Fallout Equestria Omega's Trials

Chapters

Prologue
Stepping Out
Bar Fight
On the run
Hunted
Unstable
On the Road
Wrath
Justification
The Angel
Recuperating

Prologue

I walked down the long, bland hallway in Stable 77, bored. When you are on maintenance, there was very rarely something to do. Everything had worked pretty much flawlessly for the past 200 years. An exciting day was when I got to fix a clogged toilet. Not that I didn’t mind being lazy, I was quite good at it; however, when there was nothing to do otherwise one tended to go a little crazy. So I did what I was apt to do; find a unique and slightly unsettling way to drive somepony insane. I feel I must inform that my cutie mark isn’t a picture of me stuffing some poor pony into a strait jacket (which I have done before; it was a very slow Tuesday.) My cutie mark is a sickle. While it might look menacing, the sickle just means I have a talent for harvesting grain. Probably. Never had to use it on another pony (not that some days trying it as a prank hadn’t crossed my mind) but I have a feeling might be going a bit too far with imitating madness to prevent it.

As I trotted down the endless hall, I had an unfortunate run in that would ruin my day. To start off, unicorn horns are very sharp and pointy at the end, so ending up with one of those crashing into your skull when the horn’s owner is in full gallop can really ruin your day. We crashed through the hall for a few feet before staggering to a stop.

“SWEET GODDESSES!” yelled FM as she regained her composure. FM had a radio tower with signal symbols as her cutie mark and she was the most beautiful mare in the stable. She had a stunning blonde mane that curled down around her shoulders, contrasting nicely with her dark chocolate brown coat, and a flank I could stare at for days. “We need to get you to the infirmary!”

“No, if anypony needs to go it’s you! Your horn is bleeding!” My brain called me for a quick conference after that statement, telling me as a struggled back to my hooves, ‘Wait a second. Horns don’t bleed. Horns are like big tough teeth on a forehead, with thicker enamel.’ That realization was followed by a sting, which progressively grew into a burn, which then started to feel like a raging inferno had been lit in a 7 inch gash that stretched across the left side of my face.
“I retract my previous statement. I agree, I think we need to get to the infirmary before I collapse from blood loss.” I said, already feeling light headed.

She took a bandage from her utility vest and levitated it to my head.

“This should stop the bleeding, but we should get a healing potion in you so that it won’t leave a scar,” Fm said as she helped me walk the short distance to the infirmary. She either didn’t recognize me or didn’t care who I was. It was refreshing to have ponies not walking on eggshells around me just because I wa-

“FM! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” screeched Head Nurse Belle as she yanked out a healing potion from behind the counter and galloped the short distance to FM and I. Apologies were chasing each other out of her mouth, “ OHIAMSOSOSORRY! I’MSUREFMDIDN’TMEAN IT!! ITWASANACCIDENTIMSURE!!!”
“It was, don’t worry my mom won’t-”

“Won’t what?” interrupted a familiar authoritative voice. I hate being interrupted.

“Won’t have to worry about it?” I answered with my best ‘please-mom-I-know-you-worry-about-me-but-PLEASE-don’t-embarrass-me-ESPCIALLY- in-front- of-the-hot-mare’ voice.

“Nurse Belle. I’m waiting for an explanation. Why is my son in the infirmary with a massive head wound and his blood on this unicorn’s horn?!” Though I wasn’t looking at her, I could see from the fear in Nurse Belle’s eyes that it was my mother’s chilling ‘I can have you locked into maintenance painting pipes until the day you DIE ’ look.

“It was an accident mom. I was in a rush to finish my chores,” My mother’s face didn’t soften, but she was still open to listening what I told her, if I hurried, “and we kind of crashed into each other at a blind corner.” I turned around to face her, my mother, the mare that terrified everypony in the stable. I would most likely end up replacing her when the Stable Legislature voted; all I had to do was wait for my mom to go senile, or take a step to far in controlling the stable and end up hurting somepony by her actions.

An unkind smile slowly appeared on her face, “And, my dear child, why were you in a rush?” Her voice was saturated with false sweetness. It was her ‘I’m going to use my unicorn magic to beat the tar out of my earth pony son!’ voice. “And it cross your mind to use that damned glowing bar on the bottom of your eyes to see if anypony was coming?” Her unkind smile was turning hateful.

I realized that I was screwed, thinking ‘Completely royally FUCKED is more like it. This is the end.’
“He was on his way to see me. Ma’am.” FM piped up much to everyone’s shock including my own. Especially my own. “Like we have been doing for week, Ms.Overmare, ma’am.”

My mother eyed us both suspiciously, her black eyes darting back and forth between us from behind her glasses.

“Omega, is this true?” Her black eyes matched my black coat perfectly.
My mind raced. Dear god, this was scary. What was my mother expecting me to do?! If I said FM made it up, FM could get in serious trouble for lying to the Overmare. If I went with FM’s story, this might be all forgotten. But not only would I be lying to my mother, but lying to the OVERMARE. Of course this could very easily end badly for both of us. But it could end much worse for FM, much worse ending for her. FM didn’t know what she was getting herself into. FM was too pretty and would not do well in detainment. I decided to go with the lie.

“It is mom.” Stupid other head always doing the thinking.

“And you didn’t tell me because…..?” The Overmare’s tone had gone from rage to irritation, which to the untrained ear sounded almost exactly the same. I thought might make it through this.

“I didn’t tell you because you are always overreacting and babying me. Even with the private lessons and combat classes, you make sure you know the exact origin of every cut, scrape, and bruise.” I heard myself standing up to my mother, the Overmare, and I pondered if it would it hurt to be cremated alive. A voice in my head answered ‘Definitely,’ to my pondering, and then mentioned something about it being crowded.

“I’ll see you when you get home. If anypony asks, both of you are excused from curfew for one hour.” My mother’s voice still held the authoritative tone, but I could see the façade was cracked ever so slightly. Two security passes popped up from thin air. Only the Overmare knew this spell, so she could be sure no counterfeits were being produced. The Overmare walked off. Only the trained eye could see that I had actually gotten to her.

“So we have an hour extension to our curfews and our chores are done, what are two ponies to do?” She smiled mischievously and began to saunter off,

“Well silly pony aren’t you going to follow?”
Yes, yes. I was going to follow.

I walked in my home door with seconds to spare on my note before it evaporated.

“Omega, I need to talk to you,” my mother’s voice was gentle, not the authoritative tone I was used to. “I know at times it can seem that I’m overbearing and sheltering you, but that’s only because I want you to be prepared.”

“Prepared for what mother? I don’t think being the Overstallion I’d have to know the magical mechanics behind a sky cart,” I said, referencinga previous lesson I believed useless.

“Do you know how you become Overstallion?” I nearly balked. I was born into it, like every other pony was born into their positions. That was common knowledge. This had to be some sort of trick question, but I decided to answer honestly.

“I’m born into it; like every other pony. We pick up where the parents left off.”

“No. No, you are not. You have to earn it like all the other ponies have to earn their positions.” Her gentle voice had gone back to the stern tone.

“Well yeah, the Stable Legislature has to vote me in but who else could they choose?” I almost laughed. Who else could they vote for?

“They can choose anypony who has been outside the stable for 3 months.” Her voice was deadly serious, somehow worse than the gaping head wound serious.

“What do you mean? The door is sealed shut. That’s the first thing we learn.” My mother wasn’t making sense. Going outside for three months! Was that even possible? Was there an outside at all?

“It’s not we merely let them believe it’s sealed, it can be opened at any time.” She was giving me a hard look. Part of me kept waiting for everypony to jump out tell me it was an April Foals day prank.

“You mean we can go outside?” The new voice in my head was stuttering in shock.

“Yes.” There was an uncomfortably long pause. “However, there is a reason why we don’t.”

“I’m going to take a wild guess and say it’s an inhospitable wasteland that no life can survive in and what life does survive in it makes it cruel and cannibalistic?” There was still a hint of hope that this was a joke in my voice.

“Fairly accurate assumption, but you are off on a few minor details.” She sighed. “There are dangerous ponies out there, raiders, slavers, bandits, and worse.”

She saw the worry in my face, and to be honest part of me wasn’t quite accepting of me leaving. Another part was still grappling with the concept of outside, and a third was still hoping for a joke. My mother, in a rare moment of tenderness, put her hoof on my shoulder and smiled warmly. “But there are some worthwhile ponies out there. Three months isn’t that long, and you have me to help you. Grandpa just told me I’d find out for myself.”

“So is that why you never talk about my father? Was he one of the worthwhile ponies?” Her eyes went wide and looked into mine. Tears started to well up in her eyes. Was she really so stunned that I’d bring him up? I never met the stallion and assumed there was a reason for her not to mention him. My mother cleverly changed the subject every time I brought it up, so I eventually stopped bringing him up, thinking it to be one of those ‘when you’re older’ deals.

“Yes,” She looked down a tear falling. I had never seen my mother cry. It was unsettling to see her so vulnerable. “Your father, Iron Saddles, saved me more times than I care to count. He was the one who actually taught me about the wasteland. When to move, what was a trap, what to eat, how to shoot, and for a while, I thought I loved him.”

“Thought?” was that all I could say.
“He was a Steel Ranger, ponies sworn to protect technology and horde it. I thought that he had seen past that. I actually thought he cared about me.” The tears started to flow down her face. “Then one day he asked me if I’d take off my pipbuck. I jokingly asked why, as if it was a new thing he wanted to try that night.” I blocked that image from my brain. “He said he was a steel ranger and had duties. I told him he didn’t need it, he had that shiny armor and all the spells, but he said all technology was the property of the steel rangers. I told him bullshit. He then told me to get out of his site and run back to the stable and if he saw me again he’d kill me and take my pipbuck. I realized he was just after me for some easy flank and a fancy watch.” She was balling now and then I realized how much it hurt her every time I asked her about my dad and why we had extra thick walls in our room.

“Mom, what can you tell me about the outside?” She stopped and quickly regained her composure, smiled and said “The sun, the moon, the stars, rain, wind, everything.”

I learned more about the outside world that night than I ever thought I’d learn. I learned about the political climate of her time, the various factions and gangs. I made a note that most of this was about 17 years out of date, but I believed every name, every bit of intel I gathered would help me. I already knew how I was spending my 3 months, and hoped Steel Rangers were as tough as she made them out to be. It’d be disappointing to find out that I wouldn’t get to have words with my father over a sledge hammer.

That month I had only two things on my mind: FM and studying what my mom had told me from memory about the various rules of the wasteland.

Rule 1: A weapon

Rule 2: Armor

Rule 3: A companion who you trust to watch your back

And bottle caps were money for some reason, and she had never gotten to a real answer as to why.

Rule 4: Kill any raiders I come across, avoid slavers, and if I look real tough they won’t bother me, same rule with bandits. My mother also said not to be a hero, because the wasteland destroys them. She also mentioned to listen to a radio host called DJ PON3, he knew what was going on out there.

Rule 5: Don’t hold out hope for the sun. The Pegasus have blocked out the clouds and weather is prone to being erratic. All this seemed to depress the new pony in my head which was something I found odd cause I still hadn’t found out where she came from, which was also weird because I typically don’t imagine mares rummaging around in my head commenting on everything.

Rule 6: Only go into The Hub if you have too. It is dangerous and extremely easy to get lost in.

It was the night before I left, and I was packing up and going to be seen out by my mom and the Legislature. The door opened and behind me there was a sigh. It wasn’t my mother’s sigh that I had grown accustomed to hearing over this last month preparing for my journey. It was a lighter, happier sigh. A sigh that hadn’t been through the gauntlet that my mom told me was the wasteland.

“You don’t have to worry about it. Who knows? Maybe it’s become a civil paradise and when you emerge you will be treated as a guest of honor.” FM’s voice was full of doubt but it could not near to equal the shock that was in mine.

“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“C’mon, I’ve been rummaging around in your head for a month.”

“WHAT?

“My cutie mark is an emergency broadcaster, which means I have a talent in getting help. Which indirectly means I’m good with telepathy.”

“YOU’VE DIGGING IN MY HEAD ALL MONTH?!?”

“Yep. All month.” She said with a sly grin, “So I know all your secrets, including your porn stash. So unless you want your mom to find it, I recommend you keep quiet about my ability. It’s not exactly common knowledge.” She smiled cruelly. “I also know all your fantasies and am quite flattered that I’m in a good part of them. We made the original mental connection when we crashed in the hallway, when my horn dug all the way to your skull.”

“…Didn’t know you hit me that hard….” I mumbled.

“So you have thirty minutes until they send you out.” Her smile made me quiver. “Is there anything you want to do?”

I was running 5 minutes late to the stable door; they had provided me with a 10 mm pistol, I checked it, it was in decent condition, with 10 clips. I was told to make it last, I remembered from my combat training in the stable’s gun range ten clips doesn’t last that long. And the few red vs. blue drills I took part in last month, I didn’t know that another pony was so hard to hit without SATS, when they are moving, and shooting back, and using cheating unicorn magic. My mom had ordered it to be disabled for the exercise; apparently there are some places in the Hub’s Wasteland that magic spells like that cease to work, they were called mute zones.

She told me this part of the wasteland was often referred to as the Hub because it was a the major shipping hub for all materials both war and civilian, and had the building to match it, a six massive six sided structure each side was a mile and a half long and was 90 stories tall, has hundreds of miles of railroads and dozens of small villages over the landscape, there were also rumors of underground tunnels but she had no need to go down there so she never searched them out.

As the door slowly swung open after 17 years of lying idle I heard the voice of FM telling me that she would be with me for as long as she could. I spun around and smiled reassuringly at my mom.

“If you find your father,” She knew I was actively thinking about hunting him down, “be careful, Steel Rangers only want your technology.”

“If I find my father, I’ll be sure to tell him Cherry Pie sends her regards.” I gave her my most serious look as I slid back the action on my gun.

Her concerned smile was the last thing I saw before the door closed. Leaving me alone in the empty tunnel.

Stepping Out

Omega’s Trials
Chapter One

(Warning when you see text this color it gets a bit gory)

“Well, at least you’re not all alone.” FM’s voice came through the speaker of my pipbuck. She explained to me earlier that she can also broadcast to radios, and it’s less taxing than minds at long distance.

“True,” I agreed with her, not much else to say. “How far can you go?”

“I don’t know.” There was an academic curiosity in her voice. “Never had a chance to test it on any other pipbuck but my mom’s and we got as far apart as possible and it still worked.”

I whistled. That was at least two miles. Not going to be extremely helpful, with how vast the wasteland supposedly was, but it was at least two more miles of hearing a familiar voice.

“Omega, I’m sorry to do this to you, but I have to go if I want to avoid a burn-out.” He agreed that would be bad remembering reading about it in one of his textbooks. ‘A magical burn-out occurs when a unicorn uses too much of their magic over a prolonged period of time, for instance levitating a boat or train car without the proper training or skill, it is the magical equivalent of a hernia, however, instead of surgery the only cure is a few days of rest.’

I walked through the tunnel, the only light originating from my pipbuck. Occasionally, a radroach would scurry by, but aside from that there was only me. I found the door my mom talked about soon enough; she said it would lead out into an old office building. Hopefully it hadn’t collapsed.

This building had seen better days. I immediately did what I was trained to do, and quickly checked my EF’s for red lights. … Nothing. Being momentarily safe, I sat down and took stock of everything I had with me. As I scrolled through my pipbuck’s sort menu, I heard a rustling sound behind me. Instantly, I put my gun in my mouth, slid back the slide, and turned to face…a radroach. It had scurried into the room and through some papers. I put my gun back in the holster and calmly stepped on it. In Luna’s name was I jumpy… Then came a louder crash, followed by a pony shouting ‘Damn It’! I knew not to investigate, but they weren’t red on EFs, just little green blips along the compass. Most likely the scavengers my mom told me about.

As I walked towards the marks on my EFs, I wondered what kind of ponies they’d be like; odds are worn down, beaten and probably happy to see a face that wasn’t interested in their stuff. As I approached the room I heard rummaging sounds, followed by swears and insults to the goddesses. Just before I rounded the corner I realized that she didn’t have the luxury of EFs. So I did the cordial thing, and announced myself before entering.

“Friendly, don’t shoot.” I didn’t draw my gun, thinking ‘how friendly would that show me to be?’ As I walked through the doorway there was a click and I found myself looking down a not-so-friendly gun barrel. I followed my first reflex and found cover.

Three shots banged against the metal desk I dove behind. Somehow that still hadn’t shifted her to red on my pipbuck’s radar. I had literally just walked in the room didn’t do anything to hide or appear threatening this aqua unicorn just pulled a gun and started shooting.

“Those were the only warning shots I’m gonna give you.” Well that may have explained why she wasn’t red. “I don’t want any trouble, but if you so much as poke your head out again I’m going to blast it the fuck off.”
I believed her.

“Well, can you tell me how long you’re going to be?” Another shot went into the desk by my head.
Apparently, this was not the time for stupid questions.

“As long as it takes for my siblings to scavenge this place,” Her glowing gun slipped around the corner, followed by a grenade floating over the top of the desk and levitating in front of my face. I could have pissed myself.

I was being robbed by a pissed off unicorn mare. Her mane was purple with gold highlights, and it seemed to float there on its own. Her coat was the same shade of grape juice purple as her mane. She would have been cute if she wasn’t holding me at gun point. I couldn’t make out her cutie mark beneath her cape, but I had a feeling it was somehow very unscrupulous. She was levitating two guns to the back of my head, and a third in my face. She showed no problem reminding me of that by occasionally pressing the barrel of any one of them against my skull. And she still was not a red dot on my EF’s. What the hell was wrong with this stupid thing?
I was very glad I thought ahead and left my saddle bags under the desk in the office. So she was really getting nothing from…and here comes a little foal with saddle bags that look suspiciously like mine…they even have a 74 on them and everything,. Damn!

“Big sis! Look-it what I found!” He yelled running into the room, giving me a passing glance. “Is he a bad pony like the ones who took mommy and daddy?”

“I think he’s a little bit bad Stormy, but not that bad.” She said, adding a hard look of ‘why-don’t-I-just-blow-you-away-for-hiding-shit?’

“Okie Dokey. I’mma go find Buck Shot and Sure Shot so we can get dinner going.” He trotted off, singing some little song about how he had found my bags.

I waited until after he left to start conversation involving morals and such. It ended with her saying something about how glad I should be that I get to keep my gun, ammo, and armor, then went into a rant involving me being a spoiled stable pony not having to deal with this shit and responsibilities of all the rest of the world and yeah she slept pretty damn good knowing her siblings were fed. On a side note, I don’t think anypony could slip that many variations of the word ‘fuck’ into a single rant. If I wasn’t in mortal terror, I would’ve taken notes.

I trotted out of the building, bags empty, and with an odd feeling that right now I was being watched by her other sister Sure Shot, which sounded like the name of a sniper. I didn’t look back, or stop or make any sudden moves that would let me find out if this hunch was right. I was just robbed. I hadn’t even been out of the stable for an hour, and I was robbed. Was I really supposed to make it three months when I got robbed in ten minutes?

I found a nice abandoned house to take shelter in; it was out of site and safely nestled in a small canyon. My pipbuck automatically labeled it ‘Hidey House’. I knew one of the things my mom told me is not to be surprised by my pipbuck’s penchant for tracking and naming software, but still, what the Hell.

“Hey, Omega, are you receiving?” FM’s voice crackled to life on my pipbuck. It had been 12 hours since I left the stable.

“Yes, I’m hearing you.” I was following my mom’s advice and checking every drawer in the house for bottle caps, bullets, weapons, and most importantly at this juncture, food. “So what do you think my mom will say when you ask where I am?”

“Why would I do that?” Her voice was stern. I didn’t like where this was going. “Do you have any idea what she is going through, knowing that she just threw you, her only son whom she had raised, into a proverbial meat grinder?”

Could I not catch a break from being chewed out today?

“Yeah…you’re right.” I felt like crap. So far I had found some 200 year old cake, some radaway, and about 50 caps.

“Is everything alright?” She was really worried, and I could tell it was not just about me. She was also worried about my mom. I know that going through my head for a month would likely let her see my mom in a way that would surprise her. Most just expected to see a tough pillar of strength that helped the stable run smoothly. Yeah, she was strict and demanding, but she was still my mom.

“You mean aside from the obvious?” I chuckled to give her some feeling of comfort. “No it’s all good, I found an out of the way house to sleep in and I’ll make a fresh start to Trainyard tomorrow.”
The nearest settlement my mom told me about; a semi-lawless barbaric trading town.
“Yes, aside from the obvious.” She teased.
“Well other than a strong lack of unified government and me not being treated like an honored guest, nothing.” We both laughed, then there was a silence which felt as though it went on forever. “I’ll be fine.”
“I know you will be. I’m sorry but this spell is very taxing, I have to go.”

“Okay, I’ll see you in 3 months.” There was a crackle and my pipbuck went silent. “Hopefully.”

I was awoken by a loud crash from the vase I put in front of the door in case somepony walked in the house. There were five green lights drifting across my EF’s. I was wary after my experience earlier today.

“Scars, check the fridge. See if there is anything worth taking.” There was the sound of glass breaking, followed by a shriek. “The rest of you set up in the living room.”

Going through my mental list, they sounded somewhat organized, not insanely psychotic, and didn’t smell of three flavors of rot. So, that made them slavers or a gang.

“We are going to Thatches tomorrow; hopefully we don’t have to fight them.” A new location pinged on my pipbuck: ‘Thatches’.

“Why Thatches?” A mare asked. “Bit out of the way isn’t it?”

“It’s where He started and if He’s injured they’d be the first to shelter him.” There was a decisive sound in his voice.

“And if He’s not?” A stallion asked. There was a pause. “He’s been gone for three years, what are the odds he’d still be there?”

“We do our job.” His tone lightened and he started laughing, the rest of the group followed in.
So they were slavers. A small part of me wanted to go and save the town; however, another part of me said it’s been like this for 200 years, is killing them going to change it when all it will do is endanger me. Why should I risk my life for strangers? I mean really, not like I’d gain anything from it, what would I do, say ‘Hey, overheard some slavers were coming to your town so I killed them for you, what’s the reward?’ Not likely. My best bet was to wait in the room and hope they didn’t find me.
There was a knock at the door. A silence covered the once laughing group. There was another from the window, the wall, the ceiling. I heard guns cock, one kept saying ‘not again’ and was doing his best to not cry.
“Cuz, this isn’t funny.” The knocks kept happening, nopony said a word. “SYPH! Stop It!”
They stopped. I heard the front door creak open as another dot entered the roo. This one was green as well. Then the gunfire started, then the swearing and screaming and begging for mercy, then slow choking gurgling noises as one dot after another disappeared off my EF’s. I heard the last one begging for their attacker to kill him this time, not to make him go through this again. The dot disappeared. The last dot on my EF’s vanished from view as the door shut behind it. Hours had passed on my pipbuck’s clock.

I don’t know how long I waited before leaving the room; it felt like it took me hours to walk down the hallway. On the table in the kitchen, stacked in a neat pile, was all of what I assumed was the slaver’s gear; two hundred fifty three caps, some drugs, a few healing potions, food, water, a shot gun, an assault rifle, and an 9mm, a few clips of ammo for each. I stuffed everything into my bags and at the bottom of the pile I saw a note. with trembling jaws I opened it:

“Good luck and look behind you. 

Angelo' Death”

I grabbed my gun and turned around, expecting to see some sort of horrible monster pony staring me back in the face. Instead, I was greeted with a sight from my deepest nightmares. All five slavers, or at least what was left of them. I vomited.

Every inch of the room was coated in blood. All of their bodies were mutilated in some horrible fashion. One had all of his skin ripped from his body; another had his heart and lungs torn from his chest and shoved down his throat; another, her intestines wrapped around her throat, her uterus covering the top of her head. It took me a moment to find the fourth one, then I realized he was everywhere; he had been dragged across the entire room until all that was left were his bare splintered bones. These couldn’t compare to the last one. He hung from the ceiling, barbed wire coming out of every orifice. With a barbed wire noose around his neck, his eyes fixated on me, he was smiling; his lips silently mouthed “kill me…” Between words, I saw his tongue was wrapped in barbed wire as well and his teeth had been ripped out and put in a necklace around his neck. The monster had left him alive, hanging there, blood dripping out of his neck and mouth, as the barbed wire clung to him, slowly strangling him.

I ran out of the house away from the slowly dying pony, despite him begging, I couldn’t kill him… I ran. I ran along the other side of the canyon as what I assumed was the rest of their group came in. One of them had what my mom told me was a battle saddle with a rocket launcher mounted on one side, and beautiful minigun mounted on the other. I think. I couldn’t tell. My eyes were too full of tears to make out the rest. Same outfit as the ponies from the house though; so maybe they’d be able to put their slowly dying friend out of his misery. Glad I got out when I did. They didn’t seem to pay me any attention. My mom was right, if I resemble a big tough pony, the slavers will leave me alone if I look like too much trouble.

The sun had come up I think, the clouds still had a dark overcast, and the light that filtered through filled the world with a dull grey, but I could see. I collapsed and vomited again, even though there was nothing to vomit up. After thirty minutes of sobbing, I finally gained the strength to get a move on to Trainwreck. I kept telling myself this is the Wasteland, it happens all the time. They have no morals, no sanity, and they have no rules.
One of the best features of the Pipbuck is its mapping function; it always tells you where to go. My pipbuck’s only problem was that it showed me the straight direction in which to go, not the twists and turns that the Wasteland would throw at me, so unorganized and chaotic that I had no idea what path would be behind the next rock. The thrill was exhilarating.

Make that annoyingly frustrating. The thrill of exploration lost its charm after a pack of wild dogs made me waste a potion and 2 clips. To add insult to injury, it had been hours and I’d only made it ten miles. This terrain was hell; deep crags and fissures dotted the wasteland. Sometimes, you didn’t know about them until they were inches in front of you. The only usable paths were the paths on the bottoms of crags; the walls were too steep to walk up. Then I spotted it like an oasis in the desert, a simple round hill that was above the immediate terrain, and easy to climb up. What more could a pony ask for?

As I got to the top of the hill I realized I could ask for a lot more. Off in the distance I could see the town and the arrow on my pipbuck’s compass identified it as Trainyard. This was my first real good look at the Hub and it was depressing, even if the clouds were gone and the Pegasus made it a clear sunny day, it would still be depressing as hell. Dunes made of glass still stood in the distant desert from when the balefire bombs detonated. The landscape was a desolate grey and brown; train wrecks littered the landscape. Even though their tracks had long been carted, they remained once beautiful Pegasus sky chariots that had fallen from the sky in the zebra’s blind shots at the city above, and now they lay desolate and ruined. Except the massive white towers that reached to the clouds, my mom mentioned them but couldn’t tell me what they were for, neither could anypony else.
Then I saw a small caravan heading up what appeared to be a road to the town. A two headed cow, Brahmin my mother said they were called, lumbered with a full pack, surrounded by five ponies.

“Thank you Celestia, the provider of-“ My praise of the princess/goddess was interrupted.

“There he is!” A mare shouted from below as a bullet hit the ground beneath me. I recognized them as the slavers heading to the shack, which had paid close enough attention to me running past them to realize I’m probably the only pony who saw anything. “Kill that Fucker!” She shouted,and the gears in my brain slowly turned as I realized why she said that. Then I did what any brave pony faced with ten slavers who think you slowly tortured and murdered their friends would do at this time.
I ran for my life.

“Kill That Monster!” Another mare shouted, “Show him what happens to ponies who imitate Angelo’ Death!”

There was a fwoom, followed by a hiss that was getting louder, and louder like it was gaining on me. I looked back just in time to realize that I needed to duck, like, NOW. The rocket sailed over my head and detonated in the dirt ahead of me, blasting a relatively large hole in the ground. I leapt over it guided by adrenaline and mortal terror, a feeling I had become quite used to in the past 36 hours. I heard the ricochets of bullets as they tried to take shots at me. Rocket pony was running, trying to get closer. For his minigun, or for a more accurate shot with the rocket, I didn’t want to find out.

“I’d kill to have some of that cheating unicorn magic.” I mumbled angrily as I pushed my legs harder than I thought possible. My lungs burned, and it felt as though my heart was going to explode out of my chest. I had been playing cat and mouse for about half an hour. Another Fwoom, and I dove to the side, which made five. How many rockets was this pony packing?

Too many, was the answer. Another rocket overshot me, and detonated the ground on a particularly narrow pass. Fueled by adrenaline and mortal terror, I leapt over the crater and dropped the landmine behind me. They jumped over the crater, and the landmine activated. There was a beep, followed by an ‘OH FU-‘, then a satisfying explosion. I glanced back as rocket stallion, and three or four others fell off the ledge and into the mess of rocks below. After another ten minutes, I saw the red dots on my EF’s fade away, likely trying to find a way around the hole I blasted.

I rounded another corner on the winding road over the canyon, and on the other side I saw in all its tarnished, run-down glory, the town of Trainyard.

It was built overlooking a cliff with an extremely rickety looking train bridge going down the side of the cliff. There were two grizzled ponies, a mare and stallion, standing guard in front of the gates while numerous others walked along the wall built overlooking the road. Multiple rifles were mounted on swivels for the non-unicorns.

“Hey, stable pony.”
This mare was big, and wearing leather armor with Kevlar pads over her vitals and spikes on her shoulders. She was covered in burns and battle scars, and missing her right eye. I had never been so fearful of any other mare except my mom. “Read the rules before you enter.”

Mounted above the door were a set of rules:
1) If somepony shoots you, shoot back.
2) If you were robbed, it’s your problem, don’t try to file a report.
3) Same thing with rapes.
4) You break it, buy it.
5) Don’t make a scene.
6) There are no rules in Trainyard.
Well that’s comforting, I thought to myself.
“I personally think they are dumb to put them up, but apparently some stable unicorn from a long time ago made a fuss about rules, and order and shit to Biggon, and he put them up there.” She spat out some tobacco. “Now, you aren’t going to be a whiney stable pony and give us some shit to do, are you?”

Dear goddesses, she was intimidating. All I could free myself up to do was nod my head no.

“That’s what I thought.” She glared at me as I walked into the town. My mind kept trying to pin down which was scarier, the attitude that she would eat me alive, or the empty eye socket.

“Hey?” I asked in my meekest please-don’t-squash-me-I’m-just-a-stable-pony voice. “I’m looking for a pony, or help finding them…Any idea where to start?”

“Trench’s Tavern,” She answered. “Don’t get mugged.”

“I won’t.” I said confidently. I was just chased for over half an hour by ten slavers and killed at least four of them. What did the wasteland have on me?

I walked into the tavern. It was nothing more than a few wrecked train cars, and a dug out hole in the ground. The air was a mixture of sweat, smoke, alcohol, and several other smells that had summed up as… I don’t want to know.

Though the guard had pointed me in the right direction, I had no idea where to start. Personally, I think my mind was still trying to figure out the nature of rule 6. I sat at the counter and tried to look tough; I didn’t think it would be that difficult with 2 pistols, a rifle, a shotgun, and a big-ass knife.

“YOU CAN’T FUCKING DO THIS!” A mare screamed from across the tavern, she was wearing an extremely skimpy outfit that would make the most pious pony think impure thoughts, because she was HOT!
I almost forgot about FM.

“In case you forgot, Princess,” sneered the orange earth pony buck with a cutie mark resembling a very long and very sharp knife, similar to the one he had tucked away in the scarf around his neck, “you are still in debt to Trench. You paid the 750 you owed her, now you have to pay the interest, which adds up to another 750 caps.”

“Shanks, You Fucking Bastard!” Princess was in tears now. She tried to buck him, but he was faster and kicked her against the wall behind him.

“Big mistake.” His sick smile had turned into an extremely pissed off look. “I’d cut right here to teach you a lesson, but Trench would be pissed, so why don’t you make like a good little whore and sell your fucking ass.”

Somepony needed to do something. She was in trouble, and all these scumbags were just watching… hell, waiting… for this desperate mare to come to them so they could pay her for a few minutes of sex. What the fuck was wrong with this place? Why wouldn’t anypony help her? Not that it was any of my business; still it was wrong, and starting to get on my nerves.

“How much did you say she owed you?” a voice said from right behind me. I hadn’t even noticed the pony sitting there, amid the pile of shot glasses, in his black trench coat, and matching fedora. Judging from the looks on all the other ponies faces, they hadn’t seen him, either.

“750 caps.” He said confidently, as the coated pony walked towards them. “She ran up her tab.”

“Princess, how about a kiss?” he asked. I activated SATS. This bastard was going to die, and as the time-stopping spell activated, I swear he froze glancing back at me. I deactivated it and reactivated it again, just to be sure, then stared in disbelief at the percentages of hitting him. He couldn’t be more than 10 feet away. I had a clear line of fire, I had full view of his body, so how is it possible that I’m only getting 25%?!

The mare looked broken now, like she had given up all hope as she moved to kiss him on his mouth. He turned his head on the last second, and it landed on his cheek. He then grinned at Shanks. He calmly dug into his coat and pulled out bag of caps, and let her grab it with her magic.

“It was wonderful. Seven hundred fifty caps, easily.” He left the money in her magical grasp as she levitated the bag, and then untied the top. I had never imagined such joy in a pony’s face as I had seen then, and the look of pure disbelief on all the other attendees faces as he casually walked back to the table, sat back down, and took another shot.

“Shanks,” She smiled, “Fuck Off.” She levitated the bag to his feet and started to walk out of the tavern. The stranger stopped her for a second, and handed her what I think were more caps. He whispered something to her and she ran out with a look of adrenaline-filled joy on her face. The tavern was still sitting stunned in disbelief as drinks floated in mid-air.

Shanks walked over to the coated pony’s table.

“Are sure you have enough to pay for all that?” This was one extremely pissed pony.

“Can’t be more than 80 caps worth of booze.” He glanced at the half full bottle of jager then at another shot glass. He shrugged, and started to chug the bottle.

“80’s the base fee, then you have the taking-up-space fee, then you have the flaunting-caps-around-like-you’ve-just-robbed-a-tenpony-caravan fee, and you have the you-just-lost-me-the-best-hooker-here fee.” He roared and flipped the table. “Not to mention the fucking damages!”

“What can I say. I’m always getting into trouble.” He chuckled as the big pony pulled his knife out of the scarf and made a lunge for him. Shanks stopped inches from the coated pony, a dirt brown glow engulfing him.

“Son!” A mare’s voice, so sharp you could replace Shanks’ knife with it, yelled. “What Did I Tell You About Harming The Customers?”

“But maw, he freed Princess.” Two things: First, how was his speech so eloquent with a knife handle in his mouth, two was that how I looked when my mother was chewing me out?

“I know that, and will take care of it.” He rotated his son to meet him dead in the eyes. “Now go to your room.”

Shanks did what he was told, and it seemed half the tavern agreed to follow suit and left. The other half stayed to see what was about to happen, or they were too drunk to leave.

“Now I hope you understand how many caps you just lost me, I put a lot of effort into coming up with ways to keep Princess here,” the pony, whom I was guessing was Trench, said to the stranger as he finished chugging (?!) his jager. Trench seemed slightly disconcerted about this fact, too. “I would like to know how you plan to reimburse me. I am reasonable mare, and I’m sure we can come to some arrangement.”

“How much?” Was all he said. With a hiss through his teeth, “Sorry, how much were planning to get out of her?”

“At least two thousand more caps.” She smiled like it was nothing.

