Fallout Equestria: Paragon

Chapters

Chapter 1: Project Paragon
Chapter 2: What doesn't Kill you...
Chapter 3: Why we Fight
Chapter 4: Through Fire

Chapter 1: Project Paragon

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. ~Isaac Asimov

Here I was, galloping down the metal-coated halls of a Steel Ranger outpost, with not a care in the world. In fact, my tongue was probably sticking out too, flapping in the air. I could not contain my excitement. My life was going to change today, and there would no looking back. Of that, I was sure.

I had been chosen, out of all of the Steel Rangers out there, to be the one to test the new Paragon armor. This was it, so they told me, the solution to end the war. This was going to change the way warfare was conducted for centuries to come. This was the moment many years of testing, and perfecting, was going to produce. And I was going to be the first, ever, to use it.

My name is Razor Lighttrot, and today, my life will change forever.

<--------------------------->

I was galloping down the restricted access area, admiring all the new sights (I had never been in a restricted access area before, you see). The walls were all coated in metal. A friend once told me that they didn't put the metal there to keep intruders out, it was to keep the products of the tests in. I looked up at a door with a sign above it: Keep out for your own safety. I shuddered at the connection and kept galloping.

I looked up at the doors to read the signs as I passed by them. Testing in progress, Keep Out. Caution, danger zone, Keep Out. Stay away for your own safety. I'd turn back if I were you. Project: Paragon, Authorized personnel only.

I nearly fell over trying to stop when I saw the sign, my destination. I quickly pulled myself together, and walked towards the metal door. I tried pushing it, but it wouldn't budge. There was a handle, but it seemed pretty pointless when the door refused to be opened by pulling either. I even tried gnawing on the handle, but it was to no avail.

I was still attempting to chew the handle when a red mare with two saddlebags walked up to me. "Need any help?"

I jolted upright at the sound of her voice. "Umm... yes, I think the door might be broken. Also, the handle tastes horrible, I don't recommend it."

The mare chuckled and placed her hoof on a small circle next to the door. A metallic voice came from a speaker built into the wall above the door. "Hoof recognized: Red Delicious."

The door slid open and she began to walk inside. As the door closed behind her, she addressed me. "Now you try."

I examined the small circle. It seemed simple and mysterious at the same time. I tried to express it all in one word, but all that I could come up with was mystimple and simerious. Neither of those fit well, so I just stopped thinking and put my hoof on the circle. The metallic voice buzzed through the speaker again. "Hoof recognized: Razor Lighttrot."

The door slid open. Sweet, I was in. Take that, door!

I walked through the doorway, and found myself in some sort of airlock. The door behind me slid shut with a hiss. This new room was about five feet long and covered in glass. It was almost a half cylinder shape, creating a curve above me starting on the left, and ending on the right. The room was filled with a quaint blue light. It felt peaceful compared to the busyness of most of the rooms found in this outpost.

Suddenly, a strange red line was created with lasers that snaked across the ground, passing over me. The metallic voice from earlier buzzed out again, though I was unable to find the source this time. "Identification verified: Razor Lighttrot. Please enter and a testing assistant will direct you to the testing area."

The other side of the blue room opened up to reveal a large, open room filled with scientists working in various groups around various things. I walked in slowly and gaped at my surroundings. The metal roof extended at least 30 to 40 feet up. Just how far underground were we? There was a group gathered around a few sets of Steel Ranger suits. I noticed that each suit had some small changes to them, and one of the scientists seemed to be arguing with another while directing to one of the more noticeable changes. There were sets of blueprints above each set of armor that made absolutely no sense to me.

I scanned the room again and noticed a group gathered around a computer. One scientist was typing in numbers while another was pointing to another spot on the screen while talking to a third scientist. I looked at the top of the screen and could just barely make out the words Life Support System. Seems useful. I began to look around the room again when I noticed Red Delicious walking towards me. "Hey, you're Razor Lighttrot, right?"

"Yeah, I'm-"

She interrupted me. "Here to test the Paragon suit? You're late, follow me."

I followed as she weaved her way through the room. "Well, the door was giving me problems."

She looked back at me and chuckled again. "I noticed."

Dang, Red Delicious was pretty hot. Hopefully I would get to work with her often with this whole Paragon project thing.

I decided to try to strike up a conversation with her. "So, how did you end up working on this Paragon project?"

"Well, it helps when you’re related to the ministry mare who began all of this."

I nearly pulled a double take at her sentence. "Your related to Applejack?"

"Yeah, we're cousins. That really helped me get here, since they only let trusted ponies work on secret projects like this one."

"What exactly is Project: Paragon?"

She started to reply, but cut herself short. "No more time to chit chat. We're here."

I looked up at the door we had stopped at. It was a lot like the door I had first had trouble with. Red Delicious grinned at me. "I better get this one."

I stepped back. "Good call."

She pressed her hoof against the small circle next to the door, and it slid open. We walked inside, and the door shut and sealed behind us. We were in another large room, however, this room was devoid of ponies. There was a large window about ten feet off the ground with four ponies behind it, ready to observe the test.

My eyes, however, were drawn to the middle of the room. There was what looked like an ordinary suit of Steel Ranger armor, split in half, connected to two poles protruding from the ground. Red Delicious motioned towards the space in between the two halves. As I positioned myself between the two parts, I felt a small rumble in the ground beneath me. I looked up to see one of the scientists looking around also, but none of the others seemed to notice.

Red Delicious's voice sounded over a loudspeaker. "The testing will now begin." I noticed she had made her way up to the area behind the glass. "This test will be performed in order to test the capabilities and effectiveness of the Paragon armor suit. It is designed to analyze your situation, and adapt to it. Using a more advanced form of the reparative features found in the original Steel Ranger armor, it can redesign itself to adapt to the dangers it detects. This also allows the suit to fix, and occasionally upgrade, itself.

"The armor will now be connected around you and activated. It may take a moment to download and initiate the programs on the armor. Please be patient while this is occurring."

As the armor began to close around me, a large rumble shook the entire room. I noticed the scientists behind the glass window begin to panic. Red Delicious looked directly at me, and our eyes met just as the suit closed around me.

The silence was incredible. I felt as though I had been placed in an entirely different world. The darkness added to this effect, causing me to lose all orientation and sense of direction. Then, the sound of bolts and screws tightening around me shattered my trance. I felt trapped now, and something was going on outside this suit of armor I was prisoner in. Something had happened, but what?

A screen lit up in front of me, distracting me from the situation outside. There were boxes moving from one side of the screen to the other. Yet another somewhat metallic voice filled the armor. "Downloading programs from external source." There was a progress bar that quickly filled up and disappeared. "Downloading complete. Writing backups of downloaded programs to shielded backup data files."

As the suit was doing its thing, I noticed I could hear a faint beeping noise outside the armor. I tried to listen closely to figure out what it was, but the sound was too muffled by the airtight armor. "Thank you for activating the Paragon armor suit. Initiating environmental syncing."

Environmental syncing? What the hay does that mean?

I was answered by the blaring of a siren as the speakers inside the armor relayed the sounds of the outside world. Well, there's the beeping sound. Of course, it had to be the emergency siren. I was stuck inside some stupid piece of metal, getting my eardrums blasted out by some siren, while the entire outpost was evacuating. Just great.

"Balancing audio levels." The siren suddenly toned down to a more reasonable volume. At least that problem was fixed. I now noticed that the screen in front of me was displaying an image of what was in front of me. There was also an eyes-forward sparkle near one of the corners of the screen. Now we were getting somewhere.

"Initiating hydraulic movement assistance." The armor began to move, and I was caught off guard and nearly fell over. I tried to regain my balance, and realized the armor was moving along with my movements. I began to walk towards the front of the test chamber to test it out. It felt almost as natural as walking without a suit of armor, however it was strange to not be able to feel the ground beneath my hooves. I was about to try trotting, when the suit relayed another message. "Initiating threat detection programs. Warning! Multiple threats detected. Overriding usual initiation routine. Initiating life support functions. Warning! Threat levels rising! Cautionary measures strongly advised."

That can't be good. I now realized that I could move again, and that there was still an alarm telling everyone to evacuate. Man, if this is another drill, I am going to be so angry.

I trotted over to the wall and glared at it. My one weakness: doors. However, this time I knew it's secret. I placed my metal coated hoof against the circle next to the door.

"Hoofprint not recognized. Access denied."

I guess leaving the chamber wasn't planned on being part of the test run. Well, I am wearing a fancy suit of armor now. Anyways, how thick can the door be? I backed up, and rammed into it. Apparently, it was thick enough. Not a single dent.

"Initialing combat assistance. Analyzing fighting style: primitive. Suggested weapon: Rockets."

This thing was armed? And I was just running into walls? I knew what I was doing now.

I searched the screen. No 'rockets' button to be found. Scratch that, I had no clue what I was doing. "Hey, armor... thing, how do I fire the rockets?"

"Initiating user tutorial."

"No, I just need to fire the rockets."

"Firing rockets."

"No, wa-"

I was cut off as two rockets shot off in the direction I had been looking while I flew backwards from the force of firing them. Today was not my day. They exploded about ten feet off the ground. Great.

I looked up at the hole above me. Worth a shot. I stepped back a good distance, then galloped towards the wall. I leaped into the air, and flew into the wall with a resounding clunk.

"Maximizing hydraulic movement assistance recommended."

Of course, this suit gave me all the answers after I failed once. "Yeah, activate that."

I stepped back, and galloped towards the wall again. I could feel the increased power behind each step as I prepared to jump. I leaped into the air once again, and felt myself soar up towards the gap. I almost made it cleanly through, but ended up taking a small chuck of the wall with me. I did an awkward somersault in mid air, fell to the ground and rolled to a stop, landing with as much grace as a manticore ballet dancer.

"Rebalancing hydraulic movement assistance."

I pushed myself up, noting how well the armor had cushioned my fall. I looked around the main chamber, quickly locating the airlock I first came through. This place seemed a lot bigger when it was empty. I positioned myself a distance away from it, and stared it down. "Take this, door! Fire the rockets."

"Firing rockets."

The pair of missiles hit the airlock directly where I had been looking. The door gave in with a satisfying explosion. I took a mental note to look where I wanted to aim the rockets, and proceeded to the second door of the airlock. "Fire the rockets."

"No rockets left."

I facehoofed at myself for firing two rockets both times, when one would have done. I am an idiot. "How am I supposed to get out of here now?"

"Calculating best route out. Route found. Overriding armor movement." The armor suddenly began to move on its own, forcing me to walk over to a wall, and ram into it. "Error detected in navigational program. Rewriting program." The armor started responding to my movements again, and I walked away from the wall. "Rewrite complete. New route found." The armor took over again and proceeded to ram me into another wall.

