Jason and Twilight made there way downstairs and into the main room of the library.

"Hi girls."

Her friends responded back with their own greetings.

"Hey, Twilight."

"Hello Darling."

Until her Pegasus friend chimed in.

"What's whatshisface doing here?" Dash spat out.

"Rainbow! He's here because he wants to help, so don't go starting a fight for nothing. Got it!?" Twilight light reprimanded her rainbow haired friend.

"Tch, whatever. If he does anything stupid, though, I'm not gonna' hesitate to put him in the ground." She said, not holding back any disdain for the man.

"Whatever skittles, but it ain't gonna' be me when I have to tell your friends why you got killed by some raider or some other dangerous thing outside in the wastes because you didn't listen to me." Jason quickly retaliated back.

Rainbow, not understanding that he was just trying to prove a point, just took it as a insult. "What did you say asshole!?"

Jason quickly jumped to his feet and took a stance that of a drill sergeant. "I HAVE HAD TO BURY TO MANY OF MY FRIENDS ALREADY! I AM NOT GOING TO BURY SOMEONE ELSE'S BECAUSE THEY WOULDN'T HEED MY WARNING!" He belted out at her.

Rainbow Dash and the other's got deathly quiet, and if the princesses heard him upstairs, which they most likely heard him, they said nothing.

Rainbow ever so slowly floated back down to the ground, her ears pinned against her head.

"I don't want to see anymore innocent lives lost." Jason said in a more somber voice as he stared down at the floor, his messy brown hair covering his eyes from anything that might look at him.

"I just don't want to see my friends get hurt, that's all. I'm sorry I got so edgy with you, I just...I just, hate this place already. One fricken day, no, not even one day and somepony's tried to attack us. I mean what the fuck!" Dash said before she slumped down against the wall she had backed herself up to and onto the floor.

Jason walked over to the hunched over form of Rainbow and kneeled down and put a hand on her shoulder, making her look up at him and into his deep blue eyes.

"Hey, I made a promise and I'm going to keep it. I'll do everything I can to make sure you girls and the rest of the town get back to wherever it is you came from, okay?"

Dash nodded her head gingerly as she continued to look at him, never braking eye contact, and Jason doing the same - until he stood up and gave Dash his hand to help her up.

"Okay so you girls had questions?"

The girls either responded or said "Yes" or something of the like.

"Okay then, I guess we'll start wiiiiiiiith, you." Jason said, pointing to Rarity.

"Oh, uhh, alright then darling. Where are we?"

"You're in the wasteland." Jason answered back like a smart-ass.

Rarity gave him a look that said "Are you kidding me?". "Dear, I meant where are me exactly? You know as in a place." Rarity asked again.

"Alright, alright, I won't kid around. You're just a ways away from the old REPCONN Headquarters. The big building you see just over the house's to your right when you step out of here."

Rarity nodded and Applejack stepped up. "All right then I guess it's my turn. Now, are you in some sort of military? Cause' yur' wearin' some weird lookin' armor there partner."

"Well to answer your question, no. I'm not in the military, I was working for someone who had this armor on and...well, let's just say that on a little mission we were on a raider caught him off guard, which is very rare for a ranger of his status to happen to, and he got killed. I took his armor and painting on this little symbol here on the shoulder pads to signify myself in the wasteland. Don't want anyone thinking that I work for these guys if they dislike them, ya'know?"

"Alright then sugarcube." Applejack said backing up too, letting Rainbow Dash take lead for her question.

"Hey, I heard you saved some poor guard's life before with that gun of yours. I want a crack at it." She said confidently, to which Jason responded with a deadpan look and a shake of his head.

"No can do Rainbow."

To say that Dash was disappointed was an understatement. "What!? Why not?"

"Well first of all, none of you have any weapons training. The only reason I had the guards use them was because, duh, they're guards. That's their job, to protect you, and they did a damn good job too taking out a bunch of ants."

"Pfft, ants, they're tiny." Rainbow scoffed.

Jason looked right at Rainbow until she opened her eyes again and uncrossed her arms from her defiant pose.

"What?"

"Dash, the wasteland has changed many a thing, and the animals and bugs are one of them. Those 'tiny' ants as you put it, can easily gore and or cut a man my size in half with it's jaws. They stand at just knee height if not bigger and can come at you fast if you aren't paying attention." Jason said with his own arms crossed.

"Fine." Dash mumbled as she walked back to her friends, where Pinkie took her turn.

"Hiya, I'm Pinkie, do you like parties? OH! Maybe you like chocolate or strawberry, maybe vanilla?"

Jason cut Pinkie off with a question that left her dumbfounded.

"What's a strawberry?"

