Fallout: Equestria - Memories

by TheBobulator

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, Comedy, Adventure, Crossover, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 383339

One crazy pegasus, one roboleg, a contingent of Steel Rangers, and an adventure of infinite detours. Put all that together and what do you get? A rip-roaring mosh pit wrecking its way across the Wasteland, leaving nothing but confusion in its wake.

My name is Frosty Winds. I was just your typical, rank-and-file Enclave scout. I had an ordinary life, living in contentment among my loving family and good friends. Things were good.

At least, I'm pretty sure that was the case; I honestly can't say for certain anymore. One moment, I was being recruited to take part in a routine Wasteland scouting mission, and the next moment I wake up as a prisoner of the Steel Rangers.

On the bright side, I’m not missing much. Just all of my memories. And my left foreleg. Nothing important, really. Pile on a disease I’m not vaccinated against and being a few clouds short of a weather system probably doesn’t make any of this much better.

As if that wasn't enough, apparently I made a deal before I lost my memories. If I don't complete my task I agreed to within a month, I'll die. Of course, it would be helpful if I could remember what the agreement was.

So here I am, floundering aimlessly about the Equestrian Wasteland. I have absolutely no idea what happened, what I should do, or how to uncover the secrets that lie within my stolen memories.

Help. I need an adult.

(Read the official Prologue here!)

PDF DOWNLOAD

I'd like to thank Kkat for creating this amazing world of Fallout: Equestria!

Thanks to Toaster Repairpony for the awesome cover art!

Equally great thanks to my editors Unknownlight (all) and LeprechaunPoni (Chapter 29 and onward)
Previously edited by K4 (Chapters 1-21) and mikemeiers (Chapters 22-27)

Follow Frosty's out-of-universe adventures here!
But wait! Frosty's been spotted in other universes as well!
Somewhere in the Jerichoverse
Somewhere in King Sombra's Robotic Retaliation
Fallout: Equestria - Outlaw (In canon, too! Current rewrite isn't there yet.)
Fallout: Equestria - Frozen Skies (In canon, too!)

Published 2012-04-09 13:44:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-04-02 23:49:32 UTC

Chapter 2: So, why am I here?

Chapter 2: “So, why am I here?”

“You see, I saw you when you first got here, remember?”

Here I was again, in this same dinky room with the same inquisitor who thought I knew something important enough to be kept here. I stared at the table in confusion, resisting the urge to prod at the Neighton’s Cradle on his desk. What had I said that had such an impact on Baked Potato, Rumcake Rum, and Banana Pudding? Who was Autumn Leaf? What, if anything, was I involved in? I was shaken out of my confusion when a pair of hooves slammed into the table in front of me. “Tell me, you flightless little birdie, how do you know Autumn Leaf?” He lowered his hooves off the table and paced to my side of the room. “You know more than you think, and we just need you to tell us. The faster you tell us, the sooner we can remove you from our base.”

“You mean kill me? Not a chance.” I stared into his cold eyes defiantly. “I’m not telling you anything more. Besides, you know more about me than I do!” I looked away and continued. “Even if you release me, I don’t have anywhere safe to go to. Once I lost contact and got captured, I was probably marked as KIA.” I stared at him again. “I have reasons not to tell you, and you have no reasons to make me tell you, because I don’t know anything else. Can I go back to my cell now?” I huffed indignantly and stared at the opposite wall.

“There has to be something that you remember. Something you can tell us,” Soufflé growled. I rolled my eyes in boredom. “Something we can use. The previous Elder poached some of the best experts in their fields from other contingents. We can help you.” He looked at me expectantly.

“Look dirtbrain, here’s all I can accurately remember. My name is Frosty Winds, Scout Second Class, Serial 405937-5712. That’s it.” Thank you, interrogation training. I exhaled and continued. “Everything else is just a mess of violence and things that don’t make sense. If you really want to know, the last thing I remember is that I was in a city.” I closed my eyes and tried to bring back the last thing I remembered. “Wait… what do you even need my information for anyway? I wouldn’t know anything that would be remotely useful.”

“I don’t believe any of that for a second. Any actionable information that you provide will be used in order to plan for the future,” Soufflé retorted. By the sounds of it, he’d said this particular line quite a lot. “Look. You tell me, and only then can I help you. That’s it. How about we start with this: tell me something, anything, and I might be able to make my Rangers be a bit more amicable.”

I facehoofed. Really? Wow, this was just like a really bad crime film I’d watched back at the barracks. “You’ve got to be kidding. You already know everything about me, and then some.” I leaned forward at him. “And the only thing I remember about Autumn Leaf is that he made some damn fine motivational speeches. Nothing else.”

Soufflé smirked. “I bet he’d have some fine words for me, now wouldn’t he.” I rolled my eyes again. Just words wouldn’t begin to sum it up. “Fine. Tell me this: what are you doing here, so far from your little safe haven above the clouds?” I had the urge to throw an insult his way, but I held my tongue. Soufflé continued, “The Enclave doesn’t send soldiers, not to mention officers down to the surface for no reason. So, why are you here?”

“Again, I don’t remember. You’ve already recorded my memories anyway, so why bother asking?” I grinned sarcastically at him. “Why don’t you waddle on out and go look it up for yourself?”

Soufflé scowled at me. “I suppose you have a point. My methods are not going to work here, because I expect my prisoners to have the IQ of a chicken, not of a turnip.” I glared at him, but he wasn’t paying attention. He tapped his ear (where I assumed he had an earbloom wirelessly connected to a hidden PipBuck or something) and said, “Tell Instant Noodles that she can do whatever she wants to the prisoner. I have simply stopped caring until she becomes more intelligent.” He left me in the room. I waited for a few beats, expecting him to come back, but when I heard a door in the distance slam shut, I realized he was finally gone!

I hesitantly turned to leave, when the door I’d come through clanked open and a yellow and green mare wearing a scribe’s outfit walked in. “Please, have a seat. This will take a bit of time, but I promise to be nicer than our dear Inquisitor,” she said gently.

Wow, her voice was so calming. So gentle and beautiful… Woah, okay! Enough of that. I snapped out of my very sudden and random daydream. My chair was surrounded with a soft yellow light and was turned to face me. Of course, they had to have a unicorn for memory readings.

Good job, Frosty!

Shut up, brain.

“Don’t be afraid to leave anything out,” Instant Noodles said as she conjured a clipboard out from somewhere. “Due to a previous arrangement that you need not worry about, I’m promoting you from ‘prisoner’ to ‘science project’.”

I dumbly sat down and my chair was turned to face the desk again. Instant Noodles walked to the other side and sat in the chair that Soufflé had recently vacated. “Now, I don’t need you to remember anything exact, I just need you to walk through your daily routine. Before all this started, that is.” Her voice was so soft and comforting. I nodded and closed my eyes. Let’s see…

So… starting from the beginning. Woke up, Made the bed, then…

“Frosty, darling, I need you to tell me what’s happening in there.”

Oh, right. “…Go hit the showers. Small talk with Lightning Chaser, then mo— wait, who?”

“Nevermind that,” I heard a faint scribbling. “Continue, and try to keep up some momentum. Just don’t think about it. Let your mind wander and do its job.”

“Okay… uhh… right, after the showers, got toweled off, brushed, and preened feathers. Talked to old annoying officer for daily assignments.”

“That’s good, Frosty. Now, walk me through what happened four days ago.”

It was four days? Wow. “So… it was just any other day. Woke up, got cleaned and brushed, then reported for assignments. That day… we got a special assignment? From the top?” I furrowed my brow in concentration. Did this count as treason? “Our squad leader gave us ten minutes to gather our gear. So I did, and they certainly had no complaints. I think we were going for the once-in-forever wasteland check.”

“The what?”

“The wasteland check is a periodic check to see whether or not the surface is habitable again and whether the Grand Pegasus Enclave should come and help rebuild. There’s probably a fancy name for it, but I don’t care. Anyway, we were dropped off in a Vertibuck and were told to scout the area, take measurements, and the like. But something wasn’t right. Wait… no, that was the original plan. We were told to escort these scientists or researchers or whatever to the surface and defend them until their work was done.” How did I remember this? How did Soufflé not get this from me?

Brain, why don’t you make sense?

Shut up, Frosty.

“Then what happened?”

“…I don’t remember. Blood, cloud terminals, screaming. It’s all a mess after that.” I opened my eyes and looked at her. “If it helps, we were on top of some huge buildings and I think we set up some kind of installation. I remember being there for a while and complaining to somepony that it was really boring.” She nodded and wrote that down too. “You won’t tell anypony?”

She fiddled with her pencil while she continued. “It’s all about how to deal with post-traumatic stress and all that stuff. You’ve actually helped me a bit so far. Anything else to add?”

“…Um… there’s bits and flashes of a bunch of stuff… mostly fighting and blood. I can’t describe it and I kinda don’t want to talk about it,” I muttered and rubbed my eyes with a hoof.

“Okay, that’s fine. You think you’re ready for something a bit more dangerous?” I gave her my not-very-amused face. She smiled sheepishly and said, “Oh, don’t worry, it won’t hurt!” And then she added quietly, “At least I hope not…”

I sighed and agreed. What could go wrong?

“I have a spell that will take me into your memories. Both of us will be there, and we will hopefully put things together. And don’t worry, I won’t tell anypony else what happens in there unless you want me to.”

Great. Of all the ponies in the wasteland, I had to find a therapist. What were the odds?

“Relax and lay your head on the table.” I complied, and she leaned toward me, horn glowing with energy. “Now, close your eyes. I want you to think back to what happened after you landed.”

<~~~>

A radio crackled in my ear as I felt like I was falling. I groaned. Why was I in so much pain? I opened my eyes and looked around. There was an armored Enclave pony laying nearby and another, obviously dead, pegasus scientist nearby. I looked around and saw that we had fallen into an alley between two buildings. “So this is what happened, hmm? Some of it makes sense now,” Instant Noodles whispered.

I really wanted to respond, maybe even tell her to shut up, but for some reason I wasn’t in control of myself. Instead, I turned my attention to the pegasus stallion. I poked his muzzle, resulting with no reaction. I rolled my eyes, and then I automatically leaned down and whispered huskily into his ear, “Wake up, sexy boy…” Woah! Where had that come from? Whatever the case may be, that sure got a reaction out of him, he shot up like a rocket and looked around, presumably in puzzlement. “Gimme a sitrep. You good?”

He nodded. “Well, now. This is quite the predicament,” he said, looking at the scientist… bits behind him. “Of course the squint is totally dead. Now what?”

Why would there be scientists on a wasteland check? Things weren’t adding up like I thought they would. “Find Ashtray. He’s still the ranking officer of this op if he’s still around.” Where was Ashtray? Better question, who was Ashtray?

My comrade looked around the alley and decided to quickly search the dead scientist for anything particularly valuable. “It isn’t looking good. Nothing on squad comms. Your call.”

Before I had time to think anything else, an earsplitting howling noise came from all directions, followed by the stampeding of many bodies charging toward us. “OH FEATHERS, RUN!” he screamed. I followed the nameless stallion as fast as I could, ignoring the incredibly confused scribe tagging along for the ride.

We flew into the second floor of a ruined building and stopped to take a quick breather. I noticed that I had a few minor cuts and scrapes, as well as some familiar gashes along one of my hindlegs. That explained the scars all right, but when did I lose my leg? I looked at my left foreleg, still attached and still flesh and bone. I looked up. “You still have your plasma rifle?” He nodded. “How’s your armor holding up?”

“A little worse for wear, but it’ll have to do.”

I switched to radio. “Nest, this is Snowmare. Respond!” Interference and static burst over the line. I growled and yelled into my helmet, “Nest, this is Snowmare! Half of my squad is MIA and I can’t find Ashtray! We need extraction, now!”

Finally, a response surfaced through the static. “Snowmare, this is Nest. We cannot get to you at the current time. Use whatever you’ve got to survive. Good luck, gentlecolts.” Damn it! They were abandoning us!

Before I could shut off the transmission, another voice broke through the static. “Snowmare, this is Goggles. Is the station set up?”

“Dammit, I have no idea!” I yelled into the helmet microphone. “Everyone else is probably dead! We need extraction, now!” The howling grew closer and it sounded more angry. “We’re about to get killed, and the only thing you care about is your little science project?” I motioned to the buck for him to take up a position facing the missing wall of the building. “Send evac, before we lose anypony else!”

There was scuffling on the other side of the line, followed by, “…gimme that! Snowmare, this is Nest! We have evac on the way, estimated time of arrival, twenty minutes. Hold out till then, and we’ll get you home.” And then silence.

I fumed. This was how they repaid us? Left us to die without hope for assistance?

“Snowmare, I have just been informed of a new directive. We can reroute a flight that will arrive in about twelve minutes, but be advised, it will not have heavy fire support. Additionally, try to return to the landing zone, the relay has not been activated. Goggles has informed me that the relay must be turned on, or else your squad’s efforts will be for naught.” I pondered. Would we make it? It was only a few buildings away. But could we survive? “Snowmare, I need an answer.”

“Do it,” I replied automatically. I felt that this would lead to terrible consequences that would result in my capture later on. “Okay, we have a rescue plan,” I told the other two ponies. “We need to get back to that relay, turn it on, and hold out. Let’s move.”

I leapt out of the building with Instant in my hooves and the other pegasus following me on my right side. Before I could tell him to cover me, a shot rang out and a bullet slammed into his wing. I instinctively dived toward the nearest building and hid. “Sniper! Get down!” I yelled, to nopony in particular at this point. I looked back toward where my wingmate had fallen. Please be okay, just fly onto the roof like nothing happened, please…

When nopony showed up on the roof, I felt a bit of me die on the inside, like I knew him well, but his name escaped me. Did I really know him? Or was he just one of my generic squadmates? Aargh! I need to know! I shook my head to clear the questions floating about. I crawled over to the edge of the building and looked down. He was nowhere to be found! There was a trail of blood that went around a building and out of sight. I prayed to Celestia for his safety and moved on.

I was about to peek over the brick wall I was taking cover behind when another shot rang out. The bullet smashed through a brick and my left foreleg. I cried out in pain as I started to bleed out. The wound burned and stung, and I had no healing potions left after what had happened before the memory started. My medical training kicked in as I attempted to not go into shock. As fast as I could, I fetched a gauze bandage from my tiny first-aid kit and wrapped it around the wound.

After that, I risked another peek above the bit of cover and was rewarded with a horrifying pinging sound, and the sensation of my right ear being torn out. I ducked again in panic and grabbed my ear, again to stop the bleeding. So that’s how I lost my earring! Some crazy dog had shot it! I felt the wound and was relieved it was only just a little nick. I could put the earring back if I ever found it again.

Instant Noodles looked at me in pity. “What now?” she asked. “It’s been seven minutes already, you aren’t going to make it.”

I didn’t want to remember this part. I mentally prepared myself to relive this part of my memory. Skip, skip! When I noticed everything starting to blur, I realized that if I thought hard enough, I could keep my memories moving without actually having to do anything! When the scene had settled, I was back onto the building where we had set up a satellite dish, several Enclave cloud-crates, and a cloud-terminal attached to the relay I had to activate.

I was tired, worn out, had lost several pints of blood, and about to break down and cry my heart out. But I had to survive, make it to the next day! I jumped on the terminal and automatically selected a blurry option. I must not have been paying attention, because the words were an incoherent blurry mess. I toggled my radio again. “Nest, this is Snowmare. Relay has been activated, please advise on evac!”

The radio crackled again. “Snowmare, this is Nest, evac is four minutes out, you’re doing fine. Hold on, you’re almost there!” The radio cut out with a massive crack and then it was followed by silence. I looked around and heard the howling return, followed by a torrent of smashing and digging sounds. I noticed a slowly spreading pool of blood coming from one side of the building. I crept over to investigate, and immediately jumped onto the radio again.

“Nest, Nest! Come in! This is Snowmare! Please tell me that evac has medicine onboard! Ashtray is alive, but he’s in terrible shape! I won’t be able to patch him up, we need a real medic!” I rushed over to the dying buck. I was crying now. He was bleeding profusely from a massive gash in his chest. He’d tried to stem the bleeding with a sleeve, but the blood kept soaking through. “It’s going to be okay, Dad… you’re going to be okay…” I hugged him tightly as he held onto life as long as he could. Holy crap. Dad died? Oh dear Celestia, Dad was Ashtray? How could I have forgotten?

“Frosty…” he wheezed, “we’re not going to make it.” I cried harder and held him tighter. “Those creeps… got what they wanted. We’re expendable. I love you, Frosty.” He coughed violently and spat some blood out onto the ground next to the ever-spreading pool next to his head. “You’re bound for greatness, little filly. You’re a good pony… make me proud. And if you ever get back to those bastards… tell ‘em Smoky Winds… told ‘em… Rainbow Dash was right.” And with that, the shine left his eyes and he joined Celestia and Luna in the heavens, hopefully in a better place.

“Dad?” I gently shook him. “Dad?!” I shook him harder. “Please don’t go!” I cried into his chest for the longest time, holding him tightly. I’d lost several good friends, a special somepony, and my father.

My radio crackled again, and my ear was nearly blown out from the interference. It started with the voice of Nest, but then it was replaced by Goggles’s voice. “Thank you for your service to the Enclave. Your sacrifice will be honored and your remaining family will be notified. Have a nice day.”

I yelled into my radio, “You insufferable featherbrained idiot! You’ve killed us all! For what? Some numbers? Damn it, answer me!” There was no response. I cried, and mourned the loss of all these good ponies. Friends, family, lovers. All of them gone.

The voice of Nest broke in. “Snowmare… if it means anything to you… Goggles took over the mission directives and scrubbed the op. He’s only interested in his data, so you are no longer on his agenda. I didn’t know… I… I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. If—if you survive, head toward what the wastelanders call Friendship City. Contact Radar, and get the emergency broadcaster from him. It’ll override all encoded comms, so contact me then. I owe you a really, really big one. My condolences about Smoky… He was… a father to me too, in a way. Nest… Nest out.”

I yelled in rage and stomped back over to the terminal. This little terminal had caused everything. Was this mission really worth so many good ponies? I cried out in sorrow and kicked the terminal as hard as I could…

<~~~>

…And I woke up with my face in my chair, forelegs on the ground, and my hindlegs on the table. I looked up and turned around to see that Instant Noodles had been knocked across the tiny room, her notes and clipboard scattered about the room. She was haphazardly splayed across an overturned chair and had a pair of hoof-shaped bruises forming under her muzzle. I winced and covered my face with a hoof. I tiptoed over to her side of the table and helped her up. “Ohmygosh, I am so sorry! I didn’t realize—” I started, then she interrupted me.

“It’s… fine,” she said, while collecting her notes. “Most of the time, there isn’t much physical movement during the sharing process; however, you managed to somehow overpower my spell with your… grief, shall we call it?” She shook her head and rubbed the rapidly darkening hoofmarks under her chin. I shrank back in embarrassment, but she smiled at me and continued, “Don’t worry, nothing bad will come of this.” She put a hoof on my shoulder. “Go back to your room. Relax for the day.” She smiled at me and exited.

I slowly made my way back to the little room I now called home, all the while staring at my hooves in deep thought. I watched the metal plates beneath my hooves slide past as I mulled over what I’d seen earlier. I’d lost so many… so many I knew. Tears welled up in my eyes. I’d been abandoned, left for dead, and my entire squad killed, all for some stupid science fair project that some “Goggles” had decided was more important than the lives of my squad. A tear rolled down my face. My head bumped into a wall, but I didn’t care. I leaned against it and let my tears fall freely. I cried, and cried, and cried. I sat down, and just let everything out. My life is over, everypony I knew is dead, everypony I cared about is dead, and there is just… nothing left for me. I sobbed into the wall.

I heard heavy footsteps draw nearer, then stop. “Hey… are you okay?” Rumcake asked. I glared at him with my puffy eyes and my tear-streaked face. “Okay… apparently not. Wanna talk about it?” he continued. I narrowed my eyes at him, still slightly crying. “I, uh… offer you my deepest condolences?” I said nothing and wiped my muzzle with the side of my right hoof. I pushed past him and kept walking.

“My dad is dead, my friends are dead, everypony I know is dead. Please, just leave me alone.” I slowly continued to my room, quietly sobbing all the way. I didn’t need anyone else, I just needed some time alone. I staggered into my room and lay down on my bunk to think, to cry, to mourn. I took off my metal leg and rubbed my sore stump. Everything hurt so much, everything was so dismal. The thick metal collar bolted around my neck didn’t help me feel any better either. My father, my friends, my squad, all gone, never to be seen again. I stared at my stump and a question popped into my mind. Had I seen the entire memory? When did I lose my leg? I was now dreading the next trip down memory lane.

I must have fallen into a depression-induced coma at some point since a knock at the door roused me out of my misery. Surprisingly, whoever was on the other side of the door was actually waiting for me to open it. I carefully got up and hobbled over to the door and opened it.

“Ah heard from Rummy aboot what ‘appened.” Baked Potato walked into the room. “Look, if you want to talk about it, Rummy’s there for ya. Th’ Noodles lass, even. If ye don’t, that’s fine. Grief is a powerful thing, an’ Ah know it all too well. But Luna’s mane, girl, you can’t wallow in it forever!” He sat down next to me on my bunk and poked my nose with a hoof. “Tell somepony. Get help.” His voice lowered and he continued, “You remembered, didn’t ye.” I nodded and sniffed. “How many…?”

“Five,” I whispered back. “I knew them all. Three were close friends… two of them were closer.” Flashbacks of our moments together played through my head. None of them seemed familiar, nor did they connect to anything I could accurately remember at the time.

“One of them, maybe. I don’t remember. The other was my father. I don’t want to talk about that,” I quietly said. The grin disappeared from Baked’s muzzle and he nodded solemnly.

Abruptly, Baked changed back to much more happy tone. “Ach, right! Don’ be too down. Me buddy Rummy’s gotta nice surprise fer ya.”

~~~~~

Nearly an hour and a half later, I was lying down on a medical table in the Steel Rangers’ clinic. Allegedly, Rumcake needed an excuse to test the limits of a cyber-suite that they’d recovered at one point or another. Additionally, he’d said the closer I got to normal, the less depressed and mopey I’d be. I wasn’t being mopey!

…Was I?

I distracted myself by looking over the room I was in. As was the norm with Steel Rangers architecture, it was all gray boring walls and metal supports running up the walls. The less-than-imposing form of Instant Noodles stood over me, poring over unidentifiable tools and things. I was about to wonder what that really big pointy spinny-looking one was for, but she interrupted my train of thought.

“Alright, I’m going to send you into your memories again, and hopefully it’s going to be a good one. I won’t be coming along because I need to keep you from bleeding out while Senior Scribe Brussel Sprout operates on you.” She patted my head with a smile, then turned away to check something on the other table. With that voice, she could tell me aaaanything. I stared at her dreamily from my vantage point on the table, and she noticed me doing so. “It’s just the Med-X working. I’m not sure whether the memory dive effects what you feel outside, so this is just for safety.” I nodded. Her horn glowed with magic, and she leaned in close and whispered to me, “This time try not to buck me in the face.” I smiled and dopily nodded. She touched her horn to my forehead and everything melted away into nothingness…

<~~~>

I was blasted by a wave of noise: music from a party. I looked around. I was in my base’s mess hall. There were streamers everywhere, ponies partying, and a large assortment of bland Enclave food scattered about a buffet table. Everypony was in their fancy dress uniforms (in various states of being on) and there was even a multi-colored pegasus playing music! Unfortunately, it was getting hard for me to focus, and the burning sensation in my right foreleg didn’t help. I took a few steps and noticed something else. I was incredibly drunk. I checked one of my pockets and found an empty bottle of Wild Pegasus, and another half-empty bottle next to it. Wow, this must have been some occasion for an extra ration of liquor. I was hungry, so I staggered over to the table for some apple slices. Before I could get there, I was intercepted by a an intoxicated, somewhat familiar stallion.

“Hey… Whaddya think about the party, Frosty?” the buck slurred. “It’s nice, huh? So cool for the C-Colonel to throw a party.” He giggled. “Frosty… I get it.” He stumbled around to my other side and put a hoof around my neck. I tried to escape, but he pulled me in closer. “Your callsign… it’s Snowmare… and you’re Frosty.” He broke out into a poor rendition of the holiday classic “Frosty the Snowmare”.

I rolled my eyes. After I’d been assigned the callsign “Snowmare” I’d never heard the end of it. I knew every lyric of that irritating song yet I loved it around wintertime, simply because the little fillies loved me for it. I giggled back at him and I even joined in, automatically. I still felt intoxicated, and I felt happy. The happiest since my life had fallen apart. I laughed and mentioned to my companion, “Wanna make this snowmare melt?” I giggled harder. Oh Celestia, I was so drunk. In my mind, I facehoofed and flushed red in embarrassment. I didn’t even know who I’d just flirted with! I made a mental note as I watched myself follow the stallion to his quarters. He did have a very nice plot, I might add.

Before we got to his quarters however, a voice floated through my mind. “Hey sleepyhead… wake up.” Wait, we were getting to the good part! “Wake up, Frosty. We’re done.” I groaned and tried to block it out. It’s so peaceful in here… and, heck, I was about to get some action! We couldn’t stop now!

<~~~>

I was poked and prodded awake, much to my annoyance. Why was it so bright… why did it have to be so briiiiiight… I curled up and covered my muzzle with my right foreleg. “Wake me laaaater…” I managed to groan. Someone poked me, and I curled up tighter. “I was having a great dream… I wanna go back to it.”

“I’m going to put this out right now, for the record. I thought it was prudent to push our testing schedule forward, and not because I feel bad for you or anything.” I immediately sat up. What did that mean, exactly? Rumcake quickly averted my gaze in favor of a curious looking smear on the wall. “Although allowing you to pick what you wanted may have been a poor decision on my part.” He off-hoofedly gestured at my shiny new limb with a frown.

I looked down and squealed in delight, turning my new addition to and fro to admire it. I’d told him to make me a replacement fashioned after a gryphon’s claw. My stump was now attached to a cybernetic limb port. Attached to that, there were a series of tubes, hydraulics and wires that attached to a claw that acted just like a gryphon’s claw. I hugged Baked Potato. “You’re the best! Thank you thank you thank you!”

“Girl, I’ve learned from yer antics… Keep yer hoofsies ta yerself.” He proudly grinned and turned around. “Anyway, yer arm thing is done. Keep it as dry as possible, don’t hit it on things, and don’t” – he pointed at the claw on the end – “maul anypony with those. They aren’t strong enough to hold up to… hoof-to… claw… combat.”

I stared at the metal contraption that was now my left leg and silently marveled at the soft whirrs and squeaks as I tested my range of movement. “So… how do I actually use the claw bits?” This was the part of my master plan that I hadn’t really thought through..

“In theory, all you need to do is to think about moving each individual talon. Thanks to the power of science and the intelligence of the Steel Rangers, we managed to attach small transmitters to your nerves—and we’re mostly sure we did it right—and allow you to move anything attached to your limb hub.”

Intently focusing, I thought long and hard to make any of my claws twitch. In order to somehow help that idea across, I flexed the unarmored wrist joint of my metal leg. For a second I thought I had moved the middle talon, but it was only because of my excessive shaking.

Instant Noodles intently watched me. “Maybe think of the talons as an extension of your hoof. Having unfamiliar extremities probably doesn’t make sense to your brain yet, but the cyber-suite should have filled in all the gaps when fabricating the spell built into your replacement leg. Just keep trying.” Her clipboard and pencil materialized at her side, ready for use.

When she put it that way, the feat I was attempting seemed to be a lot easier. “So like… pretend the tip of my hoof is bendy or something?” I asked, doing my best to do exactly that.

“I guess. You’re the one with the cyborg leg, so you’re the foremost expert in the field,” Instant replied, quickly scribbling something down. “I eagerly await results.”

One day, I needed to find out what the heck was written on that clipboard. In the meantime, I focused on trying to move my talons again. I managed to make a talon slightly wiggle, which made Instant joyfully gasp and quickly make a small annotation to whatever she was writing.

I returned to trying to get my mechanical limb working for me. My annoyance quickly turned to glee when I looked down and found that in my fright, I’d moved all my talons inward into a fist.

“Subject… adapts… quickly…” Instant muttered to herself whilst scribbling excitedly before addressing me directly. “Can you move each one independently?”

After a few moments of thinking at my artificial leg, I made my claw open. “Doesn’t look like it.” I forced more thoughts of movement and watched in entertained awe as I continued to play with my new steel appendages.

“And what does it feel like?” Instant inquired, eagerly awaiting my response.

“Doesn’t really feel like anything. I just like, think at it and it moves. I probably won’t know what I’m touching unless I can see it.” I shrugged. “Although it doesn’t appear that I get jitters on this thing, so that’s cool.”

There was an explosion from somewhere in the compound and everypony looked up and around. An angry mare’s voice yelled over the PA system, “We have a breach along the west hallway in sector D-2! Slavers have breached the base! Weapons free! Addendum from the inquisitor: try to keep collateral to a minimum. He doesn’t want to have to rebuild part of this place again.”

Everypony looked at each other for a fraction of a second. Suddenly, the Rangers in the room jumped into action. Rumcake ran out, presumably to his quarters to fetch his helmet-o-death and kill some slavers. Instant looked at me and then ran out of the room. No idea where she was going.

Baked looked at me hesitantly, looking like he was trying to make a decision about something. Eventually he spoke up. “You have been temporarily conscripted for base defense,” he enunciated with an official tone of voice. He slid a .32 pistol across to me. I picked it up in my teeth and squinted down the sight. Well, it was a functional gun at least. “I don’ keep it loaded much. Stay close, do as I say, an’ yer head won’ blow off. We’re going to show those slavers who’s boss!” In a lower tone of voice, “Don’t make me regret this.” He crouched under the table and came up with a helmet in his hooves. He slammed the helmet on his head and yelled “Let’s do this!”

We both ran out of the room and presumably toward the breach in the base. As we drew nearer, the explosions got louder and the yelling, screaming, and the lone cry of “Let our resolve be Steel!”. As we turned the corner, a slaver jumped at us. My twitch reaction caused me to squeeze the trigger once, twice, and watched as the slaver’s head exploded in chunky bits of gore.

The headless torso, however, continued on its destined path and into the wall behind us. I’d seen a whole lot of death, but really didn’t have to see that in slow motion. This wasn’t how I operated. Get in, survey, get out. Completely clean. No unnecessary fatalities. All stealth. “Nice shot, lass!” Baked laughed, his voice creepily distorted through his helmet. That distracted me long enough to regain my composure. “But we aren’t there just yet!”

I growled around the revolver in my teeth. “Hey, could you teach me how to rel—”

Before I could complete my request, we were spotted by a large group of slavers charging down the hallway. I was about to open fire, but Baked Potato motioned for me to back up. I complied, and I watched the signature Steel Rangers minigun pop out of his built-in battle saddle and roar in response. Needless to say, the slavers were not there for very long.

We continued onward through the gore of the slavers that charged at us moments before. “Almost there. Police th’ bodies fer ammo.” Of course, just in case I ran out of bullets for this tiny little pistol that nopony told me how to reload.

The word ‘Armory’ with an arrow pointing to a hallway on the left caught my attention.

“Follow me an’ ye won’ get lost,” instructed Baked Potato. Unknown to him, I had other plans. Hopefully amidst the confusion of the assault, I could put my devious scheme into action. The second he began to tromp forward down a different hallway and wasn’t looking my way, I bolted.

For once, the goddesses were smiling on me. In their haste, a Ranger with maybe about half of his armor on burst out of the armory, assault rifles in tow without closing or locking the door behind him. Into the room I went, quickly checking one more time for anypony that might happen upon me.

Guns lined the entire room to an excessive degree. Smaller weapons like assault rifles, pistols, and shotguns were mounted on the wall using some kind of fascinating modular system. Larger weapons, like rocket launchers, grenade launchers, and the like were leaning against the wall one next to the other. As much as I wanted to yank the gatling laser off the wall and take it with me, nopony had conveniently left behind a battle saddle to mount it on.

A little green spot of hope in this sea of gunmetal caught my attention. Sandwiched between a weathered minigun and a slightly dented grenade launcher was the anti-machine rifle that I had claimed for myself—and had been subsequently taken away by a very selfish Inquisitor. I snatched my prized find from the hundreds of other weapons in the armory. I spotted a leash attached to smaller sniper rifle and repurposed it into a strap for my anti-machine rifle so I could sling it over my back.

Once I had reclaimed what was rightfully mine, I did my best to retrace my steps all the way back to where Baked was hopefully still waiting. In the remote case that I did find myself lost, I could bank on the hopes that this entire facility was a giant mobius strip and I’d find him eventually.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I found the Ranger that I was looking for taking cover behind a support beam for absolutely no good reason. “So… why’d ya want a talon and not a hoof, anyway?” Baked asked, unaware that I had just silently reappeared behind him.

I rolled my eyes. “Wasn’t it obvious when you saw the rifle? First of all, the grip is custom-designed for talons to handle.” I pointed out the oddly shaped grip of the rifle and held it in my claw to demonstrate even though Baked wasn’t paying attention. Then I pointed at the modified barrel. “There’s a bipod and that’s also why it wasn’t meant to be battle-saddle mounted. The sight on the end is made of emerald, so there must be some kind of vision spell in it. The only problem I’m going to have is that the bolt is on the left side, so I’ll have to reach over to cycle the next bullet. And the other half of the sight mounted on the rail is emerald as well, which most likely means the targeting spells are linked.”

“About time you two showed up!” Rumcake shouted from ahead of us, somehow knowing without checking behind him. “Come on, let’s move! I got slavers to kill!”

“Le’s go then. Carpe natem!” Baked yelled, giving Rumcake an encouraging slap on the behind to get him going.

Ancient dead languages weren’t my strong point, but that didn’t sound right to me. “That doesn’t mean what you think it means,” I whispered back, barely keeping up.

He didn’t seem like he cared.

~~~~~

I dove for cover behind a fallen set of filing cabinets. Bullets sparked off the top of my impromptu cover and I crawled over to a slightly less dented location and covered my head. “Any time now, boys!” I yelled over the gunfire. The slavers shooting at me must have finally needed to reload, because the stream of gunfire had stopped and was replaced with the clacking of guns. I rolled my eyes. I’d have to do this all by myself, wouldn’t I? I took a deep breath, picked up my little pistol in my teeth, and poked over my barricade. I hastily aimed a trio of shots and watched in dramatic awe as two of the slavers simply dropped. Back to my filing cabinets for safety.

“Can I get some help?” I screamed at the hallway behind me. Seriously, where were they? I hopped up while the slaver was reloading again and charged at him. He backed up and fumbled with the assault rifle in his mouth, but before he could bring it back up to shoot at me, I placed my pistol against his eye and fired. I felt hot blood and tiny chunks of slaver splatter against me. I stared in horror at the remains of the slaver’s face. I looked up just in time to see another slaver jump into my face! I cried out in surprise and pulled the trigger on the pistol, only to hear the heart-stopping sound of the hammer falling on an empty chamber. Why didn’t anypony teach me to reload this! I stared in horror at the approaching slaver as he jumped on me. I cursed at myself.

“There’s no running if you’ve got no hoovies!” The slaver cackled, and he pulled out a large machete from his bag. I bunched up my hind legs under him and bucked him in the nads as hard as I could. He cried out in pain, causing him to lose his grip on his machete. As the slaver flew across the room, I felt the machete harmlessly clink off the edge my bomb collar. I felt a minor cut draw down the right side of my neck as the large blade slid away, but I didn’t care. I needed answers. I needed to interrogate this featherbrain. I stomped over to his prone form and I slammed my hoof down into his single uninjured leg.

I grabbed his throat with my claw. He chortled madly in a sort of pathetic, strangled manner. “What’s so funny?” More giggling. Blood started pooling under him. Oh, of course. I’d probably bucked him into some sharp implements in his pack. I shook him to instill a sense of impending doom.

“You call that a kick? My shits kick harder than that.” The rabid slaver laughed. He then did the exact same thing that I just did to him and he bucked me, hard. I flew across the hallway and into a wall. I heard something crack as I hit the wall then slid down it. Everything was blurry as I staggered up and something in my left wing didn’t feel right. The slaver slowly stumbled toward me with another bloody knife in his mouth. “If you won’t come quietly, then DIE!” he yelled around his knife and charged at me again. I managed to somewhat dive over to the right but not before he got a lucky gouge in right under my bomb collar.

I laughed at him through a haze of pain and numbness. “You got lucky that time!” I staggered to my hooves and claw once more and backed up from him.

He yelled back at me incoherently and charged. I dodged, and he cried out in pain as he collided with the wall behind me. I turned to find other routes of escape when I spotted a familiar armored flank sticking out from around a corner. This charade of dodging the slaver’s wild charges went on for several minutes as I taunted him closer to the Steel Ranger. I finally got him close enough so when I dove under the Ranger, I yelled “Nine o'clock!” and he responded by obediently turning and goopified the poor slaver with his plasma rifles. I patted the Steel Ranger’s stomach plates. “Thanks for the assist!”

The ranger grunted “no problem” in reply and turned back to laying suppressive fire down his hallway. I was about to go find something else to do, some information to collect, when I saw something irresistibly shiny calling to me.

I walked over to it in curiosity and poked it with a hoof. It was sitting in a pool of exploded slaver bits and parts of wall, but it still appeared to be intact. After wiping off the bullet to the best of my ability with a bit of spit and elbow grease, I dropped the large bullet into the chamber of my anti-machine rifle and bolted it closed. Surprisingly enough, it was a perfect fit.

Yay! My massive gun now had ammo! But it’s only one bullet, I reminded myself. There was some loud clanking and some disconcerting wet thudding coming further down from the hallway I had been in earlier. I dashed over and at the very end of the hallway, I spied the silhouette of a slaver with an assault rifle firing into a Steel Ranger with black and red embellishments on his armor. I drew closer and recognized him by his special additions to his armor. It was Inquisitor Soufflé! This was my chance at revenge! I grinned evilly and looked around. No slavers, it was perfectly secure there for the time being.

I unfolded the bipod on my rifle and carefully slid the blood-spattered bullet into the chamber of the rifle. I racked the bolt and lay down on the floor, guaranteeing a stable shot. I double checked my surroundings and it was still safe. I peered down the sight and my vision jumped forward several yards, where I could clearly see the slaver gleefully beating on the Inquisitor’s armor while the Inquisitor struck back with his hooves while trying to reach his ornate pistol just out of his reach. He spied me as he reached for his pistol, and he froze. I froze too. What was I doing? I shook my head. Everything was so foggy… so blurry…

I gritted my teeth and peered down the sights again. Soufflé’s fancy cap barely hung onto his head by an ear and he looked at me with pleading eyes. Buck! Why did I have to notice that? I felt something wet collecting against my elbow and I looked down. Blood. More blood. I sighed and scooted over more. I was about to look down the sight again, but the wetness was too distracting. I sighed and looked down. The blood pool was getting larger! I was suddenly drawn to the small pool rippling in the middle. I touched my neck with my hoof. By the moon, that slaver had nicked me! I was already feeling weak from fighting, tired from running, and I just wanted to go home.

I peered down the sights. I could really use a nap… I blinked several times to try to clear my vision. One shot. I can’t miss. I took a deep breath and felt my pulse hammering in my ears. One. I lined up the shot. Two. I began to squeeze the trigger. Three. I heard something behind me and I let out my breath and whipped around. A Steel Ranger was coming down the hall! I had to hurry! I took another deep breath. Four. I steadied my claw and re-aimed. Five. My mind flashed back to my interrogation. Uh… Seven? “I don’t care anymore.” He’d said. Eight. My father’s dying words echoed through my mind. “You’re bound for greatness, little filly.” Nine. “You’re a good pony.” Ten. I pulled the trigger and the bullet exited the chamber and blasted the stallion to kingdom come.

I heard a Ranger running at me from around the corner now. He’d seen what I was about to do. He’d seen what I’d just done. I didn’t care. I laughed weakly and lay on my back. One bullet. I’d only needed one.

I heard Rumcake distantly as my vision wobbled. “Damn it, Frosty! What have you done?” I flopped over and peered down the sight. Both of them weren’t moving. Good. “You’re in big trou… damn it! I need a first aid kit over here!” he shouted. He ripped off his helmet. “We’re going to have a long talk about this later.” I weakly nodded. It was getting cold. And dark… and he had such dreamy eyes… “Stay with me! I need you to stay awake!” I closed my eyes. “You’re not going anywhere!” he shouted.

I’ll be back, I thought to myself. I just… need a little nap.

