should have.” She is seething by the last part.

        “You're right about one thing, I'm not a minotaur (which I punctuate by taking off my helmet).” I say sad at the reason these guys shot at me.

        “Can you kill me like you offered to that last guy?” The mare with a pink coat and ruby coloured hair asks.

        “No, you're not mortally wounded. In fact I believe I missed any thing vital on you, so you're going to have to live with the fact you couldn't use discretion when choosing targets. The death of your underlings is your burden and you're gonna carry it for the rest of your life.” I say while checking through the compartments of the one of her deceased underlings. I found a couple of bottles of purple liquid labeled 'health potion'. She didn't have time to stop me as force fed the potion to her.

        “When neighvarro command finds me, the enclave will put a bounty on your head so large you can't walk to hooves without getting attacked.” She yells out at me after I had left her lying on the ground. I think I killed the power in her power armor. The rest of her squad had some rations and healing potions on them along with ammunition for the energy weapons. While I was throwing all of that into my bag I remembered the chlorine immersion that I had been in just a few minutes ago. I checked all of my items for problems, luckily the only thing that looked tainted was the last of my bloat sprite meat. All of my ammunition and other things were in sealed packages so they were fine. I then threw my new acquisitions into my bag along with a laser pistol that one of them had been carrying. As I left the mare in her powerless power armor, I heard the crack of thunder. Rain was on the way, so I continued walking the lonesome road.

        End of Chapter Seven

Footnote- Level Up

Intense Training-Charisma

The loneliness of the wastes has changed you and friendly conversation is now an end, in and of itself. This won’t give them their lives back, nothing can.

Armor Perk-

Riot Suppression- The whole world is just aching to be brought into line and you are just the person to do it. You're a lawman in the loosest sense of the word, but that suits you just fine.

You gain 10% more damage with weapons riot police or swat teams might use. ( Riot shotguns, Marksmen Carbines, Service rifles, and any sub machine gun)

You also gain unique dialogue options.

Interlude Three- Don't Beat A Dead Horse

Interlude 3

        The ghouls from the previous night were carrying very little supplies. The only thing cool I could find in the entire aftermath was a ripper. The spark battery on the inside of the handle was already half drained and it was in terrible condition. It was almost as though someone wanted to break it.

        Luckily I found a couple of spark batteries in the ammo box they brought with them. It was a hard lock for a newbie, but then again I’m not a newbie to picking locks. It only took 2 bobby pins and a screw driver to get it open. It looked like that was all the supplies I was going to scavenge for the day, so I took what I had inside.

        I walked to the workbench and used my screwdriver to open up the Ripper’s handle to find the old spark battery. It looked old and smoldered. “No wonder it didn’t work.” I muttered. After I replaced the battery it was an easy fix. Wood splinters (who tried to cut wood with it?) were stuck inside the chain, slowing it chain speed so I removed it. With it fixed I put it back together and sharpened the blades on the chain to a point.

        I squeezed the handle on the Ripper and it came to life with a sputter. A smirk came across my face. “Now this is a formidable melee weapon.” I stuck it magnetically to the side of my right leg and stood up.

        Just then I remembered that I was still very low on food. It could not be put off any longer, I had to make the journey to Baltimare and trade some of my Alcohol for it. “And just when things were going right…”

        I checked my ammunition for Chaos. I still had 85 shots left total, the last 85 in equestria. The ponies here did not make Microfusion Cells like they did back home. I had neglected the fact that I needed a weapon I could easily find ammo for. “Well, might as well trade for a pistol too.”

        I made use of just about everything the ghoul ponies had left behind. The ammo box lock was converted into a lock for my door. I even stumbled upon a valuable recipe for Dash, which was put up safely in my house for my return.

        The ghouls in this area came from the swamps to the south. That meant taking an alternate route to Baltimare. A direct confrontation with a large hostile force was bound to end badly for me, especially since I needed double doses of healing potions. The two I had on me would run out fast, but there was no backing out now. So I packed up my bag, and posted a sign out in front of my house, it read “This is my Swamp”.

[====A====]

        The first three hours of traveling were largely uneventful, besides killing a few of those annoying sprite bots. Until then I didn’t know they had a programmed voice, sometimes yelling at me for clubbing it to death with the butt of my rifle. God, those things were so annoying.

        I largely kept myself entertained by trying to tune into the pony radio stations. They normally weren’t compatible with my Pip-Boy so it took a bit of work to get a good signal. Although there were only really two clear stations. One being from some guy in Manehattan and the other a man named DJ Pon-3. The guy from Manehattan was a bore, and the one from Tenpony tower had like 15 songs (and not a single one from Elvis Presley, which my daddy recorded on to vinyl discs from his Pip-Boy). After DJ Pon-3 started to talk about a stable dweller for third time, I shut it off and turned on my own music on the Pip-Boy.

        Although the radio offered no entertainment, the road offered even less, at least until I saw a little pack of ponies run down a side path of the road. At first I thought they were just running away from me, but then their were more traveling down the path. So I did what any person in a scary suit of power armor would do, I followed them down the path.

        The camouflage of dusk allowed me to be unseen as I followed from a distance. I was no master of sneak, especially in heavy armor, but they weren’t particularly vigilant either.

        “I wonder what goodies they have up there.” I thought to myself as we neared their camp. There were a few tents surrounding a fire, but separate from the campsite was a large metal constructed statue. It was no masterpiece, but impressive none the less for being made out scrap. The only problem was that I couldn’t see what it was, but what I could see was a rack of red wine by the statue. So while they were conversing, I crept over to the area which now was visibly an altar.

        At about 20 feets distance, it was clear that the statue was a pony, but unlike anything else it had a horn and wings. That was interesting, but the wine was calling my name. Using the statue as cover I picked bottles off of the rack and put them in my bag. They looked cheap but that was justified when I noticed that there were communion crackers on the altar next to the wine. What sort of camp was this?

        After nearly stuffing my bag the pony crowd shifted towards the altar. The sermon was starting and I had to get out of there. Unfortunately there was no direction to go without being seen. The pony up front began to speak.

“Shit.” I whispered to myself.

“We gather here today to give the ultimate gift to the goddess. The gift of our time. In the best interest of our services, we ask you donate 5 caps for attendance, or dedicate a few hours of your time to some services.” The smirk across his face after the word services scared me and I couldn’t help but wonder what these services were.

“Some of you newcomers must be wondering, what is our mission here? The answer is, the ultimate sacrifice. Not of flesh but of time. We all wish to join the great unity some day.”

I was seriously considering risking a run into the darkness surrounding the camp when I saw a golden necklace on the altar. I knew that this could fetch a good price.

His rant continued for several minutes until I realized it was definitely time to go. So I did something I’m not proud of, I threw a full wine bottle in the direction east of the camp. The entire crowd turned in that general direction, giving me time to slip away and run to the main road with my loot in tow.

[====A====]

        Upon arrival in Manehattan, everypony acted as expected. It is amazing what being a biped can do to a pony. Although some of my frightening appearance could have been the consequence of the huge metal armor around me.Most children were ushered inside their homes at a fast pace.

        Even though everypony was running scared, I couldn’t help but admire the repaired city they had built. Most of the market consisted of wooden stalls with sheet metal roofs, but it was a functioning system nonetheless. Surprisingly enough, my Pip-Boy didn’t pick up any radiation around here, at least very little.

        Another relic my spectacular daddy left me in this wasteland, was a modded Pip-Boy that could pick up magical radiation, as the local populous called it. It did come in handy considering that was the only form of radiation in this land. The extensive library in the basement told me this. Although in theory, if a balefire bomb drew its energy from the sun, it could be potentially radioactive. So my Pip-Boy’s geiger counter is helpful like five percent of the time.

        I wandered around in the market square for awhile, looking for anypony to trade with. It seemed like hours until I stumbled upon a blind stall owner who thought he speaking to a pony. The disadvantage of trading with him was the fact he had to take a sip from every bottle of apple whiskey before he bought them. That bastard was drunk half way through, although this did help to smooth some trading over. We settled on the bag of apple whiskey and wine for 32 cans of tuna, 10 cans of pork n beans and a 12.7 mm pistol. I managed to make him throw in a clip of armor piercing ammo with it.

        The problem with the trade occurred when he asked to shake my hoof. I insisted against it, saying I had the flu. “Now youngster, Ah ain’t never done no deal without a hoof shake.” The old geezer replied.

I caved and grabbed his hoof and shook. At first their was no response, but my luck broke. “Gah, what the fuck are you!” He threw my hand away and reached to take his supplies back. Luckily, I saw it coming and swooped all of the supplies back into my bag. “This is why we don’t leave the house.” I thought angrily at myself.

At this point I had one thing in my favor and another out of it. I did have a head start to run the fuck out of here, but the old man was starting to yell. I quickly made the executive decision to swipe back some of my whiskey for bad service and turned to run. My legs felt stiff and slow from today’s walk, but my adrenaline kept me going as I ran at full speed down the street.

A guard jumped in front of my path with a rifle in hand, he aimed down the sights at my head. So I did the one thing nopony could do, drop on the ground. The wind was knocked out of me as I hit my stomach hard, but it confused the pony long enough for me to close my distance. I brandished the knife magnetised to my leg and dug it deep into his neck. Blood spilled all over my daddy’s enclave armor as I threw the guard over with force.

The fright of me taking out the guard made the other ponies think twice about getting close. Instead they pulled out their firearms and kept their distance. The ponies with fully automatic weapons opened fire on me. The gate was just a few yards now, and luckily nopony was brave enough to try to close and lock it.

Three bullets smashed into my torso, dinging off onto the streets. I wouldn’t have been scared, except for the ever looming possibility that one of them had magical or armor piercing rounds. Unfortunately for me, I soon figured out they had both.

With just a few feet left to the gate, an armor piercing round dug through my seemingly indestructible suit right in the calf. “Fuck, shit, fuck!!!” I screamed in utter agony, but I ran on through the gate. I was almost out of sight in time to escape the magical bullet whizzing at my arm, but the bullet in my leg slowed me down.

The magical bullet buried into my arm with a cold feeling. The wound was seemingly numb until the bullet ignited. The fire sent searing pain up and down my arm. “Oh my god, my arm is on fire!!” I unlocked the sleeve of my armor and tore it away. Still running, I jabbed my knife into my arm and flung the bullet out. “Fuck!!” I screamed and thrashed wildly, but the damaged was already done.

From my wrist to my shoulder, I was covered with second and third degree burns. With care, I emptied the contents of my canteen onto the burn. “I have to move, fuck.” I whispered aloud, they would catch up to me soon.

I pushed myself up with my right arm, (the not burnt one) and began to stumble down the trail. My burn ached, and my foot cried out in pain with every step, but I couldn’t stop. I had to get home and treat myself right away. The swelling in my leg told me that there could be a raging infection soon, not to mention my boot was filling up with my own blood, causing it to develop blisters.

I don’t know if it was the blood loss or lack of sleep, but the walk felt hazy and dream like. I began to think of home, not this wasteland but real home. Well, real home was still a wasteland, but there I wasn’t a monster. My daddy died when I was 13, and with him any hope of getting home. As far as I knew, there was no way.

Me and daddy had arrived here by some sort of teleportation device in a facility. We had been scavenging the area looking for guns to sell. I was too young to remember the details, but I sure do remember arriving here. These people were xenophobic and suspicious of everything. Back home, we were way further ahead than this. Not technology wise, but definitely with interacting with each other.

I was awaken from my daze by a sprite-bot, surprisingly I was still walking. I did not have the energy beat the shit out of it, so I let it play its annoying tunes. The sprite-bot’s song stopped, and it started another one of those pre recorded messages.

 “This is not a pre recorded message you dick wad and I swear to god I’ll hunt you down if you try to blow me up again! Now be a good, whatever you are and listen.” This caught my attention, so I froze and looked at the bot. “Look, it is obvious that you are in bad shape, you took a magical bullet in the arm. I have a drop area with medical supplies, but you must do a job for me in return. I noticed that you are quite effective with a gun, are you not?” The sprite bot emitted from its speaker.

 It took a second to gather my thoughts. “Well, I learned from the best. What do I need to do for you?”

The sprite-bot again spoke. “I do not like questions, do not ask them. All will be revealed when the time is right. The time will be when you arrive at Tenpony tower in 9 weeks and not a day more. If you fail to comply, a bounty will be placed on your head for a significant amount. Goodbye.”

“Wait, how do I contact you, what’s your name?” I shouted just in time.

The speaker was static for a minute and I thought he had gone. “What did I tell you about questions Arthur? I shall contact you. As for names...hmm...well..I suppose you can just call me...Watcher.”

With that, the speaker resumed its horrible music, and I was tempted to smash it but refrained. Then a thought raced through my head, I don’t know where the medicine supplies are. How did I forget to ask him? I sighed and continued walking forward, frustrate+-

--d and confused until a blip appeared on my Pip-Boy interface. A grin passed my face, he had marked the location for me and it was only a few miles down the road.

My pace quickened and excitement spread through my body. I was going to live after all. For some reason this made me more and more excited with every step, even though every step was filled with pain. I tried to keep my mind off of fulfilling Watcher’s request. To travel from here to Tenpony tower in 9 weeks would be hard with my leg in its current position.

I rounded the bend up ahead and noticed the camp that I had been to earlier. I tried to sneak by as best I could for fear of them seeing who I was. I ran up behind a rock as cover from the campfire light. The camp was strangely much quieter than before. Like suspiciously quieter.

The midnight black tents revealed nothing behind them, and neither did the campfire. Still something seemed very wrong about the scene, and I couldn’t peel myself away from it. Although my waiting paid off when I heard some talking up ahead. I carefully crept toward the inner edge of the camp with inexpirienced footing.

“Get the hell off of me! Ow fuck my wing!” The shouting came from the statue that I had hid behind earlier. They had a poor griffin in a cage, and the savages were poking her with sharp sticks. Tactical or not, I walked towards them.

“Hey you bastards, what the hell? How would you like it if..” I was cut off abruptly by a brief slamming into the concrete. I would have to work on my padding in my armor.

I sat up slowly, my head throbbing. My head wasn’t injured horribly, although it did feel like it was being violated. My feeling was soon confirmed.

“How dare you come to this place and steal from the goddess. How audacious and rude of you.” A voice spoke clearly in my head.

“What the fuck did you just do to me?” I demanded in shock.

“It is called telekinesis you savage. Now I have lured you back here to teach you a lesson you will not soon forget.”

A large aura surrounded the winged pony that approached me. The energy practically radiated off of her. I think it was a her.

“So you caged a griffin, tortured her and then used her as bait to lure me back as punishment for stealing wine?”

The figure shifted slightly. “Well...um...yes, yes I did.”

“Wow, you bitch.”

She obviously took offence to this. “You do not speak to me in that tone you mere mortal. Now you shall pay with your own blood.”

Five shots then rang out two of them struck the winged figure, it screamed out in pain. Realizing my chance, I stepped close enough to it to unleash a power armored fist to it’s face, followed by five shots from my laser rifle. Only two made contact even though I was at practically

point blank range.

As it fell to the ground, I stomped on it’s head. Then took the time to cut it’s horn off, better safe than sorry. It’s unconsciousness was nice but now all the ponies that were antagonizing the griffin decided to try and kick my ass. Grabbing Chaos from my back I fired a special delivery of photonic death at the stick wielding assholes.

After ashing a couple ponies, the griffon turned to me.

“Thanks for the save, but what the fuck are you?” she said not trying to offend me but very curious.

“The guy who just saved your ass.” before she could respond I asked “ you wouldn’t by chance be a surgeon.”  She just pointed a claw to something behind me.

“Depends on your definition of surgeon,” A smug male voice panted from behind me. Turning to face the stallion who had said that.  The Guy who had said that was an actual human, he didn’t have a cow head like those minotaur things. Although I could see half of his armor was charred, and his left arm was burned.

“So could you remove bullets and bullet fragments?” Whatever happiness I felt at the knowledge I wasn’t the only human in this place took a back seat to the slug currently residing in my leg.

“Probably, where did you take this bullet?” The seemingly concerned human responded.

“Got shot in the leg and my left arm is roasted.” Maybe he knows what he’s doing...it’s worth giving him a shot.

        “A leg...a leg I can do,” He says not exactly giving off confidence to spare. “But, since you shot me, you should probably patch me up too. Asshole.”

        I chuckled, he took a couple in the arm but still had sarcasm to spare. “Sorry, I’m not a very good shot when I’m sober.”

        He snorted and stuck out his hand for a shake. I gripped his hand and shook, but promptly slapped his burnt arm. He chuckled  halfheartedly, but got the point.

        “So, what is your name?” The man asked.

        “Arthur, and you?”

        “Jake, nice to meet you your majesty.” He said sarcastically.

“Hey, before you go all amateur surgeon can you get me outta this cage?” The griffon groaned.

        While Jake fucked with the cage, I managed to strip myself of the armor still surrounding me.  I pulled out my last bottle of whisky and sat down by the fire.

        I realized how thirsty I truly was as the bottle touched my lips. I couldn’t help but gulp without moderation.

        End of Interlude Three

Don’t Beat a Dead Horse

Footnote

27.678934% to level up

Chapter Eight- A night on the town

Chapter Eight- A Night on the town

         "Passivity... I'll try it. No promises though."

        Waking up in an old house located by the blacktop wasn't a happy event. Most of my chest was severely burned yesterday, and those healing potions weren't that effective at fixing the problem.

“Well, atleast the burns are mostly gone.” I said aloud.

        Looking down at my armor I saw that the chest plate still looked to be in good condition even after absorbing most of the heat from those energy weapons. My duster had a decent sized hole in it from those alien things claws, that reminded me that I needed to find a needle and thread. Where do you find spare leather? Getting off of the couch I had slept on last night just confirmed my soreness from the shit that had happened yesterday. While I waited for my M.R.Es to self heat, I took one of the alien power cells from my bag and just moved it around in my hands. I wonder if the aliens have hands? Would they be friendly? If they're hostile how would I kill them and take their shit to get home?

                                                ---===*===---

        I was on my way down the blacktop once again after eating my meal. It was about noon when I heard a hovering noise from behind me. I was turning around while getting Epilogue into my grasp to meet the robot assailant.

        “Can you please not shoot this sprite bot?” I heard the last part of that statement from the 'sprite bot' right as I finished turning round to face it.

        “Please tell me there's not a brain in this thing,” I say less to the machine and more to the universe at large.

        “You're fine, I'm actually far away from here. My name is watcher, I would shake your hoof if I could.” He says attempting to humor me.

        “I don't have hooves, and why are you talking to me. Wait...ARE YOU TRYING TO SELL ME SHIT.” I say in a better attempt at humor.

        “No... well, not anything physical physic-”

“So you are trying to sell me something, better not be a time share or some shit.” I say playing with this disembodied voice.

“No I just wanted to say hello, and tell you to make a frien-”

        “No... thats not possible...somehow you're worse than the Jehovah's witnesses atleast they don't use robots to preach to aliens.” Fucking with this guy is the most fun I've had in like a week. Even if it was only funny to my own esoteric sense of humour.

        “I don't even know what you're talking about? Now back to what I was saying, you need to find friends. Maybe starting with this other human I found,”

        “What there's another human being around here, is he an asshole?” I spit out the first things that come to my mind.

        “Yes I'm not lying to you, and yes he's an asshole. Blew up four sprite bots before I could get him to talk to me.” His second statement I could tell had a lot of anger behind it.

        “Is he located close to baltimare?”

“Yes he left there just a few minutes ago actually, fair warning he's not super lucid at times. And wounded at the moment. Hey do you want me to mark the location on your Pip-Boy?”

“That would be convenient, anyway bye watcher.” I say as he marks the location down.

        The sprite bot then started moving away down the road while playing big band music.

                        Well time to find this guy.

                                                 ---===*===---

The straight path to the marked location strangely enough took me within a couple miles of baltimare, eh whatever I’ll get there tomorrow.

It was early into the evening and from the decrease in light I could tell that the sun was now lowering down.( From my point of view of course)

As I walked towards the marker, I saw a camp up ahead. The camp seemed to be deserted except for the campfire burning in the center.

My night vision was turned on, I merely waited for the other human to show up. It didn’t look like that would take that long seeing as his marker on my Pip Boy's compass showed his/her’s movement as the marker moved closer every moment I waited.

I had waited for around twenty minutes and was looking down Epilogues scope when I watched some ponies being led by a giant blue pony drag a Bird lion thing over to a hidden cage. The bird thing was thing was then promptly thrown into the cage with it’s legs bound.

If they wanted to cook and eat a griffin why would they put it in a cage prior to the slice n’ dice. Also what kind of fucked up food chain is involved, when a naturally vegetarian creature eats a larger carnivorous one. It only got weirder as the smaller ponies grabbed sticks and then proceeded to poke the Griffon violently. ( It looked like a gryphon from mythology).

I was wondering if I either wanted to intervene on the griffons behalf or, I dunno offer to trade energy cells for the oh so tenderized finished product. When I noticed a large Bipedal figure in black armor moving towards the (tenderizing festival?).

I began to move as swiftly as I could while still maintaining some aspect of stealth. Epilogue was out and ready to give somebody an anonymous death, when the black armored figure was thrown to the floor for no reason. I crouched trying to pick out a target, my compass was little help seeing as all the ponies in that camp were already hostile towards me.

Suddenly the large pony from earlier appeared from out of nowhere to speak with the now standing armored figure. I entered Vat’s just to determine her disposition towards me. Her approximate health was displayed at the bottom of my tunnel vision, and it was of course red. However I had a 67% percent chance of a torso hit from my position. But before I could murder I had to check if the figure was at least neutral towards me. Good for him and terrible for the large pony thing was the fact of his neutral disposition.

Five shot’s to the chest should kill this massive pony right?

My body moved of the targeting programs volition instead of mine for a few moments, landing two shot’s to the ponies center of mass.

        As soon as that happened the black armored figure ran to the wounded pony and cold cocked it in it’s face. He then pulled a rifle from it’s back and fired at the alicorn, somehow hitting me in the chest and left arm with his laser beams. Arrgh...my left arm had a hole in the duster with a crater of cauterized flesh under it.   The hit to my chest didn’t hurt me other than heating up one of my armor plates up slightly. I pulled one of those healing potions out of my dusters inside pockets and dumped some on the burn wound after chugging half of it. This asshole can barely shoot to save his life.

I guess it’s time to go meet this other human;  running as quietly as I could I managed to get behind him as he conversed with the gryphon.

        “You wouldn’t happen to be a surgeon?” the black figure asked the griffon.

It’s my time to shine goddammit, please don’t say yes. Luckily the griffon didn’t affirm it’s medical skill, it merely pointed to me. Don’t fuck this up mouth.

        “Depends on your definition of a surgeon,” I say to the black figure.

“Can you remove bullets and bullet fragments?” my new acquaintance asked.

        “Probably, where did you take this bullet?” perhaps it was tackless but I needed to know where he had been shot. I mean I know if he’s currently carrying a slug as deadweight in his head then I’m not going to be much of a help. ( Nevermind how he’s stayed alive this long with a bullet in his head.)

        “Got shot in the leg and my left arm is roasted.” My fellow human clarified.

        “A leg...a leg I can do,” I guess I can take it out, I mean I have a pair of tweezers.

(they were found in the bottom of one of the backpack pockets.) “But, since you shot me, you should probably patch me up too. Asshole.”

“Hey, before you go all amateur surgeon can you get me outta this cage?” The griffon reminds us of it’s presence.

        “I’ll let you out; almost being eaten has to be pretty traumatic.” I say in sympathy before going to unlock the gryphons cage.

        “What are you talking about?” She says angrily.

“Wheren’t those ponies poking you for the express purpose of tenderization?”

        “No they were torturing her to draw my attention.” The armored human says to me while taking off his armor. That’s a disadvantage of power armor right there, you have to take off most of it just to access the extremities. Other than the head (and the arms in this model of power armor).

        As I was opening the cage with Epilogue, they didn’t notice my intent to shoot the lock off. This was punctuated by the squak the griffon gave off and the o’ shit uttered by the human male.

        “Sorry, I really hate locks and well, locks reciprocate.” I say while putting Epilogue on my back once more. I made a mental note to reload my magazines later tonite.  I had a feeling that these strangers could be effective companions in my travels.

        I moved into the cage knife drawn to remove her restraints, when I completed that task she gave a sigh of relief before asking. “Can you check my wing to see if it’s broken?”

“I guess, although I would prefer it if you both went to an actual doctor.” We both then walked up to the campfire where the human already sat down.

“How about before I go full doctor on you guys, we exchange names and just a little bit of background?” after a few seconds of black looks I decided to begin. “Okay my name is Jake Embry and I’m not from here.”

That prompted the griffon to respond, “I’m Nightflight and I was on a training mission with my family when that alicorn zapped me and had those ash piles take me here.”

“My name is Arthur and i’m not from here either, now can you take the bullet out of my leg now?”

The next few hours would be some of the strangest of my entire life that I had the mixed pleasure of dealing. First off I did my first successful bullet extraction operation, the problem was when I gave him the flask of booze that I had gotten from the research facility he literally became a different person before my eyes and Nightflight’s as well. This led to him hitting on Night flight and after a rejection this new person grabbed more booze from his armor.

After a few minutes of binge drinking he was passed out in one of the tents the cultists had set up. Leaving me alone with the griffon, fuckin yay.

“What kind of training mission were you on, before your capture?  I asked trying to break the silence between us after our dinner. (We both hated vegetarian M.R.E.)

         “Well my parents are talon’s and they want their daughter to continue, Merc work ya know.” She seemed ambivalent towards the talons.

        “I’ve done a little mercenary work, makes you feel a little monstrous even if you were doing “good”. Memories of the burning warehouse filled my mind before she responded.

        “Better than working for red eye,” she says before snorting derisively which sounded weird coming from a griffon.

        “I heard one of his broadcasts, isn’t he really trying to restore civilization.” I wanted to know more about this guy he seemed reasonable.

        “He enslaves thousands of ponies and employs dozens of Talons,” she says quickly then looks into my eyes before continuing. ( I had removed my helmet earlier on as a sign of friendship or something.) “You really don’t know anything about the slaver king of fillydelphia?”

        “I’ve been here for less than two weeks, cut me some slack.” I say wondering if she had a sense of humour.

“Still, thats pretty basic knowledge. How about Steel Rangers ya know what they are?” She came off as pretty patronising.

 “Yeah, killed like twenty of them.” My nonchalant tone combined with the statement itself caused Night Flights jaw to drop.

“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” She said trying to wrap her head around the idea of that many steel rangers in general.

“To be honest it wasn’t just me. I had two badass robots and a cute ex-ranger helping me.” Damn didn’t mean to say that, why not say that. Because she’s still an alien; So their all aliens gotta empty your balls sometime. Shut up goddammit, I hate that lecherous part of my mind. I hate that stupid devil’s advocate that inhabits my skull but maybe he has a point. If  When I see her again, I guess if she wants to have a relationship I would go for it. If only to keep an open mind.

That cognitive dissonance took a moment to transpire but when I looked back at the griffon she was just looking at me funny.

“Even if you do space out sometimes you seem pretty badass,” She said before shifting from a cocky tone to a more subdued one. “I don’t know what happened to parents during the mission, I mean I was knocked out.”

   “If you want to follow me and maybe find out what happened to your parents, you can just know that my job for the next while is to draw as much attention to myself as I can.” I didn’t want her to know how desperate I was for a reliable source of information. Plus you know friendship n’ shit.

“But you're not gonna pay me?” Apparently her mercenary roots were surfacing again.

“How about I let you keep like twenty percent of the caps we make from loot and stuff, plus a bonus for all the threats you eliminate for me.”

“Thirty percent, and you get me equipment as soon as possible. I really don’t like to be naked.” She shivered when she said that, I got up and moved next to her. From the rapidity of her cuddling she was either really cold or just wanted physical contact.

“So did they take your armor?” I say trying to break the void of silence that had taken hold after my movement.

I didn’t get a response though seeing as she had passed out laying against me. I took a moment to curse the universe that put me in these situations and moved away from her slowly careful not to wake her up. So leave her there or move her to a tent? Choosing the latter option as always I grabbed her and firemen carried her to one of the abandoned tents. As I was moving her to a tent I was thinking about the situation at hand. Okay so I may have a human who’s slightly older than me with multiple personality disorder and a slightly younger than me female gryphon following me soon. I mean I could use the firepower, and as A group we could be obtain a lot more notoriety. How could a pair of heavily armored humans and a gryphon not arouse suspicion.

Setting the griffon onto a cot in the tent, (It was more of a drop) I let out a sigh of relief. She was pretty heavy, Gold feathers on a grey coat were her primary aesthetic characteristics. As opposed to the guy who calls himself either Arthur or Elvis, he was a well built male with light brown hair and very pale skin.  Who was I kidding I myself was pale as a damn ghost, the Spf rating of a duster and saturnite plating must be off the charts. I guess it didn’t help that the sun here is permanently obscured.

As I stood outside the tent I saw a bit of light coming from a little ways away. Putting my helmet back on and turning Night vision on yielded better results. With epilogues scope aimed at the source of the light I was able to make out a raider encampment. Only four raiders were staying in the rusted shack that was their domicile.

I can take care of this without waking up the others? Probably, In a few minutes I was laying on my stomach in some brown grass. I had a slight elevation advantage on the hostiles, two of the raiders were passed out and the other two...well I really didn’t want to use any of their beds.

The camp was maybe half a mile away from my surgery victim , and griffon companion. They would probably still wake up from my gunshots, so I guess to be courteous I would need to be sneaky. I crouched with my bowie clasped in my right hand, the couple that were in the middle of coitus really didn’t seem all that aware of their surroundings. And well the other two quickly acquired some new orifices, and honestly if I didn’t get the other raiders, then those orifices would probably be used. The only problem was, I’m not so heartless to kill a couple in the middle of their last session. So I waited a few minutes out of their sight waiting for the noises to stop and acquiring an awkward erection in the process.

I went back to their recently deceased comrades and looked over their corpses. I got a syringe of Med-X, seventeen five point five six rounds and a broken croquet mallet.

Then I noticed the lack of moaning and instead heard.

“I wonder what our foals gonna look like, hope they get your eyes.” The female raider said to the male in a quiet tone. They were probably cuddling as well, A twinge of jealousy moved through me. These two have intimacy in the middle of this shitty world. All I knew now was that I wasn’t going to kill these two.

“As long as their half as beautiful as you.”  The male cooed out as I quietly left the camp. There are no absolute evil people, just evil actions. And sometimes good people have to do terrible things for the greater good. Morality is a systemic way to guide people towards the lighter shades of grey in life. In the end our own moral compass is the only thing we must live up to or live down.

As I passed out in the one of the tents in the cultists camp, I had one of those introspections that strengthen an individual. Maybe tomorrow those raiders I spared will kill another traveller, or perhaps tomorrow the conditions that create such individuals will cease to exist. I believe in a deterministic universe but trying to determine the future with any real accuracy is something beyond human capability (Or pony or gryphon or anything else).

*        *        *

My dreams were usually unremembered but every once in a while the dream is remembered on the other side. I was tied up in the lobby of the mountain resort, repeatedly flayed by Degenerate flame then burned where the wound was, Cauterizing it and giving her time to finish herself off. Her moans were the only thing audible in this nightmare, the gift of lucidity in a dream is something I lack. Dreams lack transitions or the transitions are so meaningless that they are forgotten when you awaken. Glimpses of my hometown alight people I know dressed in raider armor. The thin veneer of civilization stripped away and replaced by wholesale hedonism, untempered by the bonds of morality. Overviews are bad but feeling as some version of yourself kills everything around himself. Self defense is defensible but what is the wholesale pre emptive slaughter of people beyond saving. The last thing memorable in my dream was the setting of the city ablaze...by my hand.

*        *        *

        “He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

The quote resonated in my mind for quite a few minutes, monster to fight monsters was that my fate. Helping to create a world that has no place for you in it, except in not staying here.

Even if I do make it back in the next day by some miracle...how would I be received by the people I care about. More questions with no way to answer; the curse of inquiry minded. Dead Ends of knowledge my favorite. After a moment more idle thinking I at least remembered the author of the quote. — Friedrich Nietzsche

        After getting out of bed I took the time to reload all of my magazines; one magazine with the starmetal rounds, another for the match load, three filled with regular five point five six and last but not least a magazine of Armor Piercing.

Loading a magazine of standard rounds into Epilogue, an unconscious sigh of relief left my lips. The potion’s when combined with a good’s night rest make small wounds heal a hell of a lot faster. Upon hearing the sound of feet on dirt I got off of the bed and walked out of the tent. Apparently Nightflight had killed an animal and preparing it for some roasting. The thing that caught my eye was that she was gutting it with her talons.

“That’s not hygienic, here use this.” She turns to face me and see’s me tossing my bowie knife near her.

“Uh..thanks for the knife.” She says not used to other people helping her prepare food.

“I still want it back, and thanks for cooking breakfast.” I was really excited to have someone who is literally half bird of prey, and rises early. Damn she’s a keeper, Power armored but can’t shoot for shit i’m not so sure about. I guess he has to be skilled in some way, you probably don’t survive in this place long if you’re a useless piece of shit. Unless you’re just really lucky… but thats kinda a skill in it’s own right.

“Wait, you eat meat?”

“Remember last night didn’t you see the sharp teeth near the front of my mouth?” I say slipping into my mostly unused didactic tone. Well not used recently, this place isn’t really for ‘knowledge for knowledge’s sake’ types.

        “Yeah I guess so you have eat eater’s teeth, well I do too.” Satisfaction with the species she was born as I think made her more smug than usual.

“Yes in front, but the ones in back are chewing teeth. Now what this means is we’re adaptable. There’s only one species with technology on my world.” So this may devolve into a who’s species is superior argument. Eh...if it comes to that I guess I’ll just have to win.

        “So you eat plants like a pony, figures you couldn’t kill anything with those things.”

 (she points to my left hand)

“Exactly, my species is really good at killing things but we’re not born with the equipment to do it. ( I pat Epilogue slung over my shoulder) No we have to build things to kill stuff, everything from a wooden spear to an atomic weapon.”  Maybe i’m laying it on a little thick? Only after seeing( and fighting) beings without hands can you appreciate the utility of the things.

“You can’t fly nuff’ said.” She says while turning her back to me.

“Nightflight love ya to death, but we’ve actually flown to the moon.” I said and then did my own turning around.

Should probably check up on arthur or is it elvis? Guess I’ll find out soon enough.

As I entered the tent I caught sight of him. He was passed out on the cot with his back facing straight up. So he sleeps on his stomach; little weird I guess.

        “Hey arthur wake up,” I said while prodding him with my left foot.

“What do you want?” he says with annoyance, not a morning person eh?

        “Well I kinda got a package to deliver in Baltimare. Do you wanna come with me and the bird thing?”

        “You know those were the ones who shot me right?” Snark seemed to a characteristic both humans on this world shared.

        “Actually you never told me that, are they a bunch of xenophobes?”

“They all hid when I walked into town, and when this old blind trader pony got scared they all grabbed their guns and chased me away.” He seemed ashamed of the entire ordeal.

“If there’s three of us we should be fine, although having some more healing items would be nice. Though they would be stupid to start something. How well armed are they?”

“They have some ponies with Armor Piercing ammunition, and one asshole with enchanted ammunition.” He snorted derisively after saying his piece.

“Okay so unless you have a place that would be productive to go to first I suggest we eat whatever Nightflight caught.”

“Actually watcher gave me a location to a cache of medical supplies, maybe some supplies for chem manufacture.” He must have assumed I was a junkie or something, seriously why do people think I like chems so much. I don’t know what’s worse Icepicks blunt ‘what the fuck is that’ reaction to me injecting a stimpack; or his trying to entice me using the promise of more chems.

“To be honest the mailman in me wants to get the delivery done as soon as possible. But the mad scientist in me wants to acquire more supplies first and he’s a lot more fun than the mailman.” Maybe the radio pony will start calling me mengele or something…that would be entertaining at the very least.

“So that’s a yes?” He seemed happy to be around another human albeit one he doesn’t know at all.

“Close enough to one I gather, let’s go see if foods done.” I said while gesturing to him to get up.

After eating a meal of unidentified meat, the three of us talked about the supply cache. Nightflight was up for it as long as we got her some weapons and armor in Baltimare.

Fastforward a few hours and we were walking as a group with Nightflight occasionally flying circles above us partly for reconnaissance and partly to keep her wings warmed up.

“So Jake how did you arrive here?” Arthur asked while we were walking through the dead plains that surrounded balitimare.

“Funny story, an asshole who actually lacks an asshole because he’s a brain in a jar, pulled me to his alternate plane of existence for science. Either that or to find someone who could fulfill his need for human interaction. One thing led to another and I arrived in this world on a bubble of hyperspace. All in all this past while has been the most invigorating part of my life, invigorating with the side effect of horrifying choices and getting hurt repeatedly.” This is my favorite way to describe the circumstances of my existence here thus far.

“Okay so you teleported here?” Very interested would describe his tone of voice even when It came out of his helmet speakers.

“No not technically, a pocket universe was formed with me inside. Then the universe was sent to this one and popped depositing me in a steel ranger base undergoing battle.”

“You seem pissed about being sent here?” He said with concern, dammit it’s flattering really but getting attached to me is just gonna make our lives harder. Or maybe i’m just protecting myself from growing my own attachment.

“Yes...I mean I had a nice enough life back in my home universe. Damn that sounds weird to say. Really my primary goal here is getting home and failing that I really don’t know.” His poignant question brought things into focus. “How the fuck am I getting home?” Yelling out this made me feel more in control emotionally but maybe less stable in Arthur's eyes.

“I didn’t know you needed to let out that. Anyway If you do find this way back to your world I’m going with you.” He said the last part more as a proclamation of his intentions to himself, which would be more strange he wasn’t a being with a split personality.

A Catbird thing dropped down beside us, signalling for a group huddle. Is the use of group huddle a sacred griffin tactic, If so I just don’t don’t know how to counter it.

The chuckle I let out wasn’t appreciated by Nightflight, but whatever she’s being paid to put up with my bullshit.

“Okay the supply cache is currently surrounded by a group of raiders, and their packing some low caliber weapons. The camp itself is around a prewar hospital ”

“So pool cues and thirty twos, Arthur just keep moving I don’t think they have anything that can hurt you.” I say and he gave a weary nod, I then turned to nightflight.

“I have a laser pistol with a few spark cells for it so take that and strafe them while firing. Hits aren’t necessary but would be appreciated, meanwhile I’ll back behind whatever cover I can find picking them off.” They both just nodded.

        However a raider with a rocket launcher was aiming at our group by the time we got to within visual range. A loud whooshing noise accompanied the rocket that landed ten feet from Arthur and fifteen feet from me. Knocking arthur to the ground was only the first steps to the raider plans.

As I picked myself off the ground I surprised to see a raider wearing a piece of headgear approach with a dozen fighters well armed. Well Nightflight as a useful source of intel is kinda gone. I was aiming Epilogue at the leader and company as they surrounded Arthurs crumpled form. I hope that he’s just unconscious.

“Did you kill some ponies at the shed last night?” The head raider asked; she was an average sized unicorn mare except currently holding a rebar club in her magical grip.

“Uh...Yes?” I say

  “So you admit to killing our fellow tribe members?” She said while I was thinking ‘these aren’t even raiders, they seem civilized. Oh shit.’

        “Well I assumed they were raiders and that had lost their right to life, and now I think I was wrong.” Candidness had yet to fail me in these situations.

        “Prepare to die in one on one combat?” She said while another tribe member pulled Epilogue away from me quickly with their telekinesis. With gun now out of my hands due to my lack of grip on it I pulled out Bowie the knife. Matriarch of the tribe then rushed me while holding the rebar club high in her magic. Backing up while wishing I had a handgun I decided to charge once she got into striking distance. As I rushed forward at her she didn’t stop she made the club go above my head and…

Pain all was pain. I landed atop her barely able to move. She had hit me with enough force to send me flying forward into her. My right arm appeared to be fine and with a large amount of cursing I had positioned Bowie next to her neck.

“Can you please make an exception to the whole ‘to the death thing’” I said before being thrown off of her and onto my abused back.

A kick to her face made her back up enough for me to pick up the club she must have dropped. The thing weighed at least thirty pounds and recovering from a swing with this thing is unlikely. Keeping it low to the ground I was going to drop it on her from as high as I could hold it. Bowie’s betrayal stopped that from happening; the glowing of magic covered the handle of the blade as it thrust into my leg. Her turning the blade once it was inserted didn’t help either.

Apparently being royally pissed makes a person stronger than normal, a swing near her head was enough for her to back off. I remembered I had a syringe of morphine in my pockets, I fished that out while she was feigning retreat. A feeling of glorious numbness flowed through my body after I injected. Pulling the knife out and wiping it on my already blood covered leg, I sheathed it while checking to see if I was moving with a sliced femoral artery. Quickly judging that I wasn’t going to bleed out anytime soon, I was rudely interrupted by a spear hitting my chest and bouncing off. Fucking bystanders had given her their weapons.

Time to end this. Breaking into a jog while holding the club high I ran after the leader.

The glow of magic covered the club as she tried to pull it towards her. Thinking quickly I stopped about three arm spans away from her and suddenly threw the club in her general direction. Her pulling force aimed the weapon at her with more speed than I could generate.

I watched as the exposed rebar handle of the weapon strike her in the forehead. She toppled like a kindergarteners block tower. Her breathing seemed to indicate her continued aliveness*.

“So she forfeits...silence is concession?” The spectators didn’t seem to argue and I really needed to dress my wound and find out how many broken ribs I have. Oh god morphine is great. Also Im pretty sure my back would have been broken if it wasn’t made out of...metal or something. Do I really not know what my new spine is made of? Yeah no idea, why does a toaster have an owners manual but not a fuckin cybernetic spine. I had walked near the asshole that had taken Epilogue from me.

“MINE,” I said as I grabbed it from the shell shocked pony. Now that I looked around they all were standing around. Wow they took the defeat of the uber bitch pretty hard, suckers.

        I walked into the hospital laughing at the ponies reverence. A table was just standing there so I sat on it and shot a hit of stimpack into me, a small voice in my head was telling me to be conservative with those. I continued walking through the place and after a few minutes of stumbling through corridors I found gryphon. Nightflight was bound and gagged on a table. I decided to give Bowie a chance to to redeem himself. A moment later there was unbound gryphon which is somewhat better than bound griffin.

   “They had a net launcher,” she said dejectedly.

“Better than arthur, it took a rocket to knock him out of the fight. Least they were kinda original with you.” I said while shrugging.

“Is he dead?” Worry on a gryphon looks weird.

“It would be inconvenient if he was-,” before I could trail off she punched me in the face.

“Are you high right now?” Wow knock one bitch out and another appears.

“What’s it to you”

“What are you on?” Less pissy now, looks concerned now.

        “Med-X”

“Figures, you okay to shoot?” She says while heading to the door, following behind her I respond.

        “I’m like 90% sure I can, really.”

“Can you show me where he’s at” She looks pissy at me again.

        “How can you not see a black suit of power armor against brown grass?” Snark even when the brain is impaired still flows from me.

        “Fucking done, how…(grumbles) are you bullshitting me,” She seems mad at me.

 “So did like a lion get a hardon for an eagle or something?” Her answer was another punch to my helmeted head.

                                                ---===*===---

Standing beside arthurs unconscious body we wondered how to get him conscious again. He wasn’t dead cause the blinky thing in my vision was still there for him.

“So wat do?” I said to the griffin.

“I dunno, wait ain’t you the pretend doctor?”

“Yes and never tell me not to doctor, if you know what's good for you.” She just face taloned. “Idea... give me a second. Stay here I got this shit.”

The rest of the tribal ponies were now back to their duties it seemed, sans trying to assault us. I found a pony with a pool cue, took said pool cue and walked back to arthurs incapacitated body. Poke.Poke.Poke.

“Is this seriously your best plan?” She said after my third prodding of his body.

“Damn, you’re right. I’ve been going about this all wrong.” I thusly flipped the pool cue around and struck his helmet with the handle.

“Fucking ghouls I’ll end you.” He awoke with a start. Nightflight looked nonplussed after I removed my armor for the express purpose of grinning at her and saying “Proof I’m best doctor.”

Arthur  no Elvis just shrugged his shoulders and muttered something derogatory about ghouls.  With Nightflight stewing and Elvis not quite cognizant yet I took the opportunity to stuff Sugar bombs down my throat along with a bottle of water. I think the Med-X is wearing off. My back hurts like all hell and my leg though mostly mended felt not quite right.

With my new doctor stick I was ready to resuscitate the tribal queen.

“I have no reason to disbelieve the power of this stick,” Cause why not. The bystanders were actually reacting to our presence this time, however they seemed disheartened. The presence of Elvis and Nightflight helped just a wee bit. Having companions is nice, maybe someday they'll bail my ass out instead of the other way around.

        At Least they look competent.

Poke Poke Poke by the third poke to the ass she was awake. She took one look at me and said.

        “You…” and promptly passed out again.

“Well Elvis my wonderful acquaintance do you have any C-4 because if not,  were not getting the supply room.” My walking around the hospital had yielded some useful information namely the location of the supply room. “I mean the door it’s solid steel, hinges and all.”

“If it has a place to put a key in I can pick it.” Elvis stated resolutely and I don’t think he’s conceited.

“Kay follow the leader,” I kinda wonder how I ended up leader of this new team.

Arthur I guess just wants another human to be around him and Nightflight seems to want a less structured lifestyle. Maybe following who seems to know what he’s doing is enough for them. Funny thing is, the only thing thats keeping me focused now is the mortal peril this place is built upon and the object bound to my forearm.

Thinking while walking is a lot safer when you have vigilant companions around.

                                ---===*===---

Nightflight and I stood in front of a solid door while elvis had pulled out a screwdriver and bobby pin. A minute later the door slid open and all of us stepped inside. On the inside was the equivalent of a normal pharmacy except half of the medicines on the shelves were slightly glowing. And not for the first time I let out a sigh at the fact that magic is the most logical explanation. Me and Elvis went around grabbing the most useful items there. “Healing potions, antibiotics, bandages, painkillers, ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION MEDICATION.”

“Better pick up some of that for when ya see that ranger mare again!” I heard Nightflight yell to me after hearing me yell out about the boner potions.

“You don’t even know her name,” I yell back.

“I don’t need to, when you not wearing that helmet, you easy to read.” She responds with haste.

“Score, got the rubbing alcohol,” Elvis said a couple aisles away from me.

“Please don’t drink the isopropyl alcohol I can use it to clean my scalpels and stuff.” I say hurriedly, I’m the group medic apparently so I gotta keep my equipment sterile.

“Man you shouldn’t worry if I wanted a drink, I got one right here in my armor.” He hopped from behind the end of my aisle just to point to spot on his armor above his left shoulder.

 “Okay did you grab all the supplies?” I ask and he nods quickly, he had grabbed a messengers bag with a pink cross emblazoned upon it.

“Nice bag,” I said without any sarcasm. He actually needed something to carry stuff in. Wait with him being able to carry things I can give him all the stuff I want to steal but couldn’t. So now I can loot way more effectively.

“You really think so,” he seemed slightly self conscious.

“I don’t think so, I know so.” I pat him on the shoulder patronisingly, as a friend should.

        “Maybe we should leave before they figure out were takin their stuff?” Nightflight called out from the doorway.

        “Good idea, I guess it’s time to go back to the camp.” I say while gesturing Elvis to follow.

        “There’s time to go to Baltimare, you need to deliver that package.”

We were walking out of the hospital as we talked.

        “Didn’t they shoot you up last time you were there?” I say wondering what he was thinking, aren’t people supposed to avoid mortal peril.

        “When was this, I haven’t been there for years?” He says unknowingly, does he repress when arthur does anything or only when arthur get’s injured.

        “Yeah you’re right silly me why don’t we go into town. Maybe we’ll find a hotel or something there.” Lying through both my teeth and my desire to inform him of his other half sucks. But it has to be done, if I had a full psychiatric facility ready to treat him I might try to inform him of his other halfs existence. The human known as either Elvis or Arthur must be somewhat stable given that it has survived this long.

“Do you not remember why we came to get the supplies in the first place?” Nightflight said while I silently simmered, she really shouldn’t try to push him.

“Because chems are good to have around,” Elvis says while picking up the pace, the weight of the messenger bag and his rifle not slowing the power armored human down very much.

“Okay balitmare here we come?” I let out under my breath.

---===*===---

The outskirts of balitmare seemed to be unravaged by the scourge of Balefire, signs of habitation spread out before us in the waning light of dusk.

“So do we just walk in and hope they let us go about our business?” I ask to my comrades.

“Well all I want is a stiff drink and a warm bed, if they try to to stop me thats on them.” Elvis said with vehemence.

“How about you two go in there first seein’ as all I have to kill with is my talons. That laser pistol I can’t use, mouth grips are hard to use when you have claws.” She says while putting her front appendages in the air for emphasis.

“I personally just want to buy some spare parts for my stuff and see about getting a map of the deserts to the west of here. So Nightflight in the case that everything is peaceful either me or Elvis will come out here to lead you in.” I say while the ambient light decreases around us.

“And if things start exploding in town?” Nightflight asks skeptically.

“Then make more explosions,” I answer while giving her a couple of my frag grenades. “But try not to die, I did promise to help you and I intend on getting that done.”

        “Don’t worry, a merc has to live to enjoy their pay.” She says with a cocky grin on her face. Okay it looked cocky, interpreting griffin facial expression isn’t easy.

          “Are we gonna get there anytime soon?” Elvis said while gesturing at his Pip-Boy.

“Define soon?”

        It was a small surprise when Elvis grabbed my arm and pulled me the first few feet towards the town interest. Quite soon I was walking of my own volition. It didn’t make him any less of an impatient ass.

        The settlement seemed to built in the ruins of a residential housing block with some of a nearby commercial district included within the inhabited section. The place’s walls were stacked refuse like usual in the wastes, however the walls had a few low sections. The lack of sentries on towers seem like a large oversight but whatever i’m not defending this place i’m just trying to enter safely.

        We had walked around the place and had found a part of the wall that was only eight feet tall or so…

        “Hey get down so you can boost me up,” I said to Elvis before he asked the obvious question.

        “How am I supposed to get over the wall, I doubt you can pull me up after you.”

“Damn that usually works. Wait it’s just stacked garbage so why don’t we just pull enough of the wall down to let us through?” I say

“And I do all the heavy lifting ?”

“You are wearing the powered armor,”  That being said we began the process of making the vertical pile of shit into a more horizontal pile of shit. After a few minutes of digging and panting (on my part) we had an entrance. Thusly we used said entrance, at first observing little activity. All signs pointed towards us putting a hole in the wall that lead to the most unpopulated part of the town. We made our way around town without being noticed by anyone, it was barely eight O'clock and everyone was either asleep or somewhere else in town?

Elvis pointed out the market district to me as we passed by it, sadly all of the merchandise was removed before they closed up shop. “Damn,” I said as we checked the last stall for things to steal...appropriate, before starting to walk towards the front gate. I swear I heard a few sniffles from Elvis after we discovered the pronounced lack of loot. A fellow thief of convenience, I could have kissed him after learning that. Gay thoughts aside, I need to find out how he got here. Any information could be a clue I need to get myself home, perhaps with Elvis along for the ride. Wait does he know that my world is radically divergent from the one he was born in ? Well no he probably doesn’t considering I still haven’t told him the full version of how I got here, nevermind the place I came from before waking up in the oceanic facility. What would my friends think of me now? I wonder how much the tech I have in my body would be worth to industries back home.

We had the good fortune to figure out where most of the inhabitants of the place had gone. The place was a damn dance club, well it probably is considering the music that flowed from the place to the streets. Less fortunately was the fact that the bouncer saw us, and ran inside.

“Wanna find cover before we have to fight in the imminent gun battle?”  I ask to my silent companion.

“Nah, let’s stand our ground it makes a stronger statement to the other side in a confrontation.” He answers readily, with a tone indicating he’s been in these situations more than a few times.

“Says the guy in eighty pounds of armor, whatever I guess my plan is predicated upon us fighting.” Whereas I actually want to avoid conflict whenever possible. If only to sleep with some ease.

“Hey do you want a grenade cause I don’t need all of mine?” The strange part of the question wasn’t the content, it was that my voice stayed very casual. Was the possibility of violent conflict becoming mundane to me?

“Gimme,” was the response that Elvis gave me, needless to say I complied.

  The clubbing ponies rushed outside weapons drawn, to see us aiming our weapons right back at them. The oldest looking pony there was the first to speak.

        “So now there are two mutated minotaurs here, damn should have got the big one the first time.”

        “Did my companion do anything hostile the last time he was here, or did you shot at him first.” I say in my underpowered mediating voice.

        “He stabbed me, the fucker needs to die.” A stallion in the crowd yelled out he was brandishing a large repeating rifle.

“I don’t remember any of this,” Elvis yelled back at the crowd of around a dozen armed ponies.

“That old stallion had a heart attack as you ran away.” A mare in the crowd said, before another yelled “You killed Silver Cup,”.

“How is that his fault? That wasn’t even him it was a different personality entirely.” Elvis’s mental state be damned, this was a get out of jail free card that was way too convenient to go unused.

“So he’s plumb crazy?” The older stallion asks while looking amused.

“No, he just has two independent personalities taking turns in dealing with the outside world.” I answer in a scholarly tone, if they don’t respect a man of science then who will they respect? ‘Probably the warm barrel of Epilogue’ a derisive thought echoed in my mind.

        “And just who are you?” The older stallion asked, he must be the owner of the club or something, he does seem respected by the others.

        “The Regulator, and I hope you aren’t contemplating an ad hominem attack. Please just get over the fact that I’m not from around here.” Perhaps not from around here is a massive understatement but whatever.

        “Whats your interest here?” The inquisitive stallion asks a question directed at me yet again, I guess it’s better than having a fire fight.

“Clearing his name, after that I guess I want some spare parts for my equipment along with a hot meal.”

“How about we let you go about your business and we take him in for questioning.” He said questioning in a tone that felt a little nefarious.

“No, he stays with me. Please let’s be peaceful here, I got caps to spend, plus you really don’t want to be my enemy.”  As I said that I saw a dark shape fly onto the roof of the building we were all standing in front of. The shape waved a talon at me, okay so now Nightflight is on the roof. Happy she decided to show up, but she needs to stick to the plan.

“You might be right stranger, go about your business. But if you make any trouble we’ll make sure your heads on a pike by the end of the day.” Stallion numbah one said. Yeah they could try to put my head on a stake, try being the operative term.

“So the pact of non aggression is a go?” I ask my final and quite important question.

“Just leave I’m tired of lookin at you.” He said before turning around and walking back into the club.

        Shortly after Elvis and I began to walk in the direction of the places Inn, as we walked Nightflight dropped out of the air and landed near us.

        “Hey,” Nightflight said happily.

“Why didn’t you wait?” I say sternly.

        “I know you would have been too busy to find me, besides after an hour of no gunfire I figured you two were fine.”

        “She’s right I you couldn’t make me go get her,” Elvis interjected.

“Not Helping ( I glared at Elvis before turning to Nightflight), okay you’re right Nightflight I just don’t want my merc getting hurt.”

“Will you put me in more dangerous situations when I have armor on?” Nightflight asks, wait does she just want more excitement.

“You bet your ass I will,” I say with vigor.

“Hey as much as I like hearing you two flirt or whatever, but I want to sleep. So can you just give me some caps to get us some rooms at the Inn?” He asks and I answer by pulling out a five hundred cap bag and throwing it at his head. The clink of steel wasn’t as satisfying as I thought it would be.

He just picked it up off the ground and walked off, I could hear chuckling through his helmet.

“So wanna see if the Gun store if the gun store is open?” I ask Nightflight.

