Friendship is Escape Velocity

Chapters

The Theory of Continual Disappointment
Two Dozen Lousy Hours
So Lucky
Troubled Land
Someone Been Picking on Me Blues
The Universality of Neighbourliness
Damn that Cattlestop!
Cute As a Bug
Run Home Slow
...When to Fold 'Em
All the Way Down

The Theory of Continual Disappointment

“The buck?”

“Dashie!”

“Sorry.”

The sextet known as Harmony Incarnate appeared to be in a decidedly run-down house; a house that, judging from the height of the windows and ceilings, wasn't built along pony lines. What little light managed to squirm through the filthy windows revealed stars, and not much else.

Twilight Sparkle stopped glaring at Rainbow Dash – one filly who was heading for a soapy mouth again – and looked about. One too-tall doorway led to what looked like a bedroom, another led to what looked like a kitchen, assuming that thing she could see was an oven.

“What the fuck was that?” The stallion's voice was outside, and had a tone to it that put everypony's hairs on edge.

“What the fuck was what?” Another stallion, a real smooth talker that reminded Twilight of Trixie. “Probably some damn squatter, and if they know what's good for 'em, they'll stay inside.”

The six looked at each other and decided to take the advice, listening to the unfamiliar voices grizzling at each other as they moved away.

“Those fellas weren't too friendly were they?” Applejack finally broke the silence, to Twilight's surprise. She'd have expected Pinky Pie.

“Yeah! Like they wanna keep something secret and ooh that just makes me wanna find out what it is and where we are and why everything's so broken down and icky and why are we here anyway?”

The incarnations of the Elements of Harmony all looked at Twilight, who started fidgeting and shuffling her hooves nervously. “I've... I've no idea... The spell should have...”

“Let's ask those ponies outside!” The pink mare immediately bounced over to the one door that evidently led outside and started rattling the knob with her mouth. Something clicked and the door popped open.

“Helloo!” Pinkie called, sticking her head out, “Anyone–”

There was a sharp popping sound, and Pinkie stiffened.

Then she slid bonelessly down the side of the door frame.

“Pinkie?” Twilight asked uncertainly.

The mare didn't reply.

Rainbow Dash immediately bolted outside.

“Come back here you varmint!” a stallion called angrily, then several more popping sounds were heard, some moving away.

The pegasus could see something dark emitting small flashes of light at something equally poorly lit, flashing back. She looked down at Pinky's face.

“Pinkie's hurt!” Rainbow cried, “Bad!”

Fluttershy emitted a small squeak, Rarity gasped, Applejack paled, and Twilight quietly slipped into a state of shock. First the spell goes wrong. I don't know how. I don't know why. Now we're far away from Ponyville. I don't know where. I don't know why. Pinkie's been injured I don't know why I don't know why I don't know why why why

Her body was shaking.

Why why why light why light why

Pain. Pain enough to knock her head sideways and make her gasp for air, stopping her hyperventilation. Twilight stared at Rarity – she'd left hoofprints on her cheek from the feel of it.

“Twilight!” she yelled again, “Snap out of it! Do something!”

“Do something,” Twilight echoed vaguely. Equally vaguely, she walked over to where the Element of Laughter was

bleeding

Pinkie's eyes were staring at nothing, and there was a hole a bucking hole in her bucking temple

Twilight looked away to a spidery tower on a hill and took one ragged breath, then another, trying to keep the panic down. Looked at Rainbow Dash, whose face reflected the same panic and hope that Princess Celestia's favoured student would know what to do.

What to do.

“We need to find help,” she managed to say on the second attempt.

“Help?” said a hearty stallion's voice accompanied by an approaching rolling scraping noise, “Well, let ol' Victor here help y'... oh my.”

Oh my was pretty much the same reaction that both Twilight and Rainbow had to the speaker. After all, it wasn't a stallion. Instead, it was some sort of machine, with two fat arms, balancing on one single wheel, and with a glowing panel bearing the image of a... creature... wearing a hat like Applejack's. From the way it was turning back and forth between the unicorn and the pegasus, it seemed fairly nonplussed too.

“What the hay,” Rainbow Dash finally broke the silence, deliberately placing herself between the machine and her friends, and adopting a threatening posture, “are you?”

“Oh, I'm a Securitron,” the machine actually seemed to shrug, “RobCo model twenty-sixty-bee. But butter my buns and call me a biscuit, seems to me your friend here needs to get to th' doc right quick.”

“She's not dead?” Twilight gingerly rested one forehoof against Pinky's chest. Sure enough, it was faint, but her heart was still beating – weak and fluttery but still beating. Twilight nearly fainted with relief. “Doctor. Right. Um, where?”

“Back there, up above the road.” The Victor machine waved one arm, which bent like rope, behind it. “Just follow me – uh, 'scuse me pard'ner, but I better carry your friend there.”

Rainbow Dash hadn't moved from her guard position, slowly and meaningfully scuffing one forehoof against the ground. “Did you do this?”

The other ponies were now somewhat comically craning their heads through the doorway, goggling at Pinkie on the ground, at Twilight, and at Rainbow Dash facing off against the Victor.

“Me? Heavens to Murgatroyd no! I was keepin' an eye on those unsavoury types that were doin' somethin' up at the cemetery. Then I guess your friend here startled one of 'em and... well... anyway, I ran the varmint off, so li'l blue guy–”

Rainbow Dash's eyes narrowed.

“–If y'all don't mind, we'd best be getting' your friend here to the doc afore, uh, she bleeds out.”

The pegasus just glared at the machine, then Twilight's voice broke the silence.

“Stand aside Rainbow.”

“What?” Rainbow Dash turned her head enough to look at Twilight dubiously. The unicorn was pale and one of her eyes was twitching, but her voice was steady.

“If this... Victor... attacked Pinky... we'd be dead now. Let him take her to the doctor.” She gazed back at her friend, Loyalty incarnate. “Please.”

Rainbow took a breath, channelled the energy she had been preparing for a charge into moving carefully aside, placing each hoof deliberately. The machine rolled up to Pinkie, then tipped forward, pushing its stubby metal fingers underneath the Earth pony, before pivoting backwards and lifting its limp pink cargo off the ground.

“Whoof! What a weight! Right then, pardners, saddle up and wagons ho!”

Author's Note

Fun fact: The chapter titles are song titles. See how many you recognise!

Two Dozen Lousy Hours

Doc Mitchell washed up and looked over his two patients.

There was the courier, who'd dropped off some supplies on his way. However, he hadn't expected to see Haversack Joe brought in by Victor, covered in dirt and shot in the head. Disinfecting the wound had probably taken longer than actually getting the damn bullet out.

And certainly longer than his other patient. Mitchell could say without fear of contradiction that he'd never doctored on a horse – well, a pony, really – like this before. The size of the head in relation to the body was much greater, and there was certainly a bigger brain in there than your average equine. The other five that had come in behind Victor then had proven that.

To his surprise, he'd found himself with a most unexpected nurse.

“Ah never'd guess you knew anythin' 'bout medicine, Rarity,” he heard the orange one in the hat saying to the white horned one. All five had pretty much filled up his sitting room.

“Let's just say...” Rarity, that was her name, “...I've had to stitch up more than just couture, dear.” Sounded uncomfortable. “How's Twilight?”

Mitchell glanced through the doorway. Rarity and her hat-wearing friend were on one side of the room, while the winged pair were sitting on the other, either side of the lavender one who, to judge from her frazzled expression, unseeing eyes and decidedly mussed mane, was in shock. Both had a wing draped over their friend. Quite a touching scene.

“Not good,” that was the bluish one with the crazy rainbow mane and tail. “She's still got the shakes and she's mumbling something but we can't make it out.”

“Twilight?” Rarity walked over and got right into her face. “Listen to me. Pinky's going to be fine. The doctor and I made sure of that. When she's awake, we can figure out how to go home. Okay?”

The hysterical garble that burst out of Twilight's mouth was mostly incomprehensible, but the phrase How in the buck we got here stood out loud and clear. The torrent ebbed into a trickle of tears that finally ran silently down her face.

The one in the hat went over and just was there as Twilight cried herself to sleep.

Doc thought to himself that even though they were horses, the sight of them all gathering around their comrade was both the most poignant and the most gosh-darn cute thing he'd ever seen.

One Day Later

So three ponies walked into the Goodsprings saloon –

No, that isn't right. One earth pony and two pegasi trudged into the Goodsprings Saloon, all wearing identical grumpy expressions. The earth pony was also wearing a hat.

“You kids must be friends of Doc's funny patient,” Trudy the... what was she? Oh yeah, human... tending bar asked. “Need anything?”

“What've ya got?” The orange one in the hat asked. Oh yeah, Applejack.

“Got some Sunset Sarsaparilla if y'all need a drink.” She looked thoughtfully at them. “On the house.”

Applejack's ears perked noticeably. “Well that's mighty kind of ya, sugarcube. Three please?”

“Sure thing.” As the human mare extracted three bottles and removed the tops, she frowned at them. “Something wrong? You weren't this miserable at breakfast.”

“Is everywhere as dry as this?” Applejack finally said, “I mean, I don't see any trees, just dried up grass 'n' rocks... how the hay do y'all eat?”

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had squeezed themselves into one of the booths. Applejack remembered her manners enough to take their bottles to them before starting her own.

“There's a few farms between here and The Divide out west,” the barkeep explained, “and there's some I'm told out past Nipton down southeast. And we grow some of our own, but also we hunt. Plenty of gecko steaks and if you know where to look there's barrel cactus and the odd honey mesquite tree.” She shrugged. “And bighorners are good eatin'.”

Fluttershy squirted most of her mouthful of sarsaparilla back into the bottle at that.

“Uh, thanks, I think,” Applejack muttered, then turned to her friends. “What'd y'all find?”

Rainbow Dash swallowed and removed the bottle from her mouth. “OK, here's what I've seen, okay? The road that way,” she gestured north, “sorta goes through a gorge and it's crawling with huge bugs. I think they sting, 'cause there was this guy there, an' he was tryin' to beat them off, right? But there were too many and...”

All three shifted uneasily.

“Anyway, from there, there's this big city, with these huge fancy towers, but I didn't get that far, since that road's no good, so I went south. There's a town yonder,” and her hoof gestured southward, “there's two big buildings, one of 'em in the middle of a roller coaster–”

“That's Primm,” Trudy filled in.

“Okay, Primm, and the road sorta goes way down south, and then sorta forks. If you wanted to get to the city, you'd probably be wantin' to go thataway.”

“I'll run that by Twilight when she's feelin' better, sugarcube,” Applejack replied, then looked at Fluttershy. “So who-all else is out there?”

The yellow pegasus spat her empty bottle onto the floor eloquently. “Humans,” was all she said.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash waited patiently.

“These bighorners aren't like the bison of Appleloosa,” she added at last. “There's dogs, but they're just animals, not like diamond dogs. And those giant bugs that can barely fly. And...”

About three hours earlier

Fluttershy was flying over a quarry. The regular cuts in the earth were unmistakable. As were the movements of creatures below. Whatever they were, they had sturdy legs, horns, and long arms with equally long claws.

One was noticeably larger than the others which swarmed around it. A mother and children! They'd surely be friendly.

Fluttershy was wrong.

Back in the Goodsprings Saloon

“You tried to make friends with a deathclaw?” Trudy was gaping at Fluttershy, who squirmed more out of irritation than embarassment, and absently tried to hide under her mane. “Little lady, you sure ain't from here at all. And that sounds like the quarry near Sloan as well. If there's deathclaws 'round there... I'd say the only road to New Vegas is down through Nipton 'n up through Novac.”

“Should've known better,” the pegasus mumbled, “mother and her cubs...”

In the Goodsprings Surgery

Twilight Sparkle hovered the pencil over a somewhat aged and scorched exercise book Rarity had extracted – “at the cost of my pony-pedi!” – from the local schoolhouse. Without Spike around, there was no way she knew to contact Princess Celestia for help.

Dear Princess Celestia,

The three words were almost calming in their familiarity.

I write bearing bad news. The spell

She took a breath. She hadn't gone out since Fluttershy, of all ponies, had pretty much Stared her into going outside to attend to the necessary. She needed to think. Work out what went wrong.

The spell had wrapped about the six like a bubble, as expected, before rising into the sky, seeking anypony out there, to make contact and friends...

That was it.

The spell worked, but it caught on something and burst, taking us with it.

The unicorn sighed with relief. It wasn't an elegant description, but now she thought of it, maybe not like a bubble, but more like one of Pinky's balloons...

Lurching to hooves that were asleep from laying down on the wood floor, she poked her head into the surgery proper. The earth pony's barrel rose and fell with her breathing. Like the... oh yes, human... on the other bed.

Twilight almost turned but Pinky mumbled something and giggled.

“Pinkie?”

Being asleep, her friend didn't respond.

She went back to her letter.

I fear that we will need to find out what this magic 'pin' was, in order to find our way home safely. Otherwise a rescue mission, or trying to escape, will founder and be trapped here.