“…No, give me it, now!” I faintly heard some clanking sounds. “Drink up, Frosty…”

~~~~~

“…Hey, featherhead. Wake up.” I groaned and pulled the sheets over my head. “Hey, c’mon…” Whoever it was decided to poke my nose. “Boop! C’mon… waaaakey wakey!”

I tossed the covers back and sat up. I blearily opened my eyes and looked around, and was surprised by where I was. I was in a picturesque version of Cloudsdale, with my bed just set up at the entrance of the city. I looked at who was speaking and froze. There I was, curiously looking at… me. Though the me that was standing there had all four hooves, a longer mane from before I cut it, and she was wearing the most beautiful dress I’d ever seen!

“Hi! You remember this?” She spun around. “It’s our imaginary Gala dress!”

Oh, that’s right! It was just as I remembered it. It was mostly white, with bits of light blue trim and darker blue along the bottom. I had little snowflakes in my long mane, and it was tied back with a bow in the shape of a big fluffy cloud. This was an amazing dress and I looked stunning!

I smiled. “Yeah… I remember. I… we thought it up after we read about it in the library… What’s going on, anyway?” I motioned at Cloudsdale. “I thought it got destroyed?” I stared at the city. We were standing on a vast expanse of cloud where the city was also sitting on. “So, why am I here?”

Gala Frosty responded, “I’m you, you’re me, and all I really care about is our collective well-being. I was hoping you knew.” She gently shook her mane and adjusted some of the snowflakes in her mane. “All I know is that this Cloudsdale” – she motioned around us – “is based on that little postcard in your barracks.” Both of us stopped at a medium-sized cloudhouse. “I think we’re here.” I opened the door and walked in.

And I was completely caught off guard by a little teal filly cannonballing into my chest. “Yay! Mommy’s finally here!” Wait. Mommy? I peered down at the incredibly energetic little filly hanging onto me. She was actually me, as a filly! She saw my claw arm and squealed. “Oh no, Mommy! What happened to you?”

I sat down. Wow, really didn’t see this one coming. “I’m not your mommy, I’m you! From the fuuuuuuture.” I waved my hoof and claw around. Filly Frosty giggled in delight. “Is anypony else here?” She shook her head. I turned back to Gala Frosty. “What’s the point of all this?” I asked as I played with Filly Frosty.

Gala Frosty replied, “Well, what else are you going to do while bleeding out and concussed?” It seemed to make sense. “You should probably go take a nap. Something tells me you’ll be back. We’ll be fine, obviously.” Gala Frosty rolled her eyes and I nodded. Wow, was I really this snarky? Well, I might as well take a nap, I was getting tired of this anyway. I went upstairs and found another bed.

I hopped into the bed and got comfortable under the covers. I patted the pillow next to me. “Hey, mini-me! Wanna take a nap?” She shook her head. Yep, definitely a younger me: never time for naps, just energetic bouncing. I smiled and told the two, “If there are any more of me when I get back, I’m going to go insane. Sound okay?” Gala Frosty and Filly Frosty smiled.

I snuggled under the covers and drifted off to sleep, dismissing it all as a very vivid hallucination.

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Gun Nut – Pew pew pew! Bang! Bang bang! You gain +5 to your Guns and Repair skills.

-End of Chapter 2!-

Chapter 4: Hey! Where’s my stuff?

Chapter 4: Hey! Where’s my stuff?

“Are you okay, Rainbow Dash?”

I slowly became aware of a whispering in my vicinity. Poke. More whispering. Poke. Poke. My ribs ached, my legs ached, and my head pounded with the intensity of a thousand suns. Why wouldn’t anypony let me sleep in? Poke. Po—Okay, the ribs are completely off limits! I growled and, ignoring all pain, tried to spring up and swipe at the closest source of sound. Tried being the key word, because all I managed to do was groggily flop off whatever I was lying on. Several bewildered bedraggled ponies were standing around me in a rough circle, eyeing me in mild curiosity.

In terms of places I’d found myself waking up, this looked and felt like something out of a bad spy novel. Dim lighting, crummy decor, non-fuzzy hoofcuffs, and the pokiest mattress in the wasteland. A broken lamp leaned against the far wall, its bendy light extension hanging by a few exposed wires.

“Please stop,” I murmured. “My ribs are broken, so stop poking them.” I groaned and clutched my sides. Ow. The group took a few steps back. “What happened?” The ponies in the group looked at each other. Eventually one of them stepped forward. He looked familiar… that gray coat and the brown mane… and the fresh bandages wrapped around his legs did begin to make sense…

“Why did you let me go?” he asked. “You had an opportunity. I was helpless. Why?” I hung my head. Of course the first wastelander to talk to me was the one I’d recently mauled.

“I just… I don’t work that way.” I looked back at him. “I used to be about helping ponies.” I gestured to his friends. “When you attacked the base, I thought you were trying wipe out the Rangers so you could occupy the base. I had no qualms.” I looked around at my surroundings. I was in a quite large ramshackle building made of metal sheets, tape, and bits of concrete. “You’re just wastelanders trying to live. I didn’t realize the Rangers took your water talisman.”

“Rangers just stormed in one day… smashed our defenses and just took it,” the gray wastelander said. “Killed a few of our militia, too.” He looked around forlornly at the surrounding ponies, some of which nodded. “What were you doing in there?”

I shook my head. “I got taken prisoner a week or so ago. Been hanging around ever since.” I waved my blood-crusted claw at them. “I’ve been trying to put my life back together. They helped me out and I’m just stuck with them.” I pointed at the collar still strapped firmly around my neck, catching sight of my claw in the process. I couldn’t even move it because of all the dried blood stuck to it. I shuddered to think of what the inside of it looked like. Oh, Baked Potato was going to kill me!

“…You hungry?” he asked. I was shocked. I’d nearly torn him apart who knew how long ago! I nodded eagerly anyway. “Follow me. And keep that away from everypony,” he said, pointedly looking at my claw. I nodded and obediently followed. The other ponies left the building through various doorways. “Wait… maybe we should stop by the clinic first, because of your injuries and all. Doc Galactic might be able to fix you up.”

“I like that idea.” I winced. My ribs were still dully aching. Hopefully they hadn’t set improperly while I was out. “Ow. Ow. Ow.” Merely under-exerting myself was already turning about to be a mistake.

“What’s wrong?”

To make my point abundantly clear, I carefully wagged my speared leg at him while giving him my most sarcastic glare. “Boy, I wonder what could possibly be the problem.” I did my best not to wince, as it would have ruined the overall effect.

The wastelander rolled his eyes. “You baby.”

Without his consent, I hobbled closer and draped my wing over his back so I could use him for balance.

The gray wastelander pony basically dragged me around the town. On that subject, “town” may have been an exaggeration. The shacks scattered about didn’t appear to follow any sort of organizational pattern, let alone construction code. Everything about this place just screamed “junk”. A few actual buildings still stood between all the shacks, right next to all the ruins and trash piles. As far as I was aware, the wastelander was following an arbitrary path that hopefully led to medical attention.

“So who is this ‘Doc Galactic’? Is he any good?” I asked. Please, please be a good doctor!

“Galactic’s a great doctor! He’s also the only doctor around.” He nervously grinned. We passed a small cluster of tents, a few of which looked oddly out of place in the wasteland. A huge spotlight placed up higher on the hill behind us pointed down the path and to what I assumed was the front gate. “He helps these ponies go on with their lives, no matter what happens. Sure, his methods are probably a bit excessive or strange, but he usually gets everypony back on their hooves.” As we walked, some of the ponies I passed shied away or gave me dirty looks.

I grimaced against the pain in my midsection. All this limping was starting to jostle my lower ribs, both of which were definitely broken. I was pretty sure that the second lower rib on the right side was broken too.

Hey, idiot. It’s broken.

Thanks, brain.

I gingery poked my ribs with a hoof. Ow. Okay, bad idea. “Hey, does he have any painkillers? My leg’s killing me, my ribs are killing me, and my head feels like somepony landed on it.”

He looked a little sheepish. “I might have dropped you while I was getting you back over to my group.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “What? It wasn’t my fault somepony cut me up!” Oops. I guess he had a point.

“I’m sorry. I lost control, and I should be responsible for what I did.” I stopped to catch my breath.

The waste pony abruptly stopped, nearly making me trip and fall on my face. “It’s not entirely your fault that those dirty tin cans are makin’ you do things against your will.”

I was about to honestly point out that I knew full well what I was doing, but his conclusion was looking like a better alternative than the one I had planned. “Yeah, bomb collars tend to do that.” Turn away and lie through your teeth, Frosty.

“I’ll have to go see if somepony I know can get that off you. It doesn’t appear to be active, but I’m no bomb expert.” My makeshift crutch tugged at a few of his bandages. “So, why’d you start attacking us, anyway?”

“I thought you were the slavers?” I awkwardly improvised, giving him an unintentional awkward grin as well. “What?”

“Slavers?” he asked, completely ignoring my worst poker face.

“Yeah. Why?”

“I saw a bunch of bodies piled outside in the tunnels. I thought they were raiders.”

“Raiders, slavers… Same thing, right?”

He shook his head. “It can’t be a coincidence…” he muttered. I gave him a questioning look. “There’s a band of slavers that operate out of a small camp. It’s about an hour’s gallop from here. They’re vicious, angry, and there’s tons of them. Oh look, we’re here!”

We stopped in front of a slightly less dilapidated building with a big dark red cross painted on it. “…Is that cross… drawn… in blood?” I hesitantly asked. “And why is there a skeleton on a noose? That’s not even possible!”

“I told you. Strange,” the wastelander said. I shakily followed him inside. “Yo, Doc! I got another job for you!”

The thinnest, scraggiliest unicorn I’d ever seen wandered into the room. His off-white coat was stained with blood and his dark blue mane was tangled and messy. He wore what appeared to be a reinforced medical uniform, complete with multiple weapon holsters. Disturbingly enough, his choice of weaponry happened to be bonesaws. He had several different varieties in all shapes and sizes strapped to him, all of which were crusted with blood.

“Hey, Galactic! Wanna fix somepony for once?” the wastelander greeted, hopefully joking.

“And lose out on the fun? Fine.” The doctor turned to look at me. “Oooh! A pegasus! Haven’t taken one of you apart for a while!” I backed away in fear. This guy was crazy! He wasn’t coming anywhere near me! “Ahhahaha! Just kidding.” He stepped closer and peered at me closely. “I’ve never gotten a chance to dissect one of you yet.” Somehow I didn’t think that should make me feel better. “So, my winged friend, what appears to be the problem?”

“Broken ribs, crippled limb, pounding headache,” I recited. “I need to requisition two doses of aspirin, one dose of painkillers, and an extra roll of bandages.” The doctor looked mildly surprised. I looked back at him impatiently. “I really hope you can fix broken ribs.” I huffed.

“Ooooh, we know what we need, don’t we?” He moved over to a drawer and levitated out a facemask. “As much as you know about field medicine, you can’t just sit there with broken bones. Your ribs I can fix, maybe. It depends on the extent of the damage.” His horn glowed with magic as he spoke. “If your ribs are cracked, I can set them. If they are broken, that might be a touch more tricky. Not out of my expertise, of course! Heh.” He walked over and touched his horn to my forehead.

“Now let’s see…” he muttered. An unpleasant tingly sensation washed through my entire body. Ugh. It made me feel so… unclean. After a few seconds, the glow on his horn faded away. “Okay, follow me, hop on the table and let’s get started!” he said ecstatically.

I dubiously agreed and lay on my side on his medical table. “Now what?” I asked. I heard humming from behind me. I became slightly worried when I heard the clanking of surgical tools followed by the quiet scraping sound of a bonesaw being drawn.

“Now, just relax and count down from… nineteen.” I rolled my eyes. “Well? Start counting! This is going to be much more painful if you’re awake,” he told me.

I sighed and started counting. “Nineteen… Eighteen… Seventeen…” I felt his horn poke the back of my head. “Sixteen… Fifteen…” I drifted off into a dreamy dark abyss as I continued to count.

~~~~~

And I’m back in Cloudsdale. Gala Frosty was there to greet me when I awoke. “Welcome back! How was your trip in real-land?”

“Uh… not much happened.” I answered awkwardly. “Any more me’s show up yet?” I looked around. Filly Frosty was nowhere to be seen and Drunk Frosty sounded like she was attempting to make out with a cloud.

“Do you think we can trust him? The doctor, I mean. He doesn’t come off as the kind of surgeon that earned his medical license,” Gala Frosty asked with concern in her voice. I shook my head.

“My kind of guy,” Drunk Frosty shouted from another room. Both of us glared in her direction. “And admit it, he’s kiiiiinda cute!”

We both ignored her. “Well, what do we do now?” Gala Frosty asked. Good question. I had no idea at this point in time. I’d been captured twice, essentially let go, and now I was passed out on a medical table letting some insane “doctor” operate on me.

“Well, I do owe them… maybe I can convince the Rangers to give the talisman back?” I suggested. Gala Frosty gave me a questioning look. “What? It could happen.” She continued to glare at me. “Okay, first I help these wastelanders out, then I try to get the Rangers to give the talisman back. Maybe then I can get something going.”

Filly Frosty slowly floated into the room, rubbing her eyes. “Wuh? What’s going on?” she asked groggily. She looked around the room and when she saw me, her eyes lit up. “Hey! You’re back!” She cannonballed into me and hugged me fiercely. She looked up at me with her giant green eyes. “The creepy guy with the hood says to stop bothering him.”

Both of us stared at her blankly. “Who?” Gala Frosty asked. “Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” I was confused. Obviously, all of us were confused. I didn’t know anypony who habitually wore a hood, did I?

“But Mort said to tell Big Frosty and only Big Frosty!” she whined. We stared blankly at her. She rolled her eyes. “The creepy hooded guy.” We both oh’ed in response. “He said to stop annoying him.”

“You said so already. Alright, other me’s. Anypony know who this guy is?” I asked the gathered Frosties. “How about you, Drunky?” I shouted. No reply. “Somepony go see whether she ate that cloud.” I facehoofed. Celestia, I really hope I wasn’t really like this when I was drunk. “I’m going to go take a nap. I’ll be back later, I guess.”

~~~~~

I slowly awoke to the sight of blood. Lots of blood. Judging by my orientation, the blood was on the ceiling. On the bright side, I’d been uncuffed at some point while I’d been knocked out so I had that at least. I was lying on my back in a surprisingly springy mattress in the town clinic. My midsection no longer hurt, but it was covered in bandages. My head no longer hurt as much and my hind leg appeared to be shrapnel-free and wrapped in a layer of healing bandages. I sighed in relief. I glanced at my claw and noted that somepony had done their best in cleaning it.

“And how are we doing this fine evening?” Galactic asked nonchalantly. “Now, I have good news, bad news, and some more good or bad news, considering what you con—” Activate death glare. “Right, anyway. Good news: I fixed you up! Your cracked ribs have been mended and set. Bad news: Treatment will have set you back quite a few caps. And the medium news: I decided to remove your two lower ribs! For science!” I gaped in shock. “Now, before you overreact, this is a win-win situation! I get some pegasus bones to examine, and you get to be more flexible!” A snarl escaped my muzzle. “Hey! I had no choice! They were potentially going to harm your internal organs! Okay, not really. Anyway, it’s just one rib on either side.”

“You cut me open. And cut out two of my ribs.” I growled at him. “Whatever gave you the right to remove them?” I was insanely pissed. Great, I lose part of a leg and now two ribs. What would happen next? The other leg? Then something occurred to me. “Wait, what do you mean a few caps?”

“Well, I’m charging you twelve hundred caps for the surgery.” I was horrified. Twelve hundred? Where was I going to get that kind of money? Galactic noticed the look on my face. With a grin, he continued, “But I’m willing to drop it down to eight hundred if you let me keep the ribs.” He even levitated my still-bloody ribs and dangled them in front of me. “Deal?”

I crossed my forelegs with a huff. “Six hundred and you treat them with a little respect.” He looked pained, but he nodded anyway. “So how do I pay you the other six hundred?” How would I pay him? I had no way to get caps!

Doc Galactic turned to leave the room. “Once you’re feeling a little better, get a job in the tunnels. You’ll pay off in two or three trips. Now get some rest.” He left me in the candlelight of the room. What would I do?

As if Celestia had demanded it, the gray wastelander pony slipped into the room. “I heard you’re off the table. Feeling better?” I harrumphed at him. “Had to make a deal with the Doc, I assume?” I nodded angrily. “How much?” he quietly asked.

“Six hundred,” I whispered back. “How am I going to pay him?”

“I have your answer.” He sat down next to my mattress and explained, “I work in the Underhill. We scavenge materials, resources, the like.” He raised his bandaged forelegs. “I can’t work because somepony tore me up.” I folded my ears back sheepishly. “So!” He grinned at me. Not good. “You get to take over my shift.”

“Menial labor. This is what I’ve been degraded to.”

“In Underhill, you’re paid one hundred caps for working, then another fifty for every five pounds of scrap you bring back. Since you’re working for me now, you get forty of those one hundred caps.”

Not bad. It could be worse.

Shut up, brain.

“And every fifty extra caps… I guess you can keep forty of those. Scrap’s getting hard to find, anyway.” He shuffled around in his saddlebags. When’d he get those? “Here’s my access card.” He held out a small card on a loop of rope. “You’ll be able to get into the tunnels and through the militia with it.”

I reached out with a hoof to take the rope, when I noticed my bare leg. “Hey! Where’s my stuff?” I looked around. “Hey! Where’s my bucking bag?” I glared at the gray wastelander. “WHERE. ARE. THEY?”

The wastelander backed away. “Scrap Bank’s got your stuff! We can talk to her later if you want!” I edged closer to him and growled. “She’ll take anything interesting we scrounge up and we trade to her for supplies and food!” He covered his head with his bandaged forelegs. “Please don’t hurt me!”

I caught myself and backed up. We’re not doing that again.

Thanks for the catch, brain.

“Okay. Let’s have a word with her. I want my stuff back.” The wastelander nodded. I blinked, then asked, “What’s your name, anyhow?”

He blinked. “I’m Rusty Parts. Welcome to Happy Hills.”

~~~~~

I barreled through the store’s doorway in a furious blur of fur and feathers. I caught a glimpse of a green and pink mare sitting behind the counter, and I immediately pounced on her. “Where’s my stuff?” I yelled at her. The poor mare was shaking in fright. I sort of pitied her, but I was angry and hopped up on painkillers. “Where’s my bag?” I yelled into her face. Before I could torture her further, Rusty Parts ran in and pulled me off of her.

“Hey! Calm the buck down!” he cried. “Look, I’ll handle this, okay?” He trotted over behind the counter and helped her up. “Scrap, I’m sorry about her but I’d rather not piss her off right about now. And she needs her bag.” Scrap Bank looked at me and I grudgingly nodded. “Can you let her have it back?”

Scrap Bank shook her head. “I… I can’t give it back to you!” I bristled and growled at her. “Eeeep! I really can’t! The mayor won’t allow it!” I snorted in frustration. “The only way I can give it back to you is if you buy it back!” Scrap Bank hastily exclaimed. She was getting more and more panicked with every passing second.

“You want me. To buy my stuff back. That you stole from me,” I enunciated. Scrap Bank nervously nodded. I sighed.

You’re better than this, Frosty. You can deal with it later.

Shut up, brain. I’m working on it.

I raked my claw through my mane and replied, “Fine, I’ll buy it back. But you have to hold it for me, okay? If somepony gets it before I do…” I flexed my claw. “Somepony might have an accident.”

Scrap Bank hastily pawed through the contents of my bag and pulled out my dad’s hat. “Here, you can take this back!” I reached out for it and she continued, “I can say I traded it off! The mayor won’t know! You’ll have to buy your bag and everything back for eight hundred caps.”

I rolled my eyes. How was I going to pay that? On consolation, I felt a little better now that I knew my dad’s hat was safely back on my head. “Now, where does a pony get some food around here?” I didn’t have to look back to see how scared poor Scrap Bank was after that confrontation.

Later, after we’d acquired some relatively inexpensive hay chips and a can of hundreds- year-old corn, courtesy of Scrap Bank (provided I left as soon as possible), we started to discuss what I’d be doing to pay off Doc Galactic’s medical bill.

“So you’ll be working the south tunnels with several other residents,” Rusty said. He pointed on a map, assisted by the flickering porch lamp hanging above us. “There’s a few passages down here” – he circled a portion with his hoof – “that I managed to hide away from everypony else.”

“So… you want me to go check it out?” I asked. He nodded. “Don’t you want the scrap to sell?” I felt a little guilty for preventing him from working.

“Don’t worry about it! Doc’s gonna pay me for helping around the clinic. I just need you to watch out for some things while you’re in Underhill.” He looked around and leaned in closer to me. “This place was built for a reason. I’ve seen plenty of crazy stuff in there. Labs. Offices. Machine shops. We’ve stripped out most of the usable scrap, but I’ve got questions.”

“I’ve got one for you.” I hoofed the edges of the map. “Where’d you get this from?” It was a somewhat detailed, mostly intact map of the tunnels. It was covered with a really tough plastic on the outside, but it was still flexible enough to roll up. There was a label in the corner and a few other random arbitrary markings, but I couldn’t muster the effort to decipher it.

“I pulled it off a metal frame that was attached to a wall in Underhill. As far as I know, nopony else has found one that they’ve been able to take, if they have.” He rolled up the map and tucked it into a pocket on his bag. He rummaged about and dropped some pins and twisted bits of metal onto the table. “Here. I’ve got quite a few of these. Can you pick a lock?”

I nodded. “I’d need the screwdriver from my bag. But yeah, I have experience in lockpicking.” Experience, as in multiple failed attempts at breaking one lock.

He looked confused. “Can’t you just use one of your claw blades?” I looked at my claw and examined it. I guess the end of the talon was thin enough to work.

“Hm. I guess so.” I gingerly picked up the pins with my claw and slotted them into my mane and tail. I stared at the metal sticks. “Where do I hide these?”

“Pockets?” He suggested. I made a show of patting myself down and flapped my wings irritably. “Right. You don’t have pockets.” He dropped the metal sticks in his bag and tossed out more pins. “We’ll have to fix that.” He looked at my wings. “And maybe we should hide those. Most wastelanders won’t tolerate pegasi, Enclave or not.” He sat in thought, then got up. “If you’re going to be working in Underhill, you need some work clothes. I’ll go see if I’ve got some extras lying around.”

Midway through eating a hay chip, I realized my recent exploits were getting rather surreal. I went from Enclave to Rangers to whoever these ponies were and the latter two were a lot nicer than I ever anticipated. “Lemme ask you a question. Why are you even helping me? You do realize that I was the one that did, uh…” I shyly gestured at his bandaged limbs. “Most of that. All of that, probably.”

Rusty didn’t stop shoving dried chips into his mouth. “Well, you had the slave collar look goin’ on and I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. At the time, it seemed obvious—those walking soup cans probably took you hostage and are using your life as leverage to make you do whatever they wanted. You sounded pretty down at the time and I was a few pints light, but you seemed genuinely appalled at yourself. It took a little convincing, but I appealed to Ge—uh, a buddy to patch you up and bring you back with us. You’re free now. Er, free-ish.”

“Oh,” was all I could muster.

“What? Just an ARK. An Act of Random Kindness. My daddy taught me that one. Fighting will only get us so far, you know.” He paused as he located another chip to munch on. “Also something about kindness being an element, but we all know that’s a little stupid.”

“I… uh, appreciate your kindness and stuff,” I awkwardly mumbled back, unsure how to really respond.

“No problem. If you really feel bad about it, you’re paying my medical fees, so I guess we’re sort of even.”

Once we were finished eating, Rusty led me toward a shoddy row of what appeared to be living quarters nearby the shop. They were all very dilapidated and mostly held together with tape, glue, and metal sheets. A few of them were made of concrete and steel, but we weren’t going there. We headed to the middle shack that was marginally less rusty and walked in. “You live here?” I asked. He nodded. “It’s… cozy.”

His idea of cozy appeared to be the near exact definition of claustrophobic. Stuff was scattered everywhere except inside of the storage containers they probably belonged in. If I spread out my wings all the way, each wingtip could probably touch each wall, give or take a feather or two’s distance. At least it appeared that there was half of a second floor that wasn’t nearly cluttered as the ground floor. The only light in the entire shack looked like some sort of industrial-grade lamp rigged up to a spark battery.

“It’s a rust bucket.” He nodded. “But I call it home. I share it with somepony. Lucky for you everypony’s either working or sleeping right now.” He dived into a chest and rummaged through some clothing. “Nah… Nah…” He took one out and held it up to me. He immediately put it away. “I think she might have something in your size.” Both of us suddenly heard hoofsteps drawing closer. “Uh-oh. That might be the shift boss again. Quick! Hide!” he whispered urgently at me.

I looked around in panic. Where could I hide? I glanced at the clothes chest. Too small. Reflexively I jumped and flattened myself against the ceiling, making sure to tuck my tail under me. Nopony ever looked up, right? I motioned him to go open the door. “Just make sure nopony looks up!” I whispered back. This was a terrible plan!

You think?

Shut it, brain. This is all you.

From my perch above, I watched as an orange mare with wild, untidy brown hair strolled into the building and flopped down onto a mattress. “Hey, bro! I’m back! Anything interesting at the Doc’s?” she said. Rusty sighed in relief. “Somethin’ the matter?” she asked.

Rusty looked more relaxed. “Oh hey! It’s you.” He looked up at the ceiling. I frantically motioned at him to stop. “You could say that. Got a job at the Doc’s.” Why are you still looking up here? Stop! I kept waving at him. In my panic, I didn’t notice a loose feather slowly drift down to the ground. By the time I noticed it, it was halfway to the ground. When was the last time I fixed my feathers?

I watched as my beautiful, incriminating teal feather drifted to the ground, right into the line of sight of the other two ponies in the room. The orange mare picked it up. “Woah… where’d this come from?” She looked up. We locked gazes, and neither of us spoke. I nervously grinned. “Please tell me I’m completely wasted right now.”

“Uh… you’re wasted?” I nervously suggested. Rusty shot me a look. “What?” I shrugged. “I live to serve.” I looked back to the orange wastelander. “Okay, fine. You’re not wasted. I’m actually here hiding on your ceiling.” I looked between the two of them. “How was your day?” I added.

She looked to Rusty. “Want to explain?”

“Uh… well…” Rusty stammered. “Okay, I found her. Can we keep her?” The mare slapped him. “OW! Okay, okay.” He looked up. “You can come down from there.” I gently landed on the floor. “This is my sister, Broken Parts.” I waved at her. “Sis, this is… uh…” He looked at me desperately.

What? Oh, right. “I’m Frosty Winds, Former Enclave Scout. Uh… version two-point-oh.” I waggled my claw at them. “Nice to meet you.” I glanced at Rusty and sighed. Might as well get this over with now. “I also kinda mauled your brother a little. I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

She pinned me against the wall and slammed her hoof next to my ear. “This is all your fault! You hurt him!” She turned to her brother. “Why are you helping her?” He backed away nervously. “What have you done with my brother?!”

“It’s a long story. Basically, she helped me get that position at Doc’s so that might mean we can get this place fixed up a little,” Rusty piped up. “After she pays off the Doc and gets her stuff back from Scrap, we can figure things out from there. By the way, she’s taking over my shift so she’ll need some duds.”

Broken Parts held me against the wall, deep in thought. “Well…” She exhaled. “I guess you’re about my size. This town is also an equal opportunity refugee camp, so most of us won’t really care about you too much. Unfortunately, pegasi are a touchy subject for some of the old-timers hanging around here, so we’re going to have to hide your wings. At least you didn’t show up during the lunch rush.” She let me go and dug around in a chest. “Doc’s not the talkative nor believable type, so you’ll probably be fine for a while.” She took out a worn, dirty shirt with baggy sleeves and a pair of coveralls. “These should cover up your wings nicely.”

I grudgingly started pulling on the outfit. “So… when do I start working?” I asked, as I attempted to get the shirt on.

“My shift starts at three whistles.” I opened my muzzle to ask, but then he explained, “The day is divided into quarters. Each work shift is followed by recreational time, then overtime, and after that it’s nap time. The work shifts are staggered. One at one, one at three.” He opened a locker and scooted some kind of saw to me. “This is an auto-saw. Use it to cut up larger pieces of metal. You’ll need it.”

I gripped the bit of the auto-saw in my mouth. Light, maneuverable, and deadly in case of emergency. It was a worn yellow saw with a three-sided blade that looked very similar to a radiation symbol. “And I just cut things up?” I asked around a mouthful of saw.

“Yep, you’ll get a carrying bag when you show up. Broken’s got some pockets down the front of that shirt and a few more scattered about for all the other cool things you think you want to keep. Trust me, there’s some really cool stuff down there,” Rusty explained. “You’ll want to get some rest. Work starts…” He looked out the door. “Soon. Just show the gate ponies the card and they’ll let you in.”

I looked around the room. “Where will I be staying? Here?” They looked at each other and nodded. “Uh… Do you mind if I tuck myself in that dark spot in the rafters? It’s a… habit thing. Also, I’d hate to cause more problems for you two.”

“I’ll go procure some bedding material later from Scrap Bank. She’s got everything.” Broken said. “Go ahead and park yourself there for now. Rusty will wake you up when work starts, if the whistle doesn’t get your fat flank up.” I rolled my eyes and clambered up to the top of a locker. I’d seen the large panel lying over the top of the living area, right underneath the sloped roof and, for some odd reason, I found it to be quite fitting. I hopped up and found a dry spot to rest in, hopefully I could get some sleep before I had to work. I curled up into a ball and quickly dozed off.

~~~~~

I was rudely interrupted from my hallucination-free sleep by a loud, shrill whistle blasting through my ears. I slowly made my way to the edge of my sleeping area. “Is it time to go?” I mumbled. I peered over the edge. “Who wants to take me to work?” Rusty was nowhere to be seen, however Broken was looking around in various boxes and lockers.

“Yep! Just a sec…” She pulled out some kind of bulky chip thing from a crate. “You’re a smart Enclave birdie, right? Maybe you can tell us what this is.” I dropped down with a soft whump and took the chip in my claw. “According to the piece of paper it came with, it does interference stuff but we don’t really know what it attaches to.”

I was too tired to argue about where this had come from. A miniscule sticker stuck to the bottom corner of the chip just barely read “Electronic Disruption Device, Mk.3 Prototype”. I continued to squint at the faded text for a moment longer before I finally gave up trying to make out the even smaller fine print under it. I tucked it into a pocket where I hoped it wouldn’t get damaged. “I’ve got the card and this saw. What else do I need to go to Underhill?”

“You know where you’re going, right?” Rusty asked. “To my hidden stashy place?”

Vaguely probably wouldn’t cut it. “I don’t really remember,” I shamefully replied, scratching my head.

Rusty rolled his eyes. “Here, just take my map. Don’t lose it and try not to damage it. Bring it back when you’re done.” He sighed, tucking the rolled up map into a loop on my coveralls.

“That should be it. Follow me!” Broken sang. We left the room and walked through the town, following the flow of the other ponies also heading in the same direction. I was getting a few strange looks, but nopony really paid much attention. “Just don’t do anything too stupid,” she whispered. We stopped at a run-down building with a large door built in it. “This is my stop. I’m going to hit Scrap Bank’s shop. See ya!” She waved goodbye and wandered off.

I waved back and stood in the group of ponies all waiting to enter the building. There were a few security ponies checking the workers’ passes before letting them into the room. When I got to the front, I held up the access card Rusty had given me and showed it to the security pony. “I’m filling in for Rusty Parts.”

“Good to know,” he grumbled. He took a closer look at the card, then gave it back to me. “He explain the rules?” I nodded. “Good. Now get on the elevator.” I nervously entered. So this was an elevator, eh? I looked around. I’d never really needed to ride an elevator, because of my wings. I could just fly everywhere! I sighed. Just two weeks ago I was cleaning out bunks and running letters. Who would have known I’d end up like this? I stared at my claw with a pang of sorrow. I’d lost so much. How would I fit in if I could even get back?

I noticed a mare next to me also staring at my claw. “That’s really cool,” she quietly exclaimed. I looked at her. She didn’t look much different from many of the other wasteland ponies I’d seen today. Ragged, tired, disheveled, yet determined. She was a unicorn though, which was an interesting change. “How’dja get it?” The elevator squeaked and clanked into action. We slowly descended into the darkness and I suddenly became aware of a nervous sensation in my stomach. I was tempted to open my wings for stability, just out of instinct.

“I don’t remember,” I automatically told her. Should I socialize with these ponies? “I woke up without my leg and got a new one.” I turned to her. She rolled her eyes. “Wanna help me out? I’m…” I stopped for a second. I couldn’t tell her my real name! It was too… pegasistic.

What?

Shut up, brain. You know what I mean.

“I’m… Pat. I’m new here,” I lied.

She smiled. “You’ve got a silly name too?” I nodded. Sure, let’s go with that. “The ponies around here call me Trouble. I operate in the south tunnels. You?”

“Yep. I’m taking Rusty’s spot because he’s in the clinic,” I told her. No need to tell her everything just yet. “How does everything work?”

The elevator ground to a halt. A set of large doors opened and the group around us slowly moved into the large room that was in front of us. “This is the hub, the center of Underhill.” She pointed at a large pair of scales manned by several ponies. “You take metal there for ten caps a pound.” She pointed at the booth we were approaching. “On the way out, you’ll go through the other side. Show your pass and you’ll get paid.” We shuffled through the narrow gap between the booth and the wall to enter the hub. After getting a good look, I realized the branching tunnels were broken into four primary directions: North, South, East, and West. “When you head over to the South branch, the forepony will give you a bag for your scrap. You’ll turn it in when you get your caps.”

We walked over to the tunnel labeled “South Wing” and we spoke to the guard posted there. “Hey, Burly!” The guard slowly turned around. “Anythin’ new?”

“Hey there, Troubs! Who’s the new mare?” He stared idly at me. Kinda creepy, considering the circumstances. “She’s kinda cute.” I blushed a little. Wow, really creepy now. “Anyway, here’s your scrap bags.” He ambled over to a box and tossed each of us a pair of large saddlebags. “Careful out there. Somethin’s rocked the bloatsprite hive. Doc’s gettin’ more patients lately ‘cause of it.”

Trouble frowned. “The metaphorical bloatsprite hive or the literal bloatsprite hive?” He stared at us lazily and shrugged. “Wanna tell us?” Another shrug. I couldn’t tell whether he didn’t want to tell us of whether he just didn’t know. Trouble sighed. “Will I know it when I see it?”

“Yep, I’m sure it’ll find you. Happy scrappin’, fillies.” He turned to stare back into the tunnels. We scooted around him and made our way into the dimly lit tunnels.

After a few minutes of silence, I noticed that the tunnels and passageways were very similar to the ones in the Steel Ranger base.

“Hey… these tunnels… do they seem familiar?” Trouble gave me a flat stare. “Uh, let me rephrase that.” I faceclawed. “You notice all these tunnels look the same? It can’t be a coincidence.”

“Well, these tunnels are the only ones I’ve seen. But I guess you have a point—all the tunnels here are all identical in design.” Right. She hadn’t been in a Rangers base before. “I think they were mass produced and made modularly, so it makes sense.” She suddenly made a turn into an identical hallway and started going down it. “I’ve got some scrap here just waiting to be turned into caps. See ya!”

“Uh… okay! Bye!” I waved and moved on. I looked around and made sure nopony else was in the area before opening up Rusty’s map. “What the hay is Seapony Energy?” I whispered to myself after seeing the company’s emblem on the bottom left corner. A quick peek at the directional markings on the walls and floors helped me pinpoint my location. The map had identified my location as the eastern corridors, specifically the science division and reactor floor.

Thanks to the map, I’d easily located the area Rusty had barricaded with a large piece of concrete that had dropped from the ceiling. With great difficulty I shifted the barrier just enough to squeeze through and into the short tunnel behind it. “Energy Application Offices, B1,” read the plaque nailed beside the door. “Please keep all products and materials inside this room.” I unconsciously touched the little chip in my pocket. Is this where Rusty had gotten this? Around the room I spied some scrap-worthy pieces of junk and some power cells for a laser weapon. I pocketed the cells to sell to Scrap Bank, or maybe for personal use if I ever found anything worth powering.

After thoroughly looting the room and taking everything that wasn’t nailed down (if it was, I used the saw to liberate it) I decided there wasn’t anything else to take and moved on. The next room housed a broken-down Sentry bot and several sealed chambers housing several more dormant Sentry bots. I looked around in slight confusion. Who’d smashed this one? I strolled over to it and started gutting as many parts from it as I could. After procuring several more energy cells and a missile, I decided that I might as well chop up the metal body for more scrap.

As the saw blade slowly chewed through the metal, I had some time to think. What would I do after this? The Rangers had me on a leash—a leash that hadn’t decided to randomly explode just yet, so I was definitely thankful for that. Even on the random off chance that I managed to escape or whatever, what could I even do? Go back to the Rangers? Enclave life was over for sure at this point. I’d spent too much time on the surface. According to the political horseshit, I was “contaminated” and a threat to the health of others. I growled and threw a lump of slag at a wall in anger. I flicked my wings in thought. What would I do?

I heard the sound of metal scraping on metal and I spun around, combat mode engaged. I relaxed when I realized it was just a small keypad opening up on the wall. Strange, why would you hide a keypad here? I trotted over to it and squinted at the dim display. “Enter… passcode?” I ran my claw through my mane. C’mon brain! Got anything?

See which buttons are the most worn-out.

That… that wasn’t such a bad idea. I blew the dust off of the keypad and stared at it harder. A few of the keys were a little worn and cracked, but only one key stood out with its complete lack of numbering. “Okay, it can’t be this simple…” I mumbled to myself. “Here goes nothing.” I hoped it wouldn’t set off an alarm if I got it wrong. “One… One… One………. One.”

I heard a gentle beep from the keypad and a door at the far end of the room unsealed. I could only faceclaw. Really? Super-secure room with a secret keypad whose combination was a bucking series of ones? I ignored the toxic amount of stupidity I was currently experiencing and investigated the room. “It’s just an office…” Just your standard pre-war fare: desk, two chairs, a filing cabinet, and a terminal. I dug through the desk and was slightly surprised by the loot inside. Fifteen caps, a probably salvageable laser pistol, and three cigarettes! I shoved all these into various pockets in my suit and hoped the bulge of the pistol didn’t stand out too much. “What kind of pony hoards bottle caps before the war?”

I took a peek in the filing cabinet and found yet another bobby pin, along with some old dusty documents and several old bits. I stashed the bobby pin in my mane and dropped the bits into another pocket. After taking a look around the room, I shrugged and started sawing the drawers apart and shoving them into my scrap bag. After thinking for a few more seconds, I began the slow and arduous task of chopping up the filing cabinet itself, too. Scrap is scrap, right?

The terminal intrigued me. I idly poked the power button on the terminal on the desk and jumped in surprise when it booted up with an abrupt beep. I attempted to clean the dusty screen with my fetlock, with little avail. The words on the screen read, “Password?” I tapped my chin and guessed “password”.

The terminal unlocked. Shocking.

I scrolled through the entries on the screen. I paused at “Unlock” and pressed enter.

Somewhere, something faintly shifted and thumped—presumably in the open position, but it wasn’t in this room. Unsatisfied with the results of that, I highlighted “Message Center (1)” and pressed enter on that instead. As I waited for the text to finish scrolling, I took out my frustration on the remaining drawers that hadn’t been reduced to scrap metal.

After the last of the filing cabinet had been chopped up into movable pieces, I sat down and leaned against the side of the desk. That’s enough chopping for now, I told myself. I began reading the long message that never actually reached its intended recipient.

My Dear Director:

It is my regrettable decision that I must shut down your little science department so quickly. I understand your attachment to your various projects in your department. However, need I remind you we are supposed to be an electric company! Company stock has skyrocketed ever since the Neighagra Falls Hydroelectric Dam project was announced, and corporate doesn’t want anything to jeopardize profits. I do not know what you are currently working on, but it’s clearly costing the company too much from what the number-crunchers keep dropping in my tank. Again, I regret having to do this to you, but you have been shut down. Cease research at once and file all your findings. Destroy the rest and bury your connections to the MWT.

Your friend and boss,
Wavebreak

I sat back and deliberated on the message. Somepony had been working on some really top-secret stuff here! I checked my map again to find the quickest way out. All this sneaky stuff was already making my brain hurt.

I idly poked at my bulging scrap bags. They were starting to get uncomfortably heavy, so I grudgingly picked them up and headed out before I ended up with more stuff than I could actually carry back. If I thought a little creatively, I could definitely cram a load of other things in them before I had to leave. I poked my head into the hallway and spied another doorway I hadn’t yet looted.

I dragged my scrap bags over to the door and noticed the keypad next to it. “If only I could hack this keypad…” I complained to myself. I rolled my eyes and tried four sequential ones again, just in case. Imagine my surprise when that didn’t work. Okay, so we were dealing with somepony who was smart enough to have an actual numerical combination. I tried the next best thing. “One… Two… Three… Four?” The door beeped at me angrily and the keypad flashed red.

Wait… Isn’t the door metal?

Yeah, of course. Why?

Don’t you have an auto-saw?

I sat there in silence for a moment, then faceclawed. Of course. Shut up, brain.

I hefted the saw and chopped my way through the door, right between the words “No” and “entry”. After the door had been chopped up into small enough pieces for me to shove into my scrap bags, I entered the room and began to choke on the dust hurricane that greeted me. Once I had recovered my breath, I found myself in a large room lined with several desks, a multitude of filing cabinets, and what appeared to be a snack machine in the corner.

I was pulled out of my room analysis by the strange noise again. I perked up my ears and held my breath as I strained to identify the noise. I was definitely closer to it, that was for sure. There it was again! It was some kind of scratching, scraping, clanking sound in the walls somewhere. I dismissed it as a few giant killer bugs having a scuffle in a room somewhere and turned my attention back to the potential loot in the room. I could probably steal most of the drawers and maybe one filing cabinet before I was full on scrap.

One drawer after another, I checked their contents then cut them into little flat sections to shove into my bags. Most of the contents were just old outdated documents and papers I really didn’t care for, but at least there were a few bottle caps, pre-war bits, and three .44 bullets. I remembered the terminal from before, and I hastily checked the few scattered terminals on the now-empty desks. All of them were broken and inaccessible, except for one.

Lucky for me this terminal was still logged in to the home screen: Seapony Energy Security Services. I opened the menu and squinted at the options. “Open Surveillance Room”, “Recalibrate Turrets”, “Clear targeting data”, and “Deactivate Turrets” were the only options available. Why would this place need turrets? I clicked the “Deactivate Turrets” button, only to be greeted by an error message. Shrugging that aside, I selected “Open Surveillance Room” and heard a click from the snack machine in the room.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered to myself. A hidden room behind a snack machine? Really? I trotted over to the snack machine itself and forcefully relieved it of a few bags of hay chips in quiet rage. I then shoved the snack machine over to reveal a small, white room filled with monitors and a single chair. “Wha…?” I had no idea why an energy company would need so many hidden rooms, nevermind the turrets. Most of the monitors just showed a haze of static, but a few were still showing some shaky images. I dropped myself into the chair and scanned the monitors. The ones that appeared to be working were a few hallway cameras, one office camera, and a very shaky image from “RCT_SEC4”. I turned my attention to this monitor and attempted to figure out what was on it.

The image was slightly blurry and fuzzy, but I could make out what looked like a control room. There were terminals and computers along the left wall, and a large window covering the other wall. The camera was positioned so I could see through part of the window into the darkness of the next room beyond. A sudden movement in the darkness drew my eye. What was that? I scooted closer to the monitor. Some… thing was moving back there! I felt my heart involuntarily speed up. The thing was large, for sure. I tapped the monitor with transparent hopes that the image would clear up and just prove to be my imagination.

I felt something brush against my muzzle and I jumped back in fright. I exhaled in relief when I realized what I’d bumped into. It was a small black joystick with several buttons next to it, most likely to control the cameras. I pressed the corresponding button and pushed the joystick to the right. Sure enough, the screen slowly panned to the right, allowing me to get a better look at the shape.

It was shaped somewhat like a pony, if ponies were large, inordinately bulgey, and made entirely of steel plates. I turned the camera further and started to zoom in, when the shape suddenly stopped moving. I immediately stopped moving the camera and froze. I even held my breath in terror. It slowly turned its head and stared right into the camera with its one, large, glowing blue eye.

I screamed and fell out of the chair. Oh Celestia, I need to get out of here! I hurriedly grabbed my bags and proceeded to haul my plot out of the room. On my way out, I spied something shiny, orange, and tantalizingly lootable. I grabbed it and galloped all the way to the hub, never looking back.