"Stop ramming me into walls!"

"Deactivating navigational program."

I had a much better idea than ramming into walls. I walked over to the suits of armor I had seen when I first entered this room, and prayed to Celestia that they were armed. I opened a hatch on one of them, and was delighted to see a rocket in it. I loaded four rockets, and hurried over to the airlock. I was positioning myself to fire the rockets, when the door opened on its own. I looked up in surprise to see Red Delicious standing on the other side of the door.

"Thank goodness, Razor, you made it out of the test chamber." She looked back into the main room and glanced at the dents in the walls.

"Don't ask."

She nodded a little absentmindedly, then snapped back to reality. "We need to hurry. This place is under attack. I came back here when I didn't see you outside fighting. This could a great time to put the Paragon armor to the test for real."

As we galloped down the hallway, I looked over at her. "You sure it is ready for combat? It might need a little work first."

She looked back at me. "Actually, that suit is the final product, we hope. If all goes as expected, it should do all the upgrading it needs by itself. So, the more often it is used in battle, the more opportunities it has to analyze and upgrade itself."

"Sweet. Let's go kill some zebras!"

As we galloped up the staircase to the main entrance, Red Delicious hit a button on one of her saddlebags, and began to talk into what appeared to be a radio. "What is the situation up there?"

The reply sounded somewhat flustered. "We seem to be fighting a losing battle. Many of our mares and stallions have been wounded or taken out of commission, but we have had almost no reports of fatalities."

Red Delicious seemed shocked. "We're losing to some band of zebras that just showed up out of nowhere?"

"Well, that's the thing. They aren't zebras, they're ponies. Also, they seem to be lead by a Steel Ranger, but he sure doesn't fight like any Steel Ranger I know. We can't hold this up much longer. But, I am wondering why we haven't taken many casualties. It's almost as if they don't actually want to kill us, just get past us."

Red Delicious seemed worried now. "Keep me updated. If anything changes, I want to know."

We galloped at full speed, well, full speed for Red Delicious, down the corridors. The walls passed in a blur of grey and white. I had trouble slowing down to allow Red Delicious to keep up. This armor was definitely taking some getting used to. As we rounded a corner, Red's radio... thing started to speak again.

"Red, get out of there now! They are st-"

The voice was drowned out by an explosion. The entire building shook, and I nearly fell over.

"Red, are you still there?"

"Yeah, what in the name of Celestia was that explosion?"

"They are starting to fire at the building. That seems to be their main objective. You have to get out if there immediately."

"We're working on it."

"We?"

Red glanced over at me. "I'm with the stallion who was testing the Paragon armor. He may be able to help us push them back."

"The new guy? Well, I guess things can’t get any worse, and we need all the help we can get."

I don’t like this pony on the radio.

Red and I rounded the last corner and found ourselves in the entrance room to the outpost. We were galloping towards the doors, when another explosion hit the building. I looked up to see the ceiling cracking. The skylight had a crack that was quickly spreading across it as the weight of the building bore down on it.

Wait a second. I looked more closely at the skylight, and I could just make out two shapes in the sky. They looked like...missiles!

I silently muttered to myself. "What the hay is going on?"

Suddenly, the glass shattered, as an explosion rocked the structure one final time. I looked around the room as the cracks deepened and the building began to fall apart. I had stopped in the middle of the room when I was watching the missiles, and there was no time left to get out. At last I looked to the entrance of the outpost, and saw Red standing there, staring back at me.

I tried to whisper goodbye, but she had no way to hear me. Instead, I saw a single word run across her lips.

No.

She began to gallop towards me, towards her death. A single memory flashed into my mind. My thoughts echoed her's.

No.

"No! Stay back! Don't you get it? You can't save me! And if you come in here, I can't save you! I couldn't save her, how could I save you?" My sentence trailed off as I fought back the tears the memory bought.

She didn't stop in my memory. Red didn't stop either. I was doomed to watch it all again. I couldn't take it. I closed my eyes and waited for her to reach me, just to die.

She never reached me. I opened my eyes, and she was gone.

She was saved.

I was doomed.

<---------------------------->

Red sat crying on top of the rubble of the collapsed outpost. The pony who she had been talking to through the radio walked up to her.

"They just show up out of nowhere, decimate our forces, destroy our outpost, and disappear without a trace. Why?"

Red looked up at her friend with a tear stained face.

Her friend glanced back at her. "You know, I used to think I understood war. I was an idiot back then. There ain't no rhyme, nor reason to it. Ponies just line up to kill each other, and be killed by the other. They make all this technology, all these weapons, and all they do is make things worse.

"I used to think that the best way to keep myself safe was to have a bigger gun than my enemy. I was an idiot then too. Making bigger guns isn't going to solve anything. This whole Paragon armor wasn't going to solve it either. It was just another bigger gun, that was made to be outmatched. We are just gonna keep making 'em bigger, and stronger, until the world can't take the explosion we dish out on it. Someday, we're gonna make a gun that kills us all, and turns this whole place into a wasteland. Just you wait."

They both looked off into the distance, just to see a blinding white light, consuming all it touched.

<--------------------------->

Just ten feet below the two mares, a small sound could be heard. A voice.

"Analyzing occupant condition. Severe head trauma detected. Occupant condition: fatal. Initiating life support functions. Putting occupant into stasis. Analyzing brain damage. Brain beyond repair in current situation. Programs obsolete. Rewriting programs. Simulating solutions. Programs obsolete. Rewriting function is obsolete. Searching for solutions. Analyzing occupant brain functions. Possibilities discovered..."

Level Up!
New Perk - Paragon
You have a fancy new suit of armor. All your physical stats double! Sounds pretty good right? Just, remember to watch out for walls.

Chapter 2: What doesn't Kill you...

...only makes you stronger. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I should have died.

I mean, how do you survive a megaspell detonation? It's not like everything was just made to be able to protect ponies from megaspells. I thought only the stables were made to do that.

I guess I was wrong about though, 'cause I'm still alive. Alive and ready for anything life can throw at me!

Anything...

<---------------------------->

"Where the hay are we?"

The blue stallion leading the group of three looked back and sighed. "If you didn't listen the first three times I explained it, why should I try again?"

The brown unicorn stallion who had posed the question grinned and gestured towards the last member of the group, a grey mare. "Oh, it isn't for me. I just know she's probably already forgotten."

She glared at both of them and rolled her eyes. "Just go over it again." She proceeded to mutter in the unicorn's direction. "Idiot."

The blue stallion sighed again. All three of them knew the unicorn hadn't listened any of the first times it was explained. "There used to be an outpost out here-"

He was cut off by the unicorn's remark. "But this map we stole in Ponyville says there is nothing here."

The stallion was glad to see that the unicorn was at least paying attention this time. "Yeah, and this ancient map we found in the Manehatten ruins says there is one there, which means-"

He was once again cut off by the unicorn. "There used to be an outpost out there, but then it collapsed, or something!" The unicorn seemed to be proud of the connection he made.

The blue stallion sighed again, while the mare just facehoofed. "Yes, and a collapsed out post means easy loot."

The unicorn grinned as he turned to the mare. "And do you know what easy loot means?"

She walked over and punched him. "I'm not an idiot."

As she walked away, he muttered under his breath. "Coulda fooled me."

The stallion just sighed and kept walking.

<--------------------------->

"Where the hay are we?"

The steel ranger to the right of the speaker glanced back at him. "I'm not explaining it again."

The speaker, a younger steel ranger, galloped forward to catch up. "But, why are we out here?"

"To get whatever was left from a steel ranger outpost that collapsed a while ago."

"What's going to be there?"

"Expensive equipment we need to retrieve."

"What kind of equipment?"

"Important equipment."

"Is it much further?"

"No."

"When will we get-"

"No!"

The young steel ranger jumped. "But that wasn't a yes or-"

The older steel ranger stopped in his tracks. "I don't care. Just. Stop. Talking."

There was a long moment of silence. "You aren't a very talkative pony, are you?"

"Tell you what. The next time you talk, I'm deactivating your armor. Got it?" He waited for a reply, and was rewarded with silence. Beautiful silence.

<----------------------------->

"This is taking forever. When are we going to get there?"

The grey mare turned to the unicorn and was about to mutter a reply, when she decided to just give it up. They were all tired from walking, and she was in no mood to deal with the unicorn's ramblings. Eventually, she turned to the unicorn to say something. "Do you ev-"

Her sentence halted as she fell to the ground after tripping over a rock. She pulled herself to her feet and kicked the rock. "Stupid rock."

The unicorn snorted. "It's still smarter than you."

His remark was met by another sigh from the blue stallion, and another punch from the mare. The stallion looked at the ground to see the 'stupid' rock roll to a halt, and a grin spread across his face. He motioned towards the rock. "We're here." The unicorn and mare looked down to see half of a steel ranger symbol on it.

The unicorn was the first to break the silence. "So, where's all the stuff?"

The reply came from the stallion. "It's underneath the ground here, so digging."

The two ponies began to sift through the rubble, as the blue stallion 'supervised,' by sitting on the ground and relaxing. The landscape had few clues that there was anything hidden beneath it. Time had seen to that. That was something time was good at: hiding things. But, it could never take them away totally, just hide them. Take these ruins, for example. Time had covered them up, made them blend in, but the ruins were still there. There was nothing time could do about that.

Time can't get rid of things, it just gets rid of the clues.

<------------------------------>

The group had been digging around for almost two hours, with nothing to show for it.

The grey mare groaned and sat down. "This is pointless. There isn't anything here." Suddenly, she yelped and jumped to her feet, pulling her tail out from underneath a boulder. She turned around to see a blueish glow disappearing from around the large rock. In about two seconds, she was chasing after the unicorn, quickly catching up. "You little runt! I'm going to beat you to a pulp!"

The unicorn looked back, and stuck his tongue out at the mare, just as he tripped. The mare pounced at him, but felt herself get pulled away by the blue stallion. She found herself, with the unicorn and stallion, huddled behind yet another rock. The two combatants opened their mouths to complain, but were cut off by the stallion. "Shut up and listen, we may have a problem."

They sat and listened, as they heard a group of ponies approaching. They each peered around the rock, then flattened themselves against it, their quarrel quickly forgotten. The three held their breaths, listening to the conversation starting on the other side of the boulder.

"So, where's all the stuff?"

"Just shut up and start digging."

The mare turned to the blue stallion. "Of course, it's Steel Rangers. It just had to be Steel Rangers."