“I see,” He sighed, “well I’m terribly sorry but I can’t pay you.”

“How long before you have the money?”

“I mean I’m not going to pay you. I’ll pay for my jager, however after that I’m leaving. I got what I came here for and have no intentions of coming back.”

“I see,” She sighed as well, but she followed hers with a chuckle. “Guess I’m going to call Thunderstomp in to to collect from you, then.”

“Thunderstomp?” For the first time throughout the conversation he actually looked at her.

“Our collector.”

“Is he strong?”

“Yes he kicked a bum like you over that wall out there.”

“Is he fast?”

“Yes, he can run circles around a train.”

“He tough?”

“I’ve seen him shrug off rockets.”

“Well then, what are you waiting for, bring him in here!” He was disturbingly excited about this. “If he’s half as good as you say he is, I’m going to have a good time! Now, if you only had some shit that could get me drunk.“

The mare was in complete shock, as were the ponies that had paid and started to leave leave at the mention of Thunderstomp’s name.

“THUNDERSTOMP! TIME TO EARN YOUR KEEP!” Trench shouted. There was a pause, then hoofsteps shaking the drinks in the tavern. The rest of the ponies sobered up and filed out, except for me. What the hell was compelling me to stay and watch this poor coated pony get pummeled? I knew I couldn’t be that drunk yet.
He seemed to barely contain his excitement as the stomps grew closer.

At the entrance, all the ponies parted except for one unfortunate unicorn that was kicked with enough force to dent the train car’s ceiling. The mare coughed, and just managed to roll out of the way before he walked in.

A big black buffalo, with three white feathers above his right ear, stood silently in the doorway.

Level Up-Dangerous When Cornered-When being chased you get +5 to explosives

(I'd like to say Thank you to kkat for creating FoE, and my friend Sara, and my sister Adri for making it grammatically correct also should have chapters out once a week)

Bar Fight

Omega’s Trials Chapter 2
“Now Do A Backflip”

I had never seen a buffalo before, but from what my mom told me they were big, tough, and not to be fucked with. He easily fit into all categories; under his shaggy coat was pure muscle, two horns that could easily gore a pony grew out the side of his head. The bar shook with every step he took towards Trench. He looked at her subserviently, waiting for a reply as to why he was summoned.

“This gentle stallion is less than inclined to pay me the caps he owes.” She smiled, taking a few steps back. Didn’t mention the bouncers he took out. “Convince him that this is a bad idea.”

The buffalo nodded and stared at me, then looked at the pony across from Trench. He planted his feet into the ground and lowered his head, steam coming from his nostrils. Underneath his coat, every muscle tensed, and there were a lot. He dug his right fore-hoof into the ground. Goddesses, why was I still sitting here?

The pony got up and stared him right in the eyes, a calm smile on his face, like he had found an old friend. He then snorted and grunted and…I think mooed?

The buffalo stared wide eyed in shock, his jaw dropping to the ground, before performing the same action as the pony. The ‘conversation’ went on for what felt like several minutes. I glanced over at Trench, and she looked just as shocked-if not more so- than me.

“Psst. Do you know what’s going on?”
She looked over at me, her shocking fading to irritation.“How the fuck should I know? I just hire that buffalo, I don’t speak their damn language.” Her limited patience had obviously worn out. “Thunderstomp, quit yapping and kick his ass!”

“Alright boss.” The buffalo spoke in a very deep voice that matched his appearance. His employer stared in shock, apparently thinking he was a mute during his entire employment.

The conversation was finished in the language I was familiar with, thank Celestia. I was about to start adding comedic dubs. “I acknowledge your heritage is great, and I apologize that I cannot let you go free.” He lowered his head in preparation for a charge. “I am under her employment and must fulfill my contracted obligations.”

“Just tell me you have a clause that said it still counts if you try?” His voice was deeper and had a slight accent that I couldn’t pin. He then got up and trotted to a wider part of the tavern. “Of course, it would be foalish if I had it as otherwise.” His body tensed up and he lowered his head for a charge. “By the way, your buffalo needs work.”

The pony placed his hat on the bar. This was the first real look I had gotten at him. He had a long, scraggly blonde mane and matching tail. His coat was a dull brown. He snorted something and spat. The buffalo had a joyous grin on his face as he charged. I took another drink. Wish I spoke buffalo.

The massive bovine charged, trying repeatedly to gore the extremely agile pony, to no avail. The coated pony leapt over the buffalo, and somewhat clumsily landed on his hooves, skidding to a stop facing his opponent. Even drunk, I could tell to run from big scary buffalo, he would easily make it to the door way and get out before Thunderstomp could reach him. How drunk would you have to be to think this is a good idea? He was that drunk.
Thunderstomp charged again, but this time the pony leapt to the side and landed an applebuck squarely on his side, knocking him off balance and into the bar.
There was an explosion of wood, stone, and liquor as the buffalo jumped out of the wreckage, breathing through his teeth. It dawned on my slightly inebriated mind that he was covered with cuts, and alcohol. He charged, albeit a little clumsily from the pain he was in. The extremely agile earth pony dodged, and seemed to hang in the air, before landing a drop kick on the back of the buffalo’s neck, knocking him to the ground. He landed behind him and mumbled something under his breath. His eyes went wide and he tried to dodge the surprise kick from the buffalo, but caught it square in the flank. There was a sickening pop as he went tumbling to the back wall.
They were both having difficulty standing. The buffalo, from what I diagnosed as a concussion, and the pony from a hopefully only-dislocated hip. Trench was standing in shock as her tavern was being trashed. From the look on her face, calling down Thunderstomp on this drunker-than-hell earth pony wasn’t worth the money she would get out of him.
“Hey.” The earth pony looked me dead in the eyes from across what was left of the tavern. “Don’t let anypony stop this fight.” He…was…laughing… His leg was dislocated, and he didn’t want to stop the fight before it got worse? Was this an expected mental condition from living outside: Masochism? His look hardened when he saw the you-have-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me look I gave him. What was wrong with this stallion?
“You’re not joking, are you?” Was I really considering this?
He shook his head no, reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out something I had never seen before. “It’s Buffalo tape,” he explained, limping over to rock. “Put the sticky side over her mouth, and hold her down.”
“Let…meee….knnn-knoow…win…yoouu…are…are…gooood.” The buffalo stammered out and prepared to charge, focusing both eyes on the earth pony as best he could.
The brown buck lifted his hind legs and bucked the rock wall, throwing his leg back into its socket with another sickening pop. He grinned as his body quivered in pain. I leaned over, and for the third time today, vomited. It clicked what he could do to me if I let the now-in-more-control and less-in-shock Trenches interrupt the fight. What was she looking for behind the remains of the counter? So, I did what I had been told to do. I snuck up behind her and put the tape over her mouth. She mumbled and shrieked angrily as I sat on top of her. Then I saw what she was looking for, a pristine shotgun with a box of twenty four slugs, and loaded with eight more.

In the stable, both would be sent to medical and spend a week in isolation, not in that guaranteed order, depending upon my mother’s mood and the damages. Damn… had to stop thinking about her. Only made me sad, and angry at that Steel Ranger who used her. That reminds me, I need to find a sledge hammer before I find him. He better not be dead already.
“Alright, I’m good, everything shiny. Ready to finish this?” The earth pony walked fine while putting barely any weight on his leg at all. All the buffalo did was dig his hoof in the ground in preparation to charge.
They charged each other simultaneously. The earth pony timed his movements perfectly and almost artistically. He dove to the side of Thunderstomp, and landed a beautifully executed applebuck to the side of his face, knocking him headfirst into a rocky outcropping. He groaned before going completely limp. Then, the earth pony did something surprising. He rushed to the side of the buffalo, a look of panic on his face. He only relaxed when he saw Thunderstomp was still breathing, and poured a healing potion over his opponent’s skull and down his throat, and mumbled something. He then got up, grabbed his hat and started to walk out.
As he walked out, somepony else walked in. Or limped in, was more like. He was bloody like he had taken a bad fall. Shrapnel wounds peppered his body; his trashed battle saddle held a destroyed minigun and missile launcher. His eyes were covered with blood, and his head bled from an open wound in the side. You could see bone.
“Angelo’s back!” he cried into the empty bar. The mysterious pony froze in the doorway. “A black stable pony with a reaper cutie mark!” Trench sat silently under me. Were those tears?
The mysterious pony turned to look at me. He didn’t say anything, just eyed me over. His stare looked like it would kill me. He poured the healing potion down the mortally injured ponies throat and head. It wouldn’t be enough; he’d need at least five of them to stabilize him, but he would still need major surgery. The slaver had stumbled in here blind, delirious. Most likely, he had been here enough and knew ponies would be here. I saw the pony with the hat reach for something under his coat.
“WHOA!” I said as he pulled out a shotgun, “I’m not this Angelo’ pony, my name’s Omega.”
“Pleasure to meet you, but Angelo’ imitators need to be killed also. He was a monster, and some say he was the devil himself.” He loaded a drum into the gun. I readied the gun I had picked up from behind the counter.
“I didn’t kill anypony!” I yelled through the gun again. After seeing what this guy did to the buffalo without a gun, I didn’t want to find out what he could do with one. The slaver was passed out on the ground, most likely in shock from the healing potion. All he did was bought him a few minutes.
He clicked the safety off his gun and took aim. I was the one with tears in my eyes now. I was going to die, in my first day outside… I was never going to see my mom or FM again… Never going to be bored to the point of driving somepony completely insane… Never going to scare Spaz… So full of regrets... Time slowed as the gun fired. I saw his tongue pull the trigger, and the flash of the shotgun’s barrel. I tried to activate SATS but it was too late. I fell to the ground, the wind knocked out of me, but surprisingly not dead.
“Okay, I believe you.” He chuckled, “You wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot me if you were any follower of Angelo’.”
I was crying. I think, no, I know that I soiled myself. Why wasn’t I dead?
He sighed, “You are aware that others heard him walk into town mumbling that, if you want to live you need to get gone.”
“Where?” I choked out, rubber slugs still hurt like crap.
“I don’t know, do I look like a babysitter?” He was walking to the doorway. I heard noises outside, shouting about get every gun you could get. He looked out and whistled.
“What?” I was back on my feet the wind returning to my lungs, they were probably bruised.
“That’s a lot of ponies, and a lot of guns. Half expected most of them to run and hide.” He looked back to me. “Suddenly I don’t feel so good leaving you alone anymore.”
“Really?” I almost squealed, I might get out of here alive after all! “So how are we going to fight them all?”
“There’s a time to fight and a time to run for your life, and this is the latter.” He looked disappointed. “Wish we could, but you do that and then you are compared to Angelo’.”
“Who is he?” I asked I was really getting tired of being compared to a pony that I had never heard of.
“*Sigh. I’ll explain later.” He motioned me over.
“So what is the plan if it’s not fight our way out?”
“Simple, we steal that train.” He pointed his hoof toward some big black mechanical thing on the tracks. I was beginning to have massive suspicions about his sobriety.
“Do you know how to drive it?” I asked practically.
“Nope.” He grabbed his gun in his mouth. “How hard could it be?” We took off running for the train. After about thirty seconds of running, I was beginning to think we might make it. Then all hell broke loose as the area we were standing in was saturated with gunfire.

In my companion’s drunken stupor he seemed to sway to avoid every bullet. I, on the other hoof, was glad they were small caliber, poor condition weapons. We inevitably were separated as I dove for cover behind an over turned train car, hearing the rounds ping off of it. Seeing all the red lights on my EF’s move around to get a better shot, I had no choice but to shoot them. I had killed before, that was apparent from the dying pony in the bar. But that was a land mine. They were chasing me, and if they caught me, they were going to drag me off somewhere and work me to death, or just kill me straight up. This felt different, like I was making the conscience choice to take a life. The land mine felt more absent, like they had a chance to escape. This felt more determined. I was going to see them go down, see their blood and gore.

The first pony popped around the corner. I let my training take over and hit SATS. He was a middle aged stalion with a .32 revolver levitating beside him. His cutie mark was a needle, and his eyes had tears in them. At first I thought he was scared, but then I looked deeper into his time stopped eyes. That was blind rage. What could drive a pony to hate so much?

I fired two shots at his head; the spell slowed time down for me to watch the slugs slowly turn his skull to mush. Brain and skull fragments steadily flew backwards. The levitation spell for his gun dissipated. I just killed a pony. I wanted to sit there and sob. I thought my mom had prepared me for this, I thought it was going to be easy… Hide and scavenge for a few months, maybe join a caravan and offer my skills as a somewhat doctor… Not get framed for a horrific murder that turns everypony against me. This place was hell.

I felt teeth grab me by the back of the collar, and swung around the gun in my mouth. My attacker narrowly dodged the barrel hitting him upside the head. It was the Earth pony who had been trying to help me.
I was terrified, trying to follow the little green speck on my EF’s through the maze of red under constant small arms fire. Luckily, they didn’t have the benefits of built in targeting spells, so most of their shots were just in our general direction.
“There He Is!” A mare shouted from the ledge overlooking the town. A spotlight shown down on me, and she started shooting at me with her mounted rifle. I recognized that style gun from the armory. I always wondered why they had a sniper rifle in an area favoring a shot gun. It had a five clip magazine, I knew that much. The first three shots hit the dirt around me; with the next one I felt my back light on fire as the bullet grazed me. The final shot hit me square in the chest. Luckily the Kevlar stopped the penetration, but I felt some broken ribs. My companion returned fire with a pair of SMG’s he had kept under his coat, tied into what I was guessing was a battle saddle. He hit her and she went down, tumbling off the cliff, falling through the roof of the Sheriff’s office.
She stalled us long enough for the rest of them to be on top of us. We were being shot at from all sides as they steadily closed in. I’m not the brightest when it comes to military operations, but it seemed like they were being extremely hesitant to close with us and actually get in range for their guns to be accurate. Still, it was an awful lot of lead heading our way.
Finally, after the longest hundred yards of my life, we reach the train. We clambered aboard taking cover inside the heavy steel frame. Bullets pinged off the side of as we hid; only occasionally getting a chance to return fire. The coated pony began looking around the train for something. His eyes widened when he saw some levers and some hammers.
“When I say go, kick that lever as hard as you can,” the coated pony said as if this was a normal situation, his voice low and barely audible over the gunshots. He grabbed the hammer and headed to the back and started hitting something. I looked around and quickly found the lever and got in a position to kick it. I heard him say go…Barely… Did he ever yell?
The train started rolling down the slope to the rickety bridge, the extremely steep one, that looked like it was held together with good intentions and tape. Lots of tape. It started going faster and faster, heading for the ledge. My mind began having second thoughts about this as the train started to accelerate, then we hit the steep incline of the ledge. It was flying now, at least that’s what it felt like. As the train went over the rickety tracks, I held onto the lever for dear life, screaming at the top of my lungs and I think apologizing to the Goddesses for all my sins. My companion stood steady legged, walking around like being on an out of control train while being chased by some pissed off ponies was nothing special.
He was saying something to me in a calm voice, that I couldn’t hear over the wind rushing past my ears. He started to look more frustrated as he continued saying the same thing over and over. Then he grabbed my face and turned my head to look at the front of the train. Even with the low light and minimum night training I was given at the stable, my eyes could still make out the shape of a bridge. A bridge that was… not quite a bridge, because it was missing a huge chunk out of it.
I panicked. We were going to die, not by gunfire, but from falling to our deaths, and I would never get to--Why was he pulling back on the lever?
The train’s wheels screamed as the brakes kicked in. It hadn’t occurred to me that the same lever to turn off the brakes was the same lever to turn them back on! He looked at me, still clinging to the brake handle, like a small foal to its mother’s leg.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!” I hissed when the train had finally stopped.
“Don’t really know, no pony’s been able to figure that out.” He smiled stupidly.
“Are you insane?! We could’ve died!” I pulled out my gun and slid into SATS. His eyes narrowed as time slowed. At first I thought he was in midblink, but I realized he was glaring at me. My time stopped heart skipped a beat; I was point blank and only getting 50% chance of hitting him. I turned off the spell, eyes wide in horror.
“Could’ve died, but we didn’t. Had we stayed there we would’ve died, undoubtedly.” He looked back towards the town; it was just some distant lights.
“Why were they chasing me, how did they get me confused with this Angelo’, and who is Angelo’?” I looked back towards the distant lights of the town and noticed some of them were moving.
“No time. I’ll tell you when we are safe, we need to be getting out of here NOW!” He growled out the last word, staring at the lights. “We need to get you someplace safe. Well… safer.”
“Can’t we just go to another settlement?” I looked at the lights, and pulled out my assault rifle, hadn’t gotten to use it yet.
“Not a good idea. If they think you are Angelo’, no place is safe for you.” He gave a small honest smile. “You need to get a new identity.” He hopped off the train and seemed to fall slowly.
“Okay…how do we do that?” I asked, unsure anymore of this pony’s plans.
“I know a stallion.” He looked back at me. “He’s good with this sort of magic; he’d be able to help you out.”
“Where is he?” I had hope in my voice. If this guy was able to disguise me, I may not end up dead, and be able to find my father. All hope faded when he turned around and shrugged.
“Just head east; I know that’s the general direction he was heading. He may have been heading to Dodge Junction.” He drew his shotgun. “I’m going to go buy you some time.” He ran towards the lights, screaming some foreign language, blasting his shot gun.
I watched as the red bars converged and followed the single green bar. There were some shots fired, and gradually most of the dots walked off my EF’s. I started heading east.
The gunshots had long since faded, but there was no sign of the insane earth pony. All the same when he said Dodge Junction my pipbuck highlighted it on my map. I smiled thinking that the insane pony was probably dead.

I was alert, keeping my pipbuck light off and my eyes on my EF’s. Almost forgot about those slavers chasing me. A group of red dots were behind the next boulder; at first I thought it was some mole rats or dogs, but they don’t make fires.
“Syph, we lost 9 good ponies, friends of ours, to that buck already! Don’t need to risk more.” One of them said, “He don’t matter!”
“Don’t tell me who does and doesn’t matter!” She was in tears. “He killed mah family!”
“And he gonna kill a lot moar, you seen how good he is.” Wait, what? “He toyed with us for half en hour before gettin’ Tiny and his brothers with dat trap.”
“I know, he’s a monster!” I could hear she was on the brink of tears. “I lost family when we left one monster alone, I don’t want to let another go, whut ef he is another An-“
“DON’T SAY THAT FUCKING NAME!” The stallion roared, “THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ONE! HE IS GONE!”
“I just don’t want to go through it agin.” She was in tears. “He tortured me and forced mah parents to watch. HE PLUGGED A SPARK BATTERY UP TO MAH FLANK AN’ BURNT OFF MAH CUTIE MARK!”
Now that was just sick, who the hell is that fucked up? Yes they were slavers, but that was just too far.
“Yeah un’ I had to scrape my parent’s remains off the walls whun he shoved a grenade up their asses, after hookin’ a spark battery to mah stuff. He made them watch too, he always made them watch. He sed that if they blowed up, the cir-kit would be brokin.” The stallion murmured, “He lied…”

WHO WAS THIS FUCKER?! What they talked about was sick. Angelo’ wasn’t a sadist, he was a godless damn demon straight from Tarterous. I heard one of them wake up from a nightmare screaming about how it should’ve been him, begging for his mommy. From cover I watched them; they were all young, mid to early teens at best. All bore some scar of Angelo’. The leader had her flank burnt off. Like she said, all that was left was an ugly scar. They all seemed to barely hold together, and had hope that whoever had done this was gone for good. So did I, nopony deserved to watch their foals and fillies get tortured, or have to watch their parents be told that painful suicide was the only way for their child to survive. If he wasn’t dead, I was going to kill him myself.

…but he wasn’t dead. He tortured and killed those slavers, after how many long hours of me waiting, and left me to take the blame?

I continued to sneak by their camp listening to their horror stories, …was ripped apart, dropped into a vat of taint and they had to hear their agonized screams as their body warped… how they had to put the bullet through their skull. There was a struggle and several gunshots, a colt screaming over and over again, “Let me die.” They took the gun from him, but he grabbed another and pulled the trigger. There were sobs as they called for him. I continued to walk.

The stranger was waiting on the side of the road, looking at a watch; he looked complacently at me, and then saw the look on my face.

“What’s wrong?” He looked at me, confused.

“Nothing, I just guess the wasteland’s getting to me.” He tilted his head and smiled a little, looking to the sky.

“It can be a little depressing.” He put the watch back into his coat his gaze returning to the dark clouds in the night sky.

“How did you get ahead of me?” Depression had not lessened my curiosity, just changed my tone.

“I have my ways.” He looked down from the sky at me smileing wryly

“KILL THAT FUCKER!” The scarred slaver shouted as they poured bullets at me. I didn’t want to kill them. They were chasing me because they thought I was a monster, and they above all else knew what a monster was. I didn’t want to shoot them, but they gave me no choice. I had killed before and it was in self-defense, now I was shooting at them for the same reason. A couple bullets hit the Kevlar in the armor. I was winded and bruised, nothing more. The buck who hit me was less fortunate, taking a face full of buckshot from my shotgun. It was quick.

The Syph jumped out at me, levitating her assault rifle. I hadn’t seen such hatred before except in the old stallions eyes. She had lost everything, and believed I put her through it again. When she saw her cousin tortured to death, I imagined the barbed wire around his neck. Why didn’t he get me? He knew I was back there. He was he wanting somepony to see his work. She thought I was like the monster that tortured her and forced her family to watch, before making them commit suicide to save her. I grabbed my pistol, slid into SATS, and fired a shot at her glowing horn; I didn’t want to kill her. The bullet hit dead on, her horn exploding as the bullet continued going up, scalping her, and she fell down screaming in agony.

My companion was finishing up the last one by jumping over her and planting a knife in the mare’s skull. Somehow not a drop of blood landed on him.

The mare sat there crying as her body went into shock. My mom had taught me what happens when a unicorn loses her horn. It’s the most agony a pony can feel and still be alive; all the magic in her feeds back through their body, giving them a crippling migraine and incapacitating them.

She was still trying to move for her gun, her mouth wrapped around it and I slid into SATS. This was the kinder thing, she was a unicorn with no magic. Why save her? As far as I knew, that made her fair game in the wasteland, where she would be put through more hell than most ponies thought possible. Her family was dead, her friends were dead. She was a slaver. She found ponies, put explosive collars on their necks, and worked them to death. She needed to be put down, and it was quick.

After looting the bodies we started to walk on. What they had summed up to 215 caps, and miscellaneous ammo for their miscellaneous guns that were in barely working condition. I walked, my head low, thinking of what else I should’ve done, but the mercy killing was the only scenario that worked out.

“Tick-Tock.” My companion said staring off into apparent space, or at an extremely interesting rock.

“What?” I asked, breaking me from my depressive train of thought.

“My name. You never asked, and I figured four hours and fifteen minutes and thirty-six seconds was enough time to wait for you to ask.” He walked along, his eyes shifting to the ground and a small bush.

“OH!” He was obviously insane, no normal pony would count how long until somepony asked their name down to the second. “Mine’s Omega Pi.”

More silence. I kept running it over in my head, what I could’ve done differently.

“Know any good jokes?” He asked, breaking the silence.

“No.” I answered, not taking my eyes off the ground

“Riddles?”

“No.”

“Stories?”

“NO!” I snapped, drew my gun, and slid into SATS. I didn’t care that I wouldn’t have a good chance to hit him. He was in mid charge the time the spell was activated, knife in mouth. I targeted his feet. I didn’t want to kill him, just make him stop talking. I was in a bad mood and he was making it worse. Time steadily resumed. I watched as all three bullets left the gun, slowly flying towards this pony. His legs evaded all of them, and I was left vulnerable as time resumed, and he tackled me knocking the gun out of my mouth. He pinned me to the ground, sticking the knife in the dirt next to my head.

“Don’t do that to me.” He growled. “Stop targeting me with that damn spell. I excused you the first time and second time. Third time, I got pissed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop beating yourself up!” He glared me dead in the eyes. “You’ve been beating yourself up ever since that fire fight and it has to stop…what’s your name again?”

“Omega.” Had he really forgotten?

“Omega, there is nothing else you could’ve done. Mercy killings suck, they always do.” He got off me. “You try to avoid them, especially for friends. It sucks but you did the right thing. There was no way to fix the damage done to her, she was messed up psychologically too. She wanted you dead for the same reason everypony else in the wasteland wants you dead, and nothing could’ve changed that, so deal. It sucks, but that’s the wasteland.”

“How did you know?”

“I’ve been raised out here, so I can tell if something’s out of place. Excessive guilt is one of them. Decided letting you shoot at me couldn’t hurt.” Tick-Tock’s demeanor changed back to what it had been before. “So, do you know any jokes?”

“Nothing comes to mind.” What was wrong with this stallion, pissed off one second, and fine three seconds later? He had to be insane, my mother warned me I’d come across crazies. “By the way, how did you know I was targeting you when the spell seamlessly transfers time?”

“Time is my thing. I know time, I can feel time.” He glared at me. “That completely messes up my ability and gives me a funny feeling when it gets used.”

“Oh…” I wasn’t really buying it. If anypony could do that, it would be a unicorn, not an earth pony.

“You can use it; just don’t target. me That makes it so much worse.” Tick-Tock shuddered. “You ever have an ice cream headache?”

I shook my head no, I hadn’t even heard of ice cream.

“Okay…” He put his hoof to his chin. “Guess we’ll have to find you some ice cream. It’s the only way this analogy makes sense.”

“Can’t you give me another analogy?” I sighed. His mood swings were getting a little confusing. I was scared that I might cause another pissed off mood swing.

“No, unless you’ve eaten something extremely cold really fast.” He sighed when I shook my head. “See, then no other analogy will apply.” I had absolutely no clue what he was talking about, because the coldest food I ever had was room temperature in the stable.

I stood there, my mind blank. I had come to the conclusion that this pony was indeed stupid or insane, or he was wrong about not being able to get drunk. Everypony could get drunk.

“Are you coming?” He called out from ahead of me. “We need to find shelter before night hits, this is Bloodwing territory.”

“Bloodwings?” I didn’t remember my mom ever mentioning anything sounding like that.

“Big bats that travel in packs and can drink a pony dry in seconds.” He stared off, looking frustrated. “They are a pain in the ass to fight.”

“How bad could they really be?” I laughed. He was probably scared of them because he didn’t have stable training like I did, or SATS, or even EF’S that let him see hostiles.

(Level up)- Ninja-not-Congratualations due to you're awesome sneaking power you have an additional plus five to stealth, maybe?

(I'd like to thank my good friend Sarah who without this story would be full of infinite run-ons, comma splices and every other grammatical error you can imagine.)

On the run

Omega’s Trials
Chapter 3

I hate being wrong; however, I am far more fond of being alive. As we ran through the rough terrain, somehow staying just out of reach of the bloodwings, I realized just how little headway we had made in 30 minutes. The terrain was hell. Just then, another of the giant bats swooped down at me and pinned me, rearing its head back and revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth. As its mouth closed around my Kevlar-covered neck, a knife landed firmly in its skull up to the hilt.

“That was close,” I gasped, rolling the thing off me and scrambling to my feet just in time to hit SATS, and send three rounds into the one diving toward Tick-Tock.

“Just thought an object lesson might be valuable for a pony who says ‘how bad can they really be?’” He chuckled as he side-stepped the falling corpse. “Two bits of advice. Never, ever say ‘how bad can it be?’… and RUN!”

We took off running through the twisting paths, never seeing more than three yards ahead in the total darkness. Occasionally, he’d stop and let one crash where it thought its meal was going to be. How he was doing this was what I guessed to be experience, or he was right about his talent with time. As much as it seemed a ridiculous ability for an earth pony to have, it was the only thing that made any sense for his…skill. I also realized that I hadn’t even seen his cutie mark yet.

“Hey, Tick-Tock. Mind if I ask you a question?” A red bar on my EFS went by before becoming stationary.

“Go ahead, I’m an open book.” He looked back toward me and slowed to a trot.

“What’s your cutie mark?”

“An emerald studded pocket watch,” he said nonchalantly.

“You mean like the one I saw you have out earlier?” I tilted my head. A pony with a pocket watch that had a cutie mark of a pocket watch?

“Yes, and no. That one is ruby studded.” He pulled out his shot gun, pointed it straight up, and fired. “Damn, I hate missing.”

“Where did you get it, your pocket watch?” This conversation wasn’t showing the signs of degenerating into insanity yet. I was determined to keep it that way.

“I was found with it.” He gave another short answer. Those were starting to wear on my nerves. In the short time I knew Tick-Tock, the only things I had learned about him was that he believed letting me shoot at him was therapeutic, he spoke several languages, and he was a nutcase.

“You don’t talk about yourself much.” My tone had signs of frustration, but mostly sarcasm.

“Not much I want to talk about.” He chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“Your tone, just then. I finally got you to loosen up and stop taking yourself, and this place, so seriously.” He looked back and smiled widely. “If you accept it as one cruel joke after another, it makes it easier to deal with.”

“That settles it, you are definitely insane.” He laughed again. Was humor so uncommon in the wasteland that even insults were taken lightly?

“Tell me something the majority of the ponies that know me don’t already know.” He kept laughing, “It’s nice to see somepony agrees with them. By the way, we need to find shelter before the flock shows up, unless you want to find out how bad it can be.”

I was speechless, focusing on the first part of his statement. Was he really okay with being accepted as a lunatic? Or were there only three flavors wastelanders came in; scarred beyond belief like that unicorn Syph, bullies like Trench and Shanks, or completely insane like Tick-Tock?

My thoughts were interrupted by one hellish shriek, then more and more as my EFS filled with small red bars darting around. I really wish this thing had more than lateral view, would that design feature be too much to ask for? It’s not like I want the moon, but merely to track airborne targets.

“Tick-Tock, I agree with you, we need to find shelter immediately.” My EFS gradually filled with red.

“Glad you agree. Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with the ground here and I do not know where shelter could be.” He tilted his head back and whistled. “There sure are a lot of them.” The last part was mostly under his breath.

“Okay then do we have a plan B.”

“Run?” He shrugged.

“Where? If we just run, there’s no way we can make it through.” My panic was evident; Tick-Tock just looked up into the pitch-black sky in awe.

“Anywhere, really. It is harder to catch something if it’s moving.”

I was about to agree with him, but then I had a better idea. It involved running, but to a certain point instead of for our lives in general. He liked my idea better, and I love EFS and its ability to find new places.

I flung the heavy metal door of Protectopony Robotics open, giving Tick-Tock just enough time to get through before I slammed it closed in the face of a bloodwing. He stood up from the ground, dusted himself off, and straightened his hat.

“Well that was fun; I say we should do it again some time.” He said, smiling. I stood in horror before exploding.

“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?! WE BARELY MADE IT THROUGH WITH OUR LIVES! HOW CAN YOUR RESPONSE BE ‘LET’S GO AGAIN!’?” I was thinking of shooting him. If that was his idea of fun, I didn’t want to be around for when he had a party.

“Omega, I was being sarcastic.” He answered with one eyebrow raised. “It means to-“

“I’m aware of what it means.” I hissed, exasperated at his stoic attitude, and his eyes that seemed to never make full eye contact. They always seemed to focus on the wall behind me, the exit sign, even my mouth, but NEVER on my eyes for a period longer than a second. “However, I fail to see this as the time or the place for the use of sarcasm. We are surrounded by what could possibly be an old factory with a security system that’s going to try to kill us, be full of zombies, or both.”

“And that’s why I’m sarcastic.” He seemed to find his answer as definitive proof that his insane logic was infallible. “By the way, take a healing potion before the injuries catch up with you and your adrenaline wears off.”

“Whatever.” I sat down and felt all the running I did today catch up with me, as well as my empty stomach. I looked at my pipbuck. With certain exceptions, the last thing I ate was an apple an hour before leaving. It had now been forty hours. I was hungry and I was tired. Scratch that, exhausted. I thought that what my mom threw at me before I left- three days of drills with no sleep- was rough. At least the floors were flat and the stairs even. Out here it was worse. Despite all my preparations, I was a weak stable pony. I drank the healing potion.

“You need to take a rest,” Tick-Tock said, noticing my stable pony weakness.

“No, I’m good.” If I kept telling myself that, maybe my body would believe it. Besides, I didn’t trust my insane companion not to kill me while I slept, and turn in the body of “Angelo’”.

“Okay, whatever fuels your boiler.” His back was turned so I’m guessing he didn’t see how tired I actually looked. My mom’s voice echoed in my head: ‘Do not trust some pony unless they give you reason to.’ He stood up. “I’m going to take a look around. Be back in thirty.”

While he was gone, I decided to take a quick stock of everything I had collected thus far; a shotgun, two 9mm pistols that I’d have to tear down and put together to get them to work right, my assault rifle from the house which I kept shying away from. It’s just that I had never used such a big gun before. The good thing was that I had plenty of ammo for all of them, because my 10mm ammo was looking thin- like, two-clips-left thin. I also took stock of what I’d lost. I had no food. I had eaten what I had scavenged from the fridge at the house before I went to Trainyard, and the slavers we killed didn’t have anything on them. Why did I keep thinking about that pony they were talking about? I shouldn’t… They made him out to sound like the worst thing the wasteland ever coughed up.

I steadily disassembled the guns, cleaned them, took the best parts, and put them back together just like my mother had taught me in the stable. I was glad she had hit me for making it difficult on her. The first thing I was going to do when I got back was apologize to her.

“Hey Omega!” Tick-Tock’s voice echoed through the halls unexpectedly, causing me to drop my newly reassembled 9mm. “Check this out.”

I scrambled to my feet, gun in mouth. Didn’t know if he was planning to attack me or not.

“What?” I asked in confusion, check what out? He trotted around the corner carrying two bottles of orange stuff. “What is that?”

“This is Sparkle Cola.” He was more focused on putting it in his bag than my confused expression.

“And what is Sparkle Cola?” I asked, bewildered, as he struggled to fit them in his bag.

“The greatest soda in the wasteland.” He said, taking off his saddle bags to find a better way to fit them in.

“And what’s soda?” I raised my eyebrow as he sighed and gave me the bottle. It had an adorable pale gold Pegasus with a pink mane on the bottle. She just struck me as almost too cute to exist.

“It’s better if you just drink it.” He pushed one of the bottles to me. “Yeah, sorry it’s warm, but still Sparkle Cola.” He bit the cap off, tilted his head back and started to sip the bottle.

I followed suit, after my brain called a conference and told me that he could’ve killed me numerous times by now, and poison would’ve wasted the drink he might need later on. I found it to have a delicious carroty taste, although a slight bit radioactive. I was sad to see it gone.

“See anything?” He asked, looking at me. I gave him a puzzled look. “On your EFS?”

“OH!” I face-hoofed and quickly looked around, doing a complete 360. No red lights. “Nope, everything’s clear.”

“Okie Doke, want to help me scavenge this place?” He looked around, “Seems to be fairly untouched.”

We walked through the empty halls of the factory, and occasionally I’d give him the signal to freeze as a radroach would skitter by. Aside from that, there was no noise. We’d find a room, search it over, get a few caps and leave. I was the first to break the silence.

“Who was Angelo’?” I asked, quivering at the thought of what they had to go through.

“Angelo’ Death.” Tick-Tock stopped. Was what that pony had done universally terrifying? “Hell’s Pegasus.”

“Wow that was cryptic.” I mumbled, “Who was he?”