~~~~~

“Hey, little filly… what’s chasin’ you?” Burly asked nonchalantly as I dashed past him. “Hey! That’s a nice haul. Be sure to bring the bag back, ‘kay?” I ignored him and galloped toward the giant scales. I had to get out of here! Had it seen me? I really hoped it didn’t! I stopped at the table where a bored looking stallion was idly scribbling on it with a large marker in his teeth.

“Drop the bag on that side. We’ll count it out.” I obediently and hastily dropped my fully-loaded bag onto one end, where a larger buck started dropping five-pound weights onto the other. He grunted in slight interest when he had thirty-five pounds on his side and kept adding weights. “So, my pretty lady, where’d you get all this scrap from?”

I shrugged. “Mostly filing cabinets and the better half of a Sentry bot.” They both looked somewhat shocked. “What?” I remembered something. “There’s a missile in there somewhere. I expect extra for that.”

“Why didn’t we think of that?” he muttered. “And yes, you will be compensated for the… missile.” He shuffled around in his desk. “As for the scrap…” He turned to the pony that was hauling the weights, who nodded at the large pile of them. “That’s an impressive sixty-five pounds.” He pushed several small bags of caps at me. “There’s your pay. Six hundred fifty caps for the scrap, One hundred for the missile, and another hundred for working. Now go away.”

I shoved the caps into several of my many pockets and started toward the elevator. Okay, time to go buy my stuff back! I didn’t notice Trouble chasing me until she grabbed me in a hug, nearly crushing my neck. “Heya Pat! Nice to know you’re back!” I resisted my first impulse to throw her off and stab her. “How much you make?”

“Uh… somewhere like eight hundred some caps. Why?” I asked. “Well, it’s more like I made around six hundred because I have to pay back Rusty.”

“Wow! I only usually manage to make around three hundred. What’s your secret?” she asked, while we both got on the elevator.

“Steal everything that isn’t nailed down. If it is, steal the nails too.” I grinned at her. “How else?”

“I dunno. Hey, are you doin’ anything later?” she asked.

Hmm. Well, I did have to buy my stuff, pay Rusty… “Yeah, I’m going to be pretty busy. You?”

“Nope.” The elevator shuddered to a stop. “Well, I guess I’ll see you next shift!” With that, she strolled out of the elevator and into town. She was annoying, but her momentary company was enjoyable.

I made my way over to Scrap Bank’s store. “Hey Scrappy! I’ve got stuff and caps for you!” She peeked over the counter. I waved my claw at her and she dove behind the counter again. I went over to the counter and peeked over. “Look, I’m sorry about before. I was really angry and I lost control a little. Apology accepted?”

She looked up and fixed me with a dubious glare. “Really?”

“Really.” I gave her my best sincere smile, which may or may not have come off as a crazed grin instead based on her reaction.

“I don’t… caps are caps I suppose…” She fixed her pink mane and forced a smile. “How can I help you? Wait. Nevermind.” She left then came back with my saddlebag in her teeth. “You’re here for this, aren’t you?”

I dropped the miscellaneous items I picked up onto the counter, including the laser pistol. As much as I’d love to keep it, I needed it as barter material and it wasn’t in very good condition. I didn’t trust laser pistols in bad condition. “How much for all this crap?”

She looked over my goods and sighed. “I’ll take the ammo for six caps and the fifty bits for five caps. The pistol’s seen better days but since it’s got ammo, I’ll buy it for eighty caps. Deal?” I did a little guesstimatory math in my head since I wasn’t entirely sure exactly what a cap was actually worth. Eh, close enough I guess. “Hey, what’s that?” she asked, pointing at a pocket on my left side.

I pulled the object in question out of my pocket. In my haste, I hadn’t gotten a good look at what it was, other than it was shiny and I wanted it. It was a well-preserved bobblehead of an orange earth mare wearing a cowpony hat at a rakish angle. She held several apples in her mouth and another in her right hoof. As funny as it was, her eyes must have been misprinted. They were both facing different directions and were different sizes as well. The base of the bobblehead read “Schtable-Tec Bobblehead” and underneath that was printed “I buck apples”. Hm. Strange, I guess. “I dunno. Some kind of bobblehead. You wanna buy it?”

She sat in thought for a second and waved me off. “You better hold onto that. There’s somepony in town who collects those, though. Go talk to him, he’s at the west end of town. You can’t miss him.” She sat back. “So you’ve got more caps?”

I pushed five hundred caps over to her. “It’s all I got,” I lied. “C’mon, gimme a break.” She rolled her eyes. Think fast, Frosty! “Do I need to give you extra encouragement?” I bared my teeth and flexed my claw. As if on cue, the whistle blew four times.

She flinched violently and tossed the bag to me. “Just take it!” she yelled. “Take it and leave me alone!” I grinned. Victory!

I opened my bag and checked its contents. All the parts for my rifle were in there, and all the other things that I tossed in appeared to still be there. I spied a slightly crushed package at the bottom and fished it out. I took out one of the two snack cake from the box and shoved it in my mouth, chewing happily. Oh, cherry snack cakes, I’ve missed you so much!

I left the store, happily munching on my last snack cake as I made my way back to Rusty’s little home. I got my stuff back, which was what mattered the most. On my way back, I ran into a sad-looking wastelander trying to sleep against a wall. He saw me and ran up to me. “Hey! Got a sec? Or a few caps to spare?” I stopped and gave him a once-over. He was grimy, scraggly, and he looked like he was some kind of addict.

“What do you want?” I asked him impatiently. “I’ve to to be somewhere right now.” I attempted to push past him, but he jumped into my way again.

“C’mon! I need like, a hundred caps. I know it seems like a lot—”

“That is a lot,” I growled, interrupting him. “What are you going to do? Buy more drugs?”

He shook his head violently. “Nah, I got this really great investment going! I just need a startup deposit, you know?”

Against my better judgement, I tossed him a hundred caps. “Here. Out of the goodness of my heart, I’ll help you here.” Be a good pony, a voice in my head echoed. I’m a good pony, I told myself. Be better. I smiled to myself as the hobo ran off, probably to spend it on drugs.

When I finally entered his home, Rusty got up to greet me. “Hey! How’d the first day of work go?” I fished around in one of my many various pockets and tossed him the rest of my caps. He peeked inside and his eyes widened in amazement. “Wow! This is, like, three hundred caps!”

“I know. I also bought my stuff back from Scrap and possibly funded a hobo’s drug addiction.” I waved my bag at him and smiled. “It cost me all my earnings, but I have all my important stuff back.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“I got my giant kills-everything sniper rifle back,” I boasted. “And some other miscellaneous stuff.”

“Woah! That’s so awesome!” he squeaked. “You could probably kill bunches of slavers with that!” I uneasily glanced at my claw. Last time, I’d simply torn them apart. “You have bullets for it?”

I stared at him blankly, then facehoofed. “I, uh, forgot.” Good work, brain.

Not my fault—that’s all on you.

He facehoofed. “You should probably buy ammunition for that. On another topic, how’d you manage to make so many caps?”

I shrugged off my uncomfortable clothing and fluttered up to my perch above his head. “As a pegasus, you learn that everything is valuable. Reuse everything. That’s what we’ve done for years.” I stretched and rolled onto my back, spreading my wings out. “You know… up there, in the clouds… it’s not all that good. Sure, there’s little crime and no radiation, but it’s like a prison. Everything is regulated. The military and the government control everything. Freedom is a commodity, not an entitlement.”

“Down here, it’s not so good. You’ve seen the raiders. You haven’t seen disease. Famine. Destruction.” I arched my neck so that I could stare at him upside-down. “It’s definitely worse down here. Freedom… Freedom is objective.” We sat there in silence. I wasn’t sure if we were having a really deep conversation or just pretending to.

I decided to change the subject. “Hey… lemme ask you something.” Rusty had worked the tunnels Underhill longer, he might know about that… thing. He looked up. “You ever see something weird in the tunnels? It’s huge and it’s got a big glowy eye.” I spread my forelegs apart as far as I could at an attempt at scale. “This thing was huge! Like, really really huge!” Rusty raised an eyebrow at me.

“Somepony’s been hitting the bar,” piped up Broken from under several layers of bedding next to me. I eeped in fright and flattened myself against the ceiling. She was quiet! She poked her head out and looked around. “Eh?” She looked up and laughed. “You just love that ceiling, don’t you?” I floated back down and glared at her. “Anyway, I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

“Me neither,” Rusty managed to make out, suppressing a laugh. He straightened up and replied “Well… there is some pretty strange stuff down there. Maybe it was one of their robots or something.” He had a point. Maybe, maybe.

“Sure, I guess I’m just going insane…” I muttered to myself. “I need to relax.” I shook my head to clear out the cobwebs. “Maybe I was just imagining it, right? I haven’t slept since…” I stopped. When was the last time I’d actually had a good night’s sleep? I’d spent quite a lot of time unconscious lately, but that really didn’t count.

A hoof waved past my vacant stare. “Yo… Frosty? You in there?” Poke. “Hey! You okay in there?” Broken Parts moved into my field of vision. “Bro, I think she’s in a coma. Better bring her to the Doc.” She continued waving as Rusty climbed up.

The slight mention of Doc Galactic made me snap back into focus. “Gah! I’m here! I’m here! I was… I don’t know. Thinking, I guess.” I continued to stare dejectedly off into the distance. “Ever since that day…” I mumbled. “My life changed. I’d always wanted some excitement, but this is really pushing it. I just want… I want everything to be normal again.” A tear rolled down my muzzle and I wiped it away. Stupid tears. “I just want to wake up in my barracks and find that this has all just been a bad dream.”

Broken turned to Rusty. “Got any more of those Sugar Apple Bombs?” He shook his head. “Go get some, will ya? They make me feel better, so hopefully it works on her.” Rusty scampered out of the room and Broken turned her attention back to me. “I don’t know what you’re going through right now, but everything will be fine.” She scooted closer and hugged me. “We all want something back… but the wasteland isn’t so forgiving.” I continued to stare off into the distance. “Take it a day at a time, and everything will be fine.”

“I am,” I whispered. “I just don’t want to wake up and find out something else has gone wrong.” I moved my claw and stared at it. “I never asked for this…but here it is, and I don’t know why.” I shifted and hugged Broken back. “I just…”

“Shh… no words… only dreams now.” She gently pulled my muzzle toward her and she planted a kiss on my lips. Woah! Okay! What? I was suddenly snapped out of my depression and sadness, and flung into a great big pit of confusion. A mare was kissing me! What? My cheeks and ears burned and my whole body was filled with conflicting emotions. What the hay just happened?

I pulled out of the kiss, my whole body turning a shade of red. “Woah! Okay! Uh, This is very sexy and all…” I awkwardly shuffled back a little. “But, uh, my barn door doesn’t swing that way.” She stared at me in confusion. “I’m into stallions,” I clarified.

“But… I thought all you heroine types were into the mares?” she said, sounding confused. “Right?”

I couldn’t come up with words at the moment. Brain! Is everything up there still working?

I don’t know what just happened, but I think I might have liked it.

I mentally punched myself. Our awkward staring contest was broken by Rusty’s return.

“Hey! I got a few more snack cake boxes from the Doc’s storeroom!” he exclaimed as he ran back inside. He tossed me a box, but it just bounced off my head. I was still sort of frozen in shock from the kiss, and my brain was still debating whether or not I enjoyed what had just happened. “Luna’s plot! I missed something, didn’t I?” He groaned. I shakily nodded yes.

“I’m uh… I’m going to go to sleep now…” I slowly moved myself on to a nearby pillow. “So… uh… yeah.”

She’s kinda hot.

Shut up, brain.

“Right! Uh… Big day ahead of us. Better go to sleep,” Broken proclaimed, and hopped back down to her bed. “G’night, everypony!”

As Rusty started putting out the candles, I wrapped myself in a blanket that Broken had left up here. I heard them whispering under me, and I had no choice but to listen as I tried to go to sleep.

“What the buck just happened?” Rusty whispered.

“Uh… nothing?” Broken replied.

“That was definitely not nothing.”

“Okay, fine. I might have kissed her a little.”

“What.”

“What? She’s cute, strong, and athletic! Plus, I couldn’t resist. She’s a bucking pegasus! I might not have another chance to make out with a pegasus!”

I heard Rusty facehoof and sigh in exasperation. “Just… just go to sleep.”

~~~~~

My dreams that night were confusing, to say the least. I did, however, manage to sleep through the night up until the wee hours in the morning when the first whistle woke me up. I was awake, but I didn’t feel like moving. I just laid there under covers as I heard Rusty and Broken start getting out of bed too. “Rise and shine, my little birdie!” Broken sang. I curled up and hid under the covers. I heard her climb up to my perch and rustle my covers. “Wakey wakey!”

“Meeeh.” I covered my eyes with my foreleg. It was still too early. Lemme sleep. I felt the covers above me fly off, and then the cold air of the morning hit me. I curled up tighter in a vain attempt to warm up again, but Broken wasn’t having any of that.

“You’re so adorable when you do that!” She cooed. I groaned in response. It’s early and cold. I’m not getting up. “C’mon, my little brain damaged birdie! Time to get working!” She fiddled with my ear while I tried to ignore her. “Does the little birdie need a smoochie?” she huskily whispered into my other ear.

I immediately bolted upright. “Okay! Okay! I’m up!” I angrily huffed at Broken. “You’re not giving up, are you.” She grinned and shook her head. I rubbed my eyes and stretched. “Well, I guess I’ll hit the tunnels again. There’s definitely something down there, and I plan to find out what.” I shook out my wings and did a quick preening to get rid of some loose feathers. “I guess I gotta talk to somepony that’ll take this stupid bobblehead,” I said, referring to the orange Schtable-Tec bobblehead.

“Oh yeah!” Rusty exclaimed from under us. “That’s, uh… Sleazy’s looking for them!” I scooted over to the edge and listened. “He’s down by the west end of the market. You really can’t miss it.”

Everypony was telling me I couldn’t miss it, which was starting to make me suspicious. “What’s with this pony that makes him un-missable?” Rusty and Broken exchanged glances as I pulled on my borrowed clothing.

“Well, he’s interesting. You’d have to see him to believe it,” Rusty told me. “Trust me on this one, you have to see him.”

“And where would that be, exactly?” I asked.

“West end of town. You literally have to be blind to miss it.”

Well, those directions seemed specific enough. Lacking that, I had the power of flight on my side in case I got too lost. I tossed on my gear, grabbed my saddlebag, and double checked to make sure I actually had everything with me. A quick goodbye and hug later and I was out and about, looking for a store that I couldn’t possibly miss.

Sure enough, near the west end of town I noticed a big gaudy sign with the picture of a laughing bearded pony. “They did say I couldn’t miss it…” I muttered under my breath. In big, mostly working neon letters the sign read “Sleazy McCheapkins’ Bargain Emporium”. I cautiously poked my head into the store and called out, “Hello?”

The first thing I heard was a sort of muted jingle in the background for ambiance’s sake. “Me bird's night's free and me car's a nutter / Loadsamoney is a shout I utter / As I wave my wad to the geezers—” And that’s when I stopped caring since none of it made sense to me.

Well, Rusty and Broken were right—you really needed to see him to believe it. For lack of a better description, he was falling apart. He was in a state of decay, yet he didn’t smell as bad as a dead body probably would. Patches of his hide and fur were missing, he had a few bullet holes in him, and most disturbing was the large steel bar wedged in his neck that slowly dripped… sludge. One thing that really stood out was his beard: it was neatly trimmed, well kept, and strikingly similar to the picture outside. “Hey there tresha hunter! What c’n I do for you?”

“Um… Sleazy?” I hesitantly asked.

“Yep! Tha’s me.” He smiled proudly, showing off his mostly-intact teeth. “I sell guns, gun accessories, ammo, ammo accessories, accessories, and bobbleheads.” He stopped and checked the wall behind him. “Well, I used to sell bobbleheads. Need a gun?”

I pulled out the orange bobblehead. “You mean these ones?” His eyes lit up and he gently picked it up and gave the head a loving tap.

“Aha! The Applejack bobblehead! I’ll give you top caps for it.” He rummaged about under the desk, then stood up again. A buzzer sounded and the steel door behind him opened. “Hop on over the counter!” I shied away, unsure. “Come on my tresha hunter! You want yer reward don’tcha?” The grimy storefront wasn’t that appealing, so I was very hesitant to see what was in the back rooms.

I jumped over the counter and followed him into the dark room. “Why’s it so dark back here?” I asked, a tad apprehensive. I heard him go over to the wall and the creaking of a lever being pulled. The lights in the room slowly came on, revealing a jaw-dropping assortment of weaponry. “That is so. Awesome.” I whispered, awestruck.

“I used to sell gifts, trinkets, and the like. Then the war kicked in and I started dealing in weapons. I’ve got bunches of guns, guns for all! Since you brought back one of my bobbleheads, I’ll give you yer pick! Nothin’ that shoots rockets, though,” he told me. He had guns mounted on walls, guns stored in large red crates, and even some hanging from the ceiling. “Heck, most of them come in several colors, too. Need some help?”

I walked through his selection of weapons with great interest. “I need something that has low recoil, and mouth-firable. You got anything?” He nodded thoughtfully and headed over to a display in search of a weapon. “Also, I need some buckin’ bullets.” I looked up from my examination of a particularly spiky pistol.

“What are your thoughts on submachine guns?” he asked as he turned around with a dark blue submachine gun in his mouth. He dropped it on the table in the middle of the room and explained, “It’s an E39 custom submachine gun. The barrel’s been replaced with a hollowed-out garnet with a weak freeze enchantment on it. The magazine’s been modified to hold twice as many bullets and the firing bit has a recoil damper built into it. Top of the line holographic sight, as well. Heck, I’ll throw in two free mags! Deal?”

I grinned and nodded. Hay yes! Bullets and ammo! Wait. Ammo! “Hey, do you have anything for this?” I pulled out my rifle parts one by one and laid them out on the table in a rough approximation of a rifle. His eyes widened in awe.

“That’s a griffon-pattern PGM Hocotate Mark Two! Where’d you get it?” He ran his decaying hooves gently across the parts, smiling with glee. “Super scope enchantment, custom stock, and… no mags.” He looked at me in disappointment. “Did you lose the mags? I am dissapoint.”

I held up my forelegs defensively. “Hey, hey! I didn’t lose them! I never had any. I was kinda hoping you had ammo and mags for it.” I idly shifted around the parts. “I pulled it out of a hooflocker in a military base, I think. Why?”

He started assembling the rifle carefully, pulling the part I was fiddling with out from under my hoof. “Only a few of these were ever made during the war, because griffons ain’t the sniping type.” He grinned at me. “I had such a hard time selling these off to those birds back in the day.” He turned his attention back to the rifle. “However, I didn’t sell this one. That is, if you’re interested, anyway.” He left and started tossing things about in a toolbox.

Wait…back in the day? “How long have you lived here?” I asked him. Maybe he knew about the thing in the reactor! Might as well try.

“I’ve been living here for the last two hundred thirty-one years,” he announced proudly. “Bein’ turned into a ghoul is the best thing that ever coulda happened to my business!” He motioned at the room around him. “I wandered the wasteland for decades, collecting weapons and ammunition. This is my arsenal!” He laughed and prodded my chest with a hoof. “And it could all be yours.”

I was astounded. A ghoul? And he was happy with himself, to boot. “Anyway… back to the original topic. You were here before the bombs fell?” I questioned. “You know anything about Seapony Energy?”

He rubbed his beard in thought. Did he know about the research labs underneath us in the tunnels? “Eh. Your guess is as good as mine about Seapony. I never got around to looting it as long as I’ve been here. I think the town got established… maybe eight years ago?” He scratched his beard and fiddled with the bar in his neck, causing me to involuntarily wince. “Tell ya what!” He whirled around and started opening and closing drawers. “Now you’ve got me interested, I got a job for ya. You find any sort of cool guns down there, I’ll buy em.” He dove into a toolbox and tossed two large boxy magazines at me; I caught one with my claw and the other with my face. “I’ll trade em’ one to one with anything in my armory. As much as I hate to say it, I’ll even throw in” – he shuddered visibly – “free… ammo.”

I looked at the magazines in my claw. “What are these?” I asked him, while rubbing my sore forehead indignantly.

“Nine bullets for your rifle. The lighter one only has two bullets in it.” He drew closer and continued, “Now, let me ask you something. What’s a pretty little pegasus like you doin’ in a place like this?” My heart froze. How did he know? “I’m willing to keep yer little secret. You don’t squawk about my little arsenal, and I don’t tell everypony out there you’re an Enclave spy.”

“How did you—” I started, but he interrupted me.

“Easy. Yer not a unicorn, obviously. You can’t be an earthie, because your build isn’t right. You’re not stocky or particularly tough-looking either. And also, yer sides are larger than they should be.” He leaned in close enough I could smell his rancid smoky breath. “I know my mares well, little pegasus. What’ll it be?”

I sighed. “Alright, I won’t tell anypony I don’t trust about your little ‘operation’ here.” I started putting things away into my saddlebag. “And for your information, I’m not a spy.” I exhaled in exhaustion. “I’m just…down on my luck.” I carefully placed my new SMG into my bag. “Thanks for the gun.”

“I believe ya. But will the rest of them?” He straightened up and his demeanor suddenly became jovial again. “Come back again! And remember—if it took more than one shot, you weren’t using a Steelpony!”

“Oh, before you go-” Sleazy loudly interjected a moment before I pushed my shoulder against the door. “Word is, some new crazy mare’s jus’ hit the scrappers’ caps hard. Mayor wants to know who’s do’s the voo-doos. Sounds like yer the mare to talk to.”

On hindsight, I may have gone a tad overboard on collection. “Sounds like you might be onto something.”

“Sounds like you need to talk to ‘im.”

“So, where does a mare go bug the mayor?”

~~~~~

“Get this mare outta my sight! She’s starting to annoy me,” a dark purple unicorn with a neatly combed red mane yelled. I held my ground and refused to budge as the large security ponies attempted to push me out of the room. I’d followed Broken’s directions and made my way into the mayor’s well-sized estate through the second floor. Obviously, estate security didn’t find this amusing at all. However, I managed to push my way to the mayor’s room before anypony managed to catch me.

“But weren’t you looking for the somepony that just got a nice payday from your scrappers?” I theatrically whined. He paused, then dismissed the burly security ponies with a wave of his hoof. “That’s more like it. Now, why don’t we talk like civilized ponies?”

The mayor walked from around the large mahogany desk in the room and stood in front of me. “So you’re the scrap whore.” The corner of my jaw tightened in anger. “So, how do you do it?”

“On the bed,” I snarked.

His expression showed confusion for a few seconds, then he sneered and let out a sarcastic little laugh as he finally got it. I facehoofed. “A quick tongue, eh? I like that.”

Can’t tell if—

Shut it, brain.

“But in all seriousness, how did you get all that scrap? You’ve set a new record in the employee ledger.”

“I just take anything I can. That’s it. Now, I actually wanted to know something else.” I inched closer to him. “You take in survivors and wastelanders, right?” He nodded. “Then why do you take their things and force them to buy it back?”

He calmly backed up and raised a hoof. “Now, now. It’s a learning process that all of us have endured. As a gesture of goodwill—” I snorted in disgust and he gave me a dirty look. “Their possessions are held as collateral while we provide them with medical care and food.” He turned around and picked up a small unpainted model in his hoof. It showed a mother and her filly having a picnic on a grassy plain, probably eating lunch. “This is my dream.”

“Making little models of things?” I asked. I was already starting to lose interest in him and I was actually slightly regretting breaking in. “Come on, that’s lame.”

“No, you fool!” He exhaled in frustration. “I am working for peace and prosperity for all of Equestria!” He gently placed the model back on his desk. “One day, we might just be able to return to what the land used to be—green rolling hills, quiet evenings…” He stomped his hoof resolutely and raised his voice. “Imagine! No radiation! No raiders! No struggling to survive.” He strode forward and poked my nose. “Don’t you see? I’m trying to put the world back together!”

“I think you’re insane. Really, you’re just a community of scavengers. You’re not doing good. You’re just trying to survive. The only reason ponies stay here is because of the trade and Doc Galactic!” I shouted back. His conviction faltered and he seemed to doubt himself. “The defenses here are laughable at best, you’ve lost your only water talisman, and for Celestia’s sake you’ve essentially glorified slavery.”

He was visibly seething with rage, but he managed to keep his voice level. “Common rabble like you wouldn’t understand.” As to make his point, he levitated a pistol out from under his desk.

Common rabble? “Oh, I’m far from common!” I yelled. I shifted my wings out from under the work shirt I was wearing and launched myself into a circling pattern around the room. “I’m from the bucking sky!” He gaped incredulously. I smiled to myself in satisfaction. Didn’t see that coming, did ya?

“You… you’re…” he stammered. The pistol was shaking in his magical field and he appeared to have lost his entire vocabulary. I landed gracefully in front of him and grinned threateningly at him.

“Yes, I am.” He pointed the pistol at me unsteadily. “Oh, why are you so serious all of a sudden? Can’t take a joke?” I cooed at him. He gibbered incomprehensibly as I confidently strode closer. I stopped and traced the tips of my talons along his muzzle. “Let’s put a smile on that face,” I whispered threateningly into his ear.

My little nightmare scenario for the mayor was abruptly stopped when a guard burst into the room. “Sir! There’s a—” He immediately stopped and processed the scene unfolding before him. “Sir? Is everything alright?”

He furtively glanced at me, and I backed off. “Yes… I’m fine.” He straightened up and adjusted his red mane. “What’s going on?”

The guard took his eyes off me and he snapped back into attention. “Our spotters have spotted Steel Rangers on their way to our location. What are our orders?” Rangers? The mayor moved back behind his desk and put down the pistol he’d been levitating.

“How many?” he asked urgently. “A hundred?”

“Nope,” the guard replied.

“You’re right, that is a bit ridiculous. Fifty?”

“Lower.”

“Twenty?”

“Go fish.”

“Ten?”

“Keep going.”

“Five?”

“Wrong.”

“Well, how many are there then?” he nearly yelled at the poor guard. “Gimme a number!”

“Uh… two,” he answered. “Just two of them.”

Two? Could it be? “I’ve got huge caps riding on me knowing those two Rangers.” They both stared at me in shock. “What? I get around. Lemme talk to them, and hopefully they aren’t here to kill anypony.”

The mayor nearly threw his desk at me. “Just go! I’m going to have a drink. This day has gotten far too ridiculous.” He turned to the guard. “Show the pegasus to the Rangers. Hopefully she doesn’t die, I guess.” Thanks for the vote of confidence.

The guard looked to me with uncertainty. “Uh… follow me, miss?” I flexed my claw at the mayor and smiled when he flinched. I followed the guard out of the building and over to the nearby wall. “I gotta ask… what was going on in there?”

“None of your business,” I immediately responded. “Where’s those Rangers at?” He pointed at a small dust cloud forming on the horizon. “Cool. Thanks!” I took to the skies and left him sitting there, gaping.

I didn’t realize how much I missed flying! The feeling of wind in my mane, the breeze under my wings, the sound of being heckled at…

What was that last one?

What? Good catch, brain. I snapped back to reality and looked around. Two Steel Rangers had stopped a short distance away and appeared to be staring at me intently. I waved at them in excitement. “Hey! It’s me, Frosty!” I called to them. One of them cocked his head and the other raised his hoof to his ear. “IT’S FROSTY!” I shouted louder. The one with the minigun perked up and waved back.

“Oi! Girlie! There ye are,” The familiar voice of Baked Potato shouted back. “Safe n’ sound, jus like I thought.” They were worried about me? I landed near them and hugged Baked Potato, then dashed to Rumcake.

“Took you long enough.”

“Hey, Frosty. It took long enough, but we finally tracked you down.” He cautiously hugged me back with steel-clad hooves.

“Aww, you missed me. That just melts my heart.”

“I was… uh… doing my job,” Rumcake muttered awkwardly.

“Oh, of course,” I sarcastically replied. “So you were taking your time then?”

“No, I searched damn hard for you! I even went and made sure the range detector was off so I didn’t blow you—”

“Oh, so you’d like to blow me too? That’s a bit up-front.” I foalishly giggled to myself, imagining his face turning the same color as his mane.

Rumcake let out a defeated sigh. “As weird as it sounds, I… uh…” He mumbled the rest of it.

“What was that?” I really wanted to tousle his mane, but he probably wouldn’t take off his helmet.

“...like you,” he mumbled slightly louder.

So he did have a crush on me, did he? “I didn’t quite catch the beginning of that,” I teased.

“I sort of like you,” Rumcake blurted.

“Really?” I conspiratorially whispered back. “I thought you didn’t really care.” Somepony in the wasteland actually cared about me!

Wait, what was my last relationship like? Who had it been with? Don’t freak out, Frosty. Oh goddesses, oh goddesses. What do I do what do I say don’t stare at his junk.

“I hate t’ break up this beautiful reunion, but we need ta get back to base,” Baked piped up from behind us. “Let’s get goin’, lovebirds.”

My brain finally caught up to the conversation at hoof and prompted a really good question: “Wait, what do you mean by ‘tracked you down’?” I asked.

Baked tapped the heavy collar bolted around my neck. “Two hundred gram of ‘splosives, monitorin’ an’, as Rummy an’ I found out, not a very accurate global positionin’ tracker built right into it. There ya go. C’mon. This way, lass.” He tried to politely nudge me in the right direction.

I resisted. “Not yet. I still have stuff to do still. Also, I think I figured out a way to solve all your problems with them for a while,” I told them. I could tell they were disappointed behind their helmets, but I was obligated to finish my business in town. I turned around and slowly walked back.