We were fortunate to find a friendly town, after

No need to mention Pinkie getting 'shot'. That could wait until they all returned to Equestria.

Our unexpected journey. They should be able to tell us who the great magic users here are.

“Trixie not included,” she chuckled to herself, then sobered. The idea of meeting a local Trixie, no doubt using forms of magic never seen before, was actually worrying.

I am sure we will learn much while we find a way home. As long as my friends and I are together, we will pull through.

A small voice asked Twilight if that last sentence was based in fact. She ignored it.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

The unicorn laid the pencil down. She'd made the first breakthrough she needed.

Something here, or nearby, had snagged the spell of communion, and most importantly, they had found intelligent life out... here... in the stars.

Now all they had to do was get home and report about it.

So Lucky

In the surgery, Pinkamena Diane Pie shifted, sneezed, then went from comatose to vibrantly aware in about four-tenths of a second.

As usual.

Her right temple twinged. That wasn't nice. The room she was in smelled like the clinic in Ponyville. That wasn't nice either. The bed she was on was uncomfortable, so she stuck a foreleg out and groped for the floor. Then she poked an eye over the side.

My, the floor was a looong way down!

The thump jolted Twilight out of her funk; she didn't so much trot as totter to investigate. The sight of Pinky facefaulted into the wooden floor with her tail in the air was quickly replaced with the sight of her friend bouncing back upright and spitting out dust.

“Ecch! What's with this place, all this dust and stuff? And why's everything high off the ground too? Hey Twilight! Whmmmmfph!”

Pinkie's further enquiries about Twilight's obvious lack of sleep – and grooming – and just what was that creature on the other bed – was effectively stopped by the ferocity of the hug the unicorn gave her. Any tighter and Doc Mitchell would have bet his last cap he'd have to fix up some broken ribs. The fairly incoherent and borderline hysterical babbling probably helped as well since, for once, Pinky couldn't get a word in edgeways.

The door opening directed his attention to Applejack, who'd arrived bearing Twilight's breakfast in a bucket. He recognised the packaging of some Dandy Boy apples and one Instamash – the ponies didn't eat meat, natch – along with a bundle of some of the prairie grasses.

The sooner the caravan from New Vegas arrived with the sharecroppers' harvest the better. Dandy Boys in his opinion tasted less like proper apples than horse apples.

“Whm fuh hmm?” she mumbled around the handle, before looking into the surgery. After a brief pause to comprehend what she was seeing – and hearing – she deposited the bucket, blurted something about telling the others, then galloped out the door to the old schoolhouse where the others had made camp.

The old man chuckled, shaking his head, then walked over to where a unicorn was asphyxiating a pony.

“Twilight!” he called, laying a hand on her shoulder and shaking, “You better let your friend breathe before she croaks!”

This statement negotiated Twilight's relief and sidestepped her hysteria, finally registering and causing her to release her Ursa-Major-class hug on Pinky Pie enough that, when the earth pony finally managed to draw breath, she doubled in girth before deflating in a rush of even more questions.

“Sheesh Twi' – what the hay's going on? – Who's – what's that? – Where are we – I mean first we're in the library and then in that old house and then I remember this sort of owie like something hit me in the head and then I woke up here and can you hear somepony coming?”

Mitchell turned his head to the front door, where the sound of a small stampede was approaching. “I'd say Applejack just gave the others the good news.”

A cyan blur whipped into the surgery and came to a halt, sending a small shockwave of dust and loose objects onward as it turned into... oh yeah, Rainbow Dash. “Pinky! You are awake!”

Mitchell couldn't for the life of him figure out how those small wings managed to keep a pony that size aloft. He would later give up and accept Twilight's explanation of magic.

The other three also poked their heads through the door, and the thought of six excited ponies in his surgery, potentially knocking things over and possibly interfering with poor old Haversack Joe, spurred him to act.

“Okay ladies!” he called, causing the three to stop and look at him, “I don't know about you, but I'd be lettin' my other patient get his rest. Anyway, uh... Pinky Pie wasn't it? How about comin' over and checkin' on the Vig-O-Matic here?”

“Vig-O-what?” Pinkie just stared at him, then at the elderly machine. “Okey-dokey-lokey!”

The pony trotted over to the machine, looked it over, nudged the control stick with her muzzle and then looked back. “Hey Twilight! What's this thing do?”

It took some advice, and Mitchell was impressed by what an 'Earth pony' could do when manipulating items with her lips. The card that eventually emerged had her scores pegged for Charisma and Luck, and most of the ponies followed her and him into his lounge.

At least the air didn't smell like burning electrics in there. Guess there was somethin' to Mr New Vegas' braggin' after all.

“Have a seat,” the old man instructed Pinkie with a gesture to the couch, while settling his old bones into a chair next to an old music stand. Sure enough, the pony didn't so much climb onto the old piece of furniture as bounce, making it creak alarmingly.

“OK! Now what?”

“All right. I'm gonna say a word. I want you to say the first thing that comes to mind.” He paused. “Dog.”

The pony blinked once, then, “Diamond! Like the Diamond Dogs!” She turned to Rarity, who was already looking a little strained. “Remember Rarity? And they caught you and we were all...”

“Whoa back there missy!” He touched her on the shoulder and found himself looking into two huge eyes full of excitement and energy. Better not let this one try Jet.

“Got a second word for you. House.”

“Cake! I really could do with some you got any? And Mr and Mrs Cake let me help out especially with making our famous cupcakes and – ooh another one?”

“Yup. Night.”

“PARTY!” Mitchell winced at the sudden exuberant yell. “I mean what's a party without the coloured lanterns and even fireworks and besides everyone's too busy all day for parties and hey! We're gonna have one right once I'm okay to go right guys –”

“As soon as we make sure everything's fine in your head,” and he shot a look at Applejack – she'd made a noticeable face at that. “Here's word number four. Bandit.”

“Guards! Not that anyone's seen any bandits 'cos we're so close to the Everfree Forest and anypony dumb enough to try hiding in there has got such a think coming I mean have you seen some of the monsters in there? Like we're talking monsters with five heads and manticores and hey remember that Ursa Major which was all HRRRARGHH!”

The sight of a small pink pony pretending to be what he guessed was something like a bear, or maybe one of those yao guais he'd heard of was, in Doc Mitchell's eyes, one of the strangest things he'd ever seen. Only the resigned looks on the ponies behind her suggested that this was normal behaviour. For her.

“Hold up there, momma bear,” he admonished, but Pinkie was too engrossed in her impressions to notice. It was then that the lavender unicorn trotted over and deliberately jabbed her in the flank with her horn.

“YOW! Hey! Twilight! What was that for?” Pinkie Pie dropped to all fours before rubbing the sore spot with a forehoof.

“The Doc's got one more.” Twilight shot him an apologetic look.

“Sure do: Mother.”

“Rock! We lived on a rock farm, see? And one day there was this loud bang full of colour and –”

“Okay! Whoa back there! You can tell me your exciting stories sometime later, right? Now...”

Pinkie and the other ponies watched as he bent over stiffly, extracted a stack of cards from under his chair, and put them on the stand alongside him.

“Okay. Now I got a few statements. I want you to tell me how much they sound like something you'd say.” He gestured at the card, which showed what was apparently supposed to be a human, in some sort of ragged robe, turning away from a fire and a wheel. “I'm slow to –”

Everypony's head jerked up at the sound of a groan from the surgery, followed by mumbling.

“Never mind,” the old man said, stuffing the cards back under his chair, “I think I'd better see to my other patient, uh, ladies.”

“What other patient?” Pinkie was about to follow until she felt a pressure on her tail. Investigation revealed this was because both Twilight and Raindow Dash were biting it.

“Best give the doc there some room, sugarcube,” Applejack explained, “and besides, we haven't shown you our new digs have we?”

“New digs? What new digs and where are –”

Applejack ignored her and picked up the breakfast bucket. “Laft wun fere'f a woffen affle,” she mumbled around the handle before heading out the door.

Haversack Joe woke to the sound of floorboards shaking from the progress of a pronking pony. Because when Pinkamena Diane Pie was in high spirits, she didn't prance. Nor bounce like a cartoon skunk.

She pronked.

Troubled Land

Haversack Joe looked behind him and reflected on just how fuckin' weird this job had become.

Now, Joe was used to carryin' odd things between the settlements of the Mojave, and a platinum poker chip wasn't as bad as the decidedly... intimate... attire that he'd once had to cart from Freeside to a not particularly discreet NCR private who wanted to give her boyfriend a surprise. Wouldn't have been surprised if the entire army knew about it first.

But of course things'd turned to shit. Being ambushed in the battered old trailer he'd crashed in was bad enough, but being plugged in the head by some casino pretty-boy was definitely the low point.

Then a pink talkin' pony seemingly popped out of nowhere when he finally woke up and managed to get out of the doc's surgery. And she wasn't a figment of his imagination.

That was definitely weird.

So now he was headin' from Goodsprings back to Primm and the Mojave Express office there. Had to notify Head Office that the shipment had been stolen by what looked like some asshole from the Strip. With a fancy suit like that, he'd be easy to spot.

Followed by six small, talkin', obnoxiously friendly mutant ponies who didn't know where the hell they were.

Joe looked upwards where two pegasus – pegasuses? Pegasi? - were circlin' as lookouts. The yellowish one flew slowly and sedately, the bluish one was more enthusiastic with all that zippin' and divin' and spinnin' around. He looked back to the other four, all of whom were followin' behind, talkin' among themselves and lookin' round. Apparently a magic spell went wrong or somethin' and the purple one with the horn was sensin' something off to the east that might be responsible.

“I wouldn't head out that way,” Joe had said firmly, killing last night's discussion stone dead. “Accordin' to this Pip-Boy here, you're pointin' towards Novac, and the safest route is to go south past Primm and turn east via Nipton. There's a couple places where some Vipers and Jackals hang around, but leave those fuckers t' me. Otherwise you'd be tryin' to go through Primm Pass, and last time I looked that way fuckin' deathclaws'd taken up there.”

And about then the yellow pegasus had shuddered. Seems she'd met the ones that'd taken up at Sloan. Also that the fuckin' cazadors were hatchin' again on the I-60, which meant that, along with the deathclaw in Primm Pass, if anyone wanted to reach New Vegas it was via the N towns or nothin'.

They might've been weird, but them ponies had got him useful intel.

He just hoped they wouldn't have to stop in Nipton. That so-called fuckin' mayor there made him jumpy. Given the toss between stayin' there or pushin' on to Wolfhorn Ranch, he'd risk the road out east every time.

The road dipped down to meet the Long 15 north to Sloan, then New Vegas, if you didn't mind tryin' to outrun deathclaws. Which Joe did. He looked around and frowned. There was a campfire just south of the Jean's Sky-Divin' shack. Shading his eyes, he looked north. Few more bods wandering around up there – if he squinted, they seemed to be wearing blue. He wasn't more than a few hours on the road and already his hackles were up.

Just like another fuckin' day at work.

“Okay folks,” he said, bringing the ponies' attention to him, “we stay on the road to Primm, got it? Trudy was tellin' me them Powder Gangers've been seen roamin' round here, and last thing we need's them takin' shots at us. Anythin' or anyone attacks us, get outta my way and I'll deal with it. If the bugs're hatchin' that means the geckos'll be more aggressive too.”

“Geckos?” One moment he was lookin' at six ponies, the next he had just one emerging from his armpit gabbing right in his face. “You mean like those cute little lizards that can climb up the walls and –”

“Hell no!” He saw movement over yonder and unslung his rifle, pushing Pinkie off. “Those fuckers.”

Said fuckers were reptilian, standing about four feet tall, and almost looked comical as they ran forward on their short hind legs. Twilight was reminded of Spike, except that these creatures' eyes lacked any intelligence, and their toothy mouths were much larger.

“Oh, of course,” she groaned, “not just giant bugs but lizards too...”

Her horn glowed as she extracted a pistol from one of the sacks that Rarity had turned into improvised saddlebags. The weapon felt strange in her magic, or maybe it was just... Stop it Twi! Be grateful that it's only animals you have to kill!

“Don't you dare!”

The lead gecko skidded to a halt as an irritated pegasus dropped out of the sky in front of it.

“We haven't attacked you, have we?” Fluttershy glared at the reptile, which was slowly closing its mouth and seemed unable to look away from the mare. “And yet here you are waylaying innocent travellers! What would your mother say?”

Joe just stared incredulously as the geckos began to fidget and shuffle their feet like embarrassed children under the pegasus' scolding. The other ponies also stared with various levels of amusement and surprise as the tirade reached its climax and the geckos turned and fled, shooting unmistakably cowed looks at the glowering mare tapping one hoof on the crumbling tarmac.

“Well...” Joe spoke uncertainly, causing Fluttershy to jump and squeak with surprise and embarrassment, “Guess we should be headin' on down 'fore they come back...?”

Twilight levitated the pistol back into her bag with some relief. At least this time she wouldn't have to try killing anything. But later on...