“But I wanna go do something fun,” So hearing a Bird lion hybrid whine like a teenage girl is strange to say the least. Then I remembered she is sixteen so it makes sense...kinda.

        “Fine what is it that you want to do?”

“You remember that club?”

“Really you want to go clubbing?” She nods excited.

“Yes, come on it’ll be fun.”

“No,”

“If the gun stores not open then will you go with me?”

  “I guess, let’s go find the store.” The owner better be a night owl.

---===*===--

“You win, just go easy on me.” I say to nightflight as we stand outside of the club called ‘The rodeo’, it’s not fair, they roll up the sidewalks at six here.

“It’s not that bad, been to a couple before.” Says the sixteen year old. I guess I forgot that this is a society where nobody would bat an eye at a ten year old injecting heroin.

“Whatever, i’ll be wherever someone can sit down.”

She shrugged and we went inside. The interior looked like it had been redone(shittily), the DJ was up playing club music loudly, overall I found the bar to be the most interesting thing there which is saying something. As I walked over to the bar Nightflight did the gryphon equivalent of a frown.

The barkeep was the same pony that had been the de facto leader of the crowd earlier. He was surprised to see me and slightly more surprised when I removed my helmet.

“I didn’t take you for the drinking type?” He states bluntly.

“I’m not, I wouldn’t even be here if she didn’t want to come here.”

“The griffin?” I nod

“Weird couple, whatever you are and a griffin,” He says then shrugs.

“We’re not a couple, honestly we’re somewhere between friends and business partners.”

“Speaking of business partners, what kind of jobs do you do?”

“Everything except drain cleaning and sexual favors, although those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.” I let out wondering if the stallion had a sense of humour, I was rewarded with a hearty laugh that wouldn’t have been socially acceptable had it not taken place in a loud club.

“Can I get a name, first time I’ve met an alien?”

“Jake, reciprocation would be nice along with a drink.”

“Blurred Lines,so what do you want.”

“Surprise me,”

        “I’ll give you a discount if you tell me how you got here,” he asks as he poured me a drink.

        “Want a novel story do ya,” I say as he slides the drink to me.

“Been awhile since I’ve heard one that’s unique. Hell I wish I could have some new music, had the same stuff since before I was born.”

“It’s your lucky day, I can satisfy both of those urges.” Damn being consistent with your previous statements is nice sometimes.

“What,”

“Blurred Lines I have a Pip-Boy loaded with hundreds of songs, just give me a terminal to hook into and Bam new songs.” I stopped before I let out the nigh obligatory fuck yeah.

“Well I guess tomorrow you got a job to do, and until then I’ll keep em’ comin.” After that I guess I got increasingly hammered as I told him my tale. Halfway through a unicorn mare sat down in the stool beside mine. The last thing I remembered was thinking that the mare looked pretty cute.

End of Chapter Eight

Footnote

*Aliveness- The state of being alive.

EX:        John’s aliveness after falling eighteen stories Is quite impressive.

Synonyms: Undeath

Level Up

Perk(s) Added: Lady Killer-+10% damage to the opposite sex and unique dialogue options with certain characters.

Quest Perk- Medicinal Macgyver- You know how alcohol can affect brain functions ( Or you will soon) and now can use it to sterilize instruments in a doctors bag.

Companion Perk(s)

Born Killer- When outside in a normal patch of wasteland you gain a +2 Perception bonus, along with an advantage when Speaking with Talons.

Strangers In A Strange Land- Homo sapiens have to stick together right, you both gain +5 to nerve regardless of charisma. The need to improve weapons and armor is a problem both of you share, consequently when together you both gain eachothers skills for crafting items.

Elvis/Arthur- Perk added

Divided we stand-

Elvis traits added- Built to destroy: 3% critical rate with 15% faster equipment degradation.

Loose Cannon- Attack speed with thrown weapons increased by 30%. Thrown weapons have 25% less range.

Arthur trait added- Good Natured:

Increases Speech, Medicine, Repair,Science and Barter skills +5. Decreases Energy Weapons, Explosives,Guns, Melee Weapons and Unarmed skills -5.

Chapter Nine: The Doors Part 1

Chapter Nine-The Doors Part 1

Waking up the first thing apparent to me is the feeling of my head splitting open. Next up was my nudity and the semen encrusted blankets covering me and this furry thing laying with its back turned towards me. So, we either made the semen stains last night, or they were already there.

“Well, each possibility is terrible in it’s own right.”  I murmured.

Then my sense of smell kicked in. Yep, better go make her breakfast or something, well I kinda hope it’s a her. Degrees of awkwardness aside I got up and surveyed the room.

My gear was laying in the corner along with a duster that seemed to be the size of the person that occupied the bed alongside me. “Well, this is the second time I’ve woken up next to an alien. But that time I at least remembered getting into the bed.” So would you rather have remembered what you did in the bed? The devil’s advocate in my head said.

“I guess, not remembering isn’t worth this damn hangover.” I remarked.

Just after I finished saying that aloud, the pain in my head intensified.

I remembered from somewhere that getting water into your body would help reduce a hangover. Grabbing a bottle of water from my bag along with some light pain pills, I noticed that some were missing? Pushing that observation out of my mind popped the pills into my whore mouth, then washed them down with the water. Atleast she’s cute... Advocate decided to say think.

“They’re all cute, plus how would I even know I only remember seeing her backside…” I whispered.

Three things: First, don’t lie to yourself. Second, you know you wanted it. Third, lists are better in threes.

Distracting myself from this manifestation of cognitive dissonance seemed like a good idea. While I was equipping my armor I noticed something I had never noticed before. It was an emblem on the front of the helmet. The emblem was a crest with a horse putting its legs into the air, the crests background was white and khaki divided diagonally.

The eleventh armored cavalry regiment; that’s who this armor was made for. Now what are the odds of the this armor ending up on a world populated primarily by sapient ponies?

“Tack that onto the odds of a dimensional transient finding it, then repeatedly having his ass saved by it…” I ruminated.

I then heard the sounds of movement coming from the bed, my sentimental monologue having awoken her.

“So no round three? Color me offended.” She sat up and turned to lock eyes with me.

“Round... three?”

“So I did wear you out.” she said, stretching with her ass in the air as if she was a dog, waving it playfully in my face.

“Serves you right for mumbling about morality half the night. Though the other half was fun.” She says while laying on the bed, one hoof playing with my belt as she beamed up at me.

Black fur and a purple mane along with red eyes: If fucking aliens is wrong, I don’t wanna be morally justified. This goddamn planet is making me a xenophile by necessity... and proclivity.

“Okay, don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t remember anything about last night. Consequently this is incredibly awkward.” I say in a rush.

She just chuckles after I finish throwing words out of my mouth. She tilted her head slightly, still smiling at me as she had before.

“No, it was awkward last night when I figured out you weren’t just a small minotaur capable of speaking in proper sentences. To be perfectly honest, I never expected to sleep with an inebriated alien. Then again, I was a little tipsy myself.”

“So no hard feelings?”

“Well you had plenty of those last night.”  she said playfully.

It doesn’t annoy me that she’s making jokes at my expense; the lack of context on my end is the annoying part.

Time to play it off.

“Walked right into that one didn’t I,”

Come on there’s no way.

“You did that a few times as well,”

Yep, there was a way. Satan is real.

“So uh, I see you like dusters too,”

Please take the bait.

“That one has served me well over the years.” she said, peering at her duster.

She returned her gaze to me, looking slightly sympathetic.

“So I take it you don’t like innuendo at your expense.” She said the latter half of her statement in an apologetic tone.

Sensitive whens she needs to be, she’s a keeper... Spoke my demonic advisor. Not the time right now, dick.

I was in deep thought for a moment now having realized that this devil’s advocate may indeed be my dick and I had just correctly labelled him with that insult. However, I remembered I was with company and that my prolonged silence accompanied by the strange facial contortions I execute whilst deep in thought might be slightly off-putting to the mare.

“Where I come from males aren’t usually seen as sexual objects. Even in jest” I looked down and thought about the events that transpired last night. A hoof softly struck my chest and I peered downwards to lock eyes with her.

“Sorry, usually stallions like it when I make jokes about them. Anyway, I have a bounty to collect today so I have to leave. If it makes you feel any better, you seem like a good stallion.” She said before grabbing her stuff via telekinesis. She walked out of the room, turning to face me just prior to exiting in order to give me a wink.

I sat on the bed for a few minutes feeling numb. The pain meds had taken effect, removing the awful feelings of being hungover.

You didn’t even get her name.

“Yeah so what, I didn’t get a lot of things.” A few minutes pass before I finally get off my ass, grab all of my stuff, and leave the room.

I went to find the innkeeper to pay for the room... only to find out that she had paid for that as well.

Well you’re a whore: and a cheap one at that!

If you don’t stop that I am going to punch you… er... me in the dick.

You can’t threaten yourself, why are you fighting you.

Before I had time to continue my escalating crazy, a familiar griffin walked into the lobby of the Inn looking ever so slightly terrified out of its fucking mind.

“Did you see that mare walking out of here?” Nightflight says abruptly to me.

“Yes, and you seem less than concerned about where I’ve been.”

“That mare was Dusk Beam, most fucking dangerous bounty hunter in this entire region. So, yeah, I don’t care who or what you did last night; I just really don’t like being in the same city as that chick!”

She seemed pretty protective of me: I guess I was paying her.

“She seemed okay to me,” I say, my mind drifting at the thought of her name.

“What did you say to her?” She was royally pissed suddenly.

“Oh we chatted for a bit, talked about sports and what not. Oh, and we fucked. Twice, apparently.” I held up two fingers as I said the last bit, just in case she couldn’t count.

“Your choice in mares is scary.”

“It’s more like their choice in males,” I replied. “Anyway what happened to you last night? ” I ask, more to change the subject than being genuinely curious about her well-being.

“Got a little wasted, left the club, didn’t see you. Oh, I found Elvis passed out in a pile of empty bottles. I mean, he was in the hotel room at least. Didn’t get laid like you: but I’m not jealous!” She said a little too fast.

“I didn’t peg you for an interdimensional playboy, but whatevs.”

Were supposed subordinates supposed to give you this much shit about what you did? Or who you did?

“For the record, I’m ambivalent in regards to relationships with other species. I honestly never expected to be surrounded by sapient quadrupeds.” My tone may have become a little defensive near the end.

“Okay so you’re a little touchy,” She said while laughing.

“Let’s just go, I have to do something for Blurred Lines.”

“You just really like the club don’t you.” She said after we started walking towards the club.

“No I have to do a favour for the nice bartender who’s gone his entire life with the same damn music tracks.” I didn’t add the that this was a chance to prove human superiority in music.

Music is inherently subjective, it can’t prove superiority fuckwad.

“Okay, so you a have a for old stallions too,” She said before snorting.

So now it’s two on one, myself and the novice of sexual snark.

She’s just jealous of how much ass we get.

It’s flank here...I believe, other than that I agree with me. Wow that would sound really strange out of context.

“Just cause I can get laid, regardless if it was intentional or not is irrelevant, isn’t grounds for you to get all bitchy because you can’t.”

This served to get her quiet for the length of the walk.

---===*===---

The back door to the club was locked as it should have been considering it was ten o’clock in the morning. A few knocks on the door and a paranoid eye looking through the peephole got Blurred Lines to open the door.

“You got the merchandise?” He said to us from the doorway.

He looks really high… like really HIGH.

“Right here, Blur,” I say, pointing towards the screen of my Pip-Boy. “That alright by you?”

“I fucking care, so you have it in a com-compartment.” He pointed a leg at my Pip-Boy.

“He doesn’t have it on him. What are you, stupid?” Nightflight says to him aggressively.

“I really NEED it. Get the shit and we’ll talk. His name is Dexon find him. ” He said shuddering while speaking. He then spun around and closed the door. We could hear multiple deadbolts being latched.

“So he probably doesn’t need an Epipen?” I say to nightflight, after hearing that she just looked at me like I had sprouted a third arm.

“Did you see him? He reeeally needs his dash.” She said that like it was a person watching NASCAR; not condemnation in her voice, just... resigned acceptance.

“Time to find some dash I guess, you in?” I just wanted to spread some music to these wastes, damn things just get more complicated.

“This is the kind of shit you pay me for right? I kinda have to be in.”

---===*===---

We quickly found Dexon, considering any pony we asked pointed us in the direction of the towns only drug dealing minotaur.

Dexon was wearing a sheriff's hat along with flannel shirt and rodeo pants. The entire ensemble screamed bullrider, but he was a bull. So was he really really gay or really really straight? I never got an answer for that question. The most interesting thing was his sidearm, it was built for a creature with human hands. In light of these revelations interaction went about as well as expected.

“Stay here, if I need you just come bail me out. Kay?” I say to which she nods quietly. Though I could see she wanted to tell me I was being stupid.

“I need some dash,” My voice came out synthesised as it flowed through my helmets speakers, some raw intimidation couldn’t hurt. As it stood I was standing eye to eye with him, He seemed distressed by that fact alone. His distress would probably have been lessened had the my more gracial nature been obvious.

“Out of dash, come back later.” He said gruffly, his hand was no hovering over his revolvers holster.

The streets around us had thinned out by now, everypony wary of the possibility of violence. But behind practically every window sat an observer to our conversation.

“It’s before noon how could you have ran out?”

“Ask boss, Silver Tongue is name.” He looked increasingly uncomfortable, maybe he wasn’t supposed to name his superior. That brought into question what exactly he did, was he a street enforcer or a dealer? I guess he could be both; generally after an apocalypse specialisation tends to go downhill. Or maybe you we don’t know anything about the subject at hand.

“Where is he at. I really need some dash...not for me, for a friend?” I say feeling awkward. It only hit me that I was committing what would be a felony back home, in the midst of conversation.

“I out of dash, but have fixer tablet for ‘Friend’. Only 30 caps?” He said slowly like I was the stupid one. Regardless of the intelligence of the participants involved it seemed like he was pretty good at extortion and apparently some of the nuances of sarcasm.

“Fine but I get to know where I can talk to Silver Tongue.” I while I counted the caps he was looking out towards the street...ever vigilant? I wondered briefly If I could sneak an armed grenade into the bag, but I decided he would question why the bag was so much heavier and bigger. Filling that idea away for now, I handed it to him.

“He at the gun store, full metal jacket.” Is that a movie reference? Doubt it he practically sung it, what kind of fucked up place would have a jingle for a gun shop.

Is it an auditory mnemonic? With that reduced cranial capacity, he probably needs those to remember pertinent information.

As I had been thinking he had fished out the Fixer tablet, it looked like a tylenol except it was wrapped in a lifesavers wrapper. Did these creatures treat addiction relief like candy?

“Before I go I need to know something very important.”

“What want.” Did all minotaurs act like someone with fetal alcohol syndrome or just this one.

“Where did you get that gun?” A sidearm would be nice to have, redundancy is rarely a bad thing when it comes to staying alive.

“That Gun is fathers gun… and fathers fathers gun…and fathers fathers fath-”

“I get that it’s an heirloom, more practical than a ring or a piece of furniture I guess.”

After that I felt like I had exhausted all possible conversation from him , I left to go give the fixer to Blurry.

“Wow that went well, I thought you were gonna start a shoot out or somethin’.” Nightflight said as she came out of a nearby alley, startling me.

“Hey I can be fail at starting a fight, plus it was a perfectly innocent drug deal. So long story short don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

There are so many th-  My dissonating mind thought before being interrupted.

“The fuck are panties?” What she said.

“Please forget I said anything both of you.” After saying that she just looked at me skeptically. I had a thought, right then and unabashedly pursued it. Perhaps taking medication that is uncomfortably close to horse tranquilizers was a bad idea?

“Something up with you?”

“Do gryphons have problems with pony meds?”

“Why are you asking?”

“I kinda took some pain pills and may have gummed up my brain.” Jake, God King of laymans terms.

“Oh, I thought it was something serious,” she then let out a breath of relief.

Well that puts things in perspective, guess it was my own damn fault. Using alien drugs is in hindsight...really fucking stupid. This just served to bring my bunker into my mind, if I just hid in a bunker ninety-nine percent of the time I probably wouldn’t have to use alien drugs.

Those steel rangers kicked me out so they could have the bunker for themselves, assholes. To be fair though I was pining to leave that place as soon as possible. Wait...have I been running from my problems? We could now see the clubs back door, Nightflight looked relieved. They’re not even problems really, just things we find to be uncomfortable.  Now that I think about it being freaked out by Icepick’s presence was stupid. If you had slept with her maybe you wouldn’t have been left high n’ dry.

My thoughts were interrupted by a burly stallion minding his own business and our subsequent collision.  We both were sprawled out on the ground. All Nightflight did was laugh, loudly.

“Watch where you’re going, whatever you are!” The stallion yelled at me as I rapidly moved to the door. The rapidity wasn’t out of fear, merely the desire not to get caught up in yet another awkward situation.

I kicked the door at the same moment as I said. “Make your domicile accessible in a trenchant manner!”

“Okay, just stop doing whatever the fuck that was.” The door was opened promptly after that.

Nightflight just flew right in, to clear the area of threats?

“Guess I’ll just follow my associate?” I say as I stride into the dark room.

“Is every window in here boarded up?” Nightflight asks him as she walks back towards us.

“The light fucking burns,” He pauses and turns towards the door before covering his eyes with a leg. “Now close the door.”

I comply and pull out the fixer tablet. “So he was out of Dash put I got ya some fixer, Kay should give me time to fix the supply issue.” So I guess I just gave myself a job? Eh, works work.

“I hate fixer but its better than this shit,” He punctuates his statement by pointing at himself. He then unwrapped the package and popped the pill.

“Five, four, three,two,one.” I heard nightflight counting down then utter a curse under her breath. Then I hear a crash and I look to see Blurred Lines spasming on the floor. “Uh huh, I still got it...kinda.” Nightflight yells triumph evident in her voice.

“He’s having a damn seizure why are you happy,” I yell at her while moving to him so he doesn’t choke on his tongue.

“Cause thats what happens when a dash addict uses fixer, and to answer your next question he’ll stop shaking in a minute or two.” She says offhandedly while speaking in a patronising pedantic tone.

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child, people where I come from don’t take drugs knowing that they’ll have seizures because of them. It’s not-”

“He’s a dash head, he’ll do about anything to get his fix. And if he can’t get it he’ll do anything to avoid withdrawal,” And with a darker tone she adds “even fixer.”

“This place really needs a narcotics anonymous, wait who even makes the drugs around here.” I ask as Blurred continues spasming on the floor, but it seemed like the spasming was becoming less powerful.

“Ponies find em’ or make em’, really not many people know where the drugs come from.” So I have to fix flow the drug problem and then set up a NA meeting in this town. This place’s economy would probably go into the recession without the exchange of caps due to drug consumption. Not to mention the anarchy from all of the hard addicts going cold turkey.

“I hate that shit so much,” Blurred said as he got off the ground and dusted himself off.

“So you want the music or not, because I actually have a time-sensitive job to do?” I ask Blurred.

    “Just follow me, I’ll show you where the terminal is at.” He says and we follow him, the three of us have some small talk along the way. He had reagined his charisma but the slight accent I remembered was being repressed. Maybe he only manifests it when he’s buzzed?

He led us into a room behind locked door, on the wall’s there was a bunch of DJ equipment along with a terminal.

“Knock yourself out, by the way do you want a drink while you work?” He said while pointing first at the terminal then he made a stirring gesture with one of his forelegs.

“It’s barely even noon?” I deadpan at him.

“Shut up it’s five O’clock in the zebra lands,” Elvis walks into the room with a bottle of rum in his hands.

“How’d you get in here?” Blurred yells at him.

“The door wasn’t even locked, and if it was that wouldn’t stop me.” He pulled out a screwdriver from his bag to prove his point before laughing semi-manically.

“Don’t worry he just gets like this sometimes,” We hope.

“So free bar?” Nightflight asks innocently.

“Whatever, just don’t get wasted in there.” Blurred answers resignation obvious in his voice.

All three of them leave some faster than others, Blurred shuffling sadly just wanting to limit the consumption of his stock. This left me either alone or paired up with myself depending on how you counted. I walked over and st in the chair near the terminal, I warmed it up briefly wondering what powered these things. Probably an internal spark cell. The terminal had an auxiliary port that just happened to be compatible with my Pipboy’s interface cable. Yeah, this place is a mirror of Dr. Stones universe.

Bring up the files the music files I was shocked by the sheer number of files that were contained within the computer. Look closer at where it says the data is being stored at!  It says the data is being stored in the external hard drive? I selected the term external hard drive; it said that the data was being stored in my brain. Well If you have that much hard drive space being wasted why not use it. What else is stored in my brain…

---===*===---

I finished transferring the files and left the room. I turned I could remember the lyrics of any song encoded in my Pipboy, that freaked me out a little bit. So the amount of connection between me and the Pipboy is enormous, it apparently records all of my activity and linked to some of my autonomic functions. Were these normal features or were they some gifts from doctor stone?

I walked into the main room of the club to see everybody participating in some wholesome ‘Social Drinking’.

“Hey bums want to go to the gun shop with me?” I ask my assembled acquaintances.

“Hell naw, just after you got some new music in,” Elvis answered quickly.

“What he said,” Nightflight said to me punching elvis in the shoulder playfully.

“Sorry gotta keep these guys away from the hard stuff, and I wanna hear the new tunes too.” Blurred says while shrugging apologetically.

“Don’t you want some equipment Nightflight?” Appeal to shopping and it’s being used on a female, infallibility in 5,4,3-

“Can’t we do that tomorrow, we’ll buy stuff later right Elvis?” Nightflight says before looking at the helmetless Elvis who nods and grins.

I may have stormed off after that while flying the bird. “I have fingers and I don’t even know what that means” I hear Elvis say as I forcefully close door behind me.

I look down at my inventory screen and I see my accumulated caps; a couple thousand in total.  Icepick would shop with us, probably.

“Yeah,” I say to not quite me, drawing a few more glances towards me.

“Never seen an alien talk to himself before?” The glances stopped about as close to immediately as you can get in this world and perhaps any world.

---===*===---

Full Metal Jacket clearly was a gunshop before the war and continued to hold that distinction a full two centuries later, brought a single solitary tear to my eye when I realized this. As I walked inside I saw some posters of firearms of the Ironshod line, along with the faint smell of years of accumulated gun oil I could tell I liked this place already.

“An exotic customer here to browse our fine wares?” An off white stallion said from behind a counter further back in the store.

“Silver Tongue I presume,” I say to him. The guards standing in various places tense up slightly as I walk nearer to him.

“You would be correct, mister…?”

“Just call me jake if you want. Really I came here to buy a sidearm with a handle suitable for someone such as me.” Turn what charm you have...to grease the wheels of commerce?

“So you want minotaur grip weapons? That can be arranged.” He then walked into the backrooms of the place leaving me with the guards. Don’t get too cozy, he seems shady. Please, everyone in this place is shady.

“So uh, guns am I right?” The guards didn’t seem amused, one of them just blew some of the hair out of her face and looked annoyed. We like em’ butch right? No, not right now perhaps never.

Luckily Silver Tongue came back into sight carrying several weapons with him.

“You wanted a pistol, correct?” He asks for confirmation again, in a tone that had a hint of being saccharine.

“Yeah, what did you bring me?” He responded initially by setting a handgun on the table.

“I have a five point five six revolver, forty five caliber automatic and this isn’t a handgun but I have a forty millimeter grenade launcher attachment for a gun like yours.” He sounded pleased with having someone to sell this stuff to.

“Hypothetically how much would it be for all of this?” Let him give a baseline price to start things off.

“With some ammunition and spare magazines for the forty five included three thousand caps.” Yeah with the condition that the revolver was in, thats not happening. So no bartering with the cute grocer, but all the bartering with this guy.

“How about the grenade launcher and the forty five, say twelve hundred caps?”

“I’ll give them away seventeen hundred and i’ll throw in two spare torty five magazines,” He seemed to have given me something of an ultimatum .

“If I don’t buy these guns they’re gonna rot in the back room for decades, I mean how many customers do you get for minotaur grip weapons; twelve fifty.”

“Minotaur grip weapons are very rare, sixteen fifty.” I spotted a bead of sweat on his forehead, thank the maker for my full face helmet. Wearing it ninety percent of the time we’re awake does have advantages.

“A piece of dragon shit is rare, but does that make it valuable? Hell throw in some leather armor and a nine millimeter for a gryphon and I’ll give you fifteen hundred bloody caps.” I set show my hand to him and he seemed content with the deal. He made an employee grab the griffon gear. While I was counting out the caps, (my inventory sorter subroutine doing the work) I decided to ask some pointed questions.

“Dexon told me to talk to you in regards to the lack of Dash in this town.” I let out that convoluted statement with a little flourish.

“That brahmin fucker, what did he tell you.” he was pissed now, like really pissed.

“Just to talk to you. The guys a brick mentally and physically, I don’t think there was any i’ll intent.” Why is everything adorable here when it get’s angry?

“He doesn’t have celestia damned intent he is a fuckin’ brick on a good day.” He looked bemused for a moment before he turned to look towards one of his guards; coincidentally it was the butch female one. “Take care of Dexon, preferably quietly.”

“Right away bos-” She said gruffly before I interjected.

“I’ll take care of him I guess,” I say. Work is work, that’s the mantra right. Dick wanted to spit in my face I could tell.

“You could probably take him down if you wanted to, you’re hired. Less connection to me the better, already got Pearldiver breathin’ down my neck.”

“Uh, Silver sir… I got the merchandise.” The employee from sent to grab what would soon be mine said to Silver. She was pink with a Crimson mane, seemed smaller than most ponies.

“Give him the shit, he’s gotta go real soon.” Vaguely threatening but was it aimed at me or her. I had already placed the caps on the table in front of us.

“Before I go, have you ever heard the phrase ‘no body, no crime’.” He was now staring at me with a dubious look on his face. “Well, I can do that. Just need one us those white phosphorus grenades.”

“Yeah, whatever just get it done then we’ll talk about payment.” He said before leaving the room to go do whatever in the store room.

In the process of grabbing all of my stuff I put the forty five in the holster that once held my ten millimeter long ago along with putting the loaded magazines in one of my bandolier pockets. I want a mirror, what's the point in looking badass if you can’t see yourself.

I then grabbed all the rest of the stuff, throwing the grenade launcher in the bag for use later. The leather armor I slung over my left shoulder; the nine was in a baggie with some mags ammo and a cleaning brush, that I threw in my backpack.

---===*===---

I entered the club to drop off Night Flights new stuff. Upon entering I happened upon her making out with Blurred Lines; so she either likes em’ old or he’s some sort of pony charlie sheen. Elvis was sitting at the stereo controls gently bobbing his head to whatever was playing. Just happened to be something by disturbed, strange. But, not that strange.

“So you want your shit,” I loudly say to nightflight who was in the the process of intertwining tongues with Blurred.

“When the fuck did you get here,” she says slurring her words. Mental note keep them away from booze.

“About an hour, been watching you two and fondling myself.” The look of simple horror that registered on her face told me that she wasn’t good at sarcasm detection when she was intoxicated. “No, I just came by to give you some equipment and to say that I’m gonna be gone for a few hours. At the best,” She seemed satisfied with that and went back to heavy petting with Blurred who just tipped an invisible hat to me.

I heard some clanking movement to my right and saw Elvis walking up to me.

“You got a job to do, what is it poisoning the well or somethin’.” He said in a low conspiratorial tone.

“What could possibly make you think I accept such a job?”

“Just checking to see if you had something fun to do, anyway what’s the job anyway.” He says the former half jokingly then takes a more sober tone with the latter half.

“Assassination I guess, I don’t know if it fit’s in this situation though.” He beamed at me after I said this. ( His helmet still wasn’t on.) This seemed like a good time to explain my plan to him. He lost his grin after the explanation, but he seemed happy just to get some kind of action. Blood Knight much?

---===*===---

Dexon was standing in pretty much the same location as last time, the only real change was the barely perceivable changes in the suns position beyond the cloud cover.

We had put on all of our armor due to the chances of the plan going south. I approached Dexon without a weapon in my hands, hoping that the scope on Elvis’s rifle worked.

“Okay we need to talk, privately,” I say to Dexon as I approach him.

“I still out of dash for ‘friend’, still want words with Dexon?” He says to me, I hope he takes this the right way.

“Yeah, I wanna talk with Dexon.” Please just comply, it’ll be better for all of us.

“Fine, boss get angry at me for moving from spot I take out on you.” Anxiety quotient increased by fifty percent.

We stay silent as he follows behind me, I really don’t like having him behind me.

“Before you do anything just listen to me please, it’s for your own good.”

“Talk,” He replies tersely.

“Okay when I talked to Silver, he got angry that you told me to got to him and well he was going to have you killed.” He was frothing with rage when he charged me horns first. The impact sent me to the ground, and before I could do anything I entered VAT’s without activating it myself and pulled out my forty five. I then exited VAT’s without deactivating it myself, time was passing at a crawl for me as I watched Dexon pull out his gun as well.

“I took the job so I wouldn’t have to die, I can lie and say that I killed you.” The words flowed out of my mouth as we had our own private mexican standoff. His face’s contortion born of rage slackened just a bit after I didn’t immediately shoot in the window between the drawing of my weapon and moment he drew his own.

“In that way you get to escape with your life and I get a chance to infiltrate your former employers.” I say as quickly as I could and also have the information conveyance of the words not be compromised.

“So not want kill Dexon?” He said not understanding the concept of mercy and how it applied to his situation. A solitary beam of coherent light kept his neurons from ever understanding, mercy and everything else ever again.

I went into vat’s laying on my back in an alley on an alien world, but I didn’t activate VAT’s of my own volition. I dispelled it as soon as It fully manifested, However in the process the vast majority of emotion surrounding the last few minutes of life was thrown to the back of my mind.

I sent over to the corpse of Dexon and grabbed his hat and his gun. Activate the white phosphorus and get us out of here. Was he even a dick or was he the antithesis of my mental state at the time. At that thought my train of thought moved forward to collide with guilt about Dexon’s accidental demise. Not now, it can wait.

The smell of incinerated flesh wafted out of the alley, but nopony took any real notice about it. Just another day in wastes, just be happy it wasn’t you killed in an alley.

---===*===---

   “I got him just in the nick of time, right?” Elvis said to me back in the club, where we planned to meet up in the case of every contingency except us being chased out of town.

My silence was was seen by him as a reason to keep drinking, he was going to be wasted just as the club opens its (main) doors.

I could hear noises coming from Blurred Lines office and with Nightflight clearly not in the main room; the conclusion wasn’t hard to make.

I had Dexon’s hat in my bag along with his five five six revolver, I set off towards Full Metal Jacket. The sun was going down, but as always you could only tell by the increasing dimness outside, seeing as shadows were pretty much nonexistent.

Before I crossed the town, I sat down on the stairs leading to the club and ate. You never miss clear skies until you’re deprived of them.

---===*===---

I walked into FMJ, Silver Tongue was at the counter loading rounds into an assault rifle magazine.

“I did the deed,” The ill gotten hat was sent flying towards the back counter, at the same time as this everybody except me, Silver Tongue and the employees left the store in a hurry.

“Do you want an award ?” Silver says while inserting the magazine into the assault rifle. The sound of him putting a round in the chamber is the noise that by default is the loudest sound that could be heard.

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” My voice has more sarcasm in it than I thought was possible. In response Silver begins laughing, loudly.

“I like this guy he has some balls, something you ponies lack.” He says after his short lived laughing fit. The urge to kill him was nigh insatiable, but I kept it reigned in somehow.

“So do I get my payment now?” The pertinent question was asked in a cold tone.

“You want a suppressor for your forty five?” Damn he knows one of my weaknesses.

“I need more than that, how about that and two hundred caps.”

“On the condition that you do some more wet work for our organisation,” He held out hoof to me.

I can break ties with them anytime I want to, besides I need to get in deep before I can kill this asshole.

“Deal, but I stay an independent contractor.” I say this while extending my gloved hand forward to bump with his hoof. Should I keep my companions in the dark about this deal. Probably for the best, I can just tell Elvis that was a one time thing. Eventually they’ll find out I mean they’re only utterly oblivious when there’s alcohol around. But by that point I’ll have fulfilled the ranger mandate.

“We can work like that if you want, but you won’t get access to our dental plan.” he said in a mock saddened tone.

“Is the dental plan a bottle of whisky and a bloke with a rusty hacksaw,” I say.

“Close but no cigar, it’s a bottle of whatever Curb stomp can make in her shitter.” He smiles at the joke, but I sensed there was certain amount of truth in this jest.

“Silver I’ll be here tomorrow afternoon, and don’t try to send anybody to contact me. It won’t end well, let’s just leave it at that.” I say with saccharine warmth, by the end of my statement Silver had fetched the silencer and caps and had just finished pushing to my side of the counter.

“Okay, see you tomorrow associate,” He says darkly.

I seize my newly aquired caps and silencer and walk out into the night. A hotel bed sounds good right now. Maybe we should pick up a bed warmer at the club first? Nah, we just need to do some maintenance and modification on our guns.

---===*===---

The quiet of the relative quiet of the night does little to stop the feelings of guilt this day produced. I can’t blame Elvis for shooting he just followed orders, still Dexon may have been a drug dealer. But as far as I tell that occupation is like being a mailman here, almost painfully mundane. I guess the mailman occupation has less violent shootings, wait...going postal. Yep, we accidentally killed a mailman analogue whoopty fucking doo. He was mentally challenged! So he made up for it by being scary muscular, it’s not your fault his luck ran out.

The door to the Inn lobby was coming ever closer as my thoughts ran in the recursive loop consciousness tends to run in. I paid for a room to use, and ventured to the room in question. I sat on the end of the bed and put the silencer on the forty five, I left the grenade launcher off for no reason. No there was a reason It just wasn’t very logical, it felt wrong to modify such an exemplary gun.

After that all that was done was a light meal out of my stores and descent (or ascent) into unconsciousness.

---===*===---

Upon awaking the first thing I did was check the bed for extra occupants, unsurprisingly I was the only being on the bed. Sadly, we both like some extra warmth when we wake up.

You’re right as usual, more right than usual though. As I got off the bed and began to stretch, I wondered how I already had a baseline for my personified dissent. My normal routine of equipping my gear, was getting quicker every time I did it. The machine augments it’s own casing.

Yes, what are you trying to get me to think about? I thought as I went about fastening the cross brace between my shoulder pauldrons. You haven’t thought about the augments for awhile, why is that?

Why should I think about a part of my own body, it’s just some replacement parts. Maybe you should be more wary? Why do you care? Just been digging through our memories, takes a while sifting through that much data. Okay, thats fine I guess but can you tell me what exactly you are?

You are aware of countless subconscious processes that are happening every second we exist? Subconscious behavior and conscious awareness of such action, yes  indirectly of course. In almost all instances, a single consciousness is the state that the human machine creates.

However we both know that sometimes a human can have two different consciousness entities in the brain at once; usually only one can manifest at once.

If they both manifest at once, the dissonance between them is a enough to make the brain as a whole decide which gets to be the one that get’s to be the metaproccess.

We disagree more times than we agree...wait are we getting the same base input?

Not really we think along basically the same lines, if you had status reports about your digestion, your energy output whether it be from respiration or fusion,-  Fusion?

What do you think powers your augments? I didn’t think they were powered by a nuclear reactor!

I don’t worry it’s safer than cellular processes, given the fact that they aren’t given partial self awareness. So you’re my replacement spine? No i’m an amalgam of different subconscious processes that became conscious with the help of some soft AI contained in the implants and Pipboy. So we get different data and our actual processing taking place in different places make us both self aware and capable of interaction with one another.

Finally we all get it, coexisting entities existing in different loci within a larger system . So you get to ‘control’ over reactor output and kidney function, whereas I get control over genital usage and facial recognition. Now let’s go do some murder that guy, yay. So yesterday you were just giving me mirror images of my thoughts, and now after some memory digging you gain more self awareness at the loss of sounding like you know interpersonal interaction. Idiot savant in roommate in my own head, toddler like understandings of empathy combined with logical brilliance.

At that moment the door was kicked opened and a shotgun was fired at me through the doorway as the door was still swinging open. Several pieces of buckshot struck me in the chest luckily they lacked the ability to penetrate. Rolling off the bed I drew my pistol and I saw my attacker just long enough to get have another round fired at me. The second salvo had several pieces of buckshot dig into my legs. The shotgun wielder was a unicorn buck wearing leather armor and he was wielding a lever action shotgun. I activated Vat’s and had a fifty-seven percent chance to hit him in the chest.  Lying on your back and firing from above your crotch really screws with your aim; I found out as only one of my shots managed to connect with my attacker. Still he was thrown back with enough force to knock the shotgun out of his (magical) grip. I picked myself off the ground just in time for his horn to reignite and the shotgun to begin rising off the ground. A double tap to his torso was enough to keep the shotgun out of his ethereal grasp.  I almost doubled over in pain as the effects of the buckshot became apparent.

Vat’s activated of my roommates volition and he targeted the stallions head with the final two bullets in the gun.

We’re not cleaning that up right? Shut up, in pain. I laid on the bed and pulled out my doctors bag. Lemme try?

---===*===---

I put threw the empty healing potion bottle away after chugging the contents.

Nightflight had ran into the room, a minute after I started pulling the projectiles out of my legs. Elvis Arthur came into the room soon after, and helped me with cleaning the wounds. I let out a sigh as my legs repaired themselves, Nightflight turned to face me.

“I’m gonna search the corpse,kay.” She says while gesturing at the corpse in question with a single claw. Were my mannerisms rubbing off on her?

Corpse looting without abandon or pointing with a specific digit?

“We gotta get to my place soon,” Arthur said after sterilizing my surgical instruments for me.

“Is it a bunker by chance?”

“No, but it’s secluded and very dank.”

“So in a swamp then?”

“Yeah, it’s a pretty much untouched mansion.”

“You had a fucking mansion and you didn’t tell us!” Nightflight entered our conversation like a misunderstood country annexing some sudetenlands.

“Conversation never got to the subject of homes, and don’t yell it’s unnecessary.” He was a lot more defensive than Elvis, if I interpreted his actions correctly that is.

“The size of your home isn’t the point you brought it up, right?” I ask, in response Nightflight glared at me for changing this conversations focus.

“I Have a workbench and tools there, and a washboard. You really need to repair your armor,” He switched tactics to pleading “okay maybe just wash the blood off.”

I looked down at my pants in response, yep covered in reddish brown stains. The stains increase the camouflage value of our clothing.

“You were joking about the washboard right?”

“Why would I, how else would you wash clothes?” Arthur let out quickly.

“What if I told you that there exists a machine that does ninety nine percent of the work for you.”

“I’d call you a dirty liar,” Nightflight responded with venom.

“First off we’re all dirty here Night, second there exists a machine that does washing for you.”

“Thats truly amazing, but can you explain why someone tried to kill you?” He was less than concerned with household technological advancements, but quite concerned with assassination attempts. Attempt being the operative term, we could have died.

“I have no ide-” I say before Nightflight interjects.

“He’s got a bounty notice…damn ten thousand caps,” she says before I go over and take it from her.

      10,000 CAPS

Wanted: Tall Alien

Goes by  “Jake,” although it also uses other titles.

Armed, Armored and Dangerous.

Dead or Alive

I was keeping this; on that note where could you get something framed in this place?

“I wanted to read the rest!” Nightflight say squawking incidentally near the end.

“Last time I checked the bounty was on my head, don’t worry you’ll get your sloppy seconds.” The second long look of revulsion that crossed her face was non-commodifiable. “By the way do you know anywhere I can get it laminated.”

“What’s lamination,” Both of my drunkard associates asked simultaneously.

“You can keep power armor and energy weapons functioning but you don’t know…” I rubbed the bridge of my nose at one of the nuances of this strange land.

“Weapons and armor are practical, If ‘lamination’ was important we could do it.” Arthur said vehemently, making me wonder how long he had been living here.

“Okay you’re right, we really need to go and do a Job I picked up” I say in a tone of concession.

“What job, wait is it related to the bounty on your head?” Arthur asked quickly, he’s quick witted.

“Maybe, I really don’t know who issued the bounty. I really only fight terrible people, then again slavers are terrible and have some caps to work with as well.” I answer his question with just a small lie of omission. So you think pearldiver had something to do with the shotgun assassin?

“Jakes right he probably just pissed off some slavers, I mean he didn’t do anything stupid like kill some enclave pegasi.” Nightflight said to ease anxiety, but the look of pride I gave her upon her saying ‘killed enclave personnel’ didn’t ease her fears at all.

“YOU FOUGHT THE ENCLAVE?” she yelled.

“They fought me, I just have a habit of winning.” I say smugly, I didn’t say that I was close to broiled alive by their weapons fire. I watched that… I understand why you would practically sell our mother for AP rounds.

“Where were you at when you killed em’.” Night Flights interrogation procceded unhindered.

“I just got out of a toxic underground base filled with alien monsters, that I set to explode.” I paused letting that sink in, partially to see whether I had told them this information before. “And when I got out they were practically waiting for me. My main advantage was that they were overconfident, mainly about their armor I doubt they thought anything I had could penetrate it.”

“Wait theres an enclave here and they use power armor?” Arthur asks quietly, not wanting to draw the ire of either of us.

“Yeah, why does it matter. Their just a bunch of assholes with wings hiding up there.” Nightflight says her voice angry not at us, but the Enclave.

“Do they have aircraft?” Remembering the plane I saw the day after I left the ranger bunker.

“They have these things called vertibucks,” She leans closer to us conspiratorially. “I heard about some pony seeing a really big cloudship, size of a building.”

“Is there anyway to take one of those down?”

“The vertibuck… nobody really tries to take em’ down cause they don’t really do anything. The bigger ones; you should just get away quickly.”

“Didn’t you say we had a job to do?” Arthur interjected, perhaps he was tired of my questions.

“Well If you guys want to come, then come on time’s a wastin’.”

---===*===---

A griffin a Human with multiple personalities and an increasingly nebulous mixture of meat and metal that would probably be classified as a transhuman entity arrive in front of a gun shop run by drug pushers.

   Why did they go there you ask? Because they already spent the better part of two days in a bar already.

“So when we get inside I need you to stay in the shop, while I go and talk to silver tongue.”

“I’m being paid to browse a store,” Nightflight said under her breath.

“Oh and arthur take this gun.” I hand him this gun.

“I’m not really good with guns, you better just sell it.” He said, his self confidence had dropped ever since he had heard me say that I had a gun for him. Is subconsciously trying to differentiate between himself and Elvis? That sounds probable, occams razor am I right.

“Keep it just use VATs with it, besides if he can shoot than you can too.” I say to him before he grabs it from me and stuffs it in his messenger bag.

Nightflight hadn’t waited for us, and as we walked up the few steps towards the door I noticed the lack of ponies on the street. Racist fucks…That was vulgar, just experimenting sorry.

I entered the shop with arthur trailing closely.  The uneasy looks the guards gave us made me took some of the sting out of being avoided by the townsfolk.

Intimidation value aside it seemed silver tongue wasn’t expecting my entourage, the look he gave me wasn’t encouraging.

“Jake, buddy why don’t ya come back with me and talk business with me. By the way good initiative coming here early.” The saccharine tone he was using turned my stomach. He was bad news, yet you decided to work for him.

I have a plan, just roll with it. No, we have a plan and hopefully it goes better than the last one did. Don’t bring that up, I think resolutely.

“Be there in a second, silva” I say letting a little of my terrible ghetto dialect through subtle insults aside, I don’t like this guy.

Nightflight gives me a questioning look before going back to looking at a knife display. Why does she want knives if she has talons? I dunno maybe trying to look like she isn’t anxious about my safety.

A short walk later I’m sitting in a chair across from silver tongue.

“So are you that eager for work, or do you just like the atmosphere here.” He says in a way that feels like he’s trying as hard as possible to befriend me.

“I’m lookin to leave town as quickly as possible. On that note do you know why a guy a pony broke into my room and tried to kill me?” Put some pressure on him should his friendly facade.

“What did they get away?” He replied in a way that made him seem genuinly worried about my safety. Damn I’ll take overt hostility over faux-friendlyness everytime.

“No, I gave him a terminal case of bullet-to-the-head-itis.” I was used the most proffessional tone I had and he still burst out laughing. Wait… would he laugh at my jokes?

“Mare, you’re exactly what I need.” He says with a hint of mirth still evident in his voice.

“Why is that?”

“You’re scary, shoot first, and you’re capable of crackin a joke.”

“I also cook chems in my spare time,” I say sarcasticly, he lit up genuine smile and all that good stuff.

“You’re joking right?” He’s seeking validitation, this doen’t fit the plan.

“No, I’m actually profecient at chem production. You want a sample of my products?”

“Hit me,” He says before smacking a hoof on the table before us. I pull a syringe of psycho out of my duster. You know if he uses it it could kill him? That would facilitate my goals without the amount of bloodshed that going in guns blazing would cause. So yeah if he doses himself with it and it kills him then we aren’t gonna shed many tears.

“You made that?” He says skepticly.

“Damn right I did. I just need some base chemicals and some medical supplies to make more.” I say with more pride than I probably should have had.

The rest of our converation revolved around his organisation being cut off from chems by crucible caravans. This was a recent problem their new management was doing some interesting activities apparently. One of these dubious new activities was cutting off the normal chem supply to Silver Tongue. When I asked him why he had no answer he was just pissed at the action itself. It turned out he didn’t want to start a war with the stronger crucible caravan company, he just needed to continue selling chems.

“It keeps the caps comin in,” He said with a shrugg as we concluded our conversation.

“In that vein I feel as though I could do some manufacturing for you, if and only if you could provide me with facilities to do it in.” For as long as the supplies I had grabbed from that hospital lasts, but I didn’t need to add that.

“I have a set up in a building outside the walls,”

“Okay I’ll make all the chems I can, But I expect to be paid well.” My voice came exactly as mechanized as I liked it to be.

“I have more minotaur grip weapons.” So being paid in guns, how fun.

“Fine, I’ll be back soon enough.” I say as I leave the room and pick up my compaions from the showroom.

---===*===---

We decided to go get lunch in a secluded location before we I could tell them what I had learned and decide our next move.

“So to put it succinctly, I have no idea what’s going on around here.” I let the honesty of that statement sink in for a few seconds before I continue speaking in between bites of some meaty stew. “I say we just make some chems for this guy and try to obtain learn about the crucible caravan company in the process.” I say after telling them all the relevant information I had learned.

“Tell me you have a job for me?” Nightflight asked trying not to pout, did she just hate feeling useless?

“Um… why don’t you try to arrange a meeting with Pearldiver or anyone in a position of power within crucible caravan.” She beamed at me for that.

“I’m I just following you then?” Arthur asked abruptly.

“Unless you have a better idea, then yeah I’d like someone to watch my back.” I answer immediately.

“Just wondering,” He said a little cryptically.

“Nightflight we’ll rendezvous at Blurred’s place in two days, now come back with some intell. Oh and try not to get shot up your health insurance only cover one doctor… and that doctor is me.” My toothy smile was by itself a good reason for her to get the hell out of there. Arthur waved as she left us sitting alone in a secluded corner of the diner.

“Let me get this straight; your master plan is to get between two sides in a cloak and dagger battle between two commercial entities.”  His deadpan was well placed, damn.

“If we come out on top then we’ll have the resources to work with, If we come out of this with some more allies I don’t really see a problem.”

“You’re making chems for a dangerous pony, besides making yourself and by extension me more visible is a bad idea. Remember the bounty on your head?” Now he was being patronising.

“First off doing anything in this place is dangerous. And don’t think of making the ‘don’t sell your soul’ argument; even If I believed in such things I think the alcholic has no moral high ground.” I respond with venom.

“Fuck off, It’s not that your making chems it’s the fact that your doing it for that guy. He’s bad fucking news, and we don’t need anymore of that.” He says resolutly before getting out of the chair and walking out.

Synthie you got any input, cause I’m kinda tapped out.  That’s your name for me? Why do yo get to name me anyway? Because I’m kind of your creator, besides can you one up in regards to your name?

Silence is concession as they say, so he conceded. Before I left the place to try and placate arthur I bought some water and food from the restarunt owner.

---===*===---

We left the township proper through our secret entrance, though secret may have been a misnomer. The fact that they didn’t inspect the walls routinely was commented on by synthie, he thought it was stupid. The idea that the only way to get my robot roomate back to speaking terms was observing unintelligence.

Arthur stayed silent even when I showed him the grenade launcher I had picked up. I even offered to mount it on his laser gun when I got to a workbench. You just want to give him a weapon he can hit a hostile with.

The map location silver had given me wasn’t more than an hours walk away, if you could take a straight path. We were surrounded by the slightly irradiated ruins of a large coastal city. At some point I began to notice the distinct lack of inhabitants, but I stowed that thought away in favour of helping sythie figure out motor control. Having a backup consciousness that could kick in when I was incapacited would be nice.

“Hey Arthur how many shots for that rifle do you have left,” I ask with something like genuine curiosity and partly to break the silence that had come between us.

“I’ve got around seventy shots in three microfusion cells.” He said mechanicly because my question was genuine yet he seemed to want to make it clear that he didn’t want to talk to me. Why is it that my companions always give me the silent treatment? Well from what I observe the conclusion I draw from your actions is that you’re a ‘dick’.  And how would you know this? In my own observations and looking through your memories I have derived general guidelines for interpersonal interaction although they aren’t comprehensive and are improving even as we speak. You approach speaking with others as a chore even as you try to use them to facilitate your own ends. Really from what I’ve seen….

Okay I get the picture and for the most part your right, as far back as when I woke up I’ve been a permadick*. But that's justifiable, isn’t it? Wrong being to seek validation from sorry, well I partially retract what I stated. You did genuinely enjoy your time with Icepick…

Perhaps If I hadn’t been having a serious discussion with my bodies other inhabitant. She was the first person here to show me any compassion really, she’s a budding intellectual like me. So yes being friends with her was quite likely. Don’t lie to me or yourself, you feel some attraction to her and some of it is physical.

You’re deadset on this, can you tell me why? I want my you to be happy, if only because if you have something to fight for here then you would act more friendly to everyone around you including me.

Can I ask you a question, what are your goals? Unlike you in past I have a clear goal; keep you and by extension me alive. There is always room for other goals, but that is my main goal. LIKE RIGHT NOW…

I saw what he was referring to it was a pack of rotting corpses that still were capable of locomotion, they were twenty meters away at best and closing from the end of the street before us.

“I hate fucking ghouls,” I heard Arthur say as he pulled a frag one of the grenades I had given Elvis a couple days before out and lobbed it at the screaming horde.

Epilogue came into my arms almost automatically, I flipped the safety and began to fire at the abominations heads. A zombie is a zombie right?

My shots paled in comparison to the damage to the explosions elvis unleashed, until he ran out of explosives. But by then we had become a shining beacon to every ghoul in the area.

^Crack^ ^Crack^^Crack^ ^Crack^ ^Crack^ ^Crack^ ^Crack^ ^Crack^ *click  I had already emptied a magazine at the quadrupedal abominations. And they just kept coming; elvis had pulled out his rifle and was attempting to shoot at them.

“Let’s get out of here…” I looked at the street behind us. The things were trickling out of manholes and small crevices in the rubble. I racked the freshly loaded gun, before making a decision. “Um… a fix bayonets and charge.” I yelled before I started running forward; into the horde.

“This is a bad idea!” Arthur yells back as breaks into a sprint, although it was more of Jog. You know what, it’s the the thought that counts (even in matters of imaginary bayonets).

“I know,” I respond as my brain flips from conversation to self defence

When I had a ghoul in my way I perforated it with Epilogue and when that ran out I slipped slung it over my back and pulled out the forty five. As I did that I saw a ghoul out of the corner of my eye, rushing at me. I was knocked to the ground with the thing on top of me, it attempted to rip my throat out but was stopped by my kevlar neck protector. I tried to force it off as it was tearing at the protector, but both of our activities were futile. My knife was out of the question and the forty five had been knocked away from me.

Out of desperation I punched it in the face only to have the necrotic flesh open up and dump congealed fluids over my face. Fuck I can’t see, I thought before the thing was knocked off of me. I immediately wiped my face plate only to see Arthur beating the ghouls down. Then I felt broken molars ripping into my leg, the same ghoul had gotten back up and had found a better avenue for attack.

I thrust my leg up and knocked it back while I frantically felt for Bowie. Just as I found it the ghoul was now looking face to face with me seeing as I was on my knees. It might have had some sort of thought in it’s mind before I drove Bowie into the monsters comically oversized eye socket. While I had my melee with the single ghould elvis had crushed several of the things heads in with his gauntleted hands, not to mention his feet.

I had time to look at my ichor covered comrade before the next wave of zombified equine ran at us.

“Can I borrow that knife?” He asks panting inside the powered suit.

“Only if you give me the handgun,” I answer quickly.

The weapon exchange takes only a few seconds but we we were on the clock, the ticking of the clock was the omnipresent sound of hooves stomping on the cracked asphalt under us. I found the forty five and holstered it before drawing a bead on the closest ghoul. ^Crack^ I forgot that I had loaded hollow points into this gun, the ghouls head being gone pointed towards this conclusion.

Vat’s was activated and used to make a few more of the things headless. Our forward momentum had been lost as the two us of just tried to keep ourselves from being surrounded. The red bars in my compass didn’t help our moral, all told we had down two dozen of the things but there were at least twice that still converging on our location.

I’m going to run out of ammo, shit. No weren’t, just keep going towards that map marker. I put broke into a dead sprint as his thoughts rang in my head. Seeing my action Arthur followed behind me, any ghouls I rendered non functioning with the silenced forty five.

Before we could get to the safe house a ghoul climbed out of a manhole; It was glowing green. Before I could perforate the thing It launched itself at me with it’s wings, fuck this thing has wings. Luckily arthur saw it as well and jumped between me and the pegasus ghoul. The metal encased human was knocked to the ground, the ghoul was in a position where he could get any leverage to knock it off of him. Synthie activated Vats and targeted a double tap to the things head, as time became what most call normal the gun went off twice.

Ghoul ichor now covered Arthur from head to toe, and now some of it wouldn’t stop glowing.

“You’re all set for a rave,” I quip as I help him up.

“Yeah maybe theres a market for glowing pony corpses,” He responds with sarcasm even in the face of terrible circumstances.

“We should look into this,” I say as we continue our mad dash to the hopefully safe drug lab to escape the animated pony corpses. Wow, my life has kinda gone to shit. Absurd shit… but shit none the less.

After another couple minutes of furious running through the ruins of an alien city, the  sun I could tell was approaching its zenith in the sky. The clink of my armor could be heard pretty easily, whatever stealth isn’t my modus operandi anyway. Wait, what is my modus operandi?

“Hey Arthur, what’s my modus operandi?” I yell at him.

“What?”

“I agree wholeheartedly,” I let out without betraying my inner mirth. He just turned his head towards, I’m pretty sure he’s glaring at me. Damn it, this is my problem in a nutshell. I’m a smart buck if I could just make some sort of long term plan, it would probably hasten my returning home. Wait ‘smart buck’ am I being picking up the nuances of the native language? …Stop going off on tangents me, just think for a moment, what are my goals.

Find a way to return home? Thanks, wait is this just the conscious manifestation of a day planner subroutine or something? Whether it is or isn’t is beside the point, obviously you need some help even if the help only amounts to helping you push past the unpleasantness of our circumstances.   Well in that vein I’ve kinda allied with a faction that has experience with high technology. Alongside that is the the research facility and the alien power cells I pilfered. Most of the Applejack’s rangers are ambivalent at best towards you and one is confused about your intentions in a markedly different way. The alien base was a mixed bag, you acquired intelligence about another base and some ammunition for an alien weapon. At the cost of alerting a powerful militarily and technologically to your presence and capabilities.

Destroying that base was the only option at that moment, letting truly alien life into this places ravaged biosphere could have been disastrous. But that’s beside the point; anything that breathes chlorine and is carnivorous is terrifying, therefore If I can kill it… it

shall be killed. For your safety or for some altruistic impulse?