“Always gotta be the good pony, huh?” Rumcake rumbled through his helmet. “Alright. Let’s see what you can do.” He stamped his hooves and began to trudge beside me. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Eh, I got nothin’ better to do. Sure, I might as well come along.” The minigun hid itself back into his battle saddle and he followed us. “Gimme a moment- gotta call up the Inquisitor and report in.”

~~~~~

The three of us stood uneasily in the mayor’s office. We were surrounded by a lot of security ponies all armed to the teeth with heavy weaponry. I was facing his desk again, this time flanked by two Steel Rangers. The mayor was angrily surveying the rapidly-escalating situation in his office. “I’d like to think you have a plan, Frosty,” Rumcake whispered to me.

“Okay, so basically you” – I pointed at the mayor – “need a water talisman and some actual bucking security.” I then motioned to Baked Potato and Rumcake Rum behind me. “They need scrap metal for armor, bullets, and maybe an aboveground base. They also have your water talisman.” I looked to them and they nodded. “Each of you has what the other needs. We can make a deal, right?”

Rumcake thought for a moment. “Inquisitor Souffle has demonstrated an interest in your quaint settlement here. I could tentatively propose the following arrangement: You give us access to your scrap mines and we’ll step in for your security. And as a gesture of goodwill, we’ll throw the water talisman in as well.”

“The talisman you stole.”

“…Irrelevant. What’s past is past.” He motioned to Baked. “In the meantime, he’ll help you improve your security here until we get our forces moved in.”

Baked stepped forward and whispered to me, “I will?” I lightly punched his helmet and he backed away.

The mayor sat in his desk, thinking. The room was eerily silent, even with all the guns pointed in our direction. The mayor finally looked up and motioned the security ponies to lower their guns. All of them slung their various submachine guns and pistols while exiting the room en masse. “Fine. Under one condition.” He pointed at me, specifically. “If this is some kind of takeover plot… I will find somepony to get rid of you. Understand?” He smirked at us and waved all three of us off. “Now get out of here.” I nodded and complied.

As we left the mayor’s residence I nudged Rumcake. “Thanks for the help back there.”

“No problem,” he replied. “I’ll probably be able to clear it with the Inquisitor.”

“What do you mean by ‘probably’?” I asked, somewhat incredulous. “Wait, did you even have the authority to do that?”

I heard Rumcake make a sort of choking noise. “I wish. I’ll tell him something about how our current base is no longer secure—which it isn’t—and recommend that we take up the mayor’s offer. This place has got better defenses and a whole population of wastelanders to throw at anything.”

“That’s… that’s horrible.” Some of these ponies were nice, too!

Baked tromped up behind me and playfully body-checked me. “Like it ‘r not, lass, better them th’n us. Ye’ve got mil’try background—y’know how it goes here.”

He was right to a certain degree, of course. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it. It’s horrible.” Enclave or Ranger, the overall message was roughly the same in both factions. A soldier was more important than a random wastelander because training and gear was expensive, not to mention hard to immediately replace.

“At least we’re giving them some training and stuff. Might as well give ‘em a fighting chance,” Rumcake admitted. “That, and I’d rather not lose any more Steel Rangers.”

I duly noted the presence of Baked still by my side. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I asked him, subtly trying to hint that I wanted a little one-on-one time with Rumcake.

“Well, some lassie thinks she c’n tell me what to do,” Baked sarcastically replied in our direction. “I guess I’ll show meself to their barracks for a surprise inspection.” He sauntered off to go do exactly that.

“Does he know where the barracks are?” I asked Rumcake. He shrugged. “Eh, maybe he’ll—” I was cut off by the third whistle blowing loudly. “Aw crap! I gotta get to Underhill for my shift!”

“What? You don’t really need to work for them, do you?” he asked. “What do you still need to do for them?”

I picked up the pace and headed toward Rusty’s shack to pick up my bag. “I still gotta pay off that bucking insane doctor.” A thought occurred to me when we arrived at Rusty’s shack. “Hey, wanna come with me?”

“Why would I want to do that?” he immediately responded.

“Well, there’s bunches of prewar tech just sitting down there…” I started.

“Eh. I’m in,” he agreed. Good! Now in case I ran across that creepy monster down there, I had my knight in slightly battered power armor to protect me. No need for him to know about my paranoia just yet, I told myself.

You just want an excuse to spend more time with him, don’t you?

Of course not! Right? Shut up, brain.

When we got to the elevator down to Underhill, the guard outside calmly asked me, “So, you bringin’ the tank down to the tunnels, then?”

“Bite my shiny metal flank, rent-a-merc.” Rumcake shot back.

“Whatever. Mayor’s radio’d in about you three. You start causing trouble though, and we will terminate you with extreme prejudice,” he casually replied. I had to give it to him, he was unshakable.

“As opposed to overwhelming kindness?” I shot back sarcastically. The guard only rolled his eyes and waved us in. The other ponies in the lift uneasily backed away from Rumcake as he backed in. “How you doing?” I asked the other ponies, feeling awkward. They all either nervously nodded or cowered in fear, sometimes both. I didn’t really blame them.

This time, the ride down was completely devoid of any noise, except for the squeaking and clanking of the elevator. I noticed Trouble standing a few ponies away. “Hey! Trouble!” She looked over and shrank away, most likely because of the imposing Steel Ranger standing next to me. “What’s up?”

“Uh… hi?” she uneasily replied. “What’s with the tank?” I glanced at Rumcake and he shrugged. Why does everypony say he’s a tank? He’s large, but I guess the armor probably gave off that vibe.

“Let’s just say I found him and he kinda grew on me.” I playfully punched his armored shoulder.

“More like the other way around,” he growled from under his helmet. I punched him again. “Stop that. You’re scuffing the armor.”

I rolled my eyes. “Goddesses forbid that I continue rending your armor with my brute strength,” I shot back, dripping with sarcasm. He huffed childishly in response as I allowed my hoof to simply bounce off his armored head.

The elevator grounded to a halt as we reached Underhill. “Come on, Tanky. I got something to show you. Bye, Trouble!” I quickly got out of the lift and dashed over to the South tunnels with Rumcake, leaving the other confused residents in our wake.

We quickly made our way to the collapsed piece of rubble leading to Rusty’s hidden little area and the reactor after grabbing my scrap bag. I wormed my way in and Rumcake simply smashed it under his armored hooves. “What’s so special about this place?” I pointed at the ‘Energy Application Offices’ sign. “Oh.” We made our way to where I’d stopped at the security room last time.

“So if we ignore the creepy room with all the cameras, we can follow this tunnel to the reactor room.” I told him as I consulted Rusty’s map. “First we gotta go through…” I squinted at the markings in the tunnel walls. “The South labs, I guess.”

“Wait, but didn’t you say this was an electric company?” Rumcake asked me. “Why do they need a reactor?”

“That’s what I want to find out,” I replied. There was that scratching sound again! “Hey, you hear that?”

Rumcake stopped and looked around. “What? The sound of you being an idiot?” I growled and punched him again. “No, seriously. What sound?” I pointed at the walls. “In the walls? I really can’t hear much outside of this helmet.” He tapped the side of his helmet. “Blastproof, fireproof, bulletproof, and apparently, sound resistant. What else could you ask for out of a piece of headgear?” He even toggled the built-in light for emphasis.

I dismissed the sounds as my imagination and we moved onto the South Labs. The room was in a great state of disrepair and the rear half of the room—where we had to go—was completely caved in. The rest of the room was mostly white-ish and covered in tables and broken glassware. “Well, crap. Now what?” Rumcake approached the rubble and shifted pieces of it about while I stuffed random bits of scrap into my scrap bags. “You find anything?”

He pushed several more pieces of ceiling and dirt around. “Hey. Here.” He tossed me a piece of scrap and continued digging. “So, what do you think is up with this place?” He continued to supply me scrap as he tried to dig a path through to the reactor room.

“I wanna say it’s some sort of pre-war conspiracy plot gone wrong. I mean, it’s an electric company! Why are they working on megaspell-level devices? Actually, it kinda looks like a micro—er, macrofusion… cell? Reactor? Thing?” I called back at him. “Besides, if the reactor is working, then you guys can probably get power out of it.” I opened a drawer and found a terminal inside it. What. “Hey! Look what I found!” Rumcake turned around in interest. I poked the power button and it powered on. “Oh cool, it’s logged in, too!”

He stomped over to look at the terminal. “Wait, why is it inside— you know what, I don’t even care. What’s on it?”

I impatiently tapped through the choices. Research data, reports, aha! One sent message! I opened it up and began to read.

Dear Wavebreak,

I would greatly appreciate your continued funding of the Seapony Energy R&D department for a few more weeks. We have nearly completed the MK4 supercompact high- energy reactor for the MWT. I require several more test subjects and some more equipment. Be sure you notify your normal employees that the high security zones are strictly off-limits. Let me remind you I helped salvage your career after that whole ‘bedroom secretary’ fiasco. I look forward to another check in the mail.

Regards, High Class

Wow. To the point. “So… a tiny reactor? Interesting,” Rumcake muttered behind me. Looks like High Class never got the memo that his funding got cut off, then. “That would have revolutionized power armor technology! Imagine—I could have rocket boots right now!” I could tell he was almost giddy with joy at that thought. He downloaded the research files onto his face. Or helmet, wherever data got stored on Steel Ranger armor.

“Anyway, carry on digging that tunnel.” He gave me a mock salute and went back to digging.

We spent the next few minutes in silence. I scrounged up scrap from the rest of the room and Rumcake kept excavating in earnest. “You might want to see this, Frosty.” I made my way over to Rumcake and looked at what he was holding in his hoof.

“What is this?” I asked him. He was holding some kind of busted tube-shaped object that was covered with tape and wires. “Some kind of pipe?” I ventured. Looked like some random scrap to me.

“This is part of a junkyard rocket.” He dug around the rubble and picked out a few more parts similar to the one he held in his hoof. “Slaver workshops make these for their rocket launchers. Red Eye’s slavers.” I stared into his visor as he turned to me again. “The slaver gang is in the tunnels. The slavers are here.”

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Scrounger – Loot all the things! You will find considerably more ammunition in containers than you normally would.

Chapter 5: It was an emergency, okay?

Chapter 5: It was an emergency, okay?

“All right, that's it! We've tried persuasion, charm, whatever it is Pinkie Pie does…”

“No! That can’t be possible!” I shouted. “The slavers are attacking from the surface, right?” Burly’s words floated back into my mind. ‘Somethin’s rocked the bloatsprite hive.’ Before, I’d assumed it was the monster in the reactor room. Were the slavers leaking into the tunnels?

“As much as I hate to say it, this Red Eye character is one of the smartest commanders we’ve seen. He’s outsmarted us on more than one occasion, and some of his field lieutenants are just as smart as he is,” Rumcake calmly spoke. “I wouldn’t be surprised that they have some ulterior motives back there.” He pointed at the collapsed tunnel he was still trying to dig out.

“What do we do now?” I asked him. “The slavers are down here, bound to attack at any moment, and there are a whole load of somewhat ambiguously innocent ponies up there oblivious to the terrors down here!” I was getting more and more worked up about as I spoke. What would happen if the slavers took over the tunnels?

He stopped digging and grabbed me. “Calm down. We’re going to go tell the mayor.” I took a deep breath and attempted to calm down. “Now. Lacking that, we’re going to face them ourselves if they attack. I’m not going to let anything happen to this town.” He gently brushed my mane as I finally calmed down.

“Okay… okay.” Deep breaths, Frosty. “So, I guess we get out of here and head to the mayor’s?” I asked. He nodded, and we left behind the slightly excavated tunnel behind.

After much argument and a little weapon-brandishing we managed to get an express ride to the surface out of Underhill. After arriving on the surface, we immediately dashed off to the mayor’s residence. The guards let us in, and they also begrudgingly let us see the mayor after a few threatening insults involving a spatula. We barged into the room and Rumcake immediately told the mayor, “You have a slaver problem.”

“Yes… yes I do. That’s why you’re still here,” he replied in puzzlement.

Rumcake facehoofed. “Sorry, let me try that again: you have a slaver problem in Underhill.” He took out the rocket parts and dumped them onto the mayor’s desk. “I think they’re collapsing tunnels that lead to crucial portions of the facility.” The mayor looked over the parts with disinterest.

“Looks like a load of junk to me,” the mayor said with increased disinterest.

“These are Red Eye’s slavers you’re fighting.” Rumcake slammed his hoof onto the mayor’s desk. “Doesn’t it seem kind of convenient that you’re under attack from slavers at the same time we’ve found things in the tunnels?”

I butted into the conversation with my little revelation from earlier. “Even Burly knows what’s going on! Something’s happening down there. Something’s attacking your scavengers in the tunnels!” The mayor didn’t have a response. He just sat there, probably taking in all the information we’d just thrown at him.

“Fine,” he finally replied. “If you can find a good link between what’s happening under the tunnels and that pile of scrap you found, I’ll authorize a full-blown assault. Your insane friend is training our militia, and the Doc’s been working on something for a while for heaving combat.” He shoved Rumcake’s hoof off his table and continued, “Until then, know your place.”

We turned and left the mayor’s residence with a feeling of resentment. “He’s an ass.” I huffed the moment we were out of earshot of the guards.

“He’s actually a—” Rumcake started, then he caught the dirty look I was giving him. “Oh. Right. Anyway, I’ll go check up on how Baked Potato is doing. Why don’t you go talk to the town doctor?”

I shuddered involuntarily. “Do I have to?” I asked him fearfully. “That buck freaks me out.” After the first time, I’d developed an irrational fear of even speaking to him again. “I don’t want to talk to him.”

“He can’t be that bad. He’s a doctor! He helps po—” He stopped in mid sentence as he caught a glimpse of Doc Galactic’s clinic. “That shouldn’t be physically possible…” he muttered, most likely about the skeleton on the noose. “And is that cross—”

“Yes,” I interrupted. “It’s drawn with blood.” I actually saw him back away uncertainly. “Now you know why.”

“Wow. Uh. I guess I do.” We continued walking aimlessly, attempting to ignore Doc’s clinic. “Why are you so scared of him?”

“He took out two of my bucking ribs!” I yelled back. I stopped and lowered my voice. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. It’s just—”

“It’s okay. I can see why you don’t like him already. Why’d he do it?” he calmly asked.

“Back in the base…” I stopped. How long had it been since then? Whatever, I guess. “I got nearly exploded by a rocket, crushed by a Ranger, and speared with some steel.” He stared at me in silence, probably shock. Hard to tell what’s going on behind that helmet. “Some other stuff happened, and I got brought back here by somepony who gave me the benefit of the doubt. Doc Galactic fixed me up and did what he had to do. Probably more, knowing him.”

“So he removed your broken ribs, then?” he asked me. “Sounds reasonable.”

“Yeah, except he decided to take my ribs for payment. I still owe him like, eight hundred caps,” I grumbled. “I hate him and he scares me. A lot.”

“Now I never want to meet him. Ever. But anyway, you’ll have to talk to him about whoever’s been coming in from Underhill. We need to know what kind of injuries they’re having and what they’ve been attacked by,” Rumcake informed me. “Now get moving.” He scampered off as quickly as he could before I could protest.

“Dammit.” I hesitantly walked to Doc’s gruesome clinic. As I approached the doorway, I murmured to myself, “How does that skeleton stay together?”

“Lots of wire and glue, my little pony,” Doc Galactic shouted from the other side of the doorway. How did he do that? I didn’t say it that loudly, did I? “Come on in! We have something to discuss.”

I swallowed my fears and strode up to the scraggly unicorn. “So, uh… what’s up?” I asked as confidently as possible. He was bent over a microscope on a table with some slides and equipment scattered about the tabletop. “What’s with the science experiment?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He motioned for me to look into the microscope. “Take a look.” I peered into the microscope and observed the little platelets and other random blood-related junk floating around arbitrarily. “See it?” he asked.

“I know I’m looking at blood, but I don’t really see what I should be looking for.” I backed away from the microscope and rubbed my eyes. “I took enough science classes to get qualified to enter a field medic course. That’s as far as my science goes.”

“Lemme dumb this down for you.” He sat there and thought about it for a moment. “You’ve got a disease I’ve never seen before. It’s slowly moving through your blood and I have no idea what effect it has on the rest of you.” He went over to the examination table in the room, which currently had a massive amount of medical equipment and other various brewing equipment occupying it. “Feel strange lately?”

I raised an eyebrow and thought back to the past few days. Was there really anything strange going on?

You got kissed by a sexy mare.

Shut up, brain. “I don’t think so. Why?”

“Hm.” He wrote something down on a pad he’d pulled out from somewhere. “If you experience anything strange, or if you have any symptoms that could potentially tell me anything, tell me. I need to find out whether this is contagious, because if I haven’t examined it, I’m probably not immune to it.” He gave me an exhausted grin. “At least we’ll know in a few hours if it’s airborne-transmissible.”

“Wait, what have you been doing in here, anyway?” I asked, looking around the room.

“Call it a science project.” He picked up a beaker filled with a tiny bit of orange-red liquid in his dark blue magical field and swirled it around. “It’s something I’ve been working on for a while. It’ll hopefully be done in a few days, but it’s hard to tell at the moment. If you stumble upon any chems, I’ll take em.”

“Anyway, I actually had another reason for seeing you today.” Onto the million-bit question. “Burly said that some crazy stuff’s been happening in the tunnels.”

“Oh, that cavepony? He’s somewhat trustable, I guess. I would assume you’re talking about the sudden influx of injuries several days ago?” he lazily replied as he added some unidentifiable liquid to a flask. “Why?”

“What kind of injuries did they have?”

“Let’s see…” He scratched his scraggly mane thoughtfully. “Crush injuries from tunnel collapses, burns from gas explosions, and a few cuts and scrapes from other things.”

Explosions and collapses? It couldn’t be coincidence, could it? “Any of this seem consistent with rocket launchers?”

“Well, I guess it’s possible,” Doc Galactic mused. “Head into the back room and ask the patients. I don’t have time to help you right now.” He pointed at a pair of double doors at the back of the room that had another cross drawn with blood and turned back to his experimentation with urgency.

I pushed my way through the double doors and collided with a seemingly solid wall of antiseptic-scented air. The room was bleak and gray, but it was very clean to the point of shining. “Woah. Didn’t see that coming.” I took a look behind me into the front of the clinic. Grimy, falling apart, and occupied by an insane doctor. “How do you keep the back room this clean?”

Rusty walked into the room holding a bucket in his teeth. “Hey, Frosty! You break something again?” I rolled my eyes. “Told you I work here now! It’s so cool in here!” He dropped the bucket on the floor and hugged me.

I pushed him away and told him, “Okay, that’s enough contact for one day. You do all his cleaning around here now?” He nodded. “And he pays you.”

“Yep!” he confirmed cheerfully. “So, why are you here, anyway?”

“I need to get a question answered.” I looked around the room. “Know anypony from the tunnels who’s been here for a few days?”

Rusty pointed at an occupied bed behind a curtain. “He’s been here for a while. Cave-in, I think. Doc lost his patient file, so your guess is as good as mine.”

I walked over to the curtained-off bed and quietly pushed the curtain aside. “Hi. How are you doing?” I quietly asked the gray and blue pony lying on the bed. Rusty walked up behind me, listening in.

“Could be better.” The pony groaned. “Who’re you?” He shifted in his bed in order to get a better look at me. His blankets shifted and I noticed the bandages crisscrossing his torso and legs.

“I’m Frosty. You?”

“I’m Junk Yard. I work the East tunnels.”

“I’m going to assume you got flattened in a cave-in.” He flattened his ears irritably. “Can you tell me anything about what happened?” I asked. Hopefully he could give me insight about what was going on in the tunnels.

“Well, basically what happened is I was bein’ really stupid and the roof dropped down on me.” He grimaced and shifted in his bed. “I wasn’t paying attention, okay?”

“Anything else? Hear anything?” I pressed. There had to be something!

“Well… I guess once you mention it, there was a gas explosion somewhere beforehand.” He tugged at the bandages along his chest. “Lots of ponies had been running into gas back there. Sort of strange, once you mention it.”

“Why?”

“Gas either collects in small rooms or slowly dissipates. It doesn’t usually just randomly explode most of the time.”

Rusty nodded. “And gas explosions are pretty rare,” he added.

“So then we’ve got intentional cave-ins and explosions. Do you remember where?” I asked him.

“Sure, you got a map?” I held it out and watched him make an unnecessarily large circle around a specific spot. “Careful out there, those tunnels are more unstable than the rest of them.”

I thanked him and left. I waved goodbye to Doc and Rusty as I left to go look for Rumcake and Baked. They weren’t too hard to find because of the loud yelling and clanking sounds coming from the north end of town. As I got closer, their yelling became more understandable.

“Oi! Stand up straight, ye lazy slouch!” The familiar voice of Baked drifted over, followed by the Canterlot-voice modified bellowing of Rumcake.

“You! The bullets go in the OTHER way! Hey! Mount that assault rifle on a battle saddle! NO NO NO! YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!” I smirked as the both of them continued to yell at the town militia.

I waved at Rumcake when I got close enough. “Hi! How you doing over here?” He was holding his helmet like a megaphone and he was yelling into it very enthusiastically.

He turned to me and nearly blasted my mane right off when he yelled, “Have you seen the idiots I have to work with?” I smoothed my mane back down and winced as the ringing in my ears intensified. Some of the militia looked over in embarrassment or anger.

He turned to the militia again and yelled, “Carry on.” He looked back at me apologetically and lowered his helmet. “Sorry about that.” He scratched his frazzled pink mane with his hoof. “Forgot I had that on.” I shook my head to clear out the ringing in my ears. “They can’t even point a gun. So, you found something, I take it?”

“Yep. Couple days ago, somepony was blasting the hay out of the tunnels.” I told him everything else Junk Yard and Rusty had told me. “So, should we investigate the tunnels then? I’ve got a location for where we might be able to look.”

Rumcake raised his helmet and yelled at the militia again, “Oi! Don’t eat that!” He grabbed me in his hooves and cried hysterically, “I can feel my intelligence dropping! HELP. ME.”

I laughed nervously and pried him off of me. “Easy now, you’ll be fine.” He grudgingly got up and continued yelling at the gathered militia attempting to get better at… everything. “They can’t be that bad, right?” I asked, right as a grenade went off and one of them slammed heavily into Rumcake’s armored side. Rumcake didn’t budge in the slightest, the iron wall he was. The militiapony, however, wasn’t nearly as sturdy as he was. I faceclawed as I watched the unfortunate pony flop to and fro in the dirt. “Well, I’ve got nine problems but this ain’t one. Have fun, I guess.”

He turned his helmet on and yelled at them. “Good work, idiots. Somepony get Doc, I guess.” As few militiaponies picked up their maimed companion, Rumcake put his helmet back on and toggled the Canterlot voice module off. “I say we go see what those slavers are doing. You up for some diplomacy?”

“Eh?” I blurted.

Nice save, Frosty.

Shut up. “What happened to cleaning them out of the tunnels?”

“Easy. Since these are Red Eye’s slavers, we can probably reason with them.”

“Really? What if it doesn’t work?” I was dubious. Would this really work? In my last confrontation with them, they’d seemed a lot more raider-y than slaver-y.

“Easy! We just resort to more… dramatic means of negotiation.” He whipped out his grenade launcher and blasted the targets the militia were using for target practice. “Any questions?” he asked me, as the militia looked on with awe.

“Ugh, this is a stupid idea.” I grinned. “Let’s do it.”

~~~~~

I lay on a short ridge with my anti-machine rifle assembled and aimed at a ragtag camp flying a tattered red banner. “This is a stupid idea!” I whispered to Rumcake and Baked. I peered down the sights and relayed what I was seeing to the Steel Rangers behind me. “Three—no, four sentries on watch at the front gate. Five more in the courtyard. Two tough guys guarding a large shack in the back. The commander’s probably back there.” I looked at the two of them standing there in their power armor. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“O’ course lassie! Anyway, as long as ye keep that rifle pointed in the right direction, we’re covered.” Baked laughed from under his helmet. “Now, if ye see anythin’ funny goin’ down you signal us, got it?” I nodded and loaded my rifle with the magazine with two bullets in it.

“If it gets really bad, haul your cute flank out of here and come help us, okay?” I blushed and nodded again. “Now, let’s tolerate and love the shit out these idiots.” They readied their weapons and moved out toward the camp. I watched them through the enchanted sights on my rifle as they strode towards the camp.

“Every step you take… Every move you make… I’ll be watchin’ you,” I breathed to myself, attempting to stay calm. Stabilize. Wind, four kilometers south. Four hundred meters. I shifted myself in order to correct for it. At this point, the sentries had noticed the two Steel Rangers carefully walking up to their camp. It looked like they were having some kind of yelling match with the sentries up on the gate. “C’mon, don’t mess it up already,” I muttered.

After a tense and lengthy exchange, the camp bustled into action. I swore under my breath as nearly thirty more slavers showed up from various tunnels, buildings, and tents. They were all armed, and all of the guns were pointed at Rumcake and Baked. “Their armor probably won’t stand up to that much firepower…” I murmured. A large, burly, heavily armored slaver with two miniguns mounted on his battle saddle slowly waddled toward my Rangers from the back of the camp.

I assumed that he was the leader, because two tougher-looking slavers trailed behind him and the others gave him a wide berth. I adjusted my aim and watched their exchange. Everything appeared to be going well and nopony looked like they were going to shoot. Okay, good.

Movement to the right, behind the orange pile of barrels on that wall-thing.

I scooted my aim over to where my brain had caught movement. Thanks, brain! Sure enough, there was a slaver moving as quietly as he could with a rocket launcher slung across his back.

“Dammit!” I cursed. They were up to something! What do I do? Was I supposed to shoot? What was the signal?

Wait for him to move out into the open. Teach the others a lesson.

Good call, brain. I slowly tracked his progress along the wall. I quickly checked the rest of the slavers, who were all still watching the exchange between their leader and my Rangers. “Cmon… go ahead, take your shot,” I whispered to the slaver with the rocket launcher.

After a few minutes of boredom, I noticed the other slavers were beginning to become restless. Rumcake and Baked were still talking to the slaver’s boss. I took a look at the sneaking slaver with the rocket launcher finally making his move. I quickly shifted my aim and prepared to fire. The gentle breeze tickling my ears from the south abruptly stopped and changed directions. Wind, east three kilometers. I angled myself again to compensate, took a few tense breaths and gritted my teeth.

Wait for it… The slaver struggled to load a rocket into the back of his rocket launcher. I took a deep breath and relaxed myself as much as I could. My pulse rhythmically hammered in my ears again and everything shifted into slow-motion.

One. I double-checked my aim. The slaver hadn’t moved much, so I was still on target.

Two.

Three. I slowly exhaled and the hammering in my chest became softer.

Four. I pulled the trigger.

Five. The shot rang out like thunder, and about half of a second of a second later the slaver’s entire head suddenly disappeared in a somewhat satisfying cloud of blood and gore. The bullet kept going and buried itself into the ground, but not before punching through another unfortunate slaver’s torso.

Both of the Rangers immediately jumped and deployed their weapons as the other slavers looked around in panic. The slavers were all jumpy and nervous after witnessing the gruesome demise of two of their colleagues. I could see the boss was yelling at everypony and the Rangers were probably doing the same thing. I grinned at my handiwork, until a particularly sharp-eyed slaver spotted me. “You can’t see me. You can’t see me. Nothing’s here. Move along and brush your mane,” I chanted nervously. He started yelling and pointing at me, smiling the whole time.

I wiped that smile off his face with the last bullet in my magazine. I sniggered to myself as I quickly broke apart the rifle and shoved the parts into my bag. The last thing I noticed before I packed away the sight gem was a huge firefight breaking out, with my Rangers in the center. I took out my brand new SMG and flew over to the firefight as fast as I could. As I got closer, Rumcake shouted, “This was a stupid idea!”

“No shit, Rummy!” Baked exclaimed, as bullets of varying sizes sparked off their armor. The two stallions were side to side, fighting off the hordes of slavers around them. “Stop movin’ ye daft ninnies!” he yelled as he tracked his minigun along a wall, attempting to hit several slavers hiding behind it. “It’s hard t’ hit ye when yer hidin’ behind things!”

I flew over the firefight and sprayed the slavers behind the wall with my SMG. “The cavalry has arrived, boys!” They cheered weakly in the midst of their gunfire. I kept flying and then banked into a hard turn while reloading to strafe the ones that were getting up. “Rummy! Your four o’clock!” The giant armored slaver was getting up and spinning up his miniguns.

“Say hello to my reasonably-sized friends!” the boss shouted in his gravelly voice. “Eat lead!” His miniguns flared to life, spitting 5mm bullets into Rangers and slavers alike. Rumcake cried out in pain and collapsed as most of the bullets penetrated his armor. Baked dragged him to safety as I attempted to distract the huge minigun slaver by spraying bullets into his back. Unfortunately, my SMG failed to punch through his obscenely thick metal armor and he barely noticed.

“Cover me!” I shouted. I dove behind a low barricade next to my Rangers and swapped out my SMG for my anti-machine rifle as quickly as possible. “Rumcake! Can you shoot back?” He nodded and shakily stood to his hooves, opening up with his grenade launcher. I quickly assembled my rifle and slammed in a new magazine. “Gimme five seconds of cover!” I shouted at Rumcake and Baked. They both nodded.

“Give’m the ‘tater special!” Baked cried with glee. Rumcake laughed weakly as both of them opened up their rocket bays and launched two missiles each at the slaver boss while firing their main weapons. There was a massive explosion as the barrage of ordnance exploded against, near, and around the giant slaver. “Take that, ye—” A large flying section of wall knocked Baked off his hooves. “Oof! I’ll be alright! Take th’ shot!”

I was already ahead of him. Right as they’d fired the missiles, I poked my head out of cover and braced the rifle’s bipod on the wall I was taking cover behind. Duly noting the relatively unscathed nature of the armored monster and the smattering of craters around him, I had a feeling that even I would survive a barrage from these Rangers. My pulse was going crazy and I was shaking like a foal, but I managed to take a deep, shuddering breath and slide into a sniper’s focus. I heard my heart thumping madly and I tried to control it.

Onetwothree.

I shakily lined up the shot as the missiles started hitting him.

Fourfivesix.

I raggedly exhaled as I squeezed the trigger.

Seven eight. Nine.

The rifle fired and I watched the bullet through my sight in super-slow motion as it sailed through the air.

Ten. Eleven.

I was rewarded with a high dinging sound followed the soft crack of the lead slaver’s head coming apart in a hail of gore and bone.

The battleground became silent as the dust cleared. The miniguns were no longer firing, and the remaining slavers stared on in shock when they saw their boss-leader-guy headless and spurting blood from his neck. As his body anticlimactically crashed to the ground, the slavers realized that they were in trouble. Some jumped off the walls, some ran past us, whatever the case they all fled from us. Rumcake groaned from where he was now lying on the ground. “Aww buck, I think they hit my spleen.”

After a quick looting of the bodies and the encampment, I managed to bring in quite a haul. Mostly assorted rifles, SMGs, pistols, plenty of ammo for all of them, two inhalers loaded with what I assumed to be Dash, a few Rage patches and four syringes of Med-X. The rest was just a variety of food and other random junk that I picked up anyway. Yay, kleptomania!

Before I could go loot any more buildings or tents, Rumcake groaned in pain. “Hey, you alright?” I asked him as his steps faltered.

“Okay, collection time’s over, lassie!” Baked shouted. “Rummy’s onboard med-suite ain’t gonna fix im’ up. How ye hangin’, lad?” Rumcake shook his head and grunted in response. Baked turned to me urgently. “We gotta get him back to the Doc! An’ fast!”

“You know your way back?” I asked him. He nodded. Good! “Okay, I’m going to fly him back to town.” I took out one of the Dash inhalers I’d picked up and took a deep breath out of it. My nostrils tingled with delight and a powerful shiver ran down my entire body as I emptied out the inhaler. “Wow! I feel really really really good I can do anything right now but first I gotta get Rummy out of here wow I feel good! I feel really really good!” I grabbed Rumcake by his sides and lifted with all my might. “Wow you’re heavy really really heavy!”

“Eh… ye okay there, lass?” Baked asked with concern. What was he talking about? I feel amazing! “Yer kinda… twitchy.” I shook my head vigorously. Twitchy? Nah! I was feeling really really good! Baked shouted.

“I’m totally fine! Wow is it getting hot I feel really hot how about you anyway I’ll see you back at town ‘cause I gotta go fast!” And then I zoomed off toward town in my Dash-fueled haze of speed and excitement. Even with a protesting and possibly airsick Steel Ranger in my hoof and claw, I was going faster than I’d ever gone before! “Woohoo! I’m going so fast I didn’t realize how much I miss flying with the wind in my mane the currents beneath my wings oh hey the town’s right there that was fast!” The words just spilled out of my mouth as I flew right onto Doc Galactic’s doorstep.

“Wow. That was… fast,” Doc observed, stepping out of the double doors. “Are you okay?”

“Oh yeah totally I’m fine I feel awesome hey is it getting hot in here I feel really hot I think I’m going to go outside and fly around some more see ya!” I blurted and took off again. So fast! If only this feeling never stopped!

~~~~~

I woke up in my lofty perch in Rusty’s room with more than a few bruises and a pounding headache. “Ugh… what happened?” Broken poked her head into my field of vision with a smile. “It feels my face got flattened by a manticore.”

“Well, you did collide with a building at high speed.” Broken giggled and climbed up and patted my head. “You feeling okay?”

“My face hurts.” I rubbed my muzzle irritably. I carefully stretched out my legs and winced at the burning sensations in my entire body. “And I’m sore all over.” I carefully stretched out my wings and and cried out in pain as a bolt of pain lanced through them. “Gah! Oh wow that hurts!” I winced and gingerly flapped my wings. “Ow. Ow. Ow.” I stood up and shook myself to loosen up my stiff muscles, all of which protested from being moved so much. “That makes me feel much better, I think.”

“You know, you’re adorable when you’re on Dash. Your friends told me all about it!” she exclaimed. Wait! My friends! I opened my mouth to say something, but she answered right away. “They’re fine. You got him to the Doc with time to spare, and now he’s recovering just fine.” I breathed a sigh of relief and I flopped down onto a pillow. “You should go visit your friend!”

“I don’t wanna move right now. I feel so tiiiiiiiired,” I whined, refusing to get up. I flapped my wings weakly to somehow demonstrate how tired I felt.

Poke.

“Stop.”

Poke.

“Stop it.”

Poke. Poke.

“Okay, fine! I’m getting up!” I painfully shuffled to my hooves and stretched again. “Guess I'm off, then."

"Oh, so soon? You don't even want a kiss goodbye?" Broken batted her eyes at me and made little kissy motions.

My eye twitched, and I raced out as quickly as possible, ignoring the sounds of giggling from behind me.

When I arrived at the clinic, Baked Potato was standing near the door to the back room and Doc Galactic was tinkering with his strange brewery contraption from before. He heard me walk in and he put down the bubbling beaker. “Hello there, Frosty! How can I fix you today?” I sighed in relief as I sat down, relaxing my sore, sore, muscles. “So I would assume the Dash high finally wore off?”

“Yep. I’m so sore all over! I don’t think I’ve ever gone that fast in my life. How’s Rumcake?” I asked.

Doc was nearly jumping with joy. “Oh, I had so much fun!” I cringed at him as he dug around a drawer for something. “It was like a scavenger hunt for bullets!” He pulled out a syringe with his magical field and started filling it with the mixture from earlier. “It was the most fun I’ve had for months! Thanks! You three are giving me so many opportunities to practice my medical expertise!

“What are we, guinea pigs?” I whined.

“Actually, you’re more li—” Doc started, but I wasn’t particularly in the mood to listen to scientific drivel, so I picked up the closest bottle and chucked it at him. That elicited a satisfying squeak of pain upon impact. “Okay, I guess I deserved that,” he muttered, rubbing his jaw.

“Yes. You did.” I growled. I stepped over to where Baked was standing. I took on a more friendly tone and asked Baked, “You been here all night?” I could hear him deeply breathing under his helmet. “You in there?” I gently tapped his helmet. He was probably just thinking about so—

I heard a soft snore from under the helmet.

No. He couldn’t be… I waved at him again. “Seriously?” I muttered. He snored again, this time louder.

Do it. You know you want to.

“Sorry buddy, but this is too good to pass up,” I whispered under my breath.

I tiphoofed over to his side and faced away from him. I shifted my weight onto my forelegs and gathered all my strength into my hind legs. Here goes nothing! I released all my strength and I bucked him as hard as I could. My hooves clanged loudly on his armor, but I’d hit him just hard enough to cause him to slowly tip over. “Eh? Wot?” he mumbled, right before he fell over and crashed into the floor. “Ye gigantic twat!” he cried as he tried to get back up.

I helped him up as I laughed hysterically. “Oh that was amazing!” I gasped. “You should have seen your face! I should have seen your face!” I attempted to mimic his accent “Ye gigantic twat!” I laughed harder. “You can’t put caps on that!”

“T’aint fair t’ ambush a stallion while he’s sleepin’!” Baked whined. “Yer an evil little lass, aren’t ye?” I giggled and he playfully punched me. “Ye feelin’ better?”

“Not really. I feel worse, but I know what you mean,” I told him.

“Next time, no candy fer ye,” he scolded.

“Hey! It was an emergency, okay?” I retorted.

“Shut up and get in here!” Rumcake shouted from the back room. I smiled and we ran into the back room. When we got there, I started laughing even harder. Rumcake was out of his armor and lying in a bed with his entire neck and torso covered in bandages. His right foreleg was wrapped up in a cast and he was giving me a dirty look. “Stop it. It isn’t funny.”

“No! It’s hillarious!” I continued laughing anyway. “Holy crap, what did Doc do to you?”

“I went bullet fishing in his ribcage!” Doc Galactic nonchalantly answered, trotting into the room. “I had a great time!” He poked Rumcake’s bandaged torso. “You, not so much I would assume.”

“No shit!” Rumcake yelled. “You made me bucking watch while you had me cut open!” Doc only smiled. Rumcake gazed at me sympathetically. “Now I know why you hate this guy.” I grinned.

Doc frowned. “It wasn’t all that bad, was it?” He gestured at me. “At least you still have all your parts, unlike her.” My grin disappeared.

“You made me hold your beer!” Rumcake shouted. “What doctor does that?” He turned back to me. “What did he make you do?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. I was passed out the entire time.” Somehow, I didn’t want to know what he’d done anyway.

“Why does she get a knockout spell?” Rumcake demanded. “That’s not fair!”

“Hey! Don’t judge!” Doc said defensively. “I’m not going to have a lady watch me cut her ribs out! That’s just cruel.”

I really wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or really disturbed. On one hoof, at least he had an—admittedly twisted—idea of chivalry; but on the other claw, something was very, very wrong with him.

“But you, you’re a grown stallion!” Doc continued, patting Rumcake’s head. “Who’s a big colt? You’re a big colt!” he cooed.

“Stop it,” Rumcake scolded. “Can we please just move onto more pressing matters? Frosty, why’d you open fire first?”

I felt a twang of worry lance through my mind. Was it the wrong thing to do? “I saw the slaver trying to flank you with a rocket launcher. I waited for him to make a move, then I shot him in the head,” I told him, projecting confidence. “He posed a possible threat, so I took him out.”

Rumcake nodded. “Okay, that makes sense now.” He turned to Baked. “Well, so we were half right.” Baked grunted and tossed a small bundle of caps at him. “Well, thanks for the quick save back there. Our barrage wasn’t as effective as I hoped, and he would have actually gotten us if you hadn’t taken that risky shot.”

I gushed with pride. “Wow, uh, thanks! I went with my instincts back there.”

“Yep. Anyway, turns out the slavers have no idea what they’re doing,” Rumcake informed me. “They’re trying to close off the tunnels between the sewers and the Seapony Energy underground sections.”

“Wait, what?” I exclaimed. “That’s not possible!”

“Lass, they’re runnin’,” Baked clarified. “Somethin’ in th’ tunnels got them scared wild.”

“But… I thought they were trying to mass in the tunnels! What could they be running from? Why would they just give up on all that potential pre-war weaponry?

The weird glowy thingy in the tunnels, maybe?

“Who knows? We don’t know what they were tryin’ to do,” Baked answered. He caught the confused expression on my face. “Somethin’ on yer mind, lass?”

“Uh… I don’t… Okay, well…” I stammered. How would I tell them? Would they believe me?

They’re your friends. Maybe. You can trust them.

“Spit it out, lass!” Baked exclaimed.

“Okay, there’s this really creepy monster thing down there in the tunnels.” I got some weird looks from the gathered ponies in the room. “I shit you not, this thing is scary.” I recounted my experiences in the security room that day. “Maybe they’re running from that?”

“Any other details you can remember?” Rumcake asked. “Armor type? Size? Weaponry? Anything?” I shook my head. “Any ideas, Bakey?”

Baked tapped his helmet thoughtfully. “Sounds like th’ camera ye were seein’ through was in th’ reactor room.” Well, that answered a question. “But I’ve never heard of anythin’ or anypony that’s got that style goin’ on.”

“Well then. We’ll just have to find out.” Rumcake pointed at me. “Go talk to Scrap Bank for supplies. Baked will give you some caps to pay for it.” I nodded and consulted my beaten-up saddlebag on its contents. “Baked, you go see to ammo.” Baked saluted. Rumcake pointed at Doc. “Get me out of this ridiculous getup and back into my armor.” Doc rolled his eyes but grudgingly complied anyway. “Who dares, wins.”

~~~~~

After I’d looted Scrap Bank’s shop for some food and a good amount of healing potions, I headed back to Doc’s clinic to meet up with my Steel Rangers. Baked was helping Rumcake load his grenade launcher and Doc was adjusting his bonesaw harnesses. “Uh, Doc, what do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m coming with you, of course!” He grinned and slid yet another cruel-looking bonesaw into a vacant slot on his harness. “I haven’t had a good jaunt in ages!” He went over to a butterfly-printed medical box and strapped it to his back. “Anyway—if you get torn up, I can fix you up!”

“And what happens if you get killed?” I asked. “Ponies here need you!” Doc only shrugged. “Think about it!”

“Eh, death is only an inconvenience.” Doc waved me off. “Pass me that trauma kit.” Again, something was seriously wrong with this pony.

I picked up a small package that was labeled “TRAMA KIT” in my teeth and dropped it onto the medical box on his back. “You know you—” I mentioned.

“Shut up. I know, I’m a doctor, not a dictionary.” Doc levitated a length of surgical tubing out and used it to tie the trauma kit to the medical box. “You need a medic, and I fit the bill just fine.”

I turned to Rumcake, who grimly nodded. “We might as well. The last thing I want to do to you is get you addicted to Dash.” I gaped at him. Really? We were bringing the only local medical professional in the wasteland into an incredibly dangerous tunnel system where we could all die?

I sighed and passed Doc Galactic the chems I’d found earlier. “Before I forget, here you go.” He took them and dropped them onto the table with his strange chemistry set on it. “So what do you need so many chems for?”

“It’s for a chemical cocktail that I haven’t tested yet.” He tapped the medical box on his back. “I don’t want to have to use it, but we have it if you need it.”

“Now that we’re all geared up, let’s get down to business,” Rumcake stated. All four of us got up and left Doc’s clinic. To the reactor room, this time with backup!

~~~~~

“Well, this is it,” I told the assembled ponies behind me as we stared at the collapsed tunnel in the South Labs. “The reactor room should be right back there.” I stared at my map, trying to figure out whether there was another way around. “I guess the only way is to start digging.”

“Okay everypony, stand back!” Rumcake called out. He whipped out his grenade launcher and aimed it at the debris blocking our path. We all realized what he was about to do and we all collectively dived behind various desks, tables, and walls. He firmly planted his hooves into the ground and opened fire, blasting away at the obstruction in our path. “Yeah! Explosions, woo!”

After a few seconds when the dust cleared, everypony peeked out from their chosen spots of cover. “Is it safe?” Doc asked tenatively. Baked nodded. “Oh good, because it would be a terrible shame if we all suddenly died because some idiot with a grenade launcher dropped the entire continent on us.”

“Would you have preferred to dig?” Rumcake asked indignantly. “Come on, follow me.” Without waiting for the rest of us, he stepped through the giant hole that he’d just made and disappeared into the darkness. We all looked at each other, then proceeded to file into the hole one at a time.

“I hate to mention this now, but in hindsight I realize I should have bought body armor,” I whispered to the rest of my group in the darkness. Rumcake groaned, but I swear I heard Doc giggle with delight. “Sorry!”

“Buy some when we get back,” Rumcake shot back, then he raised his hoof. “Hold up. Helmet lights on.” Rumcake and Baked both turned on their helmet lights, and even Doc focused and released a glowing blue light from his horn. The darkness in the tunnel disappeared, replaced with a sickly yellow-blue light.

“I feel a bit left out,” I mentioned to the others, feeling glum about my lack of lighting. They all turned to look at me, and suddenly I was blinded by every single light source being pointed in my direction. “Gaaah! The lights! They burn!” I cried, covering my eyes with my forelegs. “Get it away!”

Everypony immediately turned their lights away and back into the darkness. While my eyes adjusted back to the relative darkness of the tunnel, Baked asked me, “So, what’s the deal with this place, anyway?” He scanned the walls and ceiling. The room was cavernous and had a domed ceiling, and the walls were streaked with soot and grime. “And where’s the liiiiiii—” he yelled as he fell into a crater.

The rest of us just gaped in shock at the state of the room. “Okay, I’m no theoretical physicist or anything, but something tells me there should be a floor here.” Doc observed, breaking the silence. I double checked the map. This was the right room alright, but what—Clickitey. Eh? Clickitey. Clickitey. Clickitey. “Is that the sound of my Geiger counter or the sound of my organs slowly dying?” Doc asked rhetorically. “Just kidding! It’s both!” He shuddered and tightened his coat around himself.

Doc balefully looked around the room while the Steel Rangers appeared to go check their own state. “Yep, I’m getting like, one rad per second,” Rumcake told me. I pouted at him unhappily. “Armor. You should think about investing in some.” Doc levitated a Rad-X over to me and I immediately downed it, unsure if it would actually help. “Make sure you get a RadAway after this.”

Baked grunted from inside the crater. “Did ye say this was a reactor room?” I nodded. “Well, that don’t look like no reactor.” He shined his helmet light at the center of the room. Instead of what I somewhat expected, there was just a crater scattered with debris. “Looks like there was some kinda meltdown in here.” He trotted closer to the center and immediately backed off. “Woah! Okay! Lass, ye better not come down here!” He addressed Rumcake, “It’s nearly forty-eight in there! Definitely an old meltdown.”

A smashed window in the corner of the room caught my eye. “Okay, I’m going to just go around the giant room-sized crater and check in there,” I told Doc. He nodded, and continued observing Rumcake and Baked standing inside the edge of the crater. They were discussing something involving some Ministry or something, I didn’t really care.

I peeked through the shattered window. There was that scratching noise again! I perked up my ears as I investigated the room. It couldn’t just be me, right? In the top corner of the room I could barely make out a security camera in the corner.

The room slowly brightened up and Doc appeared behind me. “Hey, is it just me or do you hear something?” he whispered. I turned to him in surprise. “So, you hear it too. You have any idea what it is?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea,” I replied while carefully flying into the room through the broken window. “Come over here. I need to see what these buttons say.” Doc poked his head through the window, his horn illuminating the room with his pale blue light. Now, imagine how silly I felt when I realized all the words were burned off or obscured beyond recognition. “Well, nevermind then.”

I poked my head underneath the table with the buttons on it. “You find anything else back there?” Doc called out. “It’s getting boring out here.” I heard him pacing around outside. “Hey, what’s this?” I heard him walk away and the light in the room faded. When I looked back up, Doc was gone.

I stuck my head back into the reactor room. Baked and Rumcake were on the other side of the room examining a set of heavy doors that looked like they were really locked. “Doc?” I called out. No response. “Ha ha. Very funny, Doc. Where’re you hiding at?” I looked around. I couldn’t tell where he could possibly be hiding. I peeked into a small access tunnel off to the side. “Doc?” I called out nervously.

I heard the high-pitched whine of something powering up. Where’s a flashlight when you need one?

“Gotcha,” A deep, masculine voice growled behind me.

Wha—

I had enough time for my brain to register what was going on, and then something collided with the back of my head. Everything suddenly went dark and I don’t remember ever hitting the floor.

Great reaction time.

Shut up, brain.

~~~~~

Hello, brain damage. You in there?

Wait, isn’t that my line?

Wait, dammit.

I groaned weakly. “Ehh… what happened?” I squinted in the darkness I found myself in. “Anypony out there?” I coughed and tried to rub my muzzle, but my hoof was tied to my sides. I attempted to swing my claw around to cut the rope holding me captive, but all I managed to do was swing my stump. “Dammit, not again.” I groaned.

“Nice to know you’re awake,” Doc’s voice floated over to me. I looked around. “Up here, featherbrain.” I looked up and smirked when I saw Doc Galactic tied up and attached to the ceiling. “You okay there?”

I struggled against my bonds, hoping that my captor was really bad at knots or something. They didn’t budge and I sighed. “I could be better, but considering our circumstances I think I’m fine. You?” I continued my attempts to wiggle out of the rope, but I only managed to lose my balance. “No, no, no NO!” I lost control and completely fell onto my face. “Dammit. Now I’m tied up and face planted. Great.”

“Well, I’m doing fine. But it looks like you’ve been disarmed.” If only I could facehoof. Or faceclaw. Dear Luna, the puns. Doc laughed uncontrollably. “Wow, I’ve always wanted to throw that out there!”

“Well. It looks like you two are up and about,” a voice growled. “About time.” From my spot on the floor I could only make out a set of armored hooves. The strange part was, the armor appeared to have been custom-crafted from welded steel plates. The hooves stopped right in front of my muzzle. “Get up.”

“If you haven’t noticed yet, I’ve been tied up by some crazy idiot,” I sneered at him. “And if you’re a bit thick” – I attempted to wave my stump at him – “you haven’t noticed my other leg’s gone.” I was rewarded with the familiar white-and-blue tones of my claw being dropped in front of me. “Aww, thanks.”

As I wormed my way closer to it, the mysterious pony continued talking. “I guess I can trust you. The DJ think’s you’re hot stuff.” He stepped over me and whispered to Doc, “It’s good to see you again, old buddy.” I squirmed around and tried to get a good look at them. “How you been?” What? Doc knew this whackjob?

Doc shifted around. “Wait, is this about the whole skeleton thing?” He laughed nervously. “You know, I really do apologize about that. I mean, the shin bone doesn’t really have to be connected to the leg bone, right?” He struggled in his ropes. “No hard feelings?”

“Oh, this isn’t about that anymore. Though what I’m about to make you do will definitely make me feel better.” He went over to a dark portion of the room and suddenly Doc fell down from the ceiling. “Get your friend fixed up.”

Doc magically loosened his ropes and helped me untie mine while he spoke. “Look, all of this makes sense. In context,” he assured. He then paused and put a hoof to his chin in thought. “Actually, it still doesn’t. Pretend I’m making sense.” He finally untied my ropes and levitated my claw over to me. “You want help?”

I sat up and nodded. “I can’t really— BUCK YOU WITH THE GODDESSESDAMNED MOON YOU GIANT ASS!” I screamed when Doc decided to plug my claw back in. I was getting used to the pain of the nerves reconnecting and all, but damn it, it still bucking hurt! “You’d think I would realize it by now!” Doc burst into another fit of laughter.

“If you girls are done, I need you to come with me. There’s something I need your particular expertise for,” our captor said as he pointed at me. “Now, let’s go.” We obediently followed him out of the room and into another hallway.

Now that I could get a good look at him, he wasn’t as scary as I’d thought he was. However, he really was the thing I’d seen on the security camera that day. His armor was completely made of welded steel plates and his helmet was a scavenged combat helmet with a few attachments and gas mask attached to it. As for weapons, he had a pair of assault rifles strapped to his sides in a semblance of a battle saddle.

“So, Agent Tabber, how you been?” Doc nonchalantly asked him. “Still working for that idiot Roy Mustang?” Agent Tabber muttered something incomprehensible under his breath. Doc continued, “You haven’t changed, have you?”

“Shut it, Stitches,” Tabber shot back. “You’re a filthy deserter. That’s what you are.” He fiddled with something attached to his helmet. “You’ve got a fifteen thousand cap bounty on you back in Dise, and I’ve got half a mind to turn you in.”