Everypony in the room gasped and Twilight asked him. "You don't know what a strawberry is?"

Jason shook his head. "Nope, not a clue."

Pinkie walked back with a determined face, most likely thinking of a plan to throw a party for Jason.

Next up was Twilight.

"What kind of technology does your world have?"

"You mean before the war or after when it pretty much got all blown to kingdom come?" Jason asked back.

Twilight blanched at the thought of so much tech. that she never had the chance to study just...gone.

"What? But, what about the thing on your wrist?"

Jason lifted his arm up. "Oh this? Well these were standard for people living in vaults...I never lived in one. I always lived outside here."

Twilight looked confused, as did the rest of the mares in the room with him.

"But if you only get one of those in a...vault thing, then why do you have one?"

"Well you see I was out scavenging one day and I found someone with a vault outfit. He was hurt pretty bad too. I tried to help him but in the end he took out a tool and removed the darn thing from his wrist and gave it to me and told me, "Don't lose your way kid." and that's the last thing he said before he died there. I buried him and then I put the thing on. Funny thing is, I never had a clue as to what it would do, what with me being a different person. I guess it recognized that it was a new person since it displayed the words 'new user' on the screen. I panicked a bit when the thing pricked me with a needle to get a sample of my blood, but here's the crazier part. After it did that, it displayed my vitals, it told me if I was hurt or if I broke a bone or even if I was suffering from radiation poisoning. This thing has saved me so many times, it ain't even funny...sorry 'bout that I kind of what of on a tangent there."

Twilight was busy scribbling everything that he had said to her on a piece of paper. "Hmm? Oh no trouble, I was just wrote the parts about the device...not about you now the guy." She finished off with a sheepish smile.

"Ahhh, someone who's into research I presume?"

Dash stepped up. "Yeah, a real egghead." She said giggling to herself.

Twilight pouted and was about to retaliate when Jason spoke up. "And what's wrong with being smart? You know if not for the fact that we had some pretty smart people, we wouldn't have doctor's or even the people who built the vaults to help save what's left of the people on this world."

Dash opened her mouth but then closed it for a second, and then opened it again. "I...guess that makes sense."

Jason shrugged and leaned back into his seat. "Anyone else?"

Fluttershy stepped up, although a rather meekly. "Umm, are there more than just bugs around here? Plants, animals?"

Jason breathing deeply and releases a big sigh. "Well, I guess there are animals...but, they aren't really what you'd call friendly. They are not like the old animals that they use to be before the war. They're changed, mutated, and they would sooner attack you then want to get to know you. Hell even the dogs are a bit aggressive now...well actually there is one dog I know of that isn't aggressive and he's half robot."

Fluttershy was saddened that all the animals weren't as friendly as she'd hoped they were, but she perked up at hearing that there was at least one animal that might be friendly.

"Do you know where he is? I'd like to meet him." Fluttershy asked with her hands clasped together under her chin.

"Well I-"

Jason was cut off by the sounds of scratching on the door. Jason instantly knew who it was and walked to the door and opened it, where he was promptly tossed to the ground by a half-robot. half-dog...dog.

"Hahaha, cut it out Rexy, come on hahaha." Jason chuckled as the robot dog licked his face with a happy vigor. When Rex finished licking him he got off and sat on his haunches and stared a the six mares in the room with his head tilted sideways in wonder.

"Everyone, meet Rex, this is the dog I was talking about Fluttershy," Jason knelt down and rubbed the dome that held Rex's brain, making him pant and kick his legs a bit. "go on boy say hi to her, she's nice."

Rex stood up and strutted slowly towards Fluttershy as said mare got onto her knees to greet the dog.

"Hello there little guy."

She got no warning as Rex jumped on her too and began licking her face as well, all the while Fluttershy was giggling from the affection that she was receiving from the dog.

"Come on Rexy, I'm sure she's happy to see you too, now come on." Jason said playfully to his companion.

Rex Climbed off of Fluttershy as she stood up and dusted herself off.

"He's very cute."

"And awesome, dude where'd he get all awesome-fied?"

Jason started petting his little furry friend. "Well his legs got blown off, his skull was damaged, his body was half crushed and most of his vital organs were damaged...that's how he got 'awesome-fied' as you put it Dash."

To say that was slightly mortified was an understatement.

"How could something like that happen to him!?"