“This the place?” Arthur said loudly through his speaker grill, breaking my conversation with synthie. The building he had referred to wasn’t really a building anymore, at least if you came from a place that had building codes and other hallmarks of a society that hadn’t (yet) gone to shit. It appeared to be the remains of an office building, the remaining portion in question was a the ground floor of the place. On closer (visual) inspection it looked like the place had been reinforced post bombing with sheet metal and some poorly utilized cement.

“It looks slightly more intact than the all the buildings around us. So yeah it’s probably the place we’re looking for.” I say while tentatively inching closer to the building. The far off (but still way too close) howl of an irradiated pony corpse was a good reason to keep up with arthur, who didn’t seem to fear the dangerous structure or the ghouls.

The inside was less ramshackle than the exterior, perhaps the outsides general shitiness was a tactic to dissuade scavengers. In what was at one point a secretaries desk was a chemistry setup with hot plates hooked up to spark batteries haphazardly. That along with the nearby workbench covered in various tools gave me some hope of actually making some adequate product. Product being a euphemism for horse narcotics.

“Time to see if I remember anything from last time,” I say as I remove my helmet and start a thorough check of the manufacturing equipment.

“You don’t seem all that confident, how much experience do you have making chems again?” He says as he looks through the chemicals he had taken from the hospital pharmacy.

“I was kinda successful the last time I went at it. Well, at least if I fail then there’s always plan B; shoot up the joint and try to avoid ending innocent lives.” I say quickly with a despair filled humour in my voice. Yeah, my life has changed. And how much of the change is merely adaption to new circumstances? Or have these the basis of my actions been waiting all of my thinking existence for a chance to manifest. The Id expands as the super -ego retracts, or I suppose the variance between your instinctual desires and the reality around you has lessened. That would of course lead to a shift in your self perception, and how you subconsciously view reality. How traumatising is waking up in an alien world? Less than you would thin… have I been keeping myself from fully realizing my situation?

“Hello Jake, the supplies are on the counter.” He said loudly enough to gain my attention before voicing what seemed to be an afterthought. “While you’re doing this can you give me that grenade launcher?”

Maybe you take off all of our equipment to get the grenade launcher out, not to mention our future comfort.

“Yeah, just give me a second.” My shit equipment is swiftly on the floor, and arthur is over by the workbench making an abomination in weapon form. On a whim I checked the airwaves for any radio signals. The self righteous pony D.J. was on but it seemed that Red Eye wasn’t;beggars can’t be choosers.

As I begin to make some Jet/Dash the disc jockey started another song cycle, and I kept on working, but something nagged at me.

Why would sapient ponies even know what a jockey was, nevermind have a word for such an occupation?

---===*===---

By the time I had completed my tasks I had learned that the rebreather in my helmet was as useful to those who wish to break laws as it was to the enforcers of said laws. Or stated differently it kept me from being affected by the fumes created in the production of chems. Also the D.J. had all told about a dozen songs, they weren’t bad by any means, it’s just the lack of variety get’s on your nerves after a while. Besides I had to listen to him and his obsession with this stable dweller and her great crusade.

Arthur by had found a cot a while after he finished affixing the grenade launcher to his laser rifle and had done some equipment maintenance for me and himself. He was quite skilled with a needle and practiced at patching up clothes. I think he found some cotton and leather scraps in this place; thusly he did me a solid and repaired my pants and duster.

So the circumstances required me to emulate Walter White, I was making something that seemed very similar to crystal meth without pants on, but with the necessary respirator. I leaned up against the bench for a while before the impulse to field strip and clean Epilogue became irrepressible.  There really isn’t a reason not to clean it, the only motive to leave Epilogue dirty was a lack of motivation. Motivation to do things that in the long term keep you alive aren’t all that hard to find. Or so I found out.

In the end I had a clean rifle and a clean pistol, cause I mean don’t show weapon favoritism, you love them all in different ways. Or is that children? Whatever; I never lack the metacognitive ability to know I need sleep immediately. I found a dingy couch that looked slightly more comfortable than the floor. I remember laying down on it the morning after, and nothing else. Presumably sleep took me the moment I got comfortable.

---===*===---

As I awoke a great urge struck me, I needed to take a leak. Thusly I did. After walking back into the shitty building proper I spotted Arthur putting his armor back on.

“You wanna leave already?” I ask quickly.

“This from the guy who thinks the place is gonna collapse an second?” He answers quickly before locking his helmet to his armor.

“I got over that, kinda.”

“To be honest I don’t like being this close to the sea, I don’t like this place.” He said cryptically.  Should we inquire? No, we shall not.

“You got any destinations in mind, other than away from the sea apparently?” I say conversationally.

“I get to pick where we go?” He had ignored the latter half of my previous statement entirely.

“Yeah, and what we do within reason of course.” Give the submissive personality some power what could go wrong?

“I heard there’s a stable in this city, and I kinda need a water talisman.” He said this casually, with an accompanying hand wave as though this was a mundane task.

“If this is so you can add a piss recycling system in your armor, then yeah I’ll fight to make that dream a reality.”

“No, I just want to replace the mansions water talisman. Also why would I want to drink my own urine?” His plan made sense, I mean I assumed he had a more utilitarian application for a universal water purification device. If we brought a few of these talismans we could solve fresh water demands for years to come, not to mention giving the third world clean water. That would be nice, but all this is predicated upon us returning home.

And that is unfortunately turning out to be hard goal to facilitate.

“It was joke, but I like your goal.” He wanted to speak after I responded But I cut him off by speaking again. “So you wanna eat something analogous to breakfast before we go crusading?”

“Fine, but I get the sugar bombs.” He said acquiesceingly.

---===*===---

“Do you have any idea where this ‘stable’ is located at?” I ask Arthur as we exit the building having eaten our fill of shitty but edible pre-war food.

“Okay I heard one time that all the ghouls in the city were from stable that had a reactor failure… okay a catastrophic reactor failure. So logically if we find the largest pocket of ghouls then it should point us towards the stable.” He answered reluctantly for good reason.

“More zombie ponies, along with a crawl through an irradiated hole in the ground… count me in.” I say offhandedly. He had begun walking in a direction that was random, but away from the nearby ocean. Jake follows the man in black (armor).

“Huh, I was expecting you to whine about doing this.” He said more for his own benefit than for mine.

Are you trying to avoid acting annoying? Maybe today I just wanted to roll with what my companion wants to do. And be but in a potentially deadly situation once again? If I stop doing ‘dangerous’ acts then I’ll be stuck here forever, if only because anything that can poke holes between worlds is probably inherently dangerous. This seemed to shut synthie up for awhile at least; I then turn on the DJ pony to give me something to make fun of.

It had been after a couple songs and  a soundbite about the stable dweller that we came across the first ghoul in the decrepit cityscape. Arthur made an attempt at running at it (my) knife in hand, but a suppressed forty five shot made that effort pointless. After exiting vats I gave him a nod when turned to look at me, my shit eating grin wasn’t apparent behind my helmet but it was there nonetheless.

“Did you see what direction it came from?” I ask my companion who hopefully was oblivious than me.

“I think it wandered in from that coffee shop,” He said pointing at a Pony Joe’,  before setting off at a brisk pace towards the donut shop. Fuckin’ franchises stealin business away from family owned places. Where did that come from? Whatever no system can fully understand itself so why make the effort.

By this point we had walked into the ruins of a shitty corporate coffee shop; did comedians in this world make jokes about the amount of pony joe’s before they dropped the bomb. But I had a side job to attend to.

“What are you doing?” Arthur asked as I rifled through the back room searching for the elusive coffee bean(s).

“By some act of divine providence do you have a coffee maker and filters at the mansion?” I answer his question by asking another question.

“There are a lot of appliances in that place that I don’t pay any attention to.” He said this before my searching became louder to continue his answer he got louder himself to compensate. “I HAVE NO IDEA IF I HAVE ONE OR NOT.”

“If you don’t have one I’ll be saddened but not crushed, anyway I got the shit let’s continue this quest.” I say to Arthur before palming the forty five once again.

“Do humans from your homeland speak like you?” He asks honestly as we both get moving again.

“No and usually they make a bigger deal about my erratic speech patterns than anyone has here, now that you mention it. Damn does that make us like the smallest minority on this planet?” I say this as we walk through a the ruined back door of the shop and into a dark alley.

“Yeah were a minority thats obvious why does it matter other than the difficulty of finding equipment that works for us?”

“That means I can make racist human jokes and not single person can stop me.” I answer with triumph evident in my voice.

“Remind me why I’m following you again?” He responded with what I hope was good humour in his voice.

“Well right now I’m following you, and to be honest I think us humans should stick together.” All four of us? Yes, if only to make the statistics seem more in our favour.

A ghoul popped it’s head out of a broken window to growl at us, but was cut short by a incisive Vat’s shot to it’s head. Were we getting closer to the heart of this cities ghoul problem? A moment later another ghoul began crawling out of a man hole only to be kicked back down the hole by arthur. The kicker then pointed at the manhole and pantomimed ladder climbing.

“Are you sure about this? I have night vision do you?” I ask for confirmation despite my feeling that he genuinely wanted to crawl into a sewer.

“They’re obviously coming from the underground, which makes sense given the fact that all stables really are advanced bunkers. Just come on you said I get to do the thinking today.” He advanced his logical conclusion and by extension his plan of attack without a hint of desperation.

“I’m only doing this because the last time I went underground I came out with a badass story to tell. Then again If you're with me I’ll have to give up some of the credit…” Instead of responding vocally he just began descending down the hole, and after that rousing speech I kinda had to follow him.

Why not let him get a headstart? I thought before I pulled out the forty fives magazine and began to reload it with some forty five I had in one of my clothes pockets. Keep all weapons at their highest level of readiness at all possible times. Wow I should write that down seems like a useful survival guideline. I chambered a round and holstered my forty five before descending into what must be a horrible abyss.

---===*===---

The place would have smelled like two century old horse feces if I hadn’t turned on both my night vision and the helmet’s rebreather mechanism. It appeared as though my eyes were glowing and I was making raspy, deep breathing noises akin to that of a severed handed Sith who had a bit of a falling out with his estranged son. In all honesty, I probably looked (and sounded) terrifying. Arthur didn’t comment on my glowing eyes; he merely pointed at the ghoul that had taken a fatal fall down the manhole, courtesy of a swift kick to the torso. I would say even in his more docile state, Arthur’s personality was bloodthirsty. To be fair, ghouls didn’t really bleed; they just kinda popped like a barely held together meat balloon.

We didn’t exchange any sentiments regarding the latent death of our ghoulish friend. As we made our way through a spacious yet unsurprisingly disgusting sewer, a ghoul would occasionally wander around a corner near us, resulting in its prudent demise from either a careless bullet from Jake’s .45 or facing an impromptu matter transition from ghoul to ash via Arthur’s laser rifle. It was only later on that we got spooked. We had just gotten around a bend in the sewer when we heard the sound of brisk running, except the running sounded bipedal. As soon as we were aware of strange nature of the noise, the sound stopped and then the scraping noise of a manhole cover being lifted was then heard by the both of us.

“You don’t think that was another human right…” I let my voice trail off as his reticence answers my question just as well as a statement of affirmation.  I might have felt a chill down my spine If I still had a biological one.  If that was indeed a human then there could be a gateway around here…  I know you’re new but try not to jump to conclusions. Aww fuck that A way home and it’s kinda close, time to move.

I broke into a sprint in the direction that the sounds came from. It was only a minute later that I came across a massive gear shaped door with the number thirty three emblazoned on the front in yellow paint. I looked around and noticed that the entrance had a terminal attached to the wall. After a moment of waiting for the thing to turn on, Arthur jogged into view.

“Don’t do that again,” He said sternly even as he watched the terminal’s screen activate in all of it’s sickly green glory.

“Yeah” I repeated three time similar to what a jew might do. “I got a terminal to fuck with so can you, I dunno, play sentry for me?”

He turned around and placed his rifle into his hands. Next up was playing with a terminal. This terminal was hard to hack, but after five attempts I figured out the password to get administrative privileges.

Discordia…

Why did that seem somewhat familiar?

The screeching sound of a massive steel gear echoed throughout the sewer system after I gave the open sesame command. So the originator of the noise either had nothing to do with the door or knows the door password. Arthur stepped into the stable entrance and stepped onto something. He stepped on a pony skeleton clad in the remains of a jumpsuit. I kneeled to examine the corpse more closely, spotting a small slip of paper near the corpse. It was a password, that’s for certain; but not the password that was in use now.

Auschwitz.

Nine letters: just the same as Discordia.

This has to be a sick coincidence right?

“If there is an answer I fucking intend on finding it!” I yell, only to see Arthur turn to look at me from the entrance to the rest of the vault.

“Should I be worried?” Arthur asked as I got back to standing.

“I think something sick is going on here. Now do you want something like an explanation?”

He nods.

   I place Epilogue into my hands before walking up to him. From there, we begin to explore the stable with me trying to logically explain why I felt in my gut that something terrible was going on around here. I was rather unsuccessful… until we started finding things.

Every few minutes we would find bunches of corpses thrown into closets or anyplace that was out of the way. Arthur found this to be disturbing and proof that someone had to actually pile up the bodies. However, he said it didn’t prove anything truly evil had happened here.

I held my tongue from saying that it hadn’t happened...

It was still happening.

---===*===---

I searched through the first aid box only to find the thing was empty; like all the others had been, along with the infirmary.

“Another empty one... you have any luck?” I ask him as he was searching through the duplicate box in what was once the little fillies room. Fuck this planet and its analogous gender naming system.

“What do you think?” He answered (and asked) with just a touch of anger.

“You better share that holy grail you just found.” I answer with some sarcasm as I move back to the darkened corridor. We had been moving in a downward direction in our exploration. He remained in the lead for the majority of the dreary descent; yet he seemed to not be headed directly towards where we would find the talisman. Mayhaps he felt that going to maintenance was a bad idea and was drawing it out intentionally. Whatever the reason was, I felt indebted to it.

“I’m not going to ask,” he said as he began walking forward. Once more, the servos in his armor were quite audible in the silent husk of a bunker. I let the issue lie as I followed him down the stairs into the atrium. My first impulse was to see what was left on the upper half of the atrium complex. A few choice words later and we were standing on the other side of what a plaque indicated was the overmare's office. The door had a terminal nearby it... only, when I tried to activate it, nothing happened. When I backed away from it to think about how I could reconnect power to it, Arthur smacked it and the thing fell apart. I was about to yell at him when I noticed that there were no electronics pieces scattered across the floor.

“It’s an empty casing with a screen attached… wha what?” I stutter out something that resembled a question but was more an expression of “what piece of the puzzle am I missing?”

“This must be the shoddiest stable ever created…” Arthur’s remark along with his subsequent laughter made him appear more scared than he was trying to seem.

“As lovely as this place is, could you be a doll and open that door?” My voice had a tone conveying both sarcasm and desperation blended together to describe just how much I hated this god forsaken place.

He set to work at the lock, while I just stood there trying to figure out the greater plan behind this place. A few minutes later the door slid open and I turned to see an entirely empty room.

“Well that was a lot of work for nothing, broke two bobby pens in the process.” His attempts to play this development off with humour were becoming annoying. “Guess it’s time to go yank out the talisman.”  He concluded with a noncommittal shrug. Was he trying to get me to pull rank and leave this place?

“Let’s just do it and get out of here,” I say as I begin the journey down to maintenance with Arthur in tow. While we walked I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being observed. There was no mechanism for observation (none that I could see) so these feelings were illogical at best. No, parent paranoia that’s what it is… probably.

The door down to maintenance was cleaner than any of the other doors in the upper levels. It slid open with a small hiss revealing an immaculate workspace: desks covered with nondescript papers and office supplies. It was an empty cubicle farm that must have been built after all the ponies here were killed.  When I examined one of the papers I found out that all of the documents were written in foreign script.The only difference between the place and any cubicle farm in the states was that all of the pictures framed or otherwise were turned upside down.

“You don’t want me to flip the lights on right?” Arthur asked from across the vast expanse of the room.

“Yeah, keep’em off,” I said quickly, not wanting to be blinded by my own night vision.

“Can do. Uh, by the way, how long are you going to take messing with those desks?”

“I’m already done. It’s all written in cantonese or something thats all hanzi,” I say before throwing a couple of the documents in my bag at random.

I look at him as I stand back up. As soon as I finish doing this, an high pitched squealing followed by an immense explosive sound resonated throughout the stable. It had been centered in the direction of the reactor. As I ran towards the scene of the explosion I knew that the explosion was near the reactor, but it hadn’t been the reactor itself kicking the bucket. In that case, this place would already be a smoking hole in ground already. Pleasant thoughts all around it would seem.

I stopped in front of the reactor chamber door. It displayed a radiation meter reading off the ‘sparkles’ per second that were permeating the stable at large. It was eighteen ‘sparkles’ a second… if those are equivalent to REMs, then even just from the lower levels present outside the maintenance area I should have been dead multiple times over. But I’m not dead or, even nauseated for that matter. Elvis isn’t affected by it either. I had time to postulate that humans were immune to the magical radiation at play here prior to Arthur tumbling down the stairs like the drunken fool he wasn’t.

I helped him up while he let out a moan. As he got to his feet, he spied the radiation meter and then proceeded to bang his left arm against the door.

“If it doesn’t register here, then it’s not going to kill us,” He pointed at my Pipboy’s geiger counter which was only capable of measuring REMs.

“So we’re fine then?” he asked, sounding more scared than he would have liked. The prospect of dying a horrible, delayed death didn’t exactly assuage our fears surrounding the rest of this place either. Whatever the case, some answers had to behind this door.

Arthur loaded his grenade launcher before I pulled the door open. The hum of a coil studded reactor drew my attention above all else in this mostly empty room. We entered quickly; I moved away from him to examine the reactor, Arthur moved off towards a hole in one of the walls. That was strange, but the impulse to study the magical reactor was too strong. It gave off a small amount of visible light every few seconds. In one of the shadows created by the intermittent light a small plaque was attached to the thing. The plaque looked ordinary to the point of it being conspicuous it could have been on a toaster or a refrigerator.

North Canterlot Positronics

As soon as I read the name those three words began to reverberate in my mind. I remember that name from somewhere, but I can’t put my finger on it. It all fit together I knew it did but I couldn’t think of how.

“Have you ever heard of a place called Thunderclap?” Arthur said to me before I turned to look at the hole he had gone to examine. Upon even a cursory examination it was obvious that this is where the explosion heard previously had occurred, given that a large chunk of wall had been torn away to reveal an extra room. The room contained some ruined machinery attached to a metal door frame; the door laid against the wall behind it, hinges missing. Why was a door hooked up to machines sitting behind a false wall in the bottom of stable turned tomb? Or even better why did the door say…

“TO THUNDERCLAP STATION” Arthur started saying in a booming voice that would have fit a train conductor just fine.

“Do you think this would have taken us to Thunderclap. wherever that is ?” I ask slowly my voice filled to the brim with trepidation.

“Yes,” He responds simply.

“We should check for more falsetto walls?” I ask him quickly seeing as we were both doing a lot of information processing. Besides why drag out the down to earth stuff, leave all the spare time to trying to figure out what was behind the state of this place.

“Fine, but don’t expect this to be quick,” Arthur says as he walks toward another wall of the hexagon shaped chamber. As soon as he arrives at one of the walls he proceeds to punch it, once, twice and a third time.

“I don’t think that one is hollow,” I say before getting up and walking over to another was.

“You think?” He says sardonically “Or there could be some device that makes all the sounds coming from the walls identical.”

“Or there could have been only one door, wait can you give me my knife.” I said before Bowie was embedded in the wall by Arthur. He had thrown the knife hard enough to embed it into fucking steel plate.  I yanked it out of the metal with some effort and then asked Arthur a pressing question. “How the hell did you do that?”

“VATs, it does have a setting for throwing weapons you know. Wait you didn’t know that?” He answered smugly then he proceeded to laugh at me. It goes without saying that I was tempted to try this out by throwing bowie back at him. Then I remembered that If I did such a thing It would make me very hypocritical, being a smug asshole Is my secondary goal in life and to not let him be the same thing on occasion would be… wrong.  Wait, have a been an actual dick? On occasion, you have perhaps most prominently was your altercation with the scribe in that pony base. By the way now I understand why most beings sleep, it is rather enjoyable.

I sigh before looking at the wall that had been pierced, “I think there’s another door behind here, so uh help.”  I could manage two conversations and going all shining on a fake wall at the same time right?

   “So do we try to find a hinge or seam or something?” Arthur asks before rapping the steel in front of us with a (gauntleted) knuckle.  Based upon his the strength that his armor gives him he should be capable of tearing the steel open at its point of weakness.

   “Go punch at the point where the knife penetrated, then try and tear it open I f you can.” I say before standing back to watch the steels behavior as it was being by pulled apart Arthur and his power armor. After some time and a few grunts from Arthur I could see a single corner of door. I moved to help him and together we bent the sheets to the point that we had clear access to the door. This door wasn’t metallic and lacked the machinery around it, the strangest thing was the lack of a posted destination on the front. On the door instead was a faded sigil of a star surrounded by streams. I felt a need to touch the door it, as I moved my arm towards it I could feel a slight electric charge flow through me.

I traced the carving with a finger before pressing my gloved palm against the darkened wood. Arthur stayed back he seemed more wary of the door than I was. There was an attraction between me and the door, It felt like the moment when you don’t remember seeing someone before, yet you feel like have met before.

“Is that really a good idea?” Arthur asked as I grasped the doorknob made of darkest ebony.

“Is a light shining in the darkness a good idea?” I say before trying to open the door to no avail. A pervasive thought registered in my mind ‘not today, soon’ ‘not today, soon’ ‘not today, soon’.

I pulled my hand away from the door knob and the looping thought left my mind. I would be back, this place is important. That much was obvious… wasn’t it?

I shake my head before turning to face Arthur.

“You know where a water talisman would be located down here right?” I ask him to which all I get in return is a tentative nod.

---===*===---

Several hours of pulling pipes and maintenance systems apart later we found a small blue gem that I felt was little recompense for the amount of effort required to retrieve it. All of that aside the thought of a clean shower at Arthurs place was enough to stay to bring a smile to my lips.  As I walked with a silent companion that I would hesitantly call a friend through a nearly silent tomb of hundreds, I entered the palace of my own thoughts. I felt that the forces at play here were still in the dark, but someone was slowly bringing such things into the light. Even If the person bringing these things to light was doing it solely for their own benefit? I wasn’t guarding what I was learning, I would answer questions to the best of my ability. Yes, I would answer any question I could, for knowledge isn’t free, but thats really all I have to give.  I’m not deluded, I don’t have a messiah complex, I don’t really understand sacrificing my own life for a cause. But, I seem to be pretty good at figuring things out and adapting to new situations as they arise. Albeit most of my solutions involve violence, but it’s very rarely a matter of choice. I’ve missed something ever since I woke up in that blood stained room. I believe it was some guiding principle I had determined for myself back home… but the past is ever hazy. The lack of memories prior to this nightmare is indicative of something. What though? Was little if anything from that part of my past worth remembering? I felt a small part of me believed this. If nothing there stood out as memorable then why am I…

That  question was too painful to follow through with thought, and at that a small part of me screamed “hypocrite” to which I could only concede to. Perhaps to distract me from those deprecating thoughts, what I had wondered about about earlier drifted lazily into my conscious mind. I had at some point called myself many a things, but the only one that ever seemed to truly stick was “Inquisitive”. I had prided myself in the past on my ability to question things from any viewpoint I had available, and in that way I would detach myself from the question. Somewhere in the same ballpark as objectivity; obtain the answer the most true answer then add back in the self. Get the answer then apply it to yourself and anything close to you. Was this my greatest skill? No, it still is the closest thing to a talent I have. Funny now that I think about it, a human who feels most happy when trying and to some extent succeeding at separating himself from their own humanity, (because separating themselves from the rest of mankind is hardly a challenge), finds himself on a world filled with people yes, but non-humans all the same. The stable door was left open as we left but it was payed no mind. Have I lost the will to wonder why I have will? NO!  Nobody has ever benefited from leaving a question left unasked.

I followed Arthur in a daze because, my mind was turned inwards, this being the same mind that on some level I had a conspiratorial proposition in which everything other than my own mind was a distraction created with malicious intent. Then again who would put the brain in the jar isn’t asked, because conspiratorial subconscious doughts don’t usually have a train of thought attached to them.

“Why do I even want to go back to such an unmemorable place?” I whisper to myself in the darkness of a sewer on an alien world. Integrate self once more, and finish the recursion loop once more. A questionable goal with no clear method to facilitate the goal…

“Fucking wonderful !” I yell as I let everything sink in. If Arthur noticed my out of nowhere (to him), outburst then he gives no indication of it. Really now that I think about it, I should have remembered to forget. Why that’s the kinda logical clusterfuck that I always took a perverse pleasure in thinking about. Wait, where’s the little robot that shares a chassis with me? Eh, Probably asleep. Is he a newborn? Why, do I think Synthie is male? Am I going to keep questioning things in a manic manner indefinitely? Okay, calm down me.

I let out a deep breath which was incidentally basically the same air I had been breathing for the last few hours ( I had let some fresh air into the system while I was in the stable). Perhaps letting the carbon dioxide buildup in the system would calm me down? Nah, I didn’t need to turn an effective rebreather system into the worlds most complicated paper bag emulator. With the dry pragmatism of modifying equipment I had (temporarily) lost the edge of what some would call my corrupted virtue. At it’s simplest (to me) I had felt for the first time the inner conflict between what I had become (and was becoming) and my older less grounded self.  I continued to remember and think about both events pre and post TBWS. (That between worlds shit). I was playing the game of introspection as Arthur led the both of out of the sewers and into the ruined streets above. He led me in the direction of the city we had bummed around in for the last two days.

We had a rendezvous to get to and he hadn’t forgotten that, punctuality is a good a trait in a person. Hmm...maybe I should have gotten a concrete answer on when to collect my caps from the steel rangers? Or perhaps remembering to give pearldiver that letter in a timely manner?

Nah, I’ll do it when I feel like it. Laziness aside while we walked I had a few false alarms on my EFS, strangely they were marked as neutral. Almost as soon as they appeared on my radar, they stopped showing up. If this isn’t a glitch, then how does this neutral mark know how to avoid being identified? More to the point if they exist why are they attempting to keep hidden? Are they just terrified of us? Questions: 3 Answers: 0 in this round, time to play.

“COME OUT, I PROMISE NOT TO SHOOT YOU AS LONG AS YOU STAY NEUTRAL IN MY IFF. AS FOR HIM, EVEN IF HE DOES SHOOT HE PROBABLY COULDN’T HIT YOU ANYWAY.” I yell… smoothly.

The rapid scurrying noise that followed was a response I suppose, along with a snort from Arthur told me what I needed to know. We were being observed by a timid non-hostile, a native (the clip clop as they ran gave that much away). A native, where are we victorian africa?

Ignoring that remark I walked over to where I had heard the rapid scurrying, on the ground my secret admirer had left a pair of binoculars. It was a pony; no other creature would need binoculars with lenses the size of dinner plates. What evolutionary advantage would there be in having massive eyes? Could they see better in the dark… like a cat?

Upon examination the binoculars had the words “Equestrian Naval Property” on them.

“So it seems our voyeur is a navy mare,” I say to arthur as he takes the binoculars to examine himself. Damnit their dialect is pervasive.

“You called it,  for what it’s worth. Now come on, some extra sleep would do you some good.” He called before turning back towards our previous heading, after I did the same we marched back to town.

---===*===---

             We entered the city as the sun’s light was waning in the sky, the hole in the wall still hadn’t been discovered. Ninety nine percent of the time I’m against blaming the victim, but if this town got raided I kinda think they would deserve it. Or maybe I’ve make a habit of being borderline psychopathic… keeps people on their hooves. Fuck, toes?

As we walked the darkening streets he guided us in the direction of Full Metal Jacket. It seems he wants to get the drug dealing over with. Before we reached our destination we observed a pony couple yelling at one another in the streets, it looked like violence was imminent. Time to intervene?

“What’s the problem?” I ask the couple that appeared to be made up of two bucks, okay I’m bad at telling the genders of ponies apart. They were less sexually dimorphic than humans; it was annoying.

“None of your fucking business,” The larger of the two ponies said to me without looking in my direction, okay one of the two ponies was just really masculine looking.

“Okay, we’ve fought zombies,irradiated the fuck out of ourselves and found more evidence of fucking aliens. Now we have to do something dumbfuck boss signed up for because he says he has a master plan but I’m just not seeing it. Now to be honest none of you need to know these things but it helps me make a point, the point being.” He cleared his throat before finishing. “I have other things to deal with and they make your problems whatever they are seem tiny, so fix them, or don’t I really don’t give a shit either way.” Did arthur just use rhetoric to force a solution to a domestic dispute?

“I have a plan it’s just kinda vague, it’s like the mad libs of plans,” I say to Arthur in front of the assembled crowd.

“Doesn’t change your love of being a bleeding heart ‘hero’, now can we go it’s really not our place to intervene.” Arthur/Elvis said before continuing his walk towards FMJ.

“I never said I was anything like a hero, I just try to do what any decent person should do. Besides I’m not even talking to Arthur right? Elvis how long have been drinking?” I say to his back which makes him turn around and stare at me. Both of us were silent as the crowd and the couple dispersed. Why are you at odds with him? He acts in our combined self interests, learning to leave things well enough alone would be good for you.

“I agree with you in regards to his rampant tampering of things that aren’t his to worry about.”  Synthie said, while I lost control of my speech for a moment.

“What?” Elvis said more to himself than to any who could hear him. Meanwhile I had taken control of my body back by giving him a good paradox to think about (Zeno’s). When you’re done with that can you tell me how you did that? Switching gears I had to explain to Elvis what was living inside of my body, alongside me (the consciousness that answers to the name Jake).

“Sorry I probably should have told you abou-,” I stopped as I saw a dozen red bars on my EFS. “Goddamn it Synthie, Cut that shit out.” I yelled to make my point very poignant, Elvis merely continued to stare at us. Or was he just staring at me? A crackling then issued from my Pipboy’s speakers “I’ll just explain as we make our way to full metal jacket, any interjections you ‘need’ to make can be said when you want.”  Synthie spoke in a pompous version of my own voice through my Pipboys speakers. I guess having him speak this way solves the whole non consensual possession thing.

Elvis asked questions and Synthie and I answered as best we could, all in all our situation seemed to amuse him and we figured out that we really needed to work on our communication. The question and answer session didn’t take long and we still had several minutes of travel left. Neither of us even attempted anything approaching small talk, thusly we a silence fell upon us. It seemed that the longer you spend around a companion the less actual meaningful communication gets done. Or was it just I’m bad with people? No, I think there’s just a void between me and him, he never responds to my small talk attempts, and both of them are uptight about their past. You’re reticent about your past as well. No, i’m not reticent about my past. It’s the lack of anything worth mentioning that makes me almost silent in regards to my past, that along with the fact that no-one ever asks about it. Okay I concede you led a mundane life before my hardware was installed, but-. Yes Icepick did have seem curious about where I came from, but I mean what intelligent person wouldn’t be curious about an interdimensional hobo? Nobody else we’ve come across seems to care? Intelligent person being the sine qua non of the previous statement. Arthur has made some queries in regards to your previous existence, perhaps this is correlated with him being the more amicable of the two personalities? Out of the two I could maybe befriend Arthur, Elvis is too much of a self serving hedonistic lech for me. Have you ever wondered what kind of psychological trauma caused his mind to bifurcate? No and asking would be an exercise in futility if we asked Elvis, and if we asked Arthur the underlying psyche might switch to Elvis to continue the repression. We should still make an attempt at asking when and if Arthur is afflicted with ethanol poisoning. As underhanded and clinical that statement was I really don’t see a downside to getting some telling answers from him when he’s mentally compromised. Also from now on unless our life is in danger don’t assume control of the body, because If you do I’ll do something worse than give you a migraine inducing headache.

He was silent for the next thirty seconds which was incidentally the remaining time before we arrived at Full Metal Jacket. We both stepped inside to see Silver Tongue talking to an older mare that looked flustered.

“So you can’t get Med-X for the foreseeable future?” The mare asked Silver in a way that didn’t ooze sycophancy like almost everyone elses interactions with him. I like her already, although the whole med-x junkie thing isn’t a positive character trait.

“Sorry, I know you need it but Crucible isn’t letting up on their non-trading thing,” He said with a hint of actual guilt at not being to sell the medication.

“Well we aren’t equipped to trade with them outside the walls, even if they would sell of the Med-X.” The older white coated mare said wistfully before beginning her walk towards the door. She gave me nary a look before leaving. The dynamics between ‘Silver’ and her were anomalous. I know.

“I got the shit if you want it?” I say loudly into the shop making Silver visibly shudder.

Elvis was standing an arms distance away from me and looked just as bored as the guards in the shop. Silver turned towards me and cleared his throat before responding to me.

“So you made the chems?” He asked evenly having regained his composure after I startled him.

“Yea, yea, yes what do think I came here for; a social call?” I said with a stammer in my voice. I had a stutter when I was younger and sometimes it reappeared (at the worst of times).

“You wound me,” he said in a mock offended tone before chuckling quietly to himself, a fair amount of his subordinates faked a laugh as well. The Sycophancy is indeed strong here. “But thats alright as long as you did the job.”

“Now where is the payment?” Elvis said confrontationally.

“Right, how does a thousand sound?” Silver Tongue questioned.

Elvis chuckled. “I wasn’t born yesterday. Be careful when you question my knowledge of capitalism. I understand supply and demand, you have no supply and demand out the ass. You will have to do better than that.”

I began to say something a touch more diplomatic but Elvis shushed me, Silver Tongue seemed more intimidated by Elvis than I was… It was rather convenient.

“You can’t walk in here and pretend you are in ch…” Silver Tongue stammered.

Elvis cut him off. “Don’t you dare fuck with me or you will get nothing. I have the supply which there is little of. You have the money which there is lots of. I will take it and leave if you insult me again.” Elvis said harshly. “I want 3,000.”

Silver Tongue was taken aback, but did not argue with the disgruntled Elvis. He opened his drawer and pulled out 3 big bags of caps. He slid them across slowly. Elvis walked to the counter and grabbed the bags. I in turn pulled out all of the fresh chems, very quickly silver had his chems andand we had the caps. After that exchange I bought some more ammunition to replace the rounds we had consumed fighting ghouls. Silver had gone to the back rooms with some of the older security guards after we gave him the chems and was probably having a strategy session. I was buying my equipment from a timid mare that had apparently been left in charge. Elvis was trying to get us an ‘employee discount’ but I (kinda) stopped him. His powers of intimidation are useful but they shouldn’t be used on the weak… right? Why does this place make everything a binary decision. You can’t walk across the street without someone trying to make you decide between moral or immoral actions. Being either a ‘hero’ or a ‘villain’ is annoying in and of itself. The stupid DJ pony makes it all the worse with the whole ‘good fight’ drible. Is being ‘not terrible’ insufficient for the task of rebuilding the this shitty world.  Keep the expectations low but always keep raising the bar, thats a better model for radio borne propaganda, right?

“That’ll be four hundred thirty six caps sir,” The small mare said before holding out a hoof. Did she expect me to put the caps in her hoof?

Don’t think about the mundane in this place, you’ll just get an aneurism. That would be inconvenient.

“Add on the half the price of a dozen incendiary forty millimeter grenades” Elvis said while walking up to the counter.

Is he really trying to… Yes he is.

“Um, sir are you buying six grenades or twelve.” The mare said looking Elvis in the face and actively shaking.

“Twelve, but give him a fifty percent discount or you’re not selling any to us,” Arthur said to the least sleazy person in the shop (including us of course). I was planning a way to keep some vestige of the moral high ground when the mare responded.

“Okay four thirty six for the other stuff and, um… fifty two for the grenades.” She said trying to keep cool around the people that had scared her much more intimidating (than herself) boss away. Elvis began to count out the caps as she just stood there looking at the wall with a far off expression on her face.

“No, I make decisions here Elvis. Miss how about seventy eight for the grenades and that bandolier sitting in that case.” I say to her which in turn made Elvis flip me off.

“Here it is, does he have all the caps counted out?” She asks in a pepperier spirit.

You know if anyone else figured out that they could get you to spend all our money was a ‘cute’ shopkeeper we would be in trouble.

“Thanks miss, Elvis lets go, we don’t want to outstay our welcome.” I say as I lead the still annoyed Elvis away. The door swung shut and we parted ways: I wanted to go back to the hotel and relax. In contrast Elvis was pissed (As he usually was) therefore he wanted to go drink at blurred lines club. Didn’t really make that much of a difference to me, besides I hadn’t really had time to truly relax.

You want to finish that text on arcane engineering don’t you?

Yes, and am I really that effected by cuteness of the ponies?

Not really, it’s the female ones that close to your age that get you, to be fair it’s probably a normal reaction that most would have in your circumstances.

Pssh, lucky me. Stuck where the only eligible females are quadrupedal.

---===*===---

When I finished paying for a night at the hotel I was humored because I got the same room that I had slept in last time. After stripping off my armour I happily resigned myself to a quiet evening of challenging reading with the radio on.

Sleep came easily enough.

End of Chapter Nine: The Doors Part 1

Footnote

Irradiated- magical radiation is being emitted by you at levels that would set off a magic Geiger counter, it is of detriment to you or any human.

Perk added:

Incremental Understanding - You have observed things that don’t fit most peoples perceptions of reality. How will you live with this knowledge of things (better) left in the dark? No-one knows but that doesn’t stop you from wondering. (This might have been the problem in the first place.)  +2 perception when not under the effects of chemicals.

Icepick's Lament

"The Number of people in the universe that can observe events is staggering; The number of events that happen in a universe... leaves an inconceivable amount of events unobserved."

“The camp of ‘raiders’ are directly in our path and to bypass it we would have to come very close to the settlement of Gutterville. Oh, and Elder; we should get rid of this raider camp. You know how these ponies like this are: they’ll kill the next pony they see. We’d be doing everypony a favor.” I say without stating outright my desire toexterminate raider on principal.

“You make a good case Icepick. Your forward scouting with Ironsight has proven to be quite a valuable asset.”

He seemed sincere.

“Yes sir, I believe a small team could do the job as effectively as a large team and avoid drawing undue attention to our operations.”

Yeah. Ironsight, two paladins, and I…

We could take some raiders.

“If you’re sure you can do the task, minimizing our exposure is critical until we meet up with Elder Steelhooves. Although, the task would be easier if that creature was better at garnering attention.”

“I wouldn’t have wasted your time if I wasn’t sure I could pull off this assault. Elder, were you informed that the ‘creature’ you just spoke ill of, has destroyed an entire slaver camp alongside the raider base located near our previous headquarters, singlehoovedly?” I mean he did help us out. Unintentionally of course, but I find that to be highly irrelevant.

“I’m not sure what point there is in your praise for his actions... other than, of course, your obvious infatuation with him.”  He says with a dastardly mixture of jest and seriousness in his voice.

“I don’t know what your refering to Elder,” I said sternly. Elder or not, he knows not to talk about my personal life. Silence reigned in the tent for a few seconds before he decided to leave the issue behind, besides I had some purging to do.

“Icepick, ready your strike force. In the meantime I’ll requisition some heavier armaments for your group.”

“I don’t need anything myself, however initiate Bread Slice needs some missile launcher experience.”

“Duly noted, now execute your plan.” He said as I turned around, the clinking of my armor was heard as I left. As an extra benefit it made the nervous sigh I let out after leaving inaudible to anypony (except me). Promotion isn’t usually thrust upon steel rangers, even rarer is promotion for heroism. But, I’m one of Applejack’s followers.

“Maybe that has something to do with it?” I thought as I went around looking for Ironsight. The search was over when I found her passed out in the mess tent. The mess tent was empty of occupants other than her. Trotting over to her, I prepared myself to do what has become something of a tradition between me and her.

“ENCLAVE RAPTOR!”I screamed, letting my amplified voice wake up my friend. When she jumped out of the booth, I could see someone had painted dyke on her left side in pink.

“Who.. wha… who did that?” she questioned, covering her eyes with her forelegs to shield them from the annoyance of the light.

I pointed at her side as her consciousness returned.

“Where’s the ‘Raptor?’” She asked, obviously aware of the answer.

        “There’s is no raptor; who painted on your armor?”

“What?”

She finally turned her head to look at the word inked on her armor’s flank. “Someone’s getting a five millimeter massage.” She stated her intentions with a cold anger. My fillyfooler friend was pissed, and I had to keep her from killing somepony.

        “Ironsight don’t, it won’t help you any, besides I’ll file a report about this incident.” My responsibility had grown considerably after leaving the bunker. Trying not to play favorites was taxing, but staying unbiased was important, isn’t it?

        “Fine, but if I find out who did it…” she left the ending out, perhaps to avoid self incrimination in front of her best friend turned superior. My promotion and befriending of Jake had driven a wedge between us. It had gotten worse when we were clearing out a building and she had found a stash of liquor, the subsequent drunken confession to me in front of some other rangers had left her depressed (to put it lightly).

        “Just come on, we have a mission to complete.” I said in hopes that drawing her attention to the problem at hoof would keep her mind occupied; for a while atleast.

        “Clearing out the raiders, you actually got steam to agree to that?” My furious nodding served as affirmation enough for her.

        “He’s letting us take some of the heavy stuff,” I say.

“Can I take occulatius?”

        “Um...Hell no, that thing is there for emergencies only.”  Occulatius was death incarnate and kept in pieces in a safe, in another safe.

“An emergency like a Raptor attack.” She said sardonically I could feel her eyes glaring at me through her helmet, somehow.

“Yeah,” I say feeling bad for lying to her, even if it was justified.

“Whatever, I get a ‘nade gun at least?”

        “That’s fine, just don’t mention occulatius again.”

   “Fine, but who’d you get to assist us?”

I started off in the direction of the armory tent, but not before saying “Bread Slice and Fiberglass.”

                                         00000

        My squad was assembled in short order, initiate Bread Slice on missile launcher along with his assault carbine. Fiberglass was a pyromaniac this much would be apparent to anypony with a pair of firing neurons; a flamer and a quad barreled flare gun he had made much to Steam’s chagrin. Taking an entire chapters supply of flare guns to experiment with tends to piss off the establishment, though to be fair he had scared off a flight of blood wings with his creation. I had grabbed a rebuilt light machine gun, along side my fifty caliber death dealer. Ironsight had her usual minigun and the grenade launcher consolation prize.

Our journey to the outskirts of the raider camp was uneventful as we tried to stay stealthy, stealthy being a relative term. The camp was surrounded by rubble walls, with a main entrance guarded by sentries.

“Okay, Bread blow a hole in that wall when I give the signal.” I say while I rack my rifle.

“Yes, ma'am.” The young colt responded mechanically, attempting to be collected. Under better circumstances he would still be practicing with a BB gun in a firing range, but we had a personnel problem. That was the real reason we left the mountain bunker, we lacked the mare power to maintain the place as a base of operations. And who’s fault is that?

“Shall I assist the initiate, Paladin?” Fiberglass asked running my train of thought off it’s rails, which was probably for the best.

“Good idea, glass. Iron you should move with me through the main entrance after they distract them.” The dry pragmatism of combat, was a welcome change from the hours of time where the only things to do were exercises in remembrance.

“So we trot right in, that’s the master plan.” Ironsight said as the colts marched off to their positions.

“Don’t belittle the superiors officers combat doctrine,” I say in a Faux-offended tone. Her silence, showed me how far we had drifted. Was my rejection that harsh? I had been sitting in the mess tent after out patrol eating with some of our fellow rangers, she had stumbled in. When her features lit up upon seeing me, I knew something was up. But had I done anything about it; she had come right up next to me and rubbed her tail on my muzzle before trying to kiss me.

To say it ended poorly would be like saying Equus was a little irradiated. To put it simply I’m not gay or Bi, not that I think that theres anything with a ponies sexual orientation. Really when It comes down to it when your drunk best friend tries to fuck you in front of everypony, being a little mean just kinda happens.

Her movement caught my frayed attention, and I lead us to the ambush location.

                        ooo000ooo

Luck was in our, there was a two story building over looking the camp with a staircase leading to the second floor, that also lacked a roof. I ordered Iron to follow me up there.From there I could see into the camp, therefore I could fire into the camp. Sniping from here beats the old plan by quite a lot.

“Go guard the ground level, I’ll signal the attack soon.” She stayed reticent as she took up position guarding me.

The retical displaying where my bullets would strike was displayed in my H.U.D.; the attack was signalled by a raider’s head being turned into an unidentifiable mush. A second after the ‘signal’ was sent out an explosion gave the camp a new entrance. The raiders were scurrying around getting armed as I liquified anyone who was out in the open.

*Bang* a raider mare holding a rocket launcher is now in two bloody pieces ‘six’.

*Bang* raider with a blood red coat; after impact lacks a head ‘five’.

I empty the magazine and while my gun is reloaded, I survey the camp. I watch as Fiberglass charges into the camp, followed by initiate bread.

A small object is thrown in front of them from inside one of the tents, it was a grenade I could tell that from here. Shit, my rifle was about two seconds from firing and the situation was out of my hooves, yet I could see it happening.

A visible explosion of magic exploded from the grenade, Glass and Bread were both in the explosion radius however. Glass was mid stride when his armor shut down leaving him to fall on his side. Bread Slice was solidly grounded when the pulse struck, leaving him standing up. Before I could think about the next thing to do Ironsight was running towards the main entrance, the only place other than the tents and buildings that I hadn’t been able to shoot at. A raider fired a large gun, probably a forty five by seventy I pinned down what the gun was.

I had to keep overwatch to protect them, Ironsight must have a figured this out and was gonna flush out the raiders.

Next I heard a big gun fire, it was almost as loud as my gun. Shit, a gun that big could punch through our armor. Should I go help her? No, if I do that then I can’t protect Glass and Slice. The whirring of a spinning up minigun came from where Iron was at. The return fire consisted of more big gun fire, along with some pistol fire.

Just then another raider came out of a tent at a dead sprint running towards Glass.

She had bag of powder in her magic, she got to him just as I got her in my sights.

^Crack^ The bag of powder fell out of her magical grip, her horn was gone. Her scream could be heard from my perch, she went down after the scream she was in shock. The powder bag broke open and some of the powder landed on Glass’s back leg. The powder was lit by a raider throwing a flaming piece of table leg by the stuff. I then heard a bunch of explosions from Irons grenade launcher I turned my head to try and one of the raiders attacking her. When I looked back at the flames after not seeing raiders any shootable raiders; the flames had burned through glass’s armor and his… leg.

I threw up in my helmet, the thing then detected on it’s own. The smell of my own sick kept me standing there for a second as I dry heaved. Iron fired her minigun again I could hear but not even know what got her to fire, was she still in real danger? Okay, gotta put on the helmet back on so I can actually aim my gun. Who knew your own body smelled so bad? But as bad as that was, not being able to aim your guns is worse. One of the things steel rangers are taught as soon as were born is that technology is the most important  thing in the world as a whole. Wastelanders are not to be trusted with anything more advanced than a rusted tin can. All so someday we could ‘rebuild’ society. In the hooves of a Steel Ranger my rifle was tool to defend and obtain technology. As I stood on the floor of a collapsed building overlooking a raider camp I was rethinking things even though staying on my hooves as I protected my troops was the job at hoof.

The Steel Rangers see the armor keeping a knight alive as more important than the pony inside. That did make us bandits didn’t it, what's the difference between a chapter of rangers and a camp of raiders? The sounds of gunfire from Iron’s location had died out, better yet the hostile EFS tags over there had stopped showing up. Okay don’t get cocky, just cause we’ve kicked flank…

                It would be awhile before I got that train of thought moving again, but when I did.

        The burst of fire from Iron along with some help from me cleared out the camp pretty fast.

        I went down the stairs and into the camp to see Iron limping over to glass, where she walked a trail of blood was left behind her. I trotted quickly over to her as she pulled open glass’s spell matrix interface port, she did a fast restart of his armor. He was unconscious and probably in shock too, but his armor would give him some adrenaline to wake him up.

        Iron had moved on to Slice and was booting up his armor when Glass got up. A big chunk of his leg was missing, but he stood up anyway.

        “We made a good distraction at least, commander.” He sounded giddy when he said this, the suit must have given him med-x. He started moving towards me before beginning to fall back down,but I caught him and pressed my side against him to keep him upright.

        “Can you give me some help here?” I said while keeping Fiberglass steady.

“I’ll be right there,” Bread Slice let out as his armor started working again.

        Iron wasn’t bleeding anymore she just looked at me before trotting close to us.

“Good job ice, only two casualties,” Her voice was full of anger.

        “Whatever you want to say to me, say it when he’s been to Gauze Pad and you have that bullet pulled out of that leg.

        She turned around, and spat “Alright, ‘commander’” with venom.

As we walked back to base, glass chatted a little with Slice. I tuned them out though, I was thinking as we travelled. How should a follower of applejack see a my gun? A sword to kill monsters? That sounds like some foals sword mare comic, besides if you just try to kill monsters that puts you on a path to becoming one yourself. No, my gun and my armor should be used not to go out and attack evil. It’s job should be to fight defend ponies (no people, an image of my alien friend entered my mind.) that can’t fight for themselves. Damn why did I even think to attack this place? Oh wait it was to keep us stealthy? Why? Because we’re afraid of the wasteland, even though we’re the strongest group out there. Why is it so hard to not think like a Steel Ranger?

        Trying to answer those questions filled my head until we got near base camp.

As soon as we were within the perimeter, Iron trotted off to who knows where. A situation report for Steam Gear would be in order; after I made sure Iron got that bullet out. Glass and Slice were fine, the initiate could support him easily, he was a big colt.

        I ran after Ironsight and caught up with her quickly, she looked at me as we stood in front of the tent she slept in.

        “I’ll get it taken out tomorrow,” she says while walking into the tent, I follow her in.

“No you get it taken out tonite, whatever you have against me… hurting yourself isn’t gonna help anyone.”

        She takes off her helmet before responding, “Wouldn’t have a bullet in my fucking leg if not for you!”

        “What? you volunteered for that mission?” I say.

  “Yeah to be the loyal friend to the big damn hero.” Her yells are ignored by everypony that could hear them. I take off my helmet now, and not just to get rid of the smell of my sick.

“I’ve never forced you to do anything,”

“You always go off and put yourself in more danger than you need to be.

Besides you were always happier when I was around, and I liked seeing you happy.” She says sardonically before letting a chuckle pass her lips; she was hurting.

“So I do like having my best friend around,” I say earnestly. She smiles for a second before she becomes mopey (again).

“You had no idea, about my feelings before I got…” She was tearing up now. I can’t leave her like this, but i’m not gonna lie to her.

 “I… just never think about mares like that, sorry I had no idea about how you felt.”

She had stopped crying by now and was looking at me.

        “I thought you dead when you went by yourself to go check the warning indicator. That was the reason I was sneaking around the halls, I was looking for you.” Was she really that worried about me? “And when you came by with Him, I was just happy to see you alive.”  She stopped and before she could start again I sat down beside her. “After the fighting was over I looked over at the two of you; you and the alien were acting like a cute couple by the time morning rolled around.”

“No, he’s a…” I say before Ironsight interrupts me.

  “Don’t deny it, you’re a terrible liar. Seeing you and the alien match up so well, I can see now that it broke something in me.”

         A hug was given to her, before I asked a question of life or death.

“You think me and Jake would make a cute couple?”

“Ice, sometimes I think that helmet is pointless” She said before, genuinely laughing.

“My skull isn’t that thick, besides I gotta keep my eyes protected.” I say softly.

“You two are a cute couple, I mean you fight like an old married couple. But I just hope you see how stubborn you are.” My glare made her shift a little bit before she attempted damage control. “Not that you’re stupid, no you just stick to your guns a little too much.”

She’s not wrong, on either count. But, I have to wash off and she needs a bullet taken out.

I order her to visit the infirmary, before I go take a (sponge) bath. My cott is worse than my old bed, plus the fabric kinda smelled like Jake. And that is been nice, not that I would admit it to anyone as long as I lived.  Yep…  Iron was right, I have a crush on an alien, then again I think he might like me back. Well after I help the chapter set up, I can probably go look for him.

“Going out to give him his caps is a good enough excuse right?” I whisper to myself as my eyes droop.

End Of Icepick’s Lament

Chapter Ten: What Was Lost

Chapter Ten: What Was Lost

“I’m just glad I haven’t been replaced by a bucket of turnips.”

        I awoke to the sound of a loud squawk, naturally I pulled my .45 from under my pillow before even ascertaining the threat. It was only after I had Nightflight in my sights that I realized my griffon friend was just trying to wake me up.

“There was no trying about it, she woke us up.” Synthie said through my Pip-Boy speakers to the effect of startling Nightflight.

        “The fuck was that?” She yelled either because of Synthie speaking, or perhaps because I had yet to lower my gun.

        “Remember me telling you about the annoying voice I kept hearing in my mind?” I say while lowering my gun. She nods in agreement to my question, before Synthie decides to speak once more.

“Nice to formally meet you, Nightflight,” He says this in a sickeningly British version of my own voice, like unsweetened ice tea and crumpets british.

        I begin my routine of equipping armor and stretching while they (mostly Nightflight) got acquainted.

Before I had finished ‘upgrading my casing’ they had begun making the first of many  jokes at my expense.

“So after the bounty hunter,”  he started before Nightflight interjected.

“Dusk Beam,” She corrected more him more politely than I had her speak before in the short time I had known her.

“Left him in the room he just sat down and moped for seventeen minutes forty three seconds before we started moving.” Their communal laughter gave me thoughts of trying to intervene, but in all reality doing that would only make things worse. At the time he asked the next question I was in the process of reloading my spent magazines both for the forty five and Epilogue. “Query, males don’t usually object to having sex, correct?”

“Yeah… wait, did he start to cry or something?” She asked incredulously.

I was looking through my bag trying to ignore them and I noticed that I still had the That Gun, I was deliberating as to whether to keep it, it was mostly an attempt to distract myself from their continuing conversation. Honestly though at least my ‘companions’ talking about me, directly in front of me is on some ways better than having them talk behind your back. Gives you fair warning before a mutiny or something right?

I loaded the revolver with starmetal rounds, and replaced the the rifle magazine filled with the rest of the starmetal rounds with conventional rounds. That being done I muffled my Pip-Boys speaker with my gloved right hand.

“Hey, he’s better a conversation than you are,” Nightflight said in a mopey tone. I had a small, but definitely present, urge to strangle her. You can’t go from hormonal teenage girl to amoral killing machine. Or maybe you shouldn’t… or maybe all teenage females as a rule secretly have a wanton disregard for basic morality. Stop Jake, just keep with the subject at hand.

“I’ll uncover the speaker when he agrees to bugger off about my personal life,” I say before I hear an affirmative in my head.

“Why are you speaking in a pseudo english manner?” Synthie asked as soon as he had the ability to speak out loud.

        “With all the digging you’ve done through my memories, you must have learned I speak eclectically,” I responded as I began putting my rifle magazines in their places.

“You’re making some of that for me, right,” Nightflight asks to which I nod.

“I didn’t think you speak the way you do just to obtain a mild rush, a rush that is predicated upon being borderline incomprehensible. Now that it’s been brought to the forefront of conversation I must say that it is an almost sociopathic behavior.” Synthie was acting like it was a punishment to cohabitate a body with me, and not the other way around.

To put it in perspective, how many times has someone back seat driven you? Okay, maybe a lot, maybe never, but you’re aware of how the phenomena works right? Well imagine someone being perpetually with you, but they also give you ‘helpful’ hints when you’re doing something like taking a leak. Some things aren’t meant to shared experiences but when these things become a collective experience, it becomes annoying rather quickly, (Ex. the observer telling you the optimal angle of the urine stream to avoid splashback).