The unicorn, apparently to voice of optimism, or stupidity, as some might call it in this situation, spoke up. "We can take 'em. There's three of us, and two of them, right? We just jump out there, surprise them, and take 'em down with our superior numbers. It'll be easy."

The two other ponies stared back at the unicorn with mollified looks covering their faces. The mare glanced at the blue stallion. "He's not serious, is he?"

The blue stallion glanced back. "Well, he seems pretty serious to me."

The unicorn looked at the two, with a smile quickly disappearing from his face. "What? You don't think we can take 'em?"

The mare slapped her forehead. "You've never actually fought a Steel Ranger, have you?"

"Well, no, but they're just ponies like us, but with armor on, right?"

"Exactly. Ponies with armor, against us. Without armor."

The unicorn glanced from from the mare, to the stallion. "I don't get it."

The mare slapped her forehead again. "Idiot. Just stay here and don't do anything stupid."

The blue stallion silenced them with a glare. "Stop talking, we might get heard." The two ponies glanced over at the blue stallion, who seemed to be listening intently to what was happening on the other side of the rock.

"Hey, we finally found something!"

"Just get back to work. There's plenty more to find under this rubble. We didn't come for just one Steel Ranger suit."

<----------------------------->

"Good morning, sunshine!"

I opened my eyes. There was darkness, I couldn't move, and now there was a voice in my head. Never did think I would go insane. Oh well, happens to the best of ponies sometimes.

"Hey. Knock, knock. I know you can hear me. Just say something."

I tried to look around to locate the source of the voice, but it's hard to find things when you can't see. I guess there was only one way to find out where it was coming from then. "Where are you?"

"A place I haven't been for a while: not under a rock. Glad to see your brain's functioning. Sometimes when ponies are in stasis for as long as you were, they don't really work when we pull 'em back out. But, enough about other ponies, we need to get you caught up. Oops, where are manners? My name's Paragon."

Paragon. That definitely sounded familiar, almost like from a dream I had. Paragon. Paragon. Why did that sound so darn familiar?

"I should probably warn you, you may be suffering from some minor memory loss. Or major memory loss, it's hard to tell. A little while ago, a rock fell on your head, and you were knocked out. There was some brain damage, and I'm not 100% sure, but I think it was in the portion of your brain that remembers stuff. I was able to fix the damage, but I can't reconnect the dots you need to access your memory. It may take years to get it all back, or it might never come back at all. Oh well, it's not really that important.

Reconnect the dots? How does that work? Seems like something I can worry about later. There are more pressing issues. "What the hay is going on?"

"I guess I should start from the beginning. We were in an outpost. Do you remember the outpost?"

Paragon's question, however, was the last thing on my mind at that moment. As soon as Paragon said 'outpost,' a batch of memories flooded into my mind. I remembered Red Delicious. I remembered the doors, those evil doors. I remembered the armor. I had been testing a suit of armor. The Paragon armor.

And I was talking with Paragon. Paragon was talking. Yup, I had gone insane.

"Ummm... you wouldn't happen to know about the Paragon armor suit, would you?" I was almost afraid to hear what the answer would be.

"So you are remembering things. I was betting on you not remembering, but at least this makes things easier."

Now we were getting somewhere, I think.

"It all began, for me at least, with you activating me. We were attempting to escape the outpost, when it collapsed on us. A rock hit your head. A large rock. You were almost dead, and I had no other choice, so I activated the life support system and put you in stasis. Then, I began to analyze your brain in attempts to determine the extent of the damage. I couldn't find a way to fix it, so I realized I had some upgrading to do. I set about rewriting my code to try to make it more effective at searching for ways to fix the situation, but there was nothing to base my improvements off of, nothing to show me how to better solve the problem of fixing you brain, except, well, your brain itself.

"I eventually tried to model my coding after the functions your brain seemed to be designed to perform. It took thousands of trial and error tests, but I finally began to make progress. As the code I made began to resemble a brain's functions more and more, I started to notice there were some... unexpected results, but that doesn't mean they were unwanted. I mean, this whole personality thing is pretty cool.

"Anyway, I finally found a way to fix your brain. There were a lot of problems with it, but I just fixed the ones that weren't there before the ceiling collapsed on you."

I rolled my eyes. "Gee, thanks."

"So, with your brain fixed, I focused on getting us out from under the rubble."

"And I assume you succeeded?"

"Well... no... we were under a really large rock..."

"Then, what did you manage to do for this... um... how long have I been unconscious exactly?"

"You were in stasis for roughly 200 years."

I started to reply, when I realized what Paragon just said. 200 years! Just imagine what can happen in 200 years. I can't even remember what everything was like back then, what would things be like now? Well, it's just 200 years, it's not like that much can change in 200 years, right? I mean, maybe some countries might have beat others in wars, balances of power could have changed, ponies might have-

My thoughts stopped dead in their tracks as the next word popped into my head: died. Death, that's what can happen to everypony I knew in 200 years.

No...

"NO! You're lying! There's no way it could have been 200 years! My friends would have dug me out... or found me... or something. They wouldn't have just abandoned me... would they? They would have come back... right?"

I could sense the stern tone in Paragon's metallic reply. "Look, I don't know what happened, but we do have a little more to worry about here. My threat detection system has been edgy lately, so I thought I should pull you out of stasis, just in case. Well, it seems I was right, because there was somepony up there, digging. I figured it was only a matter of time before he uncovered us, and he just did. I'm not sure of his intentions, but we should be prepared for the worst, so get ready. I'm about to activate the environmental synching, so don't say anything you don't want others outside the armor to hear."

I suddenly started to feel a little nervous. What if he attacked?

Well, then I would have to fight him, and I bet he doesn't have a suit of Paragon armor. Yeah, I don't have anything to worry about. This is gonna be easy.

A screen popped up in front of me, and all I saw was a bunch of rocks. Stupid rocks. Then the EFS showed up in the upper corner of the screen.

I leapt to my feet at the sight of five red dots all around me, noting that the armor was moving again. I turned to a group of three red dots, but all I saw was another big rock. I pulled a 180 to see what the other two red dots were. They were ponies in armor, apparently having an argument over whether or not one of them should shut up.

A sound behind me diverted my attention once again.

"Sneak attack!"

A pebble bounced off of my armor. I turned to see a unicorn, with a grin quickly disappearing from his face. He was then tackled by a grey mare who had jumped out from behind the large rock I had first looked at. A moment later, a blue stallion walked out from behind the rock and pulled the grey mare away from the unicorn she had begun to punch repeatedly.

"What the hey is going on?"

All five ponies ceased their quarrels immediately and pointed whatever weapons they could manage to grab in about a second at me. The beautiful contrast of the noise and confusion that was present just a moment ago and the silence that had covered the scene around me now was the last thing on my mind as I looked from one gun barrel to the next. Ok, maybe this wasn't going to be as easy as I thought.

I whispered in my armor, hoping it was quiet enough to not be picked up by the hostile ponies around me. "Paragon, can you adapt to being bulletproof, like right now?"

"It doesn't work like that, you know."

"Darn, figured it was worth a shot."

"You're truly an idiot."

"Shut up."

"Well then, I guess you don't want to hear about my idea for disarming everypony here, then?"

"You can do that?"

The proceeding reply wasn't as confident as I would have hoped for. "Well, there isn't an instruction manual for all my functions, but I do have this one thing that should do the trick."

"Should?" I wasn't sure if I liked what I was hearing."

"Well, there's only one thing I can see it doing, so sure, it should work."

"So this thing can just disarm everypony?"

"Well, indirectly. Although, there may be some unexp-"

"Actually, I don't care. Activate it."

No one knew what hit them, including me. One moment we were all standing there, watching each other, the next all ponies in armor were on the ground, immobilized, and there were no working magically powered guns within 100 feet of us.

I stared at the black screen in front of me and realized what Paragon really meant by disarm everypony. The screen suddenly lit up, and Paragon's voice sounded out in what seemed to be a prerecorded message. "Thank you for activating the Paragon armor version 183.5.4."

He had made over 180 upgrades and still couldn't figure out a single way to get out from under some stupid rock?

"Reboot complete."

"What was that?"

As Paragon replied, the screen began to light up, signifying that the armor was reactivating everything. "That was a high powered discharge of magical energy. I call it an electro-magical pulse, or EMP."

"So you just launched a bunch of magical energy around?"

"Well, technically it was more of a pulse."

"Then why didn't that hurt?"

"It was raw magical energy. It just passes right through most objects. Magically powered weapons and armor, however, are not so unaffected. Luckily, whoever designed it had enough sense to shield any components in me that would be affected by such a weapon, but the sheer amount of energy lost when I activated it did cause me to shut off, so I had to reboot."

I looked over to the two armor-clad ponies, and they were just lying on the ground. "Why aren't the other armor suits reactivating?"

"Well, for one, this reactivation sequence was something I figured out about 50 years ago. Originally, this armor would have to be activated by an outside source, so it is possible that their armor needs that too. Also, even if they did find a way to reactivate their armor, it wouldn't work. The whole point of the EMP is to overload any magically powered devices. The device gets fried, broken. It would take some maintenance to get it working again."

I glanced back around to the other three ponies. They were attempting to fire their guns, but to no avail. I looked at the guns, and realized they were all magical energy rifles. Suddenly, the unicorn leapt up and glared back at me.

"Got ya!"

He pulled out a pistol from his saddle, levitating it towards me, and fired. The bullet bounced off of my steel helmet without making even a dent. I was about as surprised as he was, but he didn't need to know that, so I laughed instead. "You want to try that again?"

He took me up on it and unloaded a full magazine, which was met with similar results. His look of surprise was priceless. Eventually, the blue stallion grabbed him and the three raiders ran off into the distance.

"Should we chase them?"

I thought for a second about Paragon's question. "No, we'll probably never see them again."

Instead, I turned around to face the two armored ponies. I walked up to them, and nudged one of them with my hoof. "Hey, who are you?"

"We're the Stee-"

His reply was cut off by the other armored pony. "Don't tell him anything! The less he knows, the better. And where the hay did you come from?"

I just stood there a moment before I realized his question was directed at me. "Oh, I was just here the whole time."

"Oh, so you're trying to be the funny guy, huh?"

"Uh, no, I was laying just over there since before you got here." I motioned over to the spot I had, according to Paragon, been laying for the past 200 years or so. "Well then, see ya."

I began to walk away, expected them to get pretty worried about being abandoned out here stuck in their armor.

"Yeah, you better run before the other Steel Rangers respond to our distress call!"

The young-sounding armored pony, apparently a Steel Ranger according to his last comment, was addressed by the other one once again. "I thought I said... Shut... UP!"