Mid-afternoon, a few miles north of Primm

“Looks like something tore a line in the ground,” Twilight observed, peering at the large gash that ripped across the four-lane highway they'd been following. On the other side, a scaffold held the remnants of signage; beyond that, the twists of the Primm's iconic roller coaster.

“Somethin' radioactive,” Joe grunted, “So let's hurry through it before anyone gets glowy.”

“What's wrong with glowy?” a voice rasped, before a head crested the top of the trench, “What the hell?”

What the hay was the ponies' immediate reaction as well. The figure appeared to be a human, but one that looked more like a half-burned corpse in some sort of bulky robe. What little mane he had was more or less stuck to his skinless scalp in a parody of a combover.

“Meet th' ponies,” Joe grunted, “ponies, meet y' first ghoul. So whatcha doin' out here?”

“Oh hi there mister ghoul!” With one not entirely possible bound Pinkie Pie seized the being's hand (how, Joe couldn't figure out) and shook it violently while exhaling, “My name's Pinkie Pie and these are my friends Twilight and Rarity and Rainbow Dash and Applejack and Fluttershy and Haversack Joe here is helping us find a way to get back to Equestria and we're on our way to Primm and I can't wait to try out their roller coaster and what happened to your skin and what's your name anyway?”

The ghoul staggered a bit and blinked at the energetically grinning pink... horse? …which smelt not only of road dust but also a bit like candy. “Uh...” he managed to get out at last, “I'm... Brother Dave. Of the Bright Brotherhood.”

Joe noticed that Twilight and Rainbow Dash both seemed to relax at Pinkie's outburst. He'd have to ask 'em about that.

“Pleasedtameetcha Dave! So what's a Bright Brotherhood anyway is it like some kinda hat that glows in the dark and can we see it cos I think Rarity'd love to have a look at it and what brings you out here anyway?”

Dave's expression made Joe smile. The crazy pink pony seemed to have two speeds that he could see: asleep and like one o' them comic books... which one was it... oh yeah, Looney Tunes.

“Uh...” the ghoul scratched his head in confusion, then flicked away lumps of dislodged scalp. “We follow Jason Bright. He's a great man, leading us away from here to a better world. I was with Brother Patrick but we got separated, anyone seen him?”

“Sorry,” Joe spoke for them all, “Just come from Goodsprings and nobody's seen no ghouls around. Might've taken the road to Sloan though, and hopefully stopped there.”

“Yeah, I'd heard about them deathclaws,” Dave nodded, “I've had enough trouble with gangs on the way up here.”

“Gangs?”

“Yeah, first off,” and the ghoul ticked off encounters on his fingers, “There's a group waiting in ambush east of Primm; I saw some of the Vipers hanging around the old highway patrol station; I headed west to avoid 'em and ran into ferals; and a pretty nasty group's taken over Primm. According to the NCR troops stationed there those townsfolk not dead're holed up in the Vicki 'n Vance.”

Joe swore. “And I need to talk to old man Nash too! Well,” and the Courier squared his shoulders with a grim expression, “thanks for the information and I hope you find your friend. C'mon ponies, we gotta reach Primm by nightfall. I wanna talk with them NCR boys.”

Someone Been Picking on Me Blues

“Hope you weren't thinking of entering Primm,” one of the soldiers remarked to Joe, “It's all gone to hell.”

“Yeah, I know, some ghoul told me,” Joe replied. Behind him Harmony Incarnate shared annoyed looks as they were ignored in the conversation. “Who's in charge?”

“Lieutenant Hayes,” a thumb jerked towards one of the tents, “If you wanna know more ask him.”

“We'll try to take care of your, uh, horses,” another soldier added, “I think we can spare the water.”

“Or one of them sarsaparillas would be good,” Applejack butted in, causing all the soldiers to gape and one to almost drop his mess-tins in surprise.

“Goddamnit!” the hungry private yelled, “Larry, did you slip some Jet or something into the food?”

“Ooh Jet?” The bright pink, almost luminous pony now grinning into his face didn't need any stimulants. “What's Jet? Does it make you see things or does it make you feel like you're going really really fast like that Jet guy in the Wonderbolts I mean he's almost as fast as Rainbow over there –”

She stopped with a startled squeak due to Applejack walking over and hauling her away by her tail. “Leave 'm alone, Pinkie, he's tryin' to eat,” was the hat-wearing mare's explanation. “Hey, where's Twilight?”

“I'm Lieutenant Hayes of the New California Republic Army,” the ranking officer stated to Joe, “Fifth Battalion, First Company. What's your – hey, who let that horse in here?”

Joe looked around to see Twilight had followed him in. “The name's Twilight, and I'm a unicorn,” she corrected, “Now what the hay was that sentry of yours talking about?”

Hayes' jaw flapped, then he collected himself. “Powder Gangers from the NCRCF up north – that's NCR Correctional Facility. A little bit ago the convicts there staged a coup, killed the guards that weren't able to escape, and have been ransacking the area since then.”

“Convicts?” Twilight frowned, then her eyes went wide. “You mean they took over a prison?”

“Yeah,” Hayes grudgingly admitted. “They've taken to calling themselves Powder Gangers. Mostly because they've taken to using the explosives meant to clear boulders as weapons. I'd love to know who the jackass was who thought that giving criminals access to explosives was a good idea and... well anyway, they got organized faster than I would have thought, most of them at least. Thankfully the small group in town here seem to have split off from the main force, so they aren't getting anything in the way of support.”

“Iffn they ain't supported, means they're easy pickin's,” Joe grunted.

“Like hell. They're holed up in the Bison Steve Hotel – the one with the roller coaster. They're using it for an elevated firing position, and they can see clear down the main entrance. And there's at least two guarding the car park outside the Vicki & Vance. And we don't have the force required to liberate the town, damn it.”

“Um...” the two men looked at the mare. “What's happened to the people who live here?”

“They're barricaded in the Vicki & Vance casino. There's only one way in, and they've got Primm Slim as well as enough ammo to hold off an attack. So they're okay for now.”

“I need to get inside,” Joe said at last, “I need to talk to Johnson.”

Hayes just grunted. “Good luck if you can. I can't send anyone with you because I can't afford to lose 'em. Fuckin' Vipers down the road and if it isn't ghouls, there's a pair of radscorpions in the area.” He didn't elaborate. Joe understood at once.

“And you don't know where they are do you?” Twilight turned and stuck her head out of the tent. “Rainbow, can you come in here please?”

When the cyan pegasus entered, the small regulation tent started to feel crowded. “Rainbow Dash here did some scouting earlier,” she explained, “Tell 'em what you saw,” she instructed her friend.

“Right, well, if you go straight for that big building with the roller coaster –”

“Bison Steve,” Hayes nodded.

“– well, there's a broken building on the right with two, uh, people in it, and there was one sort of just lying on the ground next to that.”

“We know,” Hayes replied, “He was probably killed when these bastards moved in.”

Rainbow blinked. “Um – there's about three roaming around way over yonder where those shacks are, and I saw two more between the big buildings. And maybe half a dozen on the coaster itself, but they're a way back from this side.” She frowned, trying to think if there was anything else she'd missed out.

“Little... uh... lady,” Hayes said quietly, “I think you just gave us one hell of a useful bit of intel there. Unfortunately it just makes things worse. That coaster gives those bastards an elevated field of fire up to the entrances of both buildings.”

The cyan pegasus frowned. “Um, I think I have an idea.”

Hayes and Twilight followed Rainbow Dash outside and watched as she jumped straight up into the sky in a whirl of dust and loose debris.

“What the hay was that all about?” Rarity was not happy. “The last thing I need is more dust in my coat! I mean, how long before we find a decent groomer?”

Twilight didn't answer, her horn glowing softly as she tracked Dashie's ascent. “I think I know what she's gonna do,” she said uncertainly.

A light began to descend out of the Mojave sky. The light was increasingly prismatic, increasingly familiar and descending very fast. The unicorn's eyes widened.

“Oh sweet Celestia she is! Take cover!”

A few seconds later, a deafening rainbow blast slammed into Primm.

In settlements all over the Mojave, the sound (and, in some cases, light) of the Sonic Rainboom brought people outside to look for the source. In Primm, the refugees in the Vicki & Vance looked up in fear, assuming the Powder Gangers were trying to dynamite their way in through the ceiling. Inside the Bison Steve, chaos erupted as bewildered Gangers tried to get outside to repel intruders.

Outside the Bison Steve, rusted nails and bolts, worn by two hundred years of neglect, finally gave way. Cracked, rotten and tired timbers disintegrated under the shockwave. The sentries on the old rollercoaster attempted to run for the Bison's side door, or head for the ground where paying customers used to board and debark, but too late. Fully a dozen men were severely injured or killed as the Stampede, “The Wildest Ride in Primm!”, lived up to its name for the last time.

Several miles south, Rainbow Dash was working very hard on turning back to Primm without crashing into anything – no mean feat when you're about twelve feet off the ground, sending giant bugs and startled humans sprawling in your wake. What she wanted to do was make another high-speed pass over the lookouts in the broken building, but she just needed to bleed off some speed in order to avoid breaking a wing first.

The man watched the hurtling pegasus through binoculars, ignoring the moans of the crucified and the screams of the women his men were enjoying. They were deep within Dissolute territory, after all, very close to a major NCR stronghold, and his men deserved a little rest and relaxation. The shenanigans of the town's mayor were a pleasant justification, but really they were just obeying orders.

No doubt the flying horse was something to do with the explosion coming from Primm, that settlement which was a microcosm of the Dissolute city controlled by Mister House. Not having access to a radio, he didn't know about the remarkable visitors to Goodsprings yet.

Now all he and his men had to do was wait for someone to bear witness to the might of the Legion.

Back in Primm, meanwhile, the rest of Harmony Incarnate, as well as Haversack Joe and the NCR troopers, gaped at the boil of dust that was obscuring the town.

“Sonic Rainbooms are so awesome!” Pinkie yelled happily.

“Looks like a good time to visit,” Joe remarked thoughtfully.

Hayes looked at him, then made a command decision. “Prepare to move in,” he ordered, “Hinckley, Suarez, you secure the car park. Haines, Meyer, you go in and neutralise the forward post. Everyone else is to secure the Bison Steve entrance and shut down any resistance. Cooper! Disarm those mines and move out!”

Joe was already moving, and gave the ponies a meaningful look as he did so.

“Um...” Fluttershy murmured nervously as the first shots were exchanged, “I think Mr Joe wants us to stay here.”

“I'm happy with that,” Twilight replied grimly, “I've don't want to...”

She trailed off. Nopony spoke. They all knew what she meant.

“Where's Rainbow?” Applejack asked.

The tension in the herd increased by an order of magnitude.

By the time Rainbow managed to turn herself around and back to Primm, she could see just what she'd pulled off.

The Bison Steve was surrounded on all sides by dust and on three sides by the debris of the coaster – speckled with crumpled shapes the pegasus mare didn't want to look at too closely. The front was surrounded by troopers, all converging on one spot, probably the front door.

But now she could see another door on the hotel's south wall.

“Hey!” she yelled, descending at a relatively sedate crash dive towards what looked like the NCR leader, “There's another door!”

Lieutenant Hayes was briefing his troops on what to expect inside when a faint shout was followed by a small windstorm. Once he got his bearings, he found himself confronted by – oh yeah, Rainbow.

“There's another door on the south side!” she cried, “Three floors up!”

“And you only told me now?” Hayes was a little pissed at that. “Marcus – Snyder – go round to the south and cover that side! The rest of you, buddy up and prepare to move in! Joe, if you...” he looked around. “Where's Joe?”

“He went back to base sir,” a soldier replied, “said something about making a delivery like he was s'posed to for once.”

Hayes scowled, then nodded. “Once a Courier, always a Courier,” he said thoughtfully, then another shout came from the street. “Caravan comin'!”

Sure enough, the figure of Haversack Joe was accompanied by Rainbow Dash's five friends, all wearing their saddlebags. They stepped skittishly, Applejack shuddering at something to her left, and Fluttershy glancing at, then shying from, another crumpled shape on her right. Rarity had her eyes fixed firmly ahead of her, despite involuntary twitches at the smells of blood and gunfire, while Twilight was watching Pinkie closely.

Rainbow Dash felt herself shiver at the way the normally energetic pony's mane was drooping, almost like the time she nearly went round the bend before her surprise party. It just wasn't right. She had strange nightmares sometimes about it...

Pink locked eyes with cyan. “RAINBOW!” was followed by a sudden effusive hug, the scent of marshmallow, and a torrent of “ThatwasthemostamazingSonicRainboomeverandthenwecouldn'tseeyouanymoreandtheneveryone...”

Rainbow Dash and Twilight sighed with relief.

“I'll never know how that pony can move so fast,” Joe grumbled.

Behind them Hayes cleared his throat. “Uh... Rainbow,” he began a little awkwardly, “Next time you pull something like that, clear it with your CO, okay?”