"Well it's a dangerous place out there in the wastes, and poor old Rexy was just unlucky, he stepped on a land mine - that's how he lost his two legs. They were too badly mangled form the shrapnel to simply patch him up, so they removed the legs at the base of his body and then replaces them with neuron receptors and the robotic legs you see before you to let him walk again. as for the rest, I have no clue. What I can tell you, though, is that he is one hell of a strong dog to go through all this and still make it this far. Also he's at least older than, hmmm oh I'd say 30 dog years? Maybe more. The brain in his brain casing is new, somehow they managed to move his memory's over to this new brain. I don't question how they did it, I'm just glad they did." Jason finished off with a loving ruffle of the dog's ears.

Fluttershy ran up to the dog and gave him a big hug, which Rex didn't seem to mind all that much.

"Oh you poor thing," She said to the dog as she continued to hug him. "that's horrible that he went through so much." She said to Jason.

"Yes, it's bad, but look at him," He said pointing to Rex. "he's still happy, and I'm happy about that."

Fluttershy let go of Rex and fluttered her way back to her friends.

"Now if that's all, I'd like to go check on the guards outside. You can tag along if you want to." Jason said as he and Rex made there way outside and back to where the guards were last left. Jason saw that they all seemed to know how to handle a weapon until he saw one of the Changling guards look down the barrel his rifle, as he tried to un-jam his gun. Jason was no more than a few feet away when he saw the gun finally un-jam and his finger pressed the trigger by accident. Jason surged forward and pushed the barrel of the rifle upwards as it unloaded straight into the air, and not into the guards' head. Said guard was damn close to soiling himself.

"Wha-what?"

"You almost bloody shot yourself you twit," He said to the stallion with a stern stare. "listen up everyone, these things are not toys, they kill, so if your gun jams," He looked back to the still slightly shaken guard. "you should never try and un-jam it and look down the barrel, lest you want to re-arrange your face with a bullet."

Jason turned to look at the rest of the guards when he got an idea.

"Okay, everyone I have a little proposition for you all!" He shouted out loud enough for the ponies in the area to hear him. "I'm going to be going out to scavenge in a bit, my little friend here," He patted Rex on the head. "Will stay behind with you all. Now, I say that, ohh, no more than five of you can come with me, as bigger groups are very risky and cause you to gain some unwanted attention. So...who wants to come and see what this place looks like outside of here?"

Very quickly a voice sounded from behind him..

"I'll go with you!"

Jason turned to see Shining Armor with his cowboy repeater pointed downwards walking towards him.

"Very well then, and I se you know how to walk with your weapon drawn as well - very good. Never have you gun pointed at yourself or at anything you don't intend to shoot and or kill." Jason turned back to look for anymore takers and he saw a taloned hand go up.

"I'll go with you!" Said a gruff voice. The owner of the voice was a griffon who looked like she could handle herself in a close quarters fight.

"Well then, miss, what's your name?"

The griffon smirked and jabbed a talon at herself. "Names Gilda, Gilda Stryker."

"Well if Gilda's going then so am I," Dash said from behind Jason. "and don't you dare tell me I can't go either buster." she said pointing a finger at Jason.

"Well them if Dash's goin' then so am ah'." Said a confident Applejack.

Jason nodded his head and made a mental note to make sure that they all got some armor before they headed out.

"Well that's four. Anyone else?"

"I'm coming with you too!" Shouted a voice from the guards this time. It was a changeling guard with a red mane and tail with some black stripes running through it here and there. She had eyes like that of a pony's as well, which Jason thought interesting.

"Okay then, that's all five." Jason turned to look at his impromptu scavenging group he had put together.