I really, and I mean really, didn't want to run into another bunch of these Steel Rangers. "Actually, I hope I don't see you again." I galloped a few yards before coming to a stop. I looked back at the spot I had been laying for about 200 years.

Everything had changed, hadn't it? Everything I used to know was gone. Everypony I used to know was gone. Heck, my own memory was gone! The world changed, and I couldn't even remember what it used to be like.

I began to gallop away from the pair of Steel Rangers, hoping I could put enough distance between me and them to not have to worry about the batch of Steel Rangers that would be coming to find them. Well, this place sure did seem welcoming. I hope finding yourself surrounded by guns pointed at your head isn't too common around here. I'd really prefer not to get myself killed, at least until I can find some answers to my past.

There it was again. I just couldn't seem to stop thinking about what I couldn't remember. It kept coming back to frustrate me time and time again, and I've only been conscious for like 10 minutes!

In attempts to distract myself, I decided to talk to Paragon. "So, how many weapons do you have?"

"I have two rocket launchers, as you already know, one machine gun, a grenade launcher, a pair of rifles, a..."

I began to zone out as Paragon's list went on. The ground suddenly looked much more interesting. It had dirt and rocks. Hmm, maybe there would be something else to looked at? I glanced around, searching for trees, but I was disappointed. There was just dirt as far as the eye could see. How boring.

"...and the EMP thing, if you want to count that as a weapon."

I tuned back in as I realized Paragon was done. "How am I supposed to remember all those weapons in a fight?"

"I just remember them for you."

"And how do I fire these weapons? I mean, telling you to fire them is cool and all, but it doesn't seem too practical in a fight."

"Well, I am constantly scanning your brain, so I can just-"

"Wait, hold on a sec! You're doing what?"

"Well, I have to make sure you aren't dying on me, so I keep track of your vitals and brain activity. By keeping track of where your brain is most active, I can get a general idea of your thought process."

Sweet Celestia, he can read my mind!?

"For the most part, it's pretty hard to understand, but it is fairly simple to figure out what you are thinking when you think of a word."

I am doomed.

But, I may as well make the best of it. "So, how does this affect firing weapons?"

"Simple, you think about firing a weapon, I fire it. Of course, to prevent accidentally blowing stuff up, you will have to tell me to activate and deactivate something I call 'combat mode.' I've got all of these features that are pretty useless outside of combat, and a bunch that are useless during combat, so I grouped them into combat, non-combat, and all the time features. That way I can put more processing power on thinking, which can be pretty draining sometimes."

I bit my lip to stifle a laugh. I had finally discovered a way to insult Paragon back. I made a mental note to save that one for later, as long as I remember it.

Remember.

That word just brought all those nagging thoughts back into my head. "Hey, Paragon?"

"Yeah?"

"You said something earlier about my memory having to be... reconnected, or something, right?"

"Yes, certain events or words should trigger your brain to reconnect to some of your memories. But, it isn't as easy as it sounds. In fact, you probably have many memories that will be lost forever."

Lost forever? Just like everything else about my old life, I guess. Any goals I had, anything I strived half a lifetime for, was all gone now. Lost to time.

Any family I had would be dead by now. I knew I loved some ponies back then. I can feel it itching away in my mind, just out of reach. I had friends, friends I can't even remember. Friends that never thought to dig me out of the rubble. But, of course, they all probably just assumed I was dead.

I should have been. I almost wish I was. It would have been better than trying to live as a ghost of my past. But, there's no sense turning back now. I can't change my past, all I can do is try to remember it, recover it.

Try to remember the times when everypony wasn't gone, when I wasn't alone.

Back when I thought I was ready for anything.

Level Up!
New Perk - Armored
Bulletproof! That's what you are. Well... not really. You can, however, deflect small bullets. Shotgun wielders, beware!"

Chapter 3: Why we Fight

Chapter 3: Why We Fight

The trouble is not in dying for a friend, but in finding a friend worth dying for. ~ Mark Twain

What is my purpose here?

I woke up a few hours ago with a single memory. A single memory and one friend, that is. I had a life back then. I have memories of it, so he tells me. I can't remember them, but he says they're still there. Just like the memory I have now. The one memory I have recovered. I just have to find them, he says. I just have to search and they will come, he says. It makes no sense to me. Nothing makes any sense right now, but that isn't the strange thing. Nothing should make sense right now. Why would that surprise me? What does seem strange is that I'm so easily trusting this new 'friend' of mine. Am I just trusting him because what he says is the only anchor I have to piecing my life back together? Is it because his words are the only hope I have right now?

Or is it something more?

It makes no sense, but, for some reason, I don't care anymore. Sure, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't have to. I can't make sense of my predicament, but it feels like he can. I feel like I can trust him.

So why does relying on that alone feel so wrong? Why can't I simply believe something based on a feeling? Why does my heart say 'yes' and my head say 'no?' Why can't I believe myself?

I have to stop this. I have to focus. I have to do something. I know I have to.

But why?

<------------------------->

We continued walking, with the barren landscape stretched out in front of us. I gazed across the dust and stone. There were no trees here. In fact, there was no life here. Just a landscape. No, that's not right. Just a wasteland.

"Do you have a plan?" Paragon's words cut deeply into my thoughts, dragging me back out of them. I blinked twice as I realized I had just been standing still for a while.

"No."

My response seemed so small, so insignificant, in the deserted wasteland that lay before me. It was as though that lonely word was swallowed up, devoured, and all that came back out was an insignificant peep. I felt my will to move, to do anything, plummet.

I shook my head. What was happening? When had I ever been so depressed? Actually, I have no idea. I can't remember. Stupid memory.

Paragon dragged me back out of my thoughts once again. "Well, if you don't have a plan, we should at least get moving to try to find some food. I can sustain you using organic materials, but if you haven't noticed yet, there isn't any life out here."

"Right, ok, lead the way."

Paragon paused for a second. "...well, if you insist."

I hadn't quite realized the implications of my command until I felt the armor move on its own, quickly reaching a full gallop. I had yet to test just how fast I could gallop in this armor, until now that is. I looked from left to right seeing the barren plains of rock and dirt flash through my vision. My mind tried to process everything that I saw as I flew by, but to no avail. It became a blur of browns and grays, and not a pretty one at that.

Then I noticed three red dots on my EFS.

"Oh sh-"

<-------------------------->

The brown unicorn continued glaring at the map in his hooves, attempting to make sense of the senseless jumble that was marked as Fetlock.

"Why does a pony who lives in Fetlock have a map that doesn't even show what Fetlock looks like? I practically did him a favor by relieving him of this junk."

The gray mare looked over at him. "What are you talking about? He was already dead when we took the map."

"Well he probably starved to death wandering around Fetlock holding onto a map that shows everything but Fetlock!"

"There was a knife between his ribs; he didn't die from starvation."

"Well he wouldn't have been clumsy enough to get himself killed if he hadn't been so hungry."

"There was a Luna-damned knife in his back! No starvation involved!"

"Well how do you know?"

"Because I was the one who put the knife there, and if you don't shut up you're next!"

That seemed to effectively quiet the unicorn down, if only for a moment.

The unicorn's ears perked up. "Do you guys hear that sound?"

The gray mare glared at him once again. "Is it the sound of you preparing your last words?"

"I don't think so- I mean no! It sounds like somepony yelling off in the distance."

The blue stallion finally spoke up. "All right, what the hell is that sound?" He gazed off in the direction of the noise, and his eyes went wide. "GET DOWN!"

The stallion slammed into his companions, pushing them out of the way. He yelled something else, but it was drowned out by another panicked yelling noise, mine to be precise, as a metallic blur nearly rammed into the unicorn. The three ponies's eyes followed the blur as it disappeared into the distance.

The unicorn turned to the other two. "It's not my fault this time, I swear!"

<-------------------------->

I watched the three red dots quickly disappear. "Can we slow down now?"

"Hold on, we're about to pass something on my map."

"You have a map?"

"Yeah, but the program I have for reading the map is pretty horrid. I can barely make out the words. St- Stee- yeah, I can't read the first word, but the second one is definitely 'shack.'"

Well that was incredibly pointless. "It doesn't matter now; I saw the blur of it twenty seconds ago. Seriously, can we slow down now?"

We slowed to a trot, then Paragon relinquished control of the the suit. I stopped and sat down, marveling at how the suit allowed me to keep up that speed for so long without tiring. Paragon sure did have his uses.

I looked around to see if there was any sign of life. Nothing stuck out as my eyes swept across the landscape. Still just boring old dirt and rocks. The rocks looked as though they had sat there in that condition for centuries, without a single drop of life. I was beginning wonder if there ever was life around here to begin with.

Then, a small patch of grass caught my eye. I swung around to look at it, and I saw more grass. Soon, my entire field of vision was covered in a flowing meadow of grass and flowers.

I looked up to see the sun setting on the horizon. The red and pink clouds swept across the sky as they caught the sun's rays. It was just...

"It's so beautiful."

I heard a sweet voice to my right, then felt a warm muzzle nuzzle into my side. I turned to see a beautiful mare, a light green Earth Pony, sitting next to me. She snuggled against me again.

"Yeah."

I looked up at the sunset once again, and it all peeled back. As it was swept away, the happy feeling in my stomach twisted into a peal of remorse and confusion. I remembered something... or someone, I guess, and along with that someone came a feeling. A feeling I haven't felt in two hundred years.

Love.

For that moment, I felt like I could take on the whole world. For just a single second, it didn't matter if I was going to live, or die, as long as I had her in my arms. In that small, fleeting instant, I was happy.

And now it's gone. It's gone, and it took her with it. I wanted to cry, but I just held it in. I don't cry. I'm a full grown stallion.

A tear streaked down my face.

I loved her, my dearest...

Gah! What was her name?

I loved her, but I forgot even her name. What am I? I'm just a shell of what I used to be. Just a body with it's soul stuck a few hundred years away. Nothing more.

I'm lost, and I'll never find my way back.

"Hey, Razor, you ok?"

I sniffed and focused back on my situation. "Hmmmm?"

"I said you ok?"

"Oh... yeah, we should get moving."

"Sure..."

We began trotting across the desolate landscape once again.

<------------------------------>

After a long, uneventful hour, Paragon noticed something on the horizon. "See that?"

I squinted my eyes and looked ahead of us. "No."

"Well, I can just make out something over there. I say we check it out."

"Sure, why not? I don't have any other plans today."

We trotted towards the... ummm... whatever it is that Paragon saw in the distance. After a minute or two, we stumbled upon a town, if you can call it that. I gazed up at the buildings and sighed. This had to be the worst looking town within 500 miles.

"Paragon, where are we?"

"I'm not sure, this place isn't on the map."