A brief silence fell, then Hayes was presented with the sight of a pony actually blushing with embarrassment. “Uh, yeah,” Rainbow dug at the broken asphalt nervously, “but it worked didn't it?”

“Yeah yeah,” Joe said harshly, “now let's get into the Vicki & Vance.”

The Universality of Neighbourliness

“Twilight, you foal,” Princess Celestia groaned.

The look she was aiming at her student's notes should have caused them to burst into flame, but the Princess of the Sun couldn't afford that. Without them, there was no chance of rescuing Harmony Incarnate from their hubris.

Twilight was only a few decades old; she lacked the millennia of experience her teacher had, and as such her spell – had she really dubbed it 'The Hoof of Friendship'? – was a demonstration of just that.

The magic had reached out to whoever or whatever might live in the stars, but hadn't remembered to keep a hoof on the ground.

Someone or something had found Twilight's magic and pulled.

Twilight had been worried because she and her friends were getting too used to death.

However, Fluttershy was screaming. Not the sort of horror-movie scream you might expect, but worse: a seemingly unending, almost inaudible, high-pitched whine at the threshold of hearing as she stared at the human visible over a street-blocking pile of rubble.

The human – a stallion, it was becoming easier to tell – had been lashed by the wrists to a telegraph pole, with what part of Twilight's mind clinically noted looked like wire, glinting in the blood from where it had cut into his wrists as gravity pulled him down. Normally the... crucified, that same clinical part of her mind supplied the word... would have attempted to push himself up on his hind legs. Except whoever had crucified him had smashed them to a pulp. You could see bone gleaming in the clotted mess.

“Fuck.” Haversack Joe's voice was flat as ever, but there was a distinct anger in it this time. “That's Legion work.”

They'd known something was wrong when Rainbow Dash had seen the smoke from a bonfire that was still burning now, an hour after the sun had set. A perfect finish to a long, lousy slog from Primm to Nipton, not helped by not one, but two ambushes from ruffians Joe identified as “Vipers. Thought they'd all been knocked down by the NCR already. Bastards.”

A couple of times Pinkie had tried to start up a song, but the familiar tunes of life back home leered grotesquely against the barren landscape, and she'd fallen silent.

On the other hand, they had discovered honey mesquite, and everyone agreed with Applejack that taking a few seeds home would be a great idea indeed.

Then there was the crazy guy yelling about winning the lottery as he danced his way west. Last Rainbow saw of him, he'd waltzed right into the waiting claws of two gigantic scorpions.

But right now Fluttershy was screaming. Which meant she hadn't become used to death. Which meant that they were still themselves and there was nothing to worry about and they just had to make it to Novac and then they could escape...

Twilight looked down. A lottery ticket was under her hoof. Fluttershy was still screaming. Nearby, an intact building claimed to be the Nipton General Store.

“Let's go in there,” she suggested in a shaky voice, pointing her horn at the door, “We need to... uh... catch our breaths.”

Joe looked at the store. Only one entrance, so the good news was that any Legion fuckers trying to get in would be sitting ducks. The bad news was that in that situation they'd be trapped in there. He looked at the traumatised ponies.

Inside, the smell of smoke wasn't so bad, not compared to the smell of blood and soiling coming from the man slumped on a chair, legs shapeless. The noise of their entry roused him, and he lifted his head enough to glare at them. “Goddammit, I was nodding off until you barged in here!” he snarled, “and I don't hurt when I sleep...”

The ponies stared at the wreck of a man, but he was looking at Joe. “Wait – you're that courier. With the talkin' ponies.” His tone turned wheedling. “Hey. Know what Boxcars needs, Joe? Some fuckin' pain relief!”

Joe's lips twitched, but Applejack beat him to a reponse. “Wh – wha – what the bucking hay happened here?” she finally burst out, trying to keep her eyes on... Boxcars'... face.

“The fuckin' Legion happened!” Boxcars snapped back, “What's it fuckin' look like?”

“There was a guy we passed,” Rainbow Dash said slowly, “he was screaming something about a lottery...”

“Fuckin' Swanick. He took first place in the lottery, so they let him walk.”

“Right into a pair of scorpions,” Rainbow supplied.

“Serves the fucker right. Me? Second place winner of the Nipton Lottery,” Boxcars sing-songed bitterly. “They beat my fucking legs with hammers. Just like those poor fuckers out there.”

“They... they crucified... everypony?” Twilight felt like she was about to vomit. The thought of seeing mares and foals tortured like that left her mind teetering. Beside her Fluttershy and Pinkie let out identical moans.

“No no, the Legion's a pack of assholes but they're not total assholes,” Boxcars looked at the ponies. “Ah, what the fuck? Not like I've got anything better to do. See... the mayor here had a sweet deal goin'. He'd let the NCR in during the day to get their jollies, then we'd hit the town at night. Anyway, me and my crew had it worked out to kidnap some NCR troopers who come to town to get laid. They'd get all liquored up, and crash in the hotel here. Had it all worked out with that scumbag mayor. We were gonna ransom 'em off, keep their weapons for ourselves, a nice score.

“So we get in position and next thing we know, we're surrounded by those fuckin' Legion freaks. They dragged us and everybody else into the centre of town. And that asshole with a dog on his head, he starts talkin' about how we're bad people!”

“Called you Dissolute, right?” Joe asked rhetorically, then looked around. “Legion calls anyone who ain't one of them Dissolutes. Unless you're slaves like the women and kids probably are now.”

“Yeah,” Boxcars agreed, “He said we needed to be punished for what we did, not all of us, but some of us. And then he gives everyone a fucking lottery ticket.”

The ponies all sucked in a breath of horror. Pinkie's mane actually unrolled onto the floor with an audible thump.

“That's how people got punished,” Boxcars went on relentlessly and resentfully, “First up was the 'lucky losers.' They got decapitated – guess that's 'lucky' cuz it's pretty quick. Then came the crucifixions. Goddamn but those went on and on and on... Third-place runners-up got enslaved, I got the fuck beat out of my legs, and the winner you say,” he pointed at Rainbow Dash, “is now bug shit.”

“What 'bout the mayor?” Joe asked.

“Him?” Boxcars snickered. “When his ticket came up, they burned him alive on that pile of tires on the east side.”

“The Le-gion are mon-sters,” Pinkie sing-songed, causing the other ponies to stop staring at the crippled man and eye her in increasing alarm. Her eyes were looking at nothing as she gently rocked from side to side with a frightening rictus on her face, mane swaying.

“Now storytime with Uncle Boxcars is over,” the pain and resentment boiled back. “An' ol' Boxcars needs some fuckin' Med-X, or at least fuck off an' let me sleep!”

Joe just looked at the poor bastard. Wrong place, wrong time. He considered his options. Option one was giving him a little lead mercy pill, but that was noisy. And those Legion fuckers might still be around. And they had a Vex... vex... those goddamn standard bearers with them if Boxcars was right about the headgear. Those fuckers just had to waggle their banner and every Legion soldier around would go totally psycho.

Fluttershy broke the silence, moving toward the crippled man while... Joe blinked. He hadn't realised pegasus wingtips were able to tote objects. “Um... we have some Med-X,” she began timidly, “I'm sure we can spare some... if that's all right with you?”

Boxcars' eyes lit up. “All right? Hell, just need... uh... five! Yeah, five shots. My legs really hurt, you know? Five should so just fine!”

Joe felt his jaw tighten. Five shots of Med-X was lethal. Then again, being stuck in this building with no legs and no weapons, food, or anything else, who could blame him for wanting to wreck?

Fluttershy had managed to get the cap off the needle, and was somehow... it was like the syringe was glued to the inside of her hoof. “Need a vein? Right here, in the elbow,” Boxcars urged eagerly. Then he yelped. The needle was blunt.

“Weren't we supposed to take... uh...” Twilight looked up at Joe.

“Well, some of these supplies were for here, but don't think they need 'em any more,” he replied as Fluttershy prepared the second shot. How the Sam Hill could... “How'n hell can she work a syringe like that?”

Twilight blinked. “It's our frogs. Here.” She extended a forehoof and Joe, getting the drift, placed his hand on it. The hoof was shaped like a normal horse's, but the softer tissue – woah. He could feel parts of it pulling and pressing on his hand, like someone pushing against a heavy curtain or something. Must be the frog, he decided. Beyond them, Boxcars mumbled as Fluttershy injected dose three.

The sound of the hapless gang member falling to the floor startled almost everyone, including Fluttershy, who hovered briefly before inspecting the laboriously breathing man. “Oh,” she said, then fished out a fourth syringe.

“What're you doing?” Pink...amena... asked in that slightly deranged singsong.

“Being kind,” Fluttershy replied, dropping the spent needle and pulling out a fifth.

“You're killing him,” the normally bubbly pony accused.

Fluttershy ignored her and inserted the needle once more, pushing the plunger home. “Sometimes they come to me,” she said softly, muzzle almost touching Boxcar's face, “and I can't help them get better.”

Boxcars' breathing was slowing audibly. “All I can do is make them comfortable.”

When the man's breathing finally stopped the silence became louder.

Then Pinkie's tail started vibrating. The vibration spread to her hindquarters, then her forelegs, and to the surprise of everypony the mare was pretty much a pink blur.

“P-p-p-p-ink-k-k-k-ie S-s-s-s-en-n-s-s-s-se!” emerged from the convulsing pony.

“And it's big,” Rainbow observed.

“That's not good?” Joe cast a look at the door, expecting an entire platoon of Legion to storm in.

As quickly as her spasm, or 'pinky sense', or whatever the hell it was, came on, it ended. Except that somehow the pink pony'd extracted some sort of carnival cannon from God only knew where and was aiming it at the door while her friends scrambled out of the way.

Twilight looked at the door, at Pinkie's limp mane, at the crazed grin on her face, and then finally at the soldier who'd just kicked the door open. “I'd say –”

The cannon went off.

Author's Note

Subsequently I remembered that unicorns have magic, and we all know what friendship is.

Damn that Cattlestop!

For a good six seconds, the two sides blinked at each other across a seven-foot stretch of somewhat battered presents and gently falling confetti and streamers.

In the middle of it, the Legion soldier who’d been caught in the blast – and blown straight back out of the door – coughed a puff of confetti, and heaved himself upright to look at the somewhat split present that had hit him in the middle. Lifting it, he saw quite a few bright circles fall out.

“Denarii!” he gasped, “I’m rich!”

Vulpes hesitated, trying to comprehend what had happened, and that was fatal. The Legionnaires swarmed on every package they could find, and soon coins, curses and fists were flying in the face of Legion discipline and their leader’s furious swearing.

All of which was good, but Joe saw a problem. “How’n hell’re we supposed to get the fuck outa here with all them in the way?”

“Kill them,” the still somewhat addled Pinkie hissed. What was protruding from her cannon now sported familiar black and yellow markings that raised hairs on Joe’s neck.

“Put that away,” Fluttershy turned to give Pinkie a glare that made the hairs on Joe’s neck attempt to pull free of his skin and run away. And she wasn’t even glaring at him.

“I have a better idea,” Twilight said quickly. “Everyone gather around me!”

Joe just looked blank, before finding himself being shoved into the decidedly equine circle by Applejack, before a startled Pinkie got squashed up against him.

“What –”

When the magenta flash cleared from his eyes, the courier blinked at the immense bonfire that was now uncomfortably close. Then he blinked again, coughing from the thick smoke made by tyres and something else burning.

“Can we get outa here?” Applejack was looking away from the fire. “’Cause those fellers’re still too darn close for my liking.”

Now he had his bearings. Somehow Twilight had instantly transported them out of the store to where the bonfire was. Unfortunately that meant they were still in Nipton, and the shouts from the other end of town, outside the general store, were getting ugly.

“What’s wrong with them?” Joe and the mares turned to regard Pinkie, who was looking westward at the scrum of Legion with puzzlement. “Don’t they like chocolate?”

“You shot chocolate coins at them?” Rainbow blinked. Twilight squinted at Pinkie’s mane. It was… no… it wasn’t quite straight now.

“Well, yeah!” Before the unicorn's eyes, several strands of Pinkie's mane kinked almost audibly. “'Cause when we get a load of chocolate in,” and her voice began to speed up, more strands curling with sounds like toink, crunk and bwang, “everypony comes down to Sugarcube Corner, and then it's all hooves on deck since we have to make hot chocolate and chocolate cake and chocolate chip cookies and chocolate fudge and rocky road –”

The pink mare began to bounce excitedly as she listed, accelerando, the cocoa-themed side of Sugarcube Corner’s merchandising, accompanied by her mane sounding like an exploding string section. Both Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle relaxed visibly. Pinkie seemed to have recovered from her episode.

“All well’n good,” Joe said in a commanding tone, “Now we need to vamoose, and fast. Follow me.”

The mares didn’t need any further encouragement. They followed the human quickly, Pinkie’s excited voice fading out about the time she finished enumerating the slices and began on the cream-filled delights.