“He was once one of the best ponies in the Hub, if not the whole wasteland, the Wasteland’s Angel, if you were in trouble he’d be there to help.” He smiled towards the ceiling, “He worked for dirt cheap and always did the right thing to help people, not just ponies, griffins, goats, minotaurs, you name it. Even a gang tried to mimic him. At least they did before he broke.”

“What happened?”

“The wasteland is hard on heroes; it does its best to break them, corrupt them and destroy them. So one day, the Angel of the Wasteland fell.” He trudged forward, opening a box. “Nopony knows why, but for three years, he went on a bloody rampage killing and torturing hundreds single-hoofedly. Nopony knows for sure how many he killed, but it’s safe to say over a thousand. Everypony who tried to stop him failed even other angels. Then one day, three years ago, he stopped. Nopony knows what happened, where he went, anything… One day, Angelo’ Death just vanished.”

“What do you think hap-“

“Omega, Angelo’ crossed some major lines and did some horrible, horrible things to a lot of ponies, not just raiders or gangs. He burnt down towns that supported them, butchered any pony that sheltered them, killed the caravans that supplied them. He went from greatest hero, to the most horrible monster from the pits of Tarterus.” He sighed, and then kept walking. He said nothing else as we searched on through the building. “Cerberus should’ve dragged him into that pit, kicking and screaming.”

Time went by slowly as we searched every room on the first floor. Tick-Tock hadn’t said another word since I asked him about Angelo’. I hadn’t tried to make him talk. Angelo’ took something from him, something irreplaceable, and it still hurt him all these years later. I accidently knocked over an empty soda bottle. It fell to the ground and shattered. A single shard of the ancient glass bottle went flying into the air, hitting the lens of a wall camera, which started to turn towards us.

“Alarms in 3..2..”Tick-Tock froze and started to count down. Reaching into his coat, he grabbed his gun. I was left wondering what he was about to do. “…1.” All hell broke loose.

Alarms went off and turrets descended from the ceiling and began to open fire. Tick-Tock ducked behind one of the desks, and I dove into one in the adjacent cubicle, dropping my gun. I guessed now was as good a time as ever, and pulled out the assault rifle as I poked my head around the corner. There were two turrets in the hall, one on each end. Tick-Tock was pumping shot gun slugs into one of them, so I turned to face the one that popped up behind us. I activated SATS. Why was he counting down again?

“Tick-Tock, we have at least four more of those protectopony things coming this way.” I reloaded the assault rifle that I was starting to develop a real fondness for. So far we had destroyed three of them, but they just kept coming.

“That makes eight.” He reloaded his shot gun, a grin on his face. “Wanna make this fun and keep score?”

“WHAT?!” How did he know just what to say to freak me out? “WHY?!”

“Winner buys the loser a cold Sparkle Cola when we get to Switch.” He grinned, pumping his shotgun.

“Okay fine.” I agreed reluctantly, although I did really like Sparkle Cola, and wanted to find out what a cold one tasted like.

“Tally-Ho!” He ran down the hallway, pumping an alternation of buckshot and slugs into the robots. I sat dumbfounded for just a few seconds, until I reminded myself there was a cold beverage on the line.

I heard him, was he laughing. I dropped one of them that had turned their back to me and slid into SATS for the one that turned around. The assault rifle fired three round bursts in SATS, much to my liking. I got to watch in slow motion as each bullet left the gun and tore into the robot’s head. Two, three counting the one from earlier, four if we include turrets. That Sparkle Cola was going to be mine.

I rolled around the corner, and found myself facing another turret. SATS quickly took care of it. Five. I swapped out my assault rifle for the shot gun to better conserve ammo; the rifle would drink bullets all day. The shot gun had four shots until it needed to reload. SATS hadn’t recharged yet but the robots didn’t care. More and more kept showing up on my EFS, ten at the last count. I emptied the shot gun into the robots as they rounded the corner, downing one, damaging the head and legs of another. I grabbed my 9mm and finished it off with three rounds. My score was at seven.
Tick-Tock’s shotgun had stopped firing, and he had swapped out for his smg battle saddle. I had swapped back to my shotgun since it was what I had the most ammo for, and was now at twelve. I had burns all over my body from when these things had hit me, which was starting to become more common. There were more of them, my EFS steadily getting more and more red dots. Where the hell were these things coming from?
My side was lit up by three of the robots that rolled down the hall on their treads, I went into SATS, and prayed I’d only have to use the minimum amount of ammo to drop them. All but one of the robots went down, fifteen; I finished the survivor with an apple-buck down a flight of stairs. It then dawned on me how stable-like this building was.
I dove behind a desk as five of them crowded around the door trying to get in. Whoever built these things gave them horrible spatial awareness, and I was quite happy about that. I unloaded my shotgun into the doorway, watching as three dropped before I ducked to reload. Eighteen.
“Hey Omega, what are you at?” Tick-Tock’s voice was barely audible over the gun and magical energy fire. Of course it didn’t help that he wasn’t shouting.
“EIGHTEEN!” I shouted, sliding into SATS and firing two shots into the robot in the doorway. “NINETEEN!”
“TWENTY-TWO!” He shouted back, laughing insanely. It was obvious that if I wanted to win that Sparkle Cola, I’d have to step up my game a bi--My brain called a conference with my logic and conscienceness to debate the fact that I was risking my life for a beverage, and enjoying it. The shock didn’t weaken my resolve. I wanted that soda.

Made a quick check with my pipbuck, five heading towards me. I rolled out from behind the table and sent a small stream of bullets from my 10mm into the doorway. Twenty.

I was back to my shotgun. On number twenty-one and twenty-two, it broke, much to my horror. I had to use it to club twenty-three. My assault rifle was out of bullets on twenty-four, but bludgeoning robots was one of the last things I wanted to do. I had one clip left for my 10mm, and five rounds for my 9--Make that no rounds for the 9mm-- Twenty-five. The lower I got into the building, the more mechanical sounds I heard, and the thicker in number these things got. I had started sneaking around them instead of shooting, using my big-ass knife as a can opener. I was saving my ammo for something more important. I was going to kill that psycho. He was still keeping score too. Thirty-seven.

I rounded the corner and found the source of the mechanical sound and the robots. From the catwalk I was standing on, I saw three sets of assembly lines putting together robots. They’d start with the tracked hooves, the line would start then stop for another set of clawed limbs to attach the legs below the knee, and then it would start and stop again until the finished robot rolled off the assembly line. The whole thing was kind of mesmerizing.

I was brought out of my daze when a series of red flashes peppered the catwalk. More than six, less than ten red beams of magical light danced around me, none actually hitting me. I reached for my gun, then remembering just how little ammo I had left and decided to run. I bolted to the door at the end of the catwalk and took out the magical beam turret that guarded the office. There was a desk that said ‘Supervisor’ in bold letters across the name plate, some file cabinets and not much else. Well, besides the skeleton sitting at the desk. Cause of death… Missing the top part of his skull. A gun lay on the ground next to him, and behind him what looked like a crown studded with topaz, diamonds, and sapphires. I picked it up and stuffed it in my bags. My pipbuck identified it as recollector.

I shoved mummified pony out of the way and began to hack the computer, something my mom taught me to do in case I was ever locked out of the main system at the stable. Of course, I now knew the real reason she made me learn all those skills. Medical, hacking… She told me she and my father had to do it frequently. Which reminded me, I still needed to find a sledgehammer. He had to be alive or I was going to have my sledgehammer converse with his killer. And guns, she taught me all about guns. Even though I showed talent with blades, she said I’d need to know how to use one.

I was almost locked out, when a blasting noise started at the door and broke my concentration. I backed out and tried again. This time, I was interrupted by Tick-Tock screaming for me. Great, just what I needed, an illiterate wastelander distracting me. Bet he was just trying to tell me his kill count. I had to back out again.

The computer beeped at my third attempt to hack it and all the data opened; some letters, a request for replacement parts, complaints about the security system acting funny (which me and the psycho discovered), and another tid-bit about a computer glitch. Then I found it. The selection seemed to glow as I highlighted it: ‘Assembly Line On/Off’. I hit it and noticed something in the hooves of the dead pony, a small orb that seemed to glow as I grabbed it in my mouth; my pipbuck identified it as ‘Golden Delicious’ Farewell’. Then I saw something sitting under the desk; a small button with a remote control, and next to it, a note.
“Golden, you had been saying you were having problems with the security system and robots so I had this made up. One push of this button turns off all the robots and turrets in your factory. I just hope you don’t need to use it.
Also, have you signed AJ’s get well card? It would really mean a lot to her.
Sincerely,
Apple Strudely”

I smiled and pushed the button on the remote just as the old wood door burst into flames from the heat of the robots’ attack, then silence. I leaned out the doorway and saw them all either leaning or collapsing. Tick-Tock burst through the doorway, his coat and hat burnt from the few places he had been hit. He then looked at the factory floor, closed one eye and held a hoof out, moving it every few seconds.

“Final score for me… thirty-nine. For you…a lot.” He looked at me and smiled. “Drinks are on me when we get to Switch Yard.” He started to walk down the catwalk’s stairs to the factory floor, and headed to the assembly line. “Cool, you found a recollector.” He paused for a moment at my puzzled look. “You put a memory orb in the top, and it plays the memory for non-unicorns.”

“Is that it? I just turned off a factory full of hostile robots.” I asked, dropping the crown from my mouth, in disbelief of his apathy towards life-threatening danger.

“That was the wager, loser buys the winner a cold Sparkle Cola.” He walked to the crate containing the heads of the robots.

“No, I mean you have nothing else to say, nothing involving if I’m alright? Or if I need a healing potion, or how I turned off the robots? You’re just going to go back to staring off into space?”

“I thought you’d tell me if you were injured, and I saw the light from the computer in the office, so I assumed that you hacked it and found the turn off assembly line, and robots button, icon, thingy.” He gave me a hard look that threatened to rip my head off. “I do pay attention. Most the time when I’m staring off like that, it’s because I’m thinking.”

“Thinking about what?” I shouted. I was pissed. What could a simple Wastelander have on their mind, especially one as prone to mood swings as this one? I made sure my gun was loaded and the safety off before I went to the factory floor to confront him. “What could an insane, illiterate, alcoholic wastelander have to think about?”

“Stuff.” He dug out the head of one of the robots and pried off the hatch in the back with his knife. I swear the blade on that knife shrunk.

“What, how you’re going to try and get me killed?!” I was so tired of his vague half answers. “If anypony has stuff to think about, it’s me. I have a mother and marefriend to get back to in my stable.”

“What’s stopping you?” He asked in a calm tone, pulling out a small canister from the head of the robot. “Hopefully, I remember how to do this right. Haven’t had an energy weapon in a long time.” He was chuckling, like I wasn’t saying anything serious to him.

“In order to become Overstallion, I have to survive in the wasteland for three months.” His head perked up. “Since I’ve been outside I’ve been framed for murder, nearly gunned down, shot at by robots and turrets, and nearly carried off by giant bats!”

“Stable ponies,” He chuckled, with the canister in his mouth. “You know what we call that?”

“I don’t fucking know. What do you call it?!” I was about to start pulling out my mane. What was with this stallion? No matter how much I insulted him, nothing got to him.

“Tuesday.” That was it, I charged him. I wasn’t going to shoot him, as I might need that gun for more important stuff, and I was just determined to beat the shit out of him.

He effortlessly dodged my charge. I reared back for an applebuck, but my right forehoof slipped in some oil and I fell, knocking one of the leaning robots on top of me.

“Three months?” He looked down at me, trapped underneath the robot with pitying eyes, and pushed the robot off of me.
(Level Up) Mad computer skillz-plus five to science

Hunted

Omega’s Trials
Chapter 4

We silently walked up the stairwell until we reached the ground floor. It was still night for a few more hours, and I honestly felt like crap. I was covered in oil, bruised, burnt, there were a few holes in my armor, and I was exhausted. Tick-Tock had been fairly quiet. Not talking, but still humming some tune I had never heard before, while walking in step. Most of my anger was gone and I had to admit he was right; I wasn’t going to last three months, especially if everypony thought that I was the reincarnation of Angelo’. I wasn’t going to survive without help, and I as much as I hated him, he had so far been the only one who had not tried to kill me.

“I’ve decided that while I’m out of the stable I’m going to look for my father.” His ears perked like he had been waiting for me to break the long silence. “He is a Steel Ranger named Iron Saddles. I don’t know if he is even alive, but it gives me something to do.”

“Okay.” He kept walking. “Well, that makes keeping you alive a lot more fun.” I didn’t even have to look to know if he was smiling.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” I retorted, completely forgetting that I was going to need it.

“You haven’t, yet.” His tone dropped, and he sounded cryptic. “The Steel Rangers are primarily stationed at the MWT wall of the Hub. They routinely send scouts and teams in there to bring out shiny toys.”

“My mom mentioned the Hub, but said she never got close to it. What is it?”

“It was the biggest transportation and manufacturing facility in Equestria before the war, lots of guns and security measures. It somehow shrugged off a balefire bomb.” He looked up towards the ceiling. “Never actually been there myself, but would like to go someday.”

“Let me guess. Lots of ponies fight over salvage rights?”

“Not much violence really, but lots of tension though.” I looked at him puzzlingly. “The area outside the building is a weak mute zone, and if a gun is fired within a mile of the building or on the first floor, it goes into lockdown. Nopony in or out until it gets lifted. I think it takes a week, so that’s a week of salvage teams being shot at by robots and turrets and other things.” He finished, and took out one of the canisters, put it in his mouth, and a small red beam of magic shot out. “It’s nothing more than a high powered flashlight, but better than nothing.” He tossed it to me.

“Thanks?”

“No problem. I don’t like using magical weapons. They don’t have the same authority as a regular gun.” He stowed the other one in his saddle bags.

“Right…” Something about that didn’t seem quite right, “You just gave me a gun because you don’t like it?”

“That,” he paused and rested his hoof on his chin, “AND you probably need it more than me.”

“The fuck? I have the finest combat training my stable can provide!” I stomped.

“You were trained by ponies that most likely haven’t had decent experience in two centuries.” He looked around the corner cautiously. “You have thirty shots. Be careful, and that may burn if you fire it too much.”

“Alright.” I didn’t really care, it was a weapon, and he did have a point. It still worked and shot, right?

We were almost to the lobby where we entered, when the front door slammed shut.

“Everypony okay?” An authoritative mare’s voice called out amidst panting.

“Just some scratches, Hammer,” a stallion answered; there were some more “uh-huh”s. I checked my EFS. Five total, all red.

“Tracer, you sure those tracks led up here?” Hammer shouted.

“Yeah Hammer, I’m sure.” The voice of this stallion sounded like he gargled gravel. “Either that, or they were carried off and bled dry when they reached the door.” He coughed or laughed, or both.

“They weren’t. Angelo’ Death wouldn’t die that easily, and the other one beat the shit out of that buffalo. I’d hate to have a round with him,” Hammer growled. I looked over to Tick-Tock, and he had the same look on his face as when he was waiting for Thunderstomp.

There were five in total; Hammer, the leader, was a red, scarred unicorn mare and had a sledgehammer that looked just like the one that I’d want to use on my father; Tracer, the first ghoul I had ever seen, looked like a pile of walking beef jerky. He had a sniper rifle. I hadn’t got the names of the other three, an earth pony and two unicorns. They had, respectively, a shotgun which didn’t look too bad, a flame thrower mounted onto the back of the earth pony, and an assault rifle that seemed to glisten in the lights. I watched them camp out from the hallway window overlooking the front desk.

“I want that hammer.” I mumbled, barely audibly.

“An Angel Slayer?” Tick-Tock mumbled in my ear, almost making me jump.

“Who?” I whispered, glancing out of the hallway. He gave me the” I’ll explain later” look. “Well do you have a plan?”

“Yeah, but you really won’t like it.” He insisted.

“What, I-“ Tick-Tock shoved my head out of the way of the Tracer’s bullet.

“My plan, make it up as I go.” He laughed, dragging me through the hallway until I got to my feet and started following him.

We were running down the stairs, and Tick-Tock was right about the magical weapon being on par with an overpowered flashlight. He could’ve also gotten me some more ammo for the thing. One thirty-round, blast, zap, charge, or whatever the fuck it was called wasn’t going to do the job. I leapt down a flight of stairs to avoid the levitating hammer. I switched to the 10mm.

Bullets flew by me as I jumped over the railing to the next flight; I had lost Tick-Tock. He had said he’d be right back, but two minutes is a long time to wait for somepony when you are being chased by some vengeful, murderous thugs.

I turned my head and activated SATS. Hammer and Tracer were nowhere in sight, and neither was Tick-Tock. He said “Elevator,” and left, however the other three were right above me. I targeted the head of the mare with the combat shotgun. With three bullets, one hit her jaw, turning it into bloody pulp and breaking her concentration and dropping the shotgun. The other two missed by inches. Before I could press my advantage, Assault rifle opened fire while Flamer ran out and got her bleeding companion. I kept running down the stairs while Assault Rifle kept in pursuit. I was able to stay just far enough ahead of him to avoid being in the way of the barrel, as he followed me down to the factory floor, where I found Tick-Tock.

He was fighting Tracer and Hammer on the newly restarted assembly line, dodging equipment, hammers, and bullets coming at him; his face was calm joy. Tracer stood barely visible inside the elevator shaft. He levitated his gun to aim at me.

I heard a bang, and felt a sharp sting in my back right leg. My pipbuck promptly informed me it was crippled. Another shot fired, hit my other rear leg. I just barely made it to cover in an office as one ricocheted off the doorframe.

My hind legs were in bad shape, I was losing blood, and Tracer was just sitting out there waiting. I had no idea if Tick-Tock was going to be done fighting Hammer in time to help me, or if he even had the necessary skills to help. I was in tears at that time, and I drank a healing potion to slow the bleeding. I’d have to fix my legs up before they healed completely. If that happened, then I’d be screwed.

There were slow and steady hoof steps. I could barely hear them over the fight outside. I looked over, and through the wall I saw Tracer’s red bar on my EFS get closer and closer. Then the steps shrunk to an almost nonexistent sound. He wasn’t counting on my EFS tracking him around the corner. As soon as he rounded the corner and pointed the sniper rifle where my head was, I pushed away from the wall and slid into SATS with the 10mm in mouth. Through the stopped time of SATS, I could see every grotesque detail on his face; the spots where his body had rotted away revealing muscle and bone, his skin looked like worn leather, and his black mane was stringy and looked as though it was about to fall out… It had in most places. I targeted his legs and the gun. I didn’t want to kill him, even though he looked dead. All three shots hit their marks, the bullets breaking his fore legs, and the gun left the levitation field. He fell to the ground, yelling and swearing.

“Fucker!” He grabbed his knife and levitated it at me. I rolled away from each stab, and with SATS on, I put my last 10mm bullet through his head. He lay there as black stuff, which I could only assume was the ghoul equivalent of blood, oozed out of his forehead and mouth. I felt a new pain when I tried to move again; his last thrust from the knife hit me. I think in the kidney. That’s what my pipbuck indicated, at least.

I crawled out of the office and to the catwalk, overlooking the factory floor where Tick-Tock and Hammer had been fighting. He had that disturbing look of joy his face, and I felt nauseas trying to keep up with them. I sat down, careful not to move the knife. I didn’t want to make the bleeding any worse. I was forgetting something, something important… There was a click as the action on an assault rifle went back. Oh right, that.

I tried to move away from him, but there was no way I was going to make it. I felt his hoof stomp on my broken leg. I screamed as his other hoof stomped my other crippled leg. The barrel of the gun was pressed against the back of my head. I was crying. Even with help, three months was impossible.

There was a yell in some foreign language, followed by a wet slicing sound, and a yelp came from behind me. The weight of the pony on my legs vanished, and I was able to turn around. Through fading vision as my body started to go through shock, a brown pegasus hovered in front of me, blood dripping from his bladed wings. The pony that was holding the gun against my head was being forced to stand on his hind legs as he bled out. His eyes looked down at the bladed wing sticking half way through his gut, then to the pegasus, and then his eyes glazed over and he died, gurgling. He turned his attention back to Hammer, after he blocked the doorway with a robot.

“Sorry about that, now where were we?” He descended back to the factory floor to where his coat fell and put it back on. He stepped back and popped his neck. Hammer’s look of determination melted to fear and shock as she took a few steps back from Tick-Tock, as had landed on the assembly line in front of her again. He lunged at her and cut right above her face. She snapped back to reality and swung her hammer. Tick-Tock somersaulted backwards and skidded to a stop. “You’re pretty good.”

“I’m a fucking Angel Slayer, I have to be good.” She looked over at me and looked back at Tick-Tock.

Tick-Tock glanced over. “Omega, sit tight for three minutes.” His eyes widened, as he looked me over again and he corrected himself. “One minute.”

They started fighting back and forth, Tick-Tock’s knife narrowly missing or just not cutting deep enough, and her attacks with the hammer getting more and more frantic. I really hoped she didn’t kill Tick-Tock; I was going to do it myself, maybe. I wasn’t sure. What I was sure of, was that I would need at least three healing potions to fix the stab, and some surgery on what was left of my legs.

She smiled, as her feint got Tick-Tock to charge. She levitated out a shotgun and pulled the trigger, blasting his…empty…coat? Vision starting to blur… not good… I was losing too much blood. Sounds were starting to go, also.

“Da…I…ked that coat.” He said, floating in the air. Massive headache and going cold, definitely not good, definitely needed a transfusion... My hooves started to feel very tingly.

Her lips were moving, but I couldn’t make sense of anything she said. She looked upset. She kept saying somepony was dead.

Now Tick-Tock was talking about somepony being dead and he looked weird too, with his …wings. Had they been there the whole time? He said that she was going somewhere too, but I couldn’t keep up… Too much blood loss… She swung her hammer. There was a crack as it connected. He smiled, and didn’t seem to notice.

His wings cut through her neck, separating her head from the rest of her body. Her body stood there for a second, looking like a fountain as her heart continued to pump blood out until she fell to the floor. Lots and lots of blood… Drip drop, splish-splash… I was really groggy.

“Get me a doctor.” I was lucid enough to ask that before passing out from blood loss and exhaustion. I think physical and mental shock were factors too, at some point.

I was on Tick-Tock’s back as we ran through the factories distribution tunnels being chased; my legs were held together with tape and healing bandages. Red bars moved around my EFS. It was weird feeling his wings under his coat. I was fading in and out of consciousness. Occasionally, we stopped and he’d leave me for a little bit, and then come back. He kept talking to me, asking me about my stable, family, friends. Then I finally blacked out.

I awoke in a small box about the size of my room in the stable, bloody surgical instruments next to me, and assorted medical equipment. I was aware of a burning sensation in my legs, and numbness in the rest of my body. I felt heavy, sore and barely lucid.

“Good, you’re up,” said the sickly pale unicorn stallion with a scraggly grey mane. It looked like he was literally tied into knots as he walked around the rectangular room, and checked some equipment hooked up to me. He touched his horn to my head, and I became immediately aware of how much pain I was in. I felt like my legs had an egg beater with a blow torch on it and they let Spaz go at it. His lack of concern in my pain was quite disheartening. “Listen, I have to deal with enough problems, that I don’t need you to go and rip yourself apart after I put you back together. If it wasn’t for Tick-Tock, you’d be on the side of the train tracks waiting to be found and turned in for the bounty.”

“Bounty?” I winced, Goddesses this hurt! I really hoped he would numb me again.

“Yeah, the new Angelo’ Death has gained some popularity.” His apathy towards my discomfort made me doubt he was really my doctor. “Tick-Tock snuck into the car while we were switching pullers and left you in my hooves. Told me you were innocent, paid me for the work I’d have to do, and left. Said he’d meet you at Switch Yard. Hell of a friend you earned yourself.”

“He’s not my friend.” I tried to get up, then fell down as he numbed me again. “What’s the bounty?”

“Fifty Thousand caps.” My discomfort was lifted momentarily, and replaced with shock, but it came right back. I think it may have been anger. Finally, he numbed my legs and I was able to endure the pain a lot better. Why was he laughing? “Tick-Tock carried you here through a flock of bloodwings, got shot at by the guards, paid for your ticket and treatment, and said to tell you he’d meet you at Switch when we dropped you off.” Then his tone became sharper. “If that’s not a friend, then you need to tell me what one is.”

I laid there in disbelief. What was Tick-Tock’s deal? My mom said that I’d meet ponies who were nice to me one minute, and then enslave me the next. It didn’t make sense what was he gaining out of this, he had only known me for a few days. You don’t form friendships over that short a time, do you? In the stable, I had never really had a friend, just mentors, and my mother. I guess you could count her. Maybe FM also, I mean, we had…done stuff… but not really a bond. All the bonding had been done while she dug around in my skull. For all I knew, it was to gain leverage on my mother for a better position in the stable.

I finally answered. “I don’t know.” And that was the honest to Celestia truth. I had never really had one before, so had nothing to base this off of. “Do friends drag each other into a position that gets them shot?”

“Sometimes. I think it’s a family trait, had to fix up his brothers often enough, too.” He gave me a hard look. “I’m a physician, not a shrink, but you need to find out if this Tick-Tock is your friend, which is extremely likely. Your stuff’s in the locker. Your…whatever you call him, personally loaded it in there before he left the train.”

“Thanks.” I groaned. Even with the anesthetic spell , my legs still hurt.

“Don’t thank me.” He walked out of the car. As doctors go, I put him at a six. He did fix me up, but his bed side manner needed work. “I recommend three days’ rest before you go out and do anything in the wasteland. Not that anypony ever listens to their doctor, but still.”

The door to the train car shut and he left me alone with my thoughts. Tick-Tock was dangerous, insane, and unpredictable, but he saved me time and time again after letting me make mistakes. He caused a couple of them, too, but promptly fixed them… or at least tried to. Was he really trying to be my friend?

The door opened, and in walked a young unicorn mare with a .308 bullet cutie mark. She paused, wide-eyed, seeing me on the gurney, then recovered and went to searching through the medical supplies.

“Hello, anything I can help you with?” I asked, picking myself up on my fore hooves to get a better look at her. Her coat was a cream color with a curly orange mane.

“Nope, just getting something for my brother. Tanglebones said it was alright.” She didn’t glance at me or anything, just kept searching through the cabinets, levitating things out and putting them back. I eyed her wearily. “Don’t worry, he keeps a careful stock. If anything goes missing, he knows it.”

I still didn’t fully believe her. I knew how valuable this stuff was, and how much it was worth out here. To add to that, she seemed familiar in a bad way, her attitude, the way she talked and walked. It had the same confidence as the bandit who robbed me my first day out.

“Didn’t catch your name?” I smiled. She gave me a look of what-the-hell-kind-of-drugs-is-he-taking?

“Sure Shot.” My jaw dropped, and my eyes went wide. Luckily, I regained my composure before she turned around and looked at me. I rolled over and thought about how long it would take me to get to the locker if she did try to rob it.

She pulled a vial of cough medicine out of the cabinet and closed it. “Do those pipbuck things really do everything that’s advertised?”

“Like what?”

“Like tell you if somepony is going to shoot you, map out the environment, mark places just because I say something like ‘Horseshoe Weapons Manufacturing’.” My pipbuck gave off a barely audible chirp as the location was marked.

“Yes it does all those things; it also acts as a broadcaster and receiver and can pick up the radio stations.” I boasted. “Also keeps track of hydration, physical health, and-“ She was levitating a scalpel to my throat.

“That’s enough. I’ll be taking it then.” Just. Like. Her. Sister.

I had to laugh at the ridiculousness of her request. “Look, Sure Shot, this thing doesn’t come off without the proper tool which is in the stable; the only other way you can get this off is through amputation.”

My brain kicked me for suggesting that to a possibly sadistic pony, whose sister had robbed me. I saw her eye the bone saw, and then the most unexpected thing happened while I sat there grinning, or doing my best to. She put the scalpel down and walked out of the car, cough medicine in tow.

“Don’t forget how lucky you are, Stable Pony,” she grumbled as she left. Somehow, with my crippled legs, and being left to the mercy of a wasteland doctor that I had a very healthy guess didn’t graduate from an accredited academy -or an academy at all- I wasn’t feeling lucky. However, my pipbuck was still on my leg, and without it, navigating the wasteland would be impossible.

The hours seemed to pass by painfully slowly; with no sign of the doctor, or anypony, I sat there and stared at the ceiling. I’d kill to be a unicorn right now, with their cheating magic, even if it was just levitation. That would be so useful. Night fell, and it started to rain. The train came to a stop. I’d never seen lightning or heard thunder before. My mom mentioned it briefly when I asked her about weather patterns. She said ‘they were unpredictable and erratic, and to look out for flood zones’.

When the thunder boomed the noise jolted me, and I rolled off the gurney and onto the floor. I stumbled around trying to regain my footing, but my rear legs were numb still, so I repeatedly fell around the car. I decided to lie down and wait instead of risking further damage to myself. What kind of pony doesn’t listen to their doctor’s advice?

“What the hell happened to you?” The doctor asked, when the train had started moving again and he was back to check up on me. His entrance synchronized with a lightening flash, and it made me wonder if he was watching.

“I fell.”

“Uh-huh.” I felt something cold and metal snap around my legs. I glanced down at the braces. “Don’t get over excited, the second you’re off the train they come back to me, so you best hope Tick-Tock can get you some enough caps for them. Otherwise, they stay here.”

“Has anypony ever told you that your bedside manner needs work?” His horn flashed, and the anesthetic spell vanished revealing just how much pain falling had caused. Compared to this, the pain from when he removed the spell earlier was nothing. My brain called me in to a conference, and told me my mouth was fired. “Sweet Celestia, I take it back!”

“Not before you shut up and listen.” He levitated me back on to the gurney and slammed me down hard. “It’s painfully obvious that you’re fresh out of the stable, so I’m going to give you some advice.”

“DON’T CRITICIZE THE PONIES WHO HAVE EXPERIENCE IN THIS SHIT!” He regained his composure, “What’s the worst injury you had in the stable?”

“A 7 inch gash across my face from when I crashed into a unicorn.” I looked up at him and frowned disapprovingly. My mind wandered back to thoughts of beautiful FM.

“And how did you treat it?”

“With a healing potion, what other ways to treat it are there?” Minor things like that don’t warrant major surgeries.

“Out here in a mute zone, you know what that healing potion would do?”

“Be less affective?” I shrugged. That’s what mute did, weaken magical things.

“In SOME places, there are mute zones so strong that nothing magical, and sometimes even chemical, works.” He gave me a hard look as my eyes widened.

“What?” Oh wasteland, with your infinite surprises...

“Those healing potions you believe will save your life with one step… they become nothing more than red water.” His face was deadly serious.

“But how do you treat a pony in those conditions? Wait, that means no magic either.” He looked at me and nodded, his hard look melting away.

“Exactly. So I’ve had to operate on ponies, without magic. I’ve set legs the hard way, sewn injuries that require hundreds of stiches with my mouth, while the patient is screaming for anesthetic.” He looked down at me. “Trust me, you’ve had it easy.”

“I-I had no idea, my mother-“

“Trust me kid, its hell out here. You’d be best off getting back to your stable as soon as possible. By the way, your friend told me to give you this when you were lucid enough.” He levitated a small envelope out from the locker my things were stored in, and placed it on a tray in front of me. He then mercifully hit my legs with the anesthesia spell again before walking to his cabinets with a clipboard and pencil to take stock.

“Omega,

Sorry I had to abanden you on the train there, but you needed help and I didn’t have the caps for both of us and your operation. Im insane not stupid. I recognized the extint of the damage and blood loss. You wanted to know more about Angelo’ Death? His actions hit the wastland pretty heavily, especially the pegasus. They faced some pretty horrible discrimination. Not just kicked out of towns but murderd entire towns hunting them down. It was not fun time, and it’s still here, so whatever you saw in the factory you didnt see.

Tried to keep everything basicly the same. Your cutie mark is a griffon symbol, which means the End. Means the same thing to them as your sickle. You need a new name by the way, Trench heard you tell me yours. How about we go for Scythe?

-Tick-Tock.

p.s. I would’ve told you if you asked.

p.s.s. If you plan to apologiz there’s no need, emotions were high and I was a bit out of control also.

p.s.s.s. Somepony named FM called on your pipbuck, I said you were too busy dyeing from blood loss to talk, she seemed upset, told her to try again in a few days.”

“Okay, so I take it back, you are not illiterate.” His letter was full of errors, vagueness, and was just plain jumbled, but it got the point across. What did he mean out of control? I was the one who attacked him. And he told FM I was dying? I may not have to find out about him, I was going to kill him. But what did he mean try to keep everything the same? “Mirror?!” They probably heard me scream all the way back to 77.

“Quit your whining, it’s not that bad.” Tanglebones said, unzipping my mouth.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I’M GREEN!” I screamed, staring into the mirror the doctor had levitated above me. That wasn’t even the worst part, my cutie mark had been changed also. It had gone from being a sickle, MY sickle, to a black semi-circle. It only went to around what looked like 270 degrees, and at the bottom, two short lines shot out of it, leaving an open end.

“I followed Tick-Tocks advice to the letter.” His horn glowed and he zipped my mouth shut again. “Yes, I know you’re green, the same color green as your mane was, and your mane is the same color your coat was.”

I unzipped my mouth. “AND MY CUTIE MARK?!”

“Well that’s a bit more confusing for me.” He put his hoof on his chin. “I know what it means, but I don’t know what it is. Tick-Tock’s never been normal.”

There was a horrendous shriek from the brakes as the train slowed to a stop. Holiday swore under his breath as he looked out the window.

“We’re being searched.” He looked at me, “Well, we get to see how well your disguise works.”

“Seriously?” I asked in panic.

“Yes.” He floated the note that had fallen on the floor back into the locker.

“And if they find me?” I was starting to sweat.

“Most likely, it will involve slow and painful torture, paying you back for all the shit Angelo’ did.” How was he so calm? One of his patients might be killed in the most painful way imaginable, and he didn’t seem to give a damn.

“They all felt him universally.” Tick-Tocks words echoed in my head

“What did Angelo’ take from you?” I asked, against my better judgment. Nopony wanted to talk about it.

“A good friend.” He said in the same vague cryptic mysticism as Tick-Tock. He went back to checking his stock.

The door to the medical car flung open, and the three of the toughest looking ponies I had ever seen walked in, all three of them sporting new battle saddles with mini-guns and shotguns mounted on the side. On the back of the saddles, where a cutie mark would be, was a white ‘A’ with a bulls-eye over it. They glanced through the car, at my pipbuck, at me and at my cutie mark. I skillfully rolled my leg so that my real cutie mark, the sickle on my pipbuck, was facing the gurney. Tanglebones would have to hide that too, I bet.

“What do you Angel Slayers need?” Tanglebones finally broke the silence with an apathetic tone, not even looking up from his clipboard.

“We’re looking for Angelo’ Death. Black coat, green mane, sickle cutie mark, stable 77 armor, and a pipbuck.” I moved my fore leg with my pipbuck on it under my head. “Sent twenty ponies into the protectopony plant, and two came out. He probably escaped through the underground tunnels, and he may have hitched a ride on this train.”

“Nopony has been through here; go ahead and ask Scythe there, he’s been here all day.” He gestured to me.

“Nope haven’t seen anypony like that all day.” I lied my best, but I had always been bad at this. The Angel Slayers looked me over, then back to the old unicorn with shackles as his cutie mark.

They slowly walked through the car, keeping their eyes on me the whole time.

I waited until a few minutes after they left the car to ask my questions.