Of course it isn't. Why would we come across someplace we actually had any information on? Just perfect. "You sure you're checking the right spot?"

"It took me about ten minutes to make sure, but I'm pretty confident now. Either this place wasn't even worth putting on the map, or it sprung up some time in the last 200 years."

"I can't imagine either of those are wrong, but I guess it doesn't matter. I'm headed in and it looks like you're coming with me."

We walked towards the shacks and I began to get a good look at them. Every house was made out of wood. Where the heck did they find trees around here? They weren't painted, and they certainly weren't made to last. It looked like I could knock some of them down by simply blowing.

I marched into the center of town and looked around. There was a nagging thought in the back of my mind, but i couldn't quite pull it to the front. It felt almost like something was missing. There were houses, stores, and a kind of dirt road. What else is a town supposed to have?

"So, where is everypony?"

Paragon's statement almost made me facehoof. Of course, it was missing ponies. "I have no idea. Heeeeelllllllllooooooo?"

...

No response.

I broke the silence. "Maybe they're all asleep?"

"Razor, check the sun." Paragon took control of the armor just long enough to point my head up towards the sky. There it was, a big circle of brightness just beyond the clouds. "It's midday."

I was unconvinced. "Oh, well, they could be taking naps."

"No, there's something strange going on here, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it."

"All right, but don't wake them up when you find them."

"You mean when we find them," Paragon replied with a touch of annoyance.

"What, can't search on your own?"

"No, I just can't leave you anywhere by yourself."

Hmmm... Paragon was smarter than he looked. I sighed. "Ok, let's go."

We walked up to a house and I raised my hoof up to knock on the door. Before I could knock a loud, high pitched voice called out from the house. "Nopony's home!"

"Shut up, Moonlight!" The sound of two ponies scrambling about could be heard from behind one of the windows.

I glanced at the window to see two heads quickly disappear from view. This was weird. It seemed almost like they were scared of me. Why would they be scared of me? I mean, it's not like I was shooting at them or anything.

Before I could say anything, a voice called out from the house. "Go away! Steel Rangers aren't welcome here." I recognized this voice as the second one I had heard when I had tried to knock.

"Wait, you think I'm a Steel Ranger?"

"Well, you don't look like a raider or a slaver."

Why would he think I was in with those armored ponies I saw earlier?

Paragon basically answered my question. "Ummm... Razor, I probably should have mentioned this before, but my diagnostics indicate that I look exactly like the armor the two Steel Rangers we met earlier were wearing."

Well, there we go. Thanks for not telling me until now, Paragon. "It's the armor, isn't it?"

The voice replied once again. "No kidding."

"Yeah, it turns out that my armor looks exactly like the Steel Ranger armor, but we don't actually have anything to do with them."

There was a long pause, almost like the pony inside expected me to continue. Eventually, he replied. "And you think I'm just going to trust you because...?"

"Ummmm..."

The first voice I had heard, apparently from Moonlight, cut in. "Well, he certainly doesn't sound like a Steel Ranger to me. Really, Crimson, have you ever seen a Steel Ranger that wouldn't just force his way in? Not to mention a pony with that armor could really help you."

"I'm not taking help from a Steel Ranger!"

"But he says he isn't a Steel Ranger."

"Wait, you actually believe him?"

"Well sure. I can't see any reason not to."

Crimson sighed. "Fine. But I'm not letting him out of my sight until he's gone."

The door creaked open, and I looked up to see an charcoal coated Earth pony with an orange mane. Judging by his looks, he had to be fairly young. He was staring coldly at me, then motioned for me to enter. I walked in and looked over to see a pale green mare with a bluish green mane. She was smiling at me. Finally, a friendly face.

Crimson stepped forwards and launched right into the questions. "Why are you here?"

Moonlight walked over and gave him a friendly push. "Don't be so rude." She turned to us. "My name's Moonlight, and this is Crimson Hope."

Crimson groaned at the sound of his name. "Just call me Crimson. So, why are you here?"

I turned back to respond to Crimson, but Paragon's metallic voice beat me to it.

"We're here because of an accident. We need to know where we are so we can figure out where to go."

Crimson and Moonlight stared at us with wide eyes, then glanced at each other.

Paragon continued. "Oh, right. This pony in the armor is Razor, and I'm Paragon."

Crimson walked towards us. "So, Paragon, what exactly are you?"

"I'm the armor."

There was a few seconds of silence, then Moonlight spoke up. "See? Nothing like normal Steel Rangers."

I interjected. "By the way, do you two know anything about these 'Steel Rangers?' We ran into a few of them earlier, and I'm pretty curious about why Paragon looks like their armor."

Moonlight replied. "The Steel Rangers mostly just go around gathering and, in most cases, stealing technology. They're a pretty nasty group; I'm surprised you haven't heard of them."

That explained a few things. "Yeah, we're pretty new around here."

Crimson rolled his eyes. "Stable dwellers?"

I stopped for a moment to think. Stable dweller... stable... oh yeah! Stables were set up by that Stable-Tec organization. They were set up in case of an attack from... um... uhhh... something. Dang it, I can't remember!

I looked back up at Crimson. "No, we're not from a stable. What were the stables supposed to be for?"

"Hell if I know. Every once in a while some pony will waltz out of a stable, find this wasteland, and have no clue what they just stepped into. Sometimes there's an exception, but most end up dead in a week."

Moonlight turned to Crimson. "Well, you still need some help, and I can't imagine passing up the opportunity to get some help from a pony with Steel Ranger armor."

Crimson looked like he was about to reply to her, but sighed and turned to us. "I still don't understand you, but you don't seem to be dangerous, or Steel Rangers, so... can you help me?"

Help him? That came out of nowhere. "Help you with what?" I asked hesitantly.

"Blackdart, my brother... he was taken by slavers. I-I need to rescue him, but I can't take on the slavers by myself. I ca-"

I couldn't hold it in. "I'll help." His story was ringing way too many bells in my head to just stand by and watch him. He still had the chance to grab hold of somepony he loved, unlike me. He wasn't going to end up like I did as long as I could help it.

Paragon seemed to approve of this. "And you're not going anywhere without me."

Crimson's eyes seemed to light up a bit. "I don't have much, but I can pay you." He held out his hoof to reveal three bottle caps.

Bottle caps? What? Was he going to offer me two balls of lint and a piece of string next?
"Ummm... no thanks. You can keep those."

Crimson shrugged. "Your choice. Now, we should leave soon to catch up with those slavers, so get whatever you need sorted out now."

I thought for a moment. "Paragon, do we have anything we need to do here?"

"Not really."

"Well then, we're all set."

Crimson looked up at us again. "Hold on a sec, I'll be back." He dashed out of the room, and came back a minute later wearing what looked like a pair of rifles strapped to a saddlebag.

I motioned to the device. "What the hay is that?"

He glanced at it, then rolled his eyes. "Newbies. This is a battle saddle. They're pretty common. Most ponies have at least seen them."

"Yeah, we haven't gotten around much in the past... oh, you know... few centuries."

Crimson stared at us for another second or two before shaking his head. "Whatever, you'll have to fill me in later. It's time to go."

I noticed that Moonlight wasn't at all prepared to leave. "You're staying?"

"Oh, I'm not really a fighter, and-"

Crimson cut her off. "She refuses to kill another pony, so she'd just get in the way."

I realized, with no small amount of shock, that Crimson was expecting me to be a killer. I wasn't sure I was up for this anymore. Maybe I should just... No. I needed to help Crimson get his brother back. I wasn't going to let this pony's life fall apart like mine did, and if I had to kill to do it, then so be it.

I strode out of the house just before Crimson darted out and looked around. I realized once again how empty the town was. "Is this place always so... empty?"

"No, most ponies are probably hiding right now."

"Hiding? From what?"

"Hiding from you. You look exactly like a Steel Ranger, and this town hasn't had the best history with strangers."

I followed Crimson out of the town towards the southeast. "What's this place called, anyway?"

"Gutterville."

I looked over the ugly, broken buildings that made up the town. "It seems... fitting," I offered weakly.

"It may not be impressive, but it's home."

"Yeah... I guess it's better than nothing." Better than what I've got, that's for sure.

Crimson chuckled, completely oblivious to my situation. "Heh heh, I guess so."

We trotted in silence for a little while. I couldn't seem to form an opinion of Crimson. He was hesitant to trust me at first, and for a good reason, I guess. Then, he just opened up, every once in a while still slipping back into being somewhat more judgmental and callous. I'm beginning to wonder why he does that.

I looked around at the lonely, desolate landscape around us. There were a few towering buildings just on the horizon as I looked to my right.

Crimson noticed me gazing towards them. "That'd be the skyline of Manehatten, or what used to be Manehatten. There's some pretty strange rumors about that place. Your best bet is to stay away it."

I nodded absentmindedly, still a little lost in my thoughts. Quickly getting bored of thinking, I decided to strike up a conversation. "Hey Crimson, you said earlier that your town had a bit of a history with strangers?"

"I'd rather not talk about it," he said flatly.

I paused for a second. "Oh." We trotted in an awkward silence for a while. There's that callous shell again. I wonder if he ever fully opens up.

<------------------------------>

As we set up camp for that night, I began to wish I could just put all my thoughts away in my head and wait till morning for them to come back. Unfortunately, when I lied down to fall asleep, there were about a hundred things that jumped to the front of my mind. Am I ever going to get my memory back fully? What was my life like before that day 200 years ago? Who was that group that attacked the outpost?

As the questions flooded my mind, I seemed to get less and less tired. There was no way I was going to be able to fall asleep right now. I glanced over at Crimson to see him on his back, staring at the clouds. He had a whole life's worth of memories, I guess. Lucky guy.

I stared up at the immense cloud cover. This wasn't in either of my memories. Lets see, one memory took place underground, for the most part anyway, and the other was out in some meadow or something. The second one had clouds in it, but they were wavy and had holes in them, with the beautiful sky peeking through. These clouds didn't have holes, or any way for the sun to peek through. These clouds weren't like the ones I remember. Nothing's like I remember.

Ugh! I need to get my mind off of this. "You awake, Crimson?"

"Yeah."

"Where are we headed, anyways?"

Crimson looked back over at me. "Towards Fillydelphia. That's where almost all slavers go to sell their captives. Some group's doing something big in Fillydelphia, and they're using a bunch of slaves to do it. I don't know the details too well, but it's not a place I'm going to let anypony from Gutterville be taken as a slave to."

"So does that mean that your brother wasn’t the only one taken by the slavers?"