“Now, you and I both know that won’t happen,” Doc quickly replied. “And anyway, nopony’ll believe you.” He flaunted his coat. “I’m just a doctor now!”

“I know. And as much as I’d like to haul your ass back with me, I still owe you for Canterlot.” He turned and kept walking. I gave Doc a questioning look but he shook his head. “We’re almost there.”

“So…” I awkwardly started. “You two know each other?” Both of them stopped and glared at me. “I’m going to assume nopony wants to talk about it.” Tabber huffed and kept walking. Doc glanced at him and sighed.

“It’s a really long story,” Doc finally groaned. “We were part of a team. Things went wrong and I bugged out. That’s all.” He stared at Tabber. “It’s just… everything went wrong. We were lied to, cheated, and left for dead.”

We stopped in what looked like a mostly-empty storage area. “That’s not how I remember it!” Tabber shouted, spinning around and nearly hitting me in the face with his rifles. “You ran!” He jabbed Doc (Stitches?) in the chest. “We had a job, and you decided to abandon the rest of us.”

“I… I don’t want to… talk about it anymore,” Doc stammered. I was actually somewhat shocked. I’d never heard Doc this scared before, even when he was being confronted earlier. “Just… let me stay in town. It’s nice there.”

“Come here, pegasus,” Agent Tabber growled, ignoring Doc for the moment. “I need you to open this.” He pointed at a cloud-locked metal locker.

I crouched in front of the locker and prodded the cloud-built keypad with my claw. Much to my surprise, my claw sunk right through it. “Huh. That’s interesting.” I prodded the keypad with my hoof and felt relieved when my hoof met the solid cloud.

“Can you open it?” he asked.

“Yeah, yeah. Hold on,” I muttered. I shifted the patternized keys and numbers around in some of the most common combinations any pegasi would use. “There we go.” After a few moments of fiddling, pulling, and a bit of luck, I opened the chest and backed up. “Well, I can’t say I was surprised.” Hello, empty storage container.

He sighed and took off his helmet. His coat was a nice dark orange color and his mane was a deep red shade. He bore the scars of many knife fights and his ears were missing several slices. And his eyes! They were a beautiful, mesmerizing purple th— “What? Is there something on my face?” he asked.

“Gah! Ah! Eh, no,” I stammered weakly. Focus!

Smooth. Great recovery, ten out of ten.

Shut up, brain.

“Whatever.” Tabber turned to Doc and growled. “Well, I guess this is the end of our little reunion since this was all I was here for. You can go back to your friends now. Follow that hallway, turn left, second door on the right,” he said, pointing off into the depths of the room. Dejected, he turned away to leave, but suddenly paused. “Wait. Why are you even here, anyway?” he asked, performing a surprisingly quick pivot on his hind hoof.

“Well, we were originally going to figure out what the slavers were doing down here, but you’ve sort of answered our questions,” I explained to him. “I’m going to assume you kicked them out of here a few days ago?”

“Yeah. They kept interfering, so I got around to rigging traps and ambushes for them to run into. Didn’t take long for them to pick up and leave,” Tabber replied matter-of-factly. “So, you’re here to kill those slavers, eh?” We were?

“One more job? For old time’s sake?” Doc pleaded. Tabber rolled his eyes and prepared to leave. “Think of the loot they might have collected! You can’t return empty hoofed.” Doc reasoned.

Tabber groaned and stopped in his tracks. “Fine. Those slavers are in between me and my exfil at Old Olneigh, so I guess I can come with you.” Doc grinned with satisfaction. Tabber grimaced and poked Doc’s nose. “One time. Just because we used to be friends. And because I’m still technically under contract.”

Something connected in my brain when he’d said “Old Olneigh”. It seemed familiar, in a way. But where had I heard it? I filed it away for later investigation and turned my attention to the task at hand. “Well, we need to meet up with Rumcake and Baked Potato first before we go hit that slaver camp,” I told them.

“And then you can show us where the slavers are coming from,” Doc finished. “Now, let’s go find the rest of our group, shall we?”

After a few minutes stumbling about in the relative darkness, we finally encountered the familiar yellow glow of our Steel Rangers’ helmet lights. After a long introduction and a very careful explanation of a very convenient chain of events, we finally convinced Rumcake that Tabber wasn’t hostile to us. “I still don’t think this is a good idea,” Rumcake grumbled.

“Look, I don’t particularly enjoy doing this either, but I think he’s going to be really useful,” I implored. I steered him aside as Baked excitedly discussed something about crafting armor and weapons with Tabber. “I think we should work with him.”

“Better be a good reason. I’m not stickin’ our necks out fer some lunatic we found in th’ tunnels,” Baked countered.

“I think he knows something about my past. Or at least, something from two weeks back,” I whispered. “Something in my mind got connected or something when he talked about this place, Old Olneigh. Know anything about it?”

Rumcake grunted. “It’s just ruins. Nothing’s there anymore besides manticores, hellhounds, and more manticores. Also there’s hellhounds. Mostly hellhounds.” I closed my eyes and tried to remember. Hellhounds? Something about hellhounds? “You remembering something?”

Little flashes of a meeting and a Vertibuck ride flew past my vision. I growled and rubbed my forehead in frustration. “Just… random… things. I think I just remembered the ride over.” Nothing was making sense! It sure would help if my visions came with an audio feed.

Audio is overrated.

Dammit, brain.

“Everything’s all random and disjointed, though,” I continued.

Rumcake sighed. “Fine, he can come with us.” I followed him back to where the rest of our group was idly milling about. “Well, Agent Tabber. You can come with us for the time being,” Rumcake announced. “Now, let’s go destroy our mutually despised enemies and be completely done with it, yes?”

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Bloody Mess – Eww. Characters and creatures you kill now have a higher chance of meeting their end in a violent explosion of blood and gore. You also now do 5% more damage with all weapons.

-End of Chapter 5!-

Chapter 6: Time to blow the place?

Chapter 6: Time to blow the place?

“How dare you take the cake!”

“Okay, up this service tunnel here,” Tabber told us as we followed him. About halfway up the tunnel, there was a large section of roof that had collapsed, blocking our progress. However, next to it was a large gaping hole that led into the darkness beyond. We stopped at the edge and looked down. “This is where Seapony Energy stops and the sewers begin.”

With an impossible amount of grace, he jumped into the hole and landed several meters down in the darkness with a heavy thump. “Well, lasses first,” Baked said, motioning me to follow.

I rolled my eyes. “Chicken.” I flapped my wings and descended into the darkness. “Hey, can you turn on a light?” I asked Tabber when I landed next to him. It was hard to tell what was going on behind that gas mask, but I assumed he had a glare for me back there. Instead, he attached a gently glowing blue gem to one of the mask’s eye holes. “I’m going to take that as a no.”

“Whee!” Doc cried as he jumped in after us. He magically levitated a procedure mask out and fastened it to his face. Both of us gave him a strange look. “What? It’s a sewer. I don’t want to catch a two hundred year old disease.”

Our attention was diverted by Rumcake joining us in the relative darkness. He landed with a heavy crunch and turned on his headlamp. “I don’t know how you fairies jump with such grace,” he grumbled. “I don’t think the armor was designed with acrobatics in mind.”

Baked immediately demonstrated this by hitting the ground face-first with a loud crash. “Me spine!” he cried loudly, flailing his armored limbs in the air.

Doc paced over and placed his glowing horn against Baked’s armor. “You’re fine, you giant wuss,” he observed, shaking his head. “Now get up so we can actually get going.” He grudgingly helped Baked get to his hooves.

“If you bumbling idiots are ready, their base should be this way,” Tabber growled exasperatedly. Baked Potato turned on his headlamp as well, providing additional illumination to the arched tunnel ahead of us. We proceeded to follow the small elevated path along the right edge.

“How do you know where we’re going?” I asked skeptically. “I thought all you did was place traps up there.” I indicated the Seapony Energy tunnels we’d recently left behind.

“What do you think I did after they decided the tunnels were too dangerous to be any good?” he growled irritably. We kept walking down the tunnel, apparently ignoring all the other branching sections. “I waited for the last stragglers to leave and I followed them. Turns out they’re much faster when they’re scared.”

“Ye don’t say!” Baked said sarcastically. I giggled as Baked continued, “Of course they’re runnin’ scared! They’re no-good slavers!” He probably had a point. I started looking around the tunnel and noticed that the drab brown walls were sporadically smeared with blood and pockmarked with bullet holes. Every few feet the blood smears gave way to some very cryptic and very disturbing graffiti. The walls themselves were old and cracked, and if there was supposed to be water, there was only dirt in the central area.

We turned right into one of the branches. “Now we’re entering the slavers’ territory,” Tabber told us. “Keep your guard up. There’s enough side passages and tunnels to hide an ambush.”

I carefully reloaded my SMG and Doc magically drew one of his bonesaws. “Hey, I’ve got a burning question I’ve been waiting to ask you, Doc,” I said while the Rangers deployed their massive guns. “Why is it called a bonesaw?”

“Uh… you use them to… saw. Bones,” he explained, confused. “Ergo, bonesaw.”

“Why not a hacksaw?” I continued, waving my claw as if I was holding a bonesaw. “Because you hack at things. And it’s a saw.”

Doc rolled his eyes and shrugged. “Whatever. I’m calling it a bonesaw.” A grin formed on his face and he drew five more bonesaws with his magic. “Would you care for a demonstration?” He laughed maniacally, brandishing several of them at me. I eeped and immediately bolted to the ceiling.

Everypony laughed and relaxed a bit while I blushed from my hiding place on the ceiling. “Okay, let’s keep going before Stitches disassembles somepony.” Tabber smirked, opening a side gate. “Careful. Watch your step,” he whispered in a more serious tone. “Keep it down. I’m not sure if the guards actually pay attention to whatever’s going on down here, if there are guards.”

“Why would they guard the sewer?” Doc whispered back. “There isn’t anything good down here, so why would they guard it?” Doc made a good point. If they knew the tunnels weren’t safe, why didn’t they just barricade it up?

“I would assume the tunnels down here lead to other encampments or areas they still want to go to,” Rumcake replied. “Now, shut up.” We quietly snuck around to a service ladder that ended with a hatch. “Are we ready?” he asked us.

There was a round of muffled clacking and snapping as we all double-checked our weapons. On second thought, I assembled my sniper rifle and slung it across my back. “Okay, now I’m ready.”

“Wait—when did you get that rifle back?” Rumcake asked.

Caught off guard, I defaulted to, “Don’t worry about it.”

Rumcake grunted. “We will have words.”

“Hold up. Help me take this mess off,” Tabber whispered urgently. Doc immediately went over and started unbuckling and unstrapping Tabber’s armor. “Ah, that feels better.” He sighed as he dropped the last of the steel plates. Underneath all of that he was wearing black and dark blue light barding reinforced with some duct tape. His saddlebags were integrated into his barding for a seamless attachment.

“Why’d ye drop the armor?” Baked asked. “Ye coulda used it in a fight.”

“I’m not for heavy armor,” Tabber replied. “I rely on stealth. The armor is for the metaphorical plan ‘B’. Stitches knows.” Everypony turned to Doc for confirmation.

“Oh yeah, he’s a real silent assassin. Well, sometimes he’s more like a rogue asset. Anyway, he’s good at what he does,” Doc explained.

“Now, all of you stay quiet. I’m going to go check what’s up there.” He climbed up the ladder and carefully pushed the hatch open. He climbed out and we heard a loud snapping sound, following by a heavy, meaty thump. “All clear. Quiet now.” We all climbed out of the hatch one at a time and gathered around it.

We were standing in a small steel room accompanied by a very dead slaver lying on the floor. The walls were grimy and covered with illegible scrawling all over the walls. There was one door in the room that had a tiny viewing slot and a bar across it. “Well, he’s dead,” I stated blandly. “Now what?”

“Okay, here’s the plan,” Rumcake said. “Doc and I are going to go into the base and see what we can find.” He grudgingly started taking off his armor as he continued. “Somepony strip the slaver and give me his barding. Frosty and Agent Tabber will go stealthy.” Tabber calmly nodded and checked his equipment. “Baked, you’re on guard duty. Watch my armor and the door.” Baked saluted and somehow folded the armor up very neatly.

“Hey!” I protested. “Why do I have to go with him?”

“Look, you’re the only other one of us with any semblance of stealth training,” Rumcake calmly replied. “I’d love to send Doc with him, since Doc’s worked with him before.” He shot a quick glare at Doc. “…But you’re too obvious to be out in the open. A pegasus just stands out too much to be undercover.” I grudgingly agreed with him. “So you’re the only obvious pairing.”

Rumcake started pulling on the slaver’s patchy barding. “That smells… unhygienic.” Doc stammered unhelpfully. “Are you sure you want to do that?” Rumcake struggled to pull on the barding while keeping his pink mane under control. His chestnut coat really clashed with the slaver’s dark mostly-purple barding.

“It’ll be less obvious than a Steel Ranger walking around,” he replied. “Okay, everypony know the plan?” We all nodded. “We’ll go first, then wait fifteen and go.”

Rumcake unbarred the door and poked his messy pink mane out. “If all goes to hell, bring my armor to me.” He looked around. “All clear. Let’s go.” Doc and Rumcake darted out and disappeared into the darkness and commotion of the night. Wait, what? It was already night?

After waiting a short bit, Tabber gently tugged my wing. “Let’s move. Stay low, don’t be seen.” I nodded and followed him out into the base. Baked waved us goodbye and shut the door leading to the sewers behind us. The further we moved, the louder the noise got. The base was loud with the commotion of violence, sex, conversations, and shady deals.

We dashed down a small alley and crouched in the darkness. “How much can you carry?” he asked me with a hushed whisper.

“I can carry you for a short distance, if that’s what you’re asking,” I hissed back. “Why?”

“Good.” He adjusted his gear a little and pulled out a silenced pistol in his teeth. “Get me up to that rooftop,” he grunted through his pistol’s bit. I looked up. The roof was at least five floors up, but there was a giant hole around the third floor where I could probably take a break, if I needed to.

“Fine.” I flapped my wings and quietly floated over Tabber, making sure I wasn’t making too much noise. I wrapped my forelegs around his shoulders and under his forelegs and started flapping harder. “Gah! You’re really heavy!” I groaned as I attempted to gain altitude. “What the hay do you eat? Lead bars?”

“Chickens like you. Keep flying,” Tabber shot back. With much effort and a few minutes of flapping, I managed to drop him off on the third floor of the building we were standing next to. “Oh well, I guess we can take the stairs to the top.”

“You… are… so. Bucking. Heavy,” I panted, fully exhausted. I didn’t even want to move after flying him up this far! I just laid on the ground, wings outstretched, panting heavily. “Why… are you… so… heavy?” Wings… hurt… so… much.

“What can I say? Interdimensional saddlebags.” He grinned at me. “Thanks. Now c’mon you big foal. Let’s go.” I glared at him from my spot on the floor and grudgingly got up. “Let’s get to the roof and figure out what’s going on here.”

We located the rickety stairs and stealthily climbed up to the roof. There was definitely no way I was flying his lazy flank up there after I had to cart him around this many rooftops. I took a moment to catch my breath before pulling myself up for a quick peek at where we were.

“Woah,” I breathed. We hadn’t breached a slaver base—we’d breached one of their bucking fortresses! They’d taken over about two city blocks and fortified it to the moon and back! The walls were massive and heavily guarded, and the two gates on opposite sides had large cannons attached to them. As for the buildings themselves, some sort of slaver motif was liberally applied all over, except for what appeared to once be the post office. Various sections of the slaver's territory were very lit up and some were more abuzz with sound than others.

“Looks like the post office is now their headquarters,” Tabber told me. “At least these are Red Eye’s slavers,” he continued, pointing out the banners hanging from the roof. “Hopefully there’ll be somepony willing to just let us walk right in.”

“Wait, what?” I asked incredulously. “Why would they let us just walk in?”

“They’re always spouting their whole Unity crap. It’s great cover to just walk in saying you want to join, only to kill the leader here,” Tabber whispered back, surveying the area. “Oh shit, get down!” he urgently hissed at me. Both of us ducked down and flattened ourselves against the roof right as a dark purple blur landed on the roof of the post office.

“What was that?”

“Dammit… Red Eye’s got alicorns posted here.”

“Alicorns? Goddesses like Celestia?”

“No. Not really.” Tabber scooted closer and whispered to me, “They’re false goddesses. They’re like… re-engineered… things. Basically, they’re super smart, super fast, super strong, and they can telepathically talk to each other.”

“Okay, so they’re invincible,” I summarized. “Great. What’s the plan now?” Invincible alicorns, slaver strongholds, and a bucking sewer line. This couldn’t get any more ridiculous.

“Well… let’s just say they’re damage resistant.” He chuckled and tossed me a cylindrical sapphire gem with a hole bored through it.. “Here. It’s got a velocity enchantment on it, I think.” I examined it and noticed it would probably fit on my rifle. How oddly convenient. “Extra speed should give you that extra punch you need for instakills.”

“Where did you get this from?” I asked. It looked really custom-made, and really expensive. “One does not simply find upgrades.”

“Pulled it off a Hoofington assassin that tried to kill me this one time.” He dug around in his bags and pulled out a pair of orange sunglasses. “Got these off him too.”

We sat there in silence, waiting for the alicorn to leave. Tabber broke the awkward silence by saying, “So… a monster, eh?”

I grimaced and buried my face in my hoof. “It was dark, and hard to see. I panicked!”

“Mooooooonster.” He stifled a laugh. “That’s going in the record books.”

I rolled my eyes and then cautiously poked my head over the edge of the roof. “Hey. It’s gone,” I whispered to Tabber. He poked his head out too. “Now what?”

“Hm. Maybe we should have thought this plan through a bit more.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have any idea what your Ranger friend and Stitches are up to?”

I shrugged. “No idea. Why?” I replied, then faceclawed. We’d split up without actually coming up with a strategy on what we were doing. We had no way to contact the other team, and we had no idea we were supposed to be doing. “Wait. Dammit.”

“Exactly. If we just do recon, we have no way of telling them what we’ve found.”

“And sabotage is out of the question in case we accidentally blow them up,” I finished.

“Exactly.” We laid on the roof in silence, listening to the commotion of the slavers arguing amidst each other. “I say we go blow up their HQ. It’ll probably shut down the turrets and most of whatever security they have running.”

I pointed out a communication tower behind the post office building. “There’s a comms relay there. If we shut that down, they can’t call for help.” He nodded in agreement.

“Anything else you want to break before we level the post office?”

Wait. What were we doing? “Why are we blowing up this post office? Didn’t we agree that sabotage was a bad idea?”

“I lied.” He pointed out a fenced-off area with a shoddy tin roof. “With that many guards, that has to be interesting.”

I took out my anti-material rifle and peered through the enchanted sight. “It looks like some kind of ammo dump or something.”

I spied a few locked safes and containers, among massive piles of ammunition and explosives. “Yep. It’s their armory all right, and it’s fully stocked with explosives.” I took a closer look at some of the guards. They weren’t very attentive and frankly didn’t look like they really want to be there. “If you’re really stealthy, we could probably demolish the armory easily. But why the post office?” I pressed.

“I say we kill the guards, steal some ammo and maybe a few guns, and rig the place for a distraction,” Tabber said. “We disable the communications tower and then plant some explosives around the hall.” He put away the glasses and took out a bag with a bunch of wires and a timer attached to it. “Here. Hold onto a few of these.”

I unquestioningly took the three bags he gave me and shoved them into my saddlebag. “What are they, exactly?” I asked him.

“Satchel charges, all wired to a single detonator I have. Once they’re all set, we’ll have two minutes to clear the area.” He flashed a small device at me and put it away. “Now, let’s go crash this castle.”

“Why are we doing this again?” I hissed at him angrily as he scooted away.

~~~~~

We managed to sneak our way to the armory by a combination of jumping, flying, and in my case, carrying Tabber to other rooftops. “Why do… I have… to carry you… everywhere?” I gasped, dropping him heavily onto yet another roof. “I can’t keep flying you around.”

“You’re more convenient,” he flatly stated. “Now get down.” I flopped onto the rooftop and waited for Tabber to give another signal. “Okay, we haven’t been spotted yet.” We were now lying on the building right next to the armory, most likely waiting for the guards to pass. “Let’s go. One last one. It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump.”

“Ugh,” I groaned. I picked him up and quickly took off, flying over the armory’s fence and unceremoniously crashing into a pile of saddlebags that were… apparently there for fence-vaulting intruders to land on. “Ow! Okay, no more flying!” I hissed softly as I attempted to untangle myself from the lumpy bags we’d landed in and from Tabber and his gear.

“Nice landing,” he growled sarcastically. “Did you make sure every slaver in the stronghold heard us?”

“Hey!” I protested. “I think I sprained my wing flying you around!” I carefully flapped my wings and winced when a twinge of pain shot through my right wing. “Ow, ow, ow.”

Both of us froze as voices from the other side of the fence floated over to us. “Oi! Wot’s the big ruckus ‘boot?” an angry, male voice shouted. “Wot’s you doin’ back there?”

“Shut yer trap, mate. Breaka’ musta been lazin’ off ‘gain. It’s prolly just a box fallin’ ova,” somepony else replied lethargically.

“Go check it then, ya bloody git!” the first voice shouted back. Crap! We looked around and dove for cover between two large crates, one of which was labeled explosives. I started to move somewhere else, but Tabber grabbed me and put a hoof across my muzzle.

“Wait for him to come to us,” he whispered in my ear. We both huddled together in silence, barely even breathing.

Something was uncomfortably wedged in my back as we lay in wait. “Hey, move your pistol. It’s poking me in my back.” I squirmed about a little in an attempt to dislodge whatever it was.

“That’s not my pistol,” he grunted, holding his silenced pistol in his teeth. I looked up at him and paled.

“Then what’s…” I shuddered. Please, let it no—

“It might be my flashlight,” he calmly told me as he shifted a little.

“I really hope it’s your flashlight,” I grumbled.

“Me too. Now lower your head,” he whispered. I obliged and he propped the pistol on my head. “Perfect. Don’t move.”

I growled irritably again. “I should have seen that coming.” We continued to sit there, listening to the slaver grumbling and complaining to himself.

Tabber picked up a stone from the ground and tossed it, causing it to bounce off an ammo box and make a loud clacking sound. “Eh? Wot’s that?” the slaver mumbled. We heard him stomping over and continuing to mutter to himself.

The slaver had messy blue hair and grimy gray coat that looked flea-ridden and patchy. Strangely enough, the generic military barding that he was wearing was in near-perfect condition. His particular choice in face paint happened to be a big red X all over it. “Now stand over there,” Tabber lowly whispered.

I felt a thump from the top of my head, followed by a quiet pop, then the slaver collapsed on the ground with a clean hole through the side of his face. “Okay, he’s dead. Nice shot.” We jumped out of our hiding spot and I reflexively shook myself. “Time to blow the place?”

“Get some ammo first. Try not to pick up more guns, though,” Tabber whispered as he took out some of his satchel charges. “Meet you back here in three. If you meet any guards, remove them. Silently!”

I nodded and immediately went to work trying to find more ammo for my rifle. Let’s see… Some five fifty-sixes… seven sixty-twos… nine mill’s… Aha! Twelve point seven, my size of bullet! I immediately scooped up all fifteen bullets and shoved them in my bag. Next to them on a shelf was a blue-lined box with five more anti-material rifle bullets in it. I shrugged and looted those too. As I passed the other shelves with other ammo types, I mumbled to myself, “Oh, what the hell.” I started scooping ammo and two or three various rifles and shotguns into another saddlebag I’d picked up from the pile we landed in earlier. Might as well, right?

“What did I say about stealing everything?” Tabber hissed at me. “We need to move. Charges have been set.” I scraped the last of the magazines and bullets into the bag and followed Tabber to a small hole in the fence. “Through here!”

I pulled myself through the small hole and wriggled my way out the other side, immediately dashing to the shadows. Tabber quickly joined me and looked up at the roof. “Oh no, I’m not flying you up there,” I said, catching his look. “We’re walking, like it or not. Sprained wings are not fun to fly on.”

“I understand. Fine, stay to the shadows and follow me. Do not move until I move. Understand?” Tabber said. I nodded, and for the next few pulse-pounding minutes we snuck our way back onto the rooftops and all the way over to the side of the building with the comm tower on it. “Unless you have a better plan, speak now or forever hold your peace,” he remarked, peeking through the window of the building. “Two on the radio, one next to the door,” he relayed.

I smashed in the window and opened fire with my SMG into the room. Thanks to the freeze spell (hey, I forgot I had that!), the surprised slavers didn’t even have time to react before they were frozen, killed, or a combination of the above. “Problem solved!” I happily exclaimed. Tabber facehoofed and sighed. “All the ruckus is great for loud assassinations.”

“Come on, let’s go before somepony notices,” He sighed and tossed a satchel charge through the window. Then we picked up a large sheet of plywood out of a nearby scrap heap to cover the window. “That should do it.”

“Okay, how do we get to the post office from here?” I asked him, diving into yet another alley with Tabber. We’d deployed two sets of explosives in the base, ready for a distraction just in case so—

Alarms started blaring all over the base. “Oh buck! Did they find the bodies?” Tabber cried in panic. Wait… bodies, plural? “Let’s see what they’re up to first. Hopefully it’s your Ranger buddies and Stitches messing up. Can you get us on that roof?”

I exhaled and flapped my wings experimentally. “Calm down. That’s what, two floors?” He nodded. “I think I can do that.” I grabbed him once again and arduously flapped into the air. About halfway up, a familiar pink mane dashed into the alley right across from us behind a fence. “Hey, secret agent stallion, I think I found Rumcake and Doc.” I nudged Tabber and pointed with one of my hind legs.

“Get us over there,” he commanded. I obliged and careened over to the alley and dropped down next to them. “What the buck did you idiots break?” he asked Rumcake in a completely annoyed tone.

“Hey! It wasn’t really me this time. Doc gave us away when he tried to raid their medical supplies for some kind of project,” Rumcake told us. “What have you two been up to?”

“Planting explosives,” I replied. “Tabber’s got some really cool toys in his bags.”

“Okay, but where’s Stitches?” Tabber asked. I looked around. Good point, where was Doc? He wasn’t with Rumcake, and we hadn’t seen him lately…

“We got separated. He’s headed toward the center because nopony would expect it,” Rumcake informed us. “We’ll meet up again at the sewer.”

“I’m not letting that idiot out of my sight,” Tabber shouted. “I’m not owing favors to any dead ponies. I’m going after him.”

I grudgingly agreed. “Doc mostly saved my life once, so I guess I’m going too.”

“Crap. Fine, let’s get the good doctor back.” Rumcake sighed. “I need a weapon.”

I tossed my ammo and gun laden bag at him. “Take your pick.”

He picked out an assault rifle and gripped it firmly in his teeth. I helped him attach the belt feed to his back and loaded it. “Ihm reddy,” he grunted through the rifle’s bit.

“Let’s blow this place sky… bucking… HIGH!” Tabber shouted gleefully as he mashed the detonation button, highlighting the night behind him with the flames and shrapnel of the two explosions. “Yeeeah!”

~~~~~

As we charged down a now-deserted side-street, I had the time to ask Tabber, “Hey, I thought you had the explosives wired for two minutes, not two seconds.” As amazing as that was, If we were going to take down a building, I didn’t feel like dying from faulty explosives.

“There’s an alternate setting for instant detonation!” he answered. “How far are we from the post office?”

I stopped for a second and risked leaping into the air for a quick hover, regardless of the niggling twinges in my wing. After orienting myself with the surrounding architecture, I managed to get a pretty good idea of where we were. “We need to turn right, then head down three blocks and it’s on our left,” I informed Tabber and Rumcake once I landed.

“Let’s go! Clock’s ticking!” Tabber shouted back. “We’re bound to be spotted eventually!”

We dashed along, this time completely ignoring stealth. An unlucky slaver that strayed a bit too close to us received a free grenade to the face, courtesy of me. I kept a keen eye out for somewhere we could hole up or defend.

“We’re here! Into the whatever that door is!” I yelled, pointing out a small door built into the base of the building. I rammed into the door as fast as possible with my shoulder and thankfully broke it down without too much self-injury. “Anypony see us coming in?”

“Don’t think so,” Tabber replied. He started bracing the door with a bookcase in the room. “Better safe than sorry, though. Help me with this, big guy.” Rumcake grudgingly moved over to help, and I looked around the room we were now trapped in.

We’d jumped into a sub-basement or something of the post office. The bookshelves around us were covered in mostly-destroyed books and scrolls, probably important in another age. Surprisingly, the walls here were dirty but thankfully free of poorly-scribbled insults and other colorful graffiti. Heck, if the walls and floor were a bit cleaner, it could be like nothing ever happened. “What’s with this place?” I muttered. “It’s kinda creepy.”

“What?” Tabber panted, out of breath. “Oh wow,” he continued, finally looking back at the room. “It’s almost like a little time capsule, huh.”

Rumcake coughed. “It needs a dusting,” he complained, sniffing and rubbing his nose. I smiled and intentionally swept up a bunch of dust from the ground. “Hey!” He sneezed and whined, “That’s not cool!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I coyly grinned. “Let’s see what kind of havoc we can wreak here.” I surveyed the room a little more. “Anypony see a set of stairs anywhere?” I wandered around the room and attempted to find a stairway leading up.

“We could always blast our way upstairs,” Rumcake said. He hefted his new assault rifle and pointed it at the ceiling in front of us. “We could bring the upstairs to us.” The rest of us facehoofed. “What? I think it’s a great idea.”

I walked around to the back of the room and noticed a set of double doors set into the wall. “Hey! Over here,” I called to the Rangers. They both plodded over to me and stared at the doors silently. I hopped over a broken bookshelf and pushed at it. “Dammit. I think it’s stuck. Can I get some help?” Rumcake stomped through the broken bookshelf and aided me in trying to open the doors.

“It’s not budging,” Rumcake grunted. “Let’s blow it up.”

“Hey idiots.” Tabber pushed a button on the wall and the doors opened, causing us to suddenly fall into it. “It’s a bucking elevator.” I pushed Rumcake off me and got up. “Now don’tcha feel silly?”

Rumcake got up and pushed a button next to the doors. “Shut up, merc.” Tabber jumped in and mashed the button as well. “Hopefully the power here still works.” The entire room lurched and a loud buzz rang through it. Momentarily, smooth jazz began to warble from the solitary speaker built into the wall.

Before I could really get into the groove of the music, there was a soft dinging sound and the doors slid open, revealing a bloody, grimy, dilapidated atrium.

“We’re here,” Rumcake grumbled and stepped out. “We gotta find Doc. That’s probably the hardest thing to do right now.”

“I really hate to do this, but I’m going to go off and start planting explosives,” Tabber whispered. “I’ll meet you here in about ten minutes.” With that, he melted into the shadows and disappeared.

“How does he do that?” Rumcake whispered to me. I shrugged. “Well, let’s get to the roof and see if we can find Doc with that rifle of yours.” I obediently nodded and followed him up the stairs in the center of the room with my SMG clamped between my teeth.

I heard voices coming from behind a steel door. I nudged Rumcake and motioned at the door. “Somepony’s back there.”

“Quietly,” he whispered, moving closer to the door. We tiphoofed closer to the door and I pressed my ear against it. “I’ll cover you.” I nodded and closed my eyes, trying to focus on the conversation inside.

“…find ya buddies n’ kill all of you,” a raspy voice yelled. I shook my ear and tried to find a thinner spot on the door to listen through. “…ou workin’ fer?”

“Nopony, really,” the familiar voice of Doc calmly drawled. “Again, I’m just here on business.” He laughed jovially and stopped when something slammed into a hard surface.

“Doc’s in there!” I urgently hissed at Rumcake. I turned my attention back to the exchange inside the room. Rumcake was doing something behind me, but I was too focused on what was happening in that room.

“…would that be?” the slaver finished. Doc laughed again. “Tell me, ya useless shitbag!”

Doc only laughed harder. “Untie me and maybe I’ll consider it.” The slaver cursed angrily and picked something up. “You know what they say about stallions with big axes…” Doc continued laughing. “You know, you really shouldn’t have let me down the painkillers.”

Before anything else could happen, the door suddenly exploded away from my ear and disappeared. I crouched there, frozen in shock as Rumcake flew through the doorway and punched the offending slaver clear through the window opposite of the doorway. What.

“That was awesome!” I cried. “Where’d you learn that from?:

“From a really old action movie I saw,” Rumcake muttered. “Yo Doc, you don’t look so good.”

Doc was tied down to a chair, his horn covered with some sort of cone. He’d been repeatedly bludgeoned and cut, but he’d managed to patch up what looked like a few serious wounds. “Yeah, yeah. Help me out, will ya?” he groaned. “I thought you’d never show up.” I picked up his bags and bonesaw harness and handed it over to him. “Thanks.” He pulled the cone off his horn and smashed it. “It’s great using magic again. Thanks for the save.” He sighed, levitating the harness onto himself.

“How’d you get captured?” I asked, looking out the broken window. I got a good look at the pandemonium outside in the camp itself.

“I got cornered, and then bluffed my way into not getting killed,” Doc explained. “Not much to it, really. They decided to try to interrogate me, and then you two saved me. That’s pretty much it.” He stumbled around the room and dug around in the desk across from where he was tied up. He levitated some vials into a pouch on his coat.

“You got everything?” Rumcake asked. Doc nodded and tightened his coat. “Let’s go.” Both of us followed him out to the stairwell again. “Where’s the insane bombomaniac?”

“What’d I miss?” Tabber grumbled. I shrieked in fright and jumped onto Rumcake. Doc was only mildly surprised when Tabber decided to show up.

“Not much. We got Doc back,” Rumcake replied, nonplussed. “As adorable as this is, now’s not the time. You can let go of me now,” he whispered to me.

I let go of his neck and blushed in embarrassment. “Sorry.”

“We gotta run. Charges are set, we’ll have two minutes after your mark.” Tabber looked to Rumcake for a reply. “Where to?”

“We need to go back to the sewer. I’ve had enough adventure for today, and we’ve caused enough damage at this point, I think,” he answered. “Let’s go.”

We dashed down the stairs, and for some reason, opened the large ornate doors that lead right out of the front entrance. We managed to get halfway down the staircase when suddenly dozens of slavers came pouring out of various hallways, buildings, windows, and tunnels around the four buildings surrounding the post office. Unfortunately for the rest of us, every single one of them was heavily armed. “I think it’s safe to say we’re surrounded,” I observed.

“We have you surrounded,” a very angry voice shouted. Well, no shit. “Drop your weapons and put your hooves over your head. You think you’re in control of the situation, but you’re not. Believe me when I say: we will not give up.”

I looked around at the assembled slavers. Mostly assault rifles, rifles, SMGs, and pistols. All the way in the back, nearly half a block away, a very fancily dressed griffon wearing full-blown pre-war parade regalia grinned in self-centered satisfaction.

“What’s the plan?” I urgently whispered to Rumcake. Doc and Tabber looked to him as well. We were totally surrounded, next to no cover, and definitely outmatched.

“The plan? Kill them all,” Rumcake muttered. The slaver leader continued counting down. “Tabber, we’ll provide covering fire so you can flank them. Start from the building on the right and work your way around.” He nodded and dipped a hoof into his bag. “Frosty, take cover behind the short wall around the building. Take out anypony that’s got a longer reach than you.” I started looking around, trying to identify the slavers armed with sniper rifles. “Doc, I need you to keep us not dead.” He nodded and immediately injected Rumcake with a painkiller. “Thanks. If we don’t survive this, it’s been an honor operating with all of you. Who dares, wins.” He saluted to us, and we saluted back.

A final stand, eh? I like it. It’s very cinematic.

I’d rather it not be my last, brain.

Rumcake opened fire right into the slavers’ front lines, catching them by surprise. The rest of us took cover behind the little wall in front of the post office. I pulled up my rifle and propped up the bipod against the wall. “Covering in three?” I yelled to the rest of our group. Doc dove into cover next to me and pulled out a shotgun with his magic.

I popped out of cover while Rumcake opened fire. Doc was blasting away next to me, and I took a deep breath.

One. I took careful aim right at the largest, shiniest badge pinned to the griffon’s jacket.

Two. I checked my peripheral vision for any potential bullets headed in my direction.

Three. I exhaled and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet flew across the street and buried itself into another slaver mere inches to the left and a few ranks ahead of my intended target.

“Dammit!” I swore as I cycled the next bullet. Damn you, physics! I turned back and realized Tabber was gone. Oh well, at least he’d gotten his covering fire. I looked down the sights and took another breath.

One. Two.

I liquified a slaver wielding a sniper rifle and cycled the bolt. I exhaled and took another breath.

One.

Another slaver picked up the same bucking rifle and I aggressively removed him as well. I exhaled and prepared another shot. A larger armored slaver waddled up with a rocket launcher battle saddle, preparing to fire.

“Dear Celestia take him out!” Doc screamed next to me.

“Got it,” I whispered to myself. “Three rounds left.” I took a breath and centered on his armored head.

One.

Two.

“Boom,” I breathed, and fired.

I didn’t have the luxury of watching his demise, because I was uncomfortably close to an empty mag. “Doc! Reload these for me!” I tossed him my mostly-empty mags and he nodded. He immediately started opening fire with his shotgun, holding it in his magic, while he slowly inserted bullets into my mostly-empty magazines.

I sprayed my submachine gun over the wall, just in time to watch more slavers show up. “Here! One’s done,” Doc shouted over the din of gunfire. He kept reloading the other as I dropped my SMG and picked up my anti-machine rifle again. “Go get ‘em!”

I took a deep breath the second I popped out of cover. Mechanically, I emptied the magazine as fast as possible. Each time I looked down the sight, I did my best to center my sight on a slaver and fired. I racked the bolt and repeated it with deadly precision. Each shot caused the rifle to slam into my shoulder like a sledgehammer.

“There’s too many of them!” Rumcake yelled. He popped out of cover and fired a few more shots, until his assault rifle clicked empty. “Buck! I need a reload!”

Doc stood up and prepared to run across to Rumcake. I rubbed my shoulder with a grimace. “I’ll do that. I’m not firing my rifle for a while. Collar doesn’t help breathing either,” I told Doc. Firing all those shots in quick succession had really hurt my shoulder. Doc nodded and sprayed more buckshot at the slavers while I ran across an open area and behind the wall where Rumcake was hiding.

“Oh Celestia oh Luna we’re going to die. What the buck was I thinking?” Rumcake muttered in a panic. I grinned wildly and reloaded his assault rifle. “Thanks.” He popped over the wall and fired at the slavers again. “Dammit, where’s that scumbag Tabber?”

Right on cue, the three buildings on the right simultaneously exploded and crumbled into rubble. “There’s my Agent!” Doc squealed with glee. “I knew he’d pull through!”

“Keep shooting!” Tabber shouted from a distant rooftop. I regained my composure and opened fire with my SMG. “That’s more like it!” He ducked past a roof and disappeared as the slavers turned their attention back to us.

“We’re trapped! There’s still too many of them!” I screamed as I ducked down and replaced my SMG with my anti-material rifle. At this point, I didn’t even try focusing. I found slavers with interesting weapons in my scope and eliminated them one by one. “Doc! Got any ideas left?”

“…Yes. Yes I do,” Doc replied, his tone of voice having turned rather creepy. He levitated a strange, orange concoction at me and grinned. “One last-ditch effort.” I shrank away from the vial as he stalked closer. “And you get to be the first test subject.”

I sighed in resignation and sat still. “Will it kill me?” Doc wasn’t paying attention because he was prepping the vial and loading it into a syringe. “If this kills me I’m going to haunt your ass all the way to the end of time.”

“You should be fine. I’ll make sure of it.” He tapped the syringe and floated it closer to me. “You’ll feel a slight pinch. Ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” I sighed and squeezed my eyes shut. “Do it.”

He jammed the syringe into my flank and injected it slowly. I felt the concoction seeping into my bloodstream; for each little second it burned with the intensity of a thousand suns. In some corner of my sane mind, I realized he’d never explained what it actually did. I roared in pain as it flowed further and further through my body, inflicting indescribable pain. All my nerves felt like they were being smashed and squeezed and I screamed in pain again.

And suddenly, it was all gone. As in, everything disappeared. I could barely hear anything over my own heartbeat hammering in my ears. My mind was clearer than ever before, I couldn’t feel anything, and I felt strong! Powerful! Like I could do anything!

Destroy anything!

“You’re not dead yet! That’s good. Now, go get em!” Doc yelled into my ear. I nodded vigorously and jumped over the wall, directly into the line of fire. Bullets were smashing into me, but I didn’t feel pain. My wounds instantly healed and all the gunfire was only making me pissed.

“Yes! Yes!” I roared, jumping directly into the closest slaver and tearing him apart with my claw. I was aware of all the gunfire focused on me, but I shook off bullets like dust. A particularly large force smashed into the side of my head and I looked up at the offending slaver with a demonic expression on my face. “You want some?” I pounced on him and grinned. “You can have all of it!” I screamed and repeatedly smashed my hoof into his face.

As I pummeled the slaver underneath me, somepony was shooting me in the back. “Why. Won’t. You. Die?” he cried in between shots. I slowly turned to glare at him, grinning evilly. “Die!” he cried and shot me in between my eyes. I blinked and shrugged it off. “Wha— no…!”

I grabbed him and threw him into a building, embedding him in a wall. I pounced from one slaver to the next, either raking them with my claw or flat out punching them to death. A large, armored slaver stepped forward and confidently fired his twin-linked assault rifles at me. I slowly pushed toward him, through the hail of small caliber bullets that were doing very little damage. His grin slowly faded when I managed to step up right in front of him and grab his throat. “All ones, bitch,” I whispered, then I broke his neck with a simple twist of my claw.