“Who were those ponies, Tanglebones?” I asked, getting off the gurney and testing out my braces. They squeaked when I walked.

“Angel Slayers,” He looked up from his clipboard. “Combination of mercenaries, raiders, and bounty hunters, stationed out of Baltimare Skyport. They own a small section of the Hub.”

“Who are they working for?”

“Right now? The Triumvirate.” He went back to checking stock.

“The who?”

He sighed and mumbled about stable ponies, then went into the details. The Triumvirate was formed during Angelo’ Death’s rampage. A year before he vanished, the three ponies in charge were Granite, the power; Cutter the brains; and Ka-Ching the money. What they say, while it goes largely ignored in most parts of the wasteland in Baltimare and the Harbor, it is law.

Every time he answered one of my questions, it only made me ask another one, which he would answer in the same vagueness he answered the previous questions with.

“Scythe, I don’t try to keep up with what’s going on, my job is-“I stopped him mid-sentence.

“Don’t call me that, that’s not my name.” He looked up from his clipboard and looked towards me.

“Well you need to come up with one; you can’t use your old name.” He looked at me, grinning at his joke.

“I know.” I sighed. I was so proud of my Sickle, so proud that I was the first pony in my age group to earn theirs. It felt like I had just lost a part of me. Holiday looked like he was about to say something as the train’s whistle blew. The Angel Slayers had finished searching and were moving on. The disguise worked, but I wasn’t happy. It felt like I had lost who I was.

(Level Up) Disguised-Congrats you have had a complete makeover now nopony recognizes you! Complete karma neutrality.

I’d like to thank my amazing friend Sara for editing and making it readable and I’d like to thank Kkat for creating the world of Fallout Equestria.

Unstable

Chapter 6

“What the fuck?” I asked almost yelling.

“Well you asked what the more civilized way of settling it is.” He looked at me blankly I couldn’t tell if he was serious or joking. He pulled out one of the revolvers put it in his mouth and spun the cylinder.

“You’re being serious?” I was still hoping he this was a joke. “You are willing to shoot me over this?”

“Well yeah!” He had a grin that bordered on insanity. “It’ll be fun, the bullets are rub-“

“I don’t think we have a problem.” I smiled widely with my best stable pony smile.

“Okay…” He sighed and his entire posture drooped. “Just thought it may be fun.”

“No, it won’t be fun.”

I stood there in shock watching him put the gun back. I might need to find a better friend. I left him in the room his head hanging over the gun case.

I walked out into the crowding street and walked through the crowds of ponies. A good portion of them were armed and looked menacing. Seven ponies stood out from the crowd as in the crowd parted in front of them and their voices hushed as what looked like the most heavily armored ponies I had ever seen walked through the streets, each of them mounting heavy duty battle saddles and steel armor with additional weapons, on the flank of each battle saddle was beautifully caligriphied letter A with a bullseye on top of it. These ponies looked as though they could beat down mountains with just stares.

“Quite the site aren’t they?” A voice said from behind me.

“Yeah, who are they?” I watched them walk by as their armor and assorted weapons clanked with each step.

“A team of Angel Slayers, you met some of them on the train.” I tensed up. The voice continued. “Most likely after the bounty on your head.”

I spun around to see what I expected to be Beatrice but turned out to be nopony or griffin. Pausing there facing the inn’s main floor in a panicky cold sweat.

“Hey are you okay?” The purple feather weight unicorn from last night walked up next to me, wearing sunglasses.

“Yeah I’m fine, hey did you see anything behind me?”

“No…I wasn’t really looking though.”

“Great, I’m going crazy and have to guard a caravan tomorrow.” I mumbled to myself.

“You’re only crazy if you answer yourself.” She grumbled about hating hangovers. How many times could I survive shocks today?

She paused midway through the tavern and turned around.

“I swear to Celestia I’ve seen you somewhere before.” She put her hoof on her chin in thought. “Are you sure we haven’t met?”

“Positive.” I said panicky backing out the door and into the crowded street. I kept the same distance between us as she tried to follow me out the door listing off random places where she had been.

“Nope never been there came from,” Crap what was the name of that settlement my mom told me the DJ lives in,”Tenpony!” I said sharply, patting myself on the back.

“Okay, well sorry to bother you.” She perked her head turned around; heading to what I guessed was her room. I stood there for a second and sighed in relief. Then some irate pony reminded me I was in the middle of the street.

I trotted around town for a little while trying to find some way to spend time since Tick-Tock was insane. Seriously I thought to myself what kind of pony defaults to using guns to settle a disagreement that doesn’t need guns to be settled. I chalked it off to living in an unstable environment and most likely being beaten as a foal, he just had that look about him.

I was so lost in thought that I ran into a pony, not just a pony, but a mare, the mare who said she wanted to string me up by my entrails.

“Why don’t you watch where you’re goi-“ She paused and looked me over, suddenly her kill anything in the way melted to a kind hearted one of concern. “Hey, sorry about that, you alright.”

“Yeah I’m fine.” I smiled back rubbing my head, and feeling blood from where her horn had scraped it. I pulled out a bandage and covered it up.

“I meant from earlier, you don’t need to worry about him okay.” She rested her hoof on my shoulder. “We are going to get him.”

“Are you sure?” I asked hoping to maybe get some idea of what I was up against.

“There are hundreds of mercs all over the Hub looking for him, the Angel Slayers are here which means some serious shit is going to go down.” She looked at me then my hoof. “Is that a pipbuck?”

She ran through long list of questions and features about it. I made certain she knew the only way it was coming off was through amputation and she laughed.

“Never caught your name?” She asked sipping from a canteen.

“It’s…Scythe.” I spat out my fake name.

“Well nice meeting you Scythe, hope to see you again.” She smiled and walked off heading towards the edge of town she turned around. “By the way had fun.”

“I hope to see you again.” I waved and turned around and Tick-Tock was standing silently right behind me. I jumped and nearly fell over but he moved quickly to catch me.

“You think FM, will be jealous?” As those words left his mouth my heart stopped.

“What are you talking about?” I stuttered, had I been flirting? Had she been flirting? I thought we were just two ponies having a good time.

“It’s obvious when it doesn’t involve you.” He answered before turning around. “Now I have to go and prevent that purple pony you talked with robbing the room.”

The rest of the day went pretty well for the wasteland; I was introduced and threatened by the rest of the griffin mercenaries. None of them brought up the Angelo’ Death bounty or disguise so maybe Tick-Tock was right to trust her. Still pissed me off to no end I was almost ready to accept Tick-Tock’s offer for a duel, I’d empty his gun beforehoof.

“Hey Scythe come over here.” Tick-Tock called me over to a table he was sitting off by himself with Beatrice and in front of him was a bowl of white stuff. “Remember when I told you I’d get you some ice cream for you to try.” He pushed the bowl to me. I looked it over, smelled it, and licked it. The taste was unlike anything I had ever had before; it was sweet and had the delicious flavor of vanilla in my rush I ate the entire bowl in a single lick. Tick-Tock and Beatrice were barely holding back laughter.

“What’s so funny? Do I have SWEET GODDESS!” Now I knew what brain freeze felt like. I rolled around on the ground hooves clasped around my head and they just laughed.

“Not so fun is it Scythe?” He fell back laughing. “Just remember that feeling next time you target me with that damn spell.”

Finally the pain faded I stood up and leapt at him, he easily side stepped and I rolled head over hooves into a pony standing in the doorway knocking her down and landing on top of her and I think I broke my braces too. I looked down at the mare and realized I was positioned awkwardly on top of her and quickly stood up and backed away.

“I’m so, so sorry. Are you okay?” I stuttered nudging her. She looked at me and started laughing, through my electric green coat I was blushing. She stood up and looked at me through her glowing red eyes.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m glad to see your mood’s improved.” She smiled sweetly.

“Thanks.” I racked my brain trying to think of things to say that didn’t sound stupid. I don’t see her flirting.

“This is going to sound awkward but I forgot your name?” She kept her friendly smile.

“O-“ Tick-Tock interrupted me before I could give her my real name.

“Hey Scythe aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” Tick-Tock appeared next to me with a calm pleasant smile.

“I’m Star Fury.” Her demeanor changed to a more business type and less relaxed. I glared at Tick-Tock.

“What are you in town for?” He tilted his head a little. She gave an awkward forced smile.

“Hunting down Angelo’.”

“A bounty hunter then?” His tone went to one of curiosity, and he looked at me was it me or could I just tell he was trying not to laugh.

“Kind of, I’m not really after the bounty, that’s the bonus.” She looked away from the coated pegasus and back to me. “Can I talk to you in private?”

We left Tick-Tock down stairs with the griffins that he seemed to be more comfortable with than the ponies. Even if they acted awkward around him.

“Tick-Tock is…” She started to try her best to place her hoof on the right word.

“Insane? Drunk? Nuts? Doesn’t know how to act?” I smiled jokingly counting out the adjectives on my hooves.

“Let’s leave it at a good friend.” She smiled back warmly. “But, hey the reason I asked you up was cause I wanted to know if you’d like to come with me, to the, well I can’t remember what it’s called but affectively it’s a party, for the bounty hunters and Angel Slayers that are going out tomorrow.”

I should’ve said no, I’m in a relationship, I have other obligations, I need to try to get some sleep before the griffins start up again. Stupid other head doing the thinking.

We got to a warehouse on the other side of town she opened the door and about fifty tough looking ponies were dancing to heavy bass beats and strobe lights, some were off to the corner drinking or eating and hanging from the ceiling was a banner saying “Eat, Drink, be Merry, FOR TOMORROW ANGELO’ DIES!”. It dawned on me again that this was not the right place for me to be, then I started to think about how cute Star Fury looked in the strobe lights, and how good she looked in the tight leather armor. I started dancing.

I had never been to a party, except my birthdays but those were small with only a few ponies mostly adults from the stable council. However, those weren’t really parties like this one, all the ones at the stable ran like clockwork this one ended at ??? which was fine by me because I was having a blast. Until my legs almost gave out on me and Star Fury drug me over to a table.

“You’re a really good dancer!” I shouted over the music.

“You’re not so bad yourself!” She shouted back to me smiling. “Mind if I ask you something?”

“Sure, go ahead!” I smiled back.

“My group is all mares, and I was wondering if, well if I could convince them that is, if you would like to tag along with us?” She smiled shyly looking at the floor while she asked. “We could really use your pipbuck, and the SATS thing you talked about sounds really bad ass, I’m sure we could hunt down and kill that bastard!” She was really excited about this. My brain froze trying to form the words to turn her down.

I felt something hit me upside the head. I turned around to see what drunken pony had wandered off the dance floor or got pushed out of the maj pit. I had to squint through the flashing lights but finally got a look, she wasn’t drunk, and she wasn’t dancing, it was Beatrice. She signaled me to follower her with her head, when we were clear of the warehouse she started talking.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” She snapped hitting me again.

“What do you mean? You’re the one hitting me!” I yelled ducking on the ground with my hooves over my head like in one of those old war demonstration videos my tutors made me watch.

“Tick-Tock had to go through a lot of shit to keep you alive and you are bumping flanks with one of the ponies who want you dead!” She hissed picking me up by my mane. “He may let himself be used as a doormat but I don’t.”

“Well he’s insane!” I stared her dead in the eye.

“No, just…messed up. It really hurt his feelings the way yo-“

A shotgun was racked behind us, she pulled two revolvers out that were holstered under her wings and turned to face the leather clad mare with glowing red eyes.

“That pony has been through enough, leave him alone!” Her shotgun was covered in a green glow and pointing directly at Beatrice’s face, the mare’s eyes unwavering.

“Mare, this doesn’t concern you.” Beatrice answered pointing both guns at Star Fury, her gaze just as undaunted. She clicked the hammers back on her revolvers with her freaky thumbs. “I’m merely disciplining one of my employees.”

“I think our ears got enough of your discipline last night.” She slid the action back on her gun. “I don’t particularly tolerate slavers or anyONE who works with them.” Why was she looking at me?

“We agree on something then.” She chuckled still keeping her guns trained on Star Fury. “Can’t stand the griffins that work with the bastards. I’m a caravan guard for now, and don’t be pissed cause I actually get some.”

“Yeah and how many caps did that set you back?” My jaw dropped, my eyes became as wide as saucers. I didn’t dare look at Beatrice for fear of her ripping my head off with her gaze alone.

“You Little Bitch!” She brushed the floating gun aside and launched herself at the unicorn. Star Fury tried to levitate her but she had built up too much momentum for her to stop, and instead of stopping her it only slowed her down, not enough to get her time to get out of the way.

The petite griffin and the unicorn rolled over the rocky ground, biting, clawing, and bludgeoning each other as they tried to kill each other.

“What’d I miss?” Jerry said walking up behind me with Tick-Tock behind him; he smirked seeing the griffin and the unicorn tearing at each other. “Oh girl fights, pity, one’s not my type.”

“Should we do something?” I asked standing up and turning to see the fight and found it oddly hot.

“Not until it gets out of hoof.” Tick-Tock answered pulling out a sparkle cola. “Jerry, Scythe, want one?”

“When would that be?” I asked taking the soda.

“Whenever one of them is about to pull to trigger, or slit a throat, or do permanent damage to the other.” Jerry chuckled taking a sip then looking at the bottle in disgust. “GAHH! You gave me diet.”

“Sorry about that it was either that or a Quantum.” He said taking a sip apathetically. “Last time you drank a quantum you said ‘It felt like getting punched in the face getting a fist full of sugar shoved down your throat and that your piss glowed for a week’.”

“True.” He said taking another sip. “Still…diet.”

Tick-Tock quickly chugged his soda and placed the bottle on the ground. Then walked over to try to pull Beatrice off Star Fury, in reality he was barely making her budge tugging her on her armor. Seeing his plan not working Tick-Tock bit her tail, hard. She swung around clawing at his face, he wide eyed stepped back from the serious of slashes at his face but finally caught an upwards slash across his cheek.

“You done?” Tick-Tock asked her indifferent to the fact he had just been attacked by a griffin he said he trusted.

“Tick-Tock…”she looked at her talons. “I’m…I’m…”

“It’s alright, doesn’t even need a healing potion.” He smiled and walked away picking up the soda as he passed and throwing it in a two hundred year old trashcan. I trotted over and helped Star Fury up and she waved me away.

“I’m fine don’t worry, nothing a good night sleep won’t fix.” She grunted not even looking at me. Why did I get the feeling I goofed?

I was back in my room Tick-Tock was somewhere. He told me to be sure I was packed and ready to go with all my weapons and gear ready, finished saying Beatrice will probably be ready at 8. Why did nothing bother him? Not even being attacked by the griffin he says he trusts bothers him. How could you be that stoic and function? He didn’t get angry as far as I could tell even when somepony was attacking him he just smiled. What happened to him, what did Angelo’ do to him to turn him into that? What had he done to Beatrice, to Star Fury, why, if what Tick-Tock had told me was true that he used to be the best, what had happened to make him fall?

“Goddesses why is this bothering me?” I looked to the black clouds in the sky. “All I have to do is survive three months, then I get to go home, just two months and twenty-seven days left.”

“Hello?” A small timid voice came on over my pipbuck, FM sounded like she had been crying. “Omega, are you there?”

“Yeah FM, I’m here.” I smiled hearing her familiar voice.

“Thank the princesses, are you alright?” She sounded like she was about to start crying again. “How are you?” She was barely holding back her tears.

“I’m fine.” I smiled at my pipbuck imagining her smiling face. “How’s my mother.”

“She’s her usual self, in public.” Her tone sounded worried. “In private I think she cries.”

“Have you tried talking to her?” I asked.

“Omega, I can’t, she’s the overmare if she found out I knew.” I heard her shutter through the pipbuck. “Or the stable council found out.”

“FM please.” I begged.

“Okay, I will.” She answered warmly.

“Thank you.” I smiled at the reverberating bar on the screen. “By the way, do you want to know how far away I am?”

“Yes!” She squealed.

“I am, 45 miles away.” I heard her gasp, then start talking about power and frequencies and calculations going into stuff that was way over my head. She laughed and then tried to explain to me what she said, then when I still didn’t get it she drew diagrams, then made me draw diagrams, until I lied and said I understood her.

She was asking me all kinds of questions about the wasteland and the ponies that lived there. I left out me being hunted, Angelo’ Death, the real severity of my injuries. Then I brought up the enigma, Tick-Tock.

“…what in the name of Cellestia is wrong with that pony?” She responded I could imagine her cute jaw dropping and stammering to find the words. Then one of Beatrice’s screams filled the air.

“Griffins.” I said to her anticipating the question. “And I have no idea, he doesn’t talk about himself. I think somepony hurt him a long time ago and he hasn’t recovered yet.”

“That probably happens a lot out there.” She answered and I could imagine her nuzzling me. “He probably needs a friend. Let him know you’re there to talk about it when he’s ready.”

“Yeah, that’s what friends do right?” I said uncertain. “I mean so I’ve heard.”

“Yes Omega, that’s what friends do.” FM groaned. Her tone changed to something more somber “Hey I got to go. Be careful, and keep an eye out for your friend, and Omega don’t ever change. ”

“Don’t worry I promise, that’s a Pi promise, and Pi goes on forever.” Nothing could hide the depression I was feeling.

“Bye, I’ll talk to you soon.” She sounded hopeful then cut out leaving me alone in the dark. I put the earplugs in which dulled the shriek to something bearable, something I could sleep through. I rolled over in the bed and as I was dozing swore I saw a pony standing on the roof or the building opposite me but then my eyes closed and I slept.

I stood in the Hidey House, staring at the pony hanging from barbed wire begging me to kill him, seeing me as his saving angel. I pull out my gun and pull the trigger the trigger. I watch the bullet move at SATS time and stare in horror as the bullet shatters Syph’s horn. I did this before I can do it again I think gathering the courage to kill her mercifully like I did last time. I put the gun to her head activate SATS and pull the trigger. I turn to look at Tick-Tock but where he stood a few days ago is now a bloody and injured FM.

“You’ve changed Omega, you promised me you wouldn’t.” She says blood flowing out of now empty eye sockets. “Why did you lie to me?”

“FM I didn’t change! I had to…there was no way to help her!” I argued gesturing to the corpse on the ground.

“Did you try Scythe?” Star Fury said from behind the bar. “Seems a fairly Angelo’ Death thing to do. You got something you need to say?” She asked sharpening the sickle.

“I didn’t have time to try!” I yelled at her backing away from the floating blade. A mirror was levitated next to me and I saw my jet black coat, electric green mane, and sickle cutie mark. Tanglebones stood by in the corner holding the mirror.

“Well then Angelo’ are you ready for payback?” Hammer said taking a swig.

“No stop don’t he didn’t do anything.” Tick-Tock lazily rocked back on his chair staring at the ceiling.

“Shut-up!” Hammer yelled as her head fell off her shoulders coating the table she was at in blood.

“No reason to lose your head.” He said falling out of the chair limply.

Pfft! Pfft! Two sharp pains hit my rear legs as Tracer stood in an elevator a bullet wound in his skull. Four ponies fell on top of me as another one’s stomach explodes in my face and my shot gun falls too floor in pieces. Tick-Tock whistled.

“Been out four days and you already have quite the body count, nowhere near as good as his though.” Jerry said loading his shot guns while gesturing to the picture on the wall of winged pony wearing tattered black robes, atleast they would’ve been black except for all the red blood and intestines covering them, two red eyes glowed from under his hood, at the end of each hoof was a six inch long serrated blade made specifically for killing on the way out.

A pony pulled the action of his assault rifle back while stepping on my legs and leaning over the pile of dead.

“No stop please.” Tick-Tock said indifferently from the floor as the head of the pony exploded open and he fell on top of my legs. The pony’s eyes rolled over and glared at me.

“Well I don’t think I’ll have to cut off your legs to make sure you don’t get away.” Star Fury slashed off my right fore hoof. “But just to be sure.” Then she took the left.

FM’s voice came through the Pipbuck. “How are you feeling Angelo’ or is it Scythe?”

“FM it’s me Omega!” I screamed as I was rolled over and the sickle cut through my skin and muscle.

“The Omega I knew didn’t kill ponies; he didn’t get shot at all the time.” She answered. “And he promised he wouldn’t change so it has to be somepony else.”

I felt a sickening pull as my intestine were levitated out of me. Tick-Tock laid there limply on the floor asking Beatrice for help.

“Sorry Tick, but he endangered the caravan.”

“Okay makes sense.” He grinned cheerfully and looked back to me getting eviscerated.

My mother walked up, but she was younger. “Sorry I’d love to help you Omega but the wasteland breaks heroes. I already gave you all the help I could.”

“But…mom…” I gasped blood dripping from my mouth.

“By the way did you ever meet your father?” She tilted her head.

“Mom…please…” I gasped.

“I already told you why I can’t.” She looked to the painting on the wall. “I don’t want to end up like him.” She pointed to the pony walking out of the painting then trotted off behind the stable door closing it as she went.

“Mom…Please!” I begged. The pony completely exited the painting and steadily floated to Star Fury and tore into Star Fury as I tried to warn her but she ignored me.

Star Fury’s limp bleeding body fell down on top of me as the pegasus tore the blades on his fore hooves out of his victim. He walked over to the limp grinning body of Tick-Tock and tore him in half. I screamed help as he proceeded to kill everypony at the party unnoticed all of them looking only at me, each of them baring a different scar. Finally he killed the last one and stood over me staring at me through his cloak. He pulled out a gun and put in in my mouth.

“Let me help.” Golden Delicious’ reflection said walking around from behind Angelo’ missing a large chunk of skull and putting a gun inside my mouth. My tongue tensed around the trigger. I hurt so much, it was the only choice I could make, and I pulled the trigger the gun clicked back, empty.

I woke up covered in sweat, and tears, my pipbuck’s alarm started to go off. I blinked trying to remember where I was. My legs hurt, my head hurt, I ran to the bathroom and vomited up what little I had eaten. I hadn’t been hungry for few days not with all the shit I’ve seen; now I wasn’t going to be sleeping for a few days either. I couldn’t wait for this nightmare to end, just three months I kept telling myself just three months.

I had put my barding on, my knife in a sheath on my leg, slung the sledge hammer over my back, I opened the other two packages Tick-Tock had left me. The smallest one had a canteen with the ‘Stable-Tec’ logo and a note that said “Reminder of home”. The other package had some apples and carrots. I holstered the 9 mm and 10 mm slung the assault rifle on my back to where I could quickly grab it. I had just finished filling the canteen with slightly irradiated water when there was a knock on my door.

I opened it expecting to see Tick-Tock but it was Star Fury some scrapes and bruises from last night’s fight with Beatrice.

“I’m letting you know my offer still stands, my group was reluctant but when I explained pipbucks to them they agreed.” She was looking at me differently than last night harder if anything.

Tick-Tock walked around the corner before I could answer, the scratches from Beatrice scabbed over his face. He stood off to the side waiting for me to answer. He really had no idea how awkward he was making this. Star Fury followed my gaze then jumped back when she saw Tick-Tock standing there silently.

“I’m sorry, didn’t mean to frighten you.” He tipped his hat. “…forgot your name.”

“N-N-No problem.” She stammered looking at him with a where-did-he-come-from look. “It’s Star Fury.”

“Scythe, we need to be going, everyone is waiting except Beatrice she’s still waking up.” Tick-Tock said looking towards me.

“Wait, you said we are moving out first thing in the morning.” I answered trying to keep my voice controlled.

“Yeah I did say that.” He tapped his hoof upon his chin. “Well might as well get some breakfast.” He turned around and trotted down stairs. Leaving my jaw dropped on the floor.

“Well…my offer stands…” She stammered wandering what just happened. “if you want to join us we are leaving in two hours.”

“Okay, but I think I’m going to be staying with Tick-Tock.” She looked at me confused. “He’s saved my life more times than I care to count, he bent over backwards to get me this job and I really don’t want to make him look bad.”

“Okay, then I guess bye?” She trotted down the stairs staring at the floor.

I stood there stupefied for a moment before going downstairs. The griffins and pony were sitting around eating…meat…Tick-Tock…a pony…was eating meat. I guess this is the wasteland some things were expected to be disgusting. I felt sick my mind drifting back to the ponies that had died because of me.

“Bacon?” Tick-Tock offered me a plate through clenched teeth. I tried not gag.

“Tick-Tock…I know you may not know this but…ponies are vegetarians.” I looked at him and he stared.

“Yeah I know, but it’s bacon.” He looked at me like the word bacon made everything perfect. “Besides, as long as I don’t eat too much I’m fine.” He took my look as a no and flipped the plate and caught every piece of bacon.

“That’s disgusting.” I blurted out and he laughed.

“Stable Ponies.” He shook his head. “Can’t teach them the wasteland, can’t sell them to slavers.”

I groaned and walked downstairs trying to remember how long a pony could go without sleep and not lose their sanity when I bumped into Beatrice at the top of the stairs. She looked me over as if deciding if I was worth her time. Then shook her head and brushed past Tick-Tock saying something to him under her breath and he just smiled and shook his head and said something I didn’t hear.

Downstairs the three griffin mercs were finishing up eating and getting ready to go. To be honest they looked less like they were going to guard a caravan and more like they were expecting a full scale war. One of them had a minigun! A fucking minigun!

“Bit over armed aren’t they?” I asked Tick-Tock when he stepped outside.

“Yeah, typically ponies guard caravans themselves and may hire one or two griffins for support.” He looked back to Beatrice who was rapidly eating her breakfast. “Makes me wonder.”

“Everything alright?” I asked and he gave me a blank look.

“Yeah, just some things have been bothering me.” He popped his neck.

Obviously I’d have to pry this from him. “Like what?”

“Why she took the contract in the first place, I know she can’t be that strapped for caps.” He looked at me. “She also suggested that we hire you on instead of just taking you along the caravan.”

“Maybe with the Angelo’ stuff going on the oth-“ He shook his head.

“No she’s been doing this run for a few months.” His eyes narrowed. “Angelo’ didn’t show up until a few days ago.”

“Okay, do you have any ideas?” He responded by shaking his head, it was weird seeing him worried, almost terrifying.

“I’m hoping it’s nothing.” He looked back to me. “Keep a careful eye on your EFS, let me or Beatrice know the second something red pops up, even if it’s a radroach.”

He trotted off towards the caravan without another word.

(Level Up) Mare's Man-Congrats you devil, you get plus 10 to speech checks when making 'idle conversation' with the opposite gender.

I'd like to thank my friend Sara for doing my cover art and editing, and kkat for creating Fo:E

On the Road

Chapter 7

“Alright everypony, let’s move out!” shouted an elderly pony, whom I guessed was in charge. The four griffons took up post, walking along the fringes of the caravan. Tick-Tock walked in the back, at least a half-mile behind the rest of the caravan.

“What’s Tick-Tock doing?” I asked one of the griffons. She looked at me puzzled, and I pointed backwards with my chin.

“Oh! Him. He’s bringing up the rear. That way, if we get in trouble or ambushed, he can give us a way out,” she answered, scratching her beak.
“Thanks, I’m still a bit new to all of this.”
“Don’t worry Scythe, you’ll get the hang of it.”

I cringed inside every time I heard that name. It isn’t my name, these aren’t my colors, and that isn’t my cutie mark on my flank. I wanted to slash it off. I wanted to hurt Tick-Tock, and I realized that most of all, I wanted to kill Angelo’ for putting me through this. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I was being hunted because of it. I was so lost in my steadily bubbling pool of rage that I didn’t notice the little foal until I tripped over her. She kicked me off her.

“What’s your problem, creeper? Can’t you keep an eye out for where you’re going?” she spat. I realized she wasn’t a foal, just a small mare. She had a creamy colored, pale coat with a brown mane. Her black eyes looked at me with calm rage. She had brown leather barding and two shotguns mounted to a shambled-together battle saddle. Over her back, she had an additional sawed-off shotgun. Also, I had overlooked it at first for its size, but she had a small horn atop her forehead.

“I’m sorry, I’m just distracted.” I tried not to stare at her horn, but evidently I was failing.

“What are you looking at?” She said sharply, and I looked away. “Hey, I’m talking to you! You were looking at my horn, weren’t you?!”

“No, of course not… I was just distracted,” I said, looking away into the clouded sky.

“Yeah, you better be ‘just distracted!’” Everypony was looking at us now.
“Could you please not…”
“You’ll be distracted when I’m kicking your flank!”

“Scythe, Beatrice wants you.” The griffon next to me interrupted before the mare could continue her berating. She pointed to Beatrice who was waving me up. I was too happy to go.

“You’re more of an idiot than Tick-Tock is,” she said under her breath when I caught up to her.

“So, is this how you discipline your employees in the day time?” I chuckled. Her taloned foreleg knocked me on the back of the head.

“I can beat the shit out of you whenever I damn well feel like it,” she answered. “How’s your EF look?”

I spun in place and signaled that it was clear. She let out an eagle cry, and the two griffons took off and started to circle the caravan.

“Why were you waiting for me to tell if it was clear?” I asked, while watching them circle the caravan.

“Don’t really know. Tick-Tock told me to do it and ‘we may make it through this.’”
I stared at her.

“And you listen to him?”

“I’ve known Tick-Tock almost my whole life. If I trust anypony, I trust him.” She took out a bottle and drank from it. “Goddess knows his insanity has saved my life more times than I care to count. He could, though.”

“Count them?” Somehow I was beginning to find this believable. I was about to ask her if she was serious, then I froze as red lights moved across my EFS. “Got red,” I announced, then pointed in the direction.

Beatrice signaled in the direction of some rustling bush. Jerry descended, fired four shots, and then emerged.

“Just some mangy mutts,” Jerry growled, reloading his shotguns. Beatrice nodded and he went skywards again.

“What’s going on?” I asked turning to look at her. She shrugged, and then looked around warily.

“Tick-Tock is being cautious. When he is cautious, that worries me.” She looked at me and I checked my EFS again. I nodded. It was all clear.
“There are three things he rarely does” she continued “get angry, panic, and be cautious.”

“By the way, can he really see the future?” I asked, finally getting another opinion on his insane proclamation.

“It seems so.” She groaned, “Just wish he would give me more than his cryptic vagueness.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that.” I swallowed and asked her my next question. “What… what did Angelo’ take from him?”

She stopped and shuddered. I could see her restraining herself from shooting me. “He took a lot from him; his family, friends… Pretty much everything.”

“How did I-“ She stopped me with her glare.

“Omega, don’t. Just don’t talk about it.” She glared at me, and looked back to the distant dot that was Tick-Tock.

“Must be tough...” I started.
She eyed me. Why did I still get the feeling that she was still going to shoot me? “…To see a friend go through that.”

“Yeah, it is.” She took off and signaled one of the other griffons down.

The caravan kept moving for a few hours, going through the winding caverns and crags of the Hub. Somewhere along the way, the landscape went from caverns to low, sloping hills of grey dead grass, with the occasional wrecked sky cart. Eventually, we reached a highway overpass and stopped. Twenty odd ponies and the griffon guards stopped, opened their canteens, put up their legs and leaned back.

“Well, you know what Jeff, you are the worst other head a Brahmin could have!” One of the bovine shouted to its other head.

“Well you, Louis, you are an idiot!” The other head shouted back. “If you fell off a cliff, you’d have to ask for directions to hit the ground!”

“Yeah I’d hit the ground, cause you are dragging me down!” responded Louis while he tried to bite his other head. I was left wondering what the fuck was going on.

“Louis, Jeff, what the fuck are you arguing about?,” One of the caravan’s ponies shouted, attempting to breaking up the fight. “You bovine idjits are the best of friends.”

“WERE friends!” Jeff corrected, “Then that idiot stole mah hay! I don’t mind if ya ask!”

“I didn’t steal anything!” Louis shouted back.

“Now wait a second, how do you know he stole your hay?” He eyed Jeff. Nopony asked the important question, why did it matter? It was all going to the same damn place!

“I looked away for a second, and there was some missing.” Jeff glared at Louis. “Unless some mysterious phantom came along and took it.”

“Well, I didn’t take it!” The other head shouted back. “I always ask before I take some.”

“Well apparently not this time!” Jeff shouted.
Tick-Tock approached them, accidentally sneaking up on the caravan pony and startling him. He whispered something conspiratorially to the trio. Both heads of the Bovine looked at each other sheepishly and started laughing. The caravan pony shook his head and sauntered off. Tick-Tock smiled and found his way to me.

“What happened?” I probed as he walked by.

“Told them that when neither of them was looking, a small colt came up and stole a nip.” We looked back to see a very nervous looking Pierce, whose big sister was glowering at him.

“Hate to be in his horseshoes.” I remarked. He already had fresh bruises on his blank flank, and was trying not to cry.

“Yeah, it would suck.” Tick-Tock yawned and popped his neck.

“You find anything out?” I asked. He looked at me quizzically. “About the caravan.” I expounded, “You were worried about it.”

“Oh! That. No, nothing. Been giving it a lot of thought, and narrowed it down to one of two things.” He stopped, and I looked at him expectantly.

“Which are…” I questioned him. Goddesses, it felt like I was dealing with a small foal.

“The two theories are, that we are either transporting somepony, or something important.” He eyed each of the ponies. “And none of these ponies look like they are high rollers in Baltimare.”

My eyes drifted to each of the Brahmin. Nothing on them looked important; no big packages or guns. Tick-Tock saw this and commented, “Just because it isn’t big doesn’t make it unimportant.”

“I’ll keep a look out for anything.” I looked at him while he stared off into apparent space. “So, the only reason I’m here is to use my EF’S?”

“And that damn targeting spell,” He answered quickly. “You aren’t too bad in a fight. As long as the pony you are fighting doesn’t have real training, you may have a chance. Just be careful when we get hit. It’ll happen. I’m not sure when, but when it happens, be careful.”

“Why are you always so cryptic?” I finally asked, turning as he started to walk away towards the rear of the caravan.

“Because it’s fun,” he said blankly, trotting away. He stopped, and then turned back. “Ponies are more important than anything we are transporting. If you have to choose between an object or a living thing, go with the living thing.” He continued trotting off to the back of the caravan. I stood there staring off into space, wondering what he was talking about, until Beatrice called me to point.

The hours passed, and we walked down the old highway. Occasionally, I’d point to some red dots I saw on my EF’S, and one of the griffons would descend to check it out. Typically, it turned out to be a mole rat family or a small swarm of bloat sprites. It was starting to wear on the griffons’ nerves.

“Contact, 8 o’clock.” I said, pointing to a downed sky chariot. Beatrice signaled Jerry down. He grumbled and rolled his eyes before circling the sky chariot and diving at it, guns drawn. He popped out a second later wiping something from his foot.

“Radroach.” He looked at me, frustrated. “Is there any way you can tell the difference between annoying bugs and Angelo’ Death?” Everypony in the caravan had stopped at the mention of that name; idle chatter stopped, I heard gasps. I knew somewhere in the group a pony was holding back tears, just from the name. Jerry stood there, apparently oblivious to what he said, or how loud he said it.

“No, it just pops up as red bars.” I answered at the ground, trying to stay out of the gaze of these ponies and the griffon in front of me. They had spent the last three years trying to forget that he even existed.

He swore under his breath about me being inconvenient, and took off circling the caravan as it started to trudge onward.

“You’ve known Tick-Tock longer than anypony right?” I asked Beatrice under my breath. No matter how she reacted before, I decided that I needed to learn everything I could about my friend.

“Yeah?” She glanced at me, narrowing her eyes.