"No. In fact, he was only captured because he refused to hide while there were still some foals out there in the open. As he was rushing out to help some foals, he got shot in the leg. He was done for the moment he fell to the ground. Moonlight and I just stood there and watched, frozen in horror. Ugh! I was such an idiot! I should have helped him right then and there, but instead I just sat there, hidden from sight as the slavers rounded up him and some foals and left.

"He always did that. He was always the first one to rush into danger if anypony was in trouble. Nearly got himself killed saving me from a burning house once."

I looked at him in confusion. "Why was a house on fire?"

He chuckled and pointed to his cutie mark. I looked at it and saw a single flame. "I started it. My brother and I once found this old burned down house with a bunch if these bottles in it. Took us weeks to figure out what they did. We tried everything. Didn't take too long to find out it wasn't for drinking." Crimson shuttered. "One day, and it was a rough day I might add, I was having no luck finding the secrets to that strange liquid in the bottle, so I threw it against the wall. There was a nice, resounding crash as it shattered. The liquid, however, spilled all over our radio. There was some staticky noise, then a spark. Next thing I knew, Blackdart was dragging me out of our burning house.

"As I watched it burn, I started to feel strangely... at peace... inside. My brother pointed to my flank with a smile, and there it was. Of course, he was still pretty annoyed that the house was burning down, but I'd say it was a worthy trade. One house for one cutie mark."

I looked at my flank, but there was a layer of metal in between me and whatever my cutie mark was.

"Afterwards," Crimson continued, "I went back to that first burned down house and found a whole basement full of those bottles. I've got a life's supply now, and there's still more in that basement."

Crimson continued speaking after a long pause. "I never did understand him, though. My brother didn't think this damned wasteland was all evil. He said there had to be some good somewhere. Felt that way about ponies too. He must have rubbed off on Moonlight, or the other way around, I'm still not sure which, because soon he and Moonlight were always trusting everypony they came across."

Crimson took a long breath, then let it out with a sigh. "He would have told you this a while ago, but the real reason our town is so cautious of strangers is because of this scientist that killed half our town in his experiments with the taint. My parents were two of the first to die. Moonlight lost her parents to that monster too. That's why I'll never understand Blackdart and Moonlight. How could they forget something like that? How can they still be so trusting after what that monster did to us? Our parents died for some stupid experiment! And he still didn't give up hope."

Crimson closed his eyes and went still for a second. "He didn't give up hope that there was some good in everypony, no matter what. That was what he lived by, and I sure as hell am not going let him get sold as a slave because of it."

I saw a fierce look in Crimson's red eyes. It gave me chills as I sat there, staring at him. I finally broke the silence. "Mind if I see one of those bottles you were talking about earlier?"

Crimson began to rummage through his saddle. "Sure." He pulled a few things out before reaching a bottle. He hoofed it over to me, and I looked at the label. The words had worn off over the years, so I couldn't make out anything. As I hoofed it back, I noticed a needle laying in the pile of things Crimson had pulled out of his saddle.

I pointed to the needle. "What's that?"

Crimson picked it up carefully. "This thing is one dose of a combat drug called 'dash.' It's supposed to drive up your heart rate and numb any pain for a short period of time. Probably best to use when you're exhausted in a fight."

I gazed at the needle inquisitively. "Where'd you learn about that?"

Crimson grimaced. "You learn a lot when you're held captive by some insane scientist who won't stop talking to himself." Crimson stopped and stared off into the distance for a little while, starting to grit his teeth. I could only assume he had that scientist on his mind now.

Finally, Paragon broke the silence. "Your conversations are truly interesting, no really, I could just listen to you two all night long," I rolled my eyes, "but what about tomorrow? How many slavers are we going to be facing if we catch up to them?"

Crimson turned back towards us. "I only got a quick glance, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were, like, 10."

Hmmm... 2 vs 10. I'm no math expert, but these don't look like good odds. They look more like suicide.

"Then we'll need a plan," Paragon announced, "and if neither of you have one..." he paused a second. "Thought so. Then, how about this?"

<------------------------------>

I heard a strange, and increasingly annoying, beeping sound. "Rise and shine!"

My eyes flashed open to see daylight just barely peeking through the clouds on the horizon. I rolled over. "5 more minutes."

"I don't think so," Paragon retorted as he took control of the armor and pulled me to my hooves.

"No fair," I groaned.

Crimson walked towards me. "Come on, Razor, we've got to be close by now, considering they'll be slowed by the captives. If we get moving, we should be able to catch them by noon."

"What if they haven't been slowed down by the captives?" I asked, skeptically.

Crimson grinned for a second or two. "I wouldn't worry about that too much, at least not while my brother's there."

<------------------------------>

A grey-coated, red-maned stallion glanced left, then right, with a pair of fierce, red eyes. Then, he sat down.

A large, muscular slaver with a large streak of a scar over his face walked over to him. They locked eyes for a moment, almost in a silent battle. Suddenly, they were the center of attention. The group of foals watched intently. Then the slaver kicked the seated pony in the snout.

The scarred slaver turned to continue their trek to Fillydelphia. "Geddup and keep walkin’."

Blackdart wiped a trail of blood from his nose. "No."

The slaver stopped in his tracks. "No?" He turned to face Blackdart once again. "NO?" The slaver pulled his shotgun out with his mouth and smacked the handle of it across Blackdart's face, leaving another trail of blood. "When ah tell you ta move, you move! Not when ya feel like it, not when ya want to, WHEN AH TELL YOU!"

The slaver pulled his shotgun back to strike again, but one of the foals ran over to the bloody pony. "Stop hitting Blackdart!"

The scarred slaver turned to the foal and spat. "You wanna be next?"

The foal cowered behind Blackdart's foreleg and whimpered. The slaver let out a laugh and walked towards them. "Yeah, that's wh-"

"Shut up!" interjected another one of the slavers, "all of you!" He glanced around a bit nervously. "This is hellhound territory, so unless you want to get all of us killed," he glared at the foals, then at the slaver with his gun in his mouth, then right at Blackdart, "then you'll keep your mouths shut."

The scarred slaver yanked Blackdart to his hooves, shoved a hoof at Blackdart's chest, and muttered, "Ah'm watchin' you."

Blackdart grinned with a look of determination. "Well then, don't blink," he said as he threw a hoof-full of sand into the slaver's eyes. The slaver reeled back and Blackdart bolted.

"GAAAHHH! Somepony get that buck and tear his legs off!"

Blackdart's gallop slowed to a hobble as he felt his wounds from his treatment by the slavers over the past few days reopen from the movement. He was soon outpaced by two of the slavers who tackled him to the ground. The held him down as they whispered among themselves.

"This one's more trouble than he's worth."

"We'll just have to get rid of him."

The first slaver hobbled up to them, still wiping sand out of his eyes. "Ah'm gonna kill him!"

The two slavers holding Blackdart down looked at each other and nodded. "Go ahead," replied one of them.

The scarred slaver began to chuckle to himself. "Oh, ah'm gonna have fun wit this one." He pulled out his shotgun and rested the barrel on Blackdart's nose.

Blackdart glanced from the barrel into the horizon and his eyes went wide. "Say, ummm," his eyes darted around, looking for a way to buy a little more time, eventually falling on the slaver's face, "how'd you get that scar?"

The scarred stallion's face wrinkled into a grimace. "Well, we were in Manehatten."

The whole crowd of slavers groaned, and most of them sat down. One of them mumbled to another, "Not this story again."

The scarred slaver glanced around for a second, then looked back at Blackdart. "As ah was saying, we were in Manehatten. Now, manticores are some big beasts, and ah mean big, but you've ain't never seen one as big as the one we saw. And by the time we see 'em, he was already barreling towards us. Ah had just enough time to get ma neck outta the way, but ma head wasn't so lucky. His claw left this here streak," he motioned to his scar, "across ma face. So, I got ma shotgun and shot 'em 17 times in 'is face.”

The scarred slaver pressed the gun a little harder into Blackdart’s snout. “You know, you outta tell 'em 'hello' for me."

Blackdart glanced into the distance once again and a smile cracked across his face. "Tell him yourself."

A pair of gunshots rang out, followed by the screaming of a missile. All eyes were on the scarred slaver and the red mark quickly spreading from his lifeless skull. As the bullet had passed through his head, he jerked forward and pulled his trigger, sending a spray of bullets into Blackdart's chest. Blackdart let out a cough of blood just before the missile landed and launched up a cloud of smoke.

<------------------------------>

Crimson looked down the scope of a rifle. "I can't tell which one is Blackdart. They're all moving around too much."

I looked at the group of ponies in the distance. "Hey, Paragon, do you have any kind of binoculars in here?"

Paragon chuckled. "No."

"Well, why not?"

"I'll just skip the argument and zoom in."

Suddenly, I found I was looking at a well defined view of the group in the distance. "Hey, these look like binoculars to me."

"They're a little more scientific than binoculars."

I rolled my eyes. "Binoculars are binoculars, Paragon. Now stop being silly."

"...sure," Paragon eventually retorted.

Crimson interrupted our debate, "You guys ready or not?"

I jumped upright. "Yeah, I'm ready."

"Good, 'cause I think I've figured out which one is Blackdart. Wait... what are they doing?"

"On three?" I suggested.

Crimson's eyes widened. "Oh shit! Three!"

Thankfully, Paragon was more ready than I was. Crimson shot his rifle, and Paragon fired the new smoke-bomb missile he had been working on. Then we galloped towards the chaos.

We didn't even have to go into the smokescreen. We could hear the gunshots as the panicked slavers ran about, yelling something about a sneak attack. Then, a slaver managed his way out of the smoke. He stared at us in surprise for a second, then yelled out, "They're out-"

He was cut off by a spray of bullets from Crimson's battle saddle, however it was too late. The gunshots began to die down as the slavers realized what was happening. They finally all stopped firing and the smoke started to disperse. There were only five slavers left standing, all looking pretty annoyed.

Crimson had taken the time to circle around them while the smoke was clearing, and they were all facing me when the smoke cleared. I charged them, bullets bouncing off my armor, as Crimson dashed over to Blackdart, who was still coughing up blood.

I began to open fire on the slavers... except my 'open firing' seemed to be a little lacking in the firing department. In fact, I wasn't shooting at all. "Paragon! Why aren't we shooting? I thought I just had to think about firing and you would do it!"

"Combat mode isn't on."

Dang it! How'd I forget that? "Turn on combat mode."

Now I started to see some results. I mowed down the first slaver to approach me, except he didn't look like a pony anymore. I blinked, and saw four striped pony-like creatures running towards me. An inexplicable rage coursed through me, and I charged to meet them. I picked up one of them, with relative ease thanks to Paragon, and threw him into another zebra. My armor-coated hoof found it's way into the skull of a third one. I began to loose bullet after bullet into the last one, even after I heard the clicking of an empty machine gun.