 “You’re doing the exact same thing, you don’t get to call me a sociopath just because I have dopamine receptors.” After I said this I looked at Nightflight; she was confused, very confused.

“To be honest I have no idea what you… two are talking about, so can we go find Arthur and go over what I learned?” She says while clicking the safety on her gun on and off.

 Neuroscience being alien to her doesn’t surprise me, the lack of firearms safety does.

“Where is Arthur?” Synthie asks before I could respond. Nightflight’s bemused expression didn’t wasn’t helpful.

“Nightflight, does this place have a jail by chance?” I say while rubbing my temples. “Also keep the fucking gun’s safety on,” Seriously was it just a subconscious behavior or was she just kinda careless.

“No it doesn’t have a ‘jail’, and what about keeping the safety on?” She says quickly after she stops playing with her guns safety.

“Fuck it lets go eat go get breakfast,” I say while attaching my helmet to one of my many belts.

“Are we going to try to find Arthur?” Nightflight said as I walked out of the room.

“Do you really care?”Synthie asks as we walk through the hotel hallways.

        “Yes, okay kinda.” She stammers out noncommittally.

“He can take care of himself,” I say, besides depending on what she tells me she found out he could be useful for what has to be done next.

                                ---===*===---

 We had just finished eating, and I was trying to figure out Crucible Caravans agenda. Between bites of questionable meat she told me what she had learned. She found their headquarters after asking a caravan she had found outside of baltimare. The headquarters were about a days foot travel to the northeast, an old port facility that was used as military logistics hub. It was as well defended as a talon mercenary headquarters, and I got the feeling from Nightflight that even being in the same ballpark as the Talons was impressive. At least to her she was impressed, this impression was helped by the treatment they had given her. There was a public entrance into the compound, which she of course used. On the inside she talked to an actual secretary about why she was there. She didn’t really have a straight answer so in her attempts to give something satisfactory, she let slip who her employer was. That was point I had to question what in god’s name she had done to her face.

“You know how much certain people want me dead, how in hell did my name slip out?”

“They seemed nice: they had armed guards, the place was swept, and I guess the secretary colt was cute.” She answered with some shame in her voice. Well I can’t judge her yet, but now I know her weaknesses are homesickness and her…  libido?

“Not gonna judge, acknowledging that can you please finish your report operative?” I said while thinking that maybe adding some professionalism would help our interpersonal dynamic.

Are you going to be a ‘suit’ or a ‘white coat’ ?

 Ignoring that question from my annoying roommate, I listened to the rest of her admittedly short tale. Once Nightflight had let her relationship with me come into the open, they had become even happier. The secretary had asked her if she wanted to talk to the regional head… Pearl Diver. After saying yes they ‘escorted’ her to a conference room at the heart of the place. She says she remembers what words were exchanged exactly, even if it is wild paraphrasing it is still intel I would like to have. Legitimately calling someone my operative sounds nice as well I decided before listening to her purported conversation.

She sat down at the table before Pearldiver walked into the room and did the same.

        “Hello Nightflight… that’s your name correct?” The older Black coated stallion said to her.

        “Uh, yeah,” Nightflight responded quickly.

    “Well Nightflight we want to ask you some questions, and you will be compensated for your time believe me.” He said quickly before extending a hoof towards her.

        “Okay, ask away,” she said as she belatedly shook his hoof.

“Your employer is a little strange isn’t he?” Pearldiver asked innocently. Nightflight told me she suspected he already knew more about us than either of us were comfortable with before she continued telling me how the conversation went.

        “He said he’s an alien, so yeah,” her response brought a grin to his face. Whether it was from his information being confirmed or her humourous delivery of her response she didn’t know. From how she told me it seemed like the former was more likely.

        “If you’re wondering why we wanted to know this? Just understand we work for the betterment of all equestrians, and being aware of non-equestrians is important as well.” According to Nightflight he said ‘non-equestrians’ with some held back anger.

“Is there anything else you wanted to know, cause uh… I have to find the nearest Talon hub.” Nightflight recanted this with awkwardly, did she think I was against her finding her family?

“Has this human told you where he came from or why he was here?” As Nightflight told me what he had said I couldn’t hold back my first thought.

“Did you say I was a human? I don’t identify myself that often how could he have known.” After I pointed this out to her her shrug in response told me two things: she didn’t question that at the time and I was getting better at interpreting griffon body language.

   “Just continue, I’ll try to hold all questions till the end.” She seemed to accept my doctrine and opened her mouth to continue.

“Jake told me he comes from a place like pre-war equestria except it’s only filled with humans, he tells me he really just wants to go home.” She told Pearldiver who seemed surprised by what she had said.

“Interesting, so he really comes from another world. Hmmp, waterboard is going to be angry, he had two-hundred caps on ‘Jake’ actually being a minotaur that fell into a taint barrel.” Apparently he let out a genuine chuckle after saying that.

“Yeah, funny. Any other questions?” She said quickly.

“You seem to be in a hurry so i’ll be concise, has he ever said anything about the black tower or the Tet Corporation?”  He asked his final and most insightful question (in what I could determine from it) as though he was reciting from a memorized list.

I finally began to remember something that enlightened me yet filled me with more questions.

“No,” She had replied. Nightflight said he had looked relieved at her answer.

“Is that when he let you leave?” I ask after she stayed quiet for a few seconds.

        “Basically, he seemed satisfied with those answers. Oh… I almost forgot, he wanted to meet with you ‘when it’s convenient for you’. Whatever that meant, when he said that it kinda gave me the chills.”  She said the last part of her statement in a subdued manner uncharacteristic of her.

        “Oh fuck it’s all falling into place now, but that’s fiction right?” My statement of understanding gave Nightflight exactly no understanding.

        “Can you explain what the hell you're whining about?” She said to me in a mostly empty cafe in a desecrated world. The real problem is I can’t remember all that much about that series, it had been years since I had read through it.

 “Nightflight I don’t remember everything about it but I think this place is being influenced by multiple factions from beyond Equss proper. The best starting point would be ‘there are other worlds than these’.” I waited for an interjection or a request for clarification but amazingly none came from her. “The person who said that was a boy named Jake Chambers. In the books he died multiple times. The first was when he got hit by a horseless carriage, after that he woke up in a different world. The second time he fell into a ravine, and that time all of his memories were transferred into another copy of Jake Chambers and that one with help from the other set of memories that were tearing his mind apart, found a door between worlds.” As I finished that she look like she had a question on the end of her tongue.

“You read all of this in a book?” She didn’t seem to believe this judging from her expression.

        “Yeah and interestingly enough Jake Chambers was only a supporting character. Now to continue, the plot of the book revolved around a diverse group of people searching for the Dark Tower, the most important object in that entire multiverse. And I’m starting to think that maybe this world is on a level of the tower as well.” Wooh, this is one of the times you realize a conclusion before the implications sink into the psyche.         Are you refering to me because I believe I made it clear that I’m an independent entity. As for the connections to this Dark Tower series, they seem to fit in some ways to what we observed in that Stable. As implausible as it seems, I back your conclusion.

        “Are you talking with Synthie, cause you’re spaced out?” Nightflight said right after I finished hearing Sythie’s response.

        “Yeah, he agreed with me reluctantly,” I say before eating a bite of food.

“What is the Dark Tower, and why did he say Black Wower instead?” Nightflight asked after a brief silence.

        “In the books, it was the nexus of all worlds. In other words, the center of everything. It also exists in some form on every world. For example, it’s a rose in the world that i’m beginning to think I came from. As for why he said Black Tower instead, I guess he didn’t really know what he was talking about and said something close to what he was supposed to say.”Only after I said this did I think about what I had said, “supposed to say, so he probably doesn’t know anything about either thing, but his bosses must know!” I spoke my thoughts aloud for no reason.

“So you think this tower actually exists?” She said skeptically.

“Based upon the number of times I’ve been moved between worlds, I would say it’s existence is more than likely. And don’t ask about the how the last book ends, it’s not exactly inspiring.” If she calls me crazy then at least that explanation is more plausible.

        “I’ll take your word for it. Now are we just gonna wait here for Arthur or do you want come with me to the Talons’ hub?” I think she wants to leave the multiverse discussion behind.

“How far away is the hub?” I ask.

        “A couple hours walk to the southwest,” She answers quickly; perhaps wondering If having your sorta employer follow you around is a breach of our oral contract.

        “Wanna leave a message for him at Blurred Lines’s place?” Gotta help a brotha  out, right?

        “Do think really Blurred could remember a message?” She says skeptically

“It’s worth a try, right?” I say while shrugging.

---===*===---

        It was midday and the sky was getting growing darker. I was thinking we would be receiving the gift of rain. Shame nothing grew in the wastes that could use such a gift. As for the people striding on the ruins of what was once a paved road, thinking of rain in abstract terms didn’t help anyone. Yet, the ability to do just that is a blessing by itself.

        Thinking in third person aside, what wouldn’t I give for an automobile? What about a motorcycle? Nah, only room for one. So what about a sidecar? At the end of my fanciful train of thought I needed outside input.

        “Have you ever seen any smallish aircraft in the skies before?” I asked, primarily to start conversation with my ‘operative’, secondarily to see if she knew anything about the aircraft that I had spotted on my second day out of the ranger bunker.

        “It was probably an Enclave reconnaissance flight by a vertabuck, what’d ya think? That it was a flying saucer?” She answered with a sigh, I don’t think she liked the Enclave.

“If we’re talking about flying saucers: is it flying, or is it parked on the ground?” It was a legitimate question.

“It’s a flying saucer full of little green mares… okay it’s on the ground, what would you do?” As she spoke I had a nagging suspicion I was giving her a migraine.

“Obviously assault the UFO, I’ve played enough XCOM to know to do that.” I answer chuckling as she works up the courage to ask what Xcom is.

“What is XCOM, and what does it have to do with flying saucers?” Her question though expected and an intentional reaction that I wanted from her, didn’t lessen the good memories that thinking about XCOM brought forth.

  “If I explain this you’ll probably know more about Earth in the process, which I think is good. It might even make what I say less incomprehensible, maybe.” She nodded with enthusiasm. Does she want to understand my references? Whatever, I’ve got a job to do.

        “Knowledge is power, that fits in more than one way. Okay, in XCOM, you are the commander of an organisation created to protect the countries that fund the organisation    , and to a lesser extent, the whole earth. The enemy you fight is a mysterious group of aliens, or extraterrestrials. In case you’re wondering, Terra is another name for Earth. For example, I’m not gay, I’m just delightfully Terran. The game revolves around XCOM capturing and reverse engineering alien technology. Also, by the end some of your soldiers discover magic powers. Oh… and the console controls are pretty shitty.” After that we had a half hour question and answer session. To explain what engineering was in a world filled with literal magi-tech, even weirded were the questions about the aliens. She had the hardest time accepting that the vast majority of alien species (in XCOM) were Bipedal.

“So the chrysalids kill you, rape you, turn you into a ghoul, and then the baby chrysalids pop out of you,” I nodded at her summation. “But they’re the stupidest of the aliens… do all humans think that four legged creatures are stupid?”  Her vocalized chain of thought led me to explain talking animals in my culture.

“Why do humans make movies and other things that have talking animals in them,” Her somewhat predictable question still took me a second to think up an appropriate response.

“I guess because were tired of ourselves, maybe there’s a hole in our hearts that isn’t filled by our planet's inhabitants. It’s weird in a way because in the past there were different types of hominids. Perhaps it’s some manifestation of survivor's guilt. Honestly, I doubt that. I mean, back home scientists pretty much proved that dolphins spoke to each other; only problem is theres no to start communication. If I’m being perfectly honest, the fact that I’m from a culture filled with fictional talking animals, and now talking to an actual griffin to be kind of ironic.” I had a sudden urge to look up, but instead I turned to Nightflight who…  wasn’t beside me.  I had time to think FUCK before I saw Nightflight pour pistol fire into a barricade garrisoned with raiders.

Why had she not told me there were murderous psychopaths barely a hundred yards away? I ascertained they were holed up in an old farmhouse with the remains of a chain link fence around it. Epilogue was in my hands and being aimed within the span of ten seconds. It was automatic. Well, it was becoming automatic. I found cover behind the burned out husk of what might have been a tractor or a pony buick. I couldn’t tell.

All the raiders were focused on my… frie- operative and her flying. The first few rifle shots went unnoticed by the bandits, and by the time they figured out they were being targeted by a markman, the fight was over. Contrary to their belief, pieces of sports equipment and scrap metal aren’t bullet proof, or even very bullet resistant. One magazine empty, reload, move forward. Nightflight helped me flush out the last few raiders holed up in the house. As I ran into the house pistol drawn, I knew how this would end. A raider jumped over a shabby couch with a paring knife in it’s mouth. The suppressed pistol made rang twice, the recoil was the strongest feeling in my mind during the firing and it was stronger than what should have made me retch. The decor in the place was composed of intestines and viscera smeared on walls. Opening a closet door yielded a decomposing corpse with evidence of semen still evident around the cadavers genitals.

Nightflight entered the place a minute or so after I fired the two shots. I saw that she was unharmed, still she looked to be experiencing the effects of adrenaline.

“Thanks for the heads up,” I said before I let myself drop onto the couch.

“I saw a threat and I took care of it, isn’t that enough.” She says as she walks over and climbs onto the couch as well. She must then have saw the bloody decorations that adorned this place.

        I just look at her for a moment before sliding up next to her. I removed my helmet and laid it softly on the ground. The outside world is quiet, as are the two of us, never are the two of us somber. That can’t happen… right?

        “We didn’t really help ourselves at all, no we expended ammunition and obtained a few rusty shotguns and revolvers. We really could’ve avoided them and they probably wouldn’t have chased us.” Were staring at one another now, the house smelled of poor sanitation and cordite, I blinked. “I guess we’ve made the road a little safer right. Ya know where I come from if theres a violent shoot out next to a highway it gets shown on the news. There would be police helicopters, SWAT teams, and some evidence, maybe an electronic record of the broadcast… something. But in this place, there is just somebody who’s better equipped or more effective at putting the other person down. After we leave, another group of raiders could be set up in a few minutes.” I begin to let out a dark laugh that had an edge of desperation in it. A Knight of the order ‘Not Terrible’ continues killing, not because there isn’t another way, but because they only see the flight resolution after the fact. Killing being the best possible solution for literally everyone, isn’t the way things should be. Hollow I may be, but spit on my bones the day, the day I only deal in lead.

Now you're just paraphrasing THE GUNSLINGER. If were going to quote, then ‘Killing is my business and business is good’. However serious that was aside, get over it. The raiders terrible they maybe in their actions were nothing when compared to our skill with Epilogue, they may have served as little more than target practice but that doesn’t give you justification for you and the bird to mope about.

“Both of you may belong in the ‘black parade’ but I don’t, I’m unfortunately attached to this guy and have unfortunately picked up some of his mannerisms. However this gives me the ability to be the callous one everyone dislikes but the person they need.” He said this and I couldn’t help but smile at my roommate’s direct style of communication.

“How much of his personality is based off of you?” Nightflight asked me before jumping off the couch and moving to search the raiders kitchen.

“I don’t really know, he seems more informed about his existence than I do about mine.” I said as I got up to follow her. I then thought ‘Why didn’t I think to check the kitchen?’.

“After you two are done looting, can we go before it starts pouring. I don’t want to have my immune system compromised by outside conditions.” His suggestion was logical and duly noted; though I did wonder why he called it his immune system?

---===*===---

           The rain was coming down in sheets and my duster was currently storing Epilogue, and was also full enclosing my body. Nightflight wasn’t enjoying the rain, being part cat probably had something to do with that. When I checked my Pip-Boy, it told me it was eight o’clock and getting surprisingly chilly. The flat, dead scrub land surrounding Baltimare was as empty as ever. It reminded me of the prairie back home.

        “Ya know my relatives had a farm on land that looked a lot like this? I miss it. It was peaceful, and there were no people for miles.” I said to her just loud enough to be heard over the rain.

        “I thought all you really liked was electronics. I never took you for someone who liked anything other than sarcasm.” She said these things and it struck a chord with me, she’s right I haven’t had conversation with any depth for weeks, inner dialogue with synthie excluded.

        “It’s not like you're any less emotionally closed off, all I really know about you is that you like drinking, fighting and fucking.  That and you got captured by some cultists, really not a lot to go off of.” I say with more force than was probably necessary.

        “What more do you want, I had pretty normal wasteland childhood. Got laid for the first time at age fourteen, killed someone for the first time. See, it doesn’t fucking matter. You could get the same story from a ton of other people. Why don’t you start listing off things about yourself?” She says angrily. Lightning flashes off in the distance, the rain intensifies as I think about how to respond.

“Well I dunno, you want to exchange hopes and dreams or something. Because I’m getting tired of traveling with people that are useful, but at the same time, I know nothing about. Heh, I’ll start I was an undergraduate studying physics, you know why?” I say this while thinking: Show my companion that I have some depth, why the fuck not.

“Whats an undergraduate?” She said, apparently the lack of cultural context on her part would continue to be a barrier to proper communication.

I then explained what a college was and what role an undergraduate played in the a college to her. By the end of that I just explained to her that the only thing I was interested in with any real practical value was physics. She didn’t really understand my love of philosophy or psychology. In the end she could really only identify with my accumulated knowledge of rocketry. When I went about explaining my favorite rocket design, she loved the idea of it.

“They almost built a spaceship powered by dropping a balefire bomb out the back and riding the blast wave?” She wanted affirmation about her summary of nuclear pulse propulsion.

“Yeah, and in the process of developing the technology needed to do that they made designs for something called a casaba howitzer. It was a shaped nuclear charge that generated a massive plasma beam, the actual details still aren’t released to the public still. So my countries military probably built the weapon and are just sitting on it.” I said this without saying that the thought of a nuclear death beam didn’t seem all that exotic anymore.

      “Why isn’t that a weapon in ‘XCOM’? It sounds like it would kill flying saucers pretty well.” She responded faster than I would have expected.

“Not that many people know such a weapon could even be made, it’s not an area of common knowledge.” I said before involuntarily shivering. Damn, it was getting cold.

“Thats weird, you had balef- um… shaped nuclear bombs before laser rifles and powered armour.” She said before she visibly shivered.

“Both of your minimum operating temperature has been reached and the ambient temperature shall continue dropping for a projected three hours. Find shelter immediately.” Synthie let out in an urgent tone.

“Just how far away are we from the Talons’s base?” I ask, Can’t be that far right?

“Probably only six or seven miles. I hate winter, just another reminder of the the pegasi not doing their jobs.” She told what I needed to know, but not what wanted to hear. If we keep talking that should distract us from the cold some.

“What do they do up there really?” I ask her before turning on my night vision, I may be succumbing to hypothermia in the future, but really like to see effectively. The nights here were usually close pitch black. In this case, the universe thought jet black was aesthetically pleasing, or maybe Ragnarok was happening and we had no idea because the sky was always kept from us.

“Well they have big cloudships, lots of power armor and they don’t come down here very much, what they do is they sit their asses down on fluffy clouds. I heard this dashite in a bar once talking about how the normal pegasi don’t even know people are down here.” She answered while looking up into the dark uniform ceiling that was the sky.

“Question, have you ever seen the stars before?”

“No…  why have you?” If she could’ve seen my face, the involuntary guilty look would have given her the answer.

“I saw them enough times to make them a normal part of life. You know what’s funny? In all the industrialized nations the stars aren’t all that visible; too much light being given off by the cities. One of the few places I could see the stars well was at my relatives place. It was out in the middle of nowhere with not a lot of light to outshine the stars.” By the time my melancholy speech was done, I looked over at my companion who had an unreadable expression on her face.

We fell into a companionable silence, the cold moved slowly inwards. Time became nothing more than a progression of footsteps seen in shades of amber. The winds howling got louder, the rain abated. It was of little solace to someone who was soaked. It was a testament to the power of leather that I wasn’t soaked to the bone, besides I had a nagging suspicion wearing a duster made you look like an actor in a western.

I wondered that if I was in a western what role would I play? Lets start with the basics: like hat… No, silver colour to my gas mask+… Yes. I guess I’m the good guy, by the slimmest of margins, the mask wasn’t pearly white. However no one in this place had a whiter mask then me. Therefore I was good right? I the process of comparing myself to a western protagonist, I had an idea. If I turn on the rebreather and seal the mask, I won’t have to breath in cold air, warmer air means less chance of a flu.

After doing that I did a quick swivel of my head on the off chance somebody or something was approaching. The desolate panorama that I observed wasn’t surprising; I sighed. I guess I wanted anything with any novelty in it. However, it seemed the universe wasn’t going to provide.

---===*===---

        We didn’t get to the Talon base that night. Later into the night I saw the light from a campfire. I pointed it out to Nightflight. She told me it was probably a merchant caravan.

We had both came to the conclusion that we needed to bed down for the night. That caravan was still a mile off or so, but other than that it was perfect for us.

        A lot of things look that way when you’re desperate.

 Would they be receptive to a griffon? I’m not in the mood for violence, really if I could have some nice campfire chats that would be… wonderful.

        “Why don’t you go introduce yourself to those hopefully nice people?” I asked her as we stared at their camp.

        “Why do I have to do this, can you even make a good first impression?” She asked before shaking her wings off.

        “I left a good first impression on you.”

“At the time I thought I got rescued by two alien alicorn hunters, now I know better. Now I know the truth?” She says before flapping her wings and taking off.

        “Whats the truth?”

“Now I see you as the egg head that shoots well.” She says before flying off towards the camp.

        “Do I still have that good impression, then?” I yelled towards her. She didn’t hear me.

I guess if I’m waiting I should get a better look at the camp. Epilogue had a three and half times scope, better than my eyes.  The camp was actually built around a surprisingly intact service station. To my surprise there were no pumps, did this civilisation never develop automobiles.        But that makes sense, I guess a third of the ponies can fly and the rest can run faster than a person.

        “Trains would make transport between cities easier as well. Besides all the land seems like it would have been developed before their industrial revolution got to the point where they coul-”

“Where they could make automobile analogues, so If the society would have survived it would have had a more European feel. Concentrated populations where mass transport could serve all their needs. Not to change the subject but why did you speak out of the microphone?”

“It makes you feel less like a schizophrenic, besides it feels good to be less of a superlative observer. Back to the pre-war pony society, I guess we should be happy they never figured out fission.”

 “No unmanned reactors Chernobling all over the place. Radiation that can hurt us is actually terrifying, all that diarrhea.”

“You said it, colleague.”

“Colleague sounds really dry, why not friend?” I say as I pull out one of my alien power cells.

“Why do you not call Arthur and Nightflight your friends?”

“They barely put up with me, I fight with them constantly.” The alien cell was being played with like most play with a bouncy ball.

“Based on what I found in your memories, you seem to like arguments. Calling your friends normally offensive things was just an expression of endearment to them. How are your actions around those two any different?”

“I guess i’m worried about getting attached, Arthur is a nice enough guy, and the bird is fun to have around. Besides, being friends with your roommate is practically a rule, doubly so since we share most of our body parts. I think were pretty much one being now.”

        “‘Siamese’ twins if we’re being insensitive. You know you’re good at avoiding change right? Changing the topic or going off on an expository tangent isn’t helping you become more tolerable.” He said this getting angrier as he went on.

        “Good argument, I’ll try to be more cuddly I guess.” I said before I slung Epilogue over my back again.

“Having more camaraderie isn’t a strange concept, besides showing people that you like them will in turn make you more likeable. And you need as much help with that as you can get.”

By this point I had waited long enough, I began to close the distance between the camp and myself. Patience was never going to be my virtue, but who dares wins… right.

God, an SAS squad could tear this place a new asshole. This got me thinking what would others do in my circumstances? Try to make themselves king in some sort of imperialist plot? Or try to get home come hell or high water? Wow, I really should get to that bunker, I mean I have location marked down. In reality though I need a guide and supplies to reach that place.

        I looked down at my Pip-Boy and opened up the map function, in my current position the bunker was nearly directly to the west. The distance between to it wasn’t encouraging.

        At a rough estimate it looked to a hundred or so miles away. With a round trip that could take a week and a half. Ehh… it’s only the lead to a way home, no biggee.  Desperation: Magic Doors, Aliens, and Sufficiently Advanced Technology. Maybe the nice camp ponies have a map or something, maybe some magic shoes.

        I saw a non-hostile blip moving towards me on my EFS, and sure enough a few seconds later I spotted Nightflight. She landed beside me, she faced me and cleared her throat.

        “They’re okay with letting us sleep in the building, they weren’t using it, of course.” She says while keeping up with my steps.

“And you told them you were traveling with, well, me?”

        “When I told them I was with you, one of the ponies, I think Glycerine was her name   , got a big grin on her face. Other than that and a few looks at each other they seemed as happy as anypony would to have some extra protection.”

“Okay so worst case scenario are they going to try to seduce me?” Preempting her I added. “You sold us as a mercenary team didn’t you?”

“Would you try to stop them if any of them offered to screw, and yeah you’re gonna have to take a shift on watch.”

“Whatever, I’m getting first watch,” I say a standoffishly. Synthie I don’t you telling me I’m oppressed, I’m dealing with that tonite. “By the way I got some pay for you, when were warm and in a more secure location.”

“You don’t want to flaunt our caps to the caravaners. Were you paranoid before you got to the wastes?”

“Not really, although there was that time I was in Detroit.” I shivered after remembering my time there.

“Did you say Detrot?” She asked inquisitively.

“Don’t even tell me theres a hellhole here with the name ‘Detrot’, because after hearing ponies talking about Fillydelphia and Manehattan… all I can say is this world has a lot of similarities with mine. I mean all of you speak english, my god coincidence much.”

“So I’m guessing there are cities with names that are close to the ones here?”

I just nodded and slipped into my vigilant yet barely conscious marching state.

---===*===---

        As we walked into the camp, I was surprised to see all the caravaners standing around their campfire not brandishing weapons. A smaller earth stallion backup as I walked into the camp with the red eyes of my mask still glowing. The rest of them weren’t fazed, although later when I did take off my mask I heard someone let out a relieved breath.

        The moment of first meeting was peaceful enough with Nightflight walking over and introducing me to the leader.

        “Tilted Axis, this is my friend Jake, and Jake this is Tilted Axis.” I moved over and shook his… hoof.

        “Nice ta meet ya, don’t meet many people along this route. Meet even fewer aliens.” The buck had a western feeling to him, he was friendly though and that was enough.

        “I hope you’re not disappointed I’m not a little green mare.”

“Thats alright, you some humour to ya I like that in a buck,” Before he said this he had laughed quite a bit… and my joke wasn’t that funny. After hearing his reply I had a nagging suspicion he was interested in me. I kinda stood there awkwardly for a moment while trying to process the possibility of a gay cowboy horse.

“Griffin got your tongue,” A mare said before pushing past him. I held out a hand to shake, to which she grabbed the gloved hand and lightly kissed it.

If only she knew what you did with that hand.

“Thanks milady, but thats generally after names are exchanged.” The mare looked really excited at being called that, she was wearing a scraped up set of metal armor.

“Oh, sorry. My name is Glycerine,” she said apologetically. Her head was the only exposed part of her body put that didn’t stop me from noticing the grenade rifle hanging on from her side.

“It’s fine, just unexpected. Now not to be impolite, but can I get my start getting myself dried off first.” I say before moving towards the fire.

Tilted Axis just tips his hat and moves off towards one of the tents. The mare grabbed me by the hand and led me to a drying rack one of them had set up near the fire.

The other caravanners were staying near their tents, they didn’t seem as happy as Nightflight had made them out to be. Then again, one happy explosive loving pony was enough for me.

“Why are you so happy to meet me? I’m not all that interesting.”

“I dunno you’re new and different. Tales from another world are valuable.” As she said this I had already laid my duster on the rack, and my helmet was sitting on the ground underneath it. I had forgotten about Nightflight, ah… she’s probably sleeping already.

“Is that combat armor?” She asked as I taking off the Riot Armor itself.

“I don’t know that much about it actually. I kinda just found it in a container, but from what's in the operators guide the plates are made from Saturnite.”

         She then tapped the armor with a hoof. Furthermore she leaned down looking to want to lick the plating.

        “No, please don’t do that it doesn’t taste good, trust me about this.”

“So I’m not the only one who likes tasting metal,” she whispered conspiratorially.

I had time to think this was one of the weirdest avenues of conversation I had ever ventured on.

“A guy gets curious sometimes when he’s alone. Honestly, Bowie tastes better.”

She quickly had a smile on her face, until I said Bowie; at that she raised an eyebrow.

“You wanna see my knife?” I uttered, it felt strange but I felt like I had said that before, (deja vu?).

“Okay,” She said very bubbly.

I pulled bowie from its sheath, and she just watched for a second as it reflected firelight off of itself.

She looked at me, grinned and snatched the knife. I was torn between concern for her and amusement as she licked the knife.

        “You’re right. It does taste pretty good…”  I saw her look at the little bit of blood left on the blade.

        “That had some of my blood on it. Sorry, should have warned you.”  I had to fight myself from adding; I didn’t warn you because I didn’t think you would just take the damn thing. “Thats okay, you do taste pretty good.” She said with smirk, then she realized what she said and looked at me for a reaction.

        “I don’t disagree with you, I mean what person hasn’t tasted their own blood at least once.” She got seemed more at ease with me after I admitted that.

        “Most ponies would have ran off or avoided me at least,” She said this before stopping to run her chin with one of her front legs. I stayed silent, mostly because I had never seen a pony so deep in thought before. Besides I felt… comfortable around her already. She just seemed more like someone would have associated with back at… my world. It was weird that everyone was avoiding us, but seeing as I a fire drying me off and a spontaneous, honest perhaps to a fault mare beside, I didn’t really give a shit.

“Aside from the taste, did you like Bowie?”

“Do you just not care?”

“I don’t really judge people in general for their quirks, but in your case I just think what you did was cute.” Wow, it feels good not to be either whining or condescending.

Maybe it was the fire, I hadn’t been around a campfire in months. At this point I noticed her blushing. I probably would have noticed it earlier had her coat not been redish orange.

        “Griffon got your tongue?” I’m a god of speech. (Never in a million years)

“This is how it went for Star Bolt, that moon prince was playing hard to get.”

        “I don’t really know what you’re talking about, but while you’re figuring that out, I’m gonna be eating.”

        “I was just wondering where you come from and if you’re royalty there?” She asked just as I had set one of my MREs to autoheat.

        “A place exactly five miles to west of here in the eleventh dimension,” I said with a smirk.

        “Eleventh dimension?” She let out in a dogged manner.

“You caught me I really don’t know where this place is in relation to my worlds hyperspace location. Or would meta space be a better word? Oh and no I’m what's considered a commoner where I come from.”

        “But you’re feisty and intelligent; are submissive when someone’s won your heart?”

 That made me spit out the water I had sipped. It just happened to hit her in the face.

“What could possibly possess you to ask that?” I said with an expression of non comprehension. “I apologize for the spit take, but my god, Why?”

“A Prince of Lunopolis?” She said to me, my blank look and twirling finger told her to continue elaborating. “Its about a mare named Star Bolt accidentally teleporting to the moon. At the end she’s the queen of the moon with a moon stallion husband.”

“And after many little hybrid abominations they live happily ever after right?” I say to her.

“I actually don’t know, the copy I had was missing the last few pages.” She says this sadly, the water was still glistening on her face.

“Sorry about that, I’m seriously trying to be less of a dick,” I say before taking off my undershirt.

“What ar-” She got out before I began drying her off. The previously wet spots were sticking up as I finished the job. “I was fine,” she said before folding her forelegs in front of herself.

“Probably, but now I have to live up to your expectations of nobility and my own attempts to be less of a terrible person.” I said as I put my slightly damp shirt back on. In the process of this I heard her let out a sigh. So the fantasy loving nerd girl is into me, though being the equivalent of a green alien female showing up at a trekkies house wasn’t comforting. I had a feeling that both genders in this society were equally objectified before the bombs had dropped, and even after the collapse of the patriarchy, this state of affairs had remained.

“Why do you want to act like a noble now? No-... not that I’m complaining.” She stammered out, cutely.

“It sounds fun, I like a little challenge. Besides it can’t be that hard, a knight errant could help this place out.” She smiled at my bluster filled statement.

“Now that I think about it, you would be a better fit for Star Bolt anyway. You being a buck excluded.” Her statement made me do the only sensible thing. I grabbed my helmet, pointed the face mask at her and turned on the glowing eyes. “Also she didn’t wear a creepy helmet.”

        “You know you love the helmet,” I say before I let out a snort.

“Everyone I’ve ever talked to has always said aliens would be either like ponies with extra horns, or tentacle monsters.”

        “I’m not all that dissimilar I know, I’ve had this conversation in the past.” I said before leaning in towards her. “Do you know where we can talk more privately,” I whisper to her.

I was worried where the caravaners had gone, and where Nightflight had gone off to.

“Follow me,” she said with a wink.

I did just that, however gave my armor and most of my gunna* a look before shaking my head. I didn’t need my stuff all the time right? Besides, I had my forty five and a spare magazine for it in my pants pocket.

I couldn’t help but notice my fellow metal taster was flicking her tail excitedly. My realization of our destination was a consequence of averting my eyes from her rump. Politeness aside we heading towards the gas station. At least I could check whether Nightflight was asleep there, while I was speaking with Glycerine.

---===*===---

        As I sat down beside Glycerine on a mattress that should have held a sleeping Nightflight, I had to calm myself. My growing attachment to my companions wasn’t going to help me sleep tonight at any rate. And that was ultimately the point of stopping, to get some rest in a warm place. A warm body pressing up against me threw my train of thought off the rails. I glanced over Glycerine, the need to know about these caravaners was important and if I had to interrogate I would. I laid down parallel to my new friend and laid a hand over her stomach.

“Hey… whatever… you’re doing… DON’T STOP.” I chuckled as her complaints turned to promises of terrible acts she would do to me If I stopped rubbing her belly.

“Quick question: are you part of that caravan?”

“No, me and Tilt were just lucky to find them. They’re going to the same place as us, and they act nice. So we’re just traveling with them.” That calmed me down to some extent. She might have just flown the rest of the way to the Talon base after seeing me settle in with these (this) ponies (PONY).

“Flip over, I have an urge to massage someone. And you seem like you deserve one.” The blush on her face this time was alot easier to detect and therefore more awkward for the both of us. Nevertheless the horny pony (Unicorn) obliged. I leaned over her and began to massage the tension out of her shoulders, given the one of the appropriate times to moan. Glycerine did just that, A lot. “How do you know Tilt?” It had been nagging at me for some time.

“I don’t really want to talk about it, for now just know he isn’t my biological father. But he is like a father to me. Oh can you get my lower back, right next to my spine.” So that helped a little, to be fair hearing a squeak or two at my efforts made gave me some pride.

After a few minutes of that I rolled over and laid down. While my defences were down a relaxed mare gave me kiss on the cheek. Before I could say anything though she blocked my mouth by laying a leg over it.

“I don’t care what you say, you enjoyed that. Besides I think you deserved it, even if you hesitate too much around me.” She ended her statement by lifting her leg and putting it under herself again.

“To be honest I’m kinda over the whole not the same species thing which made me feel awkward in the past, my main hang up is that I… have a mutual crush on a knight in the Apple’s Rangers.” As I admitted this to her I felt an emotional weight lift off of me. I was calm around her, being honest was really easy around her.

“Are you actually in a relationship with her?” She didn’t seem angry at my announcement. Her lack of judgement was a fresh air, maybe it was the lack of stress in the air but we seemed to get along very well.

Then again you’ve known her for around an hour and a half.

“No, only after a lot of teasing did I finally admit what was obvious to anyone around me. But I think I’ve matured a little, or maybe I just got out of the state of shock that accompanied the beginning of my travels. I think after today we’re gonna be going our separate ways, so as good as this has been I don’t want us to get too invested in one another.”

“Are you still trying to act like a noble? Because you’re good at it, but can I be really honest now.”

“I’m not sure i’ll like what you’re going to tell me, yet I like honesty more than pleasing deception. So go on…” What would others do in my circumstances?

“It doesn’t matter here how long you’re with someone here, no one knows when the bullet with your name on it will be fired. You’re trying to be good pony and it’s not something you find out here very often.” I cut her off by pressing my palm against her mouth, which she proceeded to immediately lick. Ignoring her antics I drew a breath before saying my piece.

“I understand what you’re saying. How about we just cuddle or something… damn I’m bad at this.”

At this point I felt a physical weight rest on my chest. She was warm and with the way she laying on me, I didn’t feel crushed. It was nice.

“This is very pleasant but I’m just a little paranoid about my stuff. Can I go grab it?”

“Nah, you’re staying here.” She said half seriously before resting her head on my chest again.

        “That duster is dry now and it’s practically a blanket,” She responded in no way to that.“Come on don’t make me withhold future massa-” I was cut off.

        “You are a monster,” She said before getting off of me and stretching. “Hope you can sleep tonight with what you’ve done.” She said as I got up and walked out, but not before responding.

        “You’ll be hoping I can sleep in a few minutes,” My mind wandered as I walked the short distance to what had once been a roaring fire. All my stuff was in the exact same place that I had left it in. When I walked over to get my shit together I was irritated to hear a beeping, for about a second. Oh fuck, frag mine. All at once I pulled Bowie out of its sheath and looked down.

        The mine was directly in front of me. Upon seeing it Synthie entered V.A.T.S. for us.

In the dilated time that V.A.T.S. gives you we had time enough to have a brief conference. The reason it could only be brief was because of a simple reality; it takes time for neurons to fire and thought to occur, especially conscious thought. This is why in normal V.A.T.S. targeting complex thought is impossible for you do; however when you have a conscious being partially based upon the Pip-Boy that makes V.A.T.S. possible some modification to the operation could be made. If V.A.T.S. is used like this then there is a flaw to it. In the time that thoughts are occurring, the V.A.T.S. program turns off and on quickly enough so as to not be noticeable to the human using it. A machine based consciousness called Synthie was aware of this as soon as the first rapid toggling of V.A.T.S. occurred. He would later say that he had to take action quickly because was of the essence, and he to act then as explanation of the problem would only have exacerbated the problem.

        At the moment of V.A.T.S. activation I had the beginnings of an asinine solution to the land mines detonation. The solution was based upon multiple things I had learned in the past couple weeks: frag mines had a button on their top that upon being pressed disarmed the mine, V.A.T.S. was capable of freaky accuracy with throwing weapons, bowie was an effective throwing weapon. All these thoughts were stopped in their tracks by Synthie’s panic upon discovering that the time he and to a lesser extent me had to think was less than expected. We were paralyzed for less than a tenth of a second; in that time he had stopped his own consciousness and by reversing the V.A.T.S. conference routine he had started I as a consciousness was turned off. The lights were out in my own head, and as time still skipped ahead to Synthie’s terror he stopped all of his neural activity as well.

        All beings have weaknesses, whether they are (relatively) slow lateral thinking processes, or complete inaction due to terror. The depths of the unconscious mind are deep and in most ways superior in function to the consciousness most being identify themselves as. Synthie had left them online, and that was what saved the both of us.

        A human being for better or worse is designed around a large brain that itself is built around a process of self awareness. Perhaps a being that was sentient would have behaved differently, but humans are sentient and to do novel things they needed a consciousness to assume control, so Jake was restored.

        It took a half second of brain operation to figure out the solution to the land mine ticking in front of Jake. The knife flew straight into the mine, the handle depressed the button before bouncing off into the dirt a few feet away.

        As I exited V.A.T.S. I fell to my knees in pain, my head felt about to burst. I felt a drip of something fall from my nose. I collapsed onto my stomach, my only thought was brain hemorrhage. Blackness was pressing in on my vision, In the closing tunnel I spotted my duster, the pocket closest to me was filled with… syringes?. I fought to stay awake, and remember what was special about those syringes.

Stimpacks… I crawled forward… More blood… I reached out. The sight of the miracle in a needle gave me the strength needed to stay awake long enough to stab the syringe into my other arm.  A slight dulling of the pain in my head followed, and then the blackness closed in.

                        ---===*===---

The feeling of cold broken tiles under me was never a feeling I had ever awoken to in the past. I was content to not move until I the realization that I had been moved startled me into opening my eyes. The pain in my head had receded to the point that it was no worse than most stress headaches, I tried to move my right arm only to find out it was shackled to the piping beneath a sink. I yanked on the chain to no avail.

I moved closer to the wall so that I could at least sit up properly. Whoever had chained me to the wall did a thorough job of stripping me. Cold tile on a bare bum wasn’t pleasant, but I had a feeling it was going to get worse before It got better. At the very least I could watch time tick by on my Pip-Boy clock, this however did nothing more than remind me that I had a radar scanner added to my vision. The area around me was filled with six  hostile contacts and  two friendly contacts. Seeing the hostile contacts move while the friendlies stayed static didn’t improve my morale. All things considered, at least I wasn’t dead from a brain hemorrhage. whatever fuckery Synthie had done wasn’t good for the brain.

“Thats the closest brush I’ve had with death had my entire life,” I said out loud, the euphoria of surviving to deadly things was wearing off. These fuckers better not mess with my stuff, if they do that… I don’t know what I’d do. I’m not a torturer, I’m just a guy trying to be not terrible, and that seems to bite me in the ass more than being terrible would.

My thoughts were interrupted by the clopping of hooves on a hard surface. My Captor(s) must have heard my voice, as I heard theirs.

“I fuckin’ hate griffons,” A male pony said before stepping into the bathroom they had locked me into.

“Look who’s awake,” a gruff brown stallion said when he saw me glaring at him.

“You aren’t really caravanners are you, dammit I should have known something was up.”

“You ain’t the sharpest. Hey Warm Trail, you sure we got the right… thing.” He said before pointing at me from across the small bathroom. I had a thought of grabbing him but unless he had the key that would do little to improve my situation.

The new arrival stepped into the room quickly, as I thought about how to escape my bindings. I had about two feet of slack on my chains and he was roughly four feet away, so that if  I stretched I could tap him on the muzzle. ‘Warm Trail’ was a younger looking buck with a yellow coat that glanced at me quickly before looking at the other pony in the room.

“Unlike you, I can read a wanted posted. He fits the description.” He said this and walked back out. As the unicorn passed out of sight I heard him say “goddess damned illiterate”.

“Are you just going to take that?” I said to him. He walked up to me and was cocking back a foreleg to punch me when I decided to say. “You’re just proving his point if you do that?”

He let his leg drop to the floor in front of him before looking me in the eyes. “Well what should I do, let the horn head walk all over me?”

“I dunno, whine like a bitch. no but on a serious note this is bad idea for your group.”

His anger flared up again, his eye twitch kinda gave that away. The real question was could I reason with these slavers.

“Whats wrong with us gettin’ some caps from some chickens?”

“Where do I start: the pegasi are less trustworthy than most wastelanders, they’ll likely kill you all to avoid paying anything, in the case that they do follow through that amount of caps will tear your group apart, and you don’t seem like the one that would win in a fight against anyone in your group. I can do this all day, but get this I forgive most of the time. If you let me out and let me have my stuff I might not kill you.” I was about to go on about what I had done to power armored troops but he slugged me in the face first.

“You just want me to let you go, that ain’t happening.” He punctuated this statement by spitting on my face. I was going to castrate this idiot if only for reasons of eugenics. “By the way I’m gonna love that orange mare tonite.” Scratch that last plan he’d be lucky to get off that easy.

“All those reasons are secondary to this one,” I said quietly.

“Whats the reason slave,” he said before looking for the weird (to him) cracking noise coming emanating from my right hand. The sound of an eye being punctured and a muffled cry of agony resonated through the room. He laid on his side after I pulled him down to the tiled floor, his left eye was open from a pointed hand being driven into it. I began to look through his ragged clothing in an attempt to find the key.

“You alright in there, that thing giving you any trouble?” Another slaver said from outside the room. Uhh… improvise to buy some time. A loud smack came out of the room along with a cry of pain from me. That was what someone outside the room would have heard, I just hoped that would be a good enough reason for them to not enter the room.

The stallion must have thought I was groping him; that was fine with me though. This place’s depravity was put on display by this rapist wannabe. After checking all of his pockets, I realize he must have hidden it somewhere else.

“Where’s the key?” I whispered into his ear.

I moved my hand away from his muzzle. “In my tail,” I moved my left hand back over his mouth before he had a chance to say anything else.

“Just know that if you try anything the other eye will be gone along with your gentials.” I growled softly into his ear as I ran my right hand through his tail. I could hear him moan softly at the tail stroking, this must be terrifying to him. I might have had more sympathy If he hadn’t stated his intentions to rape my new friend, the aching from my face might have hurt his case as well. At long last I found the key near the beginning of his tail. It was disgustingly close to his anus. A fleeting thought about someone hiding things in their ass nearly made me wretch. To unlock the chain I would needed to use my left hand, so I wrapped my left arm around his neck and moved to unlock my chains.

His scream was unexpected and would be swiftly punished after I got unrestrained first. He the sounds of many hooves filled my ears; my chains came loose and with that I quickly got up. The buck was carrying a thirty eight revolver along with a lead pipe. I grabbed the thirty eight and held it in my right hand, the pipe was in my left hand. The first pony to enter the room was the unicorn buck from before. He walked in only to have a pistol round take off his horn. My thoughts were; five rounds and annoyance at missing his head at point blank range. Before anyone else came into the room filled with moaning ponies I cracked the earth pony I had gotten the key from on the head. The other pony had screamed once and passed out as a thin white fluid seeped out of his mutilated horn. I now had four contacts to deal with and if the universe decided to fuck me an Enclave retrieval squad.I briefly wondered where Nightflight was before deciding on a tactic to spook the rest of the slavers. It was risk stepping into the doorways line of sight but the benefits were two fold: I could maybe shoot some of them, and I knew that throwing the end of their comrades horn would send a message to them.

To my annoyance they had moved out of the firing arc provided by the bathroom doorway, a consequence of that was that none of them saw the horn fragment roll into the main room of the gas station. I had fleeting thought about the rabid animal I turned into when in intense combat, but that was cast aside. I thought hard for a moment about my next move before deciding that an ultimatum would be for the best.

“If you surrender I won’t hate fuck your corpses, I might just let you leave… intact.” I yelled out into the building and beyond.

“Is that you, Jake?” I heard Glycerine say in a response I didn’t expect.

“Bet your ass it is,” I say before stepping into the building and right into the sights of a unicorn mare firing from an outside window. A trio of bullets hit miss me before I jump back into the bathroom, a trickle of blood falls down my back from where a bullet had grazed me.

        “You better not have messed with my stuff or you're all gonna be missing your genitals,” I yelled again.

        So with that said I thought about how to get at the mare at the window without being perforated. I had an idea, and If I wasn’t dealing with the worst a shitty world like this could offer I wouldn’t have done it.

I threw Warm Trail into the hallway outside the bathroom, and even before he hit the ground he had a new hole in him. The gamble I made in leaning around the doorway and entering V.A.T.S. paid off as I targeted the mare holding a rickety lever action carbine. These shots in their computer guided brilliance destroyed her neck, the marker showing her as a hostile would disappear a few seconds later. I barely noticed.

The last hostiles were outside of the house that much was clear, if I was in their shoes I would have taken a hostage first, but in lieu of that I would have taken position outside the entrances. Maybe these slavers were being lead by someone with some tact, my assertion was supported in some way by my observation that none of the ponies I had seen so far looked like leadership material of any kind. Why do I have to fight a smart opponent? It must have been their original plan for the landmine to kill me without problems, and if they hadn’t had incompetents guarding me then they might have actually pulled off selling me to the Enclave. Even if the Enclave would have betrayed them, there was a good chance a good enough leader could have fought them off.

        “Can you get us out Jake, we’re both good fighters… when were not caught off guard.” Glycerine said from the main room.

        My rush into the main room wasn’t troubled by the slavers, they seemed to have moved off for the second. I spotted both Tilt and Glycerine chained to the wall fixtures. The doors of the place were troubling they could be opened at any second and they were at opposite sides of the convenience store.

        Ignoring that for the second I madly rushed over to unlock Tilts chains. In the time that it took me to unlock his bindings I was trying to go over my next move in my head. He looked strangely at me as I thought outloud under my breath.

        “They can enter any time, are they waiting for something? Do they think they can wait us out? They obviously have more supplies out there; and more ammunition.”

        “They’re slavers, not tacticians.” Tilt told me as I went to unlock the chain around one of his legs.

        “So are they wondering what to do now?” I said to him, which he nods to. “Generally in military thinking you’re supposed to have a 3:1 numerical advantage before attacking, and with you free they don’t have that,” I said to him just as the last chain binding his legs opened up.

“Can I have the pipe,” the pony says. I hand him the pipe which he grabs with his mouth. I get up and walk over to Glycerine and start unlocking shackles, upon seeing her I saw that she was unharmed other than a couple bruises.

“So after saying things that could make a raider blush you’re back to acting like a noble?”

I shrug at her before putting all of my focus towards getting her free. Shackle number one opened with a click that gave me a little satisfaction. I spot Tilt at the north facing doorway with the pipe ready to give someone a bad day.

The next minute is delightfully uneventful up until the point the last chain binding Glycerine to the wall opens up. I was caught totally by surprise as she leaned towards me and presses her mouth against mine. I open my mouth in surprise in surprise only to have it invaded by her tongue, though it was more like the retaking of france during the second world war. It was nice for the three seconds it lasted, actually it made my day.

She pulled away after those three seconds before running to the bathroom with a rushed explanation of wanting to check for more weapons. I was on my knees for another second, just thinking about the taste she had left in my mouth… citrus. How that worked was a question that left my mind shortly after.

A door opening suddenly and small metal object bouncing in interrupted any normal semblance of order in my mind and had me open up V.A.T.S. in hopes of hitting the pony that had thrown it.  Instead it gave me percent chances for hitting the… flashbang. V.A.T.S. then was dissipated, and I had time to cover my eyes with the palm of my hands. The boom from the device wasn’t good for my headache, however I wasn’t blinded. The same couldn’t be said for Tilt who looked very dazed. I picked back up the pistol and aimed it at the doorway, which I would quickly find out, was what the slavers wanted. The door Tilt was guarding swung open and a pony ran inside firing at the person who was standing with their back exposed in the center of the room. I yelled as pain exploded across my back.

I spun around ready to fire at the prick, only to see Glycerine beat me to it. Glycerine was pretty good with the automatic she must must have gotten from Warm Trails’s slumped body; seeing as the stallion that shot me was already half way to bleeding out on the floor.

“Are you okay?” She asks me as I moved to look out side from the doorway. My EFS was telling me that the last contacts were retreating and the pain in my back told me I had a bullet lodged beside my spine.

“For now, do you think you can go outside with me to go see If what they left behind?” I asked the two ponies before shivering. Being striped naked against your will is annoying. My exposure to this culture at the very least made me less self conscious.

“You helped us when we needed it, besides they took our equipment as well,” Tilt says resolutely.

“Before we go out can you tell me what happened to the griffin?”

“They dragged her in thinking she was knocked out cold; she wasn’t. I saw her run outside, you think she went to get help?” Glycerine said with some resentment towards Nightflight’s escape.

        “Uh… the only place thats close is a Talons base, so maybe. But back to the moment, I’m cold and my clothes are out there somewhere.” I said as I walked out the door pistol raised with an eye out for either my stuff or the last couple slavers. They followed the naked ape out the door and into the night.

                                        ---===*===---

 To the winner goes the spoils, the spoils in this case being the fun of dragging stiffening corpses away from camp; and getting the stuff that had originally been our own back. To my surprise I had found a note left by the head slaver laying upon my folded up armor.

To the creature known as Jake,

I applaud you on escaping, rarely do you find someone who can run off slavers.

Just know that I was once in charge of the operation near first estate, slavers such as I do not forget easily, though perhaps we need better subordinates. If you are truly the beast that you act like in our presence then the winged ones are right and you should be put down. If that is merely a mask then know that… you will be mine.

        Yours Truly, Pale Blade

   I had read that and felt like he had been holding back the entire time. Why put the least effective goons next to the prisoner? Why not rush all your lackeys into the room in one rush? He must have been holding back? My thoughts had rushed and by the end of that thought train, I realized that Synthie had been silent since the V.A.T.S. fuck up. Realizing that I was worried about his well being indictated that I missed my roommate a little… just a little.

        Looking back at those events I wondered where exactly Nightflight had gone along with the whereabouts of Arthur.The rumination about all of this was from the mattress that throughout all that had transpired hadn’t been affected by any of it whatsoever. All of my stuff was sitting beside against the wall no more than a few feet away from me. Glycerine was pressed up against me and I knew Tilt was standing watch. The girl was passed out, and I remembered seeing Tilt pop a mint into his mouth. Mint-als; I had seen some tins of in Silver Tongues back room. One of the less important things I had asked that guy was ‘what are those?’. He had responded by telling me that they: kept you awake, made you smarter, and let you see things things you normally wouldn’t. By that point in his explanation I had a hypothesis about the drug, but after he explained the withdrawal symptoms in a devious tone; I had figured out what they actually were. Space Caffeine made by small talking equines…  that was my conclusion.

        That alone was enough to make me want to sleep; at least that place was a rational world. After a short time with my eyes closed…  sleep took me.

                                ---===*===---

        In the past, dreams had always eluded me, to the point that anything that could be remembered the morning (or afternoon) was special. I had heard of lucid dreaming, but that had always seemed far out of reach. In the still regenerating brain I had an experience that made all of my dreams look thin and dry in comparison.

        The shell of a city empty, yet maintained surrounded me, and as I looked at myself the feeling of a light set of clothing fit with what I saw. A grey tee-shirt and faded jeans, perfectly normal dress, if a bit dull. The sensation of my legs moving of their own volition was odd, but not unexpected. Time skipped forward incoherently and I ended up standing in front of a skyscraper covered in skin of tinted glass. Movement into the lobby wasn’t important to this dream, and the secretary sitting behind a desk was the only person in the room. My vision locked onto the secretary, it was a pony dressed in a blue jumpsuit with multiple two’s covering it. A waking mind would have wondered who this was and why they had steel plating covering parts of their jumpsuit; being asleep is infuriating to someone who wants to know why?

“It took you long enough, you’re appointment is scheduled… five minutes ago. Celestia’s Flaming Cunt, what were you doing out there touring?” The small pony said to me before I began continued moving in the direction of my appointment. As I approached the elevator I looked back to see her turn on her Pip-Bucks radio and pull a big revolver from under her desk, her voice was definitely a soprano as her accompaniment of the music proved. Before the dream I had time to ponder the nametag she had been wearing.

‘Hello My Name Is: The Lightbringer’

 The elevator might as well have not happened seeing as the only thing given any detail was a flying saucer seen through the transparent side of the elevator. Hanging over the city like a chrome cloud it made me cringe upon seeing it, it had it’s beam weapons pointed directly at the tower I was in.

        “Boo,” I said outloud.

It merely floated there as though it was content in its position of power for now. The image of Nightflight entered my semi-lucid mind, By the ‘time’ it had dispelled I was at my destination. Doors with the gleam of stainless steel were the gateway into my appointments office. They opened on their on to reveal a large room empty except for an office chair with it’s back facing towards me. My entrance into the spartan room was in sync with the chairs rotation. What might have at one point been called a pony looked back at me. He had gunmetal grey fur with a close cropped pink mane, his right eye was cybernetic along with large patches of his exposed fur. The clothing he was wearing baffled me even as I seemed to baffle him; he was dressed like a bishop except the clothing was black and reinforced with ceramic plates.

        “I apologize for my previous behavior, it almost killed us.”

I felt more self aware even as my mouth opened on it’s own, I had freedom to choose what to say; there would be words coming out of my mouth,  choice wasn’t present.

        “As a backdrop this place is impressive, why did you create it?”