“What did Angelo’ take from him?” I mumbled.

“You’re not going to relent are you?” Beatrice whispered, sighing with resignation. “About twelve hundred years ago, there was a hero named Gale Winterborn.”

“Okay, what does that have to do with any-“ She silenced me and quickly looked back at the black figure that was Tick-Tock.

“It was his favorite childhood story.” She continued “He was a hero that never faltered, never failed, and always put others ahead of him. So when the Angels came around, he saw his chance to be like him, and rise to an immeasurable challenge and fight to help others. Something he did already, but now he knew he wasn’t alone.”

“Okay…”

“When Angelo’ fell, the Angels stayed together, if I may quote DJ Pon3, ‘to fight the good fight’.” She shuddered. “The rest of the wasteland wasn’t convinced, thinking they were as bad as him. If you think the prejudice the pegasi had to endure was bad, you didn’t see Angels tortured to death when a town they saved turned on them, or when Puddin’ Cup’s Angel Slayers tracked one down. They leave them begging for death before leaving them to the wasteland.”

“But they didn’t have anything to do with it,” I whispered. Tears were starting to form in my eyes. “Why not go after the problem?”

“They couldn’t track him. Griffons stopped taking contracts on him after several hits ended with horrible cases of dismemberment… Amongst other things.” She stared at me. “Griffons and large doses of taint do not mix. So they went after the next best thing, the ones who followed him.”

“That’s terrible. How many died?” My sadness gave way to pain and anger. That was just stupid...

“Don’t know. A few lucky ones probably went into hiding, but every time one pops their head up, it gets blown off.” She looked at me. “The wasteland is hell on heroes.”

“What about Tick-Tock?” I asked, staring at the black figure who was staring at a ridge, then at a highway overpass.

“He’s alive.” She was finished talking, and I didn’t feel safe pushing the matter any further.

“Beatrice, don’t move,” I said, doing a 360. “I think we may be surrounded.”

“What do you mean?” She hissed, signaling to the griffons circling overhead. “Shouldn’t you have seen them?”

“Not if they were hiding!” I did another spin to double-check my EF’S. The red bars were moving around slowly, occasionally blinking out, then reappearing when I looked away. “The spell can be tricked if you’re standing really still at a dista-“ She dragged me behind a rock just in time to avoid a sniper round. I looked up, and could barely make out a gun barrel through a dead bush.

“Fuck! AMBUSH!” She shouted, reaching under her wings and pulling out two magical energy pistols. She shot the bush, igniting it, and to some degree the pony inside it. The sniper fired one more shot that went way wide before diving for cover behind a sky chariot. I looked back, but didn’t see Tick-Tock. All the other ambushers who had been hiding opened fire, as did the caravan. I had just noticed the other ponies were armed, ALL of them.

“Beatrice!” One of the griffons shouted, shooting, as some of our attackers dove behind a rock. “We’re sitting ducks out here!” She rolled through the air, barely avoiding a stream of mini-gun fire.

“Tell me something I don’t know!” She growled, taking a round to her Kevlar chest, then returning fire with her magical pistols. The pony took five shots to the chest before letting out a horrific shriek as he was turned into a pile of dust.

“I saw a bunch of sky chariots, and carts and shit down the highway,” Jerry shouted, darting through the air to avoid the incoming fire.

“Beats the hell out of staying here!” I shouted, rolling out of the line of fire from a pony with dual assault rifle battle saddles. I hit SATS and blew his head off. That was a sight I was never going to get used to. Now I was glad I hadn’t eaten breakfast.

It had been a running fight to the abandoned highway. The Brahmin took point with the rest of the caravan behind them. Miraculously, none of them had been hit, only the guards. All the while a question was forming in my mind. Something was off, and I couldn’t put my hoof on it, right at the tip of my tongue.

“Where’s Tick-Tock?” Yep that was it. I ducked from a bullet.

“I don’t know. Thought you were supposed to be watching him,” Jerry laughed, diving for cover behind an old delivery cart and pulling out a healing potion.

“Do you think they could’ve got him?” All the griffons started laughing.

“I’d hate to meet the sniper that could take Tick-Tock,” Beatrice grinned, swapping out her magical pistols for her revolvers. “They can’t touch him, he says it has something to do with the planning they have to make.”

“So where is he?” I asked, loading a fresh clip into my assault rifle and rolling my eyes. I wasn’t even going to ask.

“Listen for the laughter.” Her grin was somewhat comforting. “Trust me, if anypony can get us out of here, it’s him.”

“Didn’t think it was that bad.” I quickly looked around, checking my EF’S. It looked clear, except for a few red lights. The last of the caravan went into the wreckage.

“Scythe,” the griffon behind me said, loading her mini-gun, “we just walked into their trap.” There was a disturbingly familiar beep and an explosion, followed by a scream.

“Shit, got another one,” I said to Beatrice, carefully pushing the button to disarm it. They weren’t even hidden, just lying out in the open. I bent over to pick it up, and then heard the beep of the other ones. The sky chariot next to me exploded in a blinding fireball, as shrapnel tore into my face and Kevlar. The helpful pony icon appeared in the top right of my vision, letting me know my right legs were crippled. I was beginning to question the importance of being told what my blinding pain already indicated, but that wasn’t what I was worried about. I was worried about the blast having pushed me into the middle of some more mines. It was nothing short of a miracle that I hadn’t set them off.

“Scythe!” Beatrice shouted, “Don’t move!”

If I had the courage to look, I would’ve rolled my eyes. Instead, I was looking at the land mine right in front of my nose. If I could just move my right hoof, which was crippled, I may be able to push the stupid button in the middle of it. I struggled to slowly move my right hoof over to the land mine; I was working on a lot of assumptions. I was assuming that the land mine operated on the same principle as my EF’S. That meant if I’m slow enough, and cautious enough, and most importantly lucky enough, I can trick it. I slowly moved my crippled hoof, dragging it on the ground until it touched the cold metal of the land mine. I started to hear gunshots around me, and spared a glance to my EF’S, my hoof resting on top of the button. If it went off, I would be able to deactivate it, hopefully. Goddesses, I was starting to think like Tick-Tock. I think that’s how he thought, at least. ‘Beep’. I pushed the button and exhaled.
The griffon with the mini-gun burst into my view revved it up and opened fire directly above, all the while letting out a bird like screech. I rolled over to grab a healing potion out of my saddlebags, and found myself looking directly at another active land mine, and a corpse filled with 5 mm bullet holes. I saw another pony aiming at me down the barrel of an assault rifle. It was the same model of assault rifle as at the factory, except Tick-Tock wasn’t here to save me. I activated SATS and targeted his head, with the land mine in front of me. I kicked the land mine, activating it, but had flipped it in such a way that the blast was pointing at the pony, thank Luna. He was too far away for the blast to do much more than blind him. Not long, but just long enough for me to shoot him, get to cover, and down a healing potion. My legs quickly mended. I did a quick count of red bars and counted twenty, at least.

Now I realized what was meant by trap; they had us surrounded, scattered us, and knew the only ways we could escape. I triggered SATS and targeted the pony from earlier. All three of the round burst hit him, tearing his body apart. That was one down.

The griffons had taken to the skies to try to pin down snipers whose rhythmic gunshots were ever so kind enough to remind us of their presence. Beatrice and Jerry stayed behind to give the rest of the caravan air support.

“Three more inside the sky bus!” I shouted to Jerry.
He threw two grenades in one of the broken windows.

“EVERYPONY DOWN!” He yelled, laughing like a maniac as the bus exploded, turning the ponies inside into bloody pulp. The bus caught fire, triggering several more minor explosions. Something intangible pulled me down just as the bus exploded with thunderous blasts that knocked me back and irradiated the local area. I looked back and saw Crystal Bullet’s horn glowing violet, and a violet glow likewise around my armor. I signaled ‘thank you’, she nodded, and the fight continued. Jerry soared through sky, passing by just close enough for his shotguns to be of use.

Steadily the ambushers moved in. Jerry was taken out by a lucky shot through his wing. He had crashed on an overpass, but was still breathing last time I saw him. One by one the caravan’s guards dropped, either dead or unconscious, until it was just Beatrice, Crystal Bullet, and me. The caravan ponies had guns, but they weren’t worth a damn. I gave Beatrice a look that asked ‘Where in the name of Celestia is Tick-Tock’? She read it perfectly and shrugged, firing both her revolvers into the face of a pony who leapt over some wreckage. She had given up flying. The attackers had at least two ponies with mini-guns mounted on their battle saddles. I was going to have words with my mom about her use of the word ‘uncommon’ when I make it back, if I make it back.

A squad of them leapt over a nearby car, one knocking me to the ground and planting her spiked hooves firmly on my face. I rolled, and decided to try something I read in one of the magazines, some Griffon Judo. I put my hind legs beneath her, and flipped her to where she was beneath me. I pulled my knife out from its pocket and drove it deep into her unprotected neck, getting it caught in the bone. I let go of the knife and wrapped my mouth around the sledgehammer on my back, swinging it into the battle saddle of an approaching lime green stallion, shattering his shotgun. He cringed and turned to avoid my next swing, which connected with his jaw and twisted his neck in a disgusting way.

I spun my sledgehammer around and shattered the spine of a pony who had tried to sneak up on me. I brought it down on his head to finish him. I took one second to look at the bloody pulp that was the ponies head, and it was all I could do to not to vomit my sledge hammer out. It was one second too long, and several rounds punched into my barding, knocking me to the ground. I was really getting too familiar with staring down assault rifle barrels. A glowing purple shot gun came up from the pony I had killed, pumped and pulled the trigger into my assailants head.

Crystal Bullet was obviously more than a bandit. She levitated three shotguns at the same time, each in a different direction, laying down fire to keep the bandits back. One leapt out from behind her. I slid into SATS and fired three rounds into the buck’s skull, shattering his horn and turning his face inside out. She held one of the guns in a salute before getting back to work.

So far, we had managed to drop between ten and twelve. There were more though, all they had done is take a break.

“What are they waiting for?” Crystal asked impatiently, reloading her shotguns.

“Back up? Healing potions? Trying to find somepony who has the guts to issue an ultimatum?” Beatrice shrugged, sparring a glance at her wristwatch.

“Do you think Tick-Tock is-” Her glare stopped my sentence.

“Nope, he can’t be.” She said, scanning the skies.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Because, he wouldn’t be taken out by low life shit like this.” She answered, in a matter of fact sort of way. “And the snipers have stopped.”

“That could’ve been those two griffons you sent off after them.”

“Yeah it may have been them, or maybe Tick-Tock has some cunning plan involving them to come and save our tails.” She looked at me. “In my experience, it’s the latter.”

A rifle round pinged off one of the carts, and we took our positions as a lone ghostly white unicorn in a black suit and mane trotted up to shouting distance of the highway.

“What do you want?” Beatrice shouted while I nudged some healing potions over to Crystal. She took the hint and gave them to the injured ponies.

“Just fer ya’ll to surrender!” He shouted back. “The mercs get to go, but all the other ponies come with us to the Hub.”

“Yeah, on whose orders!” Beatrice shouted while stealthily loaded her guns.

“Don’t see how that’s important, we’re the ones with the most guns and ammo, and you are the ones trapped on a highway full of mines.” He shouted back. “You will be fully compensated.”

“This buck is really starting to piss me off.” I recognized Sure Shot’s voice. She had a sniper rifle pointing at him from under a cart. Crystal Bullet thumped her horn, making her drop the gun.

Beatrice looked at her wristwatch and smiled. “How much are you going to pay us?” She asked. The caravan ponies jaws dropped in disbelief.

“One thousand caps each, so all in all five thousand caps.” He shrugged.

“That’s odd; there were six in my group.” He looked irritated. “There was one bringing up the rear, a pony with a black hat and coat.”
Beatrice looked to me and began counting down on her talons.

“There wasn’t (Five) anypony bringing (four ) up the rear, (three) now if you’re done (two) bluffing come down here (one) so we can talk business (zero).” He finished blustering, and straightened his tie.

A strange laughter started up, almost cackling, like Stand-Up just took down a heckler in the stable. They all heard it too. I could tell by the freaked out look on their faces it was one of terror. Tick-Tock stepped out from behind a rock directly halfway between the suited pony and us. He didn’t even appear on my EF’S.

Beatrice looked to me. “Tick-Tock has always had a flare for the dramatic.”

The ponies drew their weapons as Tick-Tock took a bow, blood dripping from his wings.

“Salutations, mon bon monsieur.” He grinned, and even though his back was toward me I could tell he had his best crazy grin on. “Allow me to introduce myself I’m-“ He dodged the bullet from the suited pony’s rifle. Then he continued. “Tick-Tock, and I will have your life in my hooves this evening.”

“Shoot hi-“ Before he could finish the sentence, Tick-Tock rushed the stallion, cutting his neck open with his bladed wing, leaving him gurgling on the ground while charging the rest of the ponies. Unluckily, there was at least a quarter mile stretch between them. Luckily, Tick-Tock had planned for this. He expertly dodged bullets as the griffons sniped from the clouds, and rained fire down on them, picking off the ponies with the mini-guns first. One of the griffons descended, tearing them apart with her mini-gun and sending the rest of the bandits scattering. All except one. Tick-Tock pulled a healing potion out of his bags and made the pony in the suit drink it, then drug his healing body over to Beatrice.

“Now, these are the ponies and griffons you were trying to kill.” Beatrice seethed. The malice in her voice sent my mane crawling. “Why are you trying to do that?”

He spat in her face. Tick-Tock stepped back as she slashed his face open. Tick-Tock motioned me over to help him loot the bodies as the pony started to scream.

“How’d you do?” He smiled, his calm voice barely audible over the agonized screams of the pony.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I was feeling sick. I had killed again. I felt crushed under the weight of the wasteland; torture, murder, robbery… My mind wasn’t coping. I was about to look back and see what Beatrice was doing to him, I had never known a stallion to hit such octaves. Tick-Tock blitzed between me and the sight.

“Why don’t you come help me loot the bodies?” He smiled, trying to make it better.

“Fine, I think those ponies need medical supplies, some of them are stable and OH SHIT, JERRY!” I screamed, taking my last healing potion out of my bag, only to have Tick-Tock take it and soar off in the general direction I was heading. Tick-Tock went over to where he had gone down and dived on him.

I ran over the hill and saw Jerry leaning on a very pained looking Tick-Tock. The healing potion had worked from the look of it, just not as well. Tick-Tock had been in the nick of time, from the gear these ponies were carrying it looks like they were tired of wasting time.

Tick-Tock cleared the remaining mines by sprinting full speed through the field a few times, triggering every mine he came across.

“Now that’s how you clear a mine field.” He shuddered, shaking the debris off his black leather armor. I started to trot through the wreckage, but he held out a wing to stop me. There was another explosion as one of the sky buses blew up. “Okay, now it should be good.”

I hadn’t really taken a look at Tick-Tock’s armor until now. It was all black leather, just black leather. No Kevlar or hardened spots anywhere. On each wing was a blade that curved with his wings perfectly, mounted into his armor was a battle saddle that had dual SMG’s with drum magazines. On each hoof was a knife of various sizes going up to his knees. Slung under his right wing was his combat shotgun, and sheathed directly below his left SMG was a curved sword.

The other ponies of the caravan kept eyeing them. A couple reached for guns, a few kept them trained on him. A glare from Tick-Tock made them think otherwise.

“I don’t get it?” I asked as Tick-Tock took a healing potion from one of the dead bandits, putting it in a cart we found. “You saved them, shouldn’t they be grateful?”

“Angelo’ stuff.” He mumbled coldly.

“That’s bullshit and you know it.” I stomped, much to his confusion. “It doesn’t matter, you saved their lives!”

“Not to them. Angelo’ did a lot of awful shit,” he answered, yanking a gun from a dead earth pony’s vice-like grip. “I’m a reminder of that.”

“SO?” I stomped angrily, trying to get some kind of change from Tick-Tock. “They need to get over it.”

“So, they need somepony to blame and that somepony is me, or any pegasus really.” He smiled, putting some needles in his bag. “And if you don’t get over it. They never will.”

“But doesn’t that get you mad?” He turned his head and gave me a slight smirk and a sigh.

“Not anything I can do about it, so there’s no point in getting angry.” He tried to walk away, but I wasn’t having any of it. Tick-Tock had ended too many conversations like this already, and I was fed up with it.

“You saved our lives!” I stomped, chasing after him. “You’re a goddess damn hero!”

“Some hero I turned out to be. I got so tied up with the snipers I let a friend get shot, and failed to secure an escape route.” He answered, with painful amounts of sarcasm. “I should’ve set the trap sooner, or let you know the second I was feeling trouble, or scouted ahead… There are literally dozens of things I could’ve done instead. Yet, when it came time for me to do my JOB, my FUCKING JOB! I screwed up. I’m not a hero,” He stomped, staring me in the eyes.

“Tick-Tock, you saved everponies life!” I shouted directly into his face, not yeilding an inch as he tried to stare me down.

“First, I didn’t, stop saying that. I’m not a hero. Ponies died because of me. Second, if I did accept this, it wouldn’t change their fear and hatred of me. Angelo’ Death probably tortured somepony close to each of them, and they need somepony to blame.” He turned around and exhaled deeply into the ground, barely holding back tears. “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to lose my temper.”

“What did he take from you?” I asked, and Tick-Tock’s whole body shuddered.

“A lot.” He glared from under his hat, his mane falling over his eyes. “Leave it at that, I won’t guarantee your safety if you push it again. All you need to know, is I want this one dead as much, if not more, than anypony else.” I froze, the tone of his voice was murderous. My body wouldn’t move as he loaded a cart with the loot.

“Tick-Tock,” I gulped, the words took every ounce of courage I had. “I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

“Thanks, Omega.” His tone was back to being carefree, and boardering on apathy. He hooked himself up to a cart he had loaded everything in, leaving me standing there as the rain started to fall.

(Level Up) Griffin Judo beginner- you know the basics of this martial art, even though you can’t do any of the moves right for anotomical reasons +10 unarmed.

(I’d like to take a moment to thank my friends Sara and John for editing and Kkat for creating FoE. Comments on improvements are appreciated as well as compliments. Thanks.)

Wrath

Omega’s Trials
Chapter 8

“Water,” groaned the tied up unicorn. He was covered in bandages from Beatrice’s interrogation; griffon talons are definitely more than for show. Even after all that, he wouldn’t tell who he was, or who he worked for. It was frustrating, and it was my turn to watch him. “Your friend didn’t get me any.” He was referring to Lucy, the griffon with the mini-gun that had last watch. The rest of the caravan set up in an old rest stop for the night. We were obligated to take watch. When told this, Beatrice said it was because they were a bunch of racists.

That wasn’t what was bothering Tick-Tock though; what was bothering him was the attack. He said that a few things were wrong with the attack; they were too well armed, too well trained, and not vicious enough to be raiders. Looking back, I had to agree with him. From what my mom told me about them, they were horrible, sadistic cannibals that thrived on torture and blood. Those ponies were obviously not them. Then there was their apparent leader.

“Too damn bad,” I answered, taking a sip of what was the last sparkle cola. I took my time with it, savoring the delicious carroty taste, a task he was trying to make as difficult as possible.

“Please,” he rasped, “I’m thirsty.”

“And I’m tired of being shot at!” I shouted, dropping my bottle on the ground. “Then you came along, and I get shot at again! See my barding? SEE IT? I JUST HAD IT FUCKING FIXED!” I hit him across the face with my hoof, knocking him to the ground.

“I’m sorry; I was just doing my job,” he whimpered. Luna, he was pathetic.

“So your job is to raid caravans? Shoot at ponies that haven’t done anything to you?!” He nodded meekly, and I lost all control.
I let out a yell and started to stomp him. I was taking all of my rage out on him, everything I had pent up over the last few days; getting shot, having to change my name, my appearance… I was taking it all out on him. I felt something break beneath my hooves, but I still kept going. He was barely breathing and coughing up blood, his face was swollen and smashed. I was about to stomp him again when a pony tackled me. Tick-Tock stood over the bloody pony, and poured a healing potion down his throat.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” He asked evenly, as the pony drank the potion. Tick-Tock tossed him a bottle of brown water from his bag. The pummeled unicorn drank greedily.

“Why are you helping him?” I asked angrily, getting up. I was a little sore, but nothing else. “He tried to kill us.”

“So?” He answered. “He’s beaten, shackled, there’s a magic cancellation ring around his horn, he can not doing anything.”

I was shaking with anger. No, I was beyond that right now. I was so far beyond anger that it was not even funny. I was in a blind rage. I charged Tick-Tock and waited for him to dodge at the last second like he did last time, but he didn’t. Instead, he delivered several swift kicks to my face and neck. There wasn’t much power behind it, but he hit me in the right spots the stop me for a moment. He then delivered a fury of kicks, stopping all of them less than an inch from my face. He finished by bringing his bladed wing out from under his coat and resting the cold steel on my neck. I watched a bead of sweat drip from my face and roll down the blade.

“We need him alive, Scythe,” He finished, keeping the sharp blade pressed against my neck. “He’s the Deuce of Spades.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a playing card like the ones we had back at the stable. It was a two of spades.

“Does that mean he has some princess-ordained right to try to kill us?” I answered, staring Tick-Tock directly in the eyes. Neither of us was wavering.

“You mean he’s a member of the Deck?” A familiar mare’s voice spoke out in disbelief, squinting at the bandaged pony through the filtered sunset. Crystal Bullet was standing barely in my field of vision, her telekinesis engulfing two of her shotguns.

“Yes.” He said flatly. “By the way, before I forget, what are you doing out here?”

“What are you talking about?” I interrupted exasperatedly. I would’ve tried to get Tick-Tock with my knife or make him back off with my gun, but unfortunately those were holstered, and his extremely sharp wing blades were still below my neck. It’s like he had forgotten I was there.

“The Triumvirate directly employs the house of Cards, and they don’t take kindly to anypony offing their staff,” Tick-Tock finished, and folded his wing back under his trench coat. “Sorry about that, sleep deprivation has really messed up my moods.” He pulled his pocket watch out of his coat. “Well, I’m off to bed. I need to be trying to catch up on my sleep. Be sure not to let them kill me or Deuce.” He popped a mock salute as he said this, and went into an empty carriage that had flipped on its side some two hundred years prior.

“Well, fuck. I was hoping I’d be able to beat the shit out of him, too.” Crystal Bullet stomped, staring at the buck. She hit him in the horn with the butt of her shotgun and trotted off, smiling. She started to set up a tent with a lot of problems.

“I hate this place.” I said brokenly, barely audible over the sound of the caravaners who lay back getting drunk, or taking care of injuries. It was truly a miracle nopony on our side had died. Tick-Tock made sure to do rounds with healing potions, taking them from his own personal stock. He gave out Med-X as needed, even applying the healing bandages to the pony that probably orchestrated the whole thing. They still hated him. He was really fucked up in the head. “Hey, Crystal. Do you need some help?” “No Thanks.” She grunted, trying to levitate some of the poles together to form the frame of the tent. “I can do this.”

“Are you sure?” I raised an eyebrow, less than convinced as she struggled with the tent. She turned to face me, but as she spun her hoof hit a rock and she tumbled up the small incline into her tent. “I’m taking that as a no…”
I stepped in and untangled her, and proceeded to set up the tent while she stood by grumpily helping me. Rather, making it worse. She was very bad at this. She was acting like a small filly that wanted to prove she could do everything by herself. She wasn’t nearly as confident when not in a fire fight.

“If you don’t mind me asking, why are you setting this up out here?” I asked, stepping away to look at the tent. I’m glad my mom took me “camping” in the atrium. Even though our tent wasn’t nearly this large, you could fit four full grown adults in this one easily. “The rest stop makes more sense, and there are other ponies in t-“

“They are a bunch of ungrateful racists, that’s why.” She hissed, and turned around to shout. “Pierce, Sure Shot, Buck Shot. Tents ready!”

All three of the foals cantered out of the building, hauling their various bags.

“I don’t get it?” Pierce, the youngest, asked. “Why couldn’t we stay inside?”

“Because, hon. Those ponies are jerk faces,” Buck Shot answered in an almost motherly voice.

“They seem nice,” he shrugged.

“Yeah, but you know that pony in the coat and hat?” She asked him and he nodded.

“OH! Mister Tick-Tock. Yeah, he’s really nice. He played with me while you all were busy helping them load the stuff the bad ponies had.”
“He did, now? That was nice of him.” She seemed taken slightly aback by the colts answer. “Well, those ponies in there want to hurt him, because he’s a pegasus.”

“Well, not exactly that.” Sure Shot blurted out, but caught the angry glare from her sister and nodded in agreement.

“Wow Crystal, you set that up by yourself?” The young colt asked in amazement. The other two looked at her, then me, and rolled their eyes. Crystal Bullet sighed and looked at me.

“No, he helped me,” she pouted, falling onto her hindquarters.

“Hey! I remember you!” He shouted, and I froze. There was a rustle from the cart Tick-Tock had fallen asleep in. “My sister was bugging you while she was drunk.” He stepped back and crossed his hooves, looking away shyly when he saw the shocked look on my face. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, that was me.” I smiled as warmly as I could. “And don’t worry, she wasn’t bothering me.”

“Okay, cause she’s a feather weight.” He piped up, his voice cracked ever so slightly.

“That’s enough P-“

“Seriously, she can’t hold any alcohol.”

“Pleas-“

“One time, she had half a tiny cup of whiskey and we found her working at a bro-“ Crystal shoved a snack cake inside his mouth, and he devoured it happily.

“Time for bed, I’ll take first watch.” Crystal said, eagerly shoving the young colt into the tent. The rest of the family followed.

“You probably don’t have to take watch, the caravan guards have it and the griffons have a perimeter set up, I think.” I looked around and saw nothing but the blackness of the night, away from my pipbucks green light, and the camp fires.

“Cause they did a great job watching for those bandits.” I shied away awkwardly. That was my only job, and I screwed up. They snuck up on me and could’ve killed me, or Tick-Tock. I coughed to make the silence less awkward.

“So, what happened to their parents?” I asked, pointing to the tent. The purple mare lowered her head.

“Slavers grabbed them a few months ago...”
“Wow, and I was expecting another Angelo’ story.” I chuckled.
She glowered at me, and then continued. “We lived out on a rock farm. Don’t ask, I don’t think it makes sense either. One night, the slavers broke in. I took them to the cellar, my parents distracted them. I made sure it worked. They shot and killed my dad, and chained up my mom and drug her off.”

“Why are you taking them to Sanctuary?” I asked.

“It was a Ministry of Peace thing before the war. When the war ended, some of Fluttershy’s ponies stayed and tried to do what they could to help out.” She sighed. “Supposed to not care who you are, or where you come from. If you behave, they’ll keep you here. They take in orphans also.”

“Wow,” was all I said before going over to the Deuce. I had to keep an eye on him, or at least stay close while I slept. He was chained next to a rock, curled up asleep. I pulled my bed roll out of my saddle bag and tried to sleep, five feet out of his reach. I fell asleep.

‘This is a dream’ I told myself, staring at the bodies of the mercenaries. Just the ones I shot, just the ones I had killed, laying in the field where they fell. I knew for sure it had to be a dream because a pegasus in blood-stained black robes and serrated blades soared over and landed next to me. He looked over the field and nodded in approval. I backed away from him, reaching through my holsters, mouthing for a weapon. I kept telling myself this wasn’t real, it was only a dream. He laughed, as if sensing my apprehension. I saw a movie in the stable, an old prewar flick about an evil pony that killed little foals in their dreams in horrible monstrous ways.

“What are you scared of?” His voice was a high pitched growl, it sounded like a tortured chorus of other ponies. “I’m just here to offer you some pointers.”

“I know this isn’t real, it’s just a dream.” I kept backing away.

“So?” He looked at me, puzzled. “You are being chased as me. Then you might as well be me.”

“How can you help me, you’re just my imagination.” I kept backing away, trying to wake up. “I’m not you; I’m Omega Pi, not some horrible monster. I’m not even a hero.”

“Not yet,” he countered. I could tell he was smiling through the black hood. “I used to be considered the greatest hero in the Hub. Then I fell. If a hero falls so easily, what chance does a stable pony have?” He laughed. The princesses appeared next to me in their regal beauty. I tried to bow, but my legs locked up. “If we all fell, what choice do you have?”

“Shut up! I haven’t even seen what you really looked like!” I yelled glaring at him as the princesses faded into wisps of smoke. “You aren’t real!”

“True, you don’t know what I look like,” He grinned “However, if you think you’ll be able to survive out here, in this hell hole,” I was jolted skywards and given a bird eye view of the scarred landscape. “or face him” I massive suit of prewar powered armor towered before me. “without a bit of me, then my little pony, you are sadly mistaken.”

FM walked out from behind him and stared at the pony under the hood, then at me. She pulled the hood back and I woke up. It was still night, the deuce was asleep in his chains and bandages. I needed some caffeine. I walked over to the sky carriage where Tick-Tock was supposed to be asleep. He was gone.
I needed to stay awake, didn’t want to risk dreaming again. I decided to walk through the dark looking for Tick-Tock; at the very least it would help clear my head. I wasn’t going to be like him, not a hero, and definitely not a monster. I made a Pi promise. ‘Pi is forever, so is a Pi promise’, my mom once told me. I trotted through the darkness along the wrecked road, keeping a careful eye on my EFS, every minute or so doing a 360 spin to be sure it was clear. Then from the darkness came music, trumpets, cymbals, I think maybe an accordion, and a harmonica as well. A bar floated onto my EFS, and I drew my gun, readying myself for… a floating ball with wings and antenna. I breathed a sigh of relief as it fluttered by, performing the same function it had been doing for the last two hundred years, whatever that was, unabated.
I got closer to where the battle had been. It dawned on me that he may not have gone off in this direction at all, and that I may be wasting time and he had just gone out to take a piss. A friendly dot popped up on my EFS, and as I got closer I heard the sounds of digging. Creeping up to an old carriage, the sounds got louder. I glanced over and still couldn’t see anything. I dug into my saddle bags and pulled out a small bottle of stuff call Cat Eye that I had looted from one of the bandits. On the bottle, the label said “for the night prowlers” and a list of warnings and ingredients that didn’t really make sense. I popped one of the pills into my mouth and my eyes instantly adjusted to the bad light. Out by where the bandits had been killed, I saw Tick-Tock with a shovel.
Tick-Tock, was digging graves for the ponies that had tried to kill us. I could make out his lips moving as if talking to the bodies, but that wasn’t the case. He was singing. I could make out a certain rhythm to it, even in his steps and movements. I debated going and helping my friend who had threatened to kill me a few hours earlier, and who was in obvious distress. Even from this distance, I could see the twinkling of tears in his eyes. I stood up and cantered towards him.
“Hey Tick-Tock, need some help?” I asked, his back was to me and he didn’t seem to notice me walking up to him. He emptied another shovel-full of dirt. He had already buried five of them with wooden tombstones, and an etching underneath of what I could guess was their cutie marks. He didn’t say anything.
I started to walk off, assuming he was ignoring me, or this was some silent thing he did alone or something along those lines. “Omega, when did you get here?” He asked. I turned around and saw him pulling out some ear buds. “Wanna help? Should make it go faster.”
He tossed me a shovel, and we started to bury them. He said it’s best if we stick with shallow graves, in case they want to move them. No deeper than four feet. We silently dug through the night. After a few hours, I was tired. Forget that, exhausted.
“Why did we do that?” I finally asked him, and he shrugged.
“If you died, wouldn’t you want to know somepony cared enough to give you a proper burial?” He shrugged, putting the shovel up.
“Well yeah, but they tried to kill us.” I looked at him.
“Doesn’t matter, they’re dead now. It’s out of respect. If they had families, they may have a place to come visit them and know that a good pony beat them.” He stressed his words. I just nodded in agreement. “Besides, helps me sleep at night knowing I did something half-way decent. Makes the nightmares bearable.”
“Tick-Tock, I’m sorry.” He looked back at me, confused. “For dragging you into this Angelo’ mess.”
“I volunteered; I have to take some responsibility.” He smiled.
“Did you bury the other ponies? I mean the ones from the factory. I heard eighteen more died.” He shook his head, clenching his teeth. “How did you do it?”
“Just turned it all back on,” he said, chuckling. “Locked them in the plant room and flipped the switch, then bolted to get you to Tanglebones.”
We trotted off towards the caravan, me and my friend. He was completely insane, irrational even, but he still tried to be good.
There was a pile of Brahmin dung in the cart he was sleeping in. He laughed.
“That’s just pathetic, like I’ve never had that happen before.” He was wiping a tear from his eye like this was nothing new. “Seriously, I’ve had ponies poison me, beat me, and rape me, with varying degrees of success.” My eyes went wide at the last part. “I’ve come to expect more from a HERD OF COWARDS!” He finished, and chuckled.
Looking into the rest stop, I saw ponies move away from windows in my awesome night vision. I was seriously going to stock up on these things when we got to Sanctuary.
“Never heard you shout before,” I said, looking at him, puzzled.
“Scythe, in all honesty you’ve only known me for a few days, but I do not shout often. I hate to do it.” He popped his back and walked into another carriage and came out laughing. Then another, then another, each one the same result until he finally found one that hadn’t had a Brahmin shit in it. “My hats off to you, and I retract one of my insults. This one was pretty good!” He shut the door behind him and I saw a pairs of terrified looking eyes stare out of the rest stop.
I then remembered how tired I was. My body went virtually limp, and I flopped on my sleeping bag. I looked over to check on the bandaged pony that was doing something with his shackles. Oh well. We took everything from him earlier; every bottle cap, paper clip, bobby pin, and screwdriver. What was he going to do, chew through the metal?

“Alright, time to go,” Tick-Tock said, kicking me awake. I stood up and realized I was awake, I think.
“Please tell me this is another nightmare,” I groaned, wiping the dust out of my eyes.

“I don’t know, does that sign say anything?” I looked over to the rest stop and read it aloud.

“Rock Breakers Rest Stop,” I mumbled, pulling my hooves from my eyes.

“Alright, that means you’re awake and are really in danger of being left behind.” He rolled his eyes, before explaining. “You can’t read in dreams.”

“Okay.” Then the first part of his statement hit me, and I stumbled through the steps of putting my gear on, swearing to the princesses for not reminding me to set my alarm, or not having it do that automatically every day.

“Hey mister Scythe!” I glanced over to Pierce as the little colt ran up to me. “Do ya know what’s wrong with Tick-Tock?”

“No, he seemed okay .” I ran through a mental checklist of Tick-Tock and it all balanced out.

“He looked all mopey when he talked to me, said to make sure to tell you to keep in an eye on me.” He looked just as confused as me, only more frightened. “Do you know what he meant? Cause Buck Shot does that most the time.”

“No I do-“

“But I still manage to get past her and find her snack stash.”

“Peir-“

“Sparkle also takes care of us, but she’s not good at much cleanin stuff so she keeps us safe and fed.”

“That’s very.”

“Sure Shot also helps but she has a temper problem, worse than Sparkle’s.”

I ended up getting ready to the colts life story, including his many attempts to earn a cutie mark. There. Were. A Lot. I was never so glad to be the first one in my age to get theirs.

“How’d you get yours?” He asked after talking about his attempt to earn it by doctoring, ended with two fish hooks lodged in his hoof. I started to tell him about me helping with the stable harvest but then he interrupted me…again. “Cause I’ve never seen a cutie mark like that before. What’s it mean? I mean I saw it at some old building Sparkle said was a church but not to the Princesses. So I don’t think she knew what she was talking about, who else do you pray to besides Celestia in the day and Luna at night? It’s silly.” I could not get a word in edge wise.