"Razor, stop."

I blinked as reality started to sweep back into my head. My eyes fell on the torn mess of a pony at my feet. I slowly backed away, horror creeping up inside of me. Them, my hoof stepped into the remains of a pony without the face. His brains were leaking onto the ground around my hooves.

What happened?

"Where did that come from, Razor?"

I started once again at Paragon's voice. "I... I don't... know..."

I began to stare at the ground. What just happened? I glanced at the two remains on either side of me. What did I do?

"Don't die! Stay with me!"

Crimson fleeting cries fell dead upon my ears.

"Crimson... get away... *cough*... you have to... have to get away... it's coming..."

Finally, I saw some movement in the corner of my eye. The slaver I had thrown into another slaver had recovered. He had a gun in his mouth and was headed towards Crimson. I finally jumped into action. He aimed a pistol at Crimson.

Then, the ground underneath the slaver exploded as something surged out of it, tearing the slaver to shreds. The beast glanced from one of us to the next, his eyes finally stopping in me.

Crimson let out a fearful groan. "Hellhound."

It launched at me and I fired a bullet at it. The bullet didn't even pierce its hide. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know where it came from. I didn't know what it could do. I did know it scared me half to death, and I did know that I needed to get out of there. I turned around and began to gallop in the other direction, with it quickly catching up.

Blackdart grabbed Crimson and tore his battle saddle off.

"What are you doing?!" Crimson blurted.

“Wh... whe... where is it?” He began to pull things out in an increasingly panicked manner. Finally, he found his quarry. His quivering hooves raised the needle of dash, then he jabbed it into his chest, puncturing his heart.

Crimson stared, with his mouth agape. "What are you- Oh! Right, that can keep your heart going! You can make it. That can save you!"

Blackdart jumped up as the drug coursed through his veins. "I'm not trying to save me."

Then, Blackdart ran after us, grabbing the shotgun from the scarred slaver's limp grasp. I had circled around, headed straight towards Blackdart. As we met in the middle, Blackdart flashed me a smile, and I returned a shocked stare. The hellhound lunged at me, claws bared, as Blackdart leaped over me, straight into the hellhound. He shoved the barrel of the shotgun into the hound's mouth, and fired, as the claws tore through Blackdart.

Both bodies fell to the ground. The hellhound was dead by the time he hit. Blackdart, having lost far too much blood, just stared back up at me. "My gift..." he coughed up a mouthful of blood, "to... you..." The life slowly drained from his eyes.

<------------------------------>

Crimson patted down the last of the dirt on his brother's grave. "I didn't save him."

I walked up next to Crimson. "He saved me."

Crimson looked up at me. I could see a tear falling down his face.

"He saved those foals," I continued. "He saved you from your burning house."

Crimson sat down. "And after all that I couldn't even save him."

I sat down next to Crimson. I was about to speak, when Paragon cut me off. "He was a great stallion. He deserved to live. He could have lived, but he chose to die instead. Now why would he do that?"

Crimson shook his head. "I don't know."

Paragon took control of the armor and touched his hoof to Crimson's chest. "You do know, and it won't help to pretend you don't."

"Ok, he was saving you two."

Paragon put his hoof back on the ground. "Exactly, and don't you ever forget that. Your brother didn't die in vain. In fact, if he hasn't stopped that hellhound, it would have killed all of us. All three of us owe our lives to your brother. If it weren't for him, none of us would be here. So, are you going to mope around wishing you could have saved him, or are you going to start acting like he saved you?"

Crimson looked up. "I guess I'll act like he saved me."

"That doesn't sound too confident."

Crimson stood up. "I'm going to make sure my brother didn't die in vain. All three of us are gonna make sure of it, right Razor?"

I jumped a bit, now realizing I was in the conversation again. "Oh, uhh, right! Let's go change the world, or something!"

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk - Buddy System
Whenever you are fighting with a friend on your side, both of your defenses are +3.

Chapter 4: Through Fire

Wise men learn by other's mistakes, fools learn by their own. ~ unknown

It was a bright, warm, depressing day.

We were headed back to Gutterville with the group of foals we had rescued from the slavers. Only one of them actually got injured in the fight, and it was just a little cut from tripping in panic. Every injury they had could heal, unlike the one that Crimson had felt by his brother's death. One of them couldn't understand where Blackdart had gone, no matter how much we tried to explain it to him.

I looked down at the colt. "Blackdart can't come with us."

The colt looked up and frowned. "But, what if he wants to come with us later?"

"He can't change his mind. He is gone, dead."

"Why? I want him to come with us!"

"You have to learn to let him go."

His eyes welled up for the fifth time now as he ran away, screaming. "But he's Blackdart! We can't leave him!"

Crimson rounded the colt up and, without a word, ushered him back to the group. Crimson hadn't said a thing in the past hour. All this talking about his brother was really getting to him. I had tried to talk to him a few times, but had been unsuccessful. I guess he just needed time to think.

We were still a good distance from Gutterville, when Crimson cursed loudly. "Buck! We forgot to see if the raiders had any food!"

Well, that could be a problem. It's not like we could just feed the foals bark or something. Paragon and I had it easy. This was not going to be a very quiet trip. Sure enough, an hour later one filly piped up. "I'm hungry."

I looked over at Crimson. He looked back at me. We tried to pretend we hadn't heard her, but it didn't work. She walked up to me, and sat right in my way. The foals really did like doing that. She looked up at me, her eyes seemed to grow about an inch, and her bottom lip pouted out a little. It was the most adorable thing I had seen all day. "Do you have any food?"

I hated the words as they came out of my mouth. "No, you have to wait until we get to Gutterville."

Her eyes seemed to get bigger, and her lip poutier. "But, I'm hungry now."

It was a long journey back to Gutterville, filled with big eyes and pouty lips. They always seemed to ask me, not Crimson. Why couldn't he have been the one to break it to them? That would have made the trip much easier.

Finally, we arrived back at Gutterville. One of the foals was so excited she wouldn't stop bouncing. Why bouncing? Of all the ways to express excitement, bouncing had to be the hardest to ignore. She finally stopped and looked around the town.

As we walked into the town, I kept feeling like something was missing, like towns were supposed to have something important that this town didn't have. I walked up to a rickety old building and looked in through a smashed window, carefully avoiding the jagged pieces of glass that were still attached. The inside of the building looked just like the rest of the town: old, falling apart, and, most notably, devoid of anypony. Oh, that's what's missing: ponies.

I walked back to Crimson. "Where the hell is everypony?"

"No idea."

We walked further into town, and still there was nopony to be seen. Crimson walked over to me. "This isn't like when you came here and everypony was just hiding. They would have come out at the sight of me and the foals. Everypony is gone."

We looked around, and I realized just how fitting the name of this town was. One building looked as though it was about to collapse on the next thing that entered, like a trap waiting to spring. In fact, that seemed like the norm for the buildings in Gutterville. I had yet to see one that I trusted to support the weight of Paragon and me together.

The buildings were all a mixture of brown and red. The brown was from the wood that most of the buildings were built out of, and the red looked like it was just paint splattered on the walls. It was incredibly ugly.

The streets were littered with debris. Pieces of wood from the falling-apart buildings were all over the place. Windows were smashed, doors were broken off of their hinges, and there was still not a single pony around.

The longer I stayed here, the more I thought it looked like a ghost town. I had no idea how right I was.

Crimson stopped in front of one particularly ugly building. "This is where my brother and I used to live. After our parents died, we, and a friend of ours, took over this abandoned building. I wonder if there's any chance Moonlight is still here."

Crimson nudged the door. It swung oven slowly, then fell off its hinge, kicking up dust when it hit the ground. Crimson and I walked in and blinked away the dust that got in our eyes. I walked along the wall, still trying to get the dust out of my eyes, when I felt a morbid squish beneath my hoof. I slowly looked down. There it was, or she was. A pony. Dead.

This was not what Crimson needed to see right now. He was already devastated about losing his brother, and losing his friend was not going to help. But, how could I hide something like this? It's not like we could just leave and Crimson wouldn't care that he had no idea why the town was so quiet, and why... Oh Celestia! I don't think those red splotches on the buildings were paint. And there were a lot of them. How many ponies died here?

But, first we had to get out of here before Crimson saw it. I just need a distraction, and-

"I said, tell us where the food is in this town! Do you want to end up like the rest of the ponies in this place?

"HELP!"

Perfect, wait... what's happening? I really should check my EFS more often.

The yell had come from one of the foals outside. Crimson and I dashed outside to see a grey mare holding a rifle to one of the foals' head. I looked at the brown unicorn next to her and immediately recognized the face he now had. Still priceless.

These were the ponies I didn't chase down yesterday. The ones I could have stopped. What have I let happen?

The blue stallion glanced in our direction, then did a double take. "Where did you...?" His sentence trailed off as he looked around, quickly recalculating the situation.

I was too focused on the blue stallion to notice what the brown unicorn was doing until his bullet bounced off of my armor. He was using a different pistol than last time, but still just a pistol. As I galloped towards him, about eight more bullets bounced off of my armor.

I really didn't have a plan. I didn't even know what I was going to do when I reached the unicorn. I did know that whatever I did to him, he deserved it. Just take a look around the town if you need any justification.

I decided to just slam into him, but, instead, something else slammed into me. It was a piece of one of the falling apart buildings. A large piece. I looked at the huge piece of rubble and saw a light blue glow around it fading away. I looked at the unicorn to see a similar light blue glow fading away from his horn. Dang, that was some strong telekinesis.

Paragon's metallic voice sounded inside the armor. "Cool down, Razor. You can't focus when you are this angry. I am still analyzing this guy's fighting style. Try attacking him a different way so I can analyze how he responds to different situations."

I heard the sound of gun fire behind me and I looked back. Crimson was keeping the grey mare occupied, but I had no idea where the blue stallion was. I decided to focus on my current opponent: the unicorn. I guess my best bet was to shoot.

I stuck out my tongue. Yeah, I definitely need a better way of working the guns. I turned to the unicorn and started to fire the machine gun. In an instant, a large piece of scrap metal covered in a light blue glow flew in between us. The bullets began to ricochet back at me, some bouncing off my armor.

The metallic voice sparked back to life. "It appears he relies mostly on telekinesis. If you can distract his focus he might lose his concentration on the telekinesis long enough for you to get a clear shot." Great, distract him. Distract him with what? I looked around at all the broken buildings and an idea began to form.

I fired a magical blast at the metal blocking my aim of him, and it vaporized. The unicorn quickly retreated into the building behind him, and I followed. The door slammed shut, covered in a light blue glow. I rammed through the closed door, and splinters flew all around the room, still covered in the blue glow. They then flew right back at me, just to bounce off of my armor.