Joe looked up at the night sky. Some cloud, mostly stars. Viper conditions. “Alright,” he grunted, “stay sharp. We’ve those Legion bastards on our tails and there’s probably Vipers roaming around. But if I know the Legion, they’ll just barge straight through. Follow the road, and… Hey Dash. You up for flyin’ recon?”

“Sure am,” and the pegasus braced herself for a standing launch.

“Right. We’re followin’ the road up ahead. It goes through a gorge Vipers like to set traps in. Go take a look and report back.”

“Hang on dear,” Rarity approached and did something with her horn that made her friend’s eyes widen. “Wow! It’s like –” She looked back at Nipton. “Ow.”

“Lemme guess, you can see in the dark now? Wish I could do that. Better go ahead and take a looky-lou at what them Vipers are up to. Nothin’, I hope.”

Rainbow looked a little quizzical, but took off anyway. Joe looked around at everypony else, and they started moving, briskly, but not outright running, as the gorge east of Nipton swallowed them.

Rarity’s spell, Rainbow Dash thought, washed everything out in purple. She could see humans to the left, but something about them felt off. The road itself wound through the gorge, and she understood Joe’s concern. It was the perfect place for an ambush. There were vehicles cluttering up the road itself, right where it took a sharp turn north, and figures prowled among them. Looking right, she saw a few crumpled shapes and a flock of those hairy sheep the locals called ‘bighorners’. Well, that made their plans easy.

“We have to go south,” she said quickly, “somepony’s up ahead amongst all those vehicles.”

“Goddamn Vipers,” Joe scowled, “probably scrammed when the Legion came through an’ just scuttled right back. An’ the fuckin’ Legion’s behind us…”

“Dash, give me a lift up,” Twilight ordered.

“Are you sure you’re able to do it again?” Rarity asked in a worried tone.

“I can do it once,” Twilight said confidently. “I just need to see where we can go. Cast your night sight spell.”

“Why don’t you cast it?” Joe asked tensely, head turning from one side to the other, trying to keep tabs on what the Vipers might be doing and what the Legion definitely was doing.

“Need the magic for teleporting all of us,” Twilight responded with a grunt as the pegasus wrapped all four limbs around her unicorn friend and lifted her skyward.

“We’re not far enough away,” he began to mutter to himself, “We need to move, fast. All else bein’ equal I’d rather take on them Vipers ’n…”

Rainbow brought Twilight back to earth. “Okay,” Twilight began quickly, “There’s something like a farm due east of here. I think I can get us that far but I’ll need to rest.”

“Wolfhorn Ranch I bet!” For the first time all night Joe felt his spirits lift. “Gather round lil’ dogies, let’s get goin’!”

“What’s a dogie?” Pinkie asked innocently, while Applejack just eyed Joe suspiciously, Fluttershy with puzzlement, and Rarity glowered.

About five minutes after a magenta flash, the once-mighty soldiers of Caesar’s Legion rolled through, stopping only to experience casualties at the firearms of several thoroughly pissed-off Vipers. Those, coupled with the existing ones from Inculta’s disciplinary actions, meant that the Legionnaires had to break off their pursuit in order to reach their camp.

It was only a few hours of reprieve for the ponies, but they were all quite welcome.

“Ulysses!”

Joe rapped on the shack door. Applejack, still wondering what ‘dogies’ were, glowered at what was clearly a declining bed of plants, dying from neglect.

“Ulysses? It’s me, Joe. Courier Six.” Joe knocked on the door again. “You there?”

The door swung open, revealing a pink pony with an impish expression.

“I’m here!” she giggled, “You should see your face! I can’t see this Ulysses’ face though ‘cause he ain’t here and no dogies either and what are they anyway and there’s just lots of rusty furniture and…”

Joe just tuned her out and peered over her poofy-maned head. Apart from a few fission-battery lights, it was obvious that the man hadn’t been here for a long time. Even the ancient tattered flag of what the man had called the ‘Old World’ was missing.

“Well…” Joe scratched his head. “If y’all ask me, I don’t think Ulysses will mind if we spend the night here. Let’s get some sleep and head out in the mornin’.”

“I’ll be right in,” Rainbow said quickly, “I just need to, uh…”

“Just don’t get seen,” Joe responded.

The pegasus trotted around the far side of a boulder. There seemed to be enough privacy here. As she did one more check for dogies or anything else that might be watching, she heard the sound of a hoof behind her. Applejack’s silhouette was distinct against the night sky.

“You okay there?” the earth pony asked seriously. “I saw your face when Pinkie… uh… lapsed.”

“Um…” Rainbow lifted her tail and Applejack politely retreated back behind the boulder. A mare had to do what a mare had to do, but preferably without witnesses. “You remember when we threw that surprise party for her? How she got the idea that we didn’t want to be her friends anymore?”

Applejack chuckled. “Oh, yeah, I remember now. Hay, I never woulda guessed she knew so many cuss words.”

“She really did try to kill me.”

“What?”

“When I went to get her,” Rainbow finished her business and sought out her earth pony friend, “Remember how I told you about the party she was having? With a rock and a bag of flour and stuff?”

“Yeah…” Applejack’s eyes reflected starlight.

“Well, she wasn’t happy to see me at all,” Rainbow said grimly, “and she went at me with the knife she was cutting the cake with.”

Applejack just stared at her in shock.

“She was snarling something about cupcakes too,” the pegasus added, “I, uh, had to buck her a few times before I could bring her to the party.”

Applejack’s mouth fell open. She remembered that Pinkie had been a right grouch right until Rainbow had literally dragged her by the tail into the barn for her surprise party, but now she thought about it…

“You were lookin’ a little wild-eyed back then,” she said quietly, “But Pinkie came back to normal,” she added almost challengingly.

“Until now!” Rainbow’s eyes flicked down to the miserable shack the rest of the herd were in and back to Applejack. “You saw her face back in that town! Bucking hay ‘Jack, she was shot in the bucking head as soon as we arrived! What else is this place gonna do to us?”

Applejack didn’t answer. She knew Twilight’s plan was to follow her horn, and hopefully once there work out a way to get back home.

“We’re gonna get outa here first,” she declared with a little conviction, “Twilight’s gonna find a way home afore anythin’ else happens. Then there’ll be no more violence, no more monsters, good fresh juicy apples an’ clean water!” Her voice slid into a whine of longing.

The pegasus closed her eyes against a matching upsurge of homesickness. Then both mares’ ears turned towards the dull rapping of gunfire.

“Woah,” Applejack gulped, “I’ll bet it’s those Legion jerks. We better get inside.”

Rainbow nodded, gulped, and followed her friend into what would undoubtedly be cramped, but it had to beat being spotted by those two-legged monsters.

Author's Note

Yep, there’s another Cupcakes reference. Originally I had Pinkie riding a giant boulder like a circus ball, crushing Legionnaires underneath it, but then Eric Idle fronted up in a brigadier’s dunnage and told me that was silly. Or maybe it was Graham Chapman. It's hard to tell when they're dressed.

Cute As a Bug

The night was not pleasant. The ponies spent it piled together on the floor of the shack in a shifting, often whimpering mass, huddling together less for warmth than much-needed company. Joe was also sleepless, dozing really, one ear cocked for the sounds of unwanted visitors.

Despite that, he was a little surprised to surface from a dream about an encounter in Gomorrah and find one had curled up beside him, one wing thrown over him. Moreover, she was crying in her sleep.

Carefully he worked the ancient knob of a fusion lamp, raising the light enough to make out pale yellow fur and feathers, and a pink mane. Fluff... no, Fluttershy’s face was contorted in misery, and tears were tracking down her face, currently buried in Joe's chest.

He could feel her hind legs twitching against his; idly he reckoned that standing up, these little ponies wouldn't top five feet. More like four and a half, and a good foot of that was head. An’ right now he wouldn't mind iffn’ she’d get over her nightmare, since her hooves were rapping his kneecaps.

It finally struck Joe that none of the Equestrians belonged here. At all. Not so much they'd blundered into the Mojave with their magic powers or whatever, but that they didn't belong on Earth. So what did that make him? Captain Cosmos? What would the Cap'n do, he asked himself.

Right now, he was sharing a bed with a female space alien. Worse still, he still had a raging hard-on from that dream. If Fluttershy moved her wing down... Nah, screw that, somehow he didn't think he was their type. Cap’n Cosmos wouldn’t care though, he bet. He squinted at the door. What few chinks of light he could see suggested dawn would soon be breaking.

He looked down at Fluttershy again. If push came to shove, he'd push her off the bed to get a clear shot. But right now... well, she obviously needed comfort and, heck, the warmth was awful nice. In fact, it reminded him of his childhood in the family caravan, sleeping with the pack-horses… before…

But all good things have to come to an end. In this case, Pinkie Pie’s end.

Despite being asleep, she still managed to fart two whole bars of Equestria the Beautiful, fortimisso, and everypony there would swear it was visible.

The shack door banged open. “AAAAGHH!” Rainbow Dash screamed as she barrelled out the door, finally stopping about a hundred feet eastward before making a cautious return.

“AAAAGHH!” Rarity gagged as she scrambled out, gasping for air that wasn’t brown and chewy. Her normally elegant face would have made the front page back in Ponyville.

“AAAAGHH!” Twilight nearly trampled Rarity as she also fled, gagging.

“AAAAGHH! Th’ fermenter’s exploded! Th’ outhouse’s on fire!” Applejack cut a comically uncoordinated figure as she sleepily stumbled outside, tripped and fell on her face.

“Holy fuckin’ – Jesus! – fuck! –” Haversack Joe lurched out of the shack as well, blinking in the sunrise light and gasping for breath. “That’s worse’n a goddamn ghoul’s nest!”

The ponies didn't respond, except by staring at him.

“What?”

The stares began to give way to poorly concealed smirks and giggles.

“What?”

The smirking and giggling and oddly coquettish glances intensified.

“Oh god. It's my pants ain't it?” Too late he made another connection: Unlike horses, if it wasn't for his clothing it'd be in full view.

“Um...”

The fumes cleared from Joe's brain long enough to recognise that he was carrying someone. He looked down. Huge earnest eyes framed with embarrassment looked back up.

“Can you... um... you can put me down now... if... if that's all right with you,” Fluttershy squeaked.

Joe was quick to comply, but not quick enough to avoid a strange syncopated squeaky noise from Ulysses' shack. A pink-maned head protruded from the entrance, mostly obscured by a gas mask. It aimed a hoof at them, squeaked something rhythmic and familiar, before flopping on the floor squeaking with laughter.

Rainbow just roared and charged Pinkie, and in the ensuing ponypile Joe took the opportunity to set a very red Fluttershy on the ground. She looked up at him, appeared to be about to say something, then just turned even redder and tried hiding behind her mane.

Joe, also a little tongue-tied by what had happened, busied himself with his Pip-Boy. Six-thirty. He checked the map, trying to guess what those Legion fucks would do. Peering north, he frowned at what looked like a line of smoke east of the shortest road to Novac. He didn’t remember a campsite in that area.

“Uncle! Uncle!” A shrill voice squealed. Must’ve been Pinkie surrenderin’ since the roughhousing died down. Good.

“Okay, uh, ladies,” Joe finally turned back to the shack, which was now more or less full of small equine, “Here’s the plan for today.”

Twelve huge eyes blinked at him attentively.

“Now, we got someone campin’ a bit too close for my likin’, just east o’ the short road to Novac. See the campfire smoke? Dunno who it is, but I got my ideas.”

“Legion?” Twilight asked in dismay, blinking somewhat baggy eyes.

“Could be. Thing is,” and he hunkered down, plucking a dried stem of grass from the ground, and poked at the screen of his Pip-Boy. “We’re about here. Now over east,” the stem slid across and slightly up, “Cottonwood Cove. The Legion’s main base on this side of the Colorado. Used to be an NCR camp at this big junction here, but the Legion nuked it somehow. Nothin’ but radiation an’ ghouls. So we ain’t goin’ that way.

“But the road north of here has,” his grass stem tapped a point about halfway along, “Station Charlie. Those Ranger boys keep the place ‘civilised’, or in straight talk, they deal to any troublemakers. So what I reckon is this.” He regarded the bags under Twilight’s eyes; evidently that magic she did last night had really taken it out of her. “We all keep to the ground until we’re over the rise… about that point, then it's just a steady downhill to the station. Should be straight walkin’ to Novac an’ a room or three for the night after that.”

“I heard gunshots last night,” Rainbow added.

“That’s good,” Joe smiled, “with any luck those bastards’ll be busy with tendin’ their wounds an’ getting’ disciplined, so we’ll have a clear run.”

“Actually…” Twilight frowned, “I think I could…”

“Nope. Just lookin’ at you, you’re still mighty wiped. What happens if we zap over to that rise there an’ someone’s waitin’? Or somethin’. It’s better if we stick to the ground, look like a regular pack train…”

A short-rationed and unsatisfying breakfast later, Joe and the ponies headed down towards the road, where they were greeted by a real pack train. More accurately, three mercenaries walking point, who promptly aimed their weapons at them.