“You know what that cutie mark is?” Lucy said slinging her minigun over her back, she had gone back to get her ammo. “It means this is one badass muther.” She patted me on the back smiling down at the colt. “He probably had to go Angelo’ Death on some ponies to even think he could earn that. Course, I’m a griffon and don’t know anything about cutie marks.” She looked at me smiling happily, completely oblivious to the hole she just dug me in.

“Wow!” The colt’s eyes widened, and he sat down getting ready to listen to what he thought was going to be a long adventurous story. “Were you an Angel?!”

“No he’s not an Angel.” Tick-Tock spoke up from nowhere sending me and Lucy jumping back. “And your sister’s looking for you; you can ask Mister Scythe his cutie mark story when we get to Sanctuary.”

“Okay…” he sighed and trudged to the caravan.

When he was out of earshot and Lucy had gone. “What was that about?” I asked Tick-Tock. “What you told him.”

“I don’t know, I get feelings sometimes and well, have to act on them, this is one of those times.”

“If you were any more cryptic you’d belong in a Daring Do temple.” I groaned

“Thank you.” He answered holding his head high at the jest. “But seriously, promise me you will keep an eye on him.”

“Alright I will.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Pi promise me that you will keep that colt safe.” He had a genuine look of panic and worry in his eyes. Tick-Tock read that mine were looking for an explanation. “You talk in your sleep.”

“I Pi promise to keep an eye on that colt.” I answered, he released the breath he was holding, but instead of his childish demeanor he became more depressed. Only for a second then he went back to his old self.

We finally caught up with the caravan and took point next to Beatrice. Some of the ponies were glaring at me, and others just seemed content to pretend I didn’t exist. This worked really well when I intentionally started to bump into them to get a response. The petite griffon just rolled her eyes, then handed me a note that said “Really?” I smiled and nodded. She face-palmed. Was Tick-Tock contagious?

The deuce was chained to one of the carts the Brahmin were hauling. Tick-Tock stood next to him, watching his gaze shifting from right to left.

“Keep a good eye on that thing,” Beatrice grumbled. “Cards never work alone, and with Angelo’ Death, there’s no shortage of hired guns.”

“Shortage of quality, though?” I asked hopefully.

“Likely. That group probably came from Baltimare. They were trained and armed so the only reason it worked was that they weren’t expecting Tick-Tock.” I looked back to my friend, who was drinking that weird blue drink. “They also weren’t expecting a fight.”

“Okay…” I looked at her. Yes, Tick-Tock was good in a fight, but I didn’t see him as an insane, death-machine.

“This may come as a bit of a surprise to you, but most ponies aren’t exactly trained to take on aerial targets.” She looked at me and nodded my head in understanding. “And Tick-Tock is pretty nasty to fight, I know he could take me and my squad.”

“Really?” I looked at her and she nodded. This would have to be something I see to believe. Yes, he was quick with his knife and guns with those slavers, but they were underfed, inexperienced and terrified. Against Sledge in the factory, from what I remember of it at least, he had fought her for a good while before killing her. The ones who came in afterwards, he turned the security system back on. The snipers, he had the help from the griffons. I didn’t see him as a bladed fury of death. “Yeah, he has all those knives and swords and stuff, but really?”

“He has a small knife tucked under each feather, a throwing knife with a weight coiled up in his tail, and most likely a few small surprises in his mane. That stallion is a walking arsenal of the sharp and pointy,” she finished, closing my slacking jaw. “Don’t tell him I told you that, and try to look surprised when he shows you. It’s one of those things he likes to do.”

“Show off his knife collection?” I joked.

“Kind of, yeah,” she laughed.

We walked along the highway, the carts rhythmically clanking behind us, with me routinely checking my EFS. Goddess, my eyes were sore from pointing out mole rats and dogs on the thing, and I was so bored. It did, however, prove to be extremely useful. Two red dots appeared on my EFS, I pointed it out, and Jerry came back with two unicorns.

“Please don’t hurt us.” One was short and fat, the other was tall and skinny. Both had guns that looked like they shot rust instead of bullets. They looked up to the griffon glaring down on them. Jerry was very good at looking menacing.

“Yeah, please… They just paid us some caps to go and find the caravan and tell them where it was. They said they wanted to do some business with it.” He grinned. In the name of Luna, these two bucks sounded stupid.

“Who did?” Beatrice asked, narrowing her eyes and looking a combination of menacing and seductive. Wonder if it was intentional.

“The Cards did,” the short unicorn with cracking voice answered immediately. Obviously, the look was intentional.

“Which ones?” She ran a talon down his face, and he half-froze and half-melted. “And where did they tell you to go and meet them.”

“The Three of Clubs, Deuce of Hearts, Three of Diamonds, and the Three of Spades.” He stammered, not sure if he was supposed to be terrified or attracted. “And at the old Angel Bunny Hospital. They have a bunch of other ponies up there. At first, I thought they were raiders, but the Cards said they were looking to join a caravan.” My pipbuck pinged with the new location being marked.

“Thank you.” She winked, and the buck collapsed, drooling. “Jerry, chain them up with our other guest.”

“Beatrice!” The old buck that was the head of the caravan had been looking more and more frustrated as the interrogation went on. “What in tarnation do you think you are doing?”

“What you hired me on for, you old fart.” She responded, calling Tick-Tock over.

“Why are we shackling those two up?” He stomped, “Just shoot them and be done with it.”

“Sorry, not going to happen.” She started talking to Tick-Tock.

“WHAT?! I’m your employer and you will do what I say!” She froze. Tick-Tock took a few steps back and tried not to laugh.

“Employer, not owner, and on the contract there’s a very fine line that says ‘I’ll protect the caravan however I see fit.’” She finished, waving the old pony off. “What I don’t see fit, is executing two obvious spies who have been sent here just for the sake of being captured.” The two unicorns who were trying to pick the locks to their shackles stopped, and looked at Beatrice in wide eyed horror. “You really thought I was that stupid?”

“The Cards were hoping you would shackle us up so we could get the Deuce out of here.” He chuckled, crossing his hooves. “During the ambush up ahead.”

“How many are there?” She put her talon on his face, this time starting at his forehead and then tracing it over the parts of his neck. Little drops of blood formed along the thin cut.

“Twenty, they’re in a hospital and some of the buildings around it.” He gulped.

“Stormy, that’s not right.” The other one spoke up, apparently oblivious to the fact they were in very real danger. “There’s twenty-four of them, counting those card ponies.”

“Thanks, Lead. How could I forget that,” Stormy answered, rolling his eyes.

“No problem.” Lead smiled like an idiot, trying to pat his friend on the back. He forgot his shackles and tripped instead, falling on him.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked, trying hard to look at the old road map and not at the two ponies who were trying hard to untangle each other, only making it worse.

“Simple,” Tick-Tock said. “You and I are going to go and clean out a raider nest.”

He said that like it was some small job that anypony fresh out of a stable can accomplish single-hoofedly. One does not simply walk into a two hundred year old town and kill every raider in it. That wasn’t the only thing that was bothering me. He said nest like they were some kind of animal, and not ponies. While all these thoughts were racing through my head, I ignored something, something important. Oh, EFS swarming with red bars. The job I’m paid to do.

“We got company!” I shouted, grabbing my assault rifle. The griffons and the guards followed suit. Tick-Tock took off his coat and hat. We got the four carts into a square and got all the ponies that couldn’t fight safely tucked into them. Then we waited as they surrounded us, staying just out of sight.

“What are we waiting for?” I whispered to Tick-Tock as he paced on top of the cart, staring off at the ponies that had surrounded us. You couldn’t see most of them just occasionally one would pop their head up, or dart from the cover of some shriveled black tree or peak out of a ditch.

“Their move. We have too many injured and not enough ammo to fight our way out.” He looked to the Deuce. The pony was standing up, looking a combination of relieved and nervous. The other two were lying on the ground, cowering, with their hooves over their head. “Besides, we have something they want.”

I nodded, and watched them from inside the Kevlar reinforce cart. More than twenty, thirty at least, and none of their weapons looked worth a damn. There were even a few spears, and bats with spikes driven in them. From the line emerged an earth pony mare in a red suit, with a white overcoat. The suit had been sewn in such a way that it was angled and sharp, but still looked to fit her. Behind her were three more, each in a different yet similar suit, each sporting high powered rifles on their battle saddles. Except for the earth pony in a black suit with white over coat. He had what looked like a sword, like Tick-Tocks but bigger, like way bigger, easily longer than himself, and he wasn’t a small pony either. Its blade was thick and upon closer inspection I realized it was made out of a piece of a cart or sky chariot. Another thing was, they all looked well groomed and clean.

“Give up the Deuce and we’ll be on our way!” The one in the red and white suit shouted. “We don’t want any trouble.”

“Well, he caused us some trouble. How do you plan to reciprocate?” Beatrice answered, pulling the hammers back on her revolvers.

“Hey c’mon, we’re all mercs here. Can’t be holding any grudges,” she said with a smile, then her eyes drifted up to Tick-Tock, he was still pacing along the top of the cart. “That’s not a particularly safe place to be, my winged friend.”

I breathed a sigh of relief that I wasn’t the only one weirded out by his behavior.

“I’ve been in worse.” He answered, continuing to pace.

“Oh, I get it, ya think yer some kind of badass,” she chuckled. “Well, let me tell you what, just because you are one of the few pegasi that survive, and not get killed by the other ponies don’t make you that good.”

“I know.” He said in calm confidence. “And just because you all wear cheap hand-me-down suits doesn’t mean anything either.”

“True, but we can back up what we say. You, on the other hoof, well… I’m just not sure. All it takes is one lucky sniper.” She answered, and the sound of weapons loading filled the air.

“It would take an awful lot of luck to hit me.” He smiled, kicking his own battle saddle to load it.
“So does the idjit pegasus know how to use a sword?” The pony in the black suit and white overcoat asked, taunting him. “Or is it just fer show?”

“How badly do you want to find out?” Tick-Tock asked, not trying to hide his joy. Beatrice groaned.

“You wanna spar wif me?” The pony asked, and somehow I knew Tick-Tock’s response before it came.
“Of course, my friend, shall we go til first blood?” I face hoofed, as did the rest of the ponies in the caravan, and the griffons. I think Beatrice was beating her head against one of the carts. I heard his battle saddle hit the roof of the cart.
“Ya got guts, I’ll tell ya dat.” I lowered my hoof from my face, and saw the Three of Spade’s look of shock melt to one of cockiness, the rest of the cards were trying to maintain their composure. Apparently, they did not expect him to accept.

“So, house rules?” Tick-Tock chuckled, hopping down from the roof of the cart with confidence.

“Yea, til first blood.” He said smiling, everypony else was left baffled, his cohorts signaled the raiders to stand down, much to their shock. This was actually happening. Right before a fire fight was going to break out, with guns, two ponies were going old-school on each other with swords.
Beatrice gave me a quick briefing on who they were while Tick-Tock stretched. The card that had called him out was the three of Spades, you could tell which suit they belonged to by their suits. White coat, black suit was a spade. Their suits also appeared to be more business attire. Black coat, white suit was a club, more leisurely. White coat, red suit was diamond, looked like it was more valuable than a diamond. Red coat, white suit was a heart, their suits looked the most relaxed. Each of them had their own jobs to do in the house, and had their own specialties. Clubs were typically the business-minded ones that got things organized and knew how to make things happen, they were not fighters but could use a gun if need arise. Hearts made sure the towns under the Triumvirates control stayed happy, or at the very least in line. Diamonds were the ones that specialized in making something theirs, whether a piece of scrap, a piece of prewar tech that was in a steel ranger vault, or a pony. And finally the spades, they were the specialist. From what I understood, they did the fighting when it came down to it, and they were very good. Tick-Tock was going to fight one.

Tick-Tock drew his sword, and the Spade’s grabbed his off his back. Tick-Tock’s sword was long, thin and curved. An elaborate, curved guard covered his muzzle up to his eyes. Somehow, I could make out a smile underneath it. Or was that my imagination? Once he drew the sword, his entire physical demeanor changed, his body slumped to look borderline rag doll, his movements were jerky as if he was being pulled along by some unseen force, his eyes dilated. The Three of Spades charged.

He narrowly dodged the first swing, he leapt over the second, trying to take to the air but the spade swung at him forcing him down the makeshift sword cutting through his mane. Tick-Tock didn’t even have a chance to counter before dodging again, damn this buck was fast.

Tick-Tock rolled away from the vertical swing of the bumper sword. He swung back, but the orange pony parried it easily, continuing his relentless assault. Then I blinked. The Spade just barely avoided having his head taken off by ducking under Tick-Tocks blade, but instead losing an inch off his well-groomed mane. Tick-tock was fighting back. Actually, it looked more like a drunken pony stumbling through the motions of fight, but it was working. The earth pony was staring in wide-eyed horror, as each of his parries started to come a bit later and he recovered less each time, being continually back-pedaled around the caravan’s protective square.

“He’s just being mean, now,” Beatrice spoke up somberly, shaking her head.

“What do you mean?” To me, the fight had looked pretty even. Yeah, Tick-Tock was on the offensive, but still he had to dodge a few swings when the other pony got lucky.

“He’s dragging it out.” She looked at me. “This is how he gets his kicks, finding anyone who claims they’re that good and beating them, look” she pointed to Tick-Tock who just executed a back flip over the stallion. “He’s not even using his wings.” The scary part was she was right.

Tick-Tock knocked the Three’s desperate block upwards with enough force to break the unicorn’s concentration. He struck twice. The first was to slice his mane off. The second one was in the same fluid motion; he slashed his sword across the ponies flank, then spun around, and plunged his sword through the ponies back legs, the other end coming out where his cutie mark, a bulldozer, was. He then twisted and tore the sword out, spraying himself with the blood as the pony let out a horrific scream, before collapsing into shock. I for once didn’t feel sick to my stomach.

The other Cards looked at Tick-Tock, who would’ve normally given the poor bastard a healing potion, or some Med-X, in horror. He was staring at the rest of the Cards with a near vacant look, as if he was weighing if they were to live or die.

“I win, and thanks for the mane cut, it was getting in my eyes.” He finally spoke before walking back to the caravan, wiped and sheathed his sword, and put his coat and hat back on. Then the bullets started flying.

The griffons took off and started to strafe the ponies as bullets and swears filled the air. The majority of the caravan locked and loaded or got down, including the captives. The Card’s high-powered rifles were easily punching through the Kevlar carts and they knew what they were doing, unlike the raiders that were just there for cannon fodder.

“How many you got, Scythe?” Tick-Tock said stoically. He landed on the cart and started putting his battle saddle back, then sidestepped to avoid a bullet. He was keeping score. These weren’t robots, these were ponies. “How many of them are there? Why else do you think I drew out that fight?”

“A lot, sorry I got distracted.” I answered, secretly kicking myself for thinking that. He nodded and flew off.

One raider threw a grenade into the caravan, and I activated SATS to try to get the bastard so he couldn’t do it again. The first thing that lit up was the grenade. I smiled and targeted it three times. It blew up on the second shot, covering him with shrapnel and knocking him back. A sniper’s round went through his chest. I looked next to me and saw Sure Shot, her rifle fired. Another red bar gone, another shot, another one down. Buck Shot dropped one anytime they got too close. Together with Crystal Bullet and her floating shotguns, they had this entire flank under control. Then the most peculiar noise, a dull thud followed by a whistling sound. I had just enough time to look up the hill and saw some raiders around a small metal tube that had smoke billowing out of it.

The cart I was standing in exploded. Bits of flaming wood and metal rained down, showering us with splinters. The raiders came charging through the smoke, guns blazing. I dove behind a wagon wheel and tried to shoot. There were just so many of them. I tried to activate SATS and pull the trigger, to drop a few of them before they started killing everypony. The raiders were gutting and shooting them at point blank range. They freed Deuce and shot the two spies who claimed that ‘this wasn’t the deal’. I cowered there under a wheel, next to a dying Brahmin asking why his other head wasn’t talking anymore.

The fires were put out, the survivors were helped, the dead were buried, and I was feeling like a foal… a poor helpless foal. A total of five caravan ponies were going to survive the night. At least, that’s what Beatrice said. I didn’t know if it was true, their injuries were beyond me. I lay there, still cowering. What Beatrice hadn’t said was, it was my fault she lost two griffons; Lucy, and her sister Victoria. Lucy died while reloading, Victoria died trying to get to her. Jerry wasn’t looking good. He had several bullets through his armor, but he was alive and stable. Crystal Bullet survived, and so did her sisters. Her brother though, we weren’t able to find him. Jerry made a half lucid joke about raiders taking captives, he received a concussion from a floating shotgun. I didn’t even see them grab him through the smoke.

“I’m sorry.” Tick-Tock said from behind me, his voice low and monotone. “I thought you could do more, I thought you were tougher.”

“I just froze. I had the training, the weapons, the position, but I knew if I hid, I’d be fine. They wouldn’t get me, that I’d make it out of here alive.” I cried into my hooves. Goddesses, I was so tired of crying. So sick and tired of tears.

“It’s called being a pony.” He said, “Are you going to let this kill you though, Omega?”

Hours passed. Tick-Tock was listening to the music in his ear buds, staring at the fire like his gaze could put it out. Crystal Bullet was crying next to her sister. We had already buried Buck Shot. I still sat next to the wagon wheel. I looked at my pipbuck, I had never really paid attention to its map before. I fiddled with the knobs, finding my way to the map, and I looked at the distance I had covered in the last week. I had to zoom out a few times to find home on it. I smiled, but that moment of joy was replaced with rage.
These ponies had made me break a promise, I said that I would keep an eye on Peirce, and now he was in danger. My rage steadily boiled within me when I looked at the raider corpses we hadn’t bothered to bury. Tick-Tock said they didn’t deserve it. Nopony would look for them. They had ears, pony ears, around their necks. Some had more some less. They all looked small. I stood up on unsteady legs thinking of what I was about to do.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Tick-Tock asked, barely audible over the crackling fire.

“To a hospital. I have a feeling somepony needs a lead injection,” I finished, and he just rolled his eyes.

“Something tells me I was glad I had my music playing so I couldn’t hear that,” He said, and turned back to the fires. Mumbling something in the language he spoke with Beatrice earlier.

I’m glad he didn’t hear me either. This was insane. I had no plan, just guns, lots of bullets, and a heart set on tearing the earth apart to make sure a little colt made it back to his sister. Something in my gut told me this was something I had to do alone. Even though it sounded oddly heroic in my head, I knew it wasn’t. If I rescue Peirce, it’s just a bonus.

The Angel Bunny Hospital didn’t look like any building I had ever seen before. For starters, it was a massive tree. Outside hung all manner of horrors and mutilations, of everything from small woodland creatures to ponies. Their corpses were bloated, their skin was flayed, heads were torn from bodies and mounted on pikes, limbs had chains inside them, and torn out for some extra fun as they died. The sight was almost as bad as what Angelo’ Death had done in the Hidey House. Almost as bad. These ponies at least killed them, not leaving them hanging by barbed wire. But the smell of rot and decay was still awful.

I had no idea what I was thinking as I slid into SATS and slit the sleeping raider’s throat with my knife. He was a shitty guard, despite a spotlight cutie mark. I drug his body to a ditch, and covered it with a branch. I opened the door to the hospital and wanted to relish in the smell of the outside. The smell was beyond repulsive, and if I had had anything to eat in the past two days I may have thrown up then and there. My EFS was swarming with red, which made me feel all the better. Meant I didn’t have to track them down.

I walked around a corner and saw one of the raiders walking with his back to me. He had a tire over his shoulder, a falling apart spear, and a fire fighters helmet. I slid into SATS and slashed the tendons in his ankles. The helmet muffled his scream as I slit his throat and hid his bloody corpse in the broom closet, only to find it occupied by two ponies in the throes of passion. I stabbed the male in the back, and tore with the knife as I yanked it, only a yelp escaping his lips. Before the female could cry for help, I activated SATS and slashed her throat open, ensuring the only sound she made was a gurgle. I continued walking, clearing the first floor. I found four more at the nurses’ station.

I bolted around the corner, assault rifle in my mouth and triggered SATS on three of them. Each of them equaled 70% for the heads. I smiled as I took the shots on the farthest three. The one closest had her head behind a wall. All three of the shots ripped the head off the one on the left. The middle unicorn had all three rounds drill through her skull, exploding out the back, and the last one had the three shots tear through his jaw and neck. The mare sat there in shock. I couldn’t tell you why I waited for her to turn. Time crawled as her head turned, a look of horror in her eyes. Her mouth formed a single word, “Angelo’”. I fired.

The empty clip clattered to the ground, splashing in the pools of blood. The raiders heard, nopony missed it. I was almost happy they’d all come to me. I loaded a clip of explosive rounds. I wasn’t Scythe or Omega right now. These ponies had wronged me. They were filth, horrible murdering rapists that got off on torture. I was doing the wasteland a favor. Their lives were forfeit, and right now I was Angelo’ Death.

I had fought my way through the first two floors. My armor was shit from a grenade, my assault rifle was destroyed by the second grenade, and I was out of pistol ammo. I was sore, bleeding, crippled, and they didn’t know it. My knife broke off in the eye of one of the raiders. She rolled on the ground screaming, and I threw the hilt at the pony charging me with a sharpened shovel. The broken knife hit him in the neck, but it did little to stop his charge. He collided with me at full speed, jamming the shovel into my torn Kevlar armor. He pinned me against the wall and slashed at my face, my vision flooded with red, and a sharp pain prompted me to bite his cheek. He jumped back, screaming various profanities and dropping his shovel. I picked it up and charged. I laughed through the shovel. Even when torn to shit, my armor was still better than his. I twisted, and he let out an agonized scream as blood spurted into my face, not that I could tell. I yanked the shovel out and turned to face the next pony coming. I didn’t turn fast enough, and caught a load of buckshot in the chest, knocking me to my side, and the shovel skittering away. I struggled to my aching hooves as the unicorn struggled to load the other shell. I screamed and charged at him. He leveled the shotgun on me with a look of terror. There was a bang, and his head exploded. Then I felt the all-too-familiar feeling of a gun barrel pressed against my head. I turned to face it, but found it to be just floating there, wrapped in a purple glow.

“Friendly.” I shouted, struggling to stand. When had I fallen again? Crystal Bullet walked out, her eyes a mixture of tears and rage. Hell was easily three steps behind this mare, if not closer.

“I followed you. Sure Shot’s stable. I’m going to get my brother back even if he’s a-“ I waved her off. She took it as an ‘I understand you don’t need to continue’.

She tossed me a healing potion, but I didn’t drink it. I’d need to dig out the various amounts of lead and shrapnel that had gotten into my body. Besides, the pain kept me going, and made sure my blind rage stayed fueled. We nodded to each other. We both knew why we were there, to kill the members of the deck of Cards if they were still here. From what Tick-Tock did to the Three of Spades, they were, ‘cause even an unsanitary operating room was an operating room. We walked through the hallways, clearing them out as they came; Crystal Bullet wrapped me in healing bandages after I nearly passed out.

We came to a hastily made barricade of old, rotting desks and chairs. The raiders had started shooting as soon as we came around the corner. I dove into an office with the words ‘Director’ etched on the door. The bottom words had been carved out. Inside was a destroyed office, with an adorably small desk with matching office supplies. I almost laughed at the tiny stapler. I heard a massive explosion, with a blast that slammed the door shut. I looked out and saw Crystal Bullet dragging a mangled, bloody, and screaming buck across the ground with her telekinesis.

“WHERE ARE THEY?!” She hit him in the face with her shotgun, shattering his teeth. She dropped him onto his back and kicked him over as he tried desperately to crawl away, screaming for help. She took her shotgun and shoved it up his ass, forcing a terrified shriek out of him, not that it was that hard. She racked the shotgun. That was enough to make him talk. “WHERE ARE THE CARDS?!”

“Upstairs! Top Floor in the operating room!” He cried, tears mixing with the blood on his face. She turned away, her stare just as angry, just as intense. There was a moment where he looked relieved, then she pulled the trigger. His top half exploded in a slushy mixture of blood and organs. I grabbed one of the weapons, an old bolt action rifle from one of the corpses. It was the one with the most ammo, and in the best condition.

The top floor was by far the cleanest, with little foal’s doodles on the wall. Still, it smelled awful. A mare with a knife lunged at us. I slid into SATS, targeted her head with one shot. The bullet tore through her cheek and teeth, nearly dislocating her jaw. However, she kept coming. She stuck the knife into my torn armor, the remains of the Kevlar blunting the stab. Simultaneously, Crystal Bullet stuck her shotgun under the mares chin and pulled the trigger. Wow, you can become numb to that.

I motioned her right, heading towards the red on my EFS. She followed me, watching my back. Neither of us spoke in the dim light as we crept closer and closer towards the operating room. Two more of the raiders guarded the door, but they didn’t see me coming. As I brought the knife up his neck, I slit his throat vertically. The other one received a quick apple buck to the face, knocking him against the wall and shoving the handle of his gun down his throat. Before he could recover, Crystal Bullet started pummeling him with the butt of her shotgun until his head was a smear. I picked up his gun, it was a colt .45 revolver. In good condition too, the pony also had the ammo to make it worthwhile.

We burst into the operating room, shooting anything that was red. We didn’t care if they were injured. It was from attacking us, and they deserved what they got. I shot ponies that were operating, ponies that were under anesthetic, ponies that were rushing us, screaming with tears in their eyes. One injured mare jumped in front of my gun as I pointed the barrel at a stallion. Only cost me an extra bullet. We found one who was still alive, huddled in a corner crying. Desperately trying to put as much space in between her and us, she bolted for a knife, but Crystal knocked a cabinet on her hind legs and they gave with a satisfying snap and a scream.

“WHERE ARE THEY?!” She pointed her shotgun at the terrified mares face. She shook in terror, begging for Celestia to save her. “WHERE ARE THE CARDS AND MY LITTLE BROTHER?!”

“The Cards are on the roof,” She sobbed, covering her head. Didn’t prevent the buck to her face.

“WHERE IS MY BABY BROTHER?!” Crystal levitated the mare up to face her, and held the agonized mare with the shotgun at her chin.

“I don’t know!” She sobbed.

“WRONG FUCKING ANSWER!” She hit her across the face, and she spat out blood.

“With the other foals!” She screeched, as her hind legs were strained by the weight of the cabinet. “In the maternity ward!”
She pulled the trigger and stomped off.

“Where are you going?” I asked, following her, not really caring. I was heading to the roof regardless.

“The maternity ward.” She said, cold determination in her purple eyes.

I heard gunshots and screams as I walked into the stair well. I loaded my revolver, the taste of the copper fresh in my mouth as well as the iron. I should’ve stopped, my body was screaming as the adrenaline wore off. I should’ve just let them go, track them down after my father, then go and hide in my stable. The funny thing about blind rage is, you just don’t give a fuck. Each step I took up the stairs was a new experience in pain; I took a brief look at my front right leg, then wish I hadn’t. I took a step onto the roof and gawked at what I saw through the rain.

On the emergency sky-chariot landing pad, I saw a machine with a giant propeller, and pedals and gears and chains. It had seats for five, and along the side in bright yellow cursive paint was ‘Griffinchaser V’. The five seats were set up in a ‘V’, with pedals underneath the seats, chains and gears leading up to the massive propeller. In the point seat was a pair of handlebars. Five ponies were loading it, or at least four were. One was sitting in a wheel chair, giving orders. I jumped out and activated SATS, but when my vision zoomed in on them, they were nothing but dummies… stuffed mannequins. I rotated the targeting spell around and found them, all around me. If the time spell allowed for it, I would’ve kicked myself. I was surrounded by all of them. Diamond was on top, Heart was on the other side of the door, Spade was on the other side of the wall, his sword drawn. The Clubs were nowhere to be seen, even on my EFS, and I was beginning to have serious doubts with that thing.

I rolled out of the way of the gun, the bullet just grazing me. I slid into SATS and targeted the pony on the roof. It gave me a disturbingly low thirty percent. Was I shooting at Tick-Tock? Then I found the source of the problem. The little flashing pony in the upper left-hoof corner of my vision was fully covered in crippling injuries, including my head. I had a chilling realization that I was facing five trained ponies, with a falling apart body. I took a shot at each of them, trying to keep them pinned down as I shambled to the elevator. I wasn’t going to die here, gunned down on a roof top. I activated SATS every moment I could, to try to dodge the bullets and to give my mind a brief break from the pain. Finally, I made it to the elevator and got my hooves kicked out from under me. I hit the button with SATS, but then I realized how stupid an Idea that was. There hadn’t been any power in two hundred years. Hell the lights were flickering. Celestia damn it, why would the elevator work?

“Hey, TS. Not sure if I should, well y’know, pull the trigger on him.” Two of Hearts yelled up the stairs, a gun barrel pressed into my head. That’s another thing I was getting a little too familiar with. “I mean, clean him up, get him to Patchwork. He’d make a nice trick pony.”

“Hon, that buck just fought his way up through a hospital full of raiders to kill us.” Three of Diamonds laughed. “I don’t think he’s one of those ponies you want to keep alive.”

“True, it’s a pity. Well, plenty of fish in the sea.” I struggled to get my gun, bite her, anything; I wasn’t going to die like this. The elevator ‘dinged’ and the door slid open. There was a brown pegasus with a scraggled, long mane, wearing a dark green outfit that was covered with buttons, with a round bucket hat.

“Top floor, scenic view. Emergency landing and triage, mail deliveries, and Cards shooting a brash stable pony.” He said in a matter of fact tone, and he bucked the mare, grabbed me by the collar, and dragged me into the elevator just as the others recovered from the shock. Diamond fired at him.

“What…took…you...” I wheezed, my injuries catching up to me. Goddesses, it hurts to breathe with broken ribs.

“So long?” He finished. “Well I said ‘hold on. I’ll go with you, just give me five minutes.’ But when I turned around, you were gone. So I had to go out, find the hospital, track you down, and put on the elevator operator uniform.”

“Why?” I coughed up blood. That’s not good, definitely not good.

“I’ll explain later.” He sighed switching the lever off as we came to a stop on the 2nd floor. He struggled to lift me onto a crash cart, and wheeled me down the hall, avoiding the bodies to a room that read, EMERGENY OPERATIONS: FULL BODY INJURIES ONLY.

"Don’t know why it had to be that specific, I figured emergency operations were emergency operations." Tick-Tock stated pushing the cart down the hall. I did not feel like getting into the explanation with him.

He wheeled me under an auto doc, stepped behind the control panels and…started to read the manual. Sweet Celestia, kill me now before he does.

“This would be easier if somepony hadn’t shot every medical pony in the building.” He said, reading through the manual. I was in too much pain to defend myself, and to point out this was something he was talking about doing a few hours earlier. “Oh! Good here we go, input patients injuries, yadda yadda yadda, do not interrupt auto doc while in the middle of run cycle, be sure there is ample power supply of, some big technical term, and something about warranties expiring.” He smiled and typed some stuff in. “Well, here goes a nothing.” He pushed the button then laughed maniacally, rubbing his fore-hooves together.

Level Up-Berserk 1-Like the warriors of old times when you get worked up into a frenzy you forget about pain, and injuries, and your general well being. Ignore crippled limbs for a few minutes.
(I’d like to thank my friends Sara and John for editing this and making it grammatically correct. Also like to thank them for giving me the vote of confidence in this chapter because I was having serious doubts about it. Also like to thank Kkat for creating FoE in the first place.)

Justification

Omega’s Trials
Chapter 9

All things considered, it could’ve gone worse. I was alive, if just a bit sore. The autodoc did its job. Even cleaned up my radiation. Something I had forgot to keep in check, which was bad. Tick-Tock was standing behind the controls reading a small book, occasionally flipping a page.
“Okay, questions.” He looked up from his book as I rolled off the operating table. “First, what took you so long? Second, why didn’t you come with me in the first place? Third, was the elevator always working? Fourth, why in the name of Luna are you in that ridiculous get up? And fifth, why didn’t the cards chase us?”
“First, I got lost. Second, I said I’d be along in five minutes, you didn’t wait. Third, same way I got the autodoc to work; hook up a couple of spark batteries to it and hope for the best.” I cringed a little. “And because it’s the only way the elevator will let you work it. I think it’s a security system or something.” He stretched his wings. “Fourth, it makes me look pretty good. I mean just look at all these buttons.” That was a lot of buttons. “As for the cards, they probably left after I grabbed you. They have a schedule to keep, so be thankful.”
I was speechless, so I just hung my head and chuckled. Goddesses, Tick-Tock WAS contagious.
“You didn’t say you’d be along in five minutes, and why should I be thankful?” I stomped, gritting my teeth through the pain.
“Yeah I did, by the campfire” he stated. I thought back, and he HAD mumbled something. Like he did just now while he was looking at the spark batteries, “If you had somehow, through some miracle, pulled it off and killed those five cards, the rest of the house would come crashing down on you. I thought I made this clear earlier, and I’m sorry if I didn’t.”
“If you said something, it was in a different language,” I countered. He paused and tapped his wing on his chin. “And you did make it clear.” I stomped defensively. I looked down to the ground, slightly ashamed, then mumbled, “It just didn’t click, I’m sorry.”
“Probably did, I do that sometimes.” He stretched and popped his back. He had my curiosity now. “And don’t worry about it, we all lose our temper from time to time.”
“How many languages do you know?”
“I know enough Buffalo to get in a fight and find a bathroom. Fancee, I can do pretty good, but Griffin is what I’m best at,” he answered, with some level of pride.
“And what were you speaking back at the camp?” I groaned. Luna, he was a frustrating pony to deal with.
“Griffin most likely; come on.” He waved me towards the elevator with his wing. “There’s something you need to see.”
We rode up the elevator. He was standing there, smiling blankly at the door, humming along with the music. I noticed a bullet hole in one of the elevator’s doors, then remembered the gunshot that the Diamond had fired trying to kill me before it closed. How stupid I was for charging in there like that? How stupid the whole thing was, actually... What did I really accomplish? I killed some raiders. Big whoop, no worries. They’ll be back. There’s no shortage of ponies like that in the wasteland. I endangered my life for the sake of a foal and a promise. I acted like a fucking hero. Heroes get broken by the Hub, which means I change, and I promised FM I wouldn’t. The elevator dinged.
“5th floor, maternity, pediatrics, emergency OR, and orphanage.” His happy tone dipped, and became deadly serious with the last word. He noticed my confusion, as usual. “What, you think raiders don’t have kids?” We turned left towards maternity and pediatrics. Corpses littered the hallway. They were armed with more desperate weapons: a mop with a sharpened handle, a broom, a plunger... I saw what looked like a sink. I think the mare planned to use it as a bludgeon on Crystal, but the opposite happened. It looked like none of them tried to hide, they just rushed out. Was that raider psychology? Seems stupid to run out screaming like that…Merciful Celestia, what the mare in the OR said now made sense. Pierce was with the other foals.

Ponies... I thought I was killing just lowlife raiders, but they were ponies all the same, with foals. We had made this place into an orphanage. I had taken part in- NO, I had started it- Parents, moms and dads, brothers and sisters... Tick-Tock stood beside me, clumsily kicking a hoofball around. I bucked the wall as hard as I could, then bucked it again, and again. The ancient wood of the tree gave beneath my kicks. My friend shook his head, laughing.