I looked around the room, but the unicorn had hurried up the stairs when I had been distracted by the splinters from the door. I galloped after him. As I ran into the next room, a hoof stuck out in front of me, causing me to the ground, face first. As I fell, I caught a glimpse of a shield on the unicorn's flank. What kind of special talent is that?

Right after I hit the ground, I found out where the blue stallion had gone. He was in the building, on this floor, pointing a rifle at my head. Yeah, this had been a trap. Great, there goes my brilliant plan, and it would have been so cool to have pulled off. Well, now I have to pull off an epic escape instead. How do I do that?

Paragon was the one to do it for me. Well, Paragon didn't do all that much, he just weighed a lot. As I was lying on the ground, with a rifle pointed at my head, I noticed just how many cracks this building had, and just how many cracks were starting to spread right under me. The blue stallion, however, was not observing the cracks he was walking towards in the process of walking towards me. Too bad for him.

The stallion grinned, which was quite a strange sight with a gun in his mouth. I was impressed to hear him talk easily also. "Ha, you aren't going to win fighting by yourselves. Even we raiders know that in the wasteland a lone pony is a dead pony."

I watched as he put his hoof on one of the cracks. I couldn't help but smile. "Good thing I've got Paragon then."

His stared at me in confusion for a second, then the floor collapsed. So much for an epic escape, but an escape is an escape I guess. All four of us, counting Paragon, fell to the floor below.

I was the quickest to recover, due to being the only pony to have seen it coming. I quickly ran outside of the building. I was sure it was about to collapse, but I didn't want to take any chances. I turned around and launched my last rocket straight at the foundation. The explosion rippled up the building, smashing the supports that were left, and destroying any chance of the raiders surviving. I began to walk away as the building fell to the ground.

Two down, one to go.

I hurried over to find Crimson still dueling the grey mare. She was hiding around the corner of a building while Crimson was spraying the area with bullets from his battle saddle. When she saw me galloping her way, she turned and ran. Crimson chased after her, slowly gaining ground. She looked back, eyes widening in shock at the sight of Crimson and me quickly closing the gap between us and her.

She dashed around a corner, with us still in tow, and disappeared. I looked down the street, seeking any clues as to what building she went into. As we walked down the street, I peered into each house we passed. Nothing.

I looked at Crimson and was shocked. He looked like a totally different pony. His tail twitched every second or so, and his movements seemed more sudden, not like the casual stride he usually took. But, the strangest sight was his eyes. The fierce look was gone, replaced by one of vengeance. This fight wasn't about protecting anyone any more. Crimson was out for revenge.

Had he seen it? Had he found out what had happened to this town?

I didn't have time to ask. A bullet grazed my leg, piercing the armor.

"You idiot! The perfect chance to take him out and you missed! Give me that!"

I turned around to see the blue stallion snatching a large rifle out of the unicorn's telekinetic field. How were they still alive? An entire freaking building collapsed on them. You don't just brush that off.

The grey mare was with them. They were all in the same spot. Perfect. I sprayed the area with bullets, and it appeared Crimson had the same idea. Hah, this was over. But, then again, that's what I thought when I collapsed a building on them. I was about to find out why they lived.

A blue bubble surrounded the trio. Different shades of blue rippled around the bubble with the impact of each bullet. Not a single bullet made it through. Well, that explains the shield cutie mark. At least this meant they couldn't shoot back at us.

For once, my assumption was actually right. Though, instead of shooting at us, they began to run. I was torn between chasing them, and stopping Crimson from giving chase. I turned to Crimson as he was about to launch himself after them. "Stop! We have to check on the foals. The last thing we need is anypony else dying. That comes before revenge."

He stopped for a second, then something clicked in his mind. He turned to me with a dangerous look in his eyes. "Anypony else dying? Did you know about all this," he motioned to the broken, blood-stained town around us, "and not tell me? Did you know about all the ponies killed here and not tell me?"

I looked him square in the eyes. "I found out before the raiders separated us."

"And you didn't tell me?"

I was avoiding his gaze now. "I was just trying to-"

Crimson cut me off. "What? Trying to what? Protect me?" He glared at me for a second, then laughed dangerously. "Thought I couldn't handle it? Thought I could live in the wasteland my entire life and not be able to handle this? Thought I could lose both my parents and my brother, and not be able to handle death? What world did you come from?"

I started to reply, but paused. Crimson's words had much more meaning to me than he could have known. I looked back at him after a moment of thinking. "A world I would give anything to go back to." I looked at the ground, thinking of the past I had lost, the ponies I might have known. All that was gone now, with hardly a trace. "A world I would give anything to even remember."

Crimson's gaze softened. His voice sounded confused instead of angry now. "What?"

I looked into his eyes again. The usual fierce look had returned, but it was layered with some confusion and a touch of concern. "There is something I need to tell you."

<------------------------>

Over the time of telling Crimson the tale of my past, we began to hear thunder in the distance, getting closer near the end of the story. Crimson looked at me. "That's quite a story. So Paragon really kept you alive that whole time?"

A metallic voice responded. "Yes, I did"

Crimson jumped a bit. "Oh, yeah. Forgot you can talk."

I just had one question. "Crimson, how did you find out about the ponies in the town anyway?" I was not surprised to see the smile fade from Crimson's face.

"I chased the grey mare into a building. There were dead ponies there. She began to gloat about how helpless everypony in this town had been, and how easy it had been to kill them all.

It began to rain.

That dangerous look returned to Crimson's eyes. Thankfully, Paragon changed the subject. "Have you two forgotten about the foals?"

I bolted to my feet. "Totally forgot about that!"

As we dashed back to Crimson's old house, the storm intensified and thunder began to ring out every ten to twenty seconds. When we got to the house, the foals were cowering in a corner of the room. I walked in and addressed the foals. "What's wrong?"

One of the foals, the one that couldn't understand Blackdart dying, pointed to the opposite corner of the room and stammered, "G-g-ghost!" I looked, but I couldn't see much in the darkness caused by the storm. A flash if lightning lit the room, creating an eerie silhouette of the dead body I had first seen upon entering this house earlier. Good, just a dead pony. Why was that a good thing nowadays?

Crimson walked over to the body. "Moonlight..." he reached out a hoof, but before he could touch the dead body a flash of lightning appeared, followed by an explosion and a blast of heat.

Crimson and I suddenly perked up. We ran out to see the remains of a building that looked like it had had a bomb explode in it. There was fire spreading faster than the rain could put it out all over the surrounding buildings. "What happened?"

Crimson looked worriedly at me. "You know that building I told you about that I found the flammable liquid stuff in?"

I put two and two together and got the huge, raging inferno that was in front of me. I guess we just had one hell of a spark. I turned back to Crimson, but he was galloping away, yelling about putting the fire out. I looked at the flames. There was no stopping this fire.

I dashed back to the foals and rounded them up. "We have to go now!" A small filly looked up at me. I saw the inevitable 'why' on her tongue but cut her off. "Now!"

As we ran out of the house I looked over at the fire to see Crimson throwing bucket after bucket of water on the fire. He looked up at the fire, and the bucket dropped from his mouth. "No... NO!" I barely heard him over the sound of the storm.

I kept running with the foals.

We stopped a good distance from the town. I turned back to scan the horizon for Crimson. The fire was quickly taking over the town. There was no way Crimson could stop it. I turned back to the foals. "Stay here." I stomped my hoof on the ground for emphasis. Then, I ran back into the fire.

I felt the heat through my armor before I even got into the town, but my safety was the last thing on my mind. "Crimson! Were are you?" I ran towards the center of the inferno, ignoring the heat and smoke that threatened to choke the life out of me. My quarry was nowhere in sight.

I rounded the corner of a building just as it began to fall, toppling ten feet behind me. The embers thrown into the air by it landed on my armor, raising the temperature inside the armor. I began to realize I was on a time limit.

Paragon's metallic voice forced the reality that I couldn't take this heat much longer back onto me. "Internal armor temperature rising beyond safe levels. If you stay here much longer, you may be permanently injured."

I was running out of time, but I just needed enough time to find Crimson and get out of here. Why did he have to stay behind? What was so important about this place?

I rounded a corner and located the center of the town and Crimson. He staggered towards me then collapsed on the ground, coughing and wheezing.

I ran over to him and hoisted him onto my back. His weak voice reached my ears. "Stop... No... The town... Burning..."

"No time for that, we have to get out of here!" I began to gallop towards the outskirts if town.

"No... But... That's my... My entire past... That's all I... All I have left..." His head clunked against the side of my armor. He was unconscious.

All he had left was burning. He had lost almost his entire life, and now he was losing the last bit of it. His past was burning away, and soon it would be...

Did I have a family? If I did, they would probably all be dead by now.

Everything I used to know... gone. Any friends I might have had... gone.

I had lost everything. Everypony I used to know, gone. Gone. I was alone.

Alone.

I guess I wasn't the only one anymore.

<--------------------------->

"Hey, I thought you said there would be valuable stuff here."

The steel ranger glared in hatred down at the younger steel ranger. "Just stop talking. Please, just shut up and leave me alone."

The group of now four steel rangers was excavating the remains of the outpost. They had found nothing interesting in the entire excavation and were starting to lose hope. One of the two other steel rangers spoke up. "This is pointless, there is nothing here."

The older steel ranger glared at him, then addressed the entire group. "Keep digging, and no more complaining. That's an order."

The younger steel ranger pushed a rock aside and sighed. He wandered away from the rest of the group to try to find something interesting. This was excruciatingly boring, and they weren't finding anything other than rocks and- what was that sound?

His thoughts stopped dead in their tracks when he heard a scrapping sound somewhere beneath him. He lowered his head closer to the ground to listen. The scraping sound seemed to be getting closer. Although, it didn't sound like scrapping anymore, more like scratching, or digging. Yeah, it sounded like digging.

Suddenly, a metal-coated hoof blasted out of the rubble and wrapped around the neck of the young steel ranger, pulling him down to the ground. A rock was pushed aside by another hoof, revealing a pony in steel ranger armor digging his way out of the rubble. The young steel ranger struggled against the grip of the mysterious pony. "What are you doing? What do you want?"

The pony digging out of the rubble pulled the young steel ranger's head close to his and whispered.

"Where is Paragon?"

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk - Heat Resistant
You just ran through a freaking inferno, and Paragon found out that you can't survive in that heat for long, so he has been working on a way to fix that, and succeeding.

Author's Note

This chapter has yet to be updated in my rewriting of this story. So, yeah, it might not match up quite right witht he previous chapters.