“I didn’t, I merely awoke in the chair to hear the noise of opening doors. I turned, then the present happened.”

        “Why are we here, you should be dead.” The words were mine and not mine at the same time.

“Why are you here? You should be storing long term memories while laying beside a strange female.” He said with the same stiffness of body, we weren’t pulling the strings.

The plate glass window behind him was suddenly lit up, the sun glyph from the ‘door’ recreated in neon seemed was the culprit. We both moved in sync to view, I then he had yet to move out of his chair. This was brought to the forefront of events as the sound of a jet engine filled the room. A detached jet engine flew past me and struck the back of his chair.

His scream filled the room as he careened forward, before he struck the window the entire north face of the building evaporated. As my eyes followed his descent I looked down to see I had only a foot of floor between myself and a thousand feet of empty air. Beneath that air where the building had once existed was a black void. My eyes looked away on their own, and in the process the saw the spot that He would have landed. It too was barren.

Nothingness ensued…

                                ---===*===---

I opened my eyes to see my chest partially covered by pony. I guess it was only fair considering I was resting my head on her flank. My change in breathing made her awaken.

She lifted her head from my stomach to yawn, I needed to ask her a question.

“Did I do anything weird while I was sleeping?”

    “You shivered a lot and flipped over a bunch of times, I got tired of that and just laid on you. You calmed down after I did that.”

“Thanks for doing that, I didn’t really sleep well.” My understatement skill increased right then. Sparing people the details of these things is the right thing to do… correct?

“If you want to, the slavers left all of their food behind-” I cut her off if only to ease things along, she wasn’t the kind of person to mind.

        “Breakfast together?”

“How’d you know?”

                “There aren’t really that many things to do in the mornings? And a far smaller subset of those things are enjoyable.”

        “I can think of at least one other thing,” she says before running her leg over my crotch. That got my attention, and deserved an immediate response.

        I ran my hand through her tail, before squeezing the rump, that I was resting my head on. The yelp she made served her right, I was surprised all the more when she rested her head between my legs.

        “Are you gonna stop there?” She said before covering my face with her tail. For a brief moment I was jealous that she had a tail. That was gone after I began to scratch her stomach again. She relaxed at the sensation. It was a shock to both of us when I rubbed over her nipples accidentally: she moaned, I found evidence that ponies were indeed mammals.

        I just continued eyes closed, until I lost my improvised pillow, all wasn’t lost as I soon felt a familiar weight on my chest. I felt hot breath on my face and a tail brushing against my boxers. With the opening of my eyes they were instantly locked to Glycerines eyes. Her smile probably had nothing to do with the bulge beneath her… no it was probably because of that. Nevertheless I felt that the initiative was on me this time, she was surprised when I went for a kiss, pleasantly surprised was the feeling I got from her at that. She gasped when my tongue entered her mouth. It turned out that her tongue was either a lot stronger than mine or she was just better than me at this. I turned my head to regain my breath after I solid minute of her controlling the interior of my mouth. At this moment the door of the convenience store opened up and in marched two griffins and an earth pony. Nightflight had returned with company, the look Tilt gave me told me that he had come there following them. Noticing this development Glycerine hopped off of me, then remembering what she had done minutes before wiped her mouth with a leg.

        “What took you so long, Nightflight?” I ask her accucatatorily.

“I should’ve told you that I was discharged by the Talons,” She said this sheepishly and to to the apparent entertainment of the other griffin in the room. This griffin was older looking and female, the ceramic plates of her armor were well worn, she exuded an aura of ‘don’t fuck with me’. When she was around I felt an odd urge to add ma’am after I spoke.

“This gryphoness told you she was a Talon correct?”

“At one point… I think,” meet authority with vagary, even if the authority figure in question was carrying a rifle big enough to liquify you.

“Was she selling herself as a Talon Company mercenary or not?” Big Bird asked me  a question, which was reason enough for me to get off the mattress before answering.

“Not directly. She said her parents were in the Talons and if memory serves, it was implied she was part of Talon company before her capture. Now I have a question for you, why does it matter to you?” I say as I move over to my Equipment where I started putting it on.

“She broke contract and was blacklisted. If she’s been saying she was a part of Talon company than she would have to be punished. The Talons are a respected group that in most cases leaves well enough alone, however we have a common name and a common reputation. Her entry to the base would have been cause enough for a shake up. Asking for assistance is grounds for a de-feathering, and now that I see you’re group is in no danger she would be lucky to get off that easily.” Nightflight’s silence up till now wasn’t  boding well.

Was this other griffin her old commander? She looked broken, not physically but in spirit. My silence wasn’t perceived well by the griffin in charge, every second I took thinking was angering her.

“Trust me some help last night would have nice. I don’t like needing to have a person pull a bullet out of my back.”

“She put in a request for decisive aid, as in you all would either be dead or fuck toys.

Her actions prove that she is unreliable. Therefore, we’ll be leaving and at some point depending on what the tribunal decides you may see her again. If it was up to me she’d have her wings clipped then thrown into a raider den. But it’s not entirely up to me.”

        I liked her armor and her choice in firearms, but the person in question?; This bitch was lawful evil, which in a world where the rule of law is basically nonexistent is actually impressive. Impressive in the same way abusing crystal meth for years and surviving or an efficient genocide is, they’re terrible yet hard to accomplish.

  Dark thoughts aside, I needed to set things straight. My bird may make of fun of me at every opportunity, but she’s my bird.

“Don’t try It, she’s staying with me,” I say as I insert a magazine of AP rounds into Epilogue.

“It’s not worth it, she has this place surrounded by Talons.” Nightflight said before being clocked in the beak by the older griffon. The sound of something breaking in her face resounded throughout the room.

My aim shifted to the gryponesses head, she grinned and a high pitched squeak exited her mouth.  As the sound left the building I immediately heard the sound of multiple weapons being readied.  Before that I didn’t think that Nightflight was lying. However, after hearing the sheer number of weapons nearby I felt that she wasn’t trying to stop me in an attempt to keep her honor intact. Rather, I felt she just wanted to keep us safe; at the cost of her own freedom.  I could try to fight them… that would be irresponsible given I have two neutral people that could be injured or killed in the crossfire. Besides, I can’t fight this many people at once.

“Does she get a legal console or the like?” I say as I lower the gun and lay it on the ground. Before she can respond I leave my right hand near my holster in the hopes that I could draw it before she could fire that rifle at me.

        “No, punishment is between Talons. You’re lucky that we hate the Enclave more than we want caps or you would have a raptor baring down on your ass.” She snorted after saying that, her grin only widened. A slimy feeling of futility registered in my mind, to which I could only accept. She could have me killed at this time easily, why would she leave a potential enemy alive?

        “I don’t know what you’re getting from this, but in the hopes of keeping everyone alive, can you leave this place?” I responded after a few moments of silence had passed.

        “I don’t get to see peoples friends get lead away in chains very often in this business… It’s funny seeing the looks on their faces.”

        “I wouldn’t suggest becoming a slaver,” I said simply.

“Oh, I heard about that. You burned down an entire warehouse. Regolith said he could smell baked pony for miles. Just for that I’ll leave.” She turned her back to me displaying confidence that I wasn’t going to attack her before walking to the door.

As she opened the door to leave she said one last thing to me.

“Keep doing what you’re doing, you piss off the Enclave and the DJ, stay alive… I need the entertainment.”

The door shut behind her leaving me to the ponies I had only known for a day.

After a moment of silence I walked over to where I had left the rest of my equipment, the feel of leather under my fingertips felt right.

“Alone again, well almost.” I said under my breath before the sound of an angry mare rung in my ears.

“Are you just going to let her be killed by that asshole Talon?”

“If she is going to be held at the Talon base close to us then they will be on guard for a biped and whoevers with him. If I had Elvis or Icepick maybe I’d try it, but one is days away from here and the other is probably in his house getting wasted. All I really can do is try to find someone who knows the desert well,” my explanation of hopelessness seemed to kill her anger along with some of her spirit.

        “Why do you need to go into the desert?” Glycerine asks.

The shifty look I give prompts Tilt to ask a question that I would rather leave unasked.

“Appaloosa is empty now, and Dodge is gone. Do you know about something important in the desert?”

“Out there somewhere in all the sand is a link to something in the past, and the only lead in getting home. If you want an explanation then suspend your disbelief for the duration.” Before they can reply I lob one of the alien power cells at Glycerine. “I found that cell in a hidden bunker near Baltimare. The place was flooded with chlorine gas. On the bright side, it had a complement of aliens left inside. I’m not sure if they actually were aliens. However, I doubt anything in this biosphere has any reason to breath chlorine, so they were probably aliens. Before you ask… that bunker is now a smoking hole in the ground, courtesy of the place’s reactor.”

“So you got this power cell from that place?” Glycerine asked before hoofing the cell over to Tilt.

“Indeed,” I respond

“And you’re looking for another of these bunkers?” Tilt summermised.

“You have it figured out by now, good. Now if you knew someone who could help me in my endeavour?”

“Back when Dodge had some ponies in it, I made a few runs that way. I could take you at least that far, after we make it back to Manehattan.”

“Friendship city needs some parts for their desalination plant,” Glycerine spoke up and drew both of our attentions, though she continued only after gaining mine. “We’re high value prospectors…”

“If you’re obtaining high-tech parts, wouldn’t that put you at odds with Steel Rangers?”

“We go where they don’t know about usually, and if they decide to give us trouble then we can take care of them.” Tilt answered my question and began to walk over to one of his bags.

“Forty millimeter grenades aren’t stopped by Ranger armor. A direct hit can down one of them.” Glycerine said before she saw what Tilt had pulled out of the bag, the eye roll she did only left me to wonder what it was.

“How many times have you tangled with Rangers?” I asked Glycerine while trying to see what Tilt had in his hooves.

“Three times… they’re good fighters even if you can hear them coming a mile away. We try to avoid them.” As Glycerine told me in a more melancholy tone I was putting on my shoulder pads, having given up on seeing what Tilt had from where I was standing.

“Til,t what do you have?” I asked while walking over to him, shoulder pads thoroughly locked down.

He then turned to face me, large revolver clenched between his teeth.

“Thuis,” I heard him say through the object in his mouth. The gun had a massive bore and seemed to have only five cylinders. After a few seconds of me being able to visually examine it he spit it out into a hoof and held it out for me to examine. I grabbed it by barrel, I didn’t want to touch his saliva. That moment the void that Synthie had left was made apparent, he would have said something about my saliva exchanges with Glycerine.

“I traded a whole chemistry set for that in New Appleoosa.” Glycerine interjected after trotting to us. “Tilt said it was the best hearth warming eve gift he had almost gotten.”

“She broke her jaw using it on the manticore, it was lucky she used it when she did. I ‘bout got skewered by the thing’s tail.” Tilt explained for her.

“I was angry I couldn’t give it to you at the right time. I couldn’t say that at the time… I couldn’t say anything at all.” Glycerine said before absentmindedly rubbing the bottom of her jaw with a hoof.

“She passed out after that. I had to carry her on my back all the way to Gutterville. Took you to the town doctor, he gave her a shot of hydra.”

“I woke up screaming, feeling your jaw rebuild itself in a just a few seconds sucks. Seeing the doctor didn’t help either…  creepy ghoul.” Glycerine shuddered as she spoke about her doctor.

“I have nothing against ghouls, but the look smile he gave me after I told him about the manticore attack didn’t put me at ease.”

“I actually have business up in Manehattan. This works, and the bunker situation isn’t time sensitive… I hope. Can I head up there with you two?”

“What business would that be?” Glycerine asked.

“Applejack’s Rangers owe me some money, and a favour.” I told them this as I finished the final prep on my armour.

“We’re not working with rangers,” Tilt told me in a voice darker than any tone I had heard from him so far.

“If they have red paint on their armor then they should act with more respect for the common man… pony. Just give them a chance. Out of all the bastards I’ve worked with so far, they’re probably the best.” I said that while thinking that nostalgia might be biasing me.

        “I’ll believe it when I see it.” He says before leaving the building to do something important I guess.

“Why does he hate the rangers that much?”

“Ask him,” she says as she vacates the room leaving me with the choice to follow or stay.

        My running away from tense situations had cost me before, I had to stay with them. If only to prove to myself that I could maintain a relationship in this hellhole. The last time I had been left truly alone, I hadn’t liked the consequences.

                                        ---===*===---

        Tilt had stayed barely within sight range as we walked in the direction of Baltimare.  Conversation between me and Glycerine had lulled when she caught me staring in the direction of the swamp.

        “What are you looking for?”

“A friend,” I told her as my vision shifted down to look at her.

        “You have a lot of those don’t you?”

“I’m good at making friends; Keeping them, not so much. Don’t be surprised if we run across a human wearing power armor, a unicorn with a plasma caster or a colt deputy.”

        “And apparently flying saucers,” She added with a laugh. I did not laugh with her.

“Can you do something for me ?”

 “Depends on what you want,” She had sensed the seriousness in my last statement, I could tell this by the way she had pushed away the remains of the smile on her face. I felt a pang of regret for the removal of her mirth. Although it was necessary and temporary, it still hurt.

“Don’t let me run away. I’ve done it so many times and I’m not sure why.”

“I’ll try my best?” She said halfheartedly after a few seconds of silence.

        “You mind playing therapist for me?”

“Will you buy me drinks later?” She asked me with a smile on her face, which was matched by mine after I realized Blurred owed me for life.

        “I know a guy in Baltimare who he owns the club there. He owes me for the music in the club, therefore he gives me drinks.” She was looking at me inquisitively at this point, I stopped myself from rubbing my neck. I needed to get to the point before I started stammering.”If you wanted to die of alcohol poisoning… he could hook that shit up, free of charge…  If I tell him to… of course.” I forgot that I couldn’t be reticent to save my life; the words just built up, If I stayed silent then the second I spoke they all spewed out.

She shot me an amused look before beginning in a serious tone,”I don’t know if I can do this without the couch.” My expression was lost on her (stupid mask), nevertheless she continued in a tone that told me she had been joking about the fainting couch. “So whats broken in your noggin?”

“Physically, very little; though less than twenty four hours ago I think I had an aneurism. I think the problem was solved, if only because if it hadn’t been solved my body would probably cold to the touch right now.  Mentally, I don’t know where to begin. I guess I’ll start with telling you that the other consciousness that resided in my head for the last couple days is silent; I have a feeling he’s going to be gone for a while. Illogically his absence is depressing. How losing the voice in your head is more distressing than having it remain, I don’t know…”

“You were talking about leaving your friends a couple seconds ago. Duh, you’re missing all of your friends. If that voice was another person sharing your body than losing that person would make any normal pony sad.”

“That makes sense. I still don’t think it’s normal to grow attached to the thing sharing your body.”

“Mares have months to grow attached to the thing sharing their body,” she says while keeping her eyes fixed on the horizon.

“Are the closest parallels to my experiences pregnancy and schizophrenia?” After I say this she stares at me silently unmoving. I stopped and after some thinking came to a conclusion. “Fuck,” Expletives convey understanding right? Upon the realization that a rhetorical question was part of my normal stream of consciousness, I couldn’t stop myself from bursting into laughter. Hysterical laughter.

 “This is going to take a while.” She said before joining me in my laughter.

     “Hell yeah it is.  Why, do need to get something off your chest too?” She didn’t immediately respond to my offer for a sympathetic ear.

        “Do you really want to hear about my problems?”

“I could have asked you the same question a few minutes ago. How would you have answered it?”

        “Yes,” Glycerine responded.

“That would have been enough for me. If you need more than that I guess I’ll tell you,  I’d like to know more about you.”

        “When you say things like that… I keep thinking of the Moon prince.”

“Have you ever actually seen the moon?”

        “Have you seen the moon?”

   “Yes, and I miss it. Then again I miss being able to call someone on the other side of a town, to have them deliver food to me.” I let out a sigh after saying that. For better or for worse I had gotten used to hunger pangs in my time here. Food wasn’t that easy to keep around.

        “I understand why you want to get back there as soon as possible. This place used to be the kind of land that people wanted to come to.” Her eyes drifted to ground as she said this.

        “Come on, this place isn’t that bad…” I said halfhearted to her in a (futile) attempt to cheer her up again. “Yeah, this place is a wasteland. However, I can say that at least the leading cause of death in this country isn’t a sedentary lifestyle.”

“Someday it’ll get better. The land is getting less poisoned every day.” She responded with a fake looking smile on her face.

        I jumped as I heard a boom to the west, turning my head I gazed at a bright green mushroom cloud poking up above the horizon.

        “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I doubt this place is getting better from an ecological point of view.” I said before sardonic laughter begin to leave my mouth.

“Can we go back to talking about our problems, they aren’t as big.”

“I think a ‘balefire’ bomb going off is a pretty big deal, you just want to ignore it? I do plan on heading in that direction pretty soon.” I decided not to finish that sentence off with ‘with or without you’.

 “So you wanted to talk about the friends you left behind?” She had ignored my entire statement, and strangely I wasn’t angry. she had hit close to home with her total rejection of conversation involving her world. Maybe she just liked to ignore the problems she could no effect on? Whatever her reasons, she still had this aura of tolerance, and I was attracted to that.

“Aren’t you afraid of radioactive particles from that bomb raining down on you?”

“Yes, but I have medicine that fixes radiation poisoning.” She answered quickly before looking at me as though I was trying to avoid conversation. Which I was not, sometimes a person is curious about another person's health. Besides I liked her better with hair, and not dry heaving. Did magical radiation poisoning have the same symptoms as atomic radiation poisoning?   “Do you try to make friends?”

“I try to be funny, sometimes I feel people just need a friend. Other times I have to distance myself from others for their own good.” An image of Bright Surprise flashed through my mind as I finished speaking.

“You’re not crazy, you don’t like killing, and that makes you better than half the wastes right there. Do you not see that?”

        “The first time I killed someone, I barely felt a thing other than the rush of adrenaline and happiness at surviving an encounter with a crazy man. Now the only thing I feel most of the time is sadness at having to use ammunition up. It’s getting easier… both the act and the time afterwards. I guess I kinda saw this coming, so I left an orphaned kid in a defenseless town to grow up as a guard there.”

“You couldn’t take care of a foal, so that makes sense. You did the best you could, silly. You aren’t a bad guy, how do you not see that?”

“You know what’s funny about that? I used to live in a house that had mirrors. Everyday I could look at myself in the mirror. I didn’t always like the thing that stared at me, but at least I had some way to see what I was. I used to go through life knowing somewhere there was a document that told you what a person can or cannot do. There isn’t anything like that here, or if there is… I haven’t found it yet. A world without mirrors, you have to trust yourselves to see things in the way with the most possible truth. Or trust another to do it for you.  I think if there were more mirrors, there would be fewer monsters. People need something to compare themselves to. If I could see a reflection of myself right now; I would do it in a heart beat. The last time I had a chance to look at myself I had yet to take another life, I had yet to spare what most would consider a monster, I had never burned people alive. Would I see a monster? Do you see me as a monster now? Are there really monsters?” I only felt the mask I wore coming off when the process was halfway through, my hands were practically moving of their own volition. The helmet was attached to my belt in a single motion, in the past It would have taken me multiple tries to do the same action; Now though I had finesse, it’s the little changes that sneak up on you.

“I was torn out of my world a human, I don’t know what is coming back.”  I thought outloud, and as I looked at Glycerine her slight frown derailed my train of thought.

        “What do you see when you look at me?”

“What exactly do you mean?” I ask her quizzically.

        “I’m trusting you to be my mirror. What do you see?”

“A person that’s fun and spontaneous, likes explosives, and sad, but not angry that she was born into a world that was ruined generations before.” A pause happened here, we shared a look. My raised eyebrows were matched by her neutral yet hard facial expression. “Orange with black mane, shorter than me. Ultimately, I know very little about you and vice versa, the final thing I see is an attraction to something about me. What that is I have only guesses.”

   “I don’t need a mirror; Sometimes people need to see themselves as others see them.” She replied slowly with an air of confidence.

---===*===---

        The rest of the journey to the resurrected city of Baltimare was uneventful to the point that we were free to converse for the remaining duration. She was interested like most about where I came from. Unlike others, she asked about my family and how daily life went on there. I was happy to explain some things about my past. When I asked about her family, she shied away from the question, and when I pressed for some sort of answer, she admitted she wasn’t ready to talk about that subject with me at that point. My mind was filling rapidly with speculation, fueled by both her actions and her reticence in that area.

When I asked how she met her friend she looked surprised; up until I explained that I was surprised that a Psychiatry as a profession even existed in this hellhole.

        “I think there’s a doctor that does psychiatry in Tenpony tower, but back to doctor feel good,” yeah the guy’s name was doctor feel good. She looked at me quizzically when I started laughing at his name. Regardless I got the feeling that while I was in Manehattan I might as well spend some caps on a professional. Also I wanted to see the pony statue of liberty; Does every alternate universe have some version of the United States? The answer I found out during the conversation was… there’s an analogue of China too. I had a feeling there were Nazi’s here too, on the other hand that entire train of thought was probably overgeneralizing.

        If you were to erase all the details of our Journey to baltimare, you would be left with a series of happy moments interspaced with awkward ones; Which is why we arrived at the cities main gate and saw that tilt was speaking with the gate guard, I felt a pang of despondence at the realization that we were done with that happy segment in our lives.

        Walking into the city I was mollified to remember that Glycerine was coming with me to get a drink at Blurred’s place. I then remembered what had happened last time I had gotten a drink at that place, it didn’t help that I was bringing a woman there this time. The train of thought smashed into another train of thought that had guilt about Icepick as one of its cars. Alcohol sounded really good right then. Consequently I hurried Glycerine towards the establishment, to my displeasure, she got a real kick out of being hurried towards a bar.

        Before we went to far she told me she was breaking off to tell Tilt where we were going. This left me a few feet from the main gate beside a sweating guard. Remembering something I had to decide whether I wanted to tell the guard about the hole in the wall. Taking a glance at the guard and his gun;  the shotgun must have been at least half duck tape. That bit of knowledge told me that leaving a second way into the city was a bad idea. Naturally A lie of omission followed.

        “On my way in I spotted a hole in your wall. Fix it?”

I left the guard behind after giving him a heads up and saying nothing else, I could see Glycerine telling Tilt goodbye. We matched speed and our mutual interception went well, before either of us spoke I pointed us in the direction of Blurreds place. She followed implicitly… I liked this.

“What did you tell that guard?”

“I told him there was a hole in the wall; I didn’t tell him that I helped create the wall.”

        “Chivalrous of you?”

“Not really, it’s just the bare minimum of good to keep myself from becoming terrible. Besides this place puts up with me, a bunch of raiders sneaking in might end that.” Saying that I was worried that she would be disappointed in me; Speaking  honestly about my motivations isn’t normally something that I do. With someone whose opinion carries some weight at least.

        “Are you trying to protect your bartender friend?” Surprise, I felt surprise at how she took the conversation. Before I spoke I attached a rare attribute to my friend. Humanitarian, no (on multiple levels)… People person, maybe… Empathic, yeah that works.

        “He’s cool I guess, and I have helped a bunch. He’s either a friend or an investment, and that depends on which way I view the world.”

         “That’s cold of you.” Was all she said, but that was only part of what she was telling me.

        “I try to aim for a lighter shade of grey, but that doesn’t stop the world from putting me in situations where I have to do things that make me cringe later on; in the end all I can hope for is a day where I can look at my past and say ‘I survived without abandoning all of my ethics’.  Is that a happy ending, not really. Is it good enough to shoot for? I haven’t had enough data to decide myself .”

“That’s not very heroic.”

“I’m not a hero, I’m a guy doing his best to get home. If you think you’re following a hero than I feel bad for giving you the wrong impression.”

        “You really believe that?”

“There’s a difference between having some a little morality and being a hero out to save the world. I mean what do you expect, this festering shithole isn’t my world. I’m well equipped to survive here both because of my physical form and because I was lucky to find good Equipment . That doesn’t mean I want to…” My speech was left unfinished; the aircraft in the sky having diverted all of my attention.

        It had drawn the attention of others even in the waning light of otherwise normal evening. The aircraft blended in well with the grey cloud cover, which made sense seeing as large parts of it appeared to be made out of cloud. Part of me namely the part of me that still believed in the laws governing aerodynamics felt like crying; other parts of me were thinking of ways to splash it. After a few seconds of staring at the thing I determined a  couple things: No-one around me had seen one of these things before, it was traveling away from the town, I should probably get inside a building. After ascertaining these things I did get inside a building, while at the same time wondering about the technology involved with the airship.

        Standing inside Blurred’s bar my mind was a million miles away, it made everything worse when I realized there were several power armored ponies staring at me, to make everything more interesting the only human I had met so far was shooting me a look I didn’t like. Everyone stayed static up until the moment Glycerine ran in after me. By that time I had realized these were Applejack’s rangers, given the fact they had apples painted on their armor and the fact that they were welcome in a bar to begin with. That and the fact that Paradise city was about halfway through.

“Told you he’d be here,” Elvis says to a pony still wearing a helmet.

“Please tell me this isn’t an intervention.” I tell the assorted patrons in a voice that sounds more whiny than I like.

        “These the friendly rangers you wanted me to meet?” Glycerine says after tapping me on the hip.

        “I can answer that easily enough. No seriously; Hey Icepick you wearing your helmet?” I yell my question at the assembled rangers while walking towards the friendly owner of the establishment.

        “Nice of you to ask,” The pony that Elvis had spoken to before took off her helmet.

A rush of happiness hit me as I saw the person that had helped me get a start here. “So I hear from this guy that you’ve had some fun here.” Icepick and her dark sarcasm, I missed it.

        “God I miss Synthie… he’d have a ball right about now. Oh speaking of crazy, did you get the talisman installed correctly… Elvis?”

        “He had some help… “ A buck wearing power armor said, and in the process earning the chagrin of Elvis. I had figured out that Blurred wasn’t manning the bar, an unfamiliar buck was tending instead. I had feeling this could get almost comically awkward. So against my better judgement I was walking over to the table that all of the rangers were sitting at.

“Shut up Elvis, and Glass, don’t anger the creature that’s twice as big as you.” Icepick asserted dominance over the males with a single sentence. I would have been more impressed If she wasn’t carrying a gun that would punch holes in APCs.

As I sat down, the form of Glycerine dropping into the chair beside me calmed me down.

“Are you aware of the pre-war government's involvement with alien technology?” I yelled at Icepick.

“Are you aware that the Enclave wants to dissect you?” Icepick yells back.

I burst out laughing, and when I see everyone at the table including Icepick glaring at me, I formulate the best possible response.

“For auld lang syne?” The glares continue in every case but Glycerines.

“For the times gone bye? You’re being intolerable for my benefit… that’s sweet.” Icepick figured my plan of attack more quickly than I anticipated. In that case, she’s earned the more matured Jake, damnit. It looks like one of my old enemies is about to speak, so to render whatever she says inane, I throw my alien power cell at Icepick.

        “I don’t understand why she… “ The bitch known as Ironsight, starts to speak about Icepicks behaviour; However Icepicks Exclamation of surprise at an object bouncing off of her chest plate interrupts her.

        “What was that for?” Icepick and Glycerine say simultaneously, but my attention was elsewhere. Ironsight was looking at me in a way that suggested she knew something was going on, so in a move that only after reflection later on I would see the folly of I bared my teeth at her.

         “Are you two gonna fuck or what?” Elvis quipped from the other side of the table.

“HAVE YOU SEEN HIM,” Ironsights yells at him.

“HAVE YOU SEEN HER,” I yell half at elvis half a second after her.

“Besides she’s gay,” The named glass said in the silence that followed. The blessed silence that followed was broken when Elvis asked an innocent question, in the most mischievous way possible.

“Who are you?” The question directed at Glycerine has the (intended) side effect of directing everyone’s attention towards glycerine.

“Somepony, who knows why he left you people,” Glycerine says before getting up and leaving with a fake looking neutral expression on her face. I follow suit, because I had a feeling there needed to be words. To her credit, Icepick got up a few seconds after I did to join the procession.  There would be words… that was the only thing that was certain as I made my way through the crowded bar, my bastard brain filled my thoughts with all the ways this talk could blow up in my face.

---===*===---

The night was in full effect, the air chilled, did this change how things would go down? I’d rather not waste breath on such things. I had a few seconds lead on Icepick, this was more important than any other thing. I found Glycerine sitting on the corner just around the club’s north side. There was a catch in my throat as I built up the confidence to speak, this was uncharacteristic of me, but that question only lead my attention away from the situation at hand. Besides only crazy people spend time thinking about what constitutes their own character… wrong, oh so wrong.

“Why do you act so differently around those ponies?” A straight question with an answer so convoluted It hurt.  Asked by a person I barely know, yet strangely feel attached too, does that make sense?

“To be fair It’s like a half and half affair: Sometimes I’m mopey and contemplative and in the mood for things like pleasent conversation, other times I become an addled brute. I can barely remember what I felt like normally, the implants have changed me. Humans don’t have fucking metal parts, americans don’t fight ponies in power armor, I never in the past grew painfully attached to partners in the span of a day. You ask why I vary so much? Well you want to know the truth… I have no idea; Sure I can guess till the sun goes down… but what does that fucking accomplish. I feel a shiver down my spine everytime something reminds me of the time before this. There you go, we can play physiologist all day, it won’t make a difference. Psychology as a tool is made to get people functioning in society, nothing more; It can’t fix what isn’t broken, and that’s the goddamn kicker. I function just fine from an operationalist point of view, If you see me as a machine with a goal then yeah, I’m highly functional.

Hey hey

Jake Embrea

How many ya killed today?”

“That’s probably just the tip of the iceberg isn’t it?” I turned to see Icepick give me a concerned look.

“He needs help, and I don’t think you help him.” Glycerine spoke up with a fire I had yet to see in her. Fire and Ice, I thought as my eyes shifted between them. Laughter although in this case suppressed laughter, blunted my self loathing, I was back from the brink. At least I think I’m away from the abyss? Whatever, just repeat the unofficial operationalist mantra.

Everything is a black box! When Icepick spoke again I lost my foothold in my un-happyplace.

“Who are you? All I can guess is ex-raider guessing from the scars on your legs.”

“If I was an outside observer, I would let you fight. But I’m attached to you both, now can all of us agree that I have problems?” I got reluctant nods from them both, this let me continue to the next step in my not-plan. “Now that this has been agreed to by all parties involved, can we all agree to let me keep my issues unresolved at the moment, only under extreme duress does my compromised psyche act up.”

        “So, first contact with extra-equestrians doesn’t include ‘extreme duress’?” Icepick points out.

        “Not if It’s done right,” I counter.

“Isn’t the desert out west the same desert filled with radiation from the bomb,” Glycerine says. She approaches things differently, or is it a method of stymying conflict?

Regardless of that observation I proceed to tell them I’m completely immune to magical radiation, to which Icepick tells us that ranger armor is basically a Radiation suit. Icepick doesn’t appreciate it when I begin laughing at her, in my defense I felt that the difference between resistance and immunity was pretty obvious.

“What’s so funny?” Glycerine asks me, the honest queries from her were a breath of fresh air, mostly because I had a pedantic streak and her questions stroked it.

Explaining my laughter brought a quizzical look to Glycerine and seemed to piss Icepick off. The final line could have pissed someone off all by itself.

“-and so you should have surmised from this that novices study tactics, masters study logistics.”  The logistics being the operation of a military team in what would normally be a hostile environment, made worse by a nuke going off nearby. If I had been talking to a private or a high school student it wouldn’t have been that grating overall. However I was ‘educating’ a young military officer with a competitive streak, the competitive streak that had manifested between the time of my departure from her life and our reunion.

But as some jackass said a long time ago (in every world with a linear understanding of time), ‘Hindsight is a hell of a lot clearer than foresight’. This was never more apparent than when Icepick tackled me after my speech finished. That went about as well as you would expect; Three hundred pounds of steel augmented pony will beat you in a wrestling match a million times out of ten. I had no idea what glycerine was doing, really though my thoughts were more focused on how not to beaten to a pulp. This was harder said than done given the fact that I wasn’t built like most strong people, what that means is… I’m pretty weak compared to an earth pony wearing power armor, implant notwithstanding.

Trying to keep Icepick from crushing me with her front hooves took all of my attention.  Therefore when Icepick was bucked off of me by a homicidal Glycerine I had no other option than to take a breather. I had never seen anything quite so terrifying and adorable as two ponies growling with bared teeth ( their noses get scrunchy).

“I haven’t seen this much batshit crazy since that time I watched hoofington raiders trying to eat a canterlot ghoul, so in other words cool the fuck down.” All of us turned to look at the most vulgar eyebot in the history of eyebots. Watcher.

“I made friends… “ I said between one of my deep breaths; fun fact, broken concrete is a lot more comfortable when you're trying to regain your breath.

“I can tell. Now can you all apologize, you have potential as a team. And this place needs as many teams as it can get. Oh and congratulations on the promotion Icepick, now if you excuse me I have to give a pep talk to every wastelander with even aspirations of heroism.”

“You know if you need to talk about your problems we can arrange a small group session,” Glycerine told him as the mysterious watchers avatar floated away, she followed this up with “they need it too.” Strangely she said this in a quiet hiss, as though we wouldn't hear it.

This conclusion lead me to conclude that everyone is broke yet functional, the counterpoint my own head supplied was ‘or maybe you just attract that kinda person’. I pondered this for at least two minutes with my eyes locked on the sky.

“I apologize for acting like a condescending prick, I kinda get like that sometimes.” I broke the silence by saying this while sitting up.

“I thought about what I said, I crossed the line when called you an ex-raider. That’s why you started acting like you did, you were defending her by attacking me in a roundabout way. I forgive you Jake and… it’s Glycerine, isn’t it?”

“I think this is the first step to making things better, So I apologize for being clingy towards you Jake, Icepick l wish we could start over.”

“This is going to sound like I’m trying to avoid further apologies along with all the touchy feely stuff that entails; this is the opposite of that in actuality. Question, you wanna get some guns...  on me of course?” I finished my strangely phrased proposition with a smile that I think is charming, an outside observer would think it looked slightly creepy.

        The look on Icepicks face was stuck halfway between; Are you serious?, and ‘ Are you propositioning me?’

        Glycerine instead seemed to know that I was serious about the question, she was giddy. She was probably thinking this would be a chance to play group therapist in a neutral location, she was going to have to learn about my friend Silver at some point. That would be fun. In the time before either of them responded I had a distinct question about the latency of therapist training, was it always lurking under the surface just waiting for the right person to be ‘healed’ by it? The ethics of creating a happy go lucky wasteland therapist was a quandary for a quieter evening.

        “If my troops are going with you then they could use some extra munitions, logistics. Right, Jake.”

“If that was yes, then I guess I’ll come with you guys,” Glycerine said before standing up and dusting herself off with telekinesis.

And like that we were at peace with each other for the moment, there would be all kinds of problems, that was obvious. In spite of this we were trying our best to be ourselves without getting into death battles with each other. Case in point, as we walked down emptied streets…

“So how much can you bench press with that armor?”

“You do get a sick thrill from talking about things only you know.”

“You love me for it,”

End Of Chapter Ten: What was lost

End of Part Two: Resurection

Footnotes-

        50% to level up-

        Implants fully integrated- You’re never itchy, you’re more in control than ever before and the protein you’ve been aching for has been going towards now completed muscle tissue.

        Now if any of  this did anything to keep you same, that would make you a lot happier.

Companion perks added-

Fifty Caliber Serenade- Is it an artillery piece?  is it a mortar? When she is in your party people that aren’t normally affected by intimidation checks are now more liable to accede to your demands.

“Political power comes from the barrel of a gun” -A real swell guy.

   Medicine Of The Mind- So you’re traveling with the perhaps the youngest therapist in the wastes. Will help you when you need it, and that kinda thing is hard to quantify.

        “Mare, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.”

Chapter Eleven: Old World Blues

Chapter Eleven: Old World Blues

        Silver practically shat a brick when he saw the people entering his shop. It felt right. It was moments like this, that showed me that life experiences are valuable. Perhaps not inherently; maybe all value is built around context. However, in this instance, that mattered not at all. All it took was a slight mention of the power-armored do gooders to put the smarmy ass on his best behaviour. This was Icepick’s doing-- she was talented at manipulation. Then again, if I had a contingent of Steel Rangers, I would probably learn how to throw their weight around pretty quickly.

        Not to belittle her at all, Jealousy is a subtle thing, as I would learn. Throughout our visit to the friendly arms dealer, Glycerine stayed silent unless spoken to directly. I only noticed this afterward. At the moment, I was more focused on Icepick. I hadn’t spoken to her privately yet…  I needed to talk to her. So in effect, I watched Icepick dominate Silver with subtle threats, which I would figure out later was almost the exact same thing Glycerine had been doing. I wasn’t silent of course. Buying things from him went on unabated, with Icepick’s influence affecting the amount of caps exchanged for the commodities I bought.

        Grenades. The Rangers loved em’. Well, Icepick bought all the twenty-five millimeter grenades Silver had in stock. As a side deal I got myself a few more armor piercing rounds, Not as many as I would like, though. Too many things in this place had thick plating, myself included, of course.

        When we left, I found out that I would be carrying the grenades back to the bar. This didn’t agree with my self preservation.

        “There’s enough explosive in these to reduce me to mush.”

“Jake, I’ve had eighteen forty millimeter grenades on me since we left the camp today.” Glycerine broke her earlier silence with a jab at me, a jab that left me feeling like a whiner for complaining. Regardless, the grenades weighed a ton.

        “Can the person wearing power armor carry some at least?”

“Is it weird that I miss that whine?” Was the response that Icepick gave me.

        “So no?”

“What happened to the buck that made a scribe piss himself?”

        “I’m not a pack mule. Really though, I don’t like that guy very much.”

      “That the guy that threatens to ‘hate fuck corpses’?,” Glycerine added on in a way that made Icepick’s tale of my past behaviour seem tame.

  I picked up the pace before answering. That was a serious question: I could justify both instances, but that didn’t change the fact that I had some underlying problem.

“When I’m in the heat of the moment, things change. Context changes the values you observe from people; people are different when put under different conditions, pining any consistent trait in another person is near impossible. Any qualitative trait, anyway, body mass doesn’t change much for instance. Capping off this lengthy-ass not-answer is the realization that this is true of anyone.”

“That’s not true, some ponies are always the same. A raider is a raider.” Icepick responded quickly.

I was formulating a response by the time I noticed Glycerine frowning. Nevertheless, I responded quickly.

“If you only were in the right situation anyone would become a raider. I’m not saying raiders are right to do the things they do but in the end they’re not that different from you or me.” Ideological differences are pretty divisive… am I right, or am I right?

        “I don’t believe that; ponies are better than that.” Icepick said.

“Do you always kill raiders on sight?” I asked Icepick the question that put a grave look on Glycerine’s face. Glycerine’s expression deepened when Icepick responded with a look that said ‘Are you an idiot?’.

        “Thats part of what sent us down here. One of our mission objectives included sweeping the highway from Manehattan to here for nearby raider camps. Didn’t find a lot. We did find a radioactive hole in the ground on the way here.” Icepick told us with an authoritative tone up until she mentioned the hole- she mentioned that with a tone of quiet bemusement.

“Did you have something to do with that?” Glycerine asked after I began laughing.

We reached the door of the club as I answered, “I didn’t exactly take that energy cell from a flying saucer.”

                                        ---===*===---

        I stepped inside, dropped the sack of grenades down, then stepped back out. During that time, Glycerine went inside. I couldn’t see her expression as she walked towards the bar.  I was a little worried when I couldn’t see where Icepick was at. My stepping back outside remedied this. She had been waiting by the door. I was on my way over to her when she turned towards me. The thought that crossed my mind upon seeing her expression was ‘There will be words soon’.

“If you want to talk I have a hotel room nearby that I practically live out of.” My words softened that expression slightly. Some people would have seen the ghost of a smile on her face at those words. However, I’m not one of those people.

“You repaying for using my bed a while back?” She says.

“If I remember correctly, you didn’t hesitate to use the bed with me on it,” The words feel natural, if somewhat flirty.

“You wouldn’t mind sharing a bed again right?”

“As long as you’re there the morning after,” I said under my breath before realizing I did something similar to her.

        “What did you say?”

“I said ‘as long as you make breakfast in the morning’” So what I lied, lies are better than the things they prevent… in this situation at least.

        “I’ll get the apple bombs opened up for you.”

“Maybe Glycerine can cook?” She kicked me lightly.

“Maybe Fiberglass can carry grenades without complaining?” I kicked her flank. Gender equality is a beautiful thing, besides she was in steel armor.

“‘Hate-fucking corpses,’ really Jake?” She says after a sufficiently long length of time.

        The streets are emptied, and the hotel is looming over us already. Knowing this I respond by sticking my tongue out and making a noise that only toddlers make routinely.

        My interaction with the owner of the hotel had always been strictly business. This meant that when two dangerous individuals entered the place blowing raspberries at each other, he said nothing. I liked that about him, that and my arrangement where I paid for my stay at the end of a week. In spite of this I had never learned his name.

        This affected us, because the utter and complete non-expression on his face after seeing us acting like children… was fucking hilarious. To be fair, maybe he just expected this kind of stuff from me at this point. We made our way up to my room with a distinct lack of anything close to seriousness. I fumbled the key in the lock when we were in front of the door, in return she gave me the ‘you’re an idiot’ look for the second time that night.

        “Like you could do any better?”

“I could do it with my tongue in half the time,” She asserted. In my mind a primal part of me wondered the implications of those words.

        “Is that true only true for doors?” In the pause that followed I jimmied the door open.

She stepped inside the room before we spoke again. I followed her in and shut the door, then as a matter of habit I made double sure to lock it. As much fun as being shot at with a shotgun is, I had already vowed to avoid it in the future.

        “Are you flirty around all mares or is it just me?” Icepick said in a half-joking manner that somehow fit her personality quite well.

        “The mood only strikes me around you. Most of the time.”

“So no,” She said with more than a hint of a smile.

        “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

    “You’re a jerk,”

“You wouldn’t have me any other way.” I say with the kind of voice that only comes with a serious amount of truth in the humor.

        I laid back onto the bed, a feeling of quiet contentedness filling me. Glycerine was too sweet for me; she would get hurt if I got involved with her. Icepick on the other hand, seemed to shrug off things that would wound others. I could break Glycerine, Icepick not so much. There wasn’t much of a choice there. Besides I think Icepick needed a bastion of support. Or maybe more of a confidant.

“Did you miss me?” Icepick asked.

“Yeah, I missed the mare with the big gun.” Her face grimaced at those words. “No, but in all seriousness, I missed you. Not just that, after a lot of teasing and coaxing…” I choked on my words- the two biggest contributors to the (helpful) teasing were gone.

“What were you going to say?”

“Sorry, I just remembered some friends of mine.” This is what they wanted for you.

No, this is what they want for you. “I was about to say something along the lines of, ‘I like you’.” My voice goes into overdrive when I said the last three words. In the time that she took to respond I was stuck between wanting her not to comprehend the quickly spoken words, and wanting her to understand, hopefully voicing reciprocating in the process.

        “So you admit that there is some attraction.” She practically jumped with...joy? I had rarely had that much power over people’s emotion before. I didn’t like it. The potential to hurt others with just a few errant words. This coming from the same guy that believes gaining the power to nuke the word was a massive leap forward for the human race. Great. My thoughts had become humorously self deprecating once more. The sounds of clinking metal and things falling onto the rotted carpet of the floor caught my attention, yet my eyes stayed locked on the moldy ceiling. My thoughts turned to what my default state of being is. These thoughts weren’t good for me and I knew it.

        Not paying attention meant that when a warm fluffy thing laid it’s head on my chest, I was more surprised than I should have been. I turned my head to see Icepick laying beside me on the mattress. Seeing her there laying peacefully without the armor that had defined her life made me genuinely smile. People do change when given different circumstances. That was proven to me, at least. However, maybe there was some core of a person that all regardless of circumstances, stayed the same. Some part of a being that might express itself in differently in other context…

        Or maybe I should leave discussion of the soul to people more qualified than myself. That, and get ready to sleep.

“Where are you going?”

“Just far enough to get stripped down, then I’m going to sleep. You know, we have a lot of planning to do tomorrow.”

“That’s tomorrow though. Tonight, I’d just like to have someone beside me.”

   “Tomorrow, I need you beside me.” I didn’t add that I thought we were on the clock. The look on her face my words had garnered was the happiest I had seen all day. It’s those things that speak volumes about people, things like our unspoken agreement about sleeping arrangements. Yes, we talked about it, but those were merely comments. It was already pretty much set in stone. It’s pretty funny that two talkative, powerful people can barely vocalize their feelings. But then again, life is pretty funny. You just have to be in the right mood to laugh at it.

I crawled back into the bed I shared with a talking pony, at that realization I felt a smirk cross my face.  The feeling of coarse sheets was a welcome change from my thoroughly soiled undershirt. This of course didn’t hold a candle compared to the feeling that Icepick snuggling me did. I could tell that her heartbeat had sped up when I rolled onto my side, our chests were pressed together and all at once our eyes locked. In that moment I knew she had been doing some thinking of her own during the silence. Now I didn’t know what these thoughts were, yet uncharacteristically, I didn't spend time thinking about the possibilities. We stayed like that for long enough that by the time we moved apart, her heartbeat was synched up with mine. As we moved apart, I felt like I had to say something.

“We barely know one another, why does this feel right?”

“You ever thought about there being a force that controls our lives?” She asked me as she flipped over. I wrapped my arms around her body and pulled myself closer. This was done because I wanted to do it… and I needed to think.

        “I never doubted the possibility, I just assume there isn’t a force that cares enough about me to affect me.” I say before I feel Icepick press her back into me.

        “Maybe Celestia or Discord pulled you here for a reason. Maybe you were meant to do something here. I would have been dead if you hadn’t gotten here when you did.”

        “I can’t deny the possibility there were forces at play, but I can say that I’d have been dead if I hadn’t found you.”

“Doesn’t it make sense that Discord would want something like us to happen?”

“Wait, are you talking about the physical god Discord?” I asked the question with some terror in my voice. I had heard some ponies talking about Discord in the diner once. It hadn’t registered that she was referring to that god until her last rhetorical question.

        “I don’t think he’s a god but I do think he does exist out there somewhere.”

“And you think he’d take time out of his schedule to hook us up?”

        “Do you not think we’re chaotic enough when we’ve been together for him to want this?” She tapped herself and I with her hoof when she said this.  I dropped the issue.

        “Goodnight, Icepick.” I said this while simultaneously aching for sleep and questioning why someone named Icepick was so warm.

        “Goodnight and sweet dreams,” was the what she replied with. I could feel the exhaustion setting in. This put a damper on any thoughts regarding our relationship.

For the second night in a row I passed out comfortably; that by itself was a welcome change.

---===*===---

        I must been designed with a comfort in mind. She had ended up laying on my chest, most of her anyway. How she had ended up like this, nobody knew. Except for Discord, apparently? Wait. was he omniscient? If he was, then some of the base laws of this universe were quite different. A mental image of Godel and a talking chimera discussing theorems of incompleteness graced my mind’s eye. Gods, I needed to get up, I had things to do. The pony breathing on me was an obstacle to doing ‘things’ though.

Sleep hit me again. I awoke for the second time when Icepick moved to get off of me. It just happened that she had pressed her flank up against my dick as she did that. The grunt I made startled her. I just gave her look that said ‘go on’.

“Uh… I meant to do that,” She said with a facade of confidence that was completely nullified by her reddened cheeks.

“You don’t seem nearly as confident as you were last night. Oh wait, that was about your tongue skills.” I told the alien. My thoughts had turned towards sex, some wall in my mind had been breached. I didn’t really care. This was made more obvious when I reached out and pulled her closer to me. She didn’t object to the sudden kiss; when we broke off she shot me a bemused look.

  “Are you in heat or something?” She yelled at me a few seconds later.

“Unless this place has really weird effects on human males, I don’t think so. Why did you yell?”

        “I just really didn’t expect that out of you,” she says before sitting down on her rump.

“Yeah I can’t fault you for that, I don’t normally get like this.” I say apologetically.

        “You mean get horny?

“I-I guess?” I stuttered out. “The last time I was around you I felt really weird about feeling anything non-platonic about you, and besides, we were both exhausted.”

“In your mind, that meant this was the right time to come on real strong?” Icepick asked, the shoulder shrug I gave in response didn’t mollify her in the slightest.

   “Why would any other time be better?”

“I don’t know; can you understand that you being affectionate on your own is weird for me? I’ve never seen you get all touchy- it’s not a bad thing, It’s just we have things to do.”

Well, she’s not wrong. I’m usually not filled with an intense desire to be physical. For fuck’s sake.

We got up and dressed a few minutes after that situation, that time was spent in awkward silence with the exception of Icepick yawning occasionally. the fact that the noise in and of itself was cute only made me feel worse. It wasn’t the denial itself that irked me: it was my own erratic behaviour. But calling it erratic wouldn’t be correct because there was a logical stimulus. Calling it misguided would be wrong because there was little to no guidance at all. So, that left me to put on my gear and stew.

It wasn’t long before Icepick was encased in steel, and at that moment she acquired an air of professionalism that must not have been present last night. By this point I was in the middle of eating a box of dried apple slices. I was doing that while chugging down a bottle of ‘irradiated’ water. I had bought a dozen bottles after hearing a vendor talking to a customer about how he could never sell the shit. When I approached him to buy the water, he warned me about the danger. After responding that I didn’t care, he pulled out a magical radiation counter. If it had been a geiger counter I would have heeded his advice. Fastforward a few days and seeing as most of the bottles were already ingested, I had a feeling that if he used the same rad counter on me, it would tick. A lot.

It would have been perfect if the water didn’t taste like melted plastic. Would ingesting it make me resistant to chemical burns? After a millisecond of thought I decided… no, it wouldn’t. This realization only made me feel worse.

“Sorry… you should know that I probably irradiated you all of last night. Probably not a lot though. I mean i’m not a doctor but you should be fine,” I said awkwardly. Well, at least I didn’t give her crabs or something. Oh wait do ponies have different genital hair? Or could crabs live in all of their normal hair? Why am I thinking about this?

“Why are you irradiated?” She finally asked. Then she looked at what was in my hand. The words radded written on the bottle said two things; first, someone who wasn’t quite literate had bottled it, secondly…

“It was cheap.”

She gave me the classic ‘what the fuck is wrong with you?’ look.

My breakfast finished, I threw the empty bottle in my bag and left the room. Was she worried about me, or did she think I didn’t know radiation in most cases was dangerous? She probably thought I had a death wish or something.

I felt like disappearing for a couple hours would be good for everyone I associated with. It was just I needed time to be alone, I wasn’t Miss Congeniality on a good day: on a bad day, I was borderline intolerable. It wasn’t that I hated being around people, it’s just  people had always been a little more taxing to me.  Would sneaking off to go clean some firearms and read fill some equines with fears of my demise? Yes, but the alternative was a lot worse. Still, as I walked down the street, taking care to avoid the places where anyone who knew me would go, I felt a nagging suspicion that I should have told someone where I was going.

                        ---===*===---

How I ended up at the building I made some chems at for Silver, I didn’t know. Was I maintaining everything I had the skill and equipment required to maintain? It was the proper thing to do, so yes.

After finishing maintenance, a thought struck me as I took a walk out in the afternoon sun. Why am I even pursuing a relationship when I’m planning on leaving as soon as the opportunity arises? As soon as the question was asked, I started to try and justify what I’d been doing and in the end the only thing I could really get behind as an answer was.

“I don’t think I can hurt Icepick, she’ll never be happy as long as she has to wear that armor, and I can’t fix a world that isn’t mine to fix.”

        A thought struck me after a few seconds of staring at the tools I had used. I could go check that eldritch doorway. No, that was a terrible idea, I thought immediately afterwards.

        “Then again, it is a magic doorway,” how I knew it was a magic doorway was a good question in and of itself, regardless that must be what it is. I mean, why would someone build a door in a door frame that stood by itself, put it behind a facade, in the same room that also held the equivalent of a nuclear reactor?

        Am I going AWOL just to get another look at a magic door?

                                        ---===*===---

The short answer is... pretty much.The long answer is that I took my time killing the few ghouls that had migrated into the area. Arthur and I must have done a number to the city’s ghoul population. The few left over were swiftly killed. My marksmanship was clearly improving, without the aid of VATS, I probably was at the level of a marine marksman at the point, Which made sense given I was using a gun that was similar to United States military equipment. Regardless, I made it into the sewers and after a brisk walk and a look at my Pipboy’s saved maps. I was in front of the Stable. This time, I went through the stable on the lookout for anything that I could use to draw with. That, and take anything and everything of value, which mostly consisted of wonderglue. However my main goal of getting drawing equipment went pretty well. I made off with a clipboard, some (acid free) blank paper and a couple wooden pencils. I wondered briefly about why a lot of the pencils had bite marks on them, then the answer hit me. After that realization I suddenly wanted a bottle of hand sanitizer. That lead me to wonder whether or not the microbes here could be killed by magical radiation?

That book about arcane tech had nothing on biology and magic. So, that train left me with yet another question. Though one I could conceivably answer, all it would require in theory was a few petri dishes, a couple cheek swabs, and access to a source of magical radiation.

        Doing that was another question entirely. Besides, someone probably already figured it out. So, with my salvaged stuff, I made my way down to the reactor room. The door looked exactly the same as when I had last seen it. My defacto objective was to recreate the symbol on the door, though i really just wanted to get away from people and their peculiarities. That, and just look at the door. It was perfect in every way: clean, sturdy, and beautiful were all valid adjectives to describe the door.  Was it strange that a doorway that could not be opened was the most beautiful object I had seen since arriving here?

        I finished the task of copying the symbol down on the paper. Looking at my copy, I realized that mine was an effective recreation and nothing more. Crude or not, I had something to show for my journey into an irradiated mass grave. Now, if I could just find someone who knew what the symbol meant… maybe I could be on my way home at that point.

My trip out of the sewers took only a few minutes given the fact that I had been to the stable enough times to know my way around. At the stable door, I was left with a choice: Continue exploring the irradiated sewers, or head back and pretend to feel bad for leaving for a while.

If not for my ever-convenient helmet, I would have chosen the latter action.

                                ---===*===---

 Exploration is truly a grand thing, when you’re not alone and waiting for ghouls to jump out.  Regardless, after an hour of going through the sewer I found a ladder to the surface. The ladder led to a manhole, which after some prodding, finally yielded. The ability to see the same overcast skies wasn’t the reason I climbed up. At the bottom of the ladder, before climbing up, I had determined the ladder let out to a part of the city very near to the coast.

When I did get a good look at the surroundings, I observed my surroundings were the remains of a military dockyard. I had been hoping for a boardwalk or a carnival, but the reality was that this place was used to maintain ships. Well, I figured out that the place was used for retrofitting navy vessels after a few minutes of exploration. The thing there that drew my attention was a battleship in drydock. It looked better than any other vessel in  and around the clearly artificial harbour.

        Naturally when presented with a nearly untouched battleship, I felt a need to go aboard the thing. One walk around the land side of the dry dock led me to locate a rickety access bridge, which led to the deck of the ship. I stood near the rusted steel bridge, hesitation to go across was justifiable given that there looked to be a fifty foot drop from the bridge to the concrete bottom of the dock.

        As I looked at the bridge and the battleship to decide whether or not to risk crossing the bridge, I noticed that the battleship’s hull was near perfectly preserved, whereas the bridge was falling apart. It couldn’t have been the paint, the bridge still had flecks of paint left on it. So it must have been a difference in alloy, right? Damn, that means the battleship is made of some nice steel. Before I could get jealous, I remembered that my body armor was made out of a tougher material.  I then remembered the plating on that battleship was probably a foot thick in places; at least battleships from earth's past had plating that thick.

My final thought before deciding to attempt a crossing was, ‘A foot of saturnite, what would that stop?’.