“Stop right there!” It was pretty clear that the speaker, done up in a ratty merc suit which featured a bandolier almost as prominently as his gulping adam’s apple, was on edge. “Don’t come any closer! Uh, friend or –”

“Friend!” The sudden appearance of a violently pink and grinning pony at point blank range caused the poor fellow to yell in shock and drop his gun. “I’m Pinkie Pie and that’s Haversack Joe and Twilight Sparkle and Rarity and Applejack and Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash and what’s your name?”

“Ah – ah – argle – urk,” was the hapless man’s response.

“Pleastermeacher Argle-Urk or can I just call you Argle? Cause we’ve met some real people with real weird names like Easy Peat and Boxcars and woah are those ponies behind you?”

“Uh…” For the record, the mercenary was actually called Max Load, after a bridge sign he’d seen ages ago, but now he’d be Argle for the foreseeable future.

Pinkie bounced over to the lead horse and stared. The roan giant took a backwards step at first, then lowered his head towards the mare, sniffing in a confused fashion. Whatever this thing was, it smelled like a fellow horse, even though it didn’t act like one.

“Are you a pony? ‘Cause I’m a pony too and my name’s Pinkie Pie so what’s yours say where’s your cutie mark or is it under all this baggage…”

Joe just watched the pack horse’s eyes start to roll and his ears go back. “Someone get her outa there afore she really spooks him,” he said quietly.

Pinkie’s diatribe was cut short when she discovered that she was sliding backwards, which was something to do with Rainbow pulling her by the tail (again) away from the big pony who, she now realised, was acting real nervous for some reason.

“What the fuck’s going on?” The voice preceded the appearance of a rawboned woman in a battered duster and a faded red cap with goggles resting above the brim. A rifle was grasped in long dark fingers. “There’d better be a damn good… hey. You’re those weird ponies from Goodsprings.”

“That’s right,” Joe replied, “we’re about to gun north for Novac.”

“Same here. Did you see what happened to Nipton?”

“Goddamn Legion. We think they’ve a camp nearby. Damn near bailed us up in the general store before…” he shrugged.

“Shit. Need company?” The merchant’s fingers tightened on her rifle. “One guy and six little ponies ain’t much chop against those fuckers.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Applejack chimed in, “Let’s go before those motherbuckers spot us.”

Her friends gaped at her in utter shock. They’d never heard such foul language from the hard-working earth pony before. Applejack just stood looking unrepentant, and not a little stressed.

“Sounds like a plan,” Joe said. “In fact, I’ve got an idea…”

Shortly thereafter, two Legion recruits’ day went from bad to worse.

Author's Note

I've just realised I borrowed here from someone else's FNV fanfic, in which there are pack-horses.

Run Home Slow

“I can’t believe we had to… you know… kill one of our own,” Marcus quavered, looking more inward at last night’s traumatic memory than outward at the road he and Brutus were supposed to be watching.

Vulpes Inculta had been livid. Just getting through the Profligate ambush in the gorge had been bad enough, the enraged Vexillarius urging the men to a full-frontal assault. Then, when they’d returned to the camp, the punishments for what had happened in Nipton had begun immediately.

“’One in ten must die,’” Brutus recited, “’this is the price of failure.’ Fuck Marcus, this is how we do things. Be grateful the Vexillarius let him die fighting! I’ve seen a man selected to die, and he was just strung up and used for spear practice.”

Marcus gagged.

“Oh, stop being a baby. We’re supposed to watch the road, and I think there’re a lot of people coming. See the dust? Could be a pack train.”

“It is a pack train,” Marcus agreed, squinting at the line of horses and people. “Wait – I think I see those small ones from Nipton!”
“I think you’re right,” Brutus agreed, “We need to tell the camp. This will please the Vexillarius.” And hopefully get us a reward, he added silently.

“Get to cover,” Marcus added, “I count seven… no, eight… people. They’ll be on edge after seeing Nipton, so we wait until they pass, then go for an ambush. There’ll be those Profligate bandits in front, then us in the back.”

Brutus couldn’t see any fault in that plan. After all, it had the double win of taking on a distracted foe, and it kept them away from the Vexillarius a little longer. So they hunkered down behind the billboard among the scrubby bushes about its base, keeping concealed as the pack train and the ponies walked by.

“Found you!” The voice was like an air horn, startling the two Legionnaires out of their wits. They jumped with surprise, spinning around with machetes in hand to confront the smiling –

It was her. The pink one. With the cannon.

“So are you guys playing hide and seek or is this some super special Legion thing you’re doing oh hi guys! This is Mister Aaahhh and that’s Mister Yaahhh so I think they might be brothers and they’re from the Legion…” Pinkie babbled happily, ignoring the chorus of released safeties from the assembled mercs and Joe.

“So…” another pony approached them almost diffidently. This one had a pink mane as well, but her coat was yellowish and she had wings too. “Um… what were you going to do?” She blinked huge, almost bottomless eyes inquisitively.

Marcus tried to formulate a reply, and then Brutus beat him to it. “We would inform the Vexillarius and attack,” he said with great straightforwardness and very little intelligence.

“Why?” Something about the question made Marcus’ heart leap into his throat. Maybe it was the hardening of her eyes, or the slight edge in her voice. Brutus, naturally, didn’t notice.

“Because we are the Legion, and you are the Dissolute, who will either serve Caesar or die.”

Before anyone could fire, Fluttershy responded. “Well shame on you!” she declared harshly. It wasn’t quite a shout, not that the two Legionnaires cared. Their worlds had shrunk to two huge and bottomless pits of outrage from which a swelling voice rose in condemnation. “So you’d attack and enslave pon– others who’ve done nothing to you to deserve it? You think you’re better than anyp– anyone else because you attack others for no reason?”

Marcus was overwhelmed with self-loathing.

Brutus, if we can be candid, lacked the capacity for that sort of thing.

“Yes!” He declared, secure in righteousness and deficient in introspection, “We are Legion! We are the stronger, and you are weak! We –”

– weren’t bulletproof, obviously.

“Let’s move! Now!” Joe snapped, then knelt down and shook Fluttershy. “Snap out of it girl! Those lunks would’ve run off and finked if we left ‘em here!” He shook her again, making her blink. “Now listen to me. An’ that goes for all of you ponies.” His voice was hard.
“If I tell you to ‘Run Home Slow’,” he enunciated the phrase carefully, “You book it for Novac. Just follow the road past the station, through a gulch, an’ look for that big Dinky. ‘Cause those fuckers know someone’s here an’ they’ll come callin’. An’ they won’t want any chocolate.”

The ponies just stared at him. He stared back. Given that it was likely that he might not survive the ensuing fight, he had to make sure they were safe.

“You get me?”

Twilight spoke numbly. “Yeah, we understand.”

“Good. Now let’s move!”

Twilight and her friends hurried away, Fluttershy casting one last teary glance at the two corpses left behind.

Two hours later, the road stopped rising. Before them, the road became accompanied by another railway track, closing on a gulch. What made Joe sigh with relief was the radio tower rising above a wall of wrecked mobile homes and cars. “Station Charlie,” he commented, “All downhill from here.”

Three hours later everything went to Tartarus.

Nopony had ever seen anything as disgusting as a mole rat before, and while Fluttershy was successfully staring them away, a trio of Vipers started sniping at the caravan from a convenient billboard. That drew the mercs and Joe out of position.

It was Rainbow Dash that felt her mane prickling. Taking wing, she saw the standards coming up behind. “LEGION! THEY’RE COMING!” she screamed, “AND TRYING TO CUT US OFF!” she added, spying figures in red scuttling around the rocks.

Twilight levitated a pistol out of her saddlebag. Like three days ago, it felt strange, no, wrong. She wasn’t a killer. But now she had to. Concentrating, she focussed part of her telekinesis on that one fateful lever.

She hadn’t expected any recoil. Startled, she lost her grip on it, and the pistol went spinning away.

“Dash!” Joe shouted faintly, muffled by distance, squealing horses and gunfire, “Get to th’ station! Get help!”

Rainbow Dash hovered in midair, unable to make out what Joe had said.

Rarity, meanwhile, had better control over her own pistol, only in that she was able to keep hold of it. Most of her shots missed their targets, not that the Legionnaires cared. The Vexillarius had made it clear he didn't care if the ponies lived or died.

That one was behaving in a Profligate manner also inclined them to killing first.

The first volley of spears landed on the rearmost horses and guards. Screaming in pain, the animals stampeded northwards – through anyone and anypony who didn't get out of the way fast enough. And the Legionnaires continued their march.

Twilight was seeing double – she vaguely remembered a horse screaming, then something slamming into her. And somepony was shouting. Then something pink was shaking her.

“Twibilibight gibet ibup! Jiboibe jibust yibellibed ribun hibomibe slibow ibactibuibally hibe yibellibed ibit thribeibe tibimibes sibo wibe'ribe iball...”

Vaguely the unicorn recognised Pinkie – a distraught one. They had to get out of here, she thought to herself, but her legs kept being in two places at once.

Pinkie shook her friend, looked at her unfocussed eyes, then made a decision. With an effort, she grabbed Twilight's forehooves and slung the concussed unicorn onto her back. Ignoring the sensation of vomit splashing down her side, she turned north and began to run, following her friends. Fluttershy was already in the lead, trying to chase the pack-horses. Applejack and Rarity were not far behind. That left her and Twilight... and any of those Legion.

She tried not to imagine her friends hanging limply, hindlegs shattered.

She almost succeeded. She imagined herself instead.

That probably helped give her an extra burst of speed.

“What the hell's going on out there?” the lookout wondered, watching the dust begin to rise. From what he'd seen, a caravan had come up over the brow of the hill, then gunshots had been exchanged with... oh, probably those Viper assholes... at the billboard. Now...

He could see horses now. Pack horses and one or two brahmin. Shit, it was a stampede! He rose from his chair, wishing not for the first time he hadn't broken those binoculars. The dust made it hard to see what'd attacked the caravan...

“Oh, shit,” he muttered. Even through the dust kicked up by the terrified animals, he could spot the distinctive outlines of Legion troops.

A lot of Legion troops.

He scrambled down to ground level as quick as he could. Officer Stepinac would need to know about this!

Fluttershy was pulling a Scootaloo, using her wings to assist her hooves as she pursued the lead horse. Those awful Legion people had attacked the poor horses deliberately! And now they were just running blindly into who knew what. There could be more bandits, or those deathclaws. She had to stop them, but they just wouldn’t stop running!

There was a rope hanging from the lead horse’s bridle, and Fluttershy was chasing that. However, she needed to use her wings to keep up, and if she got close enough to bite on to the rope, she risked a hoof crushing her wing. Truth be told, Fluttershy was starting to get frustrated.

“Will you please stop RUNNING!” Check that; she already was.

The lead horse was so startled at the yell that he ended up skidding on his rump a good ten feet, partly due to the horse behind ploughing into him. When the dust settled, he turned his head to goggle at the tiny pink mare who was currently glaring at him.

“We need to go to Novac,” the mare informed him sternly, shuffling her wings stiffly, “which I don’t think is this way.”

The pack horse winced.

“Now, if you don’t mind, shall we all go to Novac without stampeding?”

The pack horses all looked at each other. Despite not being able to speak, it was clear to Fluttershy from their perked ears and nickers that the idea of changing course and heading to Novac, which no doubt would have something to eat and someone to soothe their wounds, not to mention a good rub-down, was seen as a most appealing notion.

“Well, if that’s decided, um…” the pegasus looked around, “You lead the way… if that’s all right with you.”

They made quite the peculiar herd, coming into Novac. The old Red Rocket fuel station had been converted into stables, if you didn’t mind the sounds coming from what used to be the store, which was now being used as a tool shed. While Fluttershy and the horses approached from the east, others were approaching from the west.

Rarity was an absolute fright. Never had she run so hard or so fast in her life; her mind’s eye showed, over and over, a spear quivering in the ground, right next to her shoulder.

Pinkie was starting to tremble with fatigue, and not just because she was carrying a concussed and puking Twilight. While she was normally an energetic mare, that was mostly due to the Brobdingnagian amounts of sugar she consumed – and sugar was currently not readily available.

Applejack trailed, hat held in a death bite in her mouth. In the panicked race to Novac, she’d nearly lost it. When she turned to pick it up, there was one of those Legion people, spear raised. If it wasn’t for having hindlegs of almost solid muscle from years of bucking apple trees, she’d have been done for.

That night, she’d remember the cracking sound as both his shins shattered under her hooves. That and the smell as she lost control of herself in fear.

People started drifting towards the approaching horses and ponies in confusion. From inside the mouth of a statue, which reminded the ponies a bit of Spike, a figure craned out, also watching in confusion.

“What th’ hell?” Rarity blinked at the speaker, which she guessed from the voice and – well, human teats must be that high up and that big for a reason – was a mare. “What happened? Where’d you come from?”

It took Rarity a good minute to focus her thoughts enough to answer.