"Well, looks like we're going to have to get you all suited up. Come on then, follow me, maybe Rarity can fix up some of the extra armor I have."

~~~~

About an hour later the three ponies, one griffon and one changeling, all gathered just at the edge of town where the four princesses were there to see them off.

"Take care my love."

"I will, and don't worry Cadence I'll be fine." Shining said to his wife as he kissed one last time before he re-joined the group again.

"Bye, Shiny, be careful please, and you two girls, be careful!" Twilight shouted to her brother and two friends as they made there way out of town and into the wastes.

"Don'tchu' worry Twi, we'll be fine." Applejack said, tipping her hat.

"Don't worry Twilight, we'll be alright, and if we aren't you can kick this guys ass for us." Dash grinned as she joked and pointed to Jason.

"Stick with me and you'll be fine, and we might be out for a while so if we don't return we'll be back tomorrow okay?"

"Alright then, I trust that you'll keep our ponies safe," Celestia said.

"And the griffon as well, sister." Luna added.

"yes and the griffon as well, they fall under our rule so please take care of them."

"And my guard as well." Said Chrysalis, as she appeared from behind the princesses.

They all nodded in agreement.

"Don't worry, they'll be safe with me!" Jason shouted out one last time before he turned back around continued out into the barren land before them.

Jason lead his group down the highway in silence but soon broke it.

"So," he turned to look at the changeling in the group. "what's your name, cause' I don't you ever told us."

Said changeling stumbled a bit at being called on like that. "Ohh, uhh, my name is Vexan, Vexan Nora."

"Are you a newbie in your guard unit Vexan?"

"Uhh, yeah, you can tell?" She asked, slightly embarrassed.

"Yeah, a bit. The way you stumbled when I called you, the way you answered me back when you told me your name. The little things."

"Oh." Vexan said, sounding a bit saddened by the fact that he could tell that she wasn't exactly a veteran guard yet.

"Hey, cheer up, now that you're here I guess you can get some practice in protecting, huh?' Jason said to her.

"I, uhh, I guess so...thanks." Vexan said getting back some of her resolve.

"So, Shining, the armor fit fine? I had Rarity fix it up a bit, and I even had her keep some of the armor from your old suit on this one too."

What Jason said was true. The Leather armor Shining had on was reinforced with some of his old metal armor. He kept the breastplate and the shoulder pads; even the knee guards stayed, along with the boots, though those had to be taken apart to fit over the boots he was wearing.

"It fits fine, thanks by the way, for keeping some of the armor I mean," Shining said as he touched the breastplate. "let's me know I'm not going to just completely change with this place, I'd like to at least keep something the same, after all, this chest piece has been with my family for years."

Jason nodded his head and looked at the others. Gilda had on some regular reinforced leather armor and was toting a point forty-four on her hip along with a hunting rifle that Jason had pulled from his pip-boy. Dash and Applejack had some reinforced armor of their own as well. Applejack had a lever-action shotgun while Dash had a snub nose revolver and a service rifle. Shining, though, had something a bit more heavy hitting. he had a light machine gun with a point forty-five pistol on his hip. Vexan had a sniper rifle with a silencer on it for being deadly silent; she did say she was more keen to silent methods of attack. She also had ten millimeter SMG on her person. Vexan was also wearing a set of merc. armor. Jason still had on his personalized NCR combat ranger duster and he had his customized cowboy repeater with him still but now he also had a ranger sequoia on his right hip and a sawed-off on his left hip.

Gilda finally spoke after staying quiet this whole time. "Where exactly are we going anyway?"

"Well I thought we'd go to the 188 trading post and then after that we're going down to a small town south of there called Novac. Maybe you guys can find some stuff on the way there so you can sell it for caps."

"And that's another thing. what do you guys use for money anyway?"

Jason pulled out a half rusted bottle cap. "We use these. All other money is useless paper to us."

Gilda motioned for him to toss it over so she could take a look at it. "Heehee, now I got one cap, thanks." Gilda slid it into one of her pockets on her armor as Jason chuckled to himself.

"Shoulda' seen that coming. Well, anyway we should-"

A gun shot cut Jason off as it hit just in front of his foot, just barely missing hitting him.

"Fuck! Viper's! Get down, find cover!"

Jason ended up behind a rock with Gilda as Dash ended up with Applejack behind her own. Shining armor was behind a wrecked car with Vexan as she was scoping out where they were. She saw one popping his head out and without a second glance pulled the trigger, blasting brain matter and bits of skull out the other end of the raiders head, dropping him instantly.

Although it was done without much thought the fact that she had her first kill quickly caught up with her as she hid behind the car for cover again.

"Dang-it! I got somethin' close range, this ain't gonna' work! Dash you got the rifle, you think ya' can get one o' them." Applejack yelled over the sounds of bullets hitting and whizzing past their rock hiding spot.

"Can do AJ!" Dash shouted back as she hefted her rifle up and looked down the sights to see another of the bastards that were shooting at them. She leveled the sights on his leg and pulled the trigger, landing a hit right in his thigh sending his down to the ground, clutching his now bleeding leg. For her first time using a gun it wasn't too bad a shot.

Jason and Gilda on the other hand had their work cut out for them. They were stuck behind their spot, completely unable to fire at them unless they wanted to risk getting hit.