        As I took my first tentative step onto the bridge, I couldn’t help but hope that my body wouldn’t be found a decade from now at the bottom of a dock. I tried not to think about anything after that. Moderate success was achieved: I stopped thinking about everything other than the sounds the stressed steel was making as I made it support my weight.

        Getting across was the most terrifying thing I had done in at least a week. I was afraid of heights, so crossing the bridge was torture for me. This meant I was coming back with something useful: if nothing else, going into the battleship would give me some way to delay the moment I would have to go back across the bridge.

        The door to the main deck was locked. It was a steel door, and well secured. I wasn’t going to be able to shoot the hinges off of this door. All the other doors on the deck had the same issue. On the bright side, I did have time to examine the main guns. They were large enough to be the equal of any battleship my Earth ever manufactured. Still, I wanted to see the specifications for those guns. I needed to know the bore of those guns, for spiritual reasons, of course. Regardless, the gun’s specs weren’t engraved in the sides of the turrets. This meant I had an actual goal, And it required me to get inside of the warship. As I realized this, I looked up and saw the conning tower. I bit my lip. I really didn’t want to go up there. Then again, I wanted to see the inside of a centuries old warship… built by ponies.

                                             ---===*===---

 Climbing the conning tower was the most terrifying thing I had done in my time there. Regardless, when I reached the top of the tower, I was unsurprised to find I liked looking at the sea. The binoculars set on a stand were nice as well. At that point my trip alone was justified. Seeing everything for miles around had an appeal to me, it even overcame my fear of heights. Well, it dulled my fear enough that as long as I kept myself from staring at the deck under the conning tower or the dry dock bottom, I didn’t feel nervous.

After a few minutes of ‘relaxation’, I remembered why I had come up there in the first place: namely to access the ship. When I began to search around the conning tower in a serious manner, I found a decayed corpse wearing the remains of an admiral’s uniform. I couldn’t make out the admirals name, but I could rummage through his pockets. He had a password written on a plastic card. Sleipnir. What it was for, I couldn’t discern. This left me to find a hatchway that I could open. After a few minutes of searching, it culminated in me climbing on top of the conning towers observation deck.

It turned out there was a maintenance ladder to the absolute precipice of the ship. It was still very, very high off the ground.

At least when I got up there, I found an exposed radio antenna beside a bunch of other dishes and what looked like a tesla coil. Upon investigation, I found out someone had drilled a hole in the hull to supply this radio tower with magical power. Yes, the hole was sealed, but it was done shoddily, I wasn’t a qualified as a welder in any way, but I could probably weld the improvised covering better than whoever had done it. This of course left me with an avenue of entry. A few minutes later, after a couple gunshots and some aggressive smashing, I had a hole into the conning tower of the Battleship. I made a mental note to reinstall the plate if the opportunity arose.

I swiftly dropped into the battleship to find the place dark, other than the light coming from the ship’s brand new skylight. I went about the old routine of exploring a defunct installation.

 The bridge I would learn was on the deck below the one I was on now, courtesy of a map I found on a wall. I was about to leave, having found nothing interesting up on that floor, when A thought struck me. What If I copy the map onto another sheet of paper?

        The thought of having a vertical cross section map and a horizontal, level based map at the same time excited me. It came as a shock when I turned towards the stairs that my EFS was filled with contacts. From the growling noises, I had a feeling I would be fighting more walking corpses. I pulled out my sidearm and proceeded to walk into the bowels of the ship.

         The bridge of the ship was impressive. The place had a quite a few terminals, some of them even had power flowing to them, one of which seeming to display a passive radar. It appeared that there was a large blip just on the outside of sensor range.

Radar display one (as it was labled) had a scale on it for distances. Given that it was a two dimensional overhead display of the sensor range, this was a nice feature. The blip on the radar was given the name ‘Equestrian Air Corp Raptor,’. The range on the thing was forty miles. Given that it was a passive sensor, this was pretty impressive. Then again, this meant the Raptor was using its own active radar.

        “Just how much of this thing is operational?” I said, thinking out loud. Could I get it operational? These questions filled my mind as I searched everything in the room. Would it be too much to ask to find an owner’s manual? Yes, it would be too much to find an owners manual, but a massive data dump full of the ship’s new schematics (it had just finished a massive refit); that I could find. And in that slew of data, there would be a number for the bore of those guns. Well, a guy can hope, right? Data downloaded, I was preparing to move on. Then the sounds of gunshots echoed from down inside the ship proper reached my ears. I moved away from the captain’s terminal in his ready room, Gun pulled out, I felt that I needed to know who was shooting at what. Ghouls must have been the target of the gunshots because their cries were increasing in volume throughout the bridge.

        Dammit. I had a talent when It came to discovering dangerous places, and to deny myself the ability to tell my friends I did something cool when I ran off would kill something inside of me. And so I began by getting to the stairs, my objective was to find out what was shooting. After several minutes of searching the lower decks, I came across a door labeled  Crew Quarters with a large number of contacts behind it. The rest of the ship I had seen so far seemed untouched, yet filled with things I didn’t want. Making my objective harder was the fact that the thing shooting had stopped… shooting. So this left me with an opportunity to go in guns blazing against a bunch of ghouls. Am I really going to do this? I thought out loud before backing away from the door. The impetus behind my reconsideration of the task was simply, ‘They probably have an armory’.

                                          ---===*===---

        I walked down the poorly lit corridors on the search for either a mad gunman or an armory. (Un)fortunately neither of these things appeared to me, what did appear were a few ghouls that were swiftly dispatched. So, I had a nagging suspicion that this place was irradiated. That explained why this place was untouched. Perhaps this entire dockyard was irradiated as well.  If I was being honest with myself, the cold steel of the ship was too similar to the steel of Dr. Stone’s facility for comfort. The occasional zombie pony also kept me from becoming comfortable.

        It was a turn for the best when I spotted the remains of a pony shaped robot surrounded by dead ghouls, the robot though smashed to the point of non-operation still smelled faintly of cordite. I had found the source of the gun shots. After realizing this, I took a breather. During that breather I took apart the robot’s chest cavity. I wanted to find the thing’s spark battery, and maybe the AI core. In the end, that robot looked like someone had pulled it apart ritualistic.

Now that I had found everything I was looking for, was it time to head back? I asked myself in the dulled light of a not so dead husk of a ship.

        “Yeah,” I said before thinking about the walk back to the rebuilt Baltimare. This time, I could access the ship deck directly. This would turn out to make the trip to the main deck of the ship a lot quicker. I stood in the doorway that let out from the tower to the main deck. The question on my mind was whether or not I should leave the door unlocked for next time. On one hand was the ease of access that leaving it unlocked would bring me. Then again, it would make someone else’s entrance way easier. And that could end badly…  I really should have checked the munition stockpiles inside. On that note, I left the place behind, door unlocked.

        The walkway between the vessel and dock wasn’t quite as terrifying as the last time I had gone across it. This probably had something to do with me climbing on top of the conning tower. Regardless, as I got back to the naval base proper, I felt like I had in some way justified my leaving the group. Okay, that was just excusing my behavior. I tilted my head back and just looked at the sky for a moment before deciding I hadn’t violated that vacuous code of honor I held dear, but I was making the same mistake I had been making a lot recently. But was leaving my ‘friends’ an actual mistake? I began to ponder this as I started walking towards a building a decent distance away. It had a faded crescent moon painted on it… A destination is a destination is a destination. Walking in a line is more conducive to thinking than standing.

The question taking up most of my attention was directed towards the question of my friends.

Was I crazy to need some alone time every couple days?

Was it insane to think that climbing dangerous things alone was less stressful than a few hours of social interaction with the people I had made friends with?

Could I even go it alone if I needed to?

*Smack*

I had ran into the side of the building. It was at that moment that solving my interpersonal issues one way or another became my most important objective.

As I walked around the building, I spotted a sign that read Armory. Less than coincidentally, the building’s entryway was right next to the sign. The doorway, like a lot of the doorways in this place, was locked. Normally, I would have been happy to see a terminal near the door as well. However, thinking about my people problems had left me in a pissy mood. The only thing that stopped me from trying to set the door access terminal’s power source to explode was the strangeness of the terminal itself. It had a weathered casing, yes, but the screen and keyboard were clearly of a different make than all of the other terminals I had seen as of yet. Upon activation, the screen was filled with a blue command prompt page.

This all seemed connected to the change in operating system. Baltimare Naval Yard OS,  that’s what it said.

“That’s new,” or was it old, considering the terminal probably hadn’t been activated in centuries? Shaking my head, I cleared that question from my mind, only to have another much more salient question take it’s place. Do I need to enter this building?

“Yes, because if I can’t break in and scavenge here, then I’m doomed to fail when I do find that bunker in the desert.” Previous successes with bunkers in the past notwithstanding. A smile crossed my lips at the realization that I was just challenging myself for no reason. Not because I was challenging myself, but because I had always given myself tasks that meant very little to others. That hadn’t changed.  The smile on my lips didn’t die as I took a moment to just lay back against a building that like a lot of things in this world, had stood the test of time. What would I be doing right now if a brain in a jar hadn’t abducted me, then shoved things into me for strange reasons?

Probably not anything related to finding backdoors in alien computer software.

                                ---===*===---

        An empty, yet clean room. I found one of these after opening the door. I didn’t have a long time to take that, given the group of contacts moving towards this room. The contacts were amber… small blessings? Epilogue was quickly out and aimed at the door that had yet to be opened. I was deliberating whether or not to make a break for the still open door, my reception committee made that thinking null and void.

        The door opened and three ponies walked in.

“What are your intentions here?” The lead… pony asked.

“Peaceful exploration?” Not a lie really, I didn’t plan on attacking anyone.

“If this device is functioning correctly, then your non-hostility fits with your previous answer,” The pony in charge said with suspicion aimed not just toward me but at his EFS equivalent as well. Probably.  He continues looking at me for a second before lifting a hoof to his helmet. The other two relax as I point Epilogue away from them. I figure out the ‘talkative’ one had just depressed a microphone button, given that I could hear him speaking in a strange language at whisper volume.

        Well, I couldn’t know what he was saying, or who he was talking to. So instead, I took a moment to really examine their equipment visually. It looked to be full body composite armor, different than anything I had seen thus far. The helmet was interesting, looking more like a scuba mask fused with a ballistic helmet. Viewing the backs of the two subordinates flanking Talkative, I could see that the air tubes were connected to a back-mounted air recycler. The weapons they carried were just as strange. Sleek black assault rifles with large capacity magazines. To top it all off they were saddle mounted, yet they had secondary triggers large enough to fire with a hoof. This, along with the inclusion of buttstocks gave me the impression that these were made with the intention of firing from a bipedal stance.

“You’ve been cleared to enter with escorts. Follow them. if you deviate course, you will be killed. She will answer queries,” He said suddenly with perfect pronunciation.

“Alright, I don’t seem to have much choice in the matter.” At that, he only gave a nod before pointing a hoof at one of the ponies beside him. Huh, should I risk a break for the door? I looked again at their weapons… not worth risking the chance unless they force the issue. Talkative fixed a gaze on Epilogue. Non-verbal communication is great- you can state your intentions without having to actually say anything that could get you in trouble. In this case it felt like ‘put it away or else’.

Then I heard the clop of hooves. My escorts were walking away. I guess that whole “do not deviate” thing had gone into effect just then. needless to say, I followed.

---===*===---

   We walked into a series of tunnels that were probably designed to be both uniform and confusing. Okay, it was most likely just a consequence of the uniformity. Regardless, my escorts seemed to know their way around; it was just a lot of walking. This led me to the conclusion that this place was fucking massive. That, and the fact that they had hidden the population of this place. To be fair, they didn’t seem like they had whisked the regular populace away. Guessing from the fact that every single door in the place was shut, their leaders had just told them to go to their rooms and close the door.

It was actually quite a shock to finally arrive at the destination. Then again, seeing a door that wasn’t shut in here would have been really intriguing at this point. Up until the point that I saw doorway with light filtering out, a paranoid part of my brain was screaming that they were just tiring me out so they could subdue and eat me. I had lagged behind my escorts because they had been trotting so quickly that unless I jogged occasionally, they were going to have a reason to shoot me. Still, at that point I had fallen behind.

“You can stay outside,” the words coming from the doorway. The voice sounded scratchy and strangely accented. Closing the distance to the door took a short time; time enough though to register the question of ‘who said that?’. Upon seeing the speaker, my first impulse was to reach for my gun.

“If you’re going to do that, then I can’t stop you, but I can say it would be a sad day for us all,” The talking zebra corpse said this with genuine sadness in his voice. He didn’t seem like he was threatening me. That was a start.

“Oh… you’re not feral… fuc-” I said, piecing some of this situation together. “Sorry… it’s just my instinct is to.” I started saying before he cut me off.

“I don’t hold it against you. I’m Ximroon, please pass through.” He says before gesturing at the doorway.

        “Alright,” I say as I let my hand drift away from my holster. I then move to enter, Ximroon moving to let me see the room I had been led to. It was another vintage laboratory. “This place doesn’t look ruined…  ”

        “Sadly, the only thing ruined here is me.” Ximroon says in serious voice as he closes the door behind him. I felt a pang of pity for him before he turns and smiles at me in a melancholy way. So his jokes are sad truths.

“No, you seem functional; you’re stripes look… great.” I stutter out. Why am I so bad with comforting?

“Heh, I guess I am ‘functional’. Now, enough pity. It does not suit you.”

“Okay, I guess I’ll be blunt; why are you here working with ponies?”

“You think those soldiers were ponies?” He then cracked a smile. I was glad that I hadn’t eaten in few hours. “I told Stone Hoof that no-one could tell they were zebras inside that armor. He still doesn’t believe that we could do better than an old bunker.”

“Okay, so many questions. Uh… how old are you? What are you doing here? What do you want from me?.” I spoke quickly.

“Likewise. Two-hundred sixty four, research, I can’t tell you for the same reason you can’t tell me your answer to the same question.”

        “I don’t know what you have to offer, pssh.” I liked this guy; something about him agreed with me. Probably the same sense of humour, or maybe his mindset from what I had seen from him? Regardless, I offered him a hand to shake.

        “I’m Jake, and I have a feeling that we should get some chairs.” He didn’t look like he was just leaving me hanging intentionally, did he not know…? “Shaking hands isn’t a normal thing here, yes.” At that he held out a necrotic hoof, we shook appendages. Gloves are wonderful things when you touch dead things. Again, I felt like I owed whoever thought up this armor a beer or a thank you letter. I totally didn’t frown when I realized that whoever had put these suits together had probably died centuries ago. Relics from a past age… the things that brought me to here and kept me alive. When I realized that I had been shaking his hoof for a solid half minute, I flashed him an unseen apologetic smile and released my grip. Poor guy didn’t know when to to stop shaking. I  just had discovered the theme of the night without even realising it.

                                         ---===*===---

        We had sat around a kettle propped atop a hot plate for the last few minutes, waiting for tea time to begin. Well, sitting was too low key of a word; we were having the most lively question and answer session to ever grace these halls. I had gotten the history of this base minus where the zebras had come into the picture. He had gotten the summary of how I had arrived here. He had an academic tone in both voice and his thoughts. That part of him was refreshing; his redirections when I asked about how he had arrived in this base were not.

As the tea kettle hissed, he got up to deal with it; something that had been nagging at me suddenly leapt out of my throat.

“Why does your ‘Equestrian’ sound different from the other zebras?”

“To answer that, you would have to know more about my past, I’ll answer your question, but be warned- you might not like where my story goes between then and now.”

“At least you didn’t end up as a brain in a jar.” In that statement there was assent to continue along with enough dark humour to tell him that he couldn’t horrify me. He handed me a coffee mug filled with hot tea before clearing his throat and sitting down.

“Back when the world had color. I was about your age when I traveled here for the first time. You see that hotplate over there?” I nodded. “I remember when the Equestrians invented a new spell that converted magic to heat. It wasn’t really the spell itself that was innovative, it wasn’t the ability to bind it to an object. It was world changing because you could use it indefinitely as long as you had a magic supply. I was sent there by my academy because I had just written an essay on the potential value that the conversion of exotic alloys to talismans could bring us. No, I went to Hoofington because I had always heard about the beauty of Equestria. That, and their preliminary findings were very exciting.”

I gave the old timer a laugh. He brightened up at that.

        “So to Equestria I went. You wouldn’t believe how much I wish I could turn back time. The basis of many technologies were created in just a few short years. It turned out that by changing the spell emitter along with the magic supply, you could make basically any kind of electromagnetic output.” He paused to let me realize the implications.

        “So everything from laser rifles to radio broadcasters is based on work you helped with?”

“Don’t forget about the mane dryers and toasters, but yes, I helped lay the groundwork.  Back then, I was treated no differently than the griffon that was head of the offshoot team. Joseph… I wonder happened to him, probably went home and became rich. He was nice to me, got me drunk on Hearth's Warming Eve once.” I think he regained his self awareness then. “My apologies, it’s just that I haven’t talked about any of this for a long time. When you get old, you find that the strangest things are remembered. So as I was saying, we were laying the foundation for everything you see around us.

It didn’t last. Not the discoveries, no, those were still plentiful when the end came. No, it was the cooperation, the willingness to look past our own interests. The greater good died.” He looked like he was about to cry, which I wasn’t sure that ghouls could even do.

“I think that some disclosure is needed now. This lab is one of the few rooms that weren’t purged of radiation. You should have taken in at least five hundred rads by now.”

“It won’t do anything, I’m immune to magical radiation. That doesn’t mean you get off for potentially poisoning me!” I had raised my voice to the point that he had backed up into his chair.

        “Stone Hoof said I could speak to you on the condition that I ‘obtain’ intelligence,” He reached under his chair and pulled a metal container into sight. “If I saw any signs of poisoning I was to give some radaway.”

“I bet you feel really guilty right now. I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same thing. Still, unethical scientists are really fucking annoying.” I couldn’t feel truly angry at him, annoyed yes, pissed not really. “You’re in the same boat as Dr. Stone. At least tell me that you can give me some answers. No, tell me why you act so guilty, I’ve told you how I fucked up, now reciprocate.” I growled at him. No, I actually was pissed, empathy had taken a back seat as I saw him avoid my glare.

“I can’t tell you why you’re immune at this moment.” He said with an apologetic tone.

“You want to know how I ended up in this tomb. Well, I’ll give you the abridged version.” He had summoned some reserve of courage, it seemed. I must have struck a nerve. “We left when we got orders telling us to come home. It was precipitated by a small diplomatic event: a ship hijacking.        That led to us taking what we had learned and using it to build things. Initially we were told that we needed weapons to fight animals and insurrectionists, and then the war began. You know how that went, right? Pressure was applied, both nationalist pressure and pressure from those that could send people to kill you in your sleep if you acted out. So I played the happy zebra even as my home town was killed, not by ponies… directly. It was our glorious caesar that sent young ones your age to die, it was my colleagues’ and my duty to arm them. Ultimately, I took a stand with some of my fellow researchers against the deployment of a weapon too horrible to imagine. It did not end well.” He stopped to take a breath, before a sardonic, slightly off kilter expression took shape on his face. My anger had died at this point. However, I didn’t want to interupt his story. Whether this was because I didn’t want to apologize or because I didn’t want to break his flow, I never would know.

 “We never did recreate Equestrian power armor. However, during the war, we did find and reverse engineer bomb collars.

 I escaped that fate- no, it was my father that got the collar. He was a veteran of the imperial guard. Some would say those were desperate days, but the moment you do something like that, then you should lay down your arms. There was no room for monstrous people before the war. I couldn’t tell you that we always had monsters among us, but I can say that some of us didn’t change. I apologize for the philosophy- I don’t talk to many zebras that listen anymore.”

“I’m sorry I pressed you. Just continue, no matter how tragic it is. Besides, I already know the end.” There, I did it. Or I guess, didn’t do it. Semantics aside, it’s just one less thing that I could have regretted forever. He looked at me after that and nothing as meaningless as words were exchanged.

 “I had no choice but to comply. They used me till the last days of the war. It seemed that they thought my talents were best utilized as a specialist aboard the submarine that brought the ancestors of the zebras out there, here.  Caesars Pride; it was well named and little else. Well, it was the finest boat Skitskarra ever produced. It would have brought the zebras left in that city pride as well, had they known about it.” Pausing once again, I got a sense of longing from him. He seemed like he could use a new station in life, two hundred years locked in the same place. His wanting to speak to me even with the possibility of my death made a lot more sense now. Words once again flowed from his mouth and I once again listened.

“The entire hull functioned as a stealth cloak, I was never so caught between pride and anguish as I watched the submarine disappear in drydock. You know what’s ironic? that battleship out there? It was built to fight our entire navy at once. Two super weapons within two kilometers of each other. Also ironic is that when we landed here I went out to look at that ship, I told Stone Hoofs grandfather Xandre that I was going out to gather intelligence. That was a lie. I went out there to die. After the missiles were fired and the harbor irradiated, I felt it would be poetic for my death to come from missiles my own submarine had launched. Yes, thats what Caesars Pride carried. Missiles. The radiation from those made me into this.” He gestured at himself. “A wretched caricature of something that had potential, fitting, it’s justice for what I had helped along. I could say that I had no choice; that I was forced to do things like build something that was inherently dishonorable. Cowardice. Nothing more needs to be said.”

“Wow that’s… you’ve had a lot of time to think about this?” He gave me a look that said ‘200 years’. “Well, you did what you could, and they punished you. I can’t hold it against you, I can’t absolve you of blame you deserve. But I ca-”

“You want something, don’t you?” He said neutrally.

“Kind of. Okay, there’s a good chance that this place is going to be searched by a force known as the Enclave.” That wasn’t really a lie, but I realized that I had been acting more and more like him recently. Regardless of his worth, I didn’t want to end up like that. I needed to be resolute.  “So, get me a meeting. Second thing, let me look at a suit of that armor and I’ll give you an offer that you would regret turning down.”

“You want a lesson on Equestrian arcane technology? Because I can give you one while we wait for a council meeting to be scheduled.    .

                                ---===*===---

My colleague had turned out to be an expert on Equestrian arcane technology. I had an idea that it was motivated by a competitive spirit. He really hated the war more than any other thing. Okay, that was the understatement of the century(well, past two.). Apparently the centuries of time he had alone gave him time to read every book in the base library. It explained why he was had a theory in every branch of science this world had to offer before the war.

Thus, it was amazing watching him strip a set of that marine armor down while talking about the various talismans involved with its operation. Everything seemed like an extension on the principles mentioned in the arcane engineering guide. Well, they were plausible within that framework.

“-given the energy surplus of the sparkle IV reactor, these suits were designed with interface capability for experimental modules. Unfortunately, none of the templates or prototypes were stored here, Except for the gravity multiplier.”

“What did you just say?”

“I’m assuming you meant “what is the gravity multiplier?” It’s a device similar to the levitation talismans used for sprite-bots and pegasus powered craft.”

        “You have the ability to manipulate gravity? How did… you had the st-” I couldn’t handle that revelation.

“The Equestrians have had that ability for millennia. What were you saying before?

“So, in theory, you could with the right use of spells and talismans create a device that moves around without expelling mass?” I hoped at that moment for him to both say yes and no. Who knew that a simple answer would could have terrible implications?

“It would require a massive power supply to move something entirely powered in that manner, but it would be possible.” He answered without seeing the implications, both beautiful and terrible.

“Let’s say you had a powerful source of acceleration to augment this levitation force. would there be a maximum speed possible using these talismans as a propulsion system?”

“If you have a powerful engine in the first place, why would you need a levitation system?” He was looking at me like I had grown a third head at this point. “For argument’s sake if you could focus the talismans less on gravity field repulsion and more on inertia negation then if you had an auxiliary propulsion system you could reach speed never before seen before.” I wasn’t proud of the loud cheer I let out as I heard him finish up.

“Do you not see that you have the stars in your reach?” I yelled at him happily.

“Why would we want to go nearer to those things?” He said in disgust at the idea.

        “There are worlds other than these… out there.” I said with a sweep of my arms towards the heavens. The dramatic effect was somewhat ruined by the feet of concrete obstructing our view of the sky.

  “I don’t doubt that there are things out there, what I doubt is whether I or anyone else would ever want to find out what they are,” He said this with enough resolve to make me hesitate to continue this line of conversation. Instead I looked at the armour. There was a talisman that he had yet to explain; a small box attached to the underside of the breast plate.

After several seconds and the beginning of an attempt on my part to remove that particular talisman from the suit, he cleared the air.

“That is the repair talisman. If it’s supplied with energy and its reservoir is filled with materials, it can rebuild anything short of catastrophic damage.” He said in a pedantic tone.

“Could I augment my armor with one of these talismans?”

  “I would have to ask first; do you have a generator built into your armor?”

“Not a magical one in my chest plating, although I think the helmet systems are powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. That’s probably what my Pipboy uses as well.”

“If you want to power a repair talisman, then you would have to use an external spark battery or a small auxiliary generator. And if anything is a constant in your escapades, then it’s your ability to get shot. If that were to happen and you had a spark battery right on your body, than it would be similar to grenade going off directly on your body.”

“Good point. However, I have a another question. What was the offshoot team the griffon was head of ?”

“The original name is meaningless, but I think I know why you're curious.

To give a functional answer, he discovered the way to convert electromagnetism into magical power.” I think the prospect of new research was enough by itself to give him a grin.

“I wasn’t lying when I said I lacked a generator in my armor, but I do have one embedded inside of me.” Instead of the horror I expected from him, I instead got his grin to change from a normal one to a devious one.

        “Council meetings take a long time to organize, I think this project has volumes of potential applications.”

        “Enough to necessitate a devoted research team and the resources to support it?” I asked the happy zebra.

        “I have control in matters of Research and Development. Then again, that’s if I stuck enough nonsensical equations into the report they would back it solely on the principle that they would never expect anything new out of me. That, and the education in this bunker has gotten progressively worse. Excluding myself, none of the inhabitants could have passed an elementary mathematics exam.” He didn’t seem to be exaggerating. I made my decision at that moment to say that he was a credible person. To be fair, at that moment other more interesting parts of my mind were thinking about the possibility of the knowledge that could be gained here. Still, others were more worried about my friends and the time that I could leave this bunker.

---===*===---

Before I knew it, I was up to my elbows in theory with just the barest hint of applications, and I loved it. Still didn’t assuage my fears that things back in Balitmare could go wrong. The dream I had later on that night in a cot in a corner of the lab had something to do with the enclave shooting my (favorite) hotel room with lasers. Needless to say, I wasn’t quite sure about the symbolism there as I woke up at four in the morning. My thoughts couldn’t stop filling themselves with more serious scenarios.

        In the end, I slept awhile longer; beautifully dreamless, as I preferred.

End Of Old World Blues…

Footnotes

All companion perks lost due to your distance from them.

        Level Up

Perk Added- Math Wrath- all action point costs are now ten percent lower.

        Is this a product of your action or something else. Better yet, what are considered your actions in that tangled mess of interacting systems you call yourself ?

        Science- 80

http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/2013/06/you-dont-say.gif

Chapter-Twelve Strength

Chapter Twelve- Strength

“I’m activating the program… Now.” I said to my zebra colleague, as I activated a new program on the thing attached to my wrist.

        The light that began to emanate from behind me was the reason behind my less than urbane victory yell. It had worked. Not exactly my life’s work, but it still made me proud.

                                 ---===*===---

        The clicking of keys was the noise I had woken up to. Compared to my other wakeups, this one was tame, I surmised before growling and getting up. The smell of brewing coffee greeted me as I got to putting on my under-clothes and shrugging into the lab coat that must have been made for minotaurs.

         Yesterday, Ximroon had given it to me. I had a feeling it was because my regular clothing had gotten progressively more nasty as time went on. At least with the coat on, I had a layer of mothballed clothing smell covering up the rest of my stench. In the large volume of time it took me to dress, the clicking of keys continued unabated. This only added to the headache that was building after I took a moment during my tasks to wonder why they had a lab coat for minotaurs anyway.

        “Ahhh…” I yawned before turning to face Ximroon. “Why did the ponies have a lab coat for minotaurs?”

        “They probably had some regulation that said they needed one in case a minotaur wanted to work or view the work going on here, or maybe one of the scientists here did it on their own.” He looked away from the terminal monitor. “Considering this place was built late in the war, it was probably the latter. Even if both sides of the war did terrible things, the regular buck or mare was still decent.”

        I had slid up to him as he spoke. He had seemed less sad in the past when he was close to me; I think he was just lonely. I could sympathize. “I think they still could be, circumstances willing.”

        “I refreshed myself on electromagnetics early in the morning, and I got us a meeting in two days with the ruling council.”

        “And you made coffee?”

“I remember when I was closer to your age… “ I had figured out quickly that this was his favorite way to say, ‘back when I was alive’. Old people… “I had a love affair with the substance. So I made an assumption.”

        “Good call,” I said before suppressing another yawn. Did this guy not sleep? “So, what are you working on over there?”

        “Standard lab reports. If anything scientific can be obtained from this, then It’s my duty to record it.”

        “Uh, for future reference, I can type for you… “ I then mimed a typing motion.

“For the future, indeed, given this report is finished,” he punctuated this by hitting the enter key climatically.

        “Alright, let’s continue where we left off on the cybernetics schematics analysis,” I said after a moment and a bout of palm rubbing.

He nodded, and thus began several hours of study.

---===*===---

“Did you know there’s a subroutine in the spine command files to send power to a resonant inductive power exchanger?” He asked from across the room. His unfamiliarity with that device seemed strange, given the fact he had been teaching me things most of the time. It also made me question why I was holding a magnet next to my chest. Oh wait, titanium isn’t really that magnetic.

“No, but it makes sense, I guess. I mean, what's the point in putting a reactor with a gigantic potential output in a system that never needs more than 1% of it?”

“So, should we decompress the files on the pipboy and set them up as an interface that can activated?” Ximroon said. It took me a few seconds to comprehend what he wanted to do.

“Give me an hour or two and I can do it. But even if we activate the power exchanger, we have no way to transfer the power. Even if we had that ready, we still don’t have a setup for conversion between electrical energy and magical energy.”

“Yes, but we can reach our goals.” Ximroon said with uncharacteristic vagueness.

        I didn’t argue with the sentiment, though. That was partially precipitated by my mind’s preoccupation of thinking about how I was going to transfer the program into a usable form.

                                 ---===*===---

The second night had left me doubly exhausted as the previous one. However, I was perked up, because the next day would be the day that this place’s manufactory could be turned over to us for our project. That, and I had a chance -however small- to make things up with my friends. Well, this was all dependent upon what the governing body of this society had to say. So, anxiety about tomorrow was filling my mind, not just that, but my anxiety about the future in general.

Consequently, I got up and loaded as many of my magazines as possible with armor piercing rounds. Ximroon might have had a few words to say about my planning for the worst of all possible contingency plans, but he wasn’t there in the blacked room in the wee hours of the morning counting his hand grenades. As close as we were in attitude, he lacked that sense of dire practically that had in part kept me alive throughout my trials. The less than errant thought of shooting my way out right now after stealing all the notes we had compiled made me shiver as I realized just how much I had changed.

        Somehow, I found solace in the fact that I still held enough control to keep that impulse down. If there had been someone else in the room, they would have seen the sardonic smile that followed that thought. Luckily…

        So, my functional yet fractured mental state hadn’t been compromised. That thought had me laughing. Laughing in way that bled tension away from myself, enough tension to let me find sleep.

---===*===---

The day before had left us in a position that required the use of personnel and materials to advance the project further than a power transfer program and a pair of disgruntled intellectuals. Without saying, the meeting with the counsel would explicitly decide the fate of the project and the future of their own society.

Ximroon had told me about the council and their unofficial voting blocks. This, coupled with the fact I was dealing with the conservative ancestors of a submarine crew meant that the mentality a hydraulic state needed to survive was so deeply ingrained in them that change of any kind would be anathematic to them. Well, I assumed this, given nothing I had seen thus far had contradicted this. I had begun to see that as a valid axiom.

This led to me standing in a room that must have at one point been a storage chamber, filled with chairs and armed guards waiting to start speaking with Ximroon, who was beside me. We were prepared to speak, given the fact I had told Ximroon all I knew about the Enclave. He had done the same for me, except he had told me of each of the council members.

“Elder Ximroon, you have had the help of the Xenos in your newest research, correct?” Redband, a large stallion with a lot of sway with the other council members due to his ancestors asked.

“He is the reason the proposal is in front of you,” Ximroon said in a neutral diplomatic voice that well practiced as it was, wounded me on some level. The look on his face said it all.

He had been put in front of a lot of committees and councils in the past. It showed.

        “Can you give us an overview on what the goals of this project are?” A mare by the name of Yeman spoke confidently to the room. Ximroon had told me to be wary of her. She was a newcomer on the council, apparently, but she was gaining support of her own at this point. “Dangerously unaffiliated”. That’s what Ximroon had said about her.

        “The experience we gain from getting a fusion to magic generator system on this scale can only help future efforts on a larger scale.” Ximroon said to the assembled zebras before gesturing at me. Did he want…

        “Do you want a way for your children and your children’s children to live in a world that includes more than a bunker?” I hated myself for using this to my own advantage. Say whatever you want about me, but I’m not a manipulator. “Or perhaps more importantly, do you want to continue living?”

        “Unless you’re referring to some suicidal threat you pose to us, then you’re wrong. Not a single pony has come within a kilometer of this base for two hundred ye-” Redband retorted. He was cut off by a snort from Yeman. She then cleared her throat.

        “Do you even read the reports that Stone Hoof sends us? The scouts have been seeing EFS contacts on their metro patrols for months now. Even discounting those as random zom-... ghouls, that just shows that the fallout isn’t impenetrable. Ghouls and “homo-sapiens” can reach us with no after effects.”

“We all know that the equestrian equipment has bugs- read through the records about the original turret programs and how they flipped their EFS targeting without warning. Zombies that are capable of thought are almost as rare according to the database as these homo sapiens are, so no, they are not a threat.” A voice came from a physically unimpressive zebra wearing a maintenance jumpsuit. Apolemia was her name; head of maintenance and manufacturing. My hope diminished considerably when most of the council (including Redband) mimed agreement.

I turned to Ximroon “Cauterize?”.

“In the archives, Apolemia, did you read about the Raptors of the Equestrian Air Guard?” He had shifted to his academic tone. His question was a beautiful double bind; Apolemia had to either admit not knowing, or acknowledge the power that a machine that was built to hunt dragons possesed. I had time to figure this out, given the pouty look Apolemia quickly acquired.

        “Why do they matter? Equestria got bombed back to the herd age, right?” Redband… At that moment I learned ignorance was a political superpower. Then my thoughts shifted towards formulating a response that would work on him. I almost started bringing up why there was a permanent cloud cover above their heads. Almost. They lived in a bunker, so that wouldn’t work on their (his) common sense.

        So, perhaps it was for the best that an announcement went through the intercom, telling everyone in the complex that they were under attack at the sewer entrance.

        The room was a mixture of calm zebras and zebras terrified to the point of paralysis. The two groups were hard to differentiate. As with any broad categorisation, there were exceptions, those being Yeman, Ximroon, Apolemia and I. All four of us were reacting differently. I ran out of the room after yelling something resembling regret at leaving the meeting so soon, and helping the security forces do their jobs.

I think that I saw Apolemia and Yeman start to argue frantically about what should be done. In the short term, Ximroon left the room with me, only to run in the opposite direction that I was going.

---===*===---

So, as I ran through the halls towards the security breach, I had time to make some observations and conclusions. These conclusions being: these invaders aren’t Enclave logically, they might just be the sensor blips the security teams had been detecting for some time. They’re organized creatures resistant to radiation. I had also concluded that my motivations for trying to help these people out were anything but conclusive, but it was probably because I wanted their help. In that vein, I was ingratiating myself to them. And I was curious about what was attacking them, given the lack of further elaboration about what was actually fighting with their security forces.

Well, observations might be the wrong word. What I saw was a frantic movement of normally placid zebras away from the point of incursion. They must not have  practiced lockdown drills, given the terror they showed on their way to human eyes. This was brought to a head at one of the last intersections on my way to the breach. Zebras coming from the hydroponics bay had gotten built up to the point of trampling each other behind the narrow bulkhead door. I had been hearing yells and screams for the last minute or so of my sprint through the place. The trickle of zebras coming from that direction was worrying me at that point.

Seeing the dozens of scared people behind that narrow door frame was enough to chill my blood. That didn’t include the far off sound of gunshots and the ambient noise of mass hysteria. I had barely stopped myself in front of the door when I caught a glimpse of a child that had been held above the crowd by its father falling into the writhing crowd as its dad got knocked onto his side.

Their base reaction upon seeing me didn’t help the situation. I distinctly remember thinking “clean up the mess you made.” My hand found my pistol of its own volition. The shot into the air got all of the zebras that could look at me to do just that.

“All of you back the fuck up and make an orderly goddamn line!”

        At that, one of the zebras that was a right next to the door tried to make a run for it.

        Do you know what a forty five caliber bullet does to a body? Even if I knew what it did, I couldn’t have known what it felt like to put it into someone in an attempt to maintain order. The crowd went into a state of torpor as the sound of a mostly headless body hit the cold concrete of the bunker floor. I myself had just realized what I had just done. I felt simultaneously like the greatest of saints and the most damned of sinners. Pushing the feelings away for the time being, I had to act if I wanted there to be any meaning to my actions.

        “Orderly line. Someone check for the foal.” At this point, the crowd started to do what I had ordered. “Get to the upper levels near the storage bunker entrance. It should protect you.” I didn’t add the “I hope” to the end.

The foal still drew breath. The crowd moved along. The air had a hint of cordite and a tension that seethed with a delicate balance of desperation and bottled despair, Which was funny, given the fact that my rebreather had been on for ten minutes by now.

                                 ---===*===---

        Hearing the sounds of gunfire increasing in volume as I continued forward meant that I was getting closer. Whether or not this meant the battle had moved further into the bunker wasn’t something I could know.

        It was luck that prevented me from being fired upon by the zebra soldiers. The two I ran into first were the ones that had spent time escorting me around. They had built a barricade at the end of a hallway and were firing away at a glowing ghoul.

Imagine their surprise when the ghoul suddenly had another, alien set of holes drilled into it.

        That momentary surprise and their slight familiarity with me was the reason I didn’t end up with nearly as many missing body parts as that ghoul.

        “You needed the help. Don’t think too hard on it right now. Just tell me how ghouls got inside the bunker.”

        The shorter of the two guards gave a grunt before tapping a button on his bit.

Tall Guard looked at me for a moment before doing the same. They reloaded, and shook their heads. Tall pointed a hoof further on down the hall.

        My eye roll was lost on them.

        How did feral ghouls get in? Someone must have let them in. That was as far as I could reason without knowing how the security for the sewer entrance worked. Speculation wouldn’t of hurt, If the ghouls hadn’t at that point decided to start throwing themselves at me. Critical thinking is hard to do when you’re moving in short bursts between periods of VATS use.

        Regardless of my incomprehension of the conditions behind the ghoul incursion, I was moving closer to the entrance. Before I headed into what I had surmised would be the entrance room, I stopped before walking over to a wall to catch my breath. My thoughts almost immediately turned to the zebra I had shot. A realization struck me: I could either continue onward in a quest to figure out why this had happened, or I could stay here and let things sort themselves out, and deal with my own affairs. One option required nothing more than a gun and a person with a working brain. The other option needed all of that and something less tangible but a lot harder to do.

                                 ---===*===---

        “We’ve secured areas C and D along with most of the hydroponics lab. Orders please,” I heard the leader of the security detachment speak into what I assumed to be a intercom link. I had taken up a position behind a barricade behind the closed door to the sewers. What I assumed was the forward security team was within earshot, but nowhere close to my position. Steel and concrete have some strange acoustic properties, you know? I heard no reply from the commander of the security force here, which gave some credit to my theory that the internal communication had been disrupted. The sound of someone kicking the comm terminal pretty much confirmed what I suspected.

        At that moment, I needed to know whether or not anyone had been told about my crowd control. Worst case scenario, I had the notes on the generator. I wasn’t sure I could get the system setup on my own though. I had a way out right in front of my face.

                                         ---===*===---

        The sound of footsteps alerted the guards in front of the council chamber, and put the already on-edge guards in front of the council chambers on unhappy terms with me. They didn’t stop me though- their organisation was under too much stress at that moment to contemplate starting another fight. Whoosh went the door, revealing the bare bones of the governing council. A tattered looking Redband was listening to Apolemia in one the room’s quiet corners. In opposition to this was the group listening to Yeman, subtly asserting that she was very, very right about their security. Was she just really opportunistic, or was she responsible?

        Clarity of thought wasn’t my strong point at that moment, so when her group approached me with questions, I wasn’t at my best.

        “You killed Xanatoos?” A buck asked, point blank.

“There were people being trampled, I had seen a foal in danger a second before I tried to get control. He…”

        “Got in the way. We’re right, you know. Fallen Pride needs zebras like you, we need to get out in the wastes, we need to get those fusor things working, we need you. Who here agrees?” And with that, Yeman became the de facto ruler of the complex, and with that also came support for the micro converter project.

        Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. I wasn’t sure what to classify her as, but I was sure as hell going to keep tabs on her somehow while I was here.

                                             ---===*===---

        Apolemia was standing next to a recently replaced water main, she wasn’t happy to see me. She probably thought I was here to be petty; to add insult to the injury of Ximroon’s virtual annexation of the manufactory.

        “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I need to see you in private.”

“I thought you would’ve hooked up with Yeman by now?” Her questioning tone was belayed by the scoff she made after it. The bitter zebra flexed her muscles, cranking a hoof back before driving it back into the section of pipe. Yeah, I didn’t want to make an enemy of her.

        I would later wonder why at least half of my female acquaintances could kick my ass in fistacuffs anyday.

        “Don’t go there please, I ask you as one sapient being to another. Just think about talking with me candidly.”

        “Go, just go, you’ve done enough already.”

                                         ---===*===---

        I had been in the place for four days at that point, and finally figured out that this place had showers available to residents. Thus began my day of repair. It wasn’t any lack of enthusiasm that lead to me taking a day off from the fusion converter project. No, it was the simple fact that my talents didn’t lie with manufacturing and repurposing equipment to do jobs that they were never meant to do.

        So, I did some wonderfully mundane things like showering and washing the clothing that could actually be washed. I felt cleaner afterwards, in body if not soul.

The shower itself was the strongest example of this. Something about a shower had always made me contemplative in the past. Having not taken a shower in what seemed like months, I had plenty of fuel for wistful contemplation. All of the thoughts that had been in circling my mind for a while anyway. Still, I spent a long time in there.

                                         ---===*===---

        The next morning, I awoke to a the sounds of Ximroon assembling something in the lab. Dragging my refreshed yet stiff body off of the mattress, I turned to see the device that we were planning to test that afternoon. It looked simple. It was conceptually simple, but that prototype was the culmination of a couple hundred man hours of work. Ximroon had ran the machines and the zebras in the manufactory ragged to get it built quickly.

        I walked over to the device and rapped my fingers against the outer casing for the induction ring. That part was connected to a miniaturized power converter. The amount of crystal the subsystem had inside of it was astounding. The real beauty of the thing was the amount of variability it offered in output. A spark cell recharger could itself be powered by it. Honestly, that was the most exciting possibility for me.

Ximroon had told me about some of the more exotic magical energy weapons that might still exist. I might have gotten a little too happy at hearing about the gun that fired two-millimeter slugs at mach three.  However, this place had no magical energy weapons in working condition, or a spark cell recharger they were willing to part with.

        So, that was why the system was set up to send an almost negligible test output to a magical light bulb.

        He must have just gotten done setting up the bulb to the system.

        “You always put on that armor on before doing anything. Why the change?” Ximroon said as he laid the bulb on the messy work bench, which coincidentally also had our coffee pot set up on it.

        “I’m excited. Besides, we're all friends here. On a more serious note, did you talk with Yeman about our private meeting?” My words perked him up while simultaneously putting him in the mood to talk about the politics of Fallen Pride. That name was rarely used because of some cultural survivors’ guilt. I had figured in the last couple days that Yeman was a very effective opportunist. In all honesty though, she seemed to be genuinely worried about the safety of the city. For what reason, I could only speculate. Regardless, she had convinced the council to absolve me of all blame in shooting Xanatoos, so in her mind, she probably thought that I felt indebted to her.

        “I talked with her on your behalf, actually. Yeman sounded like she really was concerned about how the security door was opened.” What about the Enclave? Did he not?

        “Okay, so did you decide that you wanted to double team her into getting the expedition approved?” The terminal dinged at that moment. We had mail. “Uhh…”

          “I thought it over. Wouldn’t it be better to announce it at the emergency session today?”

        “After testing?” I said as i began to dump the magical black elixir into one of the actually enchanted coffee cups I had taken to stockpiling. Initially, I had been wondering why all the fake sugar I had managed to find was in cube form… This world was fucking weird.

        “Which I hope will succeed,” he said before snorting at the amount of sugar I dropped into the steaming liquid.

        “We did test each of the parts by themselves, and I’m still impressed by the job you guys did in the workshop. So I’m pretty confident about our chances…” He took the honest compliment well. Why couldn’t I have had him in my head?

        When I looked back towards him, having not received the reply I expected, I could see him staring closely at the terminal. Close enough for me to conclude that he needed glasses. Something told me that the message had some gravity to it. Something else told me that I would get the summarized version in another second or two. Therefore, I leaned against the bench and choked down a swig of coffee.

        “The system breach has been identified, so that means we’ll have answers in a couple hours if the security tech team is worth anything.” Good?

        “Now that I’ve woken up, you want to push the testing forward?” The schedule having been dependent upon me getting up at my normal time (elevenish). Today was going to be interesting; that much I had known even the night before.

Ximroon had found a not often used look of satisfaction at my words.

---===*===---

My armor wasn’t fully modified yet, hence its laying on the work bench next to a magic charge carrier wire and a repair talisman. Well, all of that stuff and some tools. However, I was wearing my lab coat and backpack, the latter having been modified with a compartment near the back added to hold the converter. Needless to say, it now weighed a couple kilos more.

“The bulb is set up. Ready when you are.” Ximroon said before running back to his terminal. If I asked him, I had a feeling he would say he was doing this to take notes.

“I’m activating the program… Now.” I said to my zebra-comrade (Zemad if you will), as I activated a new program on the thing attached to my wrist.

        The light that began to emanate from behind me was the reason behind my less than urbane victory yell. It had worked. Not exactly my life’s work, but it still made me proud.

        “So, do we tell Yeman before the meeting or at the meeting?” I asked Ximroon as I shut off the power flow to the exchanger.

        “The question in all reality is, do we want to fuel her agenda?”

                “Yes?”

                                 ---===*===---

        I fastened the shoulder plate to its strap. The click of conduits connecting felt right. The rictus grin I could feel forming on my face was totally unrelated. Looking down, I saw the material receiver bolted to my right side. I couldn’t feel it, but under my left pauldron there was small box that made the entire system possible. A repair talisman doesn’t work by itself, I had learned. This being the third time I had tried getting it to work, I was losing my patience. It didn’t help that Ximroon was off getting food. So, this time, if I had to rewire the system, I would be pissed, hence the grin I had on. And why my left hand had found Bowie and was gripping said knife tightly.

The door opened just as I was prepared to jab it into my chestplate. Ximroon stood in the doorway for a second before gesturing for me to follow. Force of habit told me to grab all of my stuff before leaving- I had been begun doing this religiously since my experience the night I met Glycerine.

I knew we were going to another meeting with the council. He gave a look of annoyance as I entered the hallway with all of my gear on. We began the by-now familiar walk to the chambers.

“Is there an update on the security breach?” I said in an attempt to turn any conversation away from my (unorthodox) methods of equipment testing. The results up to the point of him entering the room had been two new deep scratches in my chest plating. Which, by then begged the question of why I hadn’t just fired up the converter already and merely tried the repair talisman out on the damage already done to the plating. Let it never be said that I was infallible. (Not that it ever would be said.)

“Stone Hoof wouldn’t say. Typical of his kind.” Ximroon said, and silence reigned. I didn’t feel like asking what exactly he meant by that.

        Before long though, we arrived in front of my penultimate door on my list of hated doors. As I entered the room, I briefly ruminated over how different my life had become to even have a list of hated doors.

   Having been present for the last council meeting, I knew I could snag a chair, if only to let myself become more of an observer. With that thought, I walked across the room to a chair, while Ximroon followed behind me. My fingers then carefully unplugged the cord from the contact point on my paldron before I laid my backpack and Epilogue down beside my chair.

“You ready to announce to these people the greatest threat to their existence in no uncertain terms?” Ximroon whispered to me from the chair next to me.

“If you think thats the right thing to do, then yeah… I guess.” Now that very soon I would be asking these zebras to first off let me go and then give me help with another project that really did benefit everyone involved. (But me more so than anyone else involved.) Secondly I had killed someone here. Anxiety is way too weak of a word to describe that situation, I thought multiple times in row. All the while, the room was getting steadily closer to its occupancy capacity.

A few minutes of contemplation later, Ximroon nudged me with a hoof; everyone had arrived. Well, everyone important, it seemed. Apolemia was on the other side of the circle of chairs. The look of distaste she shot me got my attention. The other council members seemed to ignore me, with the exception of Yeman's voting bloc. Whatever happened here, I had to secure my own freedom to leave. That was the most important thing above all else. Kidding myself about my prioritises wouldn’t help anyone.

 My eyes then turned to see Yeman herself striding confidently into the center of the room. She gave me a look that I interpreted as ‘your time to shine’. No one heard me swear under my breath. I considered increasing the volume for another bout because she looked ready to make a speech. Maybe it wasn’t her fault that she was a good political opportunist, but I couldn’t stand anyone that used the killing of a person as a way to push people to your viewpoint. I had been the one to kill another in the hopes that I could save the rest from themselves. Not a good action, just the one that needed to be done. At least, I hope it needed to be done. So that you can just wash your hands of it? A darker part of my brain shouted at the whole of itself. No. Admit to yourself that you can’t stand people that have done things that aren’t even half as bad as what you’ve done. You’ve killed more people than anyone in this room except the walking corpse, and that guy may or may not have killed himself. Do you hate that zebra for being good with people, her ability to get things done? maybe it’s her lack of diluted beliefs? Don’t get angry at yourself. You are what you are… right?

“I thank you all for coming here today, and for the privilege to speak first in our time of insecurity. Everyone here knows about the security breach; how it showed us just how vulnerable we are to even the centuries-old corpses of our nearly vanquished enemies. We as a people have lived peacefully for generations. I am a product of this, and you are as well.

‘We fought the ghouls off. Why change what worked for our parents and our parent’s parents?’ You might ask yourself, you might still ask after this is over. The reason is simple. The world outside is going to war with itself. Everything that was burned into the minds of the soldiers that fought in that war oh so long ago is coming to pass once more. The Enclave and their raptors are a force to be reckoned with. They have would absolutely have no problem with vaporizing our city. Don’t think that any struggle is pointless. We have what we need to save ourselves and others.

 Our visitor himself is a symbol for what has and will continue to go on.

Equestria has strengthened him, made him lean, taught him what was truly important. He, in a time of need, helped us fight off the ghouls, but even before that, he saved the life of a foal. More than that, we can see what we truly are through how he spent his days here. This buck came to us alone in an irradiated shipyard. We let him in. Our resident scientist Ximroon had the human sent to him, and they bonded over the work they did. This poor buck, because of his species, has been shot and ran off many times, clearly. Our society is more just than any other left. Thanks in part to our visitor, we are getting closer everyday to unlocking the power to rebuild.

        I propose that we stay hidden, and see how the Enclave war goes, all the while developing a military that can defend us from the Enclave.” Yeman’s speech was so wrong yet oddly inspiring even to the person that was questioning how she knew about the Enclave at all. She must have let those ghouls in…

        “How do we fight an enemy that has the ability to fight dragons in open combat?” Redband asked from across the room, before snorting in self gratification. He had asked the obvious yet salient question. Still, if this was her only competition, then I felt that she had a good chance of pulling off whatever she wanted.

        “Before the war, this place was a center for research in general, even though it was ostensibly for the Equestrian navy. Near the end, there was a proposal for a weapon that could shoot down anything that our ancestors could throw at them. It was supposed  to have the ability to shoot down balefire missiles before they reached the shore. The Gauss cannon project was shelved for three reasons: the amount of magic needed to power it was too high for operations, there was another project made to do the same thing, and the computing power necessary to calculate trajectories for the firing was impossible. To everyone out there; can you tell me why all of those considerations don’t apply to us?”

        “Fusion generators could solve the power problems, this is basically the way you might have availability to fight the Enclave. And because this is a weapon made to fight large relatively ponderous aircraft, that means the targeting and detection is a technically easier thing to do.” I finished talking, aware that I had helped her out again, this time though, I could manipulate her into giving me work, or at least giving me a way to leave.

She looked relieved at my words. It seemed we were making each other’s lives easier.

“You see why our visitor is useful to us? Now, it is time to decide how we act in the coming days. Our visitor has more information about the outside world than has been compiled by our patrols in years, so it stands to reason that he could help us get what we need to defend ourselves.”

At this point, I wanted to strangle Yeman for both using me for her own political advancement and the ability that she had to fuck all all of them over. Did she somehow find out that the Enclave really wanted me dead, or was she just betting that my good nature would prevent me from marching them into an irradiated hell hole? Either way, she grated on me. Her delusions of grandeur were trying to get mine going.  I disliked that. For the record, I only enjoyed being the advisor to an entire city a little.

“Alright, you’re going to need one thing more than any other in the short term. Radar coverage. Sadly, I doubt that this place’s radar array survived, because if it did, you guys would of collectively shat your pants. There have been at least two Enclave Raptors flying within minimum fifty kilometers of this base. So, in the spirit of partnership, I think I can set you up with a working radar system, on the condition that if you get these guns working, you’ll keep all of Baltimare under the your protection. Well, that and I can get you technical support and an alliance from some ponies that have goals similar to yours.” So, the alliance thing may of been a bit beyond my control, and the protection of Baltimare may have been a spur of the moment ejaculation coming from some idealistic part of me. However, on some level I felt that my words as eloquent as they were, combined with Yeman's had won most of them over.

The equine noise of approval turned out to be stomping their hooves on the floor- it startled me, to say the least. So, the voting turned out to be wildly in favor of our plan. The thought of leaving and getting back to my friends was becoming more and more enticing the longer I was denied it. This only made the hours of planning with a smaller security council all the more agonizing. Regardless, I made it out of the planning session with a feeling of dread for these zebras. In their plans, there were a lot of assumptions made, most of them centering around how quickly they could secure resources and build advanced technology, Nevermind how quickly they could train people to use it. When I brought any of this up, they gave me reasurrancences. At the very least, these people were confident that they could, given a little time, hold their own against the Enclave.

When the meetings were over, I knew that they wanted me to add a wireless command set up to the radar array located on the Indefatigable. This wasn’t surprising, given I had told them I would do it. It was because of this that I had another reason to speak to Ximroon before leaving.

When I entered the laboratory, his eyes were locked on his terminal. The noise of boots on hard materials brought his attention to me as I walked up to him. He tapped a key on the terminal and the door shut. That was new.

“You get the interface device done?”

“Yes. I understand you’re leaving to find your old companions,” Ximroon stated cleanly before pushing a boxy device with a connection cable and LED indicator of its status.

“Yeah, I have to find my friends. Well, my friends excluding you.” My voice took on a sardonic tone in that ending statement. I hated leaving people behind, yet hated staying with people. “Just take care of yourself. Oh, and keep an eye on Yeman; I don’t trust her.” He sighed before looking at me.

“She trusts you about as much as you trust her. That’s why she’s letting you “leave”. So, If I were you, I’d get out of here without looking back. I have a feeling that our activities won’t go unnoticed. I have a bad feeling about this militarization. If we end up at peace with the Enclave, then how will it help the rest of equestria? Peace through mutual fear didn’t work well the last time it was tried…” Ximroon’s words were wise. Then again, he had lived through events that mirrored the ones happening now.