About half an hour and one ham transmission later, a middle-aged, rather round man frowned at the notes he’d taken off the ham set. Straightening his legs, he propelled himself with a squeak of ancient castors over to the microphone. Then he did something that he very rarely did. He stopped the music dead.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mister New Vegas, with a newsflash from Novac. I have just received word about those six cute little ponies you might remember appeared in Goodsprings, and helped the NCR liberate Primm not two days ago. Well, this news is not good.

“Nipton has been sacked by the Legion, according to Rarity Unicorn, and those ponies barely escaped capture last night. Today, on the road south of Novac, they, and the pack train they were travelling with, came under attack by a Legion war band. The ponies were caught up in the resultant stampede, and they don’t know what happened to the traders, or to the Courier they were travelling with.”

Outside New Vegas, soldiers began to file out of Camp McCarran, heading south, barring the occasional clash with raiders.

“According to Rarity, who is one of the little ponies of Equestria, the Legion troops, led by what sounds like one of their standard bearers, attacked from behind, stampeding the horses.”

In Cottonwood Cove, a Centurion turned from the radio and punched the wall in frustration. “Damn that Vulpes! He had just one job! One job!”

“I will have him crucified,” an armoured monster declared on the opposite side of the Colorado River.

Silently, Caesar agreed with him. That was the problem with vexillarii, they started to think they were the Legion. Stringing this one up would help keep them in line. At the same time though, this would possibly help pull those Profligates in the NCR out of position…

…then a bright flare of pain in his head derailed his train of thought.

Author's Note

You don't find the studio of Radio New Vegas in game. But I've had this image of Mister New Vegas for quite a while.

Now, let's see if we can find some Fancy Lads for Pinkie Pie. There's quite the little donnybrook coming up in a few hours...

...When to Fold 'Em

The horses snorted in annoyance. They’d been looking forward to bedding down in the Novac stable, but instead they were being herded into the middle of the old motel that was the main structure of town.

It was also an effective fortress.

On the other hand, Vanessa and Sheridan were there as well to groom and fuss over them, which those familiar with the route and the town agreed was quite acceptable.

It was the six strange little ponies hogging most of the girls' attention that made them irritable.

Rarity wouldn't have given a buck. The two human foals – almost yearlings, she gathered – had quite a way with a curry-comb, and while the results would give any manestylist fits, it was infinitely better than when she'd arrived. Right now, she was carrying a chocolate bar and a soft drink labelled 'Nuka-Cola' in her magic, en route to where Pinkie was watching over Twilight.

Pinkie's mane was limper than anypony liked, and Twilight's head was swathed in bandages. However, the unicorn's barrel was still rising and falling regularly. The town doctor had an unnerving bedside manner, but she'd still got Twilight out of danger.

The earth pony heard her friend approaching and turned, one forehoof to her lips. “Shhh! Twilight's sleeping, and the doc says we shouldn't wake her up, just let her wake up naturally and – ooh! For me?”

“Yes dear,” Rarity managed to reply around her cargo, “That nice...” she fumbled for the human mare's name, “Jeannie May thought you might like a little snack.”

She deposited the ancient sweet and drink before her friend.

Pinkie frogged the chocolate bar and looked at the single huge word on it curiously. “Hershey? What's a hershey?” A quick juggle and the back, with its all-important seam, failed to provide any explanation.

What it did reveal was that Equestrians tend to have a little trouble unwrapping human-style packaging. After several attempts to undo the paper and foil with frogs and lips, the mare just shrugged, then popped the whole thing into her mouth. Several gurning seconds later, she spat out the wrappers.

Neatly folded. Typical Pinkie.

“Heh,” snickered an NCR soldier, who'd been initially preparing some sort of gun with a ridiculously wide barrel, “Hershey for the horsie.”

Pinkie and Rarity just stared back at him, shocked; it took them a little while to remember the local name for their larger, mute counterparts.

“That was awful,” a faint voice derailed their thoughts even further.

“Twilight?”

The unicorn opened one eye and looked at Pinkie. “Hi guys…” she murmured, scant seconds from an abortive ponypile, her friends only just remembering that squeezing her brains out her ears probably wouldn’t help them get home.

Rainbow Dash was on patrol. That’s what she told herself. She was looking for any sign that those… those human griffins… were on the march already. Not looking for signs that Haversack Joe had escaped. No. The Legion were more important since they were more dangerous.

It didn’t help that once the Legion had overrun the Ranger Station, they’d performed their crucifixion act. The mare couldn’t bring herself to look at the figures writhing or sagging there. She just hoped that none of those wretches was Joe.

In any case, those Legion dweebs seemed to be just preparing, so the pegasus just turned her tail to them and…

…heh.

An evil grin crossed the mare’s face as she turned in a wide arc, for a high-altitude pass over the encampment.

There is a child’s rhyme ending in relief that there are no airborne cattle. However, for a brief moment in the Mojave, there were equine aviators, and some of the Legion didn’t manage to get out of the way.

The resultant restoration of order set Inculta’s plans for attack back almost an hour.

“I’m still thirsty,” Twilight said at last, frowning at the empty water bottle she’d just emptied.

“I’ll get something!” Pinkie hopped up and looked around. Oh yeah! There was a shop in the big Dinky, she’d seen humans go in and come out with stuff including drinks and really that thing was too big to be dinky because she knew a Dinky and maybe they had some drinks left inside so just up the steps and –

“Ooh! Pretty!”

Cliff looked with some amusement at the small pink pony goggling at the toy rocket. “It’s all glowy!” she added, peering in the little windows at the liquid inside, then seemed to rock back on her hind legs, forelegs gripping the top and starting to twist. “What’s inside? Is it juice? Ooh! Maybe it’s a magic potion and –”

“Whoa there little lady!” Cliff plucked the souvenir from Pinkie’s hooves. “Drink that stuff and all you’ll get is the REPCONN Shakes.”

“The repcon shakes? Is that like a dance? It sounds like a dance. I got to shaakke,” and her voice, already high pitched, rose several octaves towards ‘randy mosquito’, “the repcon-repcon shaaake…”

“Hell no, settle down there twinkle-toes!” Cliff dived to grab a Dinky toy that the mare had absently knocked off the counter. The NCR guy he’d been selling ammo to just rolled his eyes and removed his fingers from his ears. Lucky prick.

“Lemme tell you what these are,” he began, “these here are souvenirs that used to be handed out to visitors at the REPCONN rocket testing site out west of here. Thing is though, they’re filled with rocket igniter, Isotope-239. And it looks just like Nuka-Cola Quartz. So kids would open ‘em up and drink the stuff, and start puking, fever and shaking. So, they ended up dumping them all here I guess.”

“Ooh,” Pinkie said again, a little sadly at the thought of no magic potion. “Can I show my friends this? ‘Cause I think they’d really like this and it looks kinda all magicky-glowy hey maybe Twilight knows more about this stuff and oohbye!”

The two men looked at each other for about half a minute while the inexplicably pink and marshmallow-flavoured cloud of dust dissipated. A lot later Cliff would discover that a bottle of drinkable water had also vanished as well.

“What’s this?” Twilight stared at the tubby object. It looked a little like some sort of lantern, except light only emerged through three tiny holes on one side. The thing was sort of wide at the base and pointed at the top, which was painted red, and rested on three legs. On the other side, the legend ‘REPCONN NEVADA’ could be made out.

“It’s a REPCONN souvenir only it’s filled with some icy-dope 2-3-9 stuff and apparently foals thought it was Nuka-Cola and drank it and got sick and so when I saw it I thought maybe you’d like to see it too!” Pinkie smiled, then blinked and started rummaging through her mane, finally extracting a little bottle. “Oh yeah and I got you a drink too.”

“Icy-dope? – oh! An isotope.” Twilight’s studies came to the fore, and she shuddered. What sort of idiot handed out containers of radioactive stuff to foals? Cautiously, she extended her magic towards the object, intending to bring it up for a closer look.

Instead, she yelped, something to do with unexpectedly sliding forward a couple of inches.

“Twi’? You okay?” Both Rarity and Pinkie blinked at their friend worriedly.

“Um…” the unicorn eyed the model rocket suspiciously, then carefully gripped it in one forehoof. She lifted it up, noting the flowing writing on one side, but it didn't feel odd or magical. Putting it down, she hefted the bottle of water that Pinkie had also brought along. That didn't feel odd or magical at all, not even when she lifted the drink in her magic. Returning her attention to the model rocket, she carefully closed her telekinesis around it, before quickly releasing the thing again.

“Rarity, would you move this with your magic please?”

“Um...” Rarity looked doubtfully at the object. “What for?”

“It's an experiment,” Twilight said, “I mean, I don't know if it's me, or... just try to move it with your magic? Please?”

Not much of an experiment, Twilight thought, not with a sample size of just two. But if my suspicion is correct...

Rarity also yelped in surprise, stumbling to her knees. “That thing pulled on me!” she exclaimed indignantly, getting back up and regarding her now grubby (again!) forelegs.

Twilight smiled. “Hypothesis confirmed,” she muttered to herself.

“Hippopotamus? Where?” Pinkie's head gyrated in anatomically unspeakable fashion, looking for large and aggressive African mammals.

“Darling...” Rarity frowned at both the rocket and Twilight uncertainly. Perhaps that concussion had disarranged more than Twilight's manestyle. “What are you talking about?”

“Pinkie,” Twilight started.

“I can't see any hippopotamuseseseseses,” the pink mare observed, “I mean hippopotamuseseseses – I mean there's a hippopopotamus, then another hippopotamus, then another hippopotamus say don't you think there should be a word for when you have more than one hiphopopotamus around that's easier to say than hoppopotpotipatootamus –”

“Hippopotami,” Twilight interjected loudly with a sigh.

“Huh? No you're not.”

“Not what?” Twilight's ear began to twitch along with one eye.

“You're not a hippo pot! You're a pony! Ooh wait! Maybe the hippopotamus is in its pot and that's why I can't see it! So we just need to find something big and square because hippopotamuseseses are big and I remember in school something about the square of the hippopotamus hide...”

Twilight closed her eyes, and from behind twitching eyelids, counted to a high number. Around her, assorted mercenaries, NCR soldiers and watchers were all trying, some more than others, to keep a straight face at the obviously crazy little mare as she babbled on, doing terrible things to mathematical terminology. Any passing hippopotami wouldn't have approved either.

“What was your hypothesis, dear?” Rarity finally asked, tuning out Pinkie. Being able to ignore manic pixie dream mares was a vital survival skill in Ponyville.

“I think...” Twilight was clearly thinking very hard, before closing her eyes and casting the tracking spell she'd been using almost ever since they arrived in Goodsprings... just a few days ago? Sweet Princesses of the Sun and Moon!

She could barely feel the little container of... what was it again? Oh yes, 'igniter'... because of the enormous signal from the west.

“Girls, go find the others,” she declared. “We're almost there.”

“Almost where?” Rainbow Dash shuffled her wings with irritation. She didn't care for all the egghead talk. All that mattered was that the little toy with the glowy bits was something to do with whatever had dragged them all here.

“Ah don't git all the fancy talk,” Applejack spoke for them both, “All ah git is that whatever's brought us here has somethin' to do with this REPCONN bunch, an',” she jabbed a hoof westward, “we're off ta have a word an' kick plot an' get 'em to send us home.”

“Um,” Fluttershy murmured, looking down at the ground, “But... how are we going to get out of here, with those... those...”

An awkward silence fell as Fluttershy curled up in a ball. The imminent battle, or siege, was going to be a problem.

“Uh... ladies... ponies?” The old human stallion looked a little uncertain. “Can't help noticing you're pointing towards the old REPCONN rocket testing facility a lot.”

The herd looked at each other and blinked, before looking at the prospector and blinking at him. “Rocket testing?” Twilight asked at last.

“That's right!” the man nodded, before settling himself on the ground with some effort, “For years that's how Novac earned its water, by prospectin' that place for valuable stuff. Electronics, power cells, scrap metal, that sort of thing. At least, until Jason Bright and his gang of ghouls came along.”

“Then what happened?” Applejack and Rainbow Dash mentally placed the name “Jason Bright” at the top of their lists of 'folks to kick the plots of'.

“That crazy ghoul pretty much took over the place. Claimed dibs on everythin'. Also kept goin' on about flyin' to a better land or some craziness. And then if he wasn't bad enough, well, hell, I know from experience... nightkin started appearin'!

“Now, Bright's band were bad enough, what with having to either sneak around or fight 'em for decent salvage, but when you've got fuckin' invisible mutants as well as the feral ghouls huntin' you... well let's just say the prospectin's dried right up. If somethin' ain't done, well, not much hope for this ol' town.”

Silence fell again. “So,” Rainbow Dash spoke up, “We've got spells to find invisible monsters, right?”

“But how the hay are we goin' to get over there?” Applejack was the voice of pragmatism, “I'll bet a bushel of Sweet Apple Acres' finest that them Legion varmints are watchin' the town right now.”

Rainbow Dash snickered.

“What's so funny?”