“That won’t bring them back,” he said as the ball slipped out from beneath his hooves, and splashed into the river of blood that filled the hallway. “And you did the right thing, you most likely saved Pierce.” I listened to the crash of something metal as he spoke, and saw something skitter across my EFS.

“How could I have done the right thing?” I looked at him, fuck was I crying again? “I killed their fucking parents; I turned this place into a fucking orphanage!”

“They smaller ones would’ve been sold as slaves to some Baltimarian who needs labor, or they’d get a ‘crash course’ in spelunking.” He sighed as we continued to walk down the hall, humming a somber tune. The sound of lullabies filled the air from the speakers on the wall as we walked past blood-stained wards, and his somber song was drowned out. We heard the sound of small foals crying for their moms and dads. It sounded like two ponies were trying desperately to hush them. We walked around the corner and saw Crystal Bullet in the middle of a nursery, eyes bloodshot from crying, cuddling a sobbing filly who was asking for her mother. I remembered when I was little, and terrified when I got lost in maintenance for a few hours. I was so glad to hear my mom’s comforting voice, something I took for granted, and took from them. She cradled the filly and tried to comfort the rest of them. I saw Pierce try to help by telling them it was going to be okay. I don’t think she told him about their sister yet.

“Now the foals have a better chance,” he said, and put his hooves on my shoulders, interrupting my brooding.
“How do you figure that?” I rasped angrily, almost about to vent at him again.
“We’re going to take them to Sanctuary, where they will be raised in a raider-free environment,” he answered stepping in front of me. “C’mon we have to go find the others.”
“Others?” I asked, stupefied.
“Other foals that ran off and hid during the gunfight.” He tilted his head backwards over his back so that he was looking at me upside down. “Got to do something to keep you from brooding.” How finding other ponies I had orphaned was going to keep me from brooding, was beyond me.

The foal we had been following rushed at me, screaming something profane. He wasn’t even old enough to have his cutie mark, and he tackled me at full gallop with a fire ax in his mouth. Tick-Tock knocked the ax out of his mouth and then delivered a fury of blows to his face and neck. The pony was barely awake, with a lot of blood coming from his face. He kept trying to get up, and Tick-Tock found this disturbingly funny after he searched where he had been hiding. A chem lab, and not the puny one in the 77’s medical floor either. This had chemicals, and drugs and compounds that I had only heard of in books.

“Looks like some pony found themselves some Stampede.” He laughed as the colt still tried to stand. I remember hearing about that drug. It was an attempt to make super ponies, but all you got was a pony with blind rage, and its side effects were nasty. Prolonged use could result in liver, heart, kidney, and reproductive issues, and this was a foal using a homemade version. I glanced at the corner he had been hiding, and counted the used needles.

“We need to get him flushed NOW.” I said, turning away from him as he regained balance.

“I agree, unfortunately I don’t have enough batteries to use the autodoc again.” Did he think that fixed everything? “So if you have any ideas, now would be a good time.”

“Autodoc is operation and healing, not chemical removal,” I corrected, jumping on the recovering colt. “He needs the proper treatment.”

I racked my brain for the methods I had learned in medical training for flushing drugs from a system. I had most likely killed his family... I wasn’t going to let him die.

“I’m going to need a lot of purified water, some fixer, a catheter, and thirty inches of tubing.” Tick-Tock darted out the door, and left me with the drugged up colt.
“I’m so sorry.” Tick-Tock barged back in a few seconds later. “I have no real idea what I’m looking for, or where to begin looking for it, so let’s trade,” he said, urging me out the door. “By the way, hurry.”

I darted down the hallway looking for my supplies. The tubing wasn’t hard to find, just checked the supply closet. The raiders hadn’t seen it for having much use, except for tying off limbs for drug injections. The floor was covered with old used needles. The floor of the closet looked like somepony’s sick nightmare. Then I remembered where I was, and glanced at the ceiling. The needles fell out of their target. I put the surgical tubing into my bags and walked on. I found the fixer in the OR, in a cabinet. I was amazed I could stomach going back in there. Why didn’t I tell Crystal to stop when the mare told her where to look? I stood by and knew what was going to happen. I just stood by impassively. The only thing I cared about was killing the ones who had organized the thing, and what would that have accomplished? There would’ve been forty-seven more pissed off ponies hunting me down. Forty-seven trained, ruthless, and motivated ponies. I took the fixer and got out.

I went to each bathroom I found, hoping to find a sink that wasn’t pumping out irradiated water, but no luck. I bucked the sink, shattering it. I was going to be responsible for another pony’s death; I had killed his family in blind rage and was killing him out of incompetence. I bucked the wall again, leaving hoof prints indented in the wall, then leaving the bathroom altogether. On the plus, I found the catheter.
I dashed from room to room, desperately looking for anything that hadn’t been looted, while looking for non-irradiated water. All my pipbuck found was water that didn’t look clean enough to drink for a healthy pony. I took it anyway, hoping it wouldn’t come to using this. I realized I was running out of time. I started to head back, and then I heard an annoying buzzing noise. It sounded like a radroach was fluttering its wings, only bigger... a lot bigger. I turned around, expecting to find a giant radroach that the raiders had been keeping as a pet. Instead, I saw a pony wearing a purple mask, with blue lenses over her eyes roll a bottle of water over to me. I picked it up and checked it with my pipbuck, it was clean.
“Where did you get this?” She stood silently, then gestured with her head for me to follow her, then she took off down the hallway.
I chased after her, thinking she might know where more clean water was, if any. It wasn’t long after that I realized that the mask wasn’t the only thing off about her. I was chasing a fully grown pony down the hall that was dressed like a damned super hero. She was dressed in a ridiculous costume, a dark blue, almost black cape fluttered behind the pony, occasionally revealing a violet outfit underneath. Her hooves were wrapped with some cloth, up to the ankles. The whole absurd outfit was completed with a hat. We came to a stop in a room on the other side of the building, next to the OR. She opened the door, and inside was water. Clear, pure water with no rads, no contamination, neatly stacked in plastic bottles. Just like the bottle she tossed me earlier.

“How did yo-“ I turned, and she was gone. I didn’t have time to wonder or worry. I grabbed the water and ran down to Tick-Tock. I went through the steps, dealt with him crying as we inserted the tube, got bucked in the face, forcing the water down his throat and heard him sob about his brother. I didn’t cry, I was out of tears.

“How long should it take?” Tick-Tock asked, nudging the tube into the corner as the urine started to flow.

“A few hours?” I answered with a shrug, “I really don’t know.”

“I got this,” He put a wing on my shoulder, “get some rest.” From the way he was looking at me, I could tell this wasn’t a suggestion.

“Okay,” I sighed, my body realizing how tired I really was. I wanted to keep fighting it, I had to do something to try and help them. “Oh Tick-Tock, by the way,” He glanced back from the sleeping colt. “Saw a pony dressed in purple, she gave me the water.”

He muttered something under his breath. “Thank you.” He smiled before waving me off with his wing.

I trotted down the stairs, the events playing over and over in my head; it had all become a blur of me shooting my way through them. I tripped on another mutilated corpse; it had been chained to the wall. I set out looking for a bed but couldn’t find any that weren’t stained with blood. I walked into the director’s office and saw a small green pony dart under the desk. I walked around to the front of the desk.

“Hey little guy.” I said in the tenderest voice I could muster... Don’t know why I was having problems with that. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

I heard a click, and several gunshots flew through the wood in the micro-desk. Seriously, this was a small desk. The gun clicked again, signaling a jam. I trotted around to the front of the desk and looked under at the terrified emerald-green filly, with an evergreen mane and tail. She was filthy, just like the rest of them. Filthy, sickly looking, covered in old blood stains, and terrified.

“Hey, I’m not going to hurt you.” I said, crouching down to get a better look at her. “What’s your name?”

“Scooter,” She blubbered, not taking her eyes off me.

“That’s a nice name.” I smiled back at her.

“Thanks, I got it cause everypony can ride me.” She answered, with a small look of terror in her eyes, as I realized she wasn’t looking at me but at my…parts. Suddenly I felt very sick. “Are you going to be gentle?”

I felt my stomach churn, and I actually saw where the blood stains were on this filly. She wasn’t even old enough to have her cutie mark!

“Hey, I’m not like that.” I shook my head, trying to sound comforting, while trying to comfort myself. This was fucked up...

“So, you like colts?” She looked…sad about this.

“Wha-NO NO NO NO!” I answered, standing up and banging my head on the desk.

“Then…what are you going to do?” She sniffed, and a tear rolled down her face. “Ar-are you Angelo?”

“No, I’m not him, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“But you killed my mommy and daddy.” She started to sob. “My daddy said I was starting to ge-“

The door creaked open and Crystal Bullet poked her head in. I signaled her over, and she trotted in with several fillies in tow, her little brother bringing up the rear.

“Hey there sweetie, what’s your name?” She asked Scooter.

“Scooter.” She coward further under the desk, like she was expecting to get hit or something.

“Well hi Scooter, I’m Crystal Bullet.” She said, smiling warmly. “I’m sorry for what happened.”

She just shivered under the desk, trying to push away from the purple unicorn. Crystal Bullet backed out from under the desk and the emaciated filly.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you.” She smiled, a tear rolling down her cheek.

“Don’t worry 'bout her.” One of the little fillies piped up from the hallway with a snide tone. “She couldn’t handle the bigger ones, like her daddy.” A deafening silence permeated the room. I was dumbstruck.

“I will tape your mouth shut if don’t be quiet Sliver.” Crystal said staring daggers at the filly.

“I’m just letting ya know, that cunt can’t handle a- Mmmph!” A silver roll of tape flew out of Crystal’s saddle bags, and wrapped itself around the filly’s mouth. It got a small laugh from the rest of them, but still they had a vacant look in their eyes like their brains were still processing what had happened.

“Don’t worry about her.” Crystal said warmly to Scooter. “I’m going make sure nopony ever lays a hoof on you like that again.”

“Please, don’t hit me,” she whimpered.

“Why would I do that?” She smiled back warmly.

“Because my mommy always said that before she beat me,” She sobbed. “Now you’re going to beat me up too.”

“No, I’m not.” She answered firmly. “I’m not going to touch, and I’m going to make sure nopony else touches you.”

“What do you mean?” She asked, confusion showing through bloodshot eyes and tears.

“I’m going to protect you,” She answered, “I’m going to take you back to our friends, and we are going to take you to a place where you’ll be safe.”

“Oh…so you’re slavers?” Scooter asked, less shocked. “My mommy said she was gonna sell me someday…”

“No, we’re not.” She gestured to me and herself. “We’re part of a caravan, we’re going to Sanctuary.”

“The Pussy town?” One of the older colts groaned. “That’s all my pa said lived there, nothing but a bunch of-“

“No, they are nice ponies that will take care of you.” Crystal Bullet answered, what little patience she had left wearing thin.

“Yeah, nice ponies die.” He snorted, a small grin on his face.

“And I believe your parents can argue that point extremely well,” Tick-Tock yelled lazily down the hall, the colts eyes tearing up a bit, remembering what had happened a brief while ago. He trotted past the door, humming to an imaginary tune the passed out colt slung over his back. Crystal shot the dirtiest look out the door as he passed and I saw her using all her restraint to avoid charging down the hall after him.

“Nice to know his mood isn’t changed by this,” Crystal hissed.

“The world needs some constants, even if they are chaotic,” I answered, forcing a smile.

“Doesn’t give him a reason,” She said, nuzzling the crying colt, his tears staining her violet coat.

We looked after them and finally got them to go to sleep. Some of them had tried to get a sip of moonshine before going to bed, but Crystal put a stop to that, only allowing them one shot. They all had scars on them, and so would I. I kept trying to find a relatively clean mattress. Making my way back to the director’s office, Tick-Tock was right, I did need sleep. I collapsed on my stomach. Then I felt something small and warm crawl under my left fore hoof.

I opened my eyes and saw Scooter snuggling up to me. She started out as cute, but then kept getting closer and closer, then I stood up. She cowered on the mattress, waiting for me to hit her.

“Scooter.” I said, as evenly and tenderly as I could manage without being betraying how freaked out I really was, “You don’t have to do that anymore.”

“But it’s all ahm good fer,” she answered, looking extremely depressed.

“Well Scooter, if that’s all you’re good at, then why don’t you have your cutie mark yet?” I answered, looking at her blank flank.

She stood there, silently looking down. “ahm just not that good at it yet, I guess.”

“Hey, you can be good at other things,” I said, remembering back to being a blank flank. Running around the stable like a mad pony, trying desperately to find my special talent, getting the occasional injury, a few bumps here, some scrapes there, jumping out my mom’s office window when I read about skydiving. Never thought it would be a common chore, though. “You just need to keep trying new things.”

“Lahk what?” She was beginning to cry. I had taken all meaning from her fucked up life. “This is all mah daddy sed ah’d ever be good at.” Oh wasteland, you are just full of surprises.

“Scooter,” I said in mock sternness, something she wasn’t used to and it startled her. She flinched, thinking I was going to hit her. I changed my tone back to as close to gentle as I could muster. “I know this is a lot for you, and I don’t mean this to hurt you.” She stared up at me in confusion. “But now you can have a better life, one where nopony tries to hurt you.”

“Okay…” She still stood there, looking up at me with her big eyes. “Where can ah sleep though?”

“What do you mean?”

“This is mah room,” she answered meekly.

“OH!” I answered, secretly facehoofing, and walked out of the room. “I’m sorry, for what happened.”

She just stood there in silence. I heard her start to cry when I left the room. I stood there for a minute until I realized Tick-Tock was standing behind me. Apparently, he had changed clothes again. That was something I was never going to get used to.

“Don’t do that!” I whispered, when my pulse had returned to normal.

“Don’t do what?” He asked, looking genuinely confused.

“Sneak up on ponies, you’re going to give me a heart attack,” I responded, feeling exasperated.

“I’ll have to keep that in mind,” he said, looking like nopony had ever told him that before. “But the Cards left you this on the roof.” He opened his bags with his wing and dug out a holotape.

“How do you know it’s for me?” I took the holotape, plugged it up to my pipbuck and let it download.

“There was a note that said, ‘to the stable pony.’” He said. “I’m going to go to bed. We need to be leaving tomorrow morning. We need to catch up to what’s left of the caravan, I know a short cut, I think.”

“That’s comforting.”

“Isn’t it though? Adds a sense of adventure to a dull day.” He smiled, skipping off before I could retort.

I decided to play the tape while I walked around looking for a clean bed. I immediately recognized the voice of the Two of Hearts.

“Hey cutie, if you survived,” Celestia, was she painfully cheerful, “which I think you did, we have a little betting pool going on. I bet on a full recovery, if you wanted to know.” I was about to turn it off when her tone changed to something less silly and more serious. “Anyway, I’m guessing you’re fresh out of a stable, so you don’t know a lot about the Deck. We don’t typically extend many invitations, but from what you did to get up here, I just have to say... Damn. If you’re ever in Baltimare, look me up, I might be able to get you a job with the Deck. I have a feeling we’ll be having a few openings soon, and I may have an opening for you too. Well, Bye!”

The first thing I took away from that was that Tick-Tock wasn’t the only crazy pony in the wasteland. The next thing I got, was they had just offered me a job for effectively trying to kill them all. The third thing I took from that, was an understanding how they operated. They’d offer a job to anyone who proved to be worth a damn. Also that mare needed therapy.

Finally, after what felt like most of the night, I found an out of the way room with a clean bed except for some dust, and a skeleton. I lay down in the bed, then smelled something awful. I looked around the room trying to find the corpse that I had missed. It was me. I did a quick back track, and realized I hadn’t showered since I left the stable. I made my way to the bathroom in the corner of the room, still half asleep. Opening the door, I felt an extremely sharp sting in my ankle that made me jump back onto the bed, with a radroach hanging onto my hoof.

“Get Off!” I yelled at the uncooperative insect, swinging it around into a lamp to no affect. Desperately, I started swinging it against the wall until its body popped off. The head didn’t get the message and it kept chewing. I was suddenly very glad that Tick-Tock had put my armor back together while I was out so it was just pain, nothing too bad. I finally stamped my hoof down and cleaved the head off with my pipbuck. I winced as I pulled the mandible that had gotten through and managed to draw some blood. Stumbling off the bed, I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before because a lamp was there. A memory orb carved into a hole in the wood under the lamp.

“Now looky here?” I said to myself, rolling the ball out of the hole and onto the nightstand. “Since you were hidden, I’m going to assume you are not mister skeletons suicide note.” I put it into my saddle bags next to the recollector, then went to take my shower.

I walked out, both amazed and sickened at how much blood my mane and coat could hold and carefully watched the ticking Geiger counter on my pipbuck. According to Tick-Tock, who apparently not only sees the future but also notices small details like the barely visible needle and dial on my pipbuck, it had been in the yellow. I was actually just glad that I wasn’t going bald, or been ghoulified.

I was a little orb shy after my last experience but in all honesty who would hide a suicide note? It’s something you want other ponies to see. Confident with my powers of deduction, I slid it into the slot on my recollector, concentrated, and let the world slip away.

0000000000000

My host, a unicorn stallion, was walking down a hall, reading a file on some pink cloud that was used against a school.

“Bastards.” He said, shaking the folder, his pulse skyrocketing. “Who thinks of such a weapon?”

“I can think of several, with the knowledge of necromancy, talisman fusions, research materials, and resources, but to go so far as to make this a weapon is just awful,” the tan earth pony with a Trottington accent said, coming up beside my host. He looked at the file for a brief moment, then flipped all the pages in the folder. “A bit slow in the middle.”

“How do you do…” He paused half way through the sentence before shaking his head in frustration. “So I take it you're back from your meeting with princess Cel...Luna?” He said, looking at the amber stallion with a dark brown mane. “Sorry, after her ruling for a millennium…”

“It’s quite alright, I treat her the same as the princess either way.” He looked at the ponies who were rapidly working to change the decorations of the castle palace from a sun to a crescent moon.

“Well then, I guess she gave you your mission?” He said, looking at the stallion.

“Yep, and I turned her down,” he said coolly. My host showed the same reaction I would’ve.

“YOU DID WHAT?!” He said, jumping back losing his concentration and dropping the file.

“I turned her down. I gave her a list of other ponies that would be just as useful for running her ministries.” My host was still just as stunned ... You don’t just turn down the princess. “On that list was Twilight Sparkle, her sister’s prized pupil.”

“Bu-But-But she’s the princess...”

“Yes, you’ve said that, Brig.” He sighed, and smiled the same smile you’d give an old friend. “But I can’t stand being nailed down. I almost went insane when I had to stay in Ponyville all those years.”
“But what will you do? Equestria is at war, there are talks about stepping it up, a draft, even an invasion of the zebra homeland.” He stated. “And then there’s this pink cloud.” I felt his magic surge and engulf the file folder…the sensation was odd.

He gave it a small pause, then smiled, flipping out some glasses. He took the file and started rambling on about things that were over my head, but I assumed not my host's, because he seemed to be nodding along in agreement. “I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.”

“I didn’t expect you to.” He smiled back. “I’m just going to need some things.”

“Last time you needed some ‘things’,” he snorted smiling, “you ended up taking apart my fan, two blenders, a prototype scooter, and the princess’s private train.”

“Oh, blimey, two blenders? Thought it was just one. But don’t worry nothing like that.” He shook his head. “Although, it did work.”

“Yeah, whatever it was,” he answered. I knew this feeling, this is the feeling of resignation.

“Trust me, Brigadier. You are best off not knowing.” He smiled.

He sighed, “Now, what do you need?”

“You’re probably best off not knowing this time as well, I will however need you to get ahold of Ditzy Doo though.” He patted his unicorn friend on the back. “Well then, allons-y!”
The memory started to fade away

00000000000000000

I awoke, feeling…satisfied and refreshed. The memory had been pleasant, just two friends. But now I was intrigued, who was that amber pony, and why had he turned down Luna’s offer to be part of her ministries? I had already guessed it was the Ministry of Arcane Sciences. Furthermore what gave him the right? I mean, she was the princess, THE PRINCESS. What made him so high and mighty?

“Questions that will never be answered,” I assured myself before packing up the memory orb. I would definitely want to keep this one. It just felt so calm.

I looked out the window and saw the grey light that I had come to recognize as morning. I looked in the corner where what was left of my gear was sitting, nothing but barely held together armor, some knives, and a pathetic revolver.

“Hey Scythe,” Tick-Tock poked his head in. Apparently he was flying, unless there was another way he could get his head in through the top of the door frame. I looked at my friend’s upside-down head as he floated there, with what would have to be a world-class poker face. “We need to be getting ready to head out, the young'uns are restless.” He grinned.

“Honestly, the sooner we get them out of here, and maybe to a pony who knows a thing or two about therapy, the better,” I answered, sliding into my armor.

“I agree.” His tone switched to depression. “This place holds nothing but bad memories and nightmares for them. They were up most of the night, crying.” His tone returned to its normal state. “...In their sleep of course, but still.” He shook some dirt out of his upside down mane, I didn’t need to ask what he did last night.

“How’s Crystal handling it?” I asked.

“About as well as one could expect when they have lost so much in such a short time,” he stated, in a voice that sounded nearly poetic. He then started staring at a point in the center of the room.

“That was almost poetry,” I joked, trying to get him back to his normal, unpredictable self. He immediately snapped out of it.

“Eh, it’s a hobby.” He shrugged before he continued flying down the hall. Upside down of course.

Level Up-JuniorCounselor-You have a way with children, +10 to speech when children are involved also allows for unique speech options.
(I’d like to thank my friend Sara for editing and making this readable at least to some degree. Also thanks Kkat for creating FoE in the first place.)

The Angel

Omega’s Trials
Chapter 10

Tick-Tock insisted that we loot the hospital of anything of value before we left. When he ran out of room in his bags, he loaded up mine and then Crystal’s, either oblivious or apathetic to the cold looks she was shooting him. At least she wasn’t shooting him with her growing shotgun collection. I was busy trying to corral the foals and convince them that we were not slavers, and that I wasn’t Angelo’, no matter what their parents said. Most of them had taken that we had killed their parents fairly well. As one of the older ones, a buck with a teddy bear cutie mark said, “they were pricks.” I was loading some of the healing potions into a cart.

“Your opinion doesn’t matter,” Crystal stomped, gaining my attention. “It’s what we gotta do.”

“No we don’t. The three of us should be fine,” Tick-Tock said, closing his bags full of chems. Then I checked my pipbuck, he had filled my bags with chems also.

“They know how to use guns,” she argued.

“As raiders. Not trained, and not disciplined.” Tick-Tock retorted, “Besides, with the foals, we’ll be reloading their guns after every broken twig.”

“What did you say?!” A very small, milky white filly shouted. “Ah can use a gun wit’ da best of ‘em.”

“Really now?” I recognized his smile. It was his taunting, ‘sure you can’ smile. “So I take it you have been in a few fire fights. Or was this shooting passing caravans?”

“Doesn’t matter. Shootin’ is shootin’.” She had a tone of know-it-all authority in her voice.

“Okay then.” Tick-Tock pulled out a pistol and kicked it to the unicorn. “Hit me.”

She levitated it up at Tick-Tock, and started to shout something obscene involving his mother. Before she finshed the sentence, Tick-Tock’s bladed wing had knocked the gun out of the way, and the other wing’s curved blade was at eye level with the filly. The most impressive part was, I barely saw it and I didn’t blink. Crystal Bullet had only managed to get her sawed-off shotgun halfway out of the holster.

“Do you still think you can use a gun?” He asked, relaxing and folding his wing back, putting a confident smile on his face. “Because I don’t.”

She stood there stunned for a moment, as her brain tried to catch up with her eyes. When she finally spoke, it was the opposite of what I was expecting. “That was so cool!” She shouted, staring at his folded wing in amazement. “I didn’t even see you move!”

“Thank you,” he said. Taking a deep, overly dramatic bow, he didn’t show any surprise to the filly’s change in attitude. “I aim to please, after all.”

“How did you get so fast?” She asked, still staring in wide-eyed amazement. “Is your cutie mark like, a lightning bolt or a flying bullet, or, or, or-”

“It’s a pocket watch,” he said, pulling out his pocket ruby-studded watch and showing it to the colt. “Like this one, but emeralds instead of rubies.”

“Nuh-uh, that’s not awesome!” She shook her head. “You’re just fucking with me.” Her eyes widened. “Are you a Dashite, ‘cause their cutie marks are all burned off and stuff.”

“No, was raised on the ground,” he answered, smiling at the filly. “And that’s my for-real cutie mark. You’ll see it when we get to Sanctuary.”

“But I want to see nooow,” the little unicorn whined, trying to pout. “Please?”

“Sorry kiddo, but it’s a pain in the flank to take this armor off.” He smiled, rubbing his hoof in her dirty mane. “I will show it to you if you promise to be good on the way to Sanctuary, but I need you to help me keep everypony safe. Okay?” She gave him a baffled look, then nodded slowly.
“Who knows? It might help you get your cutie mark.” He shrugged as he walked away, and the filly immediately snapped to attention and saluted him, before running off and shepherding the other kids into a somewhat orderly fashion. Every few moments, checking her flank for a cutie mark.

Crystal still glared at him, and proceeded to arm the ever-loving hell out of her brother. She occasionally looked at Tick-Tock, apparently waiting for him to stop her so she could jump him. She gave Peirce more guns than a pony should conceivably carry, yet this unicorn looked like he was doing just fine. ...Then he fell over.

“Do you want some help?” I asked cordially, helping the colt up.

“Thanks, mister Scythe.” He grumbled, trying desperately to move one of the guns that was jarring him in the ribs, with his telekinesis. He twisted it a few times, then pulled it straight out. “But I can do this.”

“Do you want me to take some of them?” I asked, noting the colt could barely move under the weight of the guns.

“No... I got it.” He winced, then fell over again.

“Are you sure?” I asked, none too convinced.

“If Buck Shot could do it, so can I!” He screamed, as tears started rolling down his cheek. He struggled onwards, taking another step out of pure determination.
“I’m sorry, I can’t imagine what you’re going through...” I answered somberly.
“She used to always carry the big stuff for tradin’.” He spoke to the cracked tile. As he let the guns fall, tears rolled down his cheeks. He was trying to be tough. “She didn’t cry when we buried daddy, or-or when we had to kill Puddles for food...” Pierce started to break down more, and he stopped forming coherent words. Crystal came over and nuzzled her crying brother. I stood there, feeling guilty.
I felt Tick-Tock’s wing rest on my shoulder. “You gonna be okay?” He asked, shaking me a bit.
I brushed his wing off. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” I lied. That little colt’s words had shaken me more than anything else.
“Stop lying to yourself,” he said, staring off into space. “It doesn’t do any good.”

“I just-I should’ve done more. I’ve never had anypony depend on me before.” I stared at the ground, whispering, “In my stable, I was always sheltered. Even my chores weren’t that important. All I did was take some of the strain off of other ponies. My mom said it was to teach me to be responsible. What a load of shit that was, right?”
“Scythe, she wanted to try to prepare you to the best of her abilities,” he said, lifting my head up with his wing, making me meet his gaze. “Don’t blame her that she couldn’t get your mind ready for this mess. Now, I need you together mentally. You are going to be on point.”

“Why?” I asked, steadily pulling myself together again.

“Because, I’m going to be scouting ahead.” He started to trot off, then looked back with a smile. “And I would much rather not expose my back to any of those foals.”

“Gee, thanks for pointing that out.” A smile found its way through the guilt that had been coming back.

“Just trying to keep you alert,” he said, right before he hooked me up to a cart. I was about to ask him what the big deal was, then he shushed me and turned my head around. It was full of sleeping babies. I groaned internally. Externally, I thought about how cute they were even though they were covered in filth.

Tick-Tock had been hesitant to fly off. Which was weird, considering it was his plan. He stayed low to the ground and checked back, circling to us. Every fifteen minutes, he’d come down and give us directions in broken sentences. At first, everypony found this baffling. Then after we walked on for a bit, we found out that his directions were short and to the point. I was mostly just glad the little fillies and colts had been asleep through most of the trip.

“Ahead, left. Big rock. Right, watch out for dogs.” I managed to stop him before he took off again.

“Tick-Tock, what’s bothering you?” I asked. He had seemed to be getting more nervous as the hours dragged on.

“Pegasus, wings, shoot,” he said, his eyes darting around warily.

“In actual complete sentences,” I replied, through the hoof I had placed over my face, exasperated by his behavior.

“Bounty Hunters are out looking for Angelo’,” he said, pointing at me. “An Earth pony. I’m a pegasus, so while not top priority, they can still collect bounties on me. Bounty Hunters can be an opportunistic bunch.”

“Oh.”

“It’s the reason I wear my hat and my coat. That way, I may be confused for an Earth pony or Unicorn,” he replied, glaring at a rustling bush. My EFS saw it as a small, green bar and I shook my head to put my friends mind at ease. He calmed down a little, and took a sip of his blue drink.

“Must suck,” I said, sympathetically

“Hmm?”

“Hiding who you are all the time.”

“You should know, my friend,” he answered, smiling as he put the empty bottle back inside his saddle bags. It honestly took me a moment to get that one. Then I remembered my coat was green instead of black, my mane was black instead of green, and my cutie mark was some weird, open circle with two lines coming out the bottom.

“True,” I answered, sobered by that thought as he flew off.

“We need to take a break up ahead,” Tick-Tock said while landing, looking slightly concerned.

“Why?” Crystal asked walking up, still a bit pissy.

“About fifteen less than reputable-looking bounty hunters have made a camp up ahead,” he answered coolly, meeting her dagger-like gaze.
“So, they’re mercenaries, not slavers. Just walk past them.”

“I was raised around mercs. I can tell the ones who stick to the contract, versus the ones who would kill their own mothers over ten caps,” he answered, staring her in the eyes.

“Weren’t you the one who said we needed to hurry if we were going to catch up to what’s left of the caravan?”

“Yes, but it would be a bad idea to do that, if it means we get killed or sold to slavers,” he responded, finding a soft patch of dirt and lying down in it. “And I thought you’d want to catch up to your sister, too.”

“But what if we miss them.” As much as I wanted to come to my friend’s defense, she was raising some decent points.

“We won’t, I planned for us to get ahead of them and wait for about an hour,” he said closing his eyes. “We can afford a thirty minute break. Besides, it’s not like Sanctuary’s going anywhere.”

“Fine,” she said. “But considering you got lost looking for a five story tree, I don’t think you have the best sense of direction.”

“That was a good one, and yet so true,” he answered, chuckling. This apparently pissed her off enough to stomp away and go play with the foals.

“Tick-Tock, do you have to be an antagonist?” I asked, looking at the dozing pegasus.

“Not really, no,” he answered, yawning.

“I’ll be up in thirty minutes,” he said, closing his eyes. “I got the babies, go stretch your legs.”

I found out real quick that I wasn’t good with foals, or keeping them entertained at least. They could do that by themselves. They ran around, played games like tag, hide and seek, and raider and caravan. The little cream filly from earlier seemed to be desperately trying to keep things under control. I felt something small and warm nuzzle up to me, and looked down to see a terrified Scooter.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“My daddy never let me outside,” she said, her head darting around, waiting to see if some giant creature would swoop in and grab her.

“Don’t worry, between Tick-Tock and Crystal, nothing is going to get you.” I smiled down at her warmly.

“What ‘bout you?” She responded, “aren’t you gonna help them?”

“Of course, it’s just they’re better at it than me,” I answered, trying to remember what my mom told me about how to comfort trauma victims. I did not want a repeat of Pierce today. She gave me a skeptical look, then at Tick-Tock, then to Crystal who was comforting her crying brother.

“That’s real scary,” she said under her breath.

“Want to know something funny?” I asked, trying to cheer her up.

“Yeah, what?” She answered curiously.

“Until a week ago, my mommy didn’t let me outside either.” I smiled, and she looked at me in shock.

“Really?” She asked. I nodded. “Why not, were you her t-“

“No, I lived in a stable.” I quickly interrupted. “The doors were shut”

“Why’d you leave?”

“My mom said I couldn’t be in charge until I survived three months.” I smiled down on her. “So far I’m doing pretty well. Hey, why don’t you go and play tag with some of the other foals?”

“I don’t know how.” She answered, hanging her head in shame.

“What do you mean, you don’t know how to play tag?” The filly that Tick-Tock, I don’t even know what he did (impressed maybe?), asked, having stopped in front of us. Scooter shook her head.

“It’s easy, you get one pony who’s ‘it’, and you run away from them, cause if they catch you, you’re ‘it’.” She said, poking the filly. “Now you’re ‘it’, and you need to chase me down.” She trotted away, and Scooter gave chase. Half-heartedly at first, then she started to get more enthusiastic about it until she was running around with the other foals, a grin on her face. I stood there and smiled. Crystal was trying to comfort Peirce while somehow still playing with the fillies. Tick-Tock’s eyes were open, and he watched with a content smile, his eyes lazily drifting from one to another.

“Tick-Tock,” I said, walking away. “I going to take care of some business, can yo-“He waved me away with his wing. I assumed that meant ‘sure, go ahead, I got this’. Due to the lack of large rocks in the immediate area, and still having some level of stable pony modesty, I headed towards a nearby dead grove of trees.

I trotted a good distance away from the group. I knew that this was the direction Tick-Tock came from, telling us some bounty hunters were coming through, but I had assumed a good ways off. You know, if you’d find some questionable-looking ponies a good way off while you are scouting ahead, you’d go back and warn your friend and the foals you were escorting that we needed to stop here. This is rational, this is cautious; these are all things that do not comprise Tick-Tock’s mind. The camp was little over one hundred yards away from where the kids were playing. I froze, scared to make a sound, then I realized I didn’t hear anything from the camp, so I took a second look.

The camp was in shambles like a battle had happened. Bullet holes decorated the trees, empty casings littered the ground, and occasional drops of fresh blood splattered the area. Either way, it was abandoned with no sign of who had one, but they had been thorough when picking it clean. Nothing usable, not even a bottle cap or a can of beans had been left. I thought to myself about Tick-Tock’s carelessness. Not having us move around them, or checking to see if they were even alive. I silently berated myself and checked my EFS and soon discovered I was surrounded by green dots along the compass. But could not see where they were. Then I noticed something I had missed before; a tin shack was still intact. While the rest of the camp had been completely torn to shreds, this one was perfect. The green bars swam around my EFS as I moved to the tent, .45 in mouth. I jumped through the door and saw a single, quivering unicorn pony next to a pile of neatly stacked guns and other supplies. She kept mumbling incoherently to herself and flinched when I approached her. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. A small note perched on top of the pile.
‘Look behind you.’ The unicorn balled up into the corner let out a blood curdling shriek as she tried to push further away. I clicked the safety off with my tongue, and spun around to face a pony dressed in black, blood-caked robes. I froze and felt the blood drain from my face as I stared at the pony standing in front of me. Thoughts started racing through my head, mostly involving shoot him. My jaw locked up and the gun fell from my mouth, onto the ground. Around his neck, he wore nine extremely long unicorn horns. His freshly blood-soaked cloak flowed demonically in a nonexistent breeze; a black tattered hood covered his head concealing the whole of his face. By far though the worst part was the two glowing red eyes that stared out from underneath, darkness itself emanated from those eyes drawing away all the warmth from the world. For a terrifying instant, our eyes met. I felt my entire body freeze and grow cold except my heart it felt like it would explode from my chest. I felt the whole world peel back around me, leaving only us- no, him... just him... staring at me as I stood in the blackness. His red eyes looking at me like he was weighing my existence. Finally, after the eternal second, his eyes shifted away from me and to the pony in the corner of the shack. I stood there, frozen, a knot tying itself in my stomach. She began screaming as he stepped closer to her. You could’ve heard a pin drop between hoofsteps as he painfully, slowly made his way towards her, bypassing me entirely. The mare screamed and started to beat on the walls, trying to dig her way through with mangled legs. She saw the gun I had dropped, and a look of joy filled her eyes. She levitated the gun towards her, and pointed the barrel in her mouth. Her horn fell to the ground, as did the gun, and all her hopes crashed with it. Then her screaming truly started. I was finally able to run.