“Burn, foal. Buuuuuuurn!” An even larger slaver in even heavier armor showed up, armed with a battle-saddle mounted heavy flamethrower. I froze and considered my options. I wasn’t sure whether the napalm would hurt me, but on the other hoof I really wanted this idiot dead. I dived behind the corpse of the recently-deceased assault rifle slaver. “Don’t run away! It’s just napalm!” he taunted.

An idea suddenly popped into my head. I grabbed the firing bit of the assault rifles out of the dead slaver’s mouth and looped my hoof through the slaver’s battle saddle strap. With as much strength as I could muster—

Hehe, mustard…

Not now, brain.

Anyway, I reared up on my hind legs and picked up the slaver, body, assault rifles, and all. “Why don’t you cry some more?” I laughed maniacally and opened fire with the slaver’s assault rifles. My heart was going crazy! It sounded like a zebra drumbeat going at lightning speed in my head!

“Wha—” the flamethrower slaver stammered, and was promptly torn apart in a hail of gunfire. Unfortunately for me, he managed to let out a single gout of flame that hit me. I screamed in shock and reflexive pain, but I was pleasantly surprised when there was no pain, only fire. I must have looked like a demon from hell, wreathed in flame and covered in blood.

“Who’s next?” I cackled. “Bring it!” I licked the blood off my claw as I waited for a new challenger. Warm, tasty blood!

I was surrounded by more slavers, with the fancy slaver in front of me. “Who… What are you?” he stammered.

“I’m a good little pony.” I giggled madly. I slowly stepped closer to him as I spoke. “I know a bunch of tricks. I know good. I know ball.” I was so close to him the flames coming off my hide actually started to scorch his uniform. “And I know rape,” I whispered evilly.

The fancy slaver didn’t even try to move; he was frozen in place with fear. “Uh… eh…” he continued stammering. “Kill her!” he hysterically screamed and ran away. I growled loudly at the slavers circling me. Feeling was returning to my body, the heat on my hide was starting to bother me, and my heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest. I exhaled in exhaustion and jumped on the closest slaver, lighting him on fire and tearing his throat out. I grabbed the slaver next to him and repeatedly punched in his face. The other slavers started firing at me, and I realized my wounds were no longer healing as fast.

“Crap,” I muttered to myself. “This is it, brain. Nice knowing you.” I stumbled a few steps, trying to grab another slaver but I fell short. My entire body hurt, I was still on fire, and my chest was killing me. I slowly inched toward the slaver, but I realized he was already dead. I painfully turned and looked, realizing all the other slavers around me were all dead. “Oh. Good.” I mumbled happily to myself. I rolled over in the blood-soaked dirt in an attempt to put myself out. Maybe I just needed a nap. Yeah, that was it. As my heart rate slowed down more and more, I caught a glimpse of Rumcake and the others running toward me. “I’m… okay…” I waved at them drowsily with a smile on my muzzle. “Five… more… minutes.” I closed my eyes and descended into the abyss.

~~~~~

“Your friends care about you, you know that?” a voice intoned into my mind. It wasn’t loud by any stretch of the imagination, but it had some kind of powerful force behind it. I was just trying to enjoy my little jaunt through the border between life and death, but this voice decided to butt in.

“They’re not my friends,” I told the voice. I twisted around, trying to find the source of the voice, but to no avail. It was dark, smoky, and completely impossible to see anypony. “We’re… colleagues. Associates. Squadmates. I wouldn’t really call it friendship, really.”

“Then what do you call that?” the voice intoned with a hint of humor in his voice. Some of the fog cleared, allowing me to see again. The scene unfolding in front of me slowly became clearer. I had a bird’s-eye view of the battle, which was not unfolding well for my Rangers, Doc, and Tabber.

We were all pinned down halfway down main street where I’d collapsed. Baked Potato had somehow found us in the midst of combat and was bravely fighting off slavers that were charging at us. Tabber had collapsed one of the buildings across the street, providing all of us with cover. “What happened?” I asked the voice. My gaze was drawn by a blue magical dome where I’d collapsed. “What’s that?”

“Your ‘colleagues’ are risking their lives for you.” I could hear a smile in his voice as he spoke. “Would associates do that?” I frowned in worry and squinted into the blue dome. Doc was pushing his magic to its limits, trying to maintain a shield spell and medical equipment at the same time. Wait, what?

“I guess they are my friends. But why?” I was lying on the ground in the center of the dome, and Rumcake was crouched next to me providing CPR. “Why?” I whispered mournfully. I watched myself just lying there, not moving, barely breathing.

“You are the most dysfunctional team in the wasteland. But like it or not, you have each other’s backs. Not because of loyalties, but because of friendship.” I was nudged toward the bubble and I slowly floated toward it. “Look at them. They care about you.”

Rumcake was crying with every breath he blew into my lungs, and each pump on my chest seemed to cause him physical pain. He was whispering something to me, but I couldn’t hear what it was. On the other hand, Doc had set up an IV drip and he had the trauma kit open. “Why go through so much effort to save me? I’m jus— HEY!” Doc pulled out a large bottle of Wild Pegasus whiskey and took a long draw from it. Doctors shouldn’t drink on the job! He took out a scalpel and started cutting me open. I winced and attempted to look away.

“Okay, now I kind of see why you have your doubts. Wow, I didn’t even know you could use a ribcage like that.” I was torn between intense anger and crushing sadness. They were my friends, and they did care about me in their own little ways. Baked was standing right out in the open, soaking up damage to protect me. Tabber was methodically executing any slavers that got close to us. Rumcake was keeping me alive, and Doc was… using my ribcage as a bottle holder… but still trying to save me!

“So, what happens next?” I asked the voice sadly. “Am I dead?” I sure as hell wasn’t moving down there.

“Depends how well your friend does.” The voice sighed, and suddenly sounded much, much older. “Look, if you want I can end it right here for you. I’ve seen what the wasteland does to good ponies like you. I’m giving you a choice right now.”

…I thought about it. I could just let this all go.

Wait, you’re considering this?! You have friends! You’d be throwing too much away here!

What would I be throwing away, really? I’ve already been abandoned, forgotten, even forsaken by the government I used to believe in. I’ve lost whatever family and friends I probably had. Heck, I’ve lost my mind basically—what’s left to lose?

You’d lose him.

I looked back at Rumcake, holding a healing potion to my muzzle. He was crying freely, with tears streaming down his cheeks. Damn it, I was right. Maybe, just maybe…

“Looks like you could pull through. My offer still stands,” the voice insisted. Should I? I still had a chance to start over…

Do you really want to give up now? After what they’ve done for you?

But…

Hey! Don’t tell me you’re still thinking about it! This is madness! This is like suicide! Wait… this really is suicide. Don’t do it. Think of them, okay?

I mentally sighed and gave in. Okay, brain, you win this time.

“Last chance.”

I turned my attention back to the shadows. “I think I’ll stay here. It’s nice.” I smiled gently at the shadows. “I have friends here. Ones that care. It doesn’t matter if I don’t remember anything from my old life, I guess. They care about me and that’s all that matters.”

The voice laughed jovially. “You’ve made a good choice.” The shadows drew away and the battlefield faded out. “I’ll leave you and your split-personalities alone for now.” I sank down into the darkness and gently floated onto the familiar surface of a cloud. “Sweet dreams.”

~~~~~

Poke. Poke.

“Geh… stop.” I groaned and rolled over.

Poke. Poke.

“Stop it.”

Pokepokepokepoke.

“Stooooop.” I sat up and looked around. “Back in Cloudsdale, eh? Well, it beats being dead, I guess.” I grabbed the teal ball of fur and feathers that was poking me. “Gotcha!”

Filly Frosty squealed in delight. “Hey! Put me down!” I grabbed her harder and tousled her messy mane. “Stooooop it!” She pouted and squirmed out of my grasp. “Heeeaalp!”

Gala Frosty ambled into the room. “Stop abusing yourself.” She grinned and shooed Filly Frosty into the next room. “How are you holding up?” I poked myself all over looking for anything out of the ordinary.

“I think I’m fine,” I told her. “So, while I wait for somepony out there to wake me up, what’s new in my brain?”

She looked worried. “Well… let’s put this a different way. Drunky?”

Drunk Frosty staggered into the room. “Whatshc up sisss?”

“Would you like to explain your amazing revelation to the original here?” Gala Frosty irritably asked.

“Well you scheeee~” She waved her hooves around in a semblance of… something. “When you” – she pointed at me and continued waving – “represhhd stuffs an’ all ‘round thin’s, we” – she then pointed at herself and Gala Frosty – “comesh into being t’help wif it.” She grinned widely and laughed. “Brilliant, hyuh?”

I gaped at her. Myself. Whatever.

“Oh wait! Alsho, if you do shceritan thingsss like, another one of ush shows up. Triggersh and thingsh.”

“Huh? What do you—” I began, but Filly Frosty grabbed my foreleg and pointed behind me. “Woah. Was that there before?” Either I really didn’t notice it before, or it had recently appeared. There was a steel door built into one of the walls of the cloudhouse.

“It’s been locked ever since you were here last time,” Gala Frosty explained. “Even Drunky couldn’t break in.” Drunk Frosty weakly waved from behind a couch.

“Well, that doesn’t look very locked to me,” I slowly replied, pointing at the steel door that was slightly ajar. “I guess should check it out. Stay here.” The other Frosties nodded and backed up.

I pushed the door open slowly, noting the fact that somehow this entire tiny room managed to not have any lighting whatsoever. In the corner of the room a gray-red pegasus was huddled in a corner, mumbling to herself incoherently. One of her ears perked up as I drew closer and she turned around. “Hi there…” She flexed her claw and grinned evilly at me. Wait, claw? On that note, I realized that this was another version of me! Her coat and mane weren’t red… it was blood! “I bet you taste good…” She licked her lips and continued to grin evilly at me.

“Uh… let’s not go there.” I backed up hastily and bumped into the now-locked door. “Can I please leave?”

“But you just got here!” the insano-Frosty (raider Frosty?) exclaimed in mock surprise. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?” she whispered, dragging a talon along the bottom of my muzzle. “Let me out.”

“Wha—?” I stammered. “What?” What was she talking about? They were part of my consciousness, right?

“Let me take over. I can kill anything.” She backed off and sat back in satisfaction. “Think about it. You’ll never have to be injured again.”

“Uh…” Good thing she’d inherited my logic patterns too, I guess. “I’m getting injured even if you’re taking over,” I pointed out. “Also, this is my mind. Mine.”

“Don’t you love that feeling, though?” She grabbed me and pushed me against the floor. “Power. Energy. Blood.”

I roughly shoved her back and opened the door, which had unlocked itself. “I did,” I admitted. I straightened up and glared at Raider Frosty confidently. “But I’m not going to let that control me. Now, stay.” She frowned and I slammed the door in her face.

“So, what’s the plan now?” Gala Frosty asked me.

“I’m going to slap a certain doctor in the face when I wake up,” I growled and then flopped onto the couch for a nap.

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Split Personalities – You’re not crazy. You’re insane! You may swap sub-perks when resting or when critically injured.

New Sub-perk: Diplomacy – Remember thy Charlamane. You gain +3 to Speech.
New Sub-perk: Foal at Heart – Growing up is overrated. You gain additional dialogue options with foals.
New Sub-perk: Alcoholics Obvious – Drink! Drink! Alcohol resistance is doubled, but effects will last twice as long.
New Sub-perk: Bloodthirsty – Blood for the Blood God! You gain +3 to Unarmed.

Chapter 7: Anything new on the insanity front?

Chapter 7: Anything new on the insanity front?

“TLC as in ‘Tender Loving Care’ or ‘Totally Lost Cause’?”

A liquid dripping sensation pattering down onto my face dragged me out of my impromptu nap. I lazily reached up and wiped them off before attempting to go back to sleep. “Hey! She’s waking up!” somepony cried. He shook me gently, which I tried to pointedly ignore. “We have to go! Come on!”

Somepony unceremoniously dragged me to my hooves and forced me to follow them via the socially-accepted method of pushing. “Huh? Whererewe goin?” I mumbled drowsily. I couldn’t really focus on anything; everything just looked like a hazy blur. As we raced closer to a blue wall blocking our path, I asked the armored pony that had galloped into my field of view, “Wha’z goin’ on?”

The pony dragging me stopped and turned around. “We’re not out of the fire just yet! Doc, drop the back of the shield!” The blue wall in front of us disappeared and we continued forward.

A sudden and tremendously loud explosion erupted from behind us, and I jerked my head towards it. “Gah! Crap!” I watched a lab-coated unicorn drop to his knees and focus harder on his magic. “I can’t hold the spell much longer!” he screamed as magic started sparking from his horn. Another similarly armored pony dashed over, draped the doctor-looking one over his back, and followed us out.

“Doc’s ‘bout to do drop it!” the armored pony yelled. “Move!” The unicorn draped over his back dropped his head and the blue glow from his horn faded away. The dome around us shattered in a ear-deafening crash. “Dammit! Run for it!”

About to do drop. What amazing wording. “Wait, what’s going on? Who are you again?” I asked the one dragging me.

“Oh Celestia’s mercy, not again…” he groaned. “We can figure this out later!” He roughly tossed me into a shallow trench. “Can you shoot?” I shakily nodded. “Here!” He tossed me my anti-material rifle and turned back to the slavers chasing us. “It should still be loaded! Keep those launchers off of us!” He limped forward and opened fire with his grenade launcher.

I started to panic when he gave me the rifle. What do I do? What did he actually expect me to do with this, especially against the number of slavers advancing on us? It took a harrowing moment for me to figure out how the scope worked on this again. Bipod, bipod. Deploy it, Frosty!

Calm yourself. Breathe. Remember your training.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Calm. Yeah, just relax. Imagine yourself in a spa. A battlefield in a spa, maybe. Inhale, exhale. Inhale. Exhale. I opened my eyes, feeling slightly less stressed. Reflexively, I ejected the clip and checked my ammo. Four rounds left. I slammed it back in and racked the bolt. “Call ’em!” I shouted back. “I’ve got four rounds!”

“Sniper at your two! Third floor!” a gas masked pony yelled from my right.

His instructions prompted me to shift my aim. My talon twitched, and I turned the sniper into a fine red mist. “Got him.” I racked the bolt again and peered down the sight. “Three left.” A large tube appeared in the corner of my vision and I immediately put a bullet in it. A fraction of a second later I was rewarded with a large fiery explosion and a lot of flying limbs. “Two,” I informed the rest of the group as I cycled the next bullet into the chamber.

“Rocket teams at your eleven!” somepony yelled. “Get them!”

I swung my rifle again and caught sight of three slavers wielding rocket launchers slowly advancing on our position. “I see them.” I placed another bullet into the middle slaver’s rocket launcher and watched it explode in a violent cloud of blood and fire. “One left,” I reminded them. “Make it count.”

The gas mask pony yanked me out of the trench the moment before an explosion blasted a crater in the trench I was hiding in. “Tunnel vision, newb. We. Are. Leaving!” he shouted into my ear. “Get up and move!” I staggered to my hooves and stumbled after him. “Through the hatch!” I wordlessly jumped down the hatch and landed at the bottom.

I was quickly joined by the armored stallions, the unicorn, and the gas mask pony. “How’s Doc doing?” the unhelmeted armored stallion asked the pony carrying the unicorn, presumably carrying the one named Doc. “He up and about yet?”

“I’ll be fine,” Doc grumbled and slid off the armored pony’s back. “What’s wrong with Frosty?” I was very confused about what was going on, and I was probably giving all of them my best I-have-no-idea look. Or at least I thought I was- my normal expression might have looked exactly the same.

“We were hoping you could enlighten us,” the unhelmeted Ranger said.

Uh, what’s going on up there, brain?

I don’t even—

“Well, I guess being that full of painkillers is probably leaning toward lethally comical levels,” Doc remarked, walking over to me. “Okay, what’s going on in there, Frosty?” He pulled a small light out of his lab coat and shined it into my eyes. “I need symptoms.”

“I don’t know. I can’t brain to this right now.” I groaned and rubbed my head. “Not a whole lot is making sense right now; I can’t remember a bunch of stuff either.”

“Crap. Well, that’s probably partly my fault.” Doc sighed and put away his light. “As far as I can tell, basic functions are working just fine. I think you have a little brain damage to go with your earlier brain damage.” Fortunately, I knew that multiple debuffs didn’t stack so I would hopefully be fine. “Judging by your confusion, you don’t remember your amnesia from before. Wow, that sounded smarter before I said it.”

“Basically what happened is you got a little brain damaged before we met you, then during the battle your heart stopped and you died for a little bit,” Rumcake told me. Aha! That was his name! Okay, at least I was making progress. Wait… what? “Turns out death is a side effect of Doc’s amazing battle drug.”

Doc held up his hooves defensively. “Hey! She’s a pegasus! I kinda thought her heart could take it. At least we now know that combining that much adrenaline and Stampede and Hydra and all the other things I tossed in there apparently only works in theory!”

“Wait, you pumped me full of what?” I screamed at him. “How did you not know about the side effects? Death is not an acceptable side effect!”

Doc sighed and sat down. “Tabber, cover our escape. They won’t be following us down here and I think Frosty deserves an explanation.” The gas masked pony pressed a button as the hammering on the hatch got louder. “At the time, it seemed like a good idea. Stampede for firepower, Hydra for healing, cranberry juice, healing potions imbued with a detection spell to speed up the Hydra, Med-X to keep you going, and a whole lot of other stuff to keep you alive.”

“Speaking of which, that reminds me,” I growled as I stomped over to him. “My ribcage does not also function as a cupholder!” I roared as I punched his muzzle as hard as I could. “Oh that felt good,” A decision immediately regretted, as I shook the uncomfortable tingles out of my hoof. Doc was lying on the ground with a hoof-shaped bruise slowly forming on the side of his muzzle.

“Okay, I deserved that,” he mumbled while rubbing his muzzle. An explosion on the surface shook the entire tunnel and dust fell from the ceiling.

“And now they’re gone.” Tabber laughed quietly while he put away the detonator. “Well, it’s been a blast working with you, but I’ve got to get to my extraction point. I’ll accompany you back to the Hills to restock, then I’m out.”

We sat there in an awkward silence, just breathing heavily and completely spent from the combat we’d just been in. Rumcake fiddled with his grenade launcher. Baked had his chestplate off attempting to scrape dried blood and gore off his armor. Tabber was just sitting there, staring off into the distance. “So… what happens now?” I asked my gathered group.

“Well, they’re all dead. Time to go shopping!” Doc happily exclaimed. “Back to town, then!” All of us got up and trudged off in the direction of Happy Hills, completely exhausted and ready to collapse at a moment’s notice.

After the hectic mess we had just gone through, none of us really felt like talking. I was too busy trying not to inhale too deeply, since doing so hurt quite a lot. The rest of me probably wouldn’t start hurting until later. Maybe I could take some time off to be angsty and brooding while I did absolutely nothing productive. Hm. That was an idea, I suppose.

“—yway, finally some good news for my little ponies living north of Manehattan. Turns out some Steel Ranger spec ops an’ a plucky little pegasus have completely leveled the Rad Lads Slaver’s stronghold a few miles from Happy Hills.”

I wasn’t expecting the calm silence I was marinating in to be broken by Rumcake’s radio. Good to know that wastelanders had some sort of tilted propaganda to listen to in the spare time. Hold on, “plucky little pegasus”? Did I look plucky? Hopefully if I remembered, I’d see if the Rangers had saved a dictionary so I could look up the word.

“Now, some of you might be askin’: What kind of Steel Rangers actually help ponies? My answer: I have no idea. Maybe they finally figured out that the wasteland needs their help? I like to think so, but most likely those slavers got their filthy hooves on some good prewar tech. Steel Rangers love that prewar tech. If you kind folks down at Happy Hills see them, go ahead and give em’ a wave. Well that’s the news, children! This has been DJ Pon3, bringing you the news. No matter how bad it hurts.”

“Eh, I guess any publicity is better than no publicity,” Rumcake muttered.

“Steel Ranger special operative, eh? I like it.” Doc grinned at the Steel Rangers walking in front of him.

“I think the DJ was talking about them, idiot,” Tabber grunted, whacking Doc in the back of his head.

“I don’t know. DJ Pon3 sees everything, right? It sounds like he was talking about our group and Frosty,” Doc replied, rubbing the back of his head. “Otherwise… I don’t know. I just want to eat a ton of apple chips and take a nap. I’m tired.”

“Ugh. Same. Feels like all the bones in me body’s broke,” Baked groaned.

“Don’t lie. You didn’t do much anyway,” Rumcake replied. “I, on the other hoof, don’t want to move anymore.” He continued limping along silently.

We continued along in silence until we reached the exposed service tunnel which was our way back. Unfortunately, it was several meters out of reach from my groundborne companions. My chest ached and burned, reminding me that I might not have the ability to get up there either.

“Well, maybe we should have thought of that,” Tabber muttered, staring at the sheer wall in front of us. “Seapony Energy tunnels are up there. How do we—?” He turned to look at me. “Hey, can you still fly up there?”

I slowly flapped my wings and weakly grinned. “Sure.” I grunted with effort as I cumbersomely flew up to the hole in the wall. I climbed the last few feet using the exposed rebar and collapsed at the top. I inched my way back over to the edge and asked the rest of them, “So, how are you four going to get up here?”

Tabber pointed his hoof up at me and a tiny little hook sprang out of a wrist-mounted device that wasn’t there a moment ago. The hook buried itself into the concrete ceiling and then he began to be pulled up by his bucking grappling hook. “Yeah, how are the three of you going to get up here?” he gloated as he stood next to me at the top.

Doc sighed and closed his eyes. His horn weakly glowed with magic and eventually enveloped Rumcake in his blue magical field. “Hold onto your lunch.” He strained with effort and suddenly flung Rumcake at the opening.

“What the buuuu—” he squealed, before colliding with the wall next to me with a crash. “A little warning would have been nice,” he growled as he comically slid to the ground.

Doc sat there, panting and sweating from exertion. “Okay, you next!” He grabbed a protesting Baked in his magic field and flung him at the opening. Unfortunately, Baked bounced off the wall next to the hole and hit the ground with a crash. “Crap. Okay, let’s try that again…” Doc picked up Baked again and flung him one more time, this time missing the tunnel entirely.

“Stop! I think I can—” Baked started. He was cut off by Doc picking him up again. “No! NONONONO—”

“Hold on. Third time’s the charm.” Doc was struggling but he still managed a weak laugh. He flung Baked again, and finally managed to smash him into the same space Rumcake was occupying a moment ago on the wall. “There you go!” He collapsed and groaned “I’m completely spent. Somepony help me.”

I rolled my eyes and glided down to the bottom. “I got you. Hold on.” I wrapped my forelegs around his torso and painfully flew him over to the tunnel we were all standing around in. “Okay… we’re finally here…” I panted. So tired. Celestia, I need a break. Suddenly pain gripped my chest and I collapsed. What was happening? I couldn’t breathe!

“Hey! What’s wrong?” Rumcake asked urgently. I mewled in pain as the tightening in my chest became unbearable. “Doc! I need some help here!” He gently pushed me onto my back and held me in his forelegs. I gasped for breath as the grip on my chest continued to tighten.

Doc rushed over while I spasmodically writhed around in pain. “Crap. All that movement must have caused another attack.” He unzipped the trauma kit and took out a syringe. “Now, I knew I kept this stuff around for a good reason.” He injected me with it and the pain faded away. I let out a relaxed sigh and coughed. “Feel better?”

“Yeah,” I breathed. Doc offered a Med-X and I gratefully accepted it. A sudden realization struck me after the mind numbing happiness of Med-X washed through my system. “Wait. How much Med-X and crap have I taken today?” I asked as I clambered to my hooves.

Doc shrugged and slung the trauma kit back onto his back. “How would I know?”

“What?” I screamed. “How do you not know?” I lunged forward at him, but Rumcake grabbed me in an immobilizing bear hug. “Dammit, let me go!” Disregarding the potential health hazard to myself, I struggled to break Rumcake’s grip on me. “I have a doctor to kill!” I managed to wiggle my claw free and I swatted at Doc hopefully.

“Ah, ah, ah. None of that,” Doc chided. I growled and stretched just long enough to barely scratch the tip of his nose. “Ow! Hey!” He jumped back and held his snout in his hooves.

“C’mere, you,” Rumcake huffed. I flailed at Doc some more, until he grabbed my claw and pinned it to my body with his iron grip. “Play nice.”

I hissed and squirmed around. “Fine,” I muttered once I realized I couldn’t escape.

“What was that?”

“I’ll play nice,” I muttered louder. Sheesh. “Now let me go.”

Rumcake carefully released me and backed up. “Let’s just get back to town without killing each other.” I glared at Doc angrily. Rumcake stepped between us and steered me toward the edge of the group. “Enough with the angry glaring and more of the walking, okay?”

Convinced, I snorted and turned away from them. “If you keep that face up, it’ll stick like that.” Rumcake teasingly added.

Trying not to scowl at him was bothersome as I responded, “I’m not making a face.”