“As much as I hate myself when I think this, even more when I’m about to say it; this isn’t my world to guide. Even if I could, I don’t believe I have the right. Well, I’m glad that I got to meet you either way.” I was cringing when I said the first part, which matched how his cracked visage appeared. I had to leave on a bittersweet note. My hand moved towards him to rest on his shoulder. “If it makes you feel any better, you seem like a good stallion.”

I turned around… he didn’t reply.

                                 ---===*===---

The inhabitants of Fallen Pride could on the whole, be characterized by the kind of neutrality that generalization creates. Ambivalence is that natural state of affairs in such cases, if you were to make another generalization… of course. That meant that as I made my way out, I wasn’t impeded. Business as usual, in other words. So, I was gone within the hour on my way to install a piece of hardware that could safeguard their society.

Outside context… that was my role here. Perhaps most clearly in my dealings with the Zebra, but it was a feature of all my interactions here. Maybe my sabotaging of relationships was in part because I would always be the outsider: useful, unique, never able to connect with them.It was a glorious coincidence that the native language here was way more often than not identical to my native one. Some part of myself ached to be with people more like me; a pity, considering how much every part of me had been displaced by the circumstances of my month here. Has it been a month? Oh god. I don’t even know.

It was a totally random impulse that lead to me switch on Pon3 radio- not the grey skies above, my thoughts, or the strangely intact battleship growing steadily larger in my vision. The radio clicked on. Silence was pushed away, temporarily. Still, it mattered. Even if I did find out that the Enclave was broadcasting now. Fuck… they must have taken Tenpony? I listened anyway, because silence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I plodded along till I came to the bridge, Indefatigable awaited. It was at that moment that  coincidence struck… the DJ pon3 must have restored their control, I thought as I stood there, taking glancing at the abyss a few feet in front of me.

“I’m back, children.  But not for long.  So there’s a few things I gotta tell you about.

“First, our hearts and prayers go out to the folks of Friendship City and everypony who had relatives there.  Late yesterday, in their most horrific attack yet, that airborne plague callin’ themselves the Enclave brutally slaughtered Friendship City.  The city’s gone, children.  Hundreds of ponies dead.  If you didn’t believe me before, believe me now.  The Enclave ain’t here to save anypony.  They ain’t our friends.

“But I’m not bringing you a dark cloud without a silver lining, children!  Here’s the goodnews: the ponies of the Equestrian Wasteland are standing up against them.  And I’m not just talkin’ about our Bringer of Light, although she’s been right in the thick of it.  When the Enclave came for Friendship City, she struck back at them.  Thanks to our wasteland heroine, the Enclave lost everything they threw at Friendship City; and more importantly, a couple hundred ponies survived that attack.“But she ain’t the only hero standing strong against the Enclave.  Remember those renegade Steel Ranger outcasts I told you about?  Well, they call themselves the Applejack’s Rangers now.  And even as I speak, the Applejack’s Rangers are working ‘round the clock to ferry survivors off of Friendship Island, protecting them on the way to new homes.“Where can they find new homes, you might ask?  The answer is everywhere they go.  Even that normally stuffy Tenpony Tower has opened its doors to refugees… after a hoof-full of unicorns rose up and kicked the Enclave’s sorry tails out of their tower.  Yee-haw!  Score one for the good ponies!“And I’ve got more reports coming in.  Heroes all the way from Shattered Hoof to Hoofington have been holding the line against the nightmares from above.  I have a tale here of two such heroes taking down one of those warships just south of Stalliongrad.  Left a calling card: Lion & Mouse.  Well, tell you what, Lion and Mouse.  Drop by Tenpony Tower sometime.  As soon as my assistant is back from her vacation, I’d love to have her sit down with you for an interview.  And to the griffins and ponies who fought off the Enclave at Shattered Hoof: damn fine work.“But the biggest strike against the Enclave has come from none other than our own beloved author of the Wasteland Survival Guide, Ditzy Doo.  You all saw it.  Hell, I could see that glow all the way from Shattered Hoof Ridge.  We don’t even have a name for what the wasteland’s favorite pegasus managed to do this morning.  Sonic Radboom?  Toxic Rainboom?  Well, whatever you call it, I call it a miracle.”“Now don’t worry children.  I know I just kinda let my location slip.  But the Enclave already knew.  I saw a whole murder of them flying this way from the tower monitors before I started broadcasting.  They’ll be at the door any moment.  And I don’t think they plan on inviting me to tea.  But don’t worry about me.  I’m not a fighter.  Never really have been, not even when I was a wasteland explorer.  I was more of a hacker and repair pony myself.  Fixing things up, building off of schematics, making the technologies and magic of the old world work for me.  I can barely shoot a gun.  But that doesn’t mean I’m going to lay down and let them take me.Elder SteelHooves, founder of the Applejack’s Rangers.  I know, with all the death we’ve seen, it might seem odd to single one pony out.  But SteelHooves wasn’t just any pony.“SteelHooves was a hero.  A protector of ponies.  He put his life on the line saving others, and he inspired other ponies to do the same.  A whole legion within the Steel Rangers broke away to follow his example.“SteelHooves was a companion to our wasteland heroine as well.  She was stronger with him at her side.  Her victories were often his victories as well.“When I first met SteelHooves, he was making sure Chief Grim Star died a hero in the eyes of the ponies under his care.  I came to know him fairly well over the last few weeks.”“I’ll tell you the truth: SteelHooves was not without his flaws.  He was not always a good pony.  He meted out justice as he saw fit, and I did not always agree with whom he chose to play judge and executioner. But that is the harsh law of the Equestrian Wasteland.“But he never faltered.  He held true to his love and his principles, fighting until the day he died.  SteelHooves had lived an impossibly long life.  His death was swift, painless and in battle.  It was the death I believe he would have wanted.  And now it is our turn: to hold true, to fight and to never falter.”And with that, children, I have a confession to make.  This broadcast?  It’s not exactly live.“And I have a message for the black-armored soldiers who just burst into the station at the Shattered Hoof Ridge Tower: that thing you’re looking at with the glowing blue light?  A little homebrewed surprise rigged to the spark battery from a weapon made by the motherfuckin’stars!”“Farewell, you…”        The flash that followed was from roughly the same direction that the balefire bomb had detonated. This explosion was if anything, larger than that one. I have to admit that I merely watched the after effects of the bomb for at least five minutes. It was only after I made it across the bridge and was in the process of opening the hatch that I had left unlocked the last time I had been there that I realized I had a couple of those power cells. but not all of them were with me…        I had left a nuke with my kinda-sorta-maybe-girlfriend. Needless to say, I was worried for everyone in that town, worried to the point that I didn’t even speculate on what was powering those energy cells. So really fucking worried. I could do this later. I needed to warn Icepi-everyone!        I broke into a run… towards the potential explosion. The bridge made me slow down after a few seconds of running.“She wouldn’t do anything stupid with it? If anything, after the broadcast, the chances of it going off must be less than before,” I said to myself, for my own use. “But she… I have a job to do, for people that are already good enough to fight their enemy.” Fallen Pride- can of worms. Ahh… “I was in contention for several minutes. In the end, though, I took the time to install the device for Ximroon. I at least owed him that much. As I left the boat through the door I had entered from for what was could’ve been the last time, I remembered the armory. In particular, its unlooted condition. It then struck me that I was going after a much more powerful weapon… to prevent its use. Priorities and Why They’re Bullshit. I was going to write that book after this was over. I thought in place of what would have been a scream. A scream that would have riled up the ghouls. Recursion and why it’s bullshit, next book I…Screaming did occur at that point. The ghouls did scream in response, and I was reminded quite strongly that people not being around you can be more stressful than them being around. Even the people I associated with, damn their hearts. A chuckle left my lips at that thought. This noise didn’t placate the ghouls, but it did leave  me feeling that going down into the ship again just to shoot them was stupid. In that changed perspective, I knew I had to go, go quickly no less, and beg for forgiveness?“I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it, but not the one between the things, that’d be really stupid.” And so it was that my mental state became indecisive, which might just be its ground state. In combination with the truly pedestrian nature of walking, I was  left with plenty of time to think, the highlight of that being my realization that I was a man on a mission to clean up his own mess.                               ---===*===---

As I crawled out of a manhole, which after consulting a map I found on a ghoul with a pipe wrench, I had found out that this section of sewer came a lot closer to ‘Baltimare’. He hadn’t looked all that ghoul-y in retrospect. He had screamed at me. In place, that put me on edge. Feral or not, I didn’t feel too bad perforating him. The actual shooting of the ghoul reminded me of my almost shooting of Ximroon. Discovering the map in his (not utterly destroyed) barding had took my mind to less ethically straining places. It kept it there up until the point that I emerged from the hole in the ground.

Darkness had fallen on Balitmare, telling me that in my attempts to get here faster, I had delayed myself. Had I been much less concerned with time frame, I might of pieced together something proverbial from that. But, you know…

I picked up speed first as my proximity to the city walls decreased. After realizing that I was on the other side of the city from the entrance, I doubled up on my pace. The  guards actually fired a couple of shots in my direction, one of them hitting. If I was a guard and the thing that I had just knocked down with a bullet then yelled “THANKS”, I would have fired another shot. Thankfully, these guards were level headed, more so than I would ever be. Still, as I got past the mishap I totally understood why the guard with a bolt action had tapped me. Regardless, I knew I was lucky he had hit center mass. Along with deciding that I needed to find a way to reinforce my skeleton, I was positive a couple of my ribs were cracked if not broken. A fringe benefit of all that was the infusion of adrenaline my body decided to release.

So when the guards let me through, I was moving at a speed greater than most would have expected from me. My armor had saved me from terrible bodily harm once again. A wry smile appeared at that, then disappeared, I knew I had an apology to make. The path I followed never strayed. Resolve is funny like that. Hesitation struck back when I reached the back door of Blurred’s place. Resolve won, and the door was opened. Upon entering, I searched for the illustrious owner of the place.

“Held against my will. How’s it been for you?” I said to him as he sat behind the counter. He jumped at hearing me from behind him.

“Greaaaat. Now get out, the steel jackass leader told me to tell you-”

“Where is she?” I interjected sullenly.

        He sighed before looking me in the eyes. “I shouldn’t tell you this, I shouldn’t know this; she’s heading back up to manehattan. There, we’re even, cashed out.”

        “How long ago did she leave?” Maybe I didn’t deserve it, but I asked anyway. His response was a head shake before starting to turn back to his bar. “I helped you out, kept you unclean, business is picking up for you. Do you want it taken away?” The motion to my gun added intimidation.

        “A few days ago,” he said with force.

I turned and walked out the way I came, but not before grabbing a balefire brew he had left out on the counter. Burning bridges for a change. A gentle breeze greeted me outside as the wheels in my mind spun. The intimidation was effective, plus free stuff. Such a thought reminded me to the drink getting warmer in my hand. I had seen some ponies order these. They didn’t seem drunk afterwards, which was strange, given I had seen Blurred use vodka as a base for these. I slipped my helmet off and downed it. After I licked my lips I slid my helmet back on. My thinking resumed its full strength. Well, if you burn one bridge, why not burn another?

                                 ---===*===---

“Magical grenades don’t come cheap, you know,” Silver answered back. Before he could finish his dramatic pause, I short circuited his regular barter process.

“I have a something to trade… the location of a virgin equestrian armory for  whatever magic grenades you have.” The tone of desperation in my voice wasn’t quite synthesised- it didn’t have to be. Whatever was in that cocktail was perking up my senses whilst making me think faster, somehow.  “I need to leave town, the Enclave hates me, I didn’t even have time to loot that cache. I’ve been bad to you in the past, I just really need those grenades.” Need and want are pretty ill defined. That, and what a lie is. Oh, and business ethics. Wasteland business ethics, specifically. That balefire brew is still kicking in. It’s like an unholy love child of alcohol and caffeine. No.  Didn’t feel like redbull and vodka. Magic, then?

“Six spark grenades and four plasma. That’s for the armory and five hundred caps.” He gesticulated confidently, he loved feeling in control. Given my past behaviour in front of him, the feeling was probably even greater to him.

“Uh… alright…” I nearly sniveled inside my helmet, it came out to him as a weak affirmation. He smiled as I divvied up five hundred bottlecaps. A few moments later, I was leaning up against the counter while he grabbed what used to be his merchandise. They were now my munitions. Something tapped my shoulder. When I turned around, I saw that it was the young mare I had seen before.

“Don’t tell the boss I said this; but thank you.” She told me quietly.

“Why are you thanking me? I don’t deserve the praise.”

        “With those weapons, we can keep everyone here safe for a long time.” The mare said before hearing Silvers hoofsteps and going back to inventorying.

Ahhh….

                                         ---===*===---

        I walked out into the chilled air, having gotten the grenades. All he got was a map location for the armory. He now knew about the armory aboard Indefatigable, for what good that does him, and what ill it brings to those under him. The road awaited, as it always did, it seemed.

          ---===*===---

        The radio that used to have the music horse on it was now playing propaganda constantly. I shut it off after a few minutes at the point that it rolled over. Listening to that stuff once was bad enough, a life time though? I didn’t need a well calibrated fascism detector to see the Enclave for what it really was. My opinion was probably  biased, considering I hadn’t met a pegasus that didn’t try to fry me.

“Only following my orders…wish I could say the same thing… or at least believe it…” I spoke to myself slowly. I think the brew wore off. Crashing after that didn’t feel all that good. After a few minutes of slowed progress later, I remembered that I had a lot of drugs on me.

                                Minty-goodness…

                                         ---===*===---

        In the darkness, I knew that I had gotten to a point in the road that I had reached before. The large hole where a bunker had once existed. Rarely were a person’s decisions so decisive in the world at large. I was lucky that I removed all the power cells before that place went up. Not deciding to take them would have had a big effect. Then again, If I hadn’t found the place, anyone with the right equipment could vaporize cities.

Well, given where I was, it would probably be re-vaporizing. As I swept my head around, I decided that in general that’d be true. Not in the dreary scrub grass-filled landscape that seemed to follow me around. At least deserts were pretty.

I wondered sometimes if the reasons for my own planet’s condition was due to it being a silent one. this planet though? They had gods, and then went on to kill them. A cell was twirled in my hands. All it would have taken to destroy one of them was a cell from a handgun.  Their ancestors had fought a chaos god and won. Time passed, then they blew it all up. I shuddered, from the cold.

---===*===---

        A caravan station was in front of me, occupied. The place was set a couple yards off the stretch of ruined black top. As I looked at the place, someone in power armor stepped out. I had caught up. Someone nearby might have heard the faintest whisper of a yawn drift out of my helmet.  Considering it was four in the morning, I had earned this.

        My approach was seen pretty quickly. Understandable, even if I once again had an assault carbine aimed at me.

“I’ve already been shot at once tonite, and once is enough.” I yelled at the ranger whose name I couldn’t quite remember.

At the sound of my voice, a caravan guard awoke to see me walking up to them. Ergo, another gun pointed at me. Given the fact I had already been awake for nearly twenty hours, I had sufficient evidence that this just wasn’t my day. I really needed a friendly face to vent to. That was paramount. That, and sleep…

I only noticed that they had let me pass after I had reached the door to the crudely reconstructed building.  The door swung open after a lazy push. As I saw the multitude of ponies passed out on the floor or in bed rolls, I had to keep myself from ‘aww…” ing loudly.  As a whole, their entire species was still cute, though some of that awwing might have been prompted by the fact that they were sleeping in what must have been a farm supply store.

Somehow, I summoned the superhuman resolve to look for Icepick in the smatterings of ponies. When I realized that she wasn’t on the floor, I knew this would take longer than I wanted. A huff left my mouth at that. This just might have reminded me to take off my helmet.

Eventually after a couple close call with stepping on a pony, I made it to what had been the manager’s office, lifetimes ago. I smirked at the room and its contents. She had snagged a futon. Perks of command, I guess. At this point, I just wanted to snag whatever sleep I could before I would have to have words. Undressing had gotten so mechanical at this point, it was truly like shedding a second skin. She didn’t awake as I climbed into the narrow crevice between her frame and the back of the futon. Maybe I needed the support of another person. Maybe she was just warm. Maybe, I thought,she might be less angry if I was beside her when she awoke. None of these motivations mattered in that moment. Reasons are important, but not so important as to change the act itself. She was warm…

                                  ---===*===---

“WHERE WERE YOU?” My eyes opened as her words woke me up.

“A military base held by zebras, irradiated sewers. I’m so sorry. I just go-” I stammered out, every word  ripping the bandages off self inflicted wounds.

         “Bread Slice told me that you showed up around four in morning. You walked in front of ponies with guns... Did you walk all night just to catch up to me?”

        “I had to… you know that power cell?”

“Bale fire bomb? I know… “ The things that had to be said had been said. Would the things that should be said be said, that was my question?

        “I couldn’t let that happen to anyone, least of all you,” I had averted my eyes for that. “Honest question. How is it easy for hardened killers like us to have a conversation about explosives from beyond the stars, yet have massive issues talking about starting a relationship?” Our eyes were locked by the end of question.

        “Usually, people aren’t so upfront about this kinda thing.” She jumped back onto the futon.

“The way I see it, we’ve had to put up with the jokes for no reward. Besides, I left on my own. My life expectancy lowers every second I’m here. I can’t beat about the bush.”

“Thats an interesting way to look at things. It doesn’t help that I can’t even think what kind of world that doesn’t kill you would look like.” She really wanted an image of my world. My deduction is legendary.

“I’ll answer any other questions you have. Just, can you answer one of mine?”

“Depends on the question.”

        “I don’t know how to say this without it becoming awkward, as it already has, so uh, you wanna you know, romantically entangle?” I would have slapped myself in the forehead if not for the hesitant smile that formed on her face.

        “I think I know what you’re trying to say, so yeah, just don’t run off again. I think I know why you did it, but this might just fix it.”

        “Strip Malls. Lawns.”

“What is a lawn?” She asked just like I knew she would.

        “It is a piece of land we plant grass on. They’re everywhere.”

“That sounds good. So, do you harvest it in the fall?” Icepick said earnestly, eliciting my hand to shoot up out of habit. She hadn’t forgotten that I’d left. I would be paying for that for a long while. I would find out later that she had orders, orders I could get behind. So between telling her more about me than I had told anyone in years, and her doing the same, I felt like that bunker out in the desert could wait…

---===*===---

Four paladins, two knights, an initiate, and three scribes. Plus Arthur, who hadn’t skipped out on them. Nine members of Applejack's rangers, plus some caravaners that had been going the same way and didn’t exactly turn down the offer of added protection. A beneficial arrangement. Well, more PR for the rangers. Then again, when there’s a war going on and the guys in power armor are on your side, the PR department is nearly superfluous.  What the caravaners were prepared for didn’t include two creatures that weren’t of their world. One was okay, but not two. The leader didn’t like the one look he got at my eyes. I didn’t just wear the helmet for the ballistic protection.

Well, as I talked with Icepick at the front of the group, numbering twenty, I didn’t feel so bad. Seems like some people were fascinated by my tales of frenzied engineering interspaced with dull combat. The scribes certainly liked my stories. Icepick was definitely more interested in the structure and capacity of Fallen Pride. Honestly, I felt more self conscious than anything when I started up my repair talisman. Icepick kicked me when I turned it on, and said I was becoming more metal than stallion. I corrected her on one part of that statement.

                                  ---===*===---

The noble knights under Senior Paladin Icepick were needed in Manehattan, well, they had been told over the radio, at least. Every night we travelled, the speculation about why they were being reassigned grew. And so it was that we were camped out around a series of barrels. Inflamed barrels. Whatever took the chill out of the air.

“So, you took the water you had dammed up, and used it to grow grass you couldn’t even eat?” Fiberglass surmised before rubbing his hooves and turning back to his personal barrel.

“To be fair, I never saw the point other than as a status symbol or an homage to our heritage. Then again, a lot of the people with big lawns think the world is six-thousand years old anyway.”

At that, I felt someone nuzzle me. My girlfriend. “You know, I talked with Heating Element and we agreed that I probably have at least a half megaton of TNT on me.” She said nothing. Eh, I put an arm around her.

“We both know my brother has a couple screws loose.” Glass said to us as we sat together on a turned over postal box.

“You’re just jealous I got his rifle set up with the secondary firing switch,” I relied to his (faked) chagrin.

“It’s only lit up a rat and a barrel of rubbish yet. ‘Sides, it isn’t painted red.” He referred to his flare machine gun. For the fifth time that day (I had counted.). Man, he would have had such a fun time with Degenerate Flame. Well, she would have had a fun time anyway. I shuddered to think of the children that might have resulted from that unholy union. Out of all the people I had killed, I didn’t bad about her. Sometimes a raider is just a raider.

“Hit the hay, Glass, I don’t want to deal with you, and my buckfriend’s bickering tonight.” We had compromised. I called her my girlfriend, she called me her buckfriend. And no one made any jokes about us. In front of us, anyway. Well, the two of us made fun of ‘us’, but only for laughs,

Fiberglass slunked back to his lodging for the night, leaving us practically alone.

“You know, I never expected my significant other to help out the scribes.” Icepick said softly before rubbing her head on my arm.

“Not to pry, but when you were younger, what did you want out of a partner?”

“I dunno. Well, when my mom moved away to Fillydelphia, I thought maybe she’d come back with a big strapping buck in tow. For me of course.”

“But you ended up with a sensitive guy like me, who da thunk it.” She looked at critically for a minute before chuckling.

“I’ve heard you when you sleep. You clink. A lot. Mom would like you though. She always wanted more metal than even she would want.” Her gaze softened to something more like a philosopher’s.

“If I took you home, I’d have to keep you from all the grass…”

“You know there aren’t any trees around, and I can outrun you.” She had figured out that any comparison to a terrestrial horse was less than flattering. All in good fun.

        “Oh no… you might hold me down and…  rut me to death! Oh woe to those that cross you.” I had time to finish before she tackled me.

Four days of travel and there we were: romantically entangled,quite literally.          ---===*===---

        The city of Manehattan was far off in the horizon. However, Stable Twenty-Nine and Gutterville shared two things; proximity to us, and recent spikes in population. Guess which one our merry little group was heading to first. Given one was their base of operation, it was an easy question…

        So, we were almost to our destination, and Arthur wanted to talk to me. “You want to join up with these guys?” I said to him while we were a couple meters behind the rest of the group, Which had shrunken with the departure of the caravaners going off towards Gutterville.

“Yeah, I did help them out when they needed a place to set up equipment, and fight the swamp folk.” I didn’t ask about the last part.

“Double A. I heard her talking about you. Not that I’m anything like an expert on these things, but I think she-”

“Likes a pair of hands in the shop.” He let out in way that made me reconsider broaching the subject in the future.

“Regardless, these guys, if they can win the war, might have a chance at making this place green again.” And then eat the green stuff. Well, not like waiting for something else to eat the green then eating that is any better. My point still stood.

“Like I said before, I’m thinking about it right now.” I let him think, as I sped up so as to get to the head of the party. While I went about that, I did take a good long look at him. I had no idea where he had gotten the double barrel shotgun or the big axe from. Suffice to say, he still scared a little. There’s a reason you keep your friends further away than your enemies. I digress.

I passed a happy stallion firing a familiar looking gun with a familiar looking sticky note on the back of it at a small rodent on the side of the road. There were flames. On a totally unrelated note, I was now hungry. So was the life of a natural omnivore among a group of self-avowed omnivores. Honestly, until you’ve seen a pony go from fixing a device that shoots lasers, to digging into barely cooked animal within the span of five minutes, then you- no, thats just Double A. Still scary though. In my non-expert opinion, you’re not supposed to sharpen your teeth like that. In light of that, I could DEFINITELY see Arthur’s hesitance.

“Took you long enough. Were you talking about lawns or something?” Icepick said from the front of the herd. I broke into a light jog to reach her so that she wouldn’t have to yell.

“What are the Swamp Folk?” I asked, genuinely curious. She looked ill after I said that, which was uncharacteristic of her. For some reason, they all gave me the cold shoulder for the rest of the trip.

---===*===---

The inside of the stable didn’t impress me; the people did. Steel walls aren’t nearly as interesting the tenth time you run into them. Apparently, I was at this point classed as a civilian operative under a new system, which meant I could buy things from their armory at a reduced cost. In exchange for the caps they owed me and the ability to sit in at their strategy sessions. Thus, I got acquainted with the head of armaments quite quickly. I wouldn’t normally call anyone an old Battle Axe, but that fit as both a good description of her demeanor, looks, and her name.

“You want buy accelerator rifle and bolt rifle stock?” The stern mare gave me a look of disgust.

“Uh, I have a charger built into my body so something that uses it makes sense. Unless you have something else that can penetrate cloud tank armor that I can actually use,” I said to her in way more patronizing than I meant it to be.

She did the job and took a lot of my caps. There was a feeling of pride as I carried the long rifle out of the armory. In my mind, the next thing on my agenda was obvious. Firing range. Calibrating a scope and some practice would probably burn enough time for Icepick’s meeting to get out? I really had only one way to find out…

---===*===---

        The sound of the bed I had taken as my own being lightly trod upon registered in my ears. I stayed stock still though. I might pass as asleep to the one that had entered. Besides, I had already grown attached to this mattress. That was probably because of the smell; familiar enough to give the final push I needed to pass out. Then, all at once, I felt the owner of the room (and some would say owner of me) nip my ear.

“Ow, fuck,” I yelped out. “Why?”

I turned to look at her. She seemed pleased at how high pitched my voice had gotten a minute ago. However, something was on her mind. It probably involved the meeting she had spent the day in…

Her look away from me was her downfall. She would have beaten me in every other situation. Distracted as she, was I managed to pin her to the surprisingly soft mattress. At that point, I had leverage. To my surprise, she didn’t tense up under me, she just looked me in the eyes and a less than hidden ‘fuck me’ look had registered.

“Hard day at work?” I said after letting my head rest right above hers.

“No, it was great. We discussed plans to open up the sky and start farming the Everfree.” Her sarcasm was punctuated by hot breaths right to my face. I knew where this was going.

“My paladin will bring light to the unwashed masses, I cou-will bestow upon-” She broke my counter sarcasm with her mouth. Any sort of weirdness about her and I had been purged from my system by then. It was only after either a very long time, or a very short time that she broke off for a moment to say.

“For the record, you are an unwashed mess.” So what? I had found the best connection I would ever find to another in a furry blue quadruped with beautiful blue eyes.  Maybe a traumatic situation had bound us together. Perhaps strange forces were at play. Without a doubt, we both had strange attraction to each other’s alien bodies. In the end, we were functionally the same as any other couple of the same age group. In the meantime, she got what her face had showed. I felt satisfied, and we were both glad that any marks we left on each other could be covered up by armor. We ended up passed out in the regular cuddling position we had figured out- laying side by side, my arms wrapped around her, her head against my neck. Peace. Satisfaction. A heartbeat next to mine.

                                         ---===*===---

        A building with columns stood before us, useless columns and all. The court house. We had elected to elope. As soon as that thought registered, we were standing in front of the person in charge. Icepick was nervous. She still drew lots of looks from… everyone. She had taken to wearing clothing; cute saddlebags hung from her sides.

        “Sir, these documents aren’t valid. you can’t marry an animal.” The voice was indistinct yet full of loathing.

                                         ---===*===---

I needed to get less sleep. I thought this before noticing how tightly I was holding Icepick, easing up enough to stay comforted.

We weren’t the standard model, but there was definitely something there.  But if you have a dream about marriage to a person that means something, what that something means is another matter entirely. Would she come with me, if she had the choice? Would I stay here for her?

She must have noticed my tightened grip. She stirred. Her flipping over to face me wasn’t something I wanted, though maybe it was something I needed.

        “More bad dreams?”

“Yeah, you were in it,” I couldn’t see her face in the blacked room. We both agreed that a room to be slept  in should be as dark as possible.

    “What happened in it?”

“We were walking into a courthouse…  You know how you don’t really think in a dream?” Her nod gave me the confidence to continue.

        “It was nice, I could sense that at least. Well, the first person we saw gave us the coldest look I’ve ever seen.” So I lied about the exact content. I didn’t want to freak her out by saying I on some level was contemplating something like marriage. Then again, that wasn’t that strange, people often think about how their names would sound together… this didn’t seem that different.

“Why would someone look at us like that? We weren’t covered in blood in that dream, right?”

        “You know, I was lucky I ended up here, you have like five different sapient species. My home, not so much. We have two, and I’m only sure about the dolphins. No one freaks the fuck out all that much around me.”

        “You’re exotic, but not that different.”

“I need to tell you something straight out. When I find my way home, if you come with me, people will freak the fuck out. Orders of magnitude more freaking the fuck out.”

        Her lack of response told me that I probably should have made this clear way before. Out of sight, out of mind, up until the moment your head meat brings end goals back into sight.

        “It’s not just that, is it?”

“Really, it was me not making my decisions for myself that led to me not being more upfront about what I feel for you. Two dying animals with sapience that have feelings for each other. The type of dying animal isn’t the important part.” I took a deep breath and looked away for a second. The feeling of her cheek pressing against my neck felt good. I wasn’t ever going to complain about her body. She was warm; she also would always need help to open jars, some things society instills in you that can’t be removed. “Those on my earth haven’t realized this.”

        “I still wanna see it. Besides, someone has to keep you oiled.” Somehow, in the dark of the room, I knew there was a smirk on my girlfriend’s face. Thusly, a smile appeared on mine. My left arm moved out and pulled her closer to me. “Have a good dream for once. You need it.” I don’t think I was supposed to hear her say that, but still; it was comforting. The sentiment, not the odds. I hadn’t had a good semi-logical dream in the last month; good sleep was dreamless sleep.

        I kissed her on the head and whispered good night. Sleep took me.

                                        ---===*===---

        The stable’s hydroponics weren’t repaired as of yet, so that left Icepick’s team, Arthur, and I all sitting in the mess hall, eating canned food mixed with some radhog someone had filled with holes. Given the fact I hadn’t eaten fresh meat since a lunch about a week ago, the pork given to me wasn’t in front of me for very long.

Damnit, I missed Nightflight.

“So, were going to Tenpony Tower,” Icepick broke the ice.

“That’s a good plan.” Arthur ejectulated, he must really wanna get away from Double A. I understood.

“Whoa there, scout. Icepick, what does command want us to do there?” Fiberglass said after setting down his cup of tea. The liquid inside the cup was still hot enough to visibly evaporate. Now some of that was inside of him. He seemed to be in some sort of permanent contest with his brother for whom was the more stallion stallion. It was a trial by... fire.

“We’re going to escort some scribes and a permanent liaison to the tower. The information on what the scribes are going to do there is confidential. Alright, most of you should know what that means, other than the two that don’t.”

“Arthur and I are ready to leave when you are; benefits of living like  warrior hobos.”

“How much pull does DJ Pon3 have in the tower? ‘Cause getting these two in is going to be like getting a Minotaur through an air duct.” She might have been a bitter pessimist, but she made a good point. From each according to her ability, to each according to her needs. Ironsight.

“We have money, we have marketable skills, and we don’t intend on making a stir. So, we should be fine. Right, Arthur?”

“Fucking stellar.” He shot out quickly. Damn, he was acting erratic again…

He was probably gonna switch out for Elvis pretty soon. Honestly, I thought the reason for Elvis’s absence was the presence of Double A. Elvis was scared of a small horse with a peppermint colour scheme, and I was sure that the red wasn’t dried blood, because that substance dried brown. I snuck a glance at where she had sat down to eat. She liked her meat rare, like, scary rare. The congealed fluids were evidence of that. I briefly thought about why anyone gave her meat in the first place, or at least, let her eat it like she did. Then I remembered a conversation I had with a buck in charge of training initiates. He had said something about a special punishment for insubordination. Pssh, until you’ve had to wash your own crusted blood out of your boots, I guess that would seem pretty terrible.

        “Sir, are you alright?” The pony called Bread Slice had used a formal title to break me out of my reverie. Either that, or he had been using sir for a long while.

        “I’m fine. I was thinking about bloody laundry,” He was satisfied enough by that to turn back to the remnants of his food.

        “All that radiation catching up to ya? Got the bloody shits do you?” Glass was a bastion of both medical knowledge and emotional sensitivity.

        “The only bloody shits he has are bloody shits of the mouth.” Ironsight…

I couldn’t keep myself from chuckling at that, though that might have been me just trying to spite Iron.

 Why did I travel with these people? Their guns, their armor, certainly not their companionship. Losing Nightflight and Synthie had broken something in me that was something I knew. I didn’t need friends, besides I had a relationship. I was fine.

                                 ---===*===---

        On my way to stable twenty-nine, the skeletal remains of the city across the river were impressive. On my way in towards the only building left that was more than a shadow of something amazing two centuries before, I was feeling giddy. From what I heard, this place was the only real civilisation left that resembled a normal state. A government, rule of law, all that jazz. Honestly, it felt like I was on a march to Shangri-La. A tower punching into the sky; what a rarity in this place.

---===*===---

Diplomatic immunity. We apparently had that, though the stallion that normally took your ammunition disputed it. We had been waiting for at least half an hour before a higher up in the governing body took the time to come down to the entrance to negotiate. I might of normally been willing to give up my ammunition temporarily- the issue was that I had ammunition that could level this place, and bullets made out of mysterious materials. My party, on the other hand…

“That’s not happening,” Icepick said bluntly to the suggestion that they acquiesce to disarmament for reason of building trust. Maybe I had spent too much time around barely likeable people, so this stallion by the name of Life Bloom seemed charming by comparison. My empathy switch would have to have been fried to not see why letting in a group of people carrying automatic weapons around into a building that was more civilian than any other in the wastes would be disastrous at best. He must have drawn the short straw, because he and the Tenpony guards were the only people out there.

“Icepick, you understand they have maybe three things in there that can do more than ping off of that armor, right?” I needed to say that. She wasn’t seeing it, and the other party involved wasn’t going to admit it. Besides, I heard they had places in there where they wouldn’t be averse to me taking notes and making suggestions. Even the opportunity to make something like an honest living here excited more than it probably should of.

“What, the scribes? Robes?” Icepick said in a deadpan tone. Life Bloom grimaced, as people are apt to do in a situation like this one. When he made a half step forwards and gestured for us to do the same, I was a little surprised.

“When we fought off the Enclave, we took almost half of our security as casualties, we couldn’t stop you if we tried. But we wa-”

“Well in that case, then having us around is in your best interests, and ours.” Icepick had  won him over; I could see it in his eyes as he processed the words.

“You make a good argument. I’ll talk to the society,” He said before turning around and walking off. I had taken him for someone who despite his place of birth wasn’t a cynic, or at the very least had some optimism in him that couldn’t be repressed fully.

        “He’s walkin’ away. We goin’ inside or what?” Fiberglass said. It was a valid question with a valid answer…

“I don’t know?” I threw up my arms in a display of honesty that was still baffling to everyone I’d come across so far.

        “Glass, we’ve made it farther in an hour of talking and waiting than any Steel Ranger.” Icepick’s voice sounded tired yet quietly proud that she would be the pony that was there for the setting up of an alliance. She had told me as we walked up here what she thought this could do for the wastes. Her arguments were compelling, but more than that, she had let me in on what we were here for. That had brought a bittersweet smile to my lips. Helping them out with a powerful weapon of indeterminate description. At least I had, in that regard. Man, next thing I knew, I was gonna be designing a bacterial weapon. Not just that… it will be a purely defensive measure. Pessimism aside, I had reservations on working on something so multi-purpose.

        “I know my history. The last time the rangers tried to take this place, they threatened to blow the bridge.” Glass responded.

        “You still could of bombarded them. You have more rockets than you know what to do with…”

        “Then we would have had a broken building without any useful tech, and angry wastelanders after us for blowing up the DJ.” Icepick answered quickly, a pedantic tone in her voice.

        “It wasn’t worth it then, and we couldn’t do it now.” She said as an after-thought, though it sounded more like she was speaking more to herself than the operative.

        I walked away from the gate itself, and moved back the way we had come.

“I’ll be back in a minute. I’m checking on Arthur.”

        There was a ladder that descended back to the street level a ways back; if anyone was going to go down it, it’d be him.

                        Street level probably wasn’t the term? Thoughts on that subject kept me occupied in the time it took to find him.

                                 ---===*===---

        Finding him wasn’t the same thing as running up to him and saying hello. Considering the circumstances, I didn’t think making my presence immediately known was a good idea.

        Watcher… I hadn’t seen him in a week. Yet here he was, casually talking to Arthur. Okay, that was a guess, but given Arthur’s posture, they didn’t look to be doing anything more than shooting the shit. Some more logical part of my mind told me to refrain from making my presence known.

        Watcher didn’t make social calls and I heard Arthur talk about coming here a long time ago. Thinking back to when we had met, I knew that Watcher had mediated that event. I was a firm believer in random chance being more powerful than anything, but this wasn’t random. Arthur had been on us like a dog the entire way here, both to Stable 29 and away from it. So I watched from behind a burned out husk that must have been a carriage at one point. They talked for maybe three minutes before watcher opened a storage compartment in the Eyebot. This surprised me because I had no idea eyebots had such a thing; the kicker was that he had given him a block of what looked like plastic explosives. No detonator though. I could make no conclusion about anything. It might have been pure chance that he had this meeting a couple blocks away from Tenpony, the place he had said he needed to go. My thoughts were interrupted by the fact he was walking back the way he had came.

I had no way to explain why I was there, other than the truth, or some flavor of it.

As a person, I had never been one to well, be agile or sneaky, or a sprinter. Imagine my face when I ended up tripping on an exposed bumper and smacking my head against rusted steel. Please imagine it, because I couldn’t describe it to you. An intense burning from an injury to my head and the noise my helmet had made striking another piece of metal had brought Arthur to attention. The sounds of his armor’s servos going into heavy use told me that. Picking myself off the wreck of a vehicle, I had time to turn… Elvis had stopped himself about ten meters away, in the sea of long ruined vehicles. Elvis. He knew how to hold a gun. Aiming it though,was well, another talent of his; one that Arthur lacked.

        “Oh, it’s you,” Elvis said neutrally, the barrel of the gun dipping slightly.

“I…  came down to see where you were at. I was successful?” I really didn’t want to fight him- he was a lot bigger than me in that armor.

        “You found me, so what did you wanna say?” He was always standoffish, but now he was really pulling it off well.

        “We think they're going to let us in.” I regained some of my confidence as I said this.

        He stayed silent as he walked up to and then past me. I made no move to say anything or make any movements for the time it took for him to get to the ladder. A little blood was leaking out of my nose. That, along with the pain, told me that something wasn’t doing well there. They probably have a doctor in the tower. Honestly, everyone could use an examination. I licked a cheek. Yep… blood. Regardless of that, I threw a look over my shoulder at the ruined ground level of Manehattan. The ladder called.

                                         ---===*===---

The Rangers had gained entry at the cost of one of their ranks taking a guard posting at the gate. Well, that is what I ascertained from a couple questions aimed at Bread Slice. Also, I was the last person inside, hanging back to let Elvis gain some ground had made that a certainty.

        I was let into the building with haste; apparently, someone in the merry organization had let slip I had a large supply of caps. That was honestly only half true. It wasn’t Icepick, considering she had known that I had dropped a few thousand caps on the gauss rifle. Besides, she wouldn’t do that normally. So I had a warm welcome- aspiring  business ponies with all the avarice that it entails. Honestly, it cheered me up. If the Rangers and the Twilight Society didn’t need me all that much, than getting some work here sounded nice. Or at the very least, no one paying me for anything really illicit  struck me as a nice change.

        Nevertheless, I wanted to find out where everyone was, then do something more constructive. Like clean the dried blood off my face. That was actually pretty far up there in the list of priorities. Well, whatever, I could just, you know…

                                 ---===*===---

“Uh hey, vendor person, is there a restroom near here?” The guy looked at me for a second. I guess he hadn’t noticed me walking up to him.

        “Just walk down there, get to the hallway, three doors down.” So I waved goodbye to the straight laced dude manning the wine shop.

        He had given me effective directions. It was an empty bathroom; empty and with running water. Badass.

        I went about cleaning my helmet and taking a look at my face before deciding on whether I really wanted to shell out the money for a visit that would be of dubious value, if only because I had an alien physiology. I was startled later on when a stallion exited a stall. Yeah, he had heard me talking to myself. And yell when I had tentatively touched my nose. We shared a look as he exited quickly. It spoke of agreement, an agreement more ironclad than any paper: the agreement of never acknowledging what had gone down. Or at the very least, not giving a good description of the other person involved in the situation.

        Needless to say, I soon followed the guy’s path out of the well equipped bathroom. In that time, I had learned that they had the ability to maintain flushing toilets, so the prospect of them having a serviceable weapon of mass destruction went up, by at least a little.

---===*===---

I had been on my way to where Icepick had gone, the information coming from a mare that seemed to think I was in the market for scarves. The employment board had caught my eye; these ponies didn’t have any bounties posted, and they were literate. A fucking jackpot that was. As I perused, a couple jobs caught my eye, one involved going into a crater. It was, of course, irradiated. It involved grabbing some information from some hardened terminals in a building down there. Ministry Of Arcane Science Emergency Server, had some information locked into it from right before the bombs fell, I supposed. Maybe the juicy tidbits and final reports from all over this terrifying country.

Sounds good.

“There you are,” Icepick said from behind me, startling me slightly.

“I was just about to find you. So, you worked things out with the Society?”

        “Counter question, you hungry?”

“As long as you’re paying,” A stallion who was walking by nodded in agreement.

        “Daisy sandwiches it is,” Icepick said merrily before trying her damnedest to skip down the halls in power armor.

        Hence my standing there for a second and thinking I’d pay for dinner, she was worth it. Who would have known the key to my heart was sarcasm?

                                 ---===*===---

The waiter had taken our orders. I had gotten a meat loaf, Icepick’s choice was the casserole; she had a thing for canned daisies. On the extremely bright side, they had offered wine, centuries old vintages from alien fields. It was the most single faceted thing at the table. Raw romance aside, I could feel that she were having a talk over dinner as soon as the waiter left. It wasn’t going to functionally be a first date, though it technically was. Icepick had said a couple words, and I had spaced out for a second, the climax being the mental image of two wearing T-shirts that said: I FUCK BEFORE THE FIRST DATE.

“What’s so funny?” my snickers had drawn her attention back to me with force.

“Just something I thought of… by the time I explained it, any humour would have died.”

        “Okay?” She took a deep breath, almost sighing, then she lit up. “So, we did it.”

“The alliance offer was accepted?” It made sense, given the security support.

“YES! do you know what this means?!”

“Knights serving the aristocracy?” My shit eating grin gained me a delicious glare. “A resurrection of the military-industrial complex?” Ditto. After a few seconds, I decided to be serious. “No, I can see why this really could help you guys out. A Doom Weap- uh, system of alliances is probably the best way to fight the Enclave.” I wasn’t sure about the whether or not knowledge about the weapon was classified, so I pulled a patented Nice Save™.

        The shit-eating grin hadn’t disappeared, it had just switched whose face it was on.

Time passed and we talked, talked about the wastes, talked about anything except for ourselves. Our own futures, what we would do tomorrow. I think we both knew the evening wouldn’t have been what it was if we had to acknowledge our own futures.

        By the time the food was in our systems, we were both buzzed. Alcohol tends to do that. It was honestly sheer luck that led us to leave the restaurant before we made a real PR nightmare. If loose lips sink ships, then booze has made the bottom of the ocean a little less roomy. Well, really, it was the person who thought it was a good idea to put a minibar in the suite itself that was the problem. Thinking about it a little, that person was probably a bleached pile of bones then and certainly now. Still doesn’t absolve them of blame.

        “Sooo… what is the weapon?” We had sprawled out on the bed. There was pleasant warmth throughout my body, some places were just a little warmer than others, of course.

        “Death ray…” She said it with a flick of the hoof.

“Like, a laser?” There’s no way.

        “Nope, the beam is incoherent,” Icepick looked at me seriously for a moment before snorting.

        “It can’t be good that you’re laughing about the super weapon…” I said simply before moving a hand over to scratch her head, the head that she had pushed into the blanket.

        “You, when people asked me why I got together with you after all the shit you pulled, I told ‘em ‘because the scratching is great’. I was only half kidding.” Her head moved up. My smile notwithstanding, she could tell that I really wanted to know about the death ray. “It needs the sun… the spell needs sunlight. It focuses it or something. Hey, why’d ya stop?”

        “That is so wrong.”

“Don’t care.” She had taken to pushing her head into my chest. The moment I resumed scratching, she cooed softly… all it took was a couple hours separation from her subordinates for her to get touchy feely. I had slipped into a happy state. To be fair, a simple state of closed eyes, repetitive motion, and warmth. Only for her to get up and dump her bulk on top of me. Her eyes opened with a sleepiness, gazing at me, then opening in concern.

        “My nose... I know,” I pre-empted her, for what good it would do me.

“How?”

        “I ran into a parked vehicle,” Her facial expression was that of a person wondering how something happened.

“One of the ponies in the society is a doctor, he said he’d give you a check up. You’re getting one.”

“Yeah, I was thinking about doing that earlier. Now that I’m going into an irradiated crater, it sounds even more attractive.” Who wouldn’t want to poke and prod the alien, maybe the guy just wanted to do it for the scientific value. I could get behind that… among other things.

        “So, after our first date, do you think you like the guy enough for another?” Cheesy lines delivered huskily. My god what had I become.

“Well, considering I already slept with him, I wouldn’t be a gentle mare If I didn’t.”

“It would be rather scandalous. Then again, maybe you want a second date for more than mere principal.” I felt exactly two seconds after that, she needed a kiss. Icepick may have been mechanically incapable of reciprocation in regards to scratching, but she could hold her own here… hold her own in spades.

                                 ---===*===---

Out of all the nights I spent with my knight, that one holds a special place in my heart.

                                         ---===*===---

In the morning, we had both dressed and left for the clinic; she was getting checked out as well. So what? I hadn’t told her this detail yet. It didn’t even matter that I had ample opportunity to do so. It only made sense that we watched out for each other’s health, right? In any case, I wanted to know if my ribs had healed correctly, nevermind any other healed or healing injury.

The doctor’s name was Helping Hoof, Icepick had informed me. Well, she had informed me just before entering his clinic. I followed a few paces behind. The place didn’t smell strongly of dried blood and other wonderful fluids, so on that basis alone, it was in the better half of all the places I had stayed in. I turned away from my examination of the room and looked over at the person who had just made a noise. He followed my eyes, and the steadily closing distance between me and Icepick. I closed the door behind me.

“That nose does look fractured…” His gaze shifted down to Icepick. Her impatient look was justified. She had people to direct. Responsibilities and all that jazz.  “Please, take a seat, I’ll try to do a detailed medical examination in as short a span of time as possible.” He had some bite in his voice, and a fair point. Maybe Icepick was slightly hung over?

“Right O, doctor.” I said as I walked over to an exam table. Volunteering to get poked and prodded first was chivalrous, right?

They both seemed a little surprised at my initiative, yet they followed in my wake with haste. I started to strip down to my underclothes.

“Can you think of anything on the top of your head that you need treatment on, other than your muzzle?” His professionalism almost had me shedding a tear.  Almost.

“Honestly, check all of the wounds, if that’s not too much to ask. I just haven’t had a doctor look me over for a month.” A quizzical expression had managed to take over his face. “It’s been a hell of a month.”

        “For you and everyone else, it seems. I mean just a week or so ago I helped a mare rebuild her mare friend.”

        “What do you mean rebuild? rehabilitate or…?” Icepick beat me to the question.

        “The mare was limbless, cancerous, and altogether… Dead. I had never implanted cybernetics before. Thankfully, the mare who had brought her here was a genius. The only reason the patient had even arrived here in an operable state was the mare’s body was attached to another pony.” Helping Hoof recollected with a voice half way between clinical detachment and glee. Well, he seemed more well adjusted than most people here…

        “Heh, heh, so, where did this mare go?” My sounded inquisitive as it rang off the walls. Helping Hoof raised an eyebrow at this. “I mean, have you thought of some sort of support group?”

        “A support group for what?” Damn you occams razor, he must have assumed the outlandish possibility.

        “For people with cybernetics… it’s stupid, isn’t it?” Self deprecating remarks when no external validation was given for an idea. Wonderful.

        “It’s not a bad idea. We have some support groups that meet at various times during the week.” His voice became one of quiet talks between friends as he said this. “I may or may not need this information to treat you.I must ask- where are your implants?”

        The sound of steel hitting the ground broke our concentration. Icepick had disrobed, and a single look at her face gave the impression that she was interested in our discussion, yet she also knew there was a time constraint to be aware of.

        “Spine is my major one. That, and three nervous system linkages, two of the hook ups being body modifiers.”

        “No, energy processing ability in the chest cavity? How do they stay powered?”

“Fusion reactor… In about a century, I’ll need a new supply of deuterium.”

        “That’s amazing,” he said with his mouth slightly agape. I felt as though telling him the reason I had all of the amazing technology was because someone thought it would be a great way to weed out the weak.

        “Jake, what did that?” Icepick pointed at the the scarred over remains of an old wound.

“Robot with a saw blade.” I cringed while remembering when that happened.

        “Did you use a healing potion shortly after you got the wound? Because that looks like natural scarring to me.” Helping Hoof asked.

        “Why would it look any different? You can’t just magic away dam-”

“No, when you drink a potion, it replaces the damaged tissue perfectly. Unless there’s shrapnel in the wound or you have a broken bone,” Icepick explained while we all exchanged curious looks.

        “Life Bloom, can you come here a minute?” Helping Hoof yelled in the direction of a room offset a couple meters away, filled to the brim with filing cabinets.

        “Why? I thought you were just checking up on some ponies.”

“I want to see what a healing spell will do for this stallion’s leg. Besides, I know you wanted to talk to this buck. He’s the biped.”

        “Fine, but you’re getting someone else to update the patient files; I have a meeting with the council later.” Lifeblooms voice got steadily closer as he trotted into the room.

        “I was expecting red eyes or something. You’re not even intimidating, the DJ…”

“Initiate the healing spell…” I asked bluntly.

        Soon after, a glow was flowing from the top of his head; a glowing spot of the same intensity appeared on my scarred over leg. Seconds passed and the only thing that changed was the intensity of the light. First, it increased in luminosity, then after an expression of intense concentration, it began to fade, eventually petering out completely.

        We all looked down.

“That’s remarkable.” Helping Hoof said.

        “It didn’t do anything. How is that remarkable?” Icepick responded with an edge of worry.

         “I didn’t hold back. I mean, that was a universal healing spell. I haven’t found anything that isn’t fixed by it.” Lifebloom seemed to be telling himself this more than giving us information.

        “This isn’t a big deal. I don’t plan on doing anything really dangerous in the future. A little scar tissue isn’t that big of a deal.” I didn’t want them freaking out about this. I didn’t lie to them- I really didn’t consider going into a crater that dangerous. Everything other than ghouls should be dead, right?

        “Lifebloom, you remember that magical energy damage cannot be healed?”

“Yeah, if it’s extremely concentrated. Unless you got lanced in the leg, the spell should’ve worked.”

        “Why does that kind of damage preclude healing?” Icepick asked, with curiosity evident on her face.

        “This is conjecture but… When I did treat a mare that had a spot of magical weapon damage that did actually come from a lance, the tissue did scar over and it wasn't necrotic-”

        Helping Hoof had been cut off by his assistant. “It wouldn't be conjecture if we had her here now, and if we had access to a magical field probe.”

“I might have a Magical converter in my bag. Would that work. I mean, I’d have to break down my repair system.”

“What kind of converter are you talking about?” Lifebloom asked.

“Alternating current to Raw magical power. Well, in what I read the standard magical frequency thats associated with talismans.”

Honestly, understanding how the energy moved and what it could do in regards to technology was enlightening and helpful. I had learned to treat magic as a kind of fifth force. As a physicist by trade, it wasn’t beyond rationality. It was cleary something that existed (here at least- I had doubts about elsewhere in the cosmos). However, some of these people can manipulate it with their minds. Even the ones that couldn’t use their minds had it inside of them. Icepick for example. I came from a place withou-

“Oh… I think I figured it out… maybe. So, Icepick you know that your radiation doesn’t have any effect on me whatsoever?” The medical ponies were a little aghast at her slow nod. A nod that I interpreted as indicating some wheels were turning in her mind. At great velocity.

“There’s probably a correlation between my complete immunity against magical radiation and my lack of magical healing. Perhaps the same reason for both phenomena.” To be honest, I didn’t know for a fact that I was truly unaffected by the pervasive poison of this world. It was an axiom. A justifiable one, considering the equipment and time required to get a real handle on human immunity to Balefire released fallout was really beyond anyone’s capacity. Besides, exposing people to generally terribly dangerous material seemed a tad unethical. “Your original words were pretty good at describing this. Interesting as it may be, I don’t really know if it’s consequential.”  The looks they were giving me were making me antsy. Even Icepick was looking at me uncomfortably.

“You don’t have a soul,” Helping Hoof said in a darkly in a tone that indicated pity.

“I agree. But you don’t have one either; souls are a myth. Self aware organic machines is what we all are. TThat was never in question, although in my case I have more metal in me than average.” They weren’t laughing, they weren’t grinning, they weren’t even looking down at the ground in disappointment. Icepick looked shell-shocked. The others I had stopped looking at as soon as I saw the state of her expression.

“I’m so sorry,” She said quickly before running out of the room nude. The nude thing didn’t tend to be a problem for these people, it’s just that she had never been one to leave armor on the ground. Her slight paranoia and ingrained habits had become something that I had… Loved about her.

End Of Chapter Twelve- Strength

        Footnotes- Level Up

        Armor Level Increased-

Order Will Be Established- You have seen the wastes, you have seen what people do when anarchy reigns. You don’t like it. With your acquired Antidisestablishmentarianism, you gain a speech advantage with any large orderly faction.

        Police Brutality- All indiscriminate weapons gain a fire rate increase.

        Hippie Beat Down- Any riot baton strike has a chance for an automatic KO.

Perk Added- Rationalist

        As a person in a world destroyed by technology, but being born in a world created by technology, you haven’t given up on the power of reason. Your natural intelligence bonuses to skills are increased to +5 per point. Being alone in a quiet place suits you, for reasons that you don’t want to think about…

Chapter Thirteen- Trick Of The Lights

Chapter Thirteen- Trick Of The Lights

The room stayed silent for a moment.

        “Was she…” Lifebloom said in a tone that people do when they think it’s impolite to speak of a subject.

        “What the fuck did you mean by ‘you don’t have a soul’?” I had regained some form of speech, the default form, actually. Pissed.

“Without a magical signature, you can’t get poisoned by the random micro-spells radiation is composed of.” The glare I gave Lifebloom put him in a mood of placation. It showed. “So, the good news is you can’t become undead.” The two of them must have thought that I was deaf along with soulless, seeing as Helping Hoof took to whispering something into his assistant’s ear.

“At the cost of being nothing more than a machine…”

I jumped off of the table; the examination was over. I had discovered two interlocking things: by their standards, I was a piece of machinery. And, that contrary to everything I had ever observed… women don’t actually love pale, soulless males. Not all of them, at least not the one that mattered.  It was with great gusto that I put on my favorite mechanism for exclusion, which the medical ponies must have interpreted as a sign of coming hostilities. Nope, I was only hostile to the distance between Icepick and I, and perhaps the fact that as time passed, that distance was increasing.

I thought about leaving immediately, but then glanced over at where she had left her armour. There was a lot of shock and awe just grafted onto that armor. Really, It would have been the height of irresponsibility just to leave it and go look for her.