Apparently it was a short, pungent tale involving objects descending from a great height. Certainly it was well received by the surrounding humans.

“OK girls, I have an idea,” Twilight said at last. She felt better, not least because, finally, answers were almost within reach. “Let's get some rest and meet back here at sundown.”

As the sun dropped over the other side of the Colorado River, a number of NCR troops moved quietly out of the Novac Motel, kicking up some dust in the process. Astute observers would have noticed, however, a most peculiar dust devil not only follow the soldiers, but break off and around the corner of the large building, before shooting over the broken road and behind a house.

In that shelter, Harmony Incarnate returned to visibility, Twilight noticable short of breath. Rainbow Dash's wings were twitching; she wanted to fly, but no, apparently her contrail would be too obvious, even over what the human soldiers were going to do.

There was a distant bang, then a too familiar chattering from the south. “C'mon Twi,” she muttered, “getcha breath back.”

Twilight's breathing slowed, then she shook herself. “To those rocks over there,” and for a brief moment a lavender laser pointer sparkled across the target. “Right.” A lavender flicker shrouded her, and her friends, from sight again. “Let's go!”

Author's Note

Finally. The block is over. More or less. Now I have to figure out how The Mane Six Meet the Nightkin is likely to go. Yay me.

All the Way Down

Twilight and her herdmates were taking a rest in, or rather on top of, an old gate situated in a cutting. The war had put paid to the original gate, and later wardens had added barricades of barbed wire and corrugated metal, bedrolls and supplies.

Their resting on top of the gate, rather than just beyond it, was simple pragmatism. Their elevated position let them see anypony who might be coming after them, either following tracks or fleeing the source of all the distance-dulled, muffled rattle and thump of gunfire.

Twilight absently gulped down a bottle of water and grimaced at the taste. For some reason she felt thirsty, and it wasn't going away.

Pinkie was balanced on her hind legs, almost absently rebuilding a pyramid of bottles that had been knocked over. Naturally, being Pinkie, she was building it upside down. Equally naturally, the architect being Pinkie, the pyramid was forgetting to collapse.

Fluttershy just gazed eastward, worried, while Rainbow Dash glared, wings twitching, as though daring the Mojave to spring a nasty surprise on them. "Twi'? We're close aren't we?"

Twilight just blinked at her friend, then channelled magic to her horn, before dispersing it almost immediately. "We're right on top of it!" she exclaimed, then swallowed. Now she was thirstier.

"Shouldn't we wait for Mister Joe?" Rarity spoke up. She was also feeling a little thirsty, but not as much as Twilight. "After all, he might be rescued, or..."

"I doubt it."

Five pairs of eyes turned to Fluttershy, who continued to look east sadly. "He stayed back to keep those Legion from capturing us. They... you saw what they were like..." Her eyes began to moisten, before hardening in a most un-Fluttershy way. "We made fools of them in... in Nipton."
Nopony spoke. Fluttershy had told the truth. This Legion were the sort who didn't take any challenge to their dominion kindly. For a moment, the image of Haversack Joe hanging lifeless from a cross crossed all their minds.

"All done!"

Five pairs of eyes turned to Pinkie's architectural triumph over the laws of physics: a four-level pyramid of bottles, shining in the morning sun.
Then the pink mare knocked it with a hoof, sending the bottles flying and smashing on the ground below.

"Uh..." Twilight finally spoke for them all, "Why'd you do that?"

"Because it was fun to do and I sorta felt bad for whoever'd made that pyramid before so I thought I'd make it again but I'd do it Pinkie Pie style! And then just now I thought waaaitaminute if somepony from the Legion comes this way and sees it then they'll know that we're down the road here and they are such Mean Meany McMeanypants they don't need to know so I knocked it down again!" Pinkie blinked happily, and the others in surprise. Pinkie made sense, after all.

"So what're we waiting for?" Rainbow was about to take wing, before realising that a certain orange mare was standing on her tail.

"Ah say we walk round the corner there before flyin' around where folks," she emphasised the word darkly, "might spot us."

Rainbow just gave Applejack a dirty look. She was getting tired of all this sneaking around, even if it was warranted. Then an idea came to her, and she turned westward, before lifting off and hugging the ground before a puff of dust and a rainbow trail disappeared behind the rock walls of the corner.

Applejack groaned, and Twilight shook her head. "Might as well start."

By the time the others had returned to the crumbled road, Rainbow was already waiting. "Pretty much what you see," she reported, "The road basically stops in front of that big building on the right." She indicated a partially crumbled building that, being the only one there, didn't really need indicating. "I dunno what that dome is, but I can't see any way in, and there's weirdoes wandering around."

"Weirdoes?"

"Yeah, remember that... that... that burned-looking human we met the day we left Goodsprings?"

"Oh!" Twilight smiled in understanding. "That ghoul."

"Yeah, 'cept these ones don't have a stitch on, and they're sort of creeping around. But there's ones in robes laying around dead.”

Twilight frowned, puzzled. “Maybe they can tell us what's going on,” she decided.

The further they travelled down the road, the stronger the magical signature became; even Rarity could feel it, and said so. “It's like some sort of... thrumming... ringing... tingle,” she'd tried to describe it.

“It's making me thirsty,” Twilight added.

“You too? I thought it was just all this dust and heat.” Rarity raised a hoof to her mane. “As if what it's done to my coiffure wasn't bad enough!”

“It's up there,” Twilight pointed her horn at a large dome, sitting inaccessible on a bluff.

Almost immediately Rainbow Dash took off to investigate again. A patter of distant taps indicated that a pegasus was attempting to kick in several tons of blast door. A few minutes later, she flew back, slightly lathered and looking annoyed.

“Still can't get in,” she announced with disgust.

“Maybe we should ask one of those ghoul people?” Pinkie eyed one of the figures, which was crouched at the bottom of the slope and looking in their direction.

“Maybe we should,” Twilight agreed half-heartedly. There was something about the biped that made her want to flee instead.

The herd slowly approached the ghoul, trying to look as unthreatening as possible.

“Um... hello?” Twilight began. This close, the ghoul looked positively revolting. What skin it had was translucent, and its frame was skeletal. Milky eyes suggested cataracts, but the way it turned its head their way meant its ears still worked.

It made an odd gurgling gasp that sounded inquisitive.

“My name is Twilight Sparkle,” the unicorn commenced, “and we would like to –”

The ghoul pointed at them, and let out a hoarse scream that could only be described as feral. Several other ghouls nearby rose to their feet, heads turned towards the “food here” cry.

“Uh oh,” Rainbow Dash looked around. There were about a dozen of the living (for a very loose definition of the term) skeletons, and they were closing fast. Including the ghoul that was in front of them. There were no gleams of intelligence in their eyes. Just hunger.

“Don't you dare!”

The ghoul froze, its (literal) half a brain frozen between feeding on warm meat and the paralysing force of Fluttershy's stare.
“How would you like it if I tried to eat you?”

The ghoul twitched at the word eat, and Fluttershy, not breaking eye contact, backed up slowly to collect as many of the others in her stare as she could.

“We're just poor lost little ponies, hardly a proper meal...” now three ghouls twitched in unison at the word meal. “We just want to go home!”

Twilight was looking around at the approaching horde and barely managed to avoid yelping when Rainbow landed next to her.

“Grab on Twi',” the pegasus said quickly, “I wanna show you something.”

“Huh?” was Twilight's understandable response before Rainbow clamped onto her barrel, and lifted the unicorn aloft.

“In here,” Rainbow gasped. She flew through the glassless window of a peculiar metal tunnel that protruded from the building and just seemed to stop in midair. “It's safe. You up for teleporting everypony?”

Twilight rose to her hind legs and peered over the sill. Below her, her four friends were colourful dots surrounded by... oh buck. There were a lot of ghouls.

Without a word, she vanished in a magenta flash, reappearing beside Rarity and a shaking Fluttershy. The gentle pegasus' face was a mixture of desperation and indignation – and the ghouls were closing in.

“Gather round girls!” Twilight yelled.

Fluttershy squeaked, startled. Her concentration broke.

The ghouls, released from her focus, sprang forward, their tiny minds filled with thoughts of fresh warm meat.

Several stumbled back from a well-timed blast of Pinkie's party cannon. The inclusion of cupcakes might have helped, since a small fight broke out over the sugary treats.

Inside the control tower of REPCONN, Rainbow Dash was amused to see a pile of ponies appear in another magenta flash.

“My mane!” Rarity had ended up near the bottom, and the primary problem with her manestyle was that Applejack currently had her hoof in it.

“OW! My horn!” Twilight had also ended up on the bottom, and somepony had kicked it.

“My hat!” Applejack scrabbled for her prized headgear, which not only had been trodden on, but had been melted on by –

“My ice cream bar!” Pinkie's face fell into the sort of exaggerated pout that only she was able to pull off.

“Where the hay did you get an ice cream bar from?” Twilight asked before she could stop herself.

“Oh wait a minute,” the pink mare started rummaging in her mane. It sounded like a small joke shop going over Neighagara Falls. “Yay! I knew had a spare!”

Twilight, along with everypony else, just stared at the blatantly still frozen treat in Pinkie's hoof, then slowly closed her eyes. “I don't need to know,” she began her mantra, “I don't need to know. I don't need to know.”

“There's a door down the end here,” Rainbow finally declared, “And you can thank me later for such a brilliant plan.”

“Um...” Fluttershy had simply taken wing and glided off the pile of mares who were still untangling themselves, no easy feat in a narrow walkway. “It's just that... well... we're up here, and those horrible ghouls are all down there, and... what's behind that door?”

Twilight blinked, torn between asking Pinkie if she had any water in there, and remembering that they had to either find a way out, or into that dome.

“Only one way to find out,” she said at last, and approached the door. One telekinetic twist later, and a pair of ghouls got the shock of their lives.

“Holy Jesus!” Unlike the monstrous ones roaming below, these two wore robes and were clearly more intelligent. “Where the hell did you come from? I mean, how'd you get up... I mean...”

“Um, hello,” Twilight licked dry lips, “I take it from your robes you're with the, um, Bright Brotherhood?”

“Uh, yeah, yeah... hey wait! Lemme think,” and the ghoul frowned, tapping his chin, “If you managed to get up here through all those fuckin' ferals, then... uh... Follow me, I'll lead you to Jason.”

“Jason?” Applejack asked curiously. Twilight could only shrug and follow the ghoul through a doorway and up a staircase in the middle of a large room. It seemed to be half laboratory, half kitchen judging by the contents.

Upstairs it looked like all laboratory, the walls mostly hidden by desks and great panels of lights and meters. Turning from a blackboard, it wasn't hard to determine who Jason was. His cadaverous flesh sported glowing patches, and there was an air of conviction about him that was somehow simultaneously assuring and worrisome.

“Hello, little wanderers,” he smiled liplessly at the herd, “Please forgive us of our humble surroundings. Our true home awaits us in the Far Beyond. Have you come to help us complete the Great Journey?”

All six of the mares just looked at each other, before Twilight opened her mouth to reply. However, Rainbow Dash, of all ponies, beat her to it.
“Look mister,” she declared, flying right into the ghoul's face, “Your great journey or whatever can wait, because until we find whatever's stuck us here, nopony's going anywhere, got – hey!”

Jason Bright, to his credit, managed to hide his smile as Applejack yanked the bolshy pegasus away by the tail. “In truth, we are stranded here as well,” he said after some thought, “we are in need and cannot yet escape into the Far Beyond.”
“What is the Far Beyond?” Twilight finally asked.

“I have glimpsed the Far Beyond only in visions,” Jason didn't so much say as recite, voice slipping into the cadence of preaching, “but what I have seen is truly miraculous. It is a place of light and healing, and I know in my soul that my flock will be safe there. We wish to escape the barbarity of the wasteland, especially the violence and bigotry of its human inhabitants. The creator has promised to my flock a new land: a place of safety and healing... a paradise in the Far Beyond, looked over by the creator's great castle on the holy mountain.”

Twilight suddenly felt strong earth pony forelegs yank her and her friends into a huddle. “He just described Canterlot!” Pinkie whispered excitedly, “Girls, I think this guy's our ticket out of here! Let's help them and then we can throw them the bestest Welcome to Equestria party you ever saw and –”

Twilight tuned her out and tried to think. The ghouls, or at least their leader, apparently had a way of reaching Equestria, but it apparently wasn't ready yet. Candour compels us to acknowledge that more than homesickness was skewing her thoughts. Whatever was in that dome, was tied to this building, and these ghouls...

“Got room for six more?” she extracted herself from the pony pile and addressed Jason again. “Because the place you mention sounds a lot like home.”

“Your home?” Jason blinked at her for a good thirty seconds. “The creator must have sent you! Truly we are blessed! Preparations for the Great Journey were nearly complete when the demons appeared.”

He immediately had six pairs of alarmed pony eyes goggling at him.

Author's Note

I know, it's been too long. Actually this is a good break point. We all know what the "demons" are, and really we don't need to wade through Jason Bright's convo. Cue the Mare-sion Impossible theme.