Doc gasped in mock horror. “We’re too late. It’s happened!”

~~~~~

The first thing I did when we got back to town was immediately collapse in the rafters of Rusty’s home, as opposed to seeking further medical attention since there was a very good chance I’d also get attention I wasn’t seeking in the first place.

Nothing like a nice long nap after a day of combat and heart failure.

Thanks for that, brain. Now that I thought of it, I’d noticed my chest twinged every now and then, but I hadn’t had another attack since the tunnels. Without specifically grabbing at anything in my pile of random soft things that I called my nest, I bundled myself up like a burrito of aches and pains and attempted to get some rest. Being surrounded by soft grubby cloth wasn’t anywhere as comfortable as a cloud mattress, but it still felt like it in my condition. I rustled my wings to get some softness under them as well. Soft Frosty, warm Frosty, purr, purr, purr.

Poke.

Dammit, not now.

Poke.

Stop it, I’m monologuing.

Poke. Poke. Poke.

“Dammit, why does everypony wake me with poking?” I whined, looking up to see who my current assailant was.

Lo and behold, I already had a visitor to keep me from getting any rest.

“Oh, hey, Broken Parts, what’s up?” Ugh, everything hurt so much… I weakly rolled into a sitting position and grudgingly stretched, sending small lances of pain through my body.

Broken Parts grinned at me and pulled out a small vial of Med-X. “Doc says you’ll probably need this,” she said, dropping it onto my pillow. I gratefully took the vial and injected it into my foreleg. “Feeling better?” I nodded with a small sigh. “That’s probably Med-X addiction kicking in.” I froze. What? “Don’t look so surprised. You’ve been using those for the past week or so, right? And being from the Enclave, I would assume you’ve used painkillers before.”

I groaned. She was right, and I couldn’t argue with the science. I’d probably built up a resistance to painkillers over the years, and recent heavy use was probably creating a dependency on the drug.

And whatever Doc had in that crap he injected us with.

Exactly, brain.

“Well, I guess it was bound to happen at some point.” I sighed and kicked the vial in disgust. “Where’s Rusty?” I asked.

“He’s working with Doc. Funny thing is, big bro’s got a thing for medicine.” She hopped back down to the floor and rummaged through a cabinet. “Who knew, right? Hopefully he doesn’t start taking everypony apart.” She pulled out her keycard and looped it around her neck. “You coming back to work anytime soon?” she asked hopefully.

I shook my head. “Ironically, I want to get a clean bill of health from Doc. Those are words that should not be in the same sentence.” She raised her eyebrow but didn’t say anything about it. “I’ll see you later, I guess.”

“Wait, where are you going?”

“Things and stuff. Don’t worry about it.” Broken Parts waved and left, off to do her own business.

“Well, time to see the Doc then. Wow, and now I’m talking to myself.” I shook my head and facehoofed. “Great job, brain,” I breathed to myself.

Shut up.

I sat back down and spread out my wings for a good preening. Let’s see… that primary’s broken. Yank. Loose tertials gotta go. Yank. Yank. Ya—“OW!” I spat out a few feathers that needed removing, along with the two next to them which should have stayed right where they were.

“Yo! What’s going on up there?” Rusty called. Eh? I peeked over the edge and gave him a friendly smile. “You feeling alright?”

I sighed again and ruffled my feathers a bit. “Just catching up on some grooming.” I flicked some feathers down at him and adjusted my wings. “When’d you get here?”

“Ran out of things to do and clean, so I just got back a moment ago,” He pointed at the space underneath my sleeping area. “There’s more down here, you know that? I sleep here.” Oh. Right. Wow, he could be really quiet. “Heading to Doc’s?”

I nodded and hopped down to the floor. “Yeah. Apparently he wants to talk to me and I gotta get some stuff figured out anyway. You got work?”

“Nah. Not really. Doc’s pretty much hired me as his assistant.” He smiled and pushed open the door. “Ladies first?” I rolled my eyes and grinned. Aww. He followed me outside and shut the door. “Anyway, a bunch of things changed in the day and a half you were gone.” Wait, what? Was our trip really that long? He didn’t catch my perplexion and continued, “Those Rangers you know brought back some of their friends and boy, are they happy.”

“What?” I asked, right as I caught the sight of a gigantic banner with the familiar winged sword and whatnot of the Steel Rangers. “Oh. I’m going to assume they moved in?” Rusty nodded vigorously and hopped in place.

“Isn’t it great?”

“I dunno…” Where they really here to help? Or were they here for the Seapony Energy ruins under the town? “They gave back your water talisman, then?”

Rusty nodded again. “Oh yeah! They also helped upgrade our defenses, but they did disband the militia. At least we’ll have more scrappers working the tunnels.” Okay, that was totally not suspicious at all. I filed that tidbit away for later.

We arrived at Doc’s clinic and I followed Rusty through to the back room, not before I idly greeted a familiar yellow mane on the way there. “Hey, Instant Noodles,” I automatically called out.

“Greetings,” she absentmindedly replied.

We pushed through the back doors and once again, Rumcake was out of his armor and propped up in a bed. “This is all your fault,” he huffed at me, pointing his cast-covered right foreleg. Baked was still standing in the corner from last time.

I attempted to sneak up on Baked and tip him over like last time, but before I could buck his armored flank, he growled. “Ye best not do that, lass.” His helmet slowly turned to face me. “Do I make meself clear?”

“Yeah, totally.” I sheepishly grinned and backed off. “So, what happened to you this time?” I asked Rumcake. “Fall down some stairs?”

He scoffed and replied, “I got shot up really badly while trying to get you to safety.” Ouch. Way to make me feel guilty for what happened at the slaver stronghold. “Honestly, this is worse than that time one somepony filled our bunker’s water with seahorses. Seahorses. Do you know how painfully those things thrash around in your stomach? And, did you know that seahorses live for months in your stomach? Because—and there’s the thing—they don’t. They were demon seahorses, I think. By the Goddesses, they bred in there! I had seahorses fucking in my stomach!” He sighed hard, rubbing his jaw. “Goddesses, why would somepony do that to our water?”

Baked Potato coughed. “Well, where else was I supposed to try out that ‘My Littlest Seahorse Creation and Raising’ kit?”

Slowly, oh so slowly, Rumcake turned his head to Baked Potato. “That… that was you?”

“Aye. I got that kit from some guy up in command who wanted to… I think they were trying to weaponize radioactive seahorses for… whatever reason, d’ya kenn?” He shrugged. “After they bred a whole family in your stomach and ye shat ’em out, command called the test a success. I got a raise from the whole thing for keeping me mouth shut, say true.” Baked Potato rubbed his chin. “I shudder to think of where my littlest seahorses are now.”

“I…” Rummy’s eye twitched. “You fished them out?”

“Aye, so I did,” Potato, tilting his head. “Why d’ya ask?”

“I… I…” He twitched ever harder. “I think I’m going to murder you for that. Right here. Right now. With my hooves.”

“You know,” I said, “I’m still here.”

“Good,” Rumcake growled. “You get to watch me murder our friend, Knight Baked Potato, on the grounds that he made me drink and then shit live seahorses.”

I sighed. “Hey, did you know that I now have an addiction to Med-X?” I yawned and scratched at my tangled mane. Wow, I needed a good brushing.

“And we can deal with that problem,” Rumcake said, fidgeting with his blanket, “after I murder him.”

Potato scoffed. “I’d like to see ya try.”

“Do you know just how damn much I outrank you?” Rumcake hissed, adjusting his bed pillow.

“Not nearly as much as that shadowy agent from an unknown but nevertheless menacing part of the Steel Rangers.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m tired and I feel totally out of it right now. I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone, but, uh, where’d our secret agent pony go?” I asked.

“He’s resting up in the Smashed Spritebot Inn,” Doc said while holding a clipboard in his magical field. “He’ll be here for a few days before he leaves for whatever he needs to do. As for the rest of the Rangers that showed up, I believe they took over the militia barracks.” He levitated one of his bonesaws out. “Now, let’s get that cast off, shall we?”

“No! Get that away from me!” Rumcake screamed. “I can do it myself! I can’t kill Baked Potato if I’m dead!”

I watched the two of them scuffle and wrestle with each other, and I lamented not having a recording device to record Rumcake’s sheer look of terror.

Wait… who was that in the front?

Eh? What?

Seriously. Go back in the other room.

“Hold on, I gotta check something,” I told everypony else. I let Rumcake struggle with Doc and his multitude of bonesaws floating around. I pushed through the double doors and double checked who was there.

What’d I tell you?

Shut up, brain, this is your fault.

“Wait, Instant Noodles? What are you doing here?” I hopped over to her and gave her a big hug right as she turned around in response. “How ya doing?”

“I’m great.” She hugged me back and bopped my nose. “How’s the noggin doing?”

“Not good.” I sighed and sat down. “Good news is, I’m not hallucinating.”

“That’s good.”

“Apparently I’ve developed a few split personalities.”

“That isn’t as good.” Instant levitated out a notepad and pencil and started quickly writing things down.

“I know. So far, they just live in my head.”

“Can I… uh… talk to them?”

I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t know. I think they just talk to me when I’m stressed or something. Maybe they come out when I start being more like them.”

“What do you mean?”

I frowned shamefully. “You know how I get when I’m hopped up on combat drugs?” She raised an eyebrow and gave me a strange look that prompted me to try and elaborate further. “There’s a side of me that… uh…” I cringed inwardly. “I don’t want her coming out anytime soon.”

“I assume you created a personality that thrives on violence and combat?”

I nodded. “She’s a bit on the unstable side, and I really don’t want to find out whether or not I can regain control if she gets out.” I was starting to get uncomfortable, so I decided to change the subject. “I need a favor.”

Thankfully, she understood my discomfort. “What do you need?” she asked.

“I need you to do that mind dive thing again.” Ever since Tabber mentioned the place he was extracted from, it was poking at my mind like something that was important. “Ever heard of this place called Old Olneigh?”

“It’s an old ruin that’s full of nothing but danger. Most ponies avoid the place like it’s tainted. Heck, it’s probably radioactive too. Why?”

“I… I don’t know. It just feels important.” I idly tugged at my mane with my claw. “I think I was there, judging from my last memory.”

Instant flipped through her notes attached to the clipboard. “I’d say you’re probably right. I’ve been near the outskirts once and your memory sequence appears to confirm that. So you want to go back?”

“Yeah. I want to know what happened.” My ears perked up to some screaming and swearing coming from the back room, followed by maniacal laughter. “Sounds like somepony’s getting their cast removed.”

“Well, let’s get started, I guess. You have a timeframe?” I shook my head. Instant shrugged and started charging her horn with magical energy. “I’ll just eyeball it. Get comfortable.” I laid down on the scuffed tiling and imagined that it was a plush couch instead. She rested her horn against my head and everything just melted away.

<~~~>

The noise of wind thundering around me caused me to snap into focus. I looked around the dimly lit area and it became familiar as the troop bay of a Vertibuck. “Well, you were close,” I whispered to Instant, who was sitting in a crash harness next to me. “Though I think we’re not close enough.” I looked myself over and noticed I still had all my hooves, and it somehow made me feel at ease.

“Why?” she asked.

“This is a Vertibuck, and by the looks of the spooks in coats—” I nodded at the three expressionless pegasi dressed in lab coats sitting across from me “—this is the penultimate ride to my demise.” I automatically patted myself down and tugged on the straps of my scout armor. I sighed. “You know, I was really hoping today would turn out better.”

“You said it. I was going to sleep today,” a similarly suited buck complained next to me. “Why’d command have to send us, of all ponies?” I awkwardly reached over through my crash harness and hoofbumped him. “That feel.”

“Cram it, dickwad,” one of the scientists yelled. “This is important.”

I ignored his outburst, but my companion felt like he needed to add something. “What? I can’t hear you over the sound of wind and bullshit!” he shouted. I giggled and hoofbumped him again. “Can it. You’re paid to read, not to lead.”

The scientist scowled at us and turned back to his colleagues in quiet discussion. “What do you think they’re talking about?” I asked my squadmate.

“Your guess is as good as mine. I can’t hear them from over here… how are you?” he half-yelled over the clamor and wind.

“I could be better. How’s your mom doing?”

“Eh. The doctors says she’ll live.”

A speaker in the wall blared to life. “Good afternoon, this is your captain speaking. You may notice we are slowing down and the small arms fire is no longer scratching my paint. If you look out the nonexistent windows on the port side, you’ll see we are approaching your landing zone. On the starboard side, you can wave at the rest of your squad in Vulture One-One.”

“Weapons check,” I muttered to my squadmate. I patted myself down and made sure all my gear was all in place.

“All crew, prepare for drop,” the speaker squaked. “Prepare to unload equipment from Vulture One-One. Thank you for flying Team Vulture. Have a nice day.”

My squadmate and I unhooked ourselves from the crash harnesses and I assisted Instant Noodles out of hers. The back door opened up and we jumped down onto the cracked rooftop. I was back on the familiar setting from my last memory trip, but this time everything was still intact. “Let’s just get this over with,” I shouted over the noise of the rotors.

The rest of the squad was piling out of the other Vertibuck that landed nearby on the other side of the roof. “Move it, pegasi! I want this science crap outta this Vertibuck five minutes ago!” my father roared at the rest of my squad. I trotted over to help out when he pointed behind us. “You too! Get those analytical flanks in gear! I want you three moving your crap too!”

We sniggered as the three scientists dashed past us and immediately started unloading crates. My squadmate nudged me. “Ashtray really loves pushing around the squints, eh?”

“Hey! I’m the only one that gets to stand around! Get. Moving!” my dad yelled at us. Oh Dad, you so funny. Dad… I wiped a tear from my eye. I’d never see him again after this. We immediately jumped into action, moving more random crates and tables.

The scientists started setting up their equipment as we finally finished moving the last of the crates off. “So, why are you here?” Instant asked me. “What is your squad here for?”

I gently lowered a crate onto another crate. When in doubt, look busy and wait to be told what to do. “We just happened to be scheduled for a training run, but the Council decided that we should go into the field and defend these damn scientists.”

Speaking of which, the scientists finally finished setting up whatever their device was. “And what might that be?” my dad demanded at one of the scientists. “I wanna know what I’m risking my squad here for!”

“It’s out of your pay grade, oldie,” one of the scientists shot back. “You’re here for defense. That’s all you need to know.”

Dad growled and paced off, muttering about bureaucratic jargon and red tape. He always did hate the Enclave’s unnecessarily complex governmental system.

“Hey! This is a restricted zone. How did you even get in here?” a voice from behind me shouted. Eh? I whipped around and nearly ended up muzzle-to-muzzle with a very angry Enclave officer. “Airpony, how did you get in here? This. Is. Restricted. Territory.”

“Uh… magic?” I tentatively answered. I looked to Instant Noodles for help. “This definitely isn’t part of the memory,” I whispered to her.

“You will address me as SIR!” the officer shouted. “Atten-shun! Now, how did you get in here?”

“Magic, sir!” I shouted back, snapping into attention against my will. Crap! What was going on? “Awaiting orders, sir!” I couldn’t move! I struggled to even turn my head, but nothing was working. Help!

“So, who are you?” Instant Noodles asked him. “Not part of the memory, are you?” Out of the corner of my eye, I could tell the memory had stopped entirely. “Release her.”

“Missy, you have no idea who you’re dealing with,” the officer shouted. “I suggest you back away.”

Instant blasted him with some kind of magical beam, but it only bounced off him. “Dammit. Well, it was worth a try.”

“Your magic will not work on me! I do not believe in your magic!” He charged at Instant and backhoofed her across the roof. “Back. Off. Atten-shun!” he barked.

Instant squeaked and suddenly she snapped back to attention. “What th- Orders, sir!”

“Good, another soldier. Now, you will tell me how you got in here.” The officer smiled.

“Up your ass and around the corner, sir!” I shouted back. Oh good, at least I could still snark at him. “Is there another way, sir?”

“Shut it, scout.” He grimaced and turned around. “Off to the brig with you two.” The memory dissolved into a multitude of shifting lines and fog. “I’ll deal with you later.”

<~~~>

I think we were forced out of my memory by that officer. Next thing I knew, I was waking up on the clinic floor underneath Instant Noodles. “Ugh… thunderclouds, what happened? Did I just get kicked out of my brain?” Who was that in there?

“Why wasn’t I invited?” Rumcake whined when he saw us.

“Hey! Nothing happened!” I knew I was turning red. Instant Noodles started waking up above me. I nudged her urgently. “Wake up!”

“Wha’?” Instant muttered. “Woah! Sorry!” she clambered off of me and I stood up. “Wow, you have a really messed up mind.”

“So. You’re into those kind of things?” Rumcake smugly added. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

I turned even redder and hid my face behind my forelegs. “Why do these things happen to me?” I moaned. “Why?” Something in my chest fluttered and I winced.

“Wait, wha—?” Instant started, then she covered her muzzle with a hoof when she caught Rumcake’s grin. “Oh Celestia, I’m so sorry! I didn’t even—”

I sighed. “It’s fine. I’m getting used to it, I think.”

“So… what are you two doing?” Rumcake asked.

Instant and I shared a glance and simultaneously blurted out, “Girl stuff.”

“Right…” Rumcake nodded, pretending to understand. “While I’m here, what are you up to, Frosty? Feeling better yet?”

“Eh. I don’t know. I gotta get Doc to check out my health. You?” I replied. I was still shaking off the creepy feeling that somepony in my head just removed me from my own brain.

“Not much. I need to go check what’s going on with the Ranger outpost thing happening in town. Apparently we moved in, permanently.”

Instant pushed past us and mentioned, “I’m just hanging out in the clinic helping out Doc Galactic. Drop by if you’ve got anything else you’d like to share.” She smiled and started walking into the back room.

“Wait, where’s Doc?” I called after her. She pointed her clipboard back at Doc’s combination brewing/science experiment that had expanded slightly more since I’d seen it last. “What?” I trotted over to the other side of the table and faceclawed. “Seriously, Doc? It’s been, like, five minutes,” I groaned.

It’s been, like, an hour.

Doc was lying facedown in a large pile of alcohol bottles, soda bottles, assorted chip bags, and several boxes of snack cakes. I reached over him and helped myself to a box of cherry snack cakes and a Sparkle-Cola.

“Bwuh? Wha’?” Doc slurred, shifting around on his pile of trash. “Someone call for a Doc?” He flipped over and feebly waved his hooves in the air. “Help me up.” I grudgingly grabbed one of his hooves and pulled him up. “What can I do you for?”

“On a scale of one to five, how drunk are you?” I asked in exasperation.

“Floor. Definitely floor. Or hungover.” He stumbled over to the table and picked up a vial. “But really, what can I do for you?”

“I need to figure a few things out. And I’d like you sober,” I told him. Doc nodded and reached over to his contraption for a mysterious brown colored liquid in a beaker. He downed the contents in one large gulp. “Uh… better?”

Apparently not, as he asymmetrically blinked and continued to stand there. “Mn’mnt,” He drowsily grunted.

“I, uh, didn’t catch that.”

He yawned and flicked his tail. “Moment.”

So then I awkwardly stood there and watched Doc alternate between idle stretching and yawns that threatened to pass on to me. He chugged the rest of the liquid down and instantly perked up, looking much less bedraggled.

“Yeah. So! Whaddya need?” he asked, also sounding much less hungover.

“First things first. Why do I feel so tired? And sluggish?” I asked.

“That’s because your body is slowly becoming dependent on a whole multitude of chems. I’m going to assume you were in a lot of pain when you woke up?”

“Yeah. Broken gave me a Med-X to make it go away. Why?”

“Congrats, you’re addicted. Now, it’s partially my fault and I do apologize. Which also probably brings us to our next question. Turns out all the chems I used to make my super combat formula is not safe for your heart or liver.” He scratched his chin and fiddled around with a few tubes on his chemistry set.

“No, really.” I sarcastically snarked back. “So that explains the passing out bits, but why?”

“So, a select few chems, when used in conjunction, will cause your heart rate to skyrocket dramatically to a ludicrous degree. That’s also how I planned to circulate the chems through your system faster. However, I forgot to actually find out whether it was survivable. Or perform clinical trials.” Both of us facehoofed. “Sorry about that.”

“Dammit, Doc.” I punched my chest as the fluttering became more annoying. “What the hell is going on in there?” I growled, staring at my chest.

“That’s probably arrhythmia or something kicking in,” he answered, still fiddling with his pipes. He looked over and caught my blank expression and he continued, “Basically, your heart rate is unstable because I had to jump-start you with magic and a spark battery. I’m hoping your body fixes it on its own, but try not to exert yourself, just in case.”

“Fine,” I grumbled. Well, I guess that meant no more flying for a while. “So, besides Med-X, what else am I addicted to?”

“Let’s say you want to lay off the Med-X, Dash, Stampede, Rage, Buck, Hydra, motherly love, the screams of a mare in pain, flashbacks to wars you weren't in, chewing gum, sock puppets, the letter Q, and gypsies. Just in case. You know what? No more chems for you, and you’ll probably be fine.” My jaw dropped. Was that all the chems in existence? ”Anything else?” he added.

I nervously pawed at the ground. Did Doc really need to know about them? “Well…”

“What’s on your mind?”

“That’s the thing. What do you know about mental health?”

“Look at me. Does it look like I know about mental health?” Doc grinned, motioning to himself. “But I know enough, as a doctor. Why?”

“How do split personalities work?” I asked, staring at the ground. Goddesses, this was embarrassing. Oh the irony, being just as crazy as Doc.

“Well, you might want to talk to the Ranger lady. As far as I know, split personalities just kinda take up space in your brain due to stress or something.” Doc finished tweaking the pipes and pushed a button, causing some more brown liquid to flow around in his contraption. “Here, try some of this,” he said, levitating the beaker toward me.

“What is it?” I cautiously asked, taking the beaker in my claw. I sniffed it and took a tiny sip. I scrunched up my muzzle and pushed the beaker back at him. “Ugh! That’s really bitter! What the hell is it?”

Doc rolled his eyes. “Take a larger drink. It’s really good.” I sighed and downed a larger gulp. Bitter, kind of earthy, and sort of… sweet? “Like it?”

“I… don’t know. I think I like it.” I took another small gulp. “It tastes kinda good and weird at the same time.” A little tingle washed through me and I suddenly stopped. I felt less inclined to sleep and more inclined to question reality. “Wait… what did you do to me?” I peered into the beaker. “What’s in this?”

“Nothing. It’s called coffee. Somepony delivered some powdered mix to me that they found in a storage bin.” He pulled out a small packet from behind some other bottles, flasks, and jars. “Here!” He gave me the packet. ‘Instant Coffee with a Hint of Chocolate! Free Sample from M.O.M. Courtesy Desk.’

“Coffee, eh? Only the officers get that,” I mused. “I kinda thought it would be more… sweet.” Back when I could still remember things, only officers were allowed access to the Officer’s Mess Hall where they had much more interesting food there. Wait. Brain, why don’t you remember more useful things?

Shut up. All this brain damage isn’t helping.

“What are your plans for today?” Doc asked, brewing another batch of coffee. Part of me wanted another beaker, but I didn’t think I needed another.

“I don’t know. Since I need to take it easy, I’m not going exploring or anything.” I mulled over the options in my mind. Rumcake and Baked were hanging out somewhere, Tabber was in the Smashed Spritebot Inn, Doc and Instant were in here. What to do? “You know what, I gotta get my brain sorted out. I’ll be in the back room if you need me.”

He nodded and went back to brewing another batch of coffee. I went into the back room and waved at Instant Noodles. “I assume you woke up Doc, then?” she asked.

“Yeah. He’s got coffee.” I grinned and motioned outside. “Turns out he knows what he’s doing with that contraption of his.” I hopped up onto one of the comfy clinic beds and laid down on it. “In more serious news, you wanna go clean out my brain?”

She took a look at her clipboard and nodded. “Sure. As long as this doesn’t last for six hours, I’ve got time.” She tucked her clipboard and pencil away somewhere in her robes. “Alright. You ready?” Instant asked as she charged her horn with magic.

“Let’s do this. I’m going to give this idiot a piece of my mind. Wait.” Damn you brain for making one-liners that don’t make sense. She touched her horn to my head and I dozed off again, ready for a fight.

<~~~>

“Welcome back, dirtbags,” the officer taunted. “Welcome to the brig. You get to stay here any time you drop in.” I examined my surroundings with slight disinterest. I had appeared in a small dark room made of steel with a tiny steel-barred doorway in a wall. “I’ll be back later. Have fun in there.”

I resisted the urge to re-enact a scene from a bad movie I arbitrarily recalled with an equally bad rendition of a song that sort of went, “Nopony knows the troubles I’ve seen…” or something like that. Since my knowledge of the lyrics didn’t extend past that singular line, I chose against a chance at an imaginary academy award.

The sound of his hoofsteps faded away into the distance. “Well, now what?” Instant asked from the cell next to me. “I’m trapped here with you.” From the sounds of clip-clopping hooves on metal, she was probably either pacing or performing a river dance.

“Uh… I got nada. I was really hoping my mental security wasn’t this good.” I tapped the bars. Very solid and secure. “You have anything?”

“Well… I’m going to try something stupid. I’m going to assume your cell looks almost exactly like mine?” she asked. “Boring steel walls, one tiny door?”

“Yep. What are you—” I started. I heard the sounds of hooves on steel, following by a loud high-pitched bang. Moments later, Instant suddenly appeared in midair accompanied by a shower of sparks and light. “Woah!”

“Hey! It worked!” she cried. Then she looked around and gravity caught up with her. She dropped to the floor with a squeak and grinned at me. “Duh nuh nuh nuuuuhh nah nah nah nah-naah! Yay, I can teleport!” she singsonged.

“Good work! Now you’re trapped in here with me!” I congratulated her. “Now what?”

“Oh…” She paused and looked crestfallen. “Well, my plan didn’t go that far.”

“Hmm…” What could we do? Sure, there were two of us. But we still couldn’t escape this little cell! “Can you teleport to that side and open the door?”

“Nah. The only reason I teleported in here was because I had enough space to do so. That hallway is too dark and narrow. I don’t want to find out whether dying in here kills me in real life as well,” she replied. “Wait, this is your mind… why don’t you just imagine your way out?”

I thought about that, which was itself a scary thought. That’d I actually trying thinking that, not that other part. “Worth a try, I guess.” I closed my eyes and imagined the door swinging open. “Anything?” I asked with my eyes still closed.

“No. Try harder.”

I focused harder. Door. Open. Break. Key. “Anything?”

“Nope.”

Come on, what can I do? How about a lockpick?

Wait! “Oh, dear Luna, I’m an idiot.” I dug around my messy mane and pulled out a bobby pin. “Durr.” I took a closer look at the door and swore. “The lock’s on the other side.”

Instant playfully punched me and snatched the pin out of my claw with her magic. “A unicorn brought you here, remember?” She patted down her robe and grunted in dissatisfaction. “Dammit, I don’t have any of my stuff with me. Do you have a screwdriver?” she asked me.

“Nah.” I waggled my talons at her. “I just use these.”

“You don’t have a screwdriver?”

“Nope. Never had one,” I replied. Excluding that one very lonely night when I ran out of candles, but I’d rather not get into that. Although now I wondered if my talons could... hmm… No, I’d rather not risk lacerating myself during me time.

“Huh. Everypony carries around a screwdriver…” She trailed off, mumbling something about ‘adventurers these days’ and ‘standard issue’.

“Anyway, what do I do?”

“Okay… uh… can you reach around to the lock?” she asked.

Was that the sound of a sexual innuendo calling to me? “You want me to do a reach around.” I couldn’t keep the silly grin off my face.

“Yes.” Instant insisted.

“That means you need to be in front of me, now doesn’t it?” I broke down into hysterics.

A hoof, one most likely belonging to the irritated mare behind me, conked me over the head. “You’re more mature than this. Stop.”

Wheezing and chuckling, I nodded and leaned against the door. I reached through the bars and eventually slotted a talon into the keyhole. “Good. Now, when I tell you, turn your claw slowly to the right.

After several confusing minutes and three pins, we finally managed to open the door. “Woohoo! Time to go!” I yelled. We shoved the door open and charged toward the door at the end of the hallway.

“Not so fast!” the officer yelled the moment we barged through the door. Turns out the door to the brig was located next to the square in Cloudsdale. “Stop right there, traitorous scum!”

“Run!” I yelled. “Find cover!” Hopefully this didn’t count as strenuous activity or else my heart was going to give out.

“Airponies!” His voice boomed across the square.

We dived behind a large rainbow fountain. “Hey! I think I have an idea,” Instant hastily whispered behind me. “Just keep him busy, alright?”

“I can probably do that,” I whispered back.

“I have an idea who he is, but I need to find out. Keep him distracted!” She darted away into an alley.

“Dammit,” I groaned. I poked my head out from behind the fountain and spied the officer pacing around behind a fruit stand. If only I could get that fruit stand to move or something…

The fruit stand shifted and the officer immediately dashed around to the other side, hoping to find me.

How… Oh, I get it! He controls the steel, but Cloudsdale is my territory. Fruit stand, attack!

The fruit stand rose into the air slightly and then crashed down onto the officer. “Oof! Did you think that would hurt me?” he shouted. I giggled and mentally threw a table at him. “Come out here and fight me like a stallion, you coward!” Scenes from “Attack of the Flying Furniture Again”, directed by Hayvid Cage, suddenly sprung to mind.

“I’m a mare, you blind idiot!” I yelled back and threw several chairs at him. “I have an excuse!” I commanded the fountain to cover him in rainbow when he stomped closer to my voice.

“Gah!” The officer snarled as he wiped rainbow out of his eyes. “Get out here!” He saw me dart out from behind the fountain and yelled, “Atten—”

Thundercloud. A thundercloud materialized out of nowhere and zapped him in mid-order. “Don’t know what went wrong?” I laughed and dove for the safety of a large crate. So far, I was distracting him just fine. But what was Instant doing?

The officer smoothed down his uniform and patted off the soot. “Now that’s just impolite. Come out here and maybe I won’t beat the everloving sh—” Hail. Another dark cloud formed over his head and rapidly discharged small balls of ice on him. “Ow! Ow! Dammit! Ow!” he yelled. He started running, and I commanded the cloud to follow.

I confidently strode out into the open. “You cannot defeat me. Not on my turf. Now, get out of here or I’ll have to beat you out!”

The officer strode to the opposite side of the square, little pieces of ice and soot trailing from him. The hailcloud had run out of ice and it just floated over him happily. “No. I will defeat you. Now, att—” I commanded a nearby crate to smash into him. “Stop! Atten—” The floor under him lurched upward and he stopped to regain his balance.

He spread his wings and flew down to the ground. “No wings! That’s cheating!” A section of wall suddenly extended and slammed into him, knocking him across the square. “Now, why don’t you just give up while you still can?” I taunted. “Is that too much for you?”

“Never! I will never give up to the likes of—” he started, then I dropped a flower stand on him. He slowly stood up and adjusted his cap. “Now, atten-shun!” he suddenly shouted. Crap! I wasn’t ready! I involuntarily snapped to attention and froze. “Now that we’ve gotten you out of the way…” Uh… cone! Save me! A sky cone flew across the square and hit him in the back of the head.

“There’s a cone on your head, sir!” I shouted at him. That meant he was special, and that it was unbecoming for me to continue whaling on him. He rolled his eyes and pulled it off his head. “Anything you need, sir?”

“Yes. I order you to st—” he started again, but suddenly a clipboard smashed into the back of his head. “You hit me… in… the same exact… spot…” he groaned and fell over.

Instant Noodles bounced over and waved her clipboard at me. “I found it! Turns out you just need to leave his control zone and all your stuff just kinda comes back. Hey, are you okay?”

I was still frozen at attention. She poked me repeatedly trying to make me move. I threw a bundle of hay at her head to try to signal her.

“Hey! Oh wait, you still can’t move?” she asked. I grunted in response. “Uh… how do I fix that?”

“Dismissed,” I told her through clenched teeth. I still couldn’t move or say anything until I was dismissed, if I was correct. “Help.”

“DIIIIS-MISSED!” she yelled in her best parade ground voice. My body finally started responding to me again and I immediately dropped my salute. “Better?”

“Yes. Thank you!” I rubbed my right foreleg and grimaced. “I was starting to get tired from holding that position. Luna, I’m out of practice. Wow.” I sorted the square back to what it used to look like as best I could. “So, what else did you find out?”

“He’s some kind of planted memory or something. I can’t do anything about it, but maybe you can figure out something later down the road,” she replied. “He’s pretty much built into your mind, like it or not.”

“Crap. Well, I guess I’ll figure out how to get rid of this idiot later.”

“How do we get out of here?” Oh right, Instant had never been part of one my insanity trips before.

“Easy. We go to my cloudhouse—” we were suddenly teleported to the front of my cloudhouse “—and sleep.” I pushed the door open. “Oh yeah, if you want to talk to my other ponysonas, go right on ahead.” I pointed at the steel door. “Just don’t open that. Insane ponysona is insane.”

She nodded and followed me inside. “Wow… it’s nice in here.” Wait till she meets the rest of me… “Uh… who’s that on the ceiling?”

I looked up and groaned. “Instant Noodles, meet Drunky.”

Drunk Frosty waved at us from her spot on the ceiling. “Greeeeetings!” She stood up and saluted. “My mane allows me to defy gravity!” She giggled and fell off the ceiling. “Wha’z goin’ on?”

“Where’s the rest of us?” I asked me. Drunk Frosty pointed into the living room. “Thanks.”

“How many of you are there?” Instant whispered. “If there’s one of y—oh dear Celestia, you are adorable.”

Filly Frosty dashed straight past me and right into the waiting hooves of Instant. “Yay! Visitors!” Filly Frosty squealed energetically.

“Who did you bring?” Gala Frosty got off the couch and gave me a friendly hug.

“She’s a friend from outside. Instant Noodles, meet mini-me. Mini-me, Instant Noodles,” I told them. “So, anything new on the insanity front?” I asked Gala Frosty. Instant was too busy playing with Filly Frosty to pay attention to me anymore. That little ball of fur and feathers could use a new playmate.

Gala Frosty shook her head. “The raider’s been sleeping for a while. She wasn’t happy about being rejected like that, but we eventually got her to calm down.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Get more cherry snack cakes. She likes those.” Funny, I like those too. Mmm… artificial cherry flavorings and preservatives…

“You look like you’re ready for the Grand Galloping Gala,” Instant panted, pulling Filly Frost off her hind leg.

“Indeed I am. You could say I’m the leader of all these idiots,” Gala Frosty replied. Hey! “C’mon squirt. Get off her and hop up here.” Filly Frosty grudgingly slid off Instant’s leg and flopped onto the couch. “Anyway, you’re the one opening up memories?”

“Uh… yeah?” Instant hesitantly answered. “Why?”

“Thank you. Keep up the good work.” Gala Frosty tapped my head with a hoof. “The faster we fill in the holes, the faster life will go on as normal.” Well, as normal as life gets with split personalities. She turned her attention to the both of us. “Now, I assume you two are here for the escape rope?”

I nodded and followed her to the bedroom. “Give that cutie pie Rummy a kiss for me!” Drunk Frosty shouted from her spot on the floor.

“Shut it!” Gala Frosty yelled. She turned back to us and bashfully shrugged. “The ponies I live with, you know? Anyway, there’s only one bed so you two are going to want to squeeze in!”

Instant and I awkwardly got into the bed and managed to somehow squeeze on. “This could not get any more awkward,” I muttered to her. There was barely any space for the both of us, so we were pretty much pressed together side to side. My wings threatened to spring to attention from the close contact, which I was desperately trying to prevent. Both of us were blushing a little and trying to ignore the other in all the embarrassment.

“Now kiss,” Gala Frosty whispered. What? We looked at each other and then glared at Gala Frosty. “Okay, okay, it was worth a try.” As she turned out the light and closed the door, she helpfully mentioned with a grin, “We like being the big spoon.” I buried my face in the pillow and tried to block out Instant’s suppressed giggling. Damn you, brain.

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Psychological Warfare – It’s a real battle of the minds, folks. You gain +5 to Speech and Barter. You also gain 5% damage resistance when in Cloudsdale.
Current Sub-perk: Diplomacy – Remember thy Charlamane. You gain +3 to speech.
New Status: Addicted to Med-X – It isn’t your fault. When withdrawn, your Agility and Intelligence is penalized by -1.

Author's Note

Special guest editor Crushric!

Chapter 8: Got whiskey?

Chapter 8: Got whiskey?

“Good morning, Ponyville!”

I groggily sat up from the bed and rubbed my eyes. Instant Noodles removed her forelegs from the end of the bed and stretched. “Wow, you really need to get out more.” She giggled and picked up her clipboard. “Even your brain knows that.”

“Shut up.” I swung myself off the bed. I couldn’t believe my subconscious even told Instant about that! I pulled her closer and evilly whispered into her ear, “If you tell anypony about anything that just happened, I will kill you. Brutally. With a plastic spoon.”

“Okay! Tell nopony! Got it!” Instant squeaked.

I smiled and patted her head. “Good! I’m going to go see what Tabber and Rumcake are up to.” I walked out of the back room, leaving Instant shaking in her robes.

On the way there, I caught sight of the self-imposed town doctor doing his sciencey things. “Hey, Doc, where’s that inn we were talking about earlier?” Of course, I never really paid much attention in chemistry class, so I couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was making.

“Um, the Smashed Spritebot?” he answered, not looking up from his chemistry set. “It’s a few buildings down from from Scrap Bank’s shop.” Scrap Bank’s shop. I knew where that was. “You might want to be careful,” he added.

“Uh… why?”

“Tabber doesn’t like having visitors. Make sure you announce yourself before knocking,” Doc explained. “One doesn’t survive as a spy for this long without being paranoid as balls.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. Wait, what did he do before?” I asked.

“Hmph,” Doc grunted and looked away from his chemistry set.

Right. Sore topic. “If you don’t want to talk about it I understand. I guess I’ll see you later, then.” I moved to leave the clinic, but Doc stopped me.

“Wait.” I paused and looked at him. “There’s something you need to know,” Doc mumbled. He laid down on one of his examination tables and I sat down next to him. “He’s a pure mercenary. He’ll work for whoever has the most caps and he’s damn good at what he does.” He levitated a bottle over from the pile behind his chemistry set. “He doesn’t care. No conscience.”

Obviously something terrible must have happened between them. “Why’d you break up with him? And what about your team and stuff?”

Doc took a long pull from the bottle. “Roy called us up for a recovery job. Recover some kind of statue things from the castle. Whatever or wherever they were, we didn’t find them. We started leaving Canterlot and that’s when everything went wrong.”

“How?”

“… I…” Doc stammered. “On hindsight, I’m not ready to talk about it.”

I nodded and patted his shoulder. “I understand.” Wait, was he crying? Crap. What do I do? Uh… “Look, I’d love to share something from my past, but I don’t remember most of it.” He wiped a tear from his muzzle and smiled. “Well, if it’s any consolation…” Should I? “Let’s make a deal. I’ve got this crazy memory in progress that I’m still trying to complete.” I showed him my mechanical leg and sighed. “It’s all about what happened to me before all of… this. I’ll tell you my story if you tell me yours.”

“It’s a deal.” He shook my claw with his hoof. “Don’t die on me before then.”

“I’m counting on you to keep me alive then,” I teased. Before I left, I gave him a quick kiss on the head. “Think of this as a quick thanks. If only I’d taken the time to see his face.

Once I got outside, the town was looking very different. Those Rangers got busy, fast. The walls around the city were fully finished and even patrols had started pacing the walls. A few Rangers were patrolling the town itself and they were getting mixed reactions. Some of the townsponies were happily interacting with them, but most of them were avoiding the Rangers. “Hey! Hold up!” a high-pitched voice cried. “Birdie! Waaait!” I bristled a bit at being called Birdie, but I decided to let it go.

I stopped and turned around. A little scrawny filly ran up to me. Her long strawberry-colored mane was a mess and her white coat was more of a pale, muddy brown stained with dirt. “Uh… what do you need?” I hesitantly asked her.

She took out a bottle and presented it to me. “You are the birdie from the radio, right?” she asked dubiously.

“I think so,” I replied. I took the bottle and grinned. A single bottle of ice cold Sparkle-Cola. “What’s this for?”

“I know it’s not much, but it’s all our family could spare.” She shyly backed away. “So… yeah.”

I hugged her, of course. “Oh, it’s okay! I love it!” I dug through my bag. Aha! “Here. Take this with you.” I presented her with a box of snack cakes that I’d appropriated from Doc’s clinic. “It’s not much, but it’s tasty.”

She grudgingly took it. “But…” she protested.

“It’s fine! I have plenty of them.” I showed her the other box I’d taken from Doc. “Go ahead and take it.” She sqeee’d happily and dashed off. It’s like everypony loves snack cakes! I tucked away the bottle in a safe place in my bag.

Anyway, where was I… right! Gotta go see what Tabber’s up to. I passed Scrap Bank’s shop and reminded myself that I needed to get some supplies later, if I remembered. The Smashed Spritebot Inn was a few buildings down and across the street, right where Doc said it would be. The front of the building was adorned with several smashed spritebots to live up to its namesake.

I walked inside and was immediately assaulted by the stench of parties long gone and what smelled like a dead body somewhere under the premises. A few townsfolk were still idling about nursing their drinks, deep in thought or completely drunk. Behind the bar, a dark gray unicorn was idly cleaning the counter with a rag in his hoof. He lazily looked up and brushed his white mane out of his eyes. Along one edge, he had a thin red and green stripe running down it.

“Hey, where are the rooms?” I asked him.

“By the hour or the whole day?” he asked back. He continued wiping down the bar lethargically. “Discount for regulars.”

“What? Who rents by th— Oh, okay, never mind.” Of course. “I’m looking for somepony. He’s sorta tall, dark, gas mask. See him?” I queried. Why are inns so dark on the inside? Even my barracks were brighter than this.

He wrung out the rag while filling the glass he was levitating. “I’ve seen him. Who’s asking?” He glared at me suspiciously.

“Uh…” I flapped my wings uncomfortably. “Frosty?” I tried. The bartender didn’t respond. “The pegasus?” He continued glaring. I sighed. Did Tabber really have to go there? “How about the monster filly?” The bartender grinned. “You cannot be serious. That’s what he told you?”

“Oh yeah. Apparently it was a crowning moment in his career or something. Down the hall, room four. Knock first.” He waved me off and started stacking shot glasses and mugs in a cabinet.

As I approached the door, I remembered what Doc told me. “Friendly incoming,” I announced before knocking on the door. There was a quick flash of green light under the door followed by a whole cloudful of swearing and clattering. “Uh… you okay in there?”

Tabber opened the door, smoke curling off his armor and mane. “I’m fine. Had a little crafting mishap. Come on in, mind your step.” He backed up and opened the door wider. The room was littered with parts of weapons and tools, most of which were still somewhat intact. “If you see the muzzle tip of a zebra assault rifle, tell me.”

I carefully stepped around weapon parts and asked him “What the hay happened here?”

“I’m fixing weapons.” He pushed half an assault rifle out of his way. “You know how your weapons will eventually become harder to use? Yeah. Keep them in good repair and maybe you won’t die,” he said.

“Thanks for that enlightening tidbit,” I sarcastically shot back. “I know that already. Ex-Enclave, remember?” I nudged part of a shotgun away. “Where’d you get all these guns from?”

“I found them.”

“What? How do you hold all of these guns?” I motioned around the room. There were literally dozens of guns broken apart and scattered about, not including the ones that probably had already been taken apart and trashed.

“I already told you. Interdimensional saddlebags. They’re much bigger than they look.” He patted his saddlebags gleefully. “Most useful things ever.”

“I thought you were kidding! Now I want one.” I pouted and threw half of a pistol at him. “Anyway, I wanna ask you something.”

“Yeah?” He continued working on an assault rifle.

“Why are you here?”

“Hired to do a job. That’s it.”

“I find it hard to believe that you just happened to be in the area just as I showed up and you needed a pegasus.”

“Fate works in strange ways.”

“And spies work in even stranger ways.”

“You trying to imply something?” He bristled with annoyance.

“Just an observation.” I inched closer to him. “You know, spies. Bunch of bitchy fillies.”

“What do you want?”

“Who do you work for?”

“Why do you need to know?”

“Ponies tell me that you only do things under contract. And you even said yourself that you were hired to secure something under Seapony. So, who are you working for?”

“I answer to a contract. That’s all you need to know.”

I growled. He was leading me in circles and I wasn’t getting a straight answer from him at all. “How about you stop dodging and give me a straight answer.”

“Nope.”

“Dammit. Help me out here. Tell me something.”

He sat back and thought about it. “Fine.” My hopes rose. Maybe some answers, finally! “I’ll eventually tell you. In time. The truth hurts, and I don’t think you’re ready for it.” My ears drooped.

On the bright side, he’ll eventually talk about it.

“Now, give me the body of your sniper rifle.”

“It’s an anti-machine rifle,” I snapped, but I gave it to him anyway. “And what do you mean I can’t handle the truth?”

He took the body of my rifle and carefully started taking it apart on his table. “I’m serious. Heck, when I got the contract I could barely believe it either.” He pulled out the bolt and removed the firing pin from it. “This thing’s almost trashed. You’re lucky it didn’t break.” He tossed it aside and dug out a firing pin from another sniper rifle. “If you hear anything out of the ordinary, stop firing. That’s probably the sound of something going terribly wrong.” He reassembled the body of my rifle and handed it back to me.

“Thanks,” I grumbled and shoved the gun part back into my bag. “So if I can’t handle the truth, when are you going to tell me?”

“When the time is right,” he replied. How cliché of him. “I’m going to grab something to eat. You coming?” I shook my head. “Okay, your loss. Now get the hay out of my motel room.” I stomped out of his room and sat down in front of the bar. There were a few more townsfolk hanging out in the bar now.

“Yo. I could use a drink,” I told the bartender. “Got whiskey?” He nodded. “Great. Just one, please. I’ve still got things to do but I might be back later for more.”

He slid a shot glass full to the brim with whiskey. “First one’s free,” he droned when I reached for my saddlebags for caps. “You look troubled. A bit for your thoughts?”

“How do you know?” I nudged the glass idly.

“I’m a bartender. What do you think I do all day?” he replied with a grin.

That brought a smile to my face. “I just need to stop thinking so much. There’s just too much stuff going on right now that I really don’t want to focus on.”

“Do tell.” He poured himself a shot glass of whiskey and aptly listened.

“Two… three weeks ago, I think all I did was clean out my bunk and micromanage weather. In the past three days I’ve nearly died several times, actually died once, demolished a slaver base and even lost my leg,” I continued. I gently gripped the shot glass in my claw and downed the entire thing. “I just… I never thought something like this would ever happen to me.”

“Hm. I’ve heard better.” The bartender drank his shot and collected our glasses. “If you’re looking to get happy, you might want to head to the party tonight.”

“What do you mean you’ve heard better? And what party?” I demanded. My story wasn’t that boring, was it?

“Yep. Disco party in the generator room, tonight around four. Joint project between some townsfolk and a few Rangers.” He started unpacking bottles and arranging them behind the counter. “Bring a friend, and I didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?” I replied innocently.

“Exactly. Now, don’t you have something to do?”

“Huh? Oh yeah. I’ll be back.” I tightened the straps of my saddlebags and walked out of the bar. Okay, what next?

You need more bullets. Go talk to Sleazy.

Good thinking, brain. On the way to his store, a Steel Ranger stopped me. “Hey! Ah know you!” he exclaimed. “Science project! Ya survived, didn’tcha?” Science project. I hate that title so much. Note to self: kill Soufflé.

“Uh… yes. Yes I did. And you are…?” I uneasily replied. I really didn’t like being stopped in the middle of the street, nevertheless by a Steel Ranger. And being called “science project” really annoyed the hay out of me.

The Ranger grabbed my hoof and energetically shook it. “Name’s Cabbage Stew, remember?”

“Oh yeah. Sorry, it’s hard to tell you Rangers apart when all of you have your helmets on.” However, I remembered him from the Rangers base from before. “How’re you doing?”

“Nothin’ much. Ah patrol streets now.” He pointed in the direction of the barracks somewhere down the street. “If ya wanna talk to your pardners, they’re down at the barracks under arrest.”

“Wait, what?” When did that happen? Why did nopony tell me these things? “What happened to them?”

“I have no idea. Something ‘bout disobeying direct orders. They’re in deep water now.”

“Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind.” I sighed and faceclawed. “Always getting into trouble.”

“Ah’ve gotta get back to my patrol. Maybe ah’ll see y’all later.” He paced off in the direction I’d just come from.

The walk over to Sleazy’s shop continued uneventfully. Nopony really stopped me on the way there, but I did notice a heck of a lot more whispering when I walked past ponies. That DJ really got to ponies. News of the Rad Lads base might be spreading like wildfire in town, and that meant news about me was probably flying around as well. I mean, how many other friendly pegasi were there in the wasteland?

“Greetings! The PB&J philosophy is tech plus ammo capacity equals I win! Now, what can I help you with, my feathered friend?” Sleazy boomed. The bar in his neck was missing, and in its place was a large collection of bandages and gauze.

“I need to restock. Interested in more ammunition?” I offered, opening up my other saddlebag. Sleazy’s eyes lit up and he eagerly jumped over the counter. “Could we go into the stockroom for a little privacy?”

“Oh yes, yes of course.” He hopped back over the counter and pushed open the door to his armory. “Now, what do you need and what do you have for me?”

We spent the next several minutes or so scooping out assorted bullets and guns out of the saddlebag I’d filled from the Rad Lads base. “All these bullets and these two pistols and that rifle. I think that’s it.” I pointed out the blue-striped box. “You have any idea what these are?”

Sleazy picked up the box and examined it carefully. Then he opened the box and whistled. “Wow. I never thought I’d see so many of these in one spot.”

“What are they though?” I asked while floating behind him, trying to get a better look in the box. “They just look like bullets with blue tips.”

“These aren’t any normal bullets. These are shock rounds. Less effective at taking out armor, but they are deadly against infantry. Or in rain. Or infantry in the rain.” Sleazy carefully replaced the lid and placed the box back on the table. “Careful with these. They were removed from service because of how dangerously unpredictable they were.”

“Good to know.” I gently lowered it into my saddlebag and tucked it away between a snack cake and the other magical rifle attachment I got from Tabber. “I’m going to need all the anti-machine rifle ammo you have. And a bunch of SMG ammo as well.”

“Sure thing!” Sleazy dumped all of the bullets on the table into a bin. He reached over to a cabinet on the wall and dropped a small box in front of me. “There’s your SMG ammo.” Then he opened a toolbox and fished out several large bullets. “This is all the AM rifle ammo I have.”

“This doesn’t seem like a fair trade,” I mused, counting up the ammunition. “Does it?”

“Dang it, filly. I’ve got nothing else you need!” Sleazy nervously shot back. “What else do ya want?”

“Hm. Give me a fair price. How much are you keeping from me?”

“About two hundred caps,” he stammered. I glared and stepped closer. “Okay! It’s more like three hundred fifty!”

“And how are we going to fix that?” I demanded.

“Um… would you like… uhhhh…” He stumbled over his words, trying to put together an excuse.

“How about a discount for next time?” I suggested.

“Yeah…” He twitched. “Of… course.” He shuddered violently. “A discount. I think I’m going to be sick.” He staggered off into the depths of his armory. “Can you see yourself out?” he asked weakly.

“Uh… yes I can. You going to be okay?” I asked, turning for the exit.

“Just… fine.”

~~~~~

So after making Sleazy McCheapkins physically ill with a deal, I decided that I needed to find out what happened to Rumcake and Baked after they’d returned. According to the word of Cabbage Stew, they’d been detained after arriving. Time to find out what happened. I approached the barracks and was immediately stopped by a pair of Steel Rangers. “What is your business here, Enclave scum?” one of them growled.

“Hey, Frosty! What’s going on?” the other one happily greeted.

“You know her?” the first one asked the other.

“Yeah. Hey! I’m Banana Pudding, remember?” All these silly Steel Rangers with their helmets and food-based names. “Let her through. What are you here for, anyway?”

“I need to talk to Rumcake and Baked Potato. Any idea where they are?” I asked him.

“Second one on the left. Good luck getting through their security detail.”

Something suddenly occurred to me. “Wait, aren’t you a Head Knight or something? Doesn’t that make you more important than patrol material?”

Banana stamped his hooves in agreement. “Yeah, but guess who’s on guard duty and forgot to double-check the Inquisitor’s work orders? That’s right- me.”

“Sucks to be you.” I walked past them and stopped. “Wait. Security detail?”

“Yep. Went AWOL.”

“Away without leave?”

“Yep. They went to go take out a slaver stronghold without orders. ” He tapped his helmet and continued “Even if they didn’t get themselves killed and managed to level the place, they still left base without orders.”

“Good to know.” I eyed the Ranger standing guard at the barracks. How do I sneak past him? He appeared to actually be paying attention, occasionally scanning the area for threats. His gaze eventually landed on me and stopped. I casually waved at him and smiled. He kept his eyes on me at all times. Damn.

I got an idea. I walked over to the first set of barracks on the left and hid behind it. I peeked around the corner and breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t looking in my direction anymore.

Don’t they have built-in targeting spells?

Do they? Hmm. Regardless, I started sneaking around to the back of the second barracks, when the Ranger standing guard looked around. I dove behind the barracks just as he walked over to check the space between the buildings. Since I wasn’t called out, it seemed like I’d lost him. Good. I looked up and saw a wire screen built into the back wall of the barracks. How do I get up there?

Wings, idiot.

Right. I flew up to the window and tapped on it. Both Rangers inside were out of their armor and contentedly sleeping on their own bunks. I tapped harder on the wire screen, trying to get their attention. Still no response. “You two sleep like rocks, don’t you?” I hissed at them.

I ended up pulling the screen out by its frame and climbing in. Unfortunately, my wings got in the way and combined with the size of my saddlebag, I got stuck halfway through the window. “Oi! Who’s th’ idjit makin’ all this racket?” He rubbed his eyes and looked to the door. “This newbie don’t even know how t’ walk without makin’ a heap o’ noise.” Finally, he noticed the pegasus flailing about stuck in the window frame. “Well lookie here! If it ain’t me favorite birdie. “
I shyly waved at him and continued trying to escape the window.

“What the hay are you—” Rumcake started, then noticed me in the window as well. “Well, who do we have here?”

“Hi there,” I whispered, still trying to get inside. “I’m stuck.” I flapped weakly in an attempt to scoot my midsection through the window. “Help.”

“C’mere.” Rumcake came over to the back wall and stood up against it. “Give me your bag,” he said. With a little difficulty, I slipped the strap over my neck and tossed it to him. “Okay, now fold your wings and suck up that gut. I’m going to pull you through. Ready?”

“Hey! Are you calling me fat?” I whined. I followed his commands anyway and got yanked through the window. I slammed into the floorboards with a crash. “Ow! Gently, please!

“Sorry. Didn’t know how stuck you were.” He helped me up and gave my bag back. “Why’d you break in anyway?”

“I just wanted to find out what was going on with you two. Apparently you’re under arrest?” I asked. “Also, I need you to come with me to the disco party tonight.”

“The party? We can’t go. We’re trapped in here for the next few weeks because of that stunt we pulled last night.” Rumcake replied.

“But… I wanna go to this party.” I engaged irresistible sad pouty mode, throwing in extra fluffy wings for a boost to cute factor. “I’m so tired and exhausted from being tired and exhausted. And, uh, I kinda wanna go with you.”

“Uh… umm…” The color of his face was slowly starting to match his mane. “Maybe we could figure something out,” he managed to make out.

That was exactly the response I was looking for. “Yay! You get a boop.” And then I playfully reached over and bopped him on the nose.

“Now I’m feelin’ a bit left out,” Baked whined.

“Aww. I didn’t forget about you!” I flapped over and booped him too. “That’s for you.”

“D’awww lass.” He bashfully grinned and scratched his yellow mane. “Anyway, wha’s the plan now?”

“Well we could sneak out of the window,” I suggested.

“Th’ same window ye got stuck in?” Baked inquired. “Yea, that seems like a good idea.”

“We could cut open the back wall and go through it,” Rumcake suggested. “We’ve got parts here to put together a few saws.”

“Why can’t we just ask the guard outside if you two can leave?” I asked them. “Surely he’ll let you out for a night.”

“We’re not allowed to leave for two weeks. I really doubt he’ll let us out,” Rumcake grumbled. “Stupid rules.”

“Aye! I got an idea. If ye just get him inside, I c’n do th’ rest.” Baked exclaimed. “Jus’ think of somethin’.” He stood behind the door and waited.

“Hey! Rookie! Where’s my damn dinner?” Rumcake yelled at the door. “I’m starving in here!” He hammered the door a little to make more noise.

“Damn it old timer, I just fed you two hours ago!” The rookie roughly shoved the door open. “Sit down and shut the hell up!”

“Oi, Suzy!” Baked whispered from behind the rookie. The rookie spun around and got headbutted so hard he flew back a few feet and slammed into the wall. “Sorry kiddo.” He dragged the rookie into a corner into a sitting position.

“Did… did you just headbutt…a Ranger?” I stammered, dumbfounded. What the hay just happened? Wat?

“Yep. Well, where’s this little party o’ yours?” Baked answered, rearranging the rookie into a more compromising position where it appeared that he’d fallen asleep with his butt in the air. “Haha! Classic.”

“Did you just knock him out… through his helmet?” I continued. That should not have been possible. Baked Potato was unarmored and he just knocked out a fully armored Steel Ranger. How. The. Hay.

“I used t’ play ball back home.” Baked rubbed his forehead. “Was good at it, too.”

“You know what, I don’t want to think about it either.” Rumcake rummaged through the rookie’s saddlebags. “Got these keys for the lavatory but that’s it,” he told us. “Let’s just get to the party before this idiot wakes up.”

“Alright! I got me fancy dress uniform all ready t’ go.” Baked dived into his hooflocker and started digging around.

“So, Frosty… what’ll you be wearing to the party?” Rumcake asked. “You have a dress stashed somewhere? You’ve got to have something nice to wear on our date.” Wait. Crap. I didn’t think that far.

“If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been naked about ninety percent of the time.” I flapped my wings for added emphasis. “I’d normally wear my formal uniform, but that’s back in my barracks- wherever that is. As for my actual Enclave scout uniform, it got destroyed.”

“How have you survived this long without armor?”

“I haven’t. Remember?” I added, then realized what I’d said. The atmosphere in the room suddenly dropped into a much more somber mood. “Crap. Sorry.” I guess we hadn’t all gotten over my own exaggerated demise just yet.

“It’s fine. We can stop by Scrap Bank’s store and see if she’s got anything. Bakey, you find my uniform in there?” Rumcake added, similarly searching for proper attire.