Gilda finally got fed up with not being able to right back so she popped out of cover enough to hoist her gun up and take aim. She squeezed off two rounds before she let out a shriek of pain as blood shot out of her shoulder and she slumped back against the rock.

"S-Sonava...fucker got me." She painfully groaned out.

"Don't move, stay right here, I'll deal with the rest," Jason said as he made a mad dash to the car that Shining was at, narrowly avoiding the gunfire aimed directly at him. When he got to the car, he flung himself to the ground next the him. "hey, you need to lay down some fire on the cars over there, got it. Just lean into the shot and let her rip, I'll handle the rest." Jason barked out. Shining nodded and they both prepared to end this little confrontation.

A few seconds past until, "NOW!" Jason shouted as he jumped up out of over and took aim while Shining did as he was told and began hosing down the area with bullets, making it impossible for the raiders to pop out of cover lest they get shot. Too bad for them Jason was sporting A.P. rounds in his rifle at the moment.

With three loud bangs from his repeater, all three raiders dropped, as the A.P. rounds tore through the hulls of the car doors, each on of them finding a new home within each of their chests.

With that done Jason jogged back to his previous hiding spot to where an injured Gilda was, still holding her shoulder as she continued to bleed.

"Hey, lemme' see," Jason nudged her hand aside to see the wound. It didn't look nearly as bad as it probably felt, but he had to make sure that is was a clean shot. Sure enough it had made it all the way through, since there was an entrance and an exit wound. With that information acquired he went to his pip-boy and pulled out a Stim-pak and a med-x for the soreness afterwards.

"here, this'll fix you up right quick." He said as she inserted the needle into her shoulder causing her to let out a squawk of pain and then a groan as the medicine started to go to work re-knitting her skin and making it seem like there was no wound at all, save for the small bald spot where there was no feather hiding her peach colored skin underneath.

"What's the other one for?" Gilda asked.

"This one's for the pain, it does hurt right?"

"A little bit." She said with a wince and a slight grimace as Jason injected her once again, only this time a look of relief washed over her face and she let out a sigh.

"Better?"

"Better." Gilda responded as she got up and rolled her shoulder a bit and picked up her hunting rifle she dropped upon getting shot.

Jason passed his hand through his hair and sighed. "Well so much for making sure you guys stay safe huh?"

When no one answered he looked around and saw Vexan still on the ground giving that thousand yard stare while still clutching her rifle. The thing that passed through his head was, 'Great, first kill guilt.' and then he made his way over to her and knelt down.

"She's been like that since after she killed that one raider." Said Shining as he crouched down as well.

"Hey?" Jason said, trying to get Vexan's attention. WHen that didn't work, he put his hand on her shoulder and shook her gently. "Hey!?"

"Huh!? Wha?" She said, snapping out of her thoughts with a start.

"You okay, I saw you blast a raiders brains out. That was your first actual kill, right?"

"Y-Yeah, I just, I didn't really think, I just aimed and pulled the trigger...just like we were thought to do with a bow; It just never crossed my mind how I was taking someone's life, even if he was shooting at us." Vexan said with a somber tone.

"Hey, listen," Jason said standing back up. "if you hadn't of shot him, who's to know that he wouldn't have shot you or shining or the others for the matter, heck even me. Just because I know how to protect myself, doesn't mean that I still can't get hurt. So, I should be thanking you."

"But-"

"No, no buts, that guy would have sooner come over here and killed you, or worse, he might have dragged you off to some god-forsaken slaver camp and tortured you, so at least know that you killed him, but by no means, do not feel to bad for him or her." Jason said, trying to reassure her and it seemed to work.

With a sigh and a grunt, Vexan stood up and nodded her head.

"Alright, good," Jason looked in the direction of the raider, which was where they needed to go. "we should get a move on." He said before he started back down the road with the others in tow. "Hey you guys actually did good today...you know, for a bunch of civvies." He said chuckling.

"Yeah, well, if you want to get with the best of the best flyers back home, you can't have hesitation." Said Rainbow, though , he could hear a slight tremble in her voice. He thought he'd leave her be for now.

As they passed by the other set of cars they heard groaning, when they got closer they saw the raider that dash shot in the leg trying to crawl away, that is before Jason shot in in the back, straight thru his heart, finally killing him. Jason sighed and shook his head.

"Damn animals is what these guys are. Fuckers don't care for anything else but their own sick and twisted pleasures."

"Why do they do it?" Asked Shining.

"I don't know man, sometimes they think it's the only way to get by in this world. They're just making it harder for the rest of us to live peacefully...or as peaceful as we can try to live."

Shining nodded and they continued on their way down the road.

"Next Stop, the one eighty-eight trading post."

With that, the group began their trek anew thru this desolate wasteland.

Author's Note

Damn Gilda took that bullet like a champ, and poor Vexan got a bit shaken up from her first kill. Oh well, it's a good thing Jason was there to make her feel better. What surprises await for our wasteland adventurers next time? Find out next time on 'Equestria Meets Wasteland'.

So, I decided to cut this in half since it was going to be pretty big. That and I wanted to get an update out for you guys too since it's been a while since the last update. Anyway hope you enjoy and remember to like and fav. and comment if you like the story, or if you just want to chat with me, that's fine, I love talking to my readers.

~ This is, Cobolt, soundin' out