Halfway across the destroyed camp, I tripped and fell on my stomach, my eyes looking skyward. I found where the green bars were coming from. He had staked, wired, and nailed them to trees. They hung there, blood-covered gags in their mouths. Those that still had eyes looked at me with hope, I recognized it, the same look of the pony he had hung in the Hidey House, they wanted me to kill them. I froze. Trying to run, to scream, it was like looking into his eyes again. They were being tortured. I knew it would take hours, if not days for them to die. There was a dragging sound behind me.

The mare was mutilated. Fresh blood covered the pony’s hood and robes, and a scalpel stuck out from under his hood. He spat the small knife into the quivering, bloody mass, causing her to jolt once more. I steadily backed up as he advanced. My backside ran into a tree and my legs locked up.

“A-a-are you h-him?” I stammered, trying to take my eyes off him long enough to grab the rifle from my back. He still approached with silence, stopping a few feet from me. A white note fell out from under his hood and onto the ground. The sound of the paper hitting the ground was deafening. “Are you Angelo’?”

A retort from a shot gun filled the air, and the pony vanished and reappeared a few feet away, looking at the glowing purple shotgun. He swung his head in the opposite direction, and a knife flew out from under his hood. There was a grunt, and the gun clattered to the ground. Crystal tumbled out of the bushes, levitating a bandage to her neck and trying to get more guns out. His robes trailed him as he crossed over to Crystal. I was able to get my gun out and enter SATS.

Time stopped, and I saw even smaller percentage chance of hitting him than Tick-Tock. It didn’t stop me from targeting his head. I watched as all the bullets flew past him. As soon as SATS let up, I charged for a tackle. He was faster than me by a long shot. I realized I was going to make it. Peirce just lost one his sisters, now he was about to lose another. Both were my fault. It was moments before he reached her. She hadn’t been able to get another gun out and aimed in time; I was running while reloading the bolt action. Every shot I fired had missed. I charged him, knowing I wouldn’t be able to catch him, but I still had to try. I tackled him or meant to, what actually happened was I got hit in the face three times while I was trying to tackle him. I regained my composer long enough to see Crystal take several shots at the pony each one having the same effect as the first. Teleporting him with no sign of actually hitting him. Then she ran out and Angelo began walking towards her, just walking. The blood drained from her face and her legs shook trying to move away just as I had been in the shack.
Seconds before Angelo’ reached her, a roar filled the air. I looked up in time to see a brown and black streak head between a reloading Crystal and Angelo’. Tick-Tock blitzed between them, leaving skid marks along the ground from his landing, a small cloud of dust to the side of him. All was quiet as they stared at each other, the look in Tick-Tocks eyes was beyond murderous. He took his hoof and drew a line in the dirt, in front of his skid marks.
“Af̱tó to polý” He growled, turning to the side. He took a deep breath then extended his bladed wing to the ground, and crouched the side of his body that was facing Angelo’. His other wing extended upwards, and he twisted his body in such a way that he had his mouth around his sword, but one eye was still on Angelo’. “Opoiadí̱pote peraitéro̱ petháneis” After another terrifyingly eternal second, Angelo’ silently flew off.
“Drepáni voi̱thí̱sei Krystállou.” He said, looking at me. Rage was still burning in his eyes as he approached me. I backed up, terrified as to what he might do.
“Tick-Tock, I-I don’t understand what you are saying.”
He took a deep breath. “Help her.” He pointed at Crystal, who had bled through her bandage and was removing it to apply a second one. I rushed over and gave her a brief lesson in first aid, bandages stack. I looked back at Tick-Tock. He was looking over the grisly scene. He walked up to a tree that didn’t have a pony on it, and bucked it several times.
“You going to be okay?” I asked from a safe distance.
“Yes, and no,” he said, in the tone he used to end Angelo’ conversations. “He made them suffer, so much.”
“If you want to talk about it, I’m here.” I answered, my voice still shaking a little. He seemed comforted by the gesture.
“What are we going to do?” Crystal asked, looking around the depressing scene as she stopped at the quivering mass of flesh that was a mare a few minutes ago. “We can’t just leave them here.” She crouched down and pulled out a healing potion. Tick-Tock shook his head and tossed her a needle.
“Healing potions won’t help her, there’s nothing left to do but make it bearable.” He looked towards her. “She has one minute and thirty-two seconds left.”
Tick-Tock took off, and flew from one pony to another, examining the mutilated ponies. He landed, and I could tell it wasn’t good.
“It’s not good, if they don’t get any help, they will die.” Tick-Tock said at the dirt. “The only way to help them is to kill them.” He was chuckling at the dark irony.
“That’s-that’s just- I can’t bel-“ I stammered, trying to find words to describe a pony who would do this. I couldn’t. The Hidey House was tame compared to what had happened here.
.
“Shit.” Crystal said, looking unsure as she took aim.
“Whoa! Hold your horses,” I said, putting my hoof on the barrel of her gun and pointing it to the ground. “Are you sure there’s no other way?” Tick-Tock nodded somberly.
“Now you see why they hate pegasi,” he answered, laughing darkly. “Because what Angelo’ did to them was worse than anything that they could ever do to me.”
“How do you know we can’t save them?” Crystal hissed. “I’m pretty sure you don’t have that much medical training! Let the stable pony look at them, he might have some more lu-“
“There is nothing we can do…” He said dejectedly, walking away.
“So you’re not even going to try to help!” I stomped as he walked away. He stopped, and turned around.
“Of course I plan to try to help,” he said evenly, rubbing his wings through his mane. “But, I’m not a doctor, I don’t pretend to be one, unless you have a medical diploma stored on your pipbuck.” A wry smile crept across his face.
“I know how to do some basic surgery, my mom taught me back at the stable.” I spoke unsure that I could help this many ponies.
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Tick-Tock’s somber expression morphed into a smile and he spread his wings.
He zipped over to me, and I felt his forelegs wrap around me. The next thing I knew I was balancing on a tree branch, staring at the mutilated pony tied to the trunk, barbed wire wrapped around each limb. Her eyes had been cut out and teeth removed. Some thin wire had been tied around the tree and tightened, cutting through her cheeks and going to the back of her mouth. In each leg was a nail holding her spread eagle, with barbed wire wrapped tightly around her chest, digging into her each time she breathed.
“Try not to lose your lunch there’s thirteen more after…her?” I grumbled at his attempt at humor, there are something’s you don’t joke about. Then I realized it wasn’t humor, he genuinely expected me to throw up, something I had no intention of doing. I had gotten tougher, I was just a little queasy from the height. “Let me know what you need me to get.”
“I’m going to need some wire cutters, healing potions and med-x,” I said, almost falling as Tick-Tock left me to go back to the foals, thank Celestia for unicorn magic. “Shit, Crystal! I need you to go back to the foals, they don’t have anypony watching them.”
I turned around, and saw them already there, in various states of shock at seeing me up in a tree. And the grisly scene.
“They are raider foals, Scythe. This is something that they’ve seen before,” Tick-Tock whispered, steadying me and handing me the supplies. “I think we are going to be late to the rendezvous,” he said, trying to lighten the mood with some more misplaced humor.
“Voo fink,” I answered sharply, snipping some of the wire then quickly applied a potion. “Tick-Tock, I need you to lift her up.” He grabbed her under her forelegs with uncertainty, and gently flapped his wings, looking at me to explain. “The tension from the barbed wire was supporting her weight, and kept her from suffocating. Since those nails were holding her like this, it would’ve strained her lungs.” I pulled out the first nail. “You are holding her up to alleviate the weight.” I got the second nail. Her front legs were limp from exhaustion. Tick-Tock cut the wire in her mouth. I removed the last two nails and put a healing potion in her mouth for good measure. She’d need a lot more though, it was just to keep her alive.
Tick-Tock floated her down and put her in the cart. One down, thirteen to go.

It was getting dark. I was exhausted, and had managed to save eight of them. Only eight... The others had died by the time I got to them. The barbed wire cut all the way through, or they had bled out, or some other manner of horrible death had taken them. Crystal had proven invaluable keeping an eye on the foals and making sure I didn’t fall multiple times with her unicorn magic. Tick-Tock was looking…happy.
I heard the chime of a unicorn magic behind me. “Hey, isn’t Omega the name of the new Angelo’?”
“Yeah, I think so.” I was so glad with how cool I played it, and was silently patting myself on the back.
“Then why is this letter addressed to him?” She asked.
I turned around, and saw Crystal holding the note Angelo’ had dropped in front of me earlier. I heard Tick-Tock try to hide a laugh.

“Well? I’m waiting for an answer,” she said sternly. Tick-Tock had gotten up, and was circling around behind her. “Why was he trying to give this letter to you?”
“You remember the stable pony you mugged about a week ago?” I looked at her, and could see her visibly think back to then. She nodded, and I saw the faint aura engulf all five of her shot guns. “Friendly?”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” She said flatly, refusing to believe I could be confused with Angelo’ Death.
“‘Tis most true.” Tick-Tock said, with a fake accent and a smile. “Apparently, it was a ‘wrong place, wrong time’.”
“Which it was,” I assured them both. “If what happened earlier today wasn’t proof enough, I don’t know what is.”
“Yeah, that was close.” She ran her hoof through her poofy violet and gold mane. “Thanks for doing that back there...” She looked towards Tick-Tock, who blushed sheepishly.
“What did I do?” He asked, looking genuinely confused.
“You saved me from Ange-“
“Stop saying that name,” he interrupted; his tone leveled. “And don’t you describe that thing as Angelo’.”
“But, that’s who it was.”
“No, it wasn’t.” His body tensed, his brow furrowed, an icy glare shot from his eyes into me. “You don’t come back after you die.”
“Tick-Tock, what are you talk-“ I was interrupted by the sound of a gunshot fired from my left. I turned to face it, and saw Tick-Tock standing next to me, a determined glare on his face. I looked over his shoulder and saw the filly from earlier, the one Tick-Tock had said she couldn’t use a gun. Surrounded by her magical aura was the smoking barrel of a ten millimeter pistol that was in the pile of weapons. She had accidentally fired it.
An agonized grin on his face, Tick-Tock turned to Crystal and chuckled. “I told you so.” Then he collapsed.

Medical Intern- Congrats, you’ve been taught the basics of surgery in the wasteland, lesson one any operation that the patient survives is a successful operation.

(I’d like to thank my editor/cover artist Sara (to contact her for commissions email her at shaya.laperro@gmail.com) for correcting my grammatical errors which are steadily becoming less numerous. I’d also like to thank kkat for creating the world of FoE in the first place. Feedback appreciated, no it’s needed. I needs it like a changeling needs love!)

Recuperating

Omega’s Trials
Chapter 5

“What do you mean you’re kicking me off?” I asked the doctor stupefied, it took a bit longer than it should’ve with the search but we pulled into the Switch Yard without further incident. “You’re the one who told me to stay off my legs for three days?!”

“Yeah but you don’t have the caps for two more days of lying in bed.” He answered blankly. “Or the braces.”

“How much do I need to rent the braces?” I pleaded.

“Kid, you don’t rent in the wasteland, it doesn’t come back.” He replied exasperatedly

“When does your train come back through?” I tried to reason with him, he’s a doctor he has to help ponies in trouble.

“Two weeks.” He set the clipboard down.

“What’s your next stop?” I grinned ear to ear thinking I might’ve made some headway.

“The Hub.” His horn started to glow. “Bye.”

“But what if I ju-“ I was interrupted by a sudden teleportation, there was a bright flash and I was outside the train smelling like burnt mane, with my bandaged legs, newly painted pipbuck, and no braces. “st, fuck.”

“Wow that train was running late.” Tick-Tock was standing behind me checking the time on his watch. “How ya feeling.”

“Alive, but we need to get me in a bed or at least some braces, before I undo the work that the doctor did.” I glared at the rapidly emptying train; any hope of having angry words with Tanglebones was shattered by the heavily armed guards at every entrance. “Shit my stuff’s still in the locker.” There was a flash and my gear fell on top of me. It wasn’t a lot of weight but with the state my legs were in I collapsed.

“Hey, need some help?” Tick-Tock asked half sarcastically, I looked up and there was a calm sympathetic smile on his face. As he took the stuff off my back and put it in his pack. “Already have a hotel room for you.”

“So you didn’t have enough money for your own train ride, but,” I grunted as I tried to stand up and almost fell, Tick-Tock just barely catching me. “you have enough for a hotel room.”

“Convincing Tanglebones to pick you up, decorate you, and operate on you was all the money I had on hoof, figured you wouldn’t be in the best shape so I sold some stuff to take care of your room.”

“Like what?” I grunted taking slow steps with him steadying me; this was starting to feel a little awkward.

“Some guns and armor I scavenged, kept the sledge hammer, and the assault rifle, noticed you eyeing them.” He looked upwards.

“So where will you be staying?” I was really hoping he had another room; don’t get me wrong it would just be awkward.

“I’ve made arrangements to busy myself.” He smiled calmly. Then I remembered I wanted to kill him so I bit him hard, and stomped on his hooves harder, he looked at me confused and then…started…laughing.

“I guess I deserved that…was that for getting you shot, running off when they showed up to face their leader, or something I have forgotten.” DOES NOTHING MAKE HIM ANGRY?!

“FM, I haven’t begun getting you for the rest.” I growled.

“OH! You mean that kind mare from your stable, yes we had a brief discussion regarding your health at the time, don’t worry, I let her know you were going to be alright and to contact you again.” He looked skyward once more but with a stoic look on his face instead of calm smile. “I think I told her in a few days so yeah tonight…maybe.”

“SHE MAY THINK I’M FUCKING DEAD!” I shouted directly in his ear. He moved then winced shaking his head and rubbing his ears, then I realized how unbalanced I was and promptly fell on my ass in a puddle of mud.

“Didn’t think about that, but I have a feeling that she hopes you aren’t, so expect a call again, early, if not to just check to be sure.” He braced me as I fell trying to get up. “Besides, what was I supposed to tell her, ‘sorry miss you have broadcasted to the wrong pipbuck please check your frequency and dial again?’”

“What, did you say to her, exactly?” I started to feel queasy my adrenaline pumped.

“That as you blacked out you called for her.” He answered calmly.

“WHAT?!” I screamed trying to reach for my 9 mm sticking out of the pack on Tick-Tock’s pack. He just looked confused. “HOW COULD YOU SAY THAT?!”

“Well it was either that or I could have told her the truth.” He said stoically.

“Which Was?” If I could’ve reached my gun I would’ve shot him, a lot.

“You called for your mother and you soiled yourself.” I was beginning to doubt he was my friend.

“Seriously?” I had stopped reaching for my gun and was leaning on him with my jaw hanging half-way open.

“Serious about what?” He smiled looking to the down the street. I just realized we had only just left the train station; this was going to be a long day. “By the way, if you are supposed to be lying low, it’s a bad idea to shout angrily in the middle of a train station.” I glanced around, and ponies were staring at us. Armed ponies.

In the brief history lesson Tick-Tock gave me he said that the town had been founded in the rush to enter the Hub some fifty years ago when the colossal tower unlocked. It started as a small last stop on the route to the Hub for spelunkers looking to hit it rich. Some had settled down after hitting it rich or after failing, the town grew and thrived off spelunkers, farming communities came about out of the need to keep the spelunkers fed as they passed through; it had since grown to feed the rest of the town. And the town was still growing.
Ponies crowded the streets as they shopped for food, weapons, armor, and what I could tell were luxury items. There was haggling, and idle conversations it would be a tranquil site if it weren’t for the dark overcast and the Angelo’ Death sales, I found those unsettling, and the ponies buying the weapons more so. The settlement itself was built on out of old train cars, tents, and some buildings that have withstood the test of time.
Tick-Tock rushed me to the hotel he had talked about and took me up to my room. He helped me get into the bed doing everything but tucking me in and giving me bedtime story. Then he handed me some magazines.
“Well, I got to head out. You probably won’t see me until morning.” Tick-Tock headed towards the door. “Med-X is by the bed if you need it, Tanglebones spell should be wearing off in a few hours.”
“Hey, Tick-Tock.” I called after him he paused in the doorway and glanced back. “Are we friends?”
“Well I guess we could be.” He said pausing as if to consider the meaning of the word. “Friendships are built through shared hardships, and we’ve shared a few.”
“So, we’re friends?” I looked at him expectantly not sure if I was being creepy.
“Yes, I’m going to go and see if I can find you some braces.” He walked out the door.
It took me most of the day to read the magazines, locksmith’s reader, griffin judo, and one I was particularly interested in, Medical Monthly and it had already become night by the time he came back with the braces promptly apologized saying he was detained and then apologized again before leaving. After he left I snapped on my braces figured I’d try to get some exercise in before bed. I stumbled around the room but didn’t fall and spent the next hour relearning how to walk. Then I crawled into bed, and the high pitched bird cries started.
It happened every twenty minutes, on the dot, at loud screech that echoed through the whole town. Twenty minutes just long enough for me to get a good doze going then be startled awake. I could hear the little foals cry and ponies shout for it to shut up. The horrible, horrible noise ignored them and kept coming. Every. Twenty. Minutes.
I finally got fed up with trying to sleep and decided to take a look a short walk. When I opened my door I was blasted with even more noise from below I glanced over the railing to see what was causing it. Then found the bulk of Switch Yard partying downstairs, or at least trying to get drunk enough to sleep through this horrible noise. Every twenty minutes.
I nearly fell down the stairs a few times.
“Here let me help you.” A unicorn mare rushed up beside me and braced me.
“Thanks.” I answered as sincerely as possible with the amount of pain I was in, I refused to take the med-x it has more uses than a simple pain killer, and less dangerous. I looked over at the mare aiding me. Her mane was purple with gold highlights and it seemed to float there on its own, her coat was the same shade of grape juice purple as her mane, she was cute and not holding me at gun point I almost fell down the stairs again.
“Are you alright?” She asked raising an eyebrow as I tried to regain my composure.
“Yeah I’m fine.” I said acting calm and natural and not like I was scared of being mugged again. I was suddenly very glad to be disguised.
“Are you sure?” She said using her magic to take the weight off my hind legs, a favor I was very glad for. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to you?”
“Was scavenging an old plant, triggered a security system and got shot.” I smiled at her. “Probably nothing that’s never happened before.”
“Yeah, with all the factories and shit around this part of the wasteland it probably happens all the time.” She looked at my legs. “Looks like you had to have some surgery done too.”
“Yeah, damn Tanglebones cleaned me out.” I half-lied, he cleaned Tick-Tock out, speaking of which where is that pegasus. What did he have to do in the middle of the night?
“Well, I’ve heard he does good work.” She slowly let the weight return to my legs at the bottom of the stairs. I sat at a table and took in the environment, ponies playing cards, drinking, have a good time, except for about thirty seconds out of every twenty minutes when they all covered their ears.
“So where are you heading?” I asked her taking a sip of my Crystal Cola. I needed to remind Tick-Tock to buy me a cold one.
“Hopefully, Sanctuary.” She scowled.
“You sound less then sure about that?”
“Well, with news of Angelo’ Death being broadcasted over the radio things have started to get out of hoof, every station is talking about him, well almost every station is, and we aren’t even getting the Raider Reports.” She sighed when I gave her a baffled look. “To top it all off the Angel Slayers are being bought off by the Triumvirate to hunt him down.” She rolled her eyes when I still didn’t get it. “They are the only ones who keep order in the Hub, if they are all gone...”
“The Hub gets drug to the shitter.” I finished.
“Yep.” She sat me down at the table. She mumbled something about using a deck of 52 under her breath.
A piss yellow stallion with a dandelion cutie mark stood up on the table across the room. “3…2…1!” And just as he hit one there was another screech.
“What in the name of the Princesses is that noise?” I laid my exhausted head on the table.
“Griffins are in town.” She levitated over some lemonade from the bar while nopony was looking.
“So what’s that have to do with that noise?”
“What happens when two ponies get together and they have a physical attraction?” She arched an eyebrow at me.
“Are you coming on to me, cause I’m-“ I felt the butt of a gun hit me upside the head. That seemed to get the neurons going firing in my brain, and it clicked. “Damn that bird has stamina.”
“That he surly does.” She took a sip of her lemonade and put her gun back in her bag.
Five minutes later she was drunk. Not just a little drunk, she was absolutely plastered. Her speech was a slurry mess, she couldn’t keep topics or sentences together, and she could barely walk. This after only one hard lemonade.
“Ya know, you look perety familiar.” She yelled over the roar of the tavern putting a hoof on my shoulder and squinting her eyes.
“Wouldn’t know why?” I lied confidently. “I’ve never met you before.”
“Ahr you shyur?” She looked at me getting uncomfortably close.
“Yeah I’m sure.” I looked away as she got closer and stared at me through dilated eyes. She was pushed both hooves into me and knocked me over.
“Oops ahm sorry.” She laughed, stumbling off me barely missing my rear legs, which hurt like hell from the fall.
“Crystal Bullet what are you doing to that pony?” A shrill voice yelled from the door. I looked over and through the crowd I saw a small silver coated copper maned unicorn buck scampering through the drunken crowd. He pushed and shoved his way through the stumbling ponies with no difficulty getting to our table quickly and steadying his sister. “Why are you drunk?”
“Ahm not-“ she stumbled to the side. “Ahm not drunk, I just had one!”
“And that’s all it takes!” He yelled trying to keep her steady with his magic. “Such a light weight.”
“I am not a…lightweight!” She fell on the ground and struggled to get back up.
“Sweet Celestia, what are we going to do?” He whined pushing his sister out the door. “And I need the baby sitter.”

I finally managed to get up and struggled up the stairs. I was exhausted, my head was pounding, I hadn’t slept in what was probably days. My mind was a mess of deciding my long term plans, finding my father, beating him to a pulp, and the most important how was I going to get away with it? I pondered these questions as I lie in the dirty bed trying to sleep but still…every…twenty…minutes.

I skimmed the magazines but saw nothing that sparked my sleep deprived brain’s interest and gave up when I discovered I had reread the same sentence three times. Frustrated I through the magazine against the wall but missed and it hit my saddlebags knocking them over. The top fell open and out fell the recollector and the memory orb from the factory. It looked tempting, I knew a little about memory orbs they were mostly a unicorn thing, you lived that ponies memory, felt everything they felt, saw the world from their perspective.

I put the crown on my head and popped the memory orb into place, then concentrated. The world melted away and with a flash I was in a new body. The scent of oil and apples filled my nostrils as I stared into the face of a pony’s reflection in his computer monitor. I tried to move, blink, breathe, anything but to no avail. My mind raced trying to find a way to stop this as the pony started to talk.

“If you are watching this, then chances are, I’m dead.” I felt my lips move as he spoke. “I just wanted to let you know, that none of us wanted this and we did everything in our power to prevent the war the bombs from falling.” I felt my heart back up into my throat and struggled to hold back tears.

“Nopony wanted to commit mass genocide, even with all the propaganda that Rarity shoved down our throats I still believe there’s good ponies out there that will do everything in their power to save others, maybe, aw fuck, maybe you can learn from our mistakes and not let this happen again. As Fluttershy would say, be kind.” He started to cry into the reflection, the tears started to slowly fall down his cheeks onto the keyboard. “We tried so hard…”

“If you’re wondering if I have any regrets” he sobbed “It’s taking Apple Jack up on her damn offer to help her out, family first and all that shit, but if I could’ve spent my days doing something I would’ve preferred dyeing on my farm. I miss you, Big Mac, and wish I was as strong as you.” He I felt the gun go into his mouth, his tongue rap around the trigger, it was quick, I didn’t feel a thing as I died. I jumped up from the bed and threw the crown on the ground. Then broke down and cried myself to sleep, I didn’t care about the griffins orgasmic screams anymore.

“Rough night Scythe?” Tick-Tock groaned in the lobby he looked like hell and more focused than usual.

“Did you get sleep with that racket going on?” I grumbled back, straining to get down the stairs I mumbled. “Fucking griffins.”

“What did you say?” A thick gravelly voice said from behind me. I turned around and saw a white headed black bodied bird, well the front half was bird, the back half was a lion, wearing well-kept combat armor with two sawed-off shot-guns by his side. I stuttered as my mouth went dry and I fell down the three remaining stairs as he pressed closer staying in my face. I just noticed his wing blades looked similar to Tick-Tock’s only larger.

“I’m waiting for an answer.” His growl shuddered the room, and the other ponies saw fit to stand clear lest the end up with Omega bits in their manes. I heard the sound of Tick-Tock popping his neck.

“Jerry, leave the sleep deprived gimp alone.” I looked up and saw Tick-Tock step out of the doorway with a slight bow and in walked a petite snow white feathered griffin with gold feathers on her body. “I probably kept him up all night anyways.” She smiled seductively.

“Fine.” His hard gaze shifted from me to the griffin in the door, then finished with his beak in the air. “How much longer do we have to stay in this dump anyways?”

“What’s your hurry, have business with Red Eye?” She answered coyly.

“Fuck no.” He smiled. “I’m interested in the Angelo’ Death bounty, fifty thousand caps goes a long way towards retirement.”

Tick-Tock walked past the griffin that shot him a glare as he passed Tick-Tock responded with his familiar apathy towards insults, he made it to me and helped me with the difficult task of standing up.

“What the hell was that about?” I groaned and he gave me a hard look.

“You insulted him, what were you expecting?” He chuckled as I finally got to my feet, he stepped back and I wobbled to steady myself.

“Because of them I got a shitty night sleep.” I grumbled. “I don’t think I’ve slept in three days, I’m going to start hallucinating.”

“Don’t blame them, we all have our vices.” He was in a mellow mood, and his voice was almost a whisper. “I don’t think I’ve slept in that long either, besides you got to rest on the train.”

“Yeah but rest isn’t sleep.” I growled making my way towards the door. “Same with sedation, not going to help me at all.” That brought my mind back to the memory orb and how I felt that pony die, I shuddered.

“Well if you’re nice these griffins may very well help you.” Aside from the near whisper there was also a lilt to his voice as he explained. “They are escorting a caravan that’s heading to Sanctuary.”

“How is that helpful?” I whispered back, not sure why, I think it was contagious. “We are trying to get to the Hub.”

“And Sanctuary just so happens to be an excellent stopping point, on the way to the Hub.” Tick-Tock’s voice was becoming hurried as we walked out the door. “Well, at least for ponies who don’t have the caps for a train.”

“Why don’t we just head straight there?” I asked.

“It’s a week long trek through the wasteland to get to the Hub, and Sanctuary is on the way, so it makes sense to travel in numbers and make some caps.” He smiled at the last part.

“What do you mean by ‘make some caps’?”

“Welcome to the merc business Scythe.” He grabbed my hoof with both his and shook it vigorously. “That Griffinette that walked in and told Jerry off is your new boss.” My jaw hit the floor. I’m beginning to doubt his abilities to keep me alive.

We walked through the town as ponies set up shop and started trying to get our attention to purchase their wares, Tick-Tock silently walked in front of me shifting from one store owner to another looking for something. I was about to ask him but then he saw the booth and nearly drug me over there.
“Two cold Sparkle Colas.” He said to a pony that had just opened his small booth.

He gave the vendor some caps. The unicorn pulled out to empty bottles and two carrots from under the bench, waved his glowing horn over them and the carrots liquefied into the Crystal cola bottles. Tick-Tock took the bottles and tossed one to me. He smiled and quickly guzzled the beverage. I however chose to savor my soda and drank sipped the cold beverage and Tick-Tock was right they do taste better cold.

I felt more awake with every sip and my headache was fading as well. My body was still a bit sluggish; I just wrote that off to the braces. I followed Tick-Tock through the town as he window shopped from store to store occasionally asking to see something hanging up then putting it back, he was looking at knives and other bladed instruments. Then I by chance a mare moved over and I saw it, the most beautiful blade I had ever scene. It lay propped against the wall on the shelf of a tent, it matched it perfectly, the rounded inner blade, the handle that looked the perfect size for my mouth, piled amongst other farm equipment, sat in its glory a sickle, not just any sickle, My sickle. I practically floated over to it, looking at every single detail of this perfectly sculpted blade. Forget discussing things with my dad with a sledge hammer; I was going to make sure he didn’t fuck with any mare again with this baby.

“How much for the sickle?” A mare I hadn’t noticed until now asked. Eyeing just like I had been.

“75 caps.” The stallion asked looking up from his magazine. “Why are you interested?”

“It seems poetic justice,” She smiled “killing Angelo’ Death with his own cutie mark.” I froze. “Wander what the look on his face will be like when we hold him down and eviscerate the bastard then string him up by his entrails.” She had a sick grin on her face with the last words.

“If you’re goin’ after that fucker you can have it for free.” He placed the weapon on the counter. “Just be sure he aint’ goin anywhere when you do this, recommend cutting off his legs first.” I almost vomited.
I darted down the street as fast I could, and started running as fast as I could out of the town. I didn’t stop until I had reached a cliff on the other side of the town. I still wanted to keep running.
“Hey, are you okay?” I turned around and saw it was the mare from earlier, sickle sheathed on her barding. She was a unicorn with a yellow mane, red coat, and ruby red eyes, her face was soft and showed deep concern. She had a scar from her forehead just below her horn going diagonally down to the corner of her left lip. Her eyes seemed to glow in the filtered morning light. I looked at her through teary eyes. I almost collapsed when she ran up and hugged me. She stroked my new black mane and whispered in my ear that everything was going to be alright, that she was going to get that bastard and make him pay for what he did. This only made it worse, so much worse. She kept stroking my mane and hugging me, and then I noticed that she was crying too.
“I really hate to interrupt this tender moment between two ponies.” The gravelly voice of Jerry said as he looked down on us. “But Tick-Tock’s been looking for you, says it’s important.”
She gave me an encouraging smile; I returned it the best I could through teary eyes. Jerry grumbled and shook his head, mumbling about how he had shit to do and didn’t have time to be an errand boy.

Tick-Tock was waiting for me in my room at the hotel. He had three packages wrapped in brown paper stacked absurdly with the smallest on bottom and the largest balanced on top. On them leaned an assault rifle and my sledge hammer.
“Scythe, there you are you ran off on me in market.” He had his usual dumbass smile on his face, but it immediately melted to concern. “What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Nothing, just Angelo’ stuff.” I hung my head low and tried no to cry. “And I really hate that name.”
“Sorry, I tried to come up with one that wasn’t painfully obvious yet close to home.” He took his hat off and scratched his mane.
“And what’s with this cutie mark?” I tried through gritted teeth to hold back the agitation in my voice. I hated it; it just wasn’t me this weird blue shape.
“Oh that, it’s your name’s meaning in griffin.” He tilted his head back and smiled.
“Tick-Tock, you said we were going to be traveling with griffins.” I tried to stay calm and but that sledge hammer just kept looking so tempting. “Won’t they make the connection?!” I imagined Jerry’s face when he talked about the bounty.
“Nope, I translated it through Fancee.” He rested his hoof on my shoulder. “Trust me; I know what I’m doing.”
“Okay, are you sure no one will make the connection?” My mouth was dry, and I checked over my shoulder to see if Jerry was pointing a gun at my head, it was clear thank you Luna.
“Not in the least bit.” He said in a confident tone. “But odds are they won’t, unless their brain runs the same way as mine.” No one’s brain can run the same way as yours!!
“And which way is that?” I was still recovering from the shock of how obvious I felt he made my cutie mark; it felt like there was a fucking bulls-eye on me.
“The most insane and illogical way possible.” He chuckled. “So the translation is rough and it can say about seven things, at worst the griffins who can read it are going to think you do something badass.”
“Okay, what does it mean?” I arched my eye brow and caught the package he tossed me the largest one and it skidded to my feet. I tore it open and inside was my armor, patched up, and painted blood red, with the 77 on the collar had been replaced with a pair of scythes that leaned in such a way to make them look like backwards 7’s.
“Its other translations add up to one common meaning.” He answered with cryptic tone. “The End.”
The door swung open and in walked the petite griffin from earlier this morning. She was wearing some nice looking combat armor, one revolver and a boxy looking pistol on each side, and had a look in her eyes that, I had a feeling if she really wanted too she could get me to change species preferences, something I found attractive and disturbing at the same time.
“We still leave tomorrow right?” Tick-Tock’s tone showed nothing but respect and not a hint of sarcasm. It was odd seeing him act so balanced.
“Yeah, 7 in the morning.” She answered than looked at me. She went from seductive to strict and military in absolutely no time. “Name’s Beatrice Broodwing. Omega, Tick-Tock is an old friend of mine, he said you have what it takes to go with us to Sanctuary, I however don’t, our contract is simple, guard the ponies on the caravan so that they can safely reach Sanctuary where we get paid, twenty ponies go with twenty ponies get there.” She got in my face and poked me in the chest with her talon. “IF I think for so much of a bloat sprites heart beat that you are endangering the group by being a stupid stable pony I will throw your stable pony flank in a mute zone and let the spell where off then tell EVERY bounty hunter where you are.” She snapped back to her normal or what I thought was normal but wasn’t sure anymore she just looked seductive. “Am I clear?”
I nodded my head yes in shock and she left the room but before closing the door tossed me two small cushiony things. I hung my head low and didn’t cry, there was nothing left to cry. It felt like my entire world was crashing down around me.

“Why did you tell her?” I kept my face pointed at the ground.
“She needed to know, I’ve known her my whole life, don’t worry, you can trust her.” He put his wing on my shoulder I pulled away.
“Yeah, and how do I know that she just won’t kill you, and then turn me in to whoever posted that bounty.” I was keeping my voice down.
“Because, I trust her.” He then looked at my disbelieving face in confusion. “Trust, it’s what friends do.”
“And I trusted you with keeping me safe!” His eyes widened in confusion when I raised my voice. “How could you do this, you could’ve at least told me you were going to do it!”
“Would you’ve tried to stop me?” He asked in the most annoyingly calm way.
“Yes! This is my life your gambling with on the trust of some griffon bit-“ He hit me upside the head with his wing, luckily the blades were sheathed so my scalp remained attached.
“Volume, you are a wanted pony, it’s the middle of the day, odds are somepony might hear you and make the right connection.” His entire body was tense, then relaxed and he folded his wing back under his coat, the whole time his voice hadn’t changed though. “If you have a problem, we can settle it in a civilized way.”
“Like what?” My braces squeaked as I stood up from the blow he gave me, I was up for civil in the wasteland.
“A duel.” Giddy with excitement he pulled out an ornate box.
I was about to ask him to explain, then he opened the box and pulled out two revolvers, and suddenly it was crystal clear.

(Level Up) Sparkle Cola Connoisseur-You're love of and knowledge of soda now pays off with giving you three additional seconds of health from it. yay!

I’d like to thank my friend Sara for editing and Kkat for creating Fallout Equestria.