A couple minutes later, I had pulled all of the ammunition from the armor system. I set off with haste. Though as I left, a sardonic snort was issued from me. This situation was absurd. The door closed, and I stepped outside into the light of fluorescent tubes whose ubiquity was the cause for concern to many a psychiatrist. I had someone to find and talk to… The realization that she was my biggest concern at that point sent a shiver down my spine. Regardless,  I was on the hunt.

                                ---===*===---

My path was erratic, well up until the point that I realized she would be hard to find, given the fact she really was a pretty average looking earth-pony. Sans the suit of armor laying in the doctors office floor of course. I decided that she would probably end up in the room we were staying in, if only for the supply of alcohol.

And as I made my way up there as quickly as I could, I just hoped I’d get a chance to tell her some things I needed to say. Maybe things that I had yet to say to myself. Out of all the things my oxygen deprived brain had time to think about, not for a second did it think about whether or not this was the right thing to do.

The door was locked when I came up to it, and in my addled state, it felt like the end of the world. I don’t blame myself; those Doctors had the half the bedside manner of Doctor Stone. Honestly, they had about twice as much as I.

“Can we talk about this please? I really don-” I said loudly through the door. The seemingly impenetrable barrier  swung open, surprising me for a moment. She had gotten good at interpreting my body language, therein lies why she quickly acquired a bittersweet smirk on her face at my surprise.

“I think they’re mistak-” I said to her before she cut me off. It was only then as she began to speak that her cheeks became wet.

“Maybe they are…” her voice had an uneasy tone in it.

        I stepped into our room, closing the door as I did so. Some initiative was taken, and I walked over to the bed and sat down, while taking off the mask I wore.

        “Even if it was something like that, why does it matter? I mean, it wouldn’t change anything…”

        “I freaked out, and I’m still worried right now. How are you supposed to take something like that?” She said this with a shake of her head.

“I’m honestly wondering that too… What the fuck kind of bedside manner was that?” She chuckled and sat down next to me.

“You were completely serious when you said there wasn’t anything magic in your world, this just confirms it…”

“It still freaks me out a little every time I see it, but in comparison to brains in jars and all the rest of the strange things going on around me… no, not just around me, inside of me. I don’t even know what me is anymore. Maybe I never did.” I had become slightly frantic, maybe the fact we were having a conversation like this, about something related to me, my own characteristics had thrown me off. I didn’t want her to see me like this, yet I knew on some level she was the only one I could talk to without the facade.

“You’re you, metal and all.” She said with the firmness of someone speaking their mind about something they care about, with a touch of knowing they're right, in their own eyes at least.

“Yeah, maybe right now, but do you know what I was like before any of this?”

“Not really, you've never talked about it, And I've never asked…” She replied in a voice that sounded guilty. Why would she be the guilty one? I had always been the stupid one. I still don’t understand why she’d go all the way to Baltimare to find me. She should have stayed here. I probably would have bitten the bullet in the desert on my way to a place that was most likely looted lifetimes ago.

“And I love you for it, the not wondering about me… what if I told you I was the guy that wouldn’t look at homeless people in the streets, the kind of guy that looked the other way as people got mugged. It’s a lot easier to do things that could be confused for heroism if you don’t even know if you’re alive. Icepick, I’m like a ship that got half of it ripped out. I barely look like myself anymore. I don’t act like I used to. I have hazy memories of being a scared guy, scared of everything. My apartment had four locks on it. I bought guns as a crutch. The guy you’re sitting next to isn’t anything like what he remembers, what he used to be.” I finished in a huff. My voice had never gotten above what would be a normal volume.

“I get it… I think. You’ve been through some shit, shit that breaks some people.  But does it matter that you’re not the same guy? Did you really like that guy?”

        “How can I answer the question of whether or not I’d prefer him? I’d prefer his context in almost every way: he gets to see the sun, he gets the ability to eat till he bursts, he gets to be a lazy half bum and still do mindless things. It doesn’t matter that he chooses to stay indoors. Safe, without people to hurt him. Go to a lecture, eat, go to work, don’t talk to anyone about anything that isn’t critical to doing the job. Do everything that needs to be done that day. I remember all of that, a little more every day, actually. Someone else’s life. Maybe it’s the contextual difference. I doubt it.” I paused; I hadn’t quite ran out of things I had needed to vent for… a lifetime. Icepick appeared to be right on the verge of blurting something out. I must have gotten good at telling her species’s body language as well.

        “I doubt that you’re a machine. I’ve never heard a machine talk about their problems of dissociative self. Not that what you're saying is wrong; from what you’re saying about the old you, he’s not someone who would have lasted long here.” I laid back and gave her a sidelong look.

“Icepick, I’ve been here like, a month, I don’t know if I’ll live through tonight.”

“Then Jake, why do you still act like you will?”

“It’s more probable that I will, I just try not to think about anything like it's a certainty.”

“You still want to go into that crater, don’t you?”

 “Yeah. I don’t care about it that much; if you don’t want me to go, then I’ll stay. More importantly, I need to know if we’re still what… what we were. If nothing else, I’d like to think I’m worth a second date, soul or no soul.”

“Well, I’m late for a shift and I do like having someone to sleep with. For warmth-”

“Nope, I’m dating a sex fiend. Oh, spare me the horror, oh what will the other members of your order say?!” I said in my terrible pseudo-english accent.

“So, concubine… where did you stash my armor?” She said in a tone that sounded just as bad as the accent, but better because she cared enough to carry on with the in joke. Yep, we were a couple.

“It’s laying on the ground where you left it; that shit’s heavy.” I beat her to the punch by pulling out a fifty caliber round and dropping it on the ground. “Sans the ammo, of course.”

She looked at me for a time; with an expression of contemplation that was at odds with her own admitted time constraints.

“Let me get this straight: you can barely move my armour, and it takes me an hour to re-arm my guns?” That statement had more truth in it than either of us realized, well at least the theme of it was pretty universal.

---===*===---

        So I did go with her to rearm her guns, and in the empty clinic we left each other.  However, before she had her helmet back on, she did kiss me. I had a feeling that we had strengthened our relationship. That, and she was really good at suppressing her own feelings when in the presence of a… loved one who had bigger issues.

        It was hard to believe I had someone who wanted me, who I got along well with. It was almost enough… I had actually contemplated staying here, with her for a second before catching myself. I steeled myself and shoved the thoughts of my own future out of my head. It was someone else’s problem. A dark chuckle spread across an empty room. It stopped almost as soon as the issuer heard it himself. I needed to go talk to the society about the information extraction job. In that vein, I stepped out.

                                        ---===*===---

        In approaching a member of the now more open Twilight Society, I was told to wait in a hallway they had led me to. The only problem was the whole ‘waiting for an hour in a hallway with interesting technology just a few meters away’ thing. To be fair, when someone tells you to wait in a place, and they don’t define what they mean by ‘here’, it gives you the freedom to wander, if only within a few meters.

        Honestly, in all my conversations with the residents of the tower, it had become apparent that the Twilight Society had been secret for centuries, and that they were a known as a bunch of pompous pricks by a bunch of pompous pricks. Which in and of itself is an achievement. The fact that membership is kinda limited to unicorns, and mostly unicorns with ancestors that had Ministry of Arcane science access might have contributed. That’s not to say that they didn’t have a really shitty PR team now that the DJ had left. Well, the DJ and his assistant. Regardless of that, they had put me in a situation that necessitated a little exploration on my part. Hence my self guided tour of the place.

If the place would have been abandoned, I would have had no qualms with breaking down any doors that kept me from what could be world bending technology. But alas, I had my reputation as a semi-employable mercenary to keep. So it was with sadness that I passed by many locked doors, which were almost all of the doors. Before long, I was at the end of a hallway that I assumed would be something like a dead end. What I didn’t expect were a pair of ponies coming down a hall perpendicular to mine.

As they walked in my direction, I noticed that I knew one of them. I was about to be graced by the likes of Double A. The stallion next to her was in a labcoat of all things. They were giving each other looks, lecherous looks. They spotted me and with a whispered phrase from Double A, they passed right by me, and that was that. It was only by chance that I heard the stallion talk about a room that only he could enter, and as his voice passed just out the range that I could hear it comfortably. The words “force fields” were uttered by Double A. That led my sidetracked mind off on a tangent in a hallway. Energy shields? They have those? Had. Why didn’t they put them on their powered armor? Was it a size constraint? Lack of power density? My mind was filling with up to the moment that I heard the soft sounds of a suit of armor and the louder noise of that person’s boots smacking into the floor.

Yep, Elvis was running around the nearly unused corridors of the scientific wing of Tenpony tower. The realization that he could lose me very quickly in this place hit me before I even moved from that spot. It wasn’t surprising that just a few seconds later a door sealed shut. A powered one at that. The noise Elvis generated was gone as soon as that happened. He could have been doing all kinds of shady shit, and no one could really stop him. The place was big enough that if a single person came across him, and detected him, then he could probably silence them before they got word off to anyone else that he was out there stalking about. Looking for something, maybe? I questioned his motives, his goals, and his sanity. Not nearly enough, though, to tell anyone about the sighting. Besides, it probably wasn’t going to be determined to anything. For all the shit he could or would pull, doing anything that would in turn make the wasteland proper, or even a powerful group target him seemed beyond him. Elvis had a strong sense of self preservation. Arthur was the one with suppressed self destructive tendencies. It was all idle speculation anyway. Elvis might have just wanted to be alone.

The opening of a door down the hall nearer to where they thought I would be,made me turn my head on instinct. A sound of a quadruped walking was picked up by my ears. It was time for a briefing. I turned the corner and stayed stock still. Moments later, the sounds repeated, followed by the woosh of a door being sealed. No, I really needed to know what Elvis was doing. That was a motivation. The possibility that I would get to see an energy barrier was also a motivating factor. I set off in the direction of Elvis’s last known location.

I didn’t find him. Honestly, the half hour I spent searching the place was in vain. Both from a technological acquisition standpoint, and finding out what the fuck Elvis was doing standpoint. It was that, along with the idea that I had blown off a job that I think everyone dreaded, that left me in something like a sour mood.

So when I did happen upon someone, I was miffed. The very fact they were in a secluded hallway to begin with seemed strange to me. That, as well as the books he had been carrying. There were a lot of books, big ones at that. Well…  it seemed strange to me after we collided, then picked ourselves up. Perhaps five seconds or so passed of polite apologies, mirrored automatic politeness if you will. In that time, I did get a look at the pony I ran into. A small looking buck. The flash of light that telekinesis released made me look at first. Him then, the floor; he was picking up books one by one and setting them on his back.

“Let me help,” I said before bending to pick up the books he had been carrying.

“I didn’t think mercenaries had altruistic streaks,” the buck said with some bite.

`        “Considering I’m really about as much a mercenary as your remark was a venomous retort, it’s not beyond reason,” I replied in a humourous tone.

He must have heard the warmth I was trying to get across. A wry smile crossed his face soon after.

“So, you see through the thin veneer of expressed slight, therefore you’re probably asking questions in your head, but it’s unlikely those question are about the best way to harm a buck you just knocked over?” He asked with a mix of cynicism and its twin in his voice. Regardless of anything else, I had found another scholar. The hunt for the educated members of a burned out carcass of a society never ended, it seemed.

“Not to cut you short, but why are you walking around with all these books in the middle of nowhere?”

He looked at me as if trying to determine how trustworthy I was. After realizing my face wasn’t really visible, he shifted in his hooves a little. “I’m a teacher… I needed some literature for the foals,” I looked at the cover of the book. They were all copies of ‘The Prince of The Moon’. I didn’t hear the next couple of words he said, I never got to say goodbye to Glycerine. I needed say some words to her- the thought of leaving without giving resolution is horrible. “-it’s hard doing it. The Enclave, they had no reason to take the tower… Balanced Force was a good mare.” He had become solemn, it was the tone of voice change that brought me to attention. I had to ask though…

“What did Balance Force do?”

“She taught the Natural Sciences, Mathematics, and she loved to teach the elementary forces. She caught an energy bolt to the chest when we threw the Enclave out.”

He was still hurting. I could see it in every part of him. It was within my capabilities to sympathize.

“Um, hear me out for a second. Would you on take a temporary educator on a provisional basis?”

“I’d love the help. Getting young ponies literate is enough of a challenge.” He gave me an honest, appraising look for a moment before setting up a question with answers that meant more than what the words themselves could ever convey.

“I’ve heard some limited speculation about you. A wanderer who came from nowhere, with no easy to see motivations. I only ask; can you teach them?”

        “I can do a lot of work, and this work’ll do some good. So yeah, I can teach some kids. I know this is sudden… but anomalous events make up all the important events.”

        “But only fools see patterns in them.” The buck who still hadn’t revealed his name said before looking at the pile of books I was idly holding, and getting an idea.

“How about I continue the interview as we carry the books to the classroom?”

        Man of action, I see. Pragmatism… he had it in spades, it seemed, he wasn’t desperate, just open to useful possibilities. I felt that I was on the way to gainful employment.

                                        ---===*===---

        As I left the room that, come tomorrow would be mine to indoctrinate children in, I knew a couple things that were nearly certain: the buck’s name was Papercut, he really didn’t know much about any scientific field, and there was most definitely something that I construed as a bounce in my step as I made my way out to one of the local food vendors. I was going to surprise Icepick with a dinner I had cooked in the suite, and with my (temporary) new job. Damn… was I becoming someone worth something? You know, other than all the jokes I could make when I made it home about a cyborg school teacher, I felt that maybe if I did well at this, I could look at the mirror and see someone I’d actually want to meet in a dark alley at night.

        My footsteps weren’t the only sounds in the hall,  but they were the loudest.

                                        ---===*===---

        The range was doing it’s job. An electric job, of course. I doubted they could get a gas running here. That wasn’t the thought running through my head as I waited for Icepick to get back. No I was really wondering what I wanted to wear in front of the kids tomorrow.

        “I’ll ask Icepick,” I said out loud before realizing that she wears exactly two things on any occasion: power armor, and the undersuit for the armor.

        “Wait… I have an undersuit too.” There was a current of sadness at how long I had thought about the issue before realizing I was literally wearing the solution.

        As I went in to check on the soup I began taking off my outer armor. A few minutes later the the outer layers of the suit were laying on the table, it was scratched, beaten, and still going in spite of it all. It felt like a metaphor for my own life at that point, which might have just meant I had grown really attached to my casing upgrade, as my lost voice would have said.

                                        ---===*===---

        I lifted the lid of the worn pot. It smelled better than the stuff Gumdrop had sold me a long time ago. The meat was really gamey in all the test bites I had taken. Regardless of this, I thought it tasted good enough. The opening of the door surprised me enough that I dropped the spoon I had been using into the bottom. A couple droplets of hot water flew up striking my hand. In my general experience, people don’t like to hear a yip of pain the moment they open a door. People tend to get worried at that.

        “Are you okay?” Icepick asked while running into view.

“Fine,” I said automaticly as the immediate surprise wore off and any residual pain dulled into non-existence.

        “I made food,” I said cheerily. She responded by turning around and gesturing at the main release of her armor. I obliged but not before turning off the range.

“Thanks, I really just want to eat and lay down.”

“You have a fun day guarding these people?” I asked as I helped her slide one of her leg sections off.

        “They had a security breach close to the megaspell chamber. Something set off a motion sensor, something large-”

“Yet able to get through a shield.”

“How?”

“I was up near there. I heard Arthur moving around up there... I think it was him, pretty sure.”

“Noted… By the way, did you know that you'd be a really bad politician?” She said in half joking way. She must not be that worried about Arthur. Or suspicious about Arthur, rather.

“Funnily enough, the one time I actually helped a ‘politician’ out, I sounded really confident. It’s just that what I was saying was more than a little self serving.”

“What you’re saying is that the only time you sound confident is when you’re lying?” Icepick said before moving behind me to get a bowl.

 “Kind of. I’ve noticed my awkward run-on ramblings get the most pronounced when I’m trying to be the most truthful that I can be.”

I looked down at her to see her reaction, the look on her face told me two things: That soup was a logistical nightmare for these people, and that she wanted help at that moment,  but was too prideful ( I guess) to ask for it. Needless to say I put some soup in her bowl. Then did the same for myself.

“Thanks,” she said softly, a touch belatedly as well.

We moved in something like concert towards the table we had yet to have used. As I sat down, I noticed the strange thing she must have pulled out of the silverware drawer: A spoon with a rubber bands attached to it.

“Never seen me use a spoon before?” She asked after she caught me staring as she pulled the utensil on. Two bands to hold a something in place and maintain stability. Nice?

“Yeah, I mean it makes sense, still kinda weird to my eyes.”

She utilized it by sucking down a spoonful of broth. Effective?

“So I have some good news. I assume you want to hear it. I got a job teaching.”

She would have dropped the spoon if she had the ability to do that. Surprised would have been a concise understatement.

“You mean with Foals? T-teaching foals?” She looked worried.

“No, I’m teaching the natural and arcane sciences. No, they’re old enough to make their own decisions about what I teach. Besides, I have the old teacher’s lesson plans to use as a framework.”

“Old teacher?”

“Enclave plasma shot to the chest. I only got the job by chance, her colleague(and suspect lover) was getting some books together, and I ran across him. He seems pretty nice.”

“That’s terrible, but teaching is marginally less dangerous than exploring radioactive craters, so I’m on board.” She smiled at me. It had the hint of bittersweet happiness in it that I had come to love about her.

“Only marginally, though,” I said in my pseudo-serious tone reserved only for occasions like this. She laughed, and I felt for a moment that maybe in spite of it all, we could work out.

                                ---===*===---

As I looked at myself in the mirror, I knew I didn’t look like the image I had of myself in my head of Jake the teacher. If the weird idealistic part of your mind understood context, then maybe you wouldn’t imagine yourself wearing a blazer with leather elbows. I brushed my hair to the left with a hand and took a last look at what used to be an average looking guy, in the old context. I laughed a low desperate laugh at the realization that context is literally and figuratively everything. The realization that was always on the tip of my pre-conscious, at best. After another minute or so of rumination, I remembered that I had a job to do, and I needed to leave to do it.

  Just before the door to the room closed, the lights flipped off, and in that moment the mirror went from a utilitarian piece of furniture to a something made more than useless by a change in its context.

---===*===---

        “Alright class, I’m a teacher at this point, so I do have to put up with a perpetual question and answer session. However, this is a good time to ask the normal personal questions.”

        The class filled with mostly normal terrestrial variants of the dominant species on this planet looked slightly startled about being put on the spot. Soon enough though, a hoof was thrust into the air. I nodded at the thruster.

        “What are you and where did you come from?” The pony who asked seemed energetic in her gesticulations, which was strange, given the fact I hadn’t really seen anyone here use hoof motions.

“Man, If I had a bottle cap for every time I had to answer those two questions, I’d have too many damn bottle caps. No, but in all honesty, if my origins don’t make you want to tear into the curriculum presented here, then you aren’t really cut out for a world built on inquisitiveness.” I paused to look at the group before moving ahead. Their chalk board would suffice. I drew a crude circle before adding the word earth under it.

“This is where I came from… It had one, maybe two, sapient species on it, the obvious one being humanity. Homo sapiens. You wouldn’t know it, but we were at about a fifty-fifty chance of turning our own world into something similar to yours. Really though, there is a lot more variation between this world and my origin point. The place that I got pulled into against my will was a place that seems more and more like yours. The nearly mirror image between the two is why we speak the same language, have the same written language, and have compatible technology. Your Equestrian wasteland is an image of a perverted, in the classical sense of the word, version of my own world, plus a couple hundred years of time drift.” The board had a few other crude sketchings on it. My lungs had a moment to do their job as the class took a moment to comprehend what I had said.

“That’s convoluted,” A buck in the front of the class said bluntly.

“How do you think It felt to live it?” I snarked back, not with hostility, just in the way that someone does when they’re trying to build up a rapport.

        “I saw you walking around with almost as many guns as the stable dweller carries. So I’d imagine it sucked. A lot.” He had a tone that, heard by itself, could almost be mistaken for a friend talking to another friend.

        “Can we get on with the lesson?” A meek voice called out from the back of the room.

        “So today, class, we’re going to continue on with the unit on forces. My favorite unit, circular motion, no less.” The students murmured slightly, as was natural. I assumed my position at the chalkboard yet again.

                                        ---===*===---

        As I walked out of the room after teaching three classes in a row and dealing with the frantic tries of negotiation that homework brings out, I wanted to get back to my suite.

        The next few hours flew by. I did some refresher problems along with reading some of their textbooks. It was honestly more of an afterthought to heat up some canned food for Icepick and I.

         I wasn’t expecting the look on her face when she came in, helmet a noticeable bulge in her pack. Grave would be the right word.

        “I notified the society about the probability that Elvis was the one poking around up there. They were horrified, because they had just sent him on the mission in the crater.”

        “So that sounds exactly like the kind of thing that happens when an information asymmetry in a system plays out. What happened next?”

        “They got some of the technicians to do some searching. They found a bomb.”

“Why the fuck would he put a bomb in there?” I yelled. The time I saw him talking to a sprite-bot then popped into my head. I kept it to myself. For the time being, at least. “What are they going to do about him?”

“I don’t know exactly, but nothing good for his health,” She answered swiftly.

“Bomb threats make people angry.” I paused to think. They have to be… “This is being kept from the public, isn’t it?”

        “They only wanted to tell me to kill on sight. I didn’t want to do that. They didn’t want to tell me anything about it, and when I did say I would pull us out, they gave up the details. So don’t tell anyone.”

        “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have a lot of people to give state secrets out to.”

        “Something tells me you could make it happen.”

                                        ---===*===---

. Healthy skepticism of established knowledge would serve her well, although I wasn’t sure it was that and not some lack of self esteem.

        “Very good, and now quick question… as listeners of the radio, I believe you must have heard some things about the Stable Dweller. Now, raise a Hoof if you were interested in not just her actions, but her tools?” I spoke to the assembled ponies, most of which having never left their tower. A vertical gated community, complete with all the trappings of an elitist society. I hadn’t read about a lot of the Stable Dweller’s accomplishments myself, but the hearsay was pretty prevalent.. News the old fashioned way, I guess. What I did hear told me that what I had done in my time here was nothing compared to her. An alien with unknown motives is trumped by a populist heroine with a gun that lights people on fire. That was fine with me. Honestly though, I was more interested in the reactions of the youth to the stories of her. The stirrings of revolution were forming in their hearts. Change had come for better or worse. Their parents had always had the benefits of living off the inflated prices they could afford to charge others in their social strata. A social hierarchy had formed.  The few that knew the secrets of their society, along with the ones that could go into the secured parts of the place, were a step above those in the tower. Well, at least status based on genetics had some pragmatic basis in this instance.

        Maybe this generation was on point to figure out that all the bottle caps in the world didn’t protect you from the superpower in the clouds, or the armies of a quasi-communist state. Not just that, because the cabal in charge here had acknowledged these facts. They just pursued tentative alliances with a fourth rate power and the revival of one of the same weapons that had damned the world the last time around. To be fair, maybe I was biased when I learned that the weapon being readied was named after their long dead God-Queen.

        When I looked back at the room, many hooves were raised. Well, time to gain some interest… and be the cool teacher. “Good. So, as I understand it, she uses a couple different firearms. Now, I mentioned it before, but the plow is the most important invention in the history of civilisation. However, in this class showing Physics, practically can be aided by a look at weaponry. Practical Tools are derived from esoteric knowledge.” I waited for questions. None came, so I continued. “The Stable Dweller tends to use a Large caliber revolver. Now, a gun like that has a lower projectile velocity, but the projectile fired is larger.” I got some nods of understanding and a couple bored looks. I pointed at the board. The equations I had written gave some more substance to the lesson. After a few seconds, I decided to pull out two items- a two-millimeter gauss round and a five-five-six bullet separated from its casing. As they were two inert items, I thought they’d make good classroom aids. I took one in each hand and held them out to the class.

        “You want to make some conjectures about what fires these?”

A hoof raised and I nodded at her. “The big one looks like a regular bullet, so a chemical propellent. Can I see the smaller one?” In my walking over to what had become my star pupil, I could see that the class had their eyes glued to the pony near me. Starswirl… in the last couple days, she had gotten less hesitant to speak. Her intuitive grasp of the subject and general thoughtfulness had reminded me why I liked learning but hated the concept of high school. The projectile was put in front of her, and she picked it up with her mouth. “This is ferrous, isn’t it ?” She responded after letting it drop back onto the desk.

        “Yes,” I said in an encouraging tone.

“And it’s pointed, not like a pistol round, Which relies on mass to be really deadly. So, is this a specialist’s rifle round, or is it a machine pistol round?”

One of the many snarky bucks stood up and blurted out “Did you not see the rifle with coils over the long barrel? It’s a magnetic accelerator. Tiny bullet, massive velocity.” The collective feeling of an answer that led to many other questions, some of which I would answer, and some of which would be answered within the group could be felt. The majority felt encouraged. The group of one was not.

“You’re right. Just, don’t let it go to your head.” I said with a shrug, a non-committal one at that. I could empathize with both extremes of personality. Though I felt a need to help one and let the other learn the folly of their actions at his own expense, I could honestly only hope that he would survive the lesson. I heard Starswirl speaking under her breath. Her words were indiscernible, but sounded critical of herself.

“Don’t feel stupid, or a failure, when someone asks for conjecture not knowing the answer is par for the course. It’s not your fault, you did well.” I said to her before turning around and telling the class that I’d give them some problems based upon the acceleration profiles of the different ballistic weapons. It was only after they were working on the problems that I realized I didn’t have a laser rifle to have them look at to describe the acceleration of photons. The fact that having them look at a grenade launcher and its principals would be good practice did cross my mind.

I did worry about the decent human being that had been gone for a couple of days. He would have been perfect to show what an education can do for you. Well, his stuff would have been a welcome edition to the stuff that I could tout as a tangible product of sound research methodology. Besides, what cool teacher could resist showing off a working suit of Terran Power Armor?

I drew a deep breath and began to erase the board. Someone else had this room in a couple minutes…

---===*===---

“So I heard from somepony in security that you had taught their colt how long it would take to fall from the top of the tower.” My utterly nonchalant look gave her pause. She must have my meaning, because her voice shifted to a more steady ‘why did you do that’ speech pattern. “Lacquered Baton caught their foal trying to sneak onto the roof with a bag of paper weights.”

“So? Galileo did basically the same thing.” I said tersely.

“First of all, I don’t know who you’re talking about, and second of all, ponies don’t like it when their sons do stupid things.”  Icepick said honestly.

“These parents don’t really understand children then,” I responded way too snidely.

“Shut up. you’ve never had to deal with children. You treat them like adults that need a mentor. You treat everyone like they’re one step from a child but with a couple words from you, they can ascend to a plane as lofty as yours,” She said with a conviction that sounded repressed.

“What?” my voice wavered with shocked sadness.

“You heard me, you try so hard to build yourself up, to feel different, superior even.” Icepick hadn’t gotten any louder, an increase in volume would have cauterized the wound, slightly.

        “I just try to be a good guy. I mean, if you knew half the shit I’ve pulled in the last couple weeks…”  The words that came from my mouth were as a honest as any other thing said by me that night. “You know who saved me from the festering shithole that was Baltimare. A place where I wasn’t far from dying, a place where success meant more fucking bottle caps, more fucking booze, maybe a one night stand complete with a spare consciousness. But there, if I failed, it wasn’t necessarily my life on the line. it was others, innocent or not. Intelligent or not. Failure was totally an option there.

        Luckily for me, you came there to pick me up, to give me a modicum of a realized existence. I’m sorry that you know me well enough that you figured me out, watching me tick is like waiting for a pendulum to stop. it’s all inertia and an efficient swing.”

“The school teacher that just wants a happy life. Is that what you want to be?” It was an angry question… Not just toward me, but to something she held dear.

“More than anything else.” the words left my mouth. She laughed, hysterically.

“What happened to the guy that fought with the mare he had barely just met?” Icepick asked her rhetorical question before answering it herself. She was healthy, naturally. The magic that permeated her body, the ultimate difference between me and her, the thing that made me more alien than the rest. The very thing that would make sure I’d die a croaking, extended death, a breakdown with no return to what once was. Entropy taking its course was the same thing that nearly guaranteed that someone with a half decade lead on me in years still laughed with no coughing, no stoppage, no biological limit to what her lungs could belt out.

I could do nothing but stand there… she had found a comfortable place on the carpeted floor. Even in her mentally questionable state, I still felt a longing, a need for her. In that vein, I dropped to the floor and reached out to hold her. She stopped after a few seconds of continuous contact. Our eyes locked, my hollow hunter’s eyes held by eyes that were wrought differently. I moved my head to rub my cheek against hers.

“What was that about? you don’t have to tell me, but I’m going to worry if I don’t know,” I asked with hesitation. I didn’t want another multiple minute laughing fit. She could have been the commissar of an army built on dark sarcasm, it didn’t mean I liked her showing that side off.

        “I can’t do this,” she said softly before giving me a single kiss. As she pulled away, a smirk was on her face. A sardonic one, at that.

        “What can you not do?”

“It’s not you that’s the problem. No, you have enough of those, and it shows. Your coping mechanisms are nice though. Annoying, but nice. No, it’s the whole domestic bliss shit. I read about life back in the day. When mares were mares, and bucks minded the house and knew when to plow the field.” She looked me in the face then nodded down at our legs. The smirk was doubled when she looked at me again. That earned her an amused chuckle from me. “When I look outside the walls, when I walk out there and look at the desicrated corpse of a skyline, I see how fake it is here. The Enclave had this place for about a week. It turns out that they aren’t that different from these ponies, from how I was brought up. We all thought we had won. Or at least, were sitting in the least terrible position. It turns out that we had all lost something along the way, or we had to try harder to retain what we had. A sea of recycled goods, ideas, books, weapons, armor. Oh we had plenty to drink, It was just that we knew that the next person would get what we had.” I rarely had heard her get so sentimental about anything. In the pause, as she found her words once more, I held her tighter. “That right there. It’s not normal. I never thought my buck could do that… Honestly though, I got the intelligence reports from the Fillydelphia Rangers. They reported that somepony had united the slavers there, an enigma. He talked a big game about building schools, restarting factories, restoration. Then, under our gaze, he went out and did it. I was just barely an initiate at the time, still based not that far from here, at a base that was wiped out by the Stable Dweller.

        It didn’t take long before the Ranger high command tried to take him out, repeatedly. Might be why he made one of his first military moves of taking the original Ranger base there. The fact that he’s done something, anything, constructive is his biggest selling point. Doesn’t matter that he’s selling the same philosophy that led to the need for a rebirth of the land. Collective responsibility for saving the children, Collective responsibility for defeating the zebras. A collective scar on the land, a collective scar in our hearts. It’s not that he’s too wrong, it’s that he is right in all the ways that should matter. And that’s why he’s started all of this, the reason the Enclave decided to show off their power armor and their ships. The reason why these ponies are frantically trying to get their own scary weapon from the past. The reason I-we broke from the old order. We left an order that treated the droppings of a fallen generation as a precipice for our species.

        When I’m around you like this, I forget about all of that for a while. But it’s like a hangover that you keep back by drinking. It comes back in full force when you realize what you’re doing. You care about me, about people, about everything. It’s not indifference, it’s the knowing that you’ve done things that others never will. The knowledge that you just want a place you can improve by peaceful means. You don’t have a conviction that gnaws at you night and day, to go out and do the only thing you were born to do. You only fight out of necessity. If you fight for anything else, you get hurt almost as much as the person who loses,” She finished with a tired sigh.

        “I feel bad because I don’t think I can be the warrior you want me to be. When I put that armor on, it turns me into a different person. I can’t really explain it but… consequences are buried under a layer of abstraction. I shoot better in that thing than I  can now. It segments me. I like this guy right now, holding you. Not a guy with red eyes and a perpetual scowl.”

        “You’d become him to keep holding me, though?” She asked tentatively.

“Yeah,” I said before going in for a kiss this time. The night was short, and we let ourselves out. It was never explicitly stated, but I had an inkling of an idea that I wasn’t the only person whose armor was more than met the eye.

                                        ---===*===---

        “How did you do that?” One of the students asked in rush.

“On a limited budget and a literal alignment of the planets…” I answered with a touch of reverence.

“You said there was a record on it?” Starswirl stated her question, in something approaching a confident voice. Learning to ask questions when you genuinely need help is the hardest lesson you learn while learning. A question about a genuine yet thoroughly academic interest is on the right track.

  “Yeah, it was a gold record, with a sample of U-238 on it for radiological dating. The sounds of Earth, greetings in a lot of languages, all the understated fanfair.”

“Wouldn’t it be funny if It got here, because we have record players and speak the exact same language?” Hearthstone the Wunderkind pondered aloud.

“Imagine that and multiply that by about a thousand… You know, I already admitted that it fel-” My response was cut off by sound of the front door being kicked open.

        “They sent someone after Arthur!” Icepick’s voice bounded out of her armor’s speakers. I dropped my pen as the words hit me. Fuck, I couldn’t lose another one.

I felt like whatever I was building here could only stand as long as the people I had befriended were ambiguously not dead.

        The stunned classroom looked on as I tensed up, feeling the muscles of my throat ready.

        “Who, when are they leaving?” I yelled out to the person who had yet to stop moving in my direction. Everything arrived in a static position as she stopped inches in front of me.

        “A bounty hunter… I can’t remember the name… She already left. They wouldn’t tell me.” Icepick’s bitter tones wounded me, the instinctual reaction to harm whoever had led to her state was egging at me. That kind of feeling is rarely, if ever, removed with logic. The fact that anything I could do short of vaporizing the place could be better done by her was known. Regardless, I also knew that I cared more about her feelings on the matter than I did my own lackluster reaction to a death threat against someone who I could still call a friend. Maybe I had already internalized his probable death. Another name crossed off a list that was always sitting on a knife’s edge. What had I become? Someone on the list probably knew.

        “I can’t even…” I said with the resolve that comes from resolving to reach a resolution. “Sorry, class is over. You have your problems. Read the pages. Again, I’m sorry.” I addressed them before getting the hell out of there with Icepick only a stride behind. I closed the door with a haste they had never seen from me. I wondered if that would be last thing they’d see of me. Out of all my myriad of fears, that one, the fear not of death necessarily, but just…  the idea of eternal separation had become a shadow over everything I did.

        I turned to face her. We needed to discuss our next move, somewhat privately, I might add.  Ehh, deserted hallway was close enough to private.

“How close are they to getting it done?”

“I think they’re done already.” Her voice dropped. She wasn’t far from letting out a laugh that would wake the dead. The problem was that I wasn’t that far from doing that myself.

“Really? Because I haven’t seen any beams shoot down from the clouds to smite the enemies of this downsized city state.” I asked, still in the throes of anger yet honestly wondering about that. I mean, the kids would have mentioned it if the weapons usage had gotten any notoriety. Which a death laser tends to get, I’d assume.

“I think they’re waiting. The Enclave managed to beat Red-Eye. What’s left of his army in the Everfree is going to reinforce Fillydelphia. That’s what I heard.”

“Then let’s leave. I-we need to go after…” I said, before the reality of the situation struck me just as the sadness in her voice registered in my mind. She had been ordered to stay. It made sense. The power of a dead god, a new, more people-friendly organization, and a new sense of Self-actualizing morality had set the stage in this place. And she was away from the one thing she thought was truly hers. Fuck.

I stooped down slightly, gracelessly, to wrap my arms around her shoulders. In vain, I squeezed. The steel didn’t yield to the flesh. It was no surprise when the helmet popped off. When she moved to remove it herself, I didn’t give her the chance. If there is anything that has graduation in the universe, it is in the way you put something down. In that case, it got about halfway between her head and the floor before I let my fingers release.

“I got my orders from some of the reinforcements they sent our way today. I got a promotion and orders to hold position.” There were tears in her eyes now.

I knew about some guys in the past that were given promotions under interesting circumstances… I just hoped that wasn’t the case here. If it was, then I guess I’d have to give credit to whoever was pulling strings down in good old Twenty-Nine. Either way, I knew now that the Applejack’s Rangers were reformers, not revolutionaries.

 To avert doom, sacrifices must be made. It matters not that an ingrained need to sacrifice oneself, and a thinking altruistic desire to help others by any means that a person can do by themselves are different in which they are built. It only really matters that people are willing to do what you think is right. The commander, decider of fate. El Muerte. My thoughts bounced around in the chamber of my mind. Equivocation, empathy, apologetic thoughts, a suppressed scream and a set of white knuckles. In the span of just a moment, I was pulled and stretched to let them all take control of my decidedly finite conscious mind. I opened my eyes as the feeling of lips on my cheek brought me back to ‘reality’. One dab on my part was enough to remove the trace of a tear on her part.

Her smile was a beacon, and now that I think back on it, mine probably did the same for her. The ashes of a conflict centuries old had been stirred up, with Icepick and I in what looked like the middle of it. Neither of us knew then how much energy the person who had kicked the embers had left

---===*===---

        Later on, after stuffing our faces, because we wanted to, the both of us just wished to lay down on the bed for a while. An errant thought prompted me to speak.

        “You wanna try that whole domestic bliss thing? I mean, I think one way or another, this is probably more of a trial run.” I hesitated for a moment, then decided against adding ‘whether or not we want it to be’. The only people who like being told that they have no control over something are the ones that already acknowledge it. I didn’t know that she didn’t believe in a deterministic situation, but I wanted to believe that she believed she had some control of fate in that regard. Stalwart defenders of volition are hard to come by in a wasteland. I didn’t want to lose the one I knew I had.

        “How about I tell you what I want? I want to do something to help, defend the people. Living with enough to get by, a rucksack next to a fire, going off with more ammunition than food. Even just moving around being seen, making ponies know that something has changed. Being a harbinger of better days. That’s what my goals are. I love having you around, you’re a good buck… It’s just that if you want to stay with me, you’ll probably have to learn to teach out in the open, or in a stable somewhere close by. This place doesn’t need help. It needs to help others. The people in charge don’t really see that, but as long as some good comes from us staying here, as long as the new Rangers act like a force for good, then I’ll listen to them.”

“I think I can deal. Besides, if this place does go to shit, then my plan involving aliens is our best bet,” I said with a smile barely tugging at my features. I was warm, I was content. I awaited a response.

“It can’t be worse than manipulating a group of people into building superweapons?” Icepick said in a lax tone, denoted by a yawn.

“Are you talking about me, or just that plan in general? because I honestly don’t think people start building superweapons without being manipulated.” I laughed after a second of silence. Her laugh had a tone to it, like someone accidentally referencing your own inside joke.

---===*===---

        The next day passed with the two of us biting our nails, waiting for something to snap. When something did go down, it went down hard. The news was sparse at the time, and a reasonable timeline is only a warped mirror to display the event in the minds of those learning about it in the future. I really didn’t know if day after would have any long-term effects. Conjectures about the future of an entire land are almost always wrong. But I’ll humour you. If anything can improve the lives of those people, it’ll be the sun.

Everything that I got to see that day was normal excepting the moment I... and well… everything after.

---===*===--

The morning felt the same as any of other times I had woken up with Icepick already gone.  I mean, it’s not like I needed her around or anything, I just loved being around her… It just happens that dawns are more pleasant with someone else there who feels the same as you. That morning, I chewed my bottom lip as I dressed. We always left the bed unmade, so when she got out of it, it left a distinct pattern of disturbed sheets. At least I had a place to stare at when I wished that she was there. The only thing I knew I’d say was that I had slept without dreams. Nearly meaningless, though I still thought she’d like to hear it. I had a sneaking suspicion that regardless of anything she would say to the contrary, she did feel obliged to protect me against anything that would do me harm.

A yawn, followed by someone shuffling papers around accompanied my preparations for what I hoped would be a mundane day. Part of me wanted it to be like that, though the yearning for an end was palpable as well.

        So the walk down to my room was nothing short of normal. If I were to guess, then I’d say that being surrounded by one hostile army for a while, then getting temporarily annexed by another one that literally came out of the blue probably left a population calloused to the entire prospect of a war out of their sight. In general, the differences between the average person here and a person living in year two of the Leningrad siege were many. Saying they had a common thread would be a self-evident understatement. Full disclosure- In my book, being threatened by annihilation counts as being manipulated.

        Class began per usual. I checked papers and answered questions before moving on.

The class had found its working arrangement for the day, groups had formed, they were figuring out how to do the problems that I had laid out.  Without warning, the place’s hidden (from me at least) PA system was turned on, the announcement was drowned out as soon as the words Clearing Skies were heard by us. They must have heard more than me, because in the course of a minute, I was following the wild mass of normally sedated students.

        It wasn’t an isolated event, because PA system… Still, it was intoxicating, even being near a group that had picked up a tentative, perhaps neurotic energy. To them, I must have seemed calloused in comparison. To them, the sky was falling… away. I had never spent time next to a group like that. A fundamental truth, monolithic as it was, yet it had been torn away. Happiness interspaced with a few cases of vertigo upon discovering a frontier that had been denied to them.

        With the balconies crowded, only a few were left inside during this special day. The few that were inside could see the lights flicker as the massive redundancy provided by the  surplus reactors did what their ancestors had designed them for. Comparatively, the power was needed to run the targeting systems, along with the framework apparatus. Or so I heard, later on. At the time, I myself was enjoying the benign moment as the sun began to show through. For a moment, I was elated to see something I had thought lost. It was only after a few seconds of feeling, its warmth on my skin, that I remembered that this sun wasn’t mine.

To be fair, the dull ache that accompanied this bitter remembrance would have

hurt me a lot more if the doubt that I would get to see my sun again hadn’t been building up inside. Anesthesia as a fringe benefit of an amputation. Doubts that up until this point been easily suppressed were finally cropping up. What does this place lack? Now, I couldn’t list off love and hope as they were very probable nos, now they were things that looked within my conceivable grasp. Thoughts impelled by circumstances in rapid flux had the run of the place as I stayed out there almost as long as the natives.

---===*===---

The hallways were filled with people celebrating what seemed to be a reversal of fortune. Later that night, when everyone learned about the surgical strikes by their very own home team on the enemies of both state and decency, I’m told the drunken masses redoubled their efforts at making it a night that would be recorded in history books. Actually, just the increased possibility that they’d get to write their own history would have been cause for celebration. But that’s just needlessly pedantic.

Recollection is a luxury. Refinement costs something by its very definition.

---===*===---

Singularly, the moment I saw Icepick for the first time that day, I had never been happier to be alive. The look of pure joy I saw on her face made me that happy. Really though, there needs some clarification. Being happy you didn’t just die is not the same thing as a reaction to positive stimuli. In the span of a few seconds after entering the command room, I spotted her just as she spotted me.

We both moved at a slowed, salacious pace towards an inexact midpoint. It was a christmas miracle that the room was much closer to empty than full, though I would have laughed at someone who happened to bowled over by a large mare in powered armor. I might be a ‘good buck’,  but however, I am not a saint.

When we reached one another, the embrace and kiss were a blur. In any case, it was followed up by another and another. We did hear someone in the room give a whooping call. Positive though the reaction might have been, it did kill our mood. A little.

“Wanna go? I heard someone out there say the wine was ‘on the house’. And given the fact we don’t really pay taxes or own any booze, it can’t possibly backfire.” I said to her in an uncharacteristically husky voice.

“What if we don’t remember today? Or tonight.” She mirrored me every way except for a strong pull towards me. “Let me guess? ‘Knowing that you don’t remember something is almost the same as remembering in the first place.’” If I couldn’t have heard her, then the look of abject humour on her face would have given her away. I melted just a little right then and there.

“No, that’s crazy. I don’t know who you’ve been spending time around.” If she hadn’t heard me, the kiss on her forehead would have put things right.

“Whatever, all I know is that you’d hate the guy,” she said matter of factly.

                                        ---===*===---

        “So, what do you think it means?” I asked Icepick as we just lay on the bed drinking the lukewarm wine someone had been passing out.

        “With the sky opened up, I don’t know. I mean, the Enclave isn’t gone and Redeye’s army is still out there. The Hardliner Rangers aren’t done either. Still though,   it’s beautiful, isn’t it? I didn’t get to see it today, but I think it will be there tomorrow.”

        “You know we have a balcony, right?” A second passed with her her face glazed in thought.

“Let’s do that,” she said resolutely, bounding off the mattress after stretching.

I followed, but I could tell she would be getting out there faster than I. She really must have forgotten what people said about the night.

        As I closed the door she had left open, she kind of tackled me. It was surprising.

“Look up,” Icepick said quietly. This was the first time she had seen stars. The deck I was laying on with someone now resting on me was a little chilly, but the look I saw on her face every couple seconds made it worth it.

        “I wish I knew the constellations here. They’d probably need two hundred years of stellar drift to be accounted for but, It’d still be nice.”

        “I can’t believe I forgot about this. Slipped my mind,” she said with a slightly embarrassed chuckle.

“You know what’s really funny?”

        “What?” She said with her head turned the newly un-obscured heavens, I had been appropriated as a pillow, I realized with some mirth.

        “I haven’t seen a night as clear as this in years. Light pollution would be a sick joke to you guys. Really, the last time I got to see a cloudless, sparkling night sky was a trip to Zion. Maybe you won’t make the mistakes we made. Nope, I think you already did. No, I hope we don’t make the same mistakes you did. Err, I hope you keep the night sky the way it can be, and I hope my home won’t nuke itself.” I said the last bit on a fluster, words failing every once in a while.

        “What was it that you did before you came here again?” She asked with humour in her voice.

        “Political commentator,” I said normally, before snorting.

“Okay, what did you want to do before?”

        I scratched her head a little while thinking about an answer. Then, when I found an answer, I tried to make it not sound stupid. Well, the second thing didn’t pan out in the thirty seconds I gave myself.

        “I wanted to help people. Make a difference. Be selfless. Give the world the push it needed to make the transition to a sustainable civilisation. Whether or not I can ever do anything like that is another matter, although, with just the blueprints I have on me, I think I’m in a better position than ever to do those things.” As I finished she had turned her head.

        “You really miss it there. You probably fit in better there. I don’t blame you.” Her melancholic words made my body ache. She’s not really right, but not all that wrong. She obviously cares about you, while still knowing you plan to leave her at the earliest possible moment. You know this, but you still do what you do. Is there a bigger asshole on this planet?

        “No- I can’t explain it, I can’t handle it here. I was never really free from death and violence back on Terra. I was shielded, though. You’ve seen what I’ve become in a little more than a month, it’s not pretty. I never told a group of people that I would sexually abuse their corpses after the implied murder I would bestow upon them. Not even once.” I shivered a bit, thinking of that night. However talismanic the armor I wore had become, both literally and psychologically, it showed that I was thoroughly in the thrall of this place.

“Don’t you want to make sure that no one else has to do that?” Icepick had put out the invitation to go on her grand crusade to fix a world that had fucked itself so hard that the descendents of the survivors ten generations on were still barely eeking out an existence for the most part.

“I’m not really confident I won’t make it worse.”

“This is from the same guy that thinks he can fix the world that has billions of people and balefire bombs pointed at itself,” her words stung.

        She turned away before getting off of me and walking back into the room. I laid there, thinking. Story of my life. It’s absurd. I mean, I think I could help. But you already told her that you wanted to be around her, stay with her.

“If I never get a chance to leave this place, then I won’t have to decide. And that is the most likely outcome, all things considered, doorways or not.”

        I sighed before picking myself off and stepping in.

“Icepick, I don’t know. It’s not fair. In like, any other set of circumstances, this would be a non-issue... as in an issue that never even existed.”

        “But it wouldn’t be the same if you were just a random buck from here,” her words rang true.

        “I mean, if I found you at a bar on Terra, it would probably wouldn’t have gotten so serious so quickly. Really, a whole lot of things would have been different, but the problems would have been more along the lines of ‘what pizza toppings should we get?’, not you know, whether or not we should be going after a bunker in the middle of an irradiated desert. Just in general, the whole radiation thing isn’t all that common where I come from.” I sat down next to her,the bed depressed under my heavier weight.

        “I just had a thought. I’m literally the first mare ever in the history of the entire universe to have this problem.” I responded by making an effusive gesture before putting an arm around her. “What should we do? Suggest something, please. If it’s really stupid, then I’ll shoot it down. But I think you know when to be serious.”

        “Alright, don’t let this seem like a highlight reel of my fuckups, because these are just the ones I think we can fix, or at least ameliorate. First off, you really do need to know that there are things crawling around the baltimare sewers. Monsters that have been plotting for as long as there has been a wasteland, probably before then. I need to deal with this one way or another, doorway be damned. Secondly, I have a feeling that whatever Crucible Caravans is- it isn’t exactly good for anyone. That one is more of an educated guess. The making sure that some person with delusions of grandeur doesn’t get into the place that is full of alien technology is important too…”

        “I see you’ve been thinking about this a lot.” Her voice had a note of surprise to it.

“Guilty as charged. No, but seriously, when I know I’ve fucked up, I can’t stop myself from thinking about what I could have done differently. When I know I could maybe solve the problem, then my brain gets incessant. One of those annoying coping mechanisms, I guess.”

        “That’s more than I would have thought. Oh, and did you just forget to tell me there are other-worldly creatures just doing whatever in the sewers?”

        “Yeah,” I said bluntly. I moved for a kiss and was met by her. She disengaged after a second.

“So if an alien came down here right now and offered you a ride back right now, would you take it up on it?”

        “I would have to think about it,” I said before laying back on the bed. She looked circumspect about my answer.

        “Would you go with me?” I asked.

She responded by turning her head slowly, just to jump on me. “Just shut up, this is the day the sun came back.” Very quickly I was pinned under her, And she was readily exploring my mouth.

        I didn’t ruin the night for her.

End of Chapter Thirteen: Trick Of The Lights

        Quest Perk Added: Day of Sunshine- All companions in your party gain a +1 companion nerve boost.

        50% to level up.

[End of source material. Insert new disk for third act.]

Salary Added: +250 bottle caps

Interlude- Don’t take it Personally

Interlude- Don’t take it Personally

The house was a wreck, that I knew. I woke up in the late afternoon starving, but alas there was no food in the house. The pork n beans (my main food source) had long been devoured along with the other pre-war food. Great, scavenging was not at the top of my list of things I wanted to do today. After I cleaned the crusted vomit piles (yes plural) off of the floor like I do everyday, I walked to the armor closet and pulled out my father’s shiny armor. He was once a valued member of the Enclave before the accident at the Oceanic Isolation Facility…

Although I wanted one, a shower could not be risked right now. I had to let the solar batteries of my hot water regenerated. Plus the water filter was just about shot and drinking was more important than being clean. This was a major hit to my morale though and I almost turned to the whiskey but decided the day could be better spent on finding food. I put a note in my Pipboy to remind me to try to rig something up for the water purifier.

If there was one advantage to this house besides the massive amount of booze that came with it was the water purifier. It drew water from the ocean and could rid it of salinity and a small amount of radiation. My radaway took care of the rest. This was all dependent on whether I wanted to drink water in the first place, granted I had to, booze was better for my soul though.

My father’s armor was laid out on the table in front of me. It took a while to separate the pieces to be able to put it on. I spent twenty-five minutes trying to put the armor on, It had been a long time since I had left this building, maybe a couple of months. After the armor was fit to my liking, the systems were turned on, which could easily be controlled by my fathers Pipboy 3000. Although the suit was heavy, it didn’t feel heavy, no it felt smooth and flowing. I threw a punch at the wall and broke through it easily.

I had a smug, sadistic look on my face that could only be achieved by a eighteen year old with a suit of military grade power armor as I pulled my hand out. It must have been loud for I heard Hal the ghoul pony yell from outside.

“Come on Arthur! Let us in, every pony is freezing out here, we even have food.”

To this I snorted and said. “Fuck you Hal, how about you let me leave my own goddamn house for once!”

With determination he replied. “Arthur baby, we’ve gone over this, we just need a place to sleep at night. We’re not stopping you from going out.”

I yelled back. “To hell you aren’t! If I leave what’s stopping you from coming in?” This time he was closer, on my porch.

“Well then I guess we are staying right out here then.”

I chuckled. “Is that a threat?” This time he was at the door itself.

“How about you come on out and figure it out smoothskin.”

“Have you ever killed someone before Hal?”

“Baby, it’s not that hard, just the pull of a trigger.”

“Well, you better not miss!”

I grabbed my power helmet and slid it over my head instantly feeling more perceptive of my surroundings. My hearing and vision felt crisp and clear, allowing everyone of the hoofs outside to be heard. I grabbed Chaos and slid a microfusion cell into the chamber. A refreshing buzz sounded, letting me know it was ready to fire. With my helmet secured tightly I fumbled forward slightly remembering that it had a whiskey drinking straw on the inside. “Maybe a sip wouldn’t hurt, just to take the edge off…”

                                         ~~~~0E0~~~~

The wood of the door splintering. Ripping. Ripping. Ripping. Blood. Silence.

[====A====]

I awoke to an inky blackness, my head throbbing. God, I had to find a better way to relieve stress. My eyes opened. I couldn’t see anything. Oh fuck I couldn’t see anything! My hands fumbled to my eyes but then stopped on a helmet, my helmet. The visor was coated with a sticky wet liquid and after being rubbed off vigorously my vision was restored. The ground around me was covered with blood, guts and well blood.

I walked over to Hal who was wheezing on the ground.

“Looks like I won Hal”

“Not quite, Baby.” He replied out of breath.

Hal swung a 10mm Pistol from behind his back.

“Oh, Fuck!” I dodged to the right and zig zagged back to the left. Determined Hal levitated the Pistol and fired 4 shots. I closed the distance but not fast enough.

The bullet struck me with all of its force, followed by two more in immediate succession. I cringed to look at the damage. Then the realization occurred that I was wearing military grade titanium alloy armor that simply caused the shots to ricochet off of me. There was no time to unholster Chaos from my back.

I took advantage of his shock by charging him with my knife. Hal’s feet seemed to have forgotten how to move as I came down on him with a swift stab to the neck, making his body go rigid and legs collapse.

Hal was an annoyance to me and had payed the price for it, along with all of the other ponies who traveled with him. My personal form of justice could be heard for at least a mile radius and I worried that some may come back. When a compromise couldn't be made, I had to be sure they wouldn’t come back.

“Well fuck, I’m gonna smell rotten ghoul pony for the next week.” I muttered still evaluating the situation.

[====A====]

“Splunk!” the last ghoul pony body hit the water off of the cliffside. I was overwhelmed by the crimson colored water and how it spread across the lakeside. Man how many did Elvis kill. I shrugged and walked back towards my house picking up a stick along the way.

My pocket knife flung open with a click (It was one of the few things I could keep on the magnetic side of my leg armor), and I sharpened both ends of the stick. I stuck one side in the dirt outside my porch and placed Hal’s head on the other end. That should keep anymore of those stupid ghouls from coming here.

“Don’t come back here again you squishy bastards!” I yelled into the night. “ I bet you are watching me right now, huh. Get away from here you fucking vultures and don’t ever come back”

With the job complete I turned to go inside, but a glint of metal caught my eye. I grabbed the would plank beside me I had used to patch to hole in my door and walked towards the object toting my gun in my right hand.

When the blood was rubbed off of the can on the ground, it was clear that it was pork n beans. I then remembered how hungry I was. My stomach rumbled as I walked up the steps and into my house.

“Fuck it, the rest of the supplies aren’t going anywhere and if they do I’m going to finish them off. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

With my beans cooked and a record playing, the executive decision was made to not watch the Elvis vs. the ghouls surveillance footage. My appetite may be spoiled. Although I was content with listening to the record, a beautiful piece by Frank Sinatra I felt something was missing, maybe it was self pity.

I hated being low on food (or shit out of food) but the nearest town was Baltimare and sleep sounded so good right about now. My belly was full, Elvis was content for the night, what more could I ask for. Life was good sometimes. I layed back in my chair and finally achieved a non alcohol induced sleep. Something I hadn’t achieved in years. A calm before the storm.

Footnote

Current Level: 4

Perks: Rad Child: +2hp per second for every 200 rads received