Baked resurfaced wearing a fancy collar with a little blue tie attached to it. One of the lapels had a Sparkle-Cola Rad bottlecap attached to it and he had epaulettes attached to his shoulders. Wait. Huh? “Hold on, what are those epaulettes attached to?” I asked, before Baked could say anything.

He looked at his shoulders and was legitimately confused. “Ya know what? I’ve never really thought of it.”

“Magical uniform bits aside, let me find my uniform and we can go.” Rumcake dived into the hooflocker and suddenly shouted “Hey! Four caps! Sweet.”

~~~~~

When the four whistles had gone off, we hastily got ready and left the rookie unconscious in the corner in a slightly less silly pose. Rumcake had a similar uniform on, except his tie was pink. Of course I’d made fun of him about it, and his reply was “Tough guys wear pink. Tougher guys are pink.” He smoothed back his fluffy pink mane and grinned. “Gotta love pink.”

“I’ll see ye lovebirds at th’ party. I’m goin’ te get me drink on. No ‘Tatoe’s gonna be third wheelin’!” Baked headed off in a seemingly random direction and disappeared into the growing crowds.

“Is he going to be okay?” I asked Rumcake.

“He’ll be fine. Well, here’s Scrap Bank’s shop. Let’s buy you some clothes.”

We walked in and were greeted by Scrap Bank herself. “Hi there! Lookin’ for some armor and some casual wear for my friend.”

Scrap Bank took one look at me and flinched. “Uh… sure. Let’s uh, see.” She walked around the counter and into the store. “I would assume you’d be interested in light armor, then?” she asked me. “How do you feel about getting stabbed?”

“I’d prefer not to,” I replied. “Why?” I pawed through a stack of salvaged raider armor and various outfits.

“And do you get into stab fights often?” She tossed away some refurbished raider armor.

“I don’t think so. Most ponies just shoot at me.” I pulled out an armored duster from the pile. “How about this one?” It was dark gray, a little worn, but completely usable. I could cut some holes in it for my wings, and the duster had little pockets all over it for armor plates. “It seems perfect.”

“Go for it. How much?” Rumcake added, observing the duster carefully.

“Four hundred eighty. I’ll even throw in the armor plates for free.”

Rumcake and I both growled. “Four twenty,” I offered. “Five hundred is ridiculous for this.” She started to consider it, then she shook her head. “Come on!” I shouted. “Four thirty at the most.”

Scrap Bank shrank back from our combined glares. “Alright, alright! Four twenty it is. Sheesh, you ponies and your barter skill…” She stomped away to the front counter. “Tell me when you’ve got a dress picked out.”

“Alright.” Rumcake led me over to Scrap Bank’s motley collection of dresses. I looked over them with mild disinterest. They were pretty, but none of them really matched my mane. Or my coat. “See anything you like?” he asked. “This one looks pretty.”

He held up a green and white dress. “I guess it would sorta match if I still had Mom’s earring.” I flicked my right ear reflexively, not feeling the comforting weight of the green earring attached that used to be there. Wait… Mom? Mom’s earring?

Figure it out later, Frosty. We can dwell on the past later.

“Next,” I commanded. He held up a red and orange dress that was styled like a bonfire. Beautiful, but not what I was looking for. “It’s cute, but definitely not.” He tossed it aside and reached for a garish purple… thing. “No. Just no.” He stopped and reached for the next dress.

“Are you going to like any of them?” he asked in exasperation. “All of these look so pretty! What’s the difference?”

“You honestly don’t know anything about fashion, do you? At least try to find one that matches my mane!” Really, you would think a super soldier would know more than just kill and maim. “Do I really need to wear a dress?” I whined. “It’s not even a formal event!”

“We have to set an example. Also, the rest of us are showing up fancy, so you are too.” Rumcake held up another purple dress. “How about this one?”

“No. Why can’t I show up naked?” I huffed. “It’s just a small party.”

“Again, we want to set a good example. Anyway, everypony thinks you’re one of us now, so you gotta adhere to the Rangers formal code of conduct at least a little.” He held up a simple bright blue dress pleadingly. “Please? This is one of the only dresses you haven’t said no to.”

“Fine.” It looked nice, simple, and clean. There were long pale blue triangles running through various spots of the dress, giving it an angular feel. “It looks good.” And then I grumbled under my breath “If I was a princess, I could show up to my parties naked.” We paid off Scrap Bank and headed off to the party.

“Hey… where is the generator room, anyway?” I asked as I followed in Rumcake’s hoofsteps. I’d put on my new dress and I tied up my mane in a neat little bun using a giant anti-material rifle bullet before leaving Scrap’s shop. What? I wasn’t spending my hard-looted caps on a bow or maneband. We quickly dashed off to Rusty’s place afterward to drop off my bags and my newly-acquired armor. “It’s like everypony knows about the party,” I observed, noting the other ponies also heading in our direction. The Steel Rangers were the most noticeable in their little collars and ties. A few of them even had a full-blown suit coat going, and even the Inquisitor showed up as well.

“What’s Soufflé doing here?” Rumcake asked, voicing my thoughts exactly. Soufflé was ahead of us, his coat billowing out behind him and his large peaked cap giving him away. “I thought he headed back to HQ?”

“We could go ask him,” I suggested.

“No! That’s a terrible idea! Do you remember the last conversation that you two had?”

“Not really.”

“Ugh.” He facehoofed. “Let me remind you that even if the two of you are on equal terms, I’m slightly breaking the rules by being here.” Right. Probably wouldn’t be a good idea to talk to him, then.

Everypony was slowly filtering into a small shack was in front of us. “I assume this is the generator room?” Once inside the shack, we squeezed our way down a flight of stairs into a dark cavernous room flooded with colorful flashing lights. There was music booming throughout the room and it was all coming from a small booth at the far end of the room with two giant speakers attached to it.

“Yep. Wanna hit the bar?” Rumcake yelled in order to be heard over the music. There must have been forty or fifty ponies here! And none of them were trying to kill me! He pointed at the closer end of the room where a bar was set up. Through the pile of ponies I recognized the bartender from the Spritebot. “Might as well find Bakey while we’re here. Look for the crowd of passed out ponies. He’ll be there.”

We shoved our way to the front and I tossed a tiny bag of caps at the bartender. “Sup! Two whiskeys.” He smiled and filled up two glasses, then levitated one to me and the other to Rumcake.

“Having a good time yet?” He continued taking orders and magically pouring drinks while talking to us. Talk about skilled, huh? “Or are you just here on business?” He motioned at our attire. “A bit too stuck up, don’t you think?”

“That’s almost exactly what I said!” I elbowed Rumcake. “Told ya.”

He grumbled a little before quickly changing the subject. “So where’d you get these lights from? And who’s on the music?”

The bartender shrugged. “She’s one of yours.” A bottle flew over our heads and into the waiting hooves of a party guest. “As for the lights, they were here before we got here. All we did was hook up the generator in here.” He pointed at a large cylindrical-esque box behind the DJ booth. “Ergo, generator room. Also the unofficial nightclub known as ‘Past Four’. I work the nights here. Name’s Peppermint Shots. You?”

“I’m Frosty Winds. Former Enclave scout, part-time sidekick. My Ranger buddy here is Rumcake Rum.” Rumcake nodded curtly.

“Hey there, party ponies! Who’s having a good time?” the speakers blared. A cheer went up throughout the room. “I can’t hear you!” All of us cheered harder. “That’s more like it! Woohoo!”

“That kinda sounds like Sparkle Cola up there,” Rumcake told me. “Hm. Never took her as the music type.”

An older stallion limped over to the counter. “Evenin’ Mintley,” he drunkenly slurred. “One more beer, please.” He took notice of my wings and laughed. “So you’re the angel, eh? Great work.” Angel? Wat? “Ya know, I used to be an adven…” He passed out before he could finish.

“Thank Celestia. I don’t want to hear his damn story again.” Peppermint continued pouring drinks. “You still need more?”

I tossed a few more bags of caps at Peppermint Shots. “Keep em’ coming all night. Yahear?” He nodded and passed me another whiskey. Yay, parties! “Hey Rumcake, wanna dance?”

“I can’t dance!” he cried as I dragged him toward the group of ponies having a great time in front of the speakers. “I’ll just stand back there and watch.” He attempted to back away, but I grabbed on prevented him from leaving.

“Oh no you don’t!” I carried him into the air and dropped him into the throng of dancing ponies. “You’re not going to ruin tonight by being a wet towel. Just go with the flow. You’ll be fine!” I landed next to him and started dancing along with the crowd. “It’s so easy. Woo!”

I spent the next few songs trying to get Rumcake to do more than shuffle his hooves around. For a soldier that could live through a minigun salvo, he really couldn’t dance to save his life. After a while we headed back to the bar for a few more drinks. “Okay, that was kinda fun,” Rumcake panted. A ragged cheer broke out from the other side of the bar. “Hey, it’s probably Bakey drinking somepony under the table. Again. Wanna watch?”

“Sure!” I grabbed another whiskey from Peppermint and hovered over the scene. Baked was on his thirty-fifth shot and still going strong. On the other side of the table, several unconscious ponies were stacked up in a haphazard pile. “How’s it going?”

“Yahahaaar lassie! I’ve drunk all th’ filthy land rats under th’ table! Haha!” He downed another shot and slammed the glass onto the table.

“Uh… what happened to your accent?” I asked, puzzled.

“Yarr… I’m inconsistent,” he replied sadly.

The pony across from him collapsed in a drunken heap. Somepony rolled the unconscious pony onto the top of the pile. “Anypony else dare challenge the mighty Baked Potato?” he yelled into the gathered crowd.

“Bring it, sucker!” I yelled and dropped myself into the recently-vacated chair. “You wanna face off? Let’s go!” The crowd around us oohed and aahed.

What the hay are you doing?

I have no idea! Now shut up and let me party!

Say hi to the floor for me, then!

Another bartender floated a collection of glasses to us. “Lady pegasus, what is your choice of poison?” he inquired. “We have vodka, whiskey, be—”

“Whiskey. Wild Pegasus, if you’ve got it,” I immediately answered. “Prepare to lose, buddy. You underestimate my powers greatly.”

“I be not afraid of a little lassie like you!” Baked yelled back. “Show me yer worst!”

~~~~~

The sharp blare of the second whistle jolted me awake. Ugh. Everything was so bright. I shook my head and winced. And hellooo, hangover. I laid back down on the bed and cuddled closer to Rumcake. “Move over. You’re hogging the blankets,” I mumbled to him.

“Meeeeh.” He groaned and covered his head. “Too… early.”

“Ach, what happened las’ night?”

“Boys, how did I get up here?” a very scared voice called down from the ceiling. “I hate heights. Help me.”

“Shut uuuuup.” I threw a pillow at the voice and I was rewarded with an eep. Hold on. Back the fun train up. What? I bolted upright and surveyed the room. For starters, I was sharing a bed with Rumcake. Baked was passed out on the floor next to the bed and a small purple mare wearing massive green sunglasses was holding onto a ceiling beam for dear life.

“Up and at ‘em, you four,” Doc yelled from the next room.

I urgently shook Rumcake awake. “Wake up. Wake up. Omigoshohmygosh! What happened last night?” Panic mode engaged! “Did we do it? How drunk did I get?” I turned my attention to Baked. “Speaking of which, did I win?” I looked up at the ceiling. The little purple mare had a bright violet mane with black stripes in it, and she was still just as stuck as ever. “And who are you?”

Rumcake rolled over and hugged me from behind. “That’s Sparkle Cola. The DJ last night,” he grumbled. “You’re so soft and cuddly, you know that?”

“Thanks, I guess?” I blushed and decided to hold onto his forelegs anyway. “Don’t we have somewhere to be?”

“Do we?” He buried his face into my mane. “I jus’ wanna sleep.”

“Hey! How about getting me off this ceiling!” Sparkle screeched, causing everypony in the room to flinch. Ow. My head was still ringing when I grudgingly pulled myself away from Rumcake and flew up to the ceiling.

I held out my forelegs. “Grab on. I’ll fly you back down to the floor.” She uneasily inched toward me along the beam and slowly held out a hoof. “By Celestia, just get over here.” I reached over and simply yanked her off the beam. Of course then she started screaming and as all of us know all too well, high-pitched noises and hangovers do not mix. I lost control of my flight for a short period and Sparkle’s screaming increased in pitch. “Stop screaming!” I managed to glide down to the floor without losing control.

“You suck at flying.” Sparkle squirmed out of my grip and immediately over to a nearby trash can. “I’m gonna be sick.”

“Well, whose fault is it for screaming the whole way down? It was only like, twelve feet.” I grabbed the pillow on the floor and hopped back onto the bed. “Ugh… my head hurts. Thanks a lot.” I got comfortable again next to Rumcake and covered my head with the pillow. This moment was nice for now but sooner or later, I’d have to figure out what happened last night.

“Okay, you freeloading drunkards, time to leave!” Rusty yelled, prompting more hungover groans of protest from all of us. “Yes, all of you. Doc wants his room back.”

I disentangled myself from Rumcake’s forelegs again and slid off the bed. “Ugh. I’m up, I’m up.” I pushed through the double doors leading into the front of the clinic and dropped myself onto an exam table. “Doc, you got something for my hangover?”

Doc paced over and magically dropped a bottle of water in front of me. “Here.” He leaned over and lifted my right eyelid. I was really confused to what he was doing until he released a burst of light from his horn. Gah! The light! It burns! I attempted to scoot backward as fast as I could, but Doc was holding me in place with his magic. “Alright, you can have your eyeball back now.” I slammed my eye shut and rubbed it. Ow. Ow.

“What the hay was that fo—” I started to say, then Doc yanked my tongue out of my mouth and dropped a few tablets onto it. Once he released it, I instantly pulled by tongue back into my muzzle and glared. Doc floated the bottle over to me and I gratefully swallowed from it. “Anyway, what was that for?” I demanded.

“Science. And aspirin.” He jotted some notes down onto a pad. “It’s just a hangover. In other news, your heart should be doing fine. Your liver, on the other hand…” He grinned and pointed at a pile of empty whiskey bottles. “Some party, eh?”

Was that all me? Wow. Even for me, that much alcohol must have been deadly. “I really hope that’s our combined amount of drinking last night.”

“It is. The four of you really put a dent in Minty’s stock. Nearly drank him out of business.” Doc replied with a laugh. “Once you idiots are up and about, some big hat from the Rangers wants to talk to you.” Crap. I forgot about the idiot we left unconscious in the barracks. “I’ve seen that look before. You mess something up?”

“You could say that,” I replied. “Just a loose end we forgot to tie up. Literally, once I look back on it.” Rumcake loudly staggered into the room, attempting to cover his eyes. “Hey. Soufflé wants to talk to us.” He swore and punched a desk. “It doesn’t sound serious. If it was, he would have told us to show up bright and early.”

“Buck that. First stop’s gonna be for food. Actual food, not that boxed crap.” Rumcake picked up the water bottle and finished it off. “How’s Baked doing? And where’d we get Sparkle from?”

“Your friend is fine. How he’s still alive is beyond me or science,” Doc replied, levitating some more aspirin to Rumcake. “As for Sparkle, she showed up with you three last night.”

“Wait, you know what happened last night?” Maybe Doc could help me piece together last night. “What’d I do? Who’d I do, for that matter?” He shrugged and turned back to his experiments. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“All of you basically barged through and headed directly for the back room. As for your nighttime activities, I don’t think anything happened.” He held up a vial to the light and shook it a little. “Unless, of course, you’re the noisy type.” He winked at me. I don— Oh I got it. Blush mode engaged.

“Let’s just get out of here before I’m tempted to murder Doc again,” I told Rumcake. “Once everypony wakes up, let’s get food and go see what the buck Soufflé wants from the three of us.”

~~~~~

After a somewhat satisfying meal at the Smashed Spritebot, we headed over to the Rangers encampment, dreading another encounter with Soufflé. On the way there I was very sure I saw the rookie standing guard outside. I mean, how many other Rangers had a large dent in their helmets?

Soufflé’s office was small, cramped, and nearly filled with just his chair, desk, and two other seats. “Good afternoon, Paladin Commander, Knight Baked Potato. You too, Frosty. Please, sit down.” Soufflé motioned to the seats across from his. “We’ve got a lot to discuss. Okay, not really.”

Baked dropped himself into a chair; Rumcake nudged me toward the other chair. “Nah, that’s okay. I’ve got wings,” I told him and settled myself on the ceiling. “Really, you take that chair. I love it up here.” He smiled and sat down in the vacant chair. “So, why we here?”

“You three geniuses rocked the hive. Good work.” He threw a stack of papers at us. “Now that you’ve solved our slaver problem, the slavers think they just need to throw more slaver at us. I’m getting reports from our advance scouts that I thoughtfully sent out, and the results are not good. Red Eye’s bringing his fire and brimstone.”

“Ain’t that a good thing?” Baked grumbled. “Less prob’s fer the other lads.”

“They’re coming here, you indolent nincompoop.” Soufflé slammed the table. “And we’re not going to be able to fight them off. Not without reinforcements.”

“What’s the plan, sir?” I asked him. Might as well work with him for now. He had the power to command all these Rangers, so I better not piss him off.

“We’ve got no other choice. They want a fight? We’ll give ‘em one. Circle the wagons, rile up the dogs, collect the torches and pitchforks. Let’s show these wimps what happens when you mess with the might of the Steel bucking Rangers!”

“Who dares, wins!” all three Rangers in the room chanted.

Feeling a bit left out, I raised my hoof in the air. “Fly, fight, win!” I weakly added.

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Fortune Finder – You just gotta steal everything, don’tcha? You will find considerably more caps in containers than you normally would.
Current Sub-perk: Alcoholics Obvious – Drink! Drink! Alcohol resistance is doubled, but effects will last twice as long.
Current Status: Addicted to Med-X – It isn’t your fault. When withdrawn, your Agility and Intelligence are penalized by -1.

Chapter 9: What’s a demand to a nonbeliever?

Chapter 9: What’s a demand to a nonbeliever?

“Secrets and lies! It's all secrets and lies with those ponies!”

We paced back to the barracks in relative silence. “What’s the plan?” I asked Rumcake. At least Soufflé had decided that he wasn’t going to give any ground—but there were serious problems of the implementation thereof.

“We’ll have to speed up our move, that’s for sure. I’ve still got Junior Paladins moving our stuff from our old bunker. I need to get orders down to them to bring our biggest guns and leave the servers for now. Reprioritize and regear for anti-infantry tactics.” Rumcake popped his head out of his helmet and scratched his head. “Those slavers will still have numbers on their side, so we need to thin them out if it ever comes down to close combat. Powerful as we are, they’ll chip us down bit by bit.”

“If th’ runts bring me Earthshaker, they won’t be a problem,” Baked boasted. “I’ll turn ‘em into paste.” He punctuated that with a stomping and grinding motion.

On that topic: “Do the Steel Rangers have sappers or do they not exist for you guys?” I asked.

“Sappers?”

Apparently not. “They’re the assholes that go around burying zap mines in the mess hall because the clouds just so happen to be the same color.” That was, of course, if my memory served me correctly.

“Oh, yeah. That’s what Senior Knight Donut Steel’s rookies are usually tasked to do. Breaks in the new blood, so to speak.” Well, that answered that. “My Paladins do much more important things.”

I fiddled with the bomb collar around my neck. “Does this mean I’m also being conscripted for defense?”

“Probably. Say, while we’re at it, mind doing a recon sweep of the area? I’d like your opinion since that’s partly what you did before, right?” Rumcake asked.

Coming from him, I couldn’t say no. “Roger that.” I unfurled my wings, gave Rumcake a salute and cocky grin, then rocketed into the air.

Happy Hills wasn’t a particularly large town, barely qualifying as such. I flew a clockwise patrol around the perimeter wall, taking note of all the little things that looked important. It was nice to feel the wind ruffle my feathers, pull banks and turns like I used to. Limited freedom felt nice. There was Doc’s clinic, then the gate, then the mountain where Underhill was. I completed my circle and landed right back where I had taken off from.

“An’?” Baked asked.

At least I still remembered how tactics worked. “If you’ve got them to spare, minefield the balls out of the slavers’ approach zone. It’ll make them think twice about getting closer and they’ll have to retreat to regroup since there’s little to no cover out there. Of course, they could always use the ‘send in the next wave’ approach. That’ll thin out their ranks.”

Rumcake blinked at me. “Wow.”

I held up a single talon. “Not done yet. The only glaring weak point is the giant bucking hill to our right, since the walls don’t go up it, for whatever reason. If they’re smart enough to flank, that’s where they’ll hit.” After that information was delivered, I tweaked Dad’s hat at him and proudly crossed my forelegs.

Baked snorted. “The more ye know.”

“That was good—amazing, even!” Rumcake gasped. “We’ve never had aerial recon before. Usually it takes a lot longer to do a perimeter assessment.”

“Pegasus master race,” I instantly blurted.

Probably not the right thing to say based on the edgy glare coming from Baked. He turned back to me. “Frosty, head back home. We’ll take it from here.”

“Right then. Uh… I think I’ll try to make myself useful.” I shrugged and left.

Without anything better to do, I walked back to Rusty’s house. What do I do? I guess I could just wait for Rumcake to come back with some information. I pulled on the door and found it locked. Hm. Guess he wasn’t home. I knocked on the door. No reply. I flew up to a hole in the wall and peeked in. Nope, nopony was in there. Huh. How was I supposed to wait at home if the house was locked? Hmm, where would Rusty be at this time of day…?

~~~~~

“Hey, Doc! Anything going on?” I yelled into the clinic, swooping in for a landing after my brief flight. Doc stumbled in from the back room, covered in soot. He pushed up the goggles he was wearing, leaving a comedic goggle-shaped clean spot around his eyes. “Wow, what did I miss?”

“So, turns out boiling Sparkle-Cola with a whole bunch of other crap I found in my medical stores is a terrible idea.” He let out a sooty cough and started wiping ash and bits of melted glass from his medical barding. “What brings you back here? I didn’t leave anything inside you again, did I?”

“No, I—wait, what?”

“Uh…” Doc looked left and right, stopping on a monstrous pile of junk in the corner which he promptly dived into. “Your authority is not recognized in Fort Kickass!”

I took a few steps and dismantled his fort with a well-aimed swat.

Doc fell on the floor and cried, “Noooo!”

“You know what? I don’t even care anymore. I’m looking for Rusty. He around?” I asked. Doc pointed back into the back room. “Thanks. By the way, I might need to talk to you later.”

“Talk to me when you’re ready. Also, can you walk around a whole bunch back there? I want to make sure there’s no more broken glass on the ground.” Doc wrapped a broom in his magic and started brushing himself down.

The back room was surprisingly intact, considering what might have happened. The beds were moved back into a corner and safely covered with a large tarp. The rest of the room was covered with bits of melted glass and soot. The table holding Doc’s little experiment setup was completely destroyed. “Hey, Frosty! What’s going on?” Rusty called, popping out from under some rubble.

“Hi, Rusty. Your house was locked, so I came here instead.”

“You want the house key?” He reached over and dug around in a little bag around his neck.

“Nah, it’s okay. Being here is actually fine,” I replied. Rusty shrugged and closed the bag. “You need a hoof?” He nodded. “Alright.” I flapped over and gripped his outstretched hoof with my claw. I strained and flew backward as hard as I could. “Dammit, what are you trapped under?”

Rusty squirmed around a little. “I think there’s a filing cabinet on top of me.”

I hovered over him and pushed some rubble out of the way. “I see it. Hold on.” I grabbed onto the edge of the filing cabinet and pushed it off of him. “You good?” Rusty wiggled free and nodded. Eh, what the hell? I rifled through the filing cabinet and pocketed a few caps and another bobby pin.

“Thanks for the help.” Rusty shook out his hindlegs. “Wanna help me sweep up all this crap? I’d appreciate the help. I’ll pay you a few caps to help me out.” We surveyed the state of the room. There was rubble and melted glass everywhere. A thin layer of sludge, dust, and ash covered everything else in the room.

I sighed. “Sure, what the hell. I’ll go steal the broom from Doc.” I really had nothing else to do. Hopefully Rumcake and Baked Potato were both handling the Rangers well enough to get their support. The slavers would show up whether the Rangers were ready or not. I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I paced right into Doc’s flank.

“Woah there! What can I do for you? Don’t you even dare touch my new fort.” Doc exclaimed. He caught my troubled gaze. “Something on your mind?”

“Yeah… Lemme ask you something.” Serious time, Frosty. “What’s so special about this place?” I sat down. “Like, what’s so special to you about this place?”

Doc scratched his chin in thought. “Well, I started out moving a medical cart around the wasteland for the longest time. I got raided a few times, and after that I learned how to defend myself.” He levitated a bonesaw out and dropped it on the table. “Eventually I somehow managed to make my way all the way to Dise. That’s when I met up with Tabber and his little mercenary team. Met Roy and all the insane stuff over there.”

“I assume this is when things went wrong,” I added, putting Doc’s story together. “Canterlot, desertion, that stuff?”

Doc nodded. “Yeah. After I left, I didn’t want to do anything involving shady deals and ill-earned caps. I decided to help ponies however I could. And that’s how I got here.” He proudly motioned outside. “Flimsy, on the other hoof, happened to be my first unfortunate criminal seeking some free chems. Haven’t had a looting since.”

Wait… I craned my neck and barely made out the hanging skeleton in the dirty window. “Hold on, you named the skeleton? And hung him?”

“Of course! What else would I do with the body? I needed somepony to show I meant business. And to keep the looters out. An example, as it were.”

“And the blood?” I continued, pointing at the front of the building.

“What? I didn’t have any paint.” He shrugged and holstered his saw. “That’s my life story in a nutshell. Anything else you particularly need? Actually, why did you ask in the first place?”

I awkwardly tapped my claw against my other hoof. “There may or may not be a large mob of slavers in varying levels of readiness coming in to kill everyone. I also may or may not be indirectly responsible for it.” Grin. Nervous chuckle. Roll for seduction. Fail miserably.

Doc wasn’t the least bit fazed, much to my relief. “Welp, it was bound to happen. I assume the Rangers aren’t interested in staying?”

“Surprisingly enough, they’re staying. My caps are on the assumption that Soufflé doesn’t have the time, ponypower, nor the patience to move all their crap back to their old bunker now that half of their crap is already here.” I snorted and grabbed Doc’s broom. “Anyway, I gotta clean up your mess.”

I spent the next hour or so with Rusty cleaning out the back room and moving everything back to its original places. The melted glass was the most difficult to scrape off of the surfaces they were stuck to. It was difficult and dirty, but I felt somewhat comforted by some good, honest work. Strange, I know. But it made me feel better about not killing for caps for once.

Once the room was cleaned up, Rusty handed me a small pouch of caps. “I know this isn’t much, but here you go. Thanks.” I took a quick peek inside. Fifty caps. Eh, whatever. “Take my house key too. I’ll get a copy from my sister later.”

“Thanks, Rusty.” I hugged him. “That made me feel a lot better.”

He looked totally confused. “What.”

Rumcake barged in. “Okay, I think I need your help.” He panted. “Bad news. Inquisitor Soufflé’s getting cold hooves.”

Well, crap. That meant we wouldn’t have Rangers without Soufflé’s support. “What in the name of Luna is his problem, then?” I asked.

“He’s got the idea that he can back off, let the slavers have their way with the town,” he explained. “Once they’re done, he’ll bring in the cavalry and mop up the survivors.”

“Well, it’s not a bad strategy,” I shamefully admitted. “Hit ‘em while they’re celebrating their victory, before they have time to regroup.”

“Some of these wastelanders are more useful alive than dead. The Sleazy fellow, the barmaid, the merchants… town’s nothing without them. Unfortunately, I don’t have the authority to argue with Soufflé any further. Good thing you aren’t an official Steel Ranger, so I need you to convince him to change his mind.”

Another chance to yell at Soufflé, huh? “I’ll do it,” I stated. “Where is he?”

“He’s still hanging out in his office, I think.” Rumcake looked around and hopped onto a bed. “I’ll just be here. Damn, I need a break.” He stretched and rolled over. “Call me if you need any help, alright?”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever, lazybutt.” Off to see the Inquisitor, the wonderful Inquisitor of the Steel Rangers. When I got there, I was held up by the guards at the camp entrance. Again, they stopped me and tried to keep me from entering.

“No entry. Steel Rangers only,” one of them droned. “Leave immediately.”

I brandished my claw at them. “How many pegasi do you know that have one of these? I mean seriously, how many damn pegasi do you even know?” I yelled. “You have got to be the most oblivious Rangers ever!”

He silently stared at me through his visor. I swear I could hear the gears turning inside his head. Come on. Think harder. “Right. Go on ahead.” He idly sidestepped and let me through. Thank you, idiot. Time to give Souffle a piece of my mind.

I roughly shoved the door open and slammed my hooves onto Soufflé’s desk, causing him to jump backward in surprise. “Okay, we need to set something straight. Sit down, shut up, and pay attention.”

Regaining his wits, Soufflé shouted, “I could have you executed for speaking to me in su—” I interrupted him with a hoof to the jaw, sending him sprawling across his desk. “How dare yo—” I punched him with my claw, knocking him to the other side of the desk.

Oh, that felt good. Soufflé righted himself and rubbed his jaw, visibly pissed. “Now, listen up,” I growled. “I’m going to keep this as brief as possible.”

Hold on, I think this situation deserves a bit of delicacy. Let me handle this.

…How does that work, exactly?

Just go with the flow.

Uh, sure. Thanks, brain.

“I’m paying attention, whether I like it or not.” Soufflé sat back in his chair, silently fuming. “What the buck do you want?”

I exhaled and composed myself. Get his support. Try not to rough him up again. Maybe even give him a little respect. “Now, Inquisitor Soufflé. You currently hold command over the Steel Rangers occupying this town. All I ask is for you defend this town. Is that too much for you?”

“Yes. I can’t lose any more Rangers. I’m not taking a damn chance on the hopes that the slavers attacking are armed with soft spongy darts,” he retorted. “Let them settle their own score. We’ll be the damn heroes that the whole wasteland thinks we are. I stand behind my decision.”

My turn! Let’s beat a little sense into him!

Raider, get back in there. No playtime for you.

I’ll be gentle! And my gentle I mean maybe just a nosebleed. Several nosebleeds.

Well… he wasn’t changing his mind. Not without a little push. Fine, let’s do it. Thoughts of chronic and sustained cruelty began to flood my mind as I suddenly jumped over his desk and headbutted him as hard as I could. Ow. Ow. I’m going to kill you for that later, raider me. “How about I change it for you?” I hissed.

“Wha—” he started. I gripped his neck, just hard enough to leave marks.

“I saved your life, you inconsiderate prick. I’m starting to doubt my decision back there.” I sat down on his chest and grinned. “Maybe I should just fix it right now.” I ignored the dull ache all over my body as I squeezed a bit harder.

Soufflé began to choke, just a little. “You think… can… bully me?” Annoyingly enough, he didn’t even try to fight back.

“I like to think so, meatbag.” I lifted his head up and slammed it into the ground. “Change your mind yet?”

Groan of pain meant he was still conscious. Too bad that he wasn’t changing his mind. Time for a slight change in plans. “Well, I’ll just have to try a little harder.” I slugged him across the face, which made a really satisfying thwack sound. Part of me must have enjoyed it since I did it again, just for good measure.

A trickle of blood began to run from Soufflé’s nose. “You hit like a cow.”

I playfully pouted. “That’s not a nice thing to call your mother.” And for insulting his mother, I punched him again.

“I’d hate to hit a filly.” Soufflé coughed. “Don’t make me.”

“Already am.” To rub it in, I throat-punched him. After a moment, I sighed. “This isn’t working, is it?”

I allowed Soufflé to catch his breath so he could answer me. “No. It’s not.” He finally managed to choke out.

That meant Raider Frosty needed to go. It was time for a slightly more diplomatic approach. I felt a fleeting touch of calm wash over me, which also took away the invasive thoughts of yet more unprovoked violence.

“What’ll make this work then?” I sighed, allowing Soufflé to relax slightly.

“You want me to do something for you? Trading favors sounds fair.”

“How about this, then? I’ll owe you one, no holds barred, no whole-assery, favor.”

Soufflé cocked a brow. “Whole-assery?”

“Why should I half-ass two things when I can whole-ass one thing?”

“You see that bomb collar around your neck?” Soufflé reached up and seized the explosive device and gave it a shake. “I own you. What’s a favor to a demand?”

“What’s a demand to a nonbeliever?”

“What’s a nonbeliever to ten grams of comp four?”

I frowned. “You’ve ruined the joke with your serious threat. Either way, my proposition stands. Look at it as a moment to deploy a pegasus asset that you don’t normally have access to in return for your defense of this town. And as promised, she will carry our your orders to the word, and to perfection.”

To move negotiations along and to reduce farther awkwardness, I scooted myself off of Soufflé’s chest and helped him back onto his hooves. “You’ve got an unreasonable liking for this place. Why should I have have my Rangers stay? Convince me.”

“You risk collateral damage to abandoned items, not to mention potential greater losses once you charge back in to retake Happy Hills from the slavers. That is, assuming that the townsponies don’t repel the slavers first.” I rested my chin on my claw and began to absentmindedly tap my cheek with a talon as I thought. “Of course, both ways you’ll still look like the assholes you really are.”

Soufflé continued to give me his pointedly neutral glare. Unperturbed, I continued my—Gala Frosty’s—analysis. “You leave, the town survives, then you and your Rangers come slinking on back to an angry population that has quite possibly had it up to their eyeballs with the Steel Rangers. You’re half-moved in already, so why even risk the chances of losing all your technology and knowledge that you’ve no doubt already brought.”

Nothing more than an eyebrow quirk and maybe the slightest hints of a frown. “You could use the townsfolk as pony-shaped meat walls to reduce casualties among your own?” I hopefully suggested. “Even less risk than what you’re trying right now, I can guarantee that.”

“And if not?” Soufflé began to replace fallen objects onto his desk

“If that doesn’t work, we’ll all be dead any way you look at it.” I shrugged.

“Hmm.” Soufflé thoughtfully tapped his hoof on the desk. “Anything. Literally anything I want you to do, no questions and no backtalk?”

“Nada.” I’d severely regret it later, but the greater good wouldn’t save itself. “Any mission you want to task me to. Scout’s honor.”

“What’s keeping me from making you do that now?”

A valid point. “It’s a given fact that I’ll do whatever you want me to do because of my explosive jewelry. That doesn’t mean I won’t whine and angst about it the entire way, nor will I complete your mission to perfection. This in mind, I’m willing to take the risk that you won’t blow me up just because I’m a unique asset that you won’t ever have access to again. I’ll do your dirty work by the numbers, should you take my offer.”

“You’ve got a deal,” Soufflé instantly replied.

With that look he had been giving me before, it all seemed a little bit too easy. “Really? Just like that?” I inquired.

“Yes. You’ve obviously changed my mind with your very compelling argument,” Soufflé very sarcastically droned. “I concede. You’ll have your way.”

Something was up, so I narrowed my eyes at him and gave him my most fearsome glare. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” He made a shooing motion at me. “Don’t worry about anything. Now buzz off and feel lucky that I’m not blowing your head off. Go on.”

Not one to press my luck any farther than I already had, I cautiously nodded. “Thanks for changing your mind, although your condescending and suspicious tone has caused my opinion of you to drastically drop.” Obviously not the smartest thing I could have done, but the last thing I needed was being headless.

As I trotted out of Inquisitor Soufflé’s office, triumphant grin on my face, I heard something that caused my victory prance to falter ever so slightly. “Too damn easy. Looks like you can shoot a large caliber pony with a small caliber bullet. Probably only applies to stallions, then.” Just to rub it in, he began to diabolically chuckle. I’d missed something painfully obvious, I was sure of it, but I wasn’t sure what.

~~~~~

Now that the situation was temporarily resolved, I headed back to the clinic to inform Rumcake about Soufflé’s begrudging support. At least, I was pretty sure it was begrudging.

“Hey, Frosty! Wait up!” a familiar voice called out. I turned around and noticed a Steel Ranger running after me.

That gait… that happy voice… “Uh… Cabbage Stew?” I hazarded a guess.

“Eyup. Yer gettin’ good at this! Ah thought ya might want this.” He pulled out a small wrapped package. “Think of it as a thank ya gift from one special li’l somepony y’know.”

“Thanks. What is it, though?” I asked, addressing the package. I put my ear against the paper wrapping and gave it a gentle shake. There weren’t any particularly loud rattling sounds or sliding noises, so I couldn’t really guess without opening it.

“It’s not much. Needs a bit of elbow grease and some actual grease. Ahm sure ya can handle it, pardner.” Cabbage Stew paced off toward the Smashed Spritebot.

I carefully unwrapped the package and gasped in sheer awe. He’d given me a power hoof! Sure it was a little dented and scraped up, but I could probably find a use for it. A little engraving on the side brazenly dictated “Philomena’s Touch”, complete with gold leaf embellishments. How poetic. I slipped my right hoof into it and realized I also needed to get it sized down in order to fit. And I knew just the ghoul for the job.

After a few mistaken detours and a short flight over a row of shacks, I finally located Sleazy McCheapkins’ Bargain Emporium. Surprisingly hard to find from across town, believe it or not. The place was looking more dilapidated than usual, but I couldn’t place why. I opened the door and a speaker in the ceiling blared, “Four hundred percent more awesome! Also, Ironshod doesn’t make their guns out of bucking wood.”

“Sleazy? You in there?” I looked around the store. “I need something customized.” The shop was quiet. Really quiet. Not even the characteristic ghoulish wheezing of Sleazy breathing. Even the music from before wasn’t even present. A feeling in my gut told me something had gone horribly wrong and the ghoul was in trouble, probably worse. I heard the floorboards in the back room squeak. Gut feeling confirmed, I immediately jumped into combat mode and attached myself to the ceiling in preparation for an ambush. The squeaking drew nearer and I squeezed myself into the space above the doorway leading to Sleazy’s armory.

Soon, a helmeted pony popped his head out from the doorway. “Aaaanypony out there?” Sleazy fearfully whispered. He looked around. “Must’ve been my imagination,” he muttered.

Drop on him! That’ll give him a good scare!

Sure, brain. I waited for him to settle down behind the counter. Right as he was about pick up a well-worn “Guns and Mares” magazine, I let go of the ceiling and gently landed behind him. I crept as close to him as I could, then I whispered into his ear, “Boo.”

He screamed like a little filly and dived over the counter in panic. “Assassin! Help!” I burst out laughing and fell over. Oh, this was too good! “You little rascal!”

“That was totally worth it!” I managed to make out in between breaths.

“What in the name of Tartarus do you want?”

“Right.” I showed him Philomena’s Touch. “I need this a few sizes smaller.” His eyes widened and he reverently picked it up. “Can you do it?”

“Where’d you get it?” he whispered in awe. “This is good pre-war tech. Possibly even a Royal Guard’s personal weapon.” He started fiddling around with a few plates and screws on the underside of the power hoof.

I had a good feeling who’d given it to me, but I needed to confirm my suspicions. “Found it somewhere. Can you refit it?” I pressed.

“Yes, yes. Of course. These little things were made to be easy to use. Do you doubt the skill of the great Sleazy?” he shot back. “Huh. I could have sworn Dad worked on one of these before…”

“Are you saying you have no idea what you’re doing?”

“I know what I’m doing. I just haven’t worked on a power hoof in a while. Haven’t seen one in such good condition for a while, that’s all.” He took a screwdriver out from under the counter and started fiddling around with various panels and wires inside the hoof.

“Alright then. How long will this take?” I impatiently asked. Something on the far wall caught my attention. “Hey, what’s this?” I nudged a tattered, broken sign propped up against the wall. It was nearly unreadable given the grime and wear, but Sleazy looked up and immediately recognized it.

“Some time ago, my dad, Budget ‘Bob’ McCheapkins, owner and CEO of Budget Bob’s Budget Bargain Bombs ran into fierce competition with my mother, Grubby Gina of Grubby Gina's Great Greasy Guns,” he wistfully told me.

“Sounds like the start of something beautiful,” I observed.

“Shut up. This is my story. Anyway, Papa Bob was very surprised at meeting somepony who was even more money-grubbing than he was. Of course they undercut each other in this massive sales war, driving both companies into the ground and at the same time running nearly all other munitions salesponies out of business. It was love at first sight! Or more accurately, love at first sales war.”

Wow. That was really hard to top, even for most amazing love stories. “Awesome.”

“Of course! Their businesses merged together and they had me as their foal not long after. Of course, given my bloodline, I started up my own business and ran them both out of business. They were so proud that day. And that’s how the Bargain Emporium was made.” He stood proudly, motioning at the store around us. “Two hundred years ago, that is.”

“Do you miss them?” I asked quietly.

“Every buckin’ day,” he sadly replied. “It must be nice knowing your parents are around, somewhere.”

I sighed and dropped my gaze to the ground. “Not really. My father died a few weeks ago.”

“I’m sorry. Sorry about bringing it up.”

“It’s fine. It’s just… I haven’t… I haven’t gotten over it yet. I can’t accept the fact that he’s dead. I just keep thinking that when I get back home, he’ll be there waiting for me. Waiting to tell me that my bunk’s out of order or something.”

“Oh… do you have any siblings?”

“I don’t remember. I don’t know.” A sharp bolt of pain stabbed at my heart. “I can’t really remember my mom. If I did have siblings, they were Enclave military,” I answered. “Something happened to me between when I was backstabbed and when I was left for dead in the wasteland.”

Sleazy rummaged about in a chest under the desk and slid a large bottle over to me. “Sounds like you’ve had a bad run with your luck. It happens to everypony at some point, so here’s a bottle of my favorite scotch. Drown your sorrows. Works for me.”

I read the label and grinned. ‘Sleazy’s Super Special Scotch’, of course. “Thanks. Oh, one more thing before I go. No more sob stories, just business.”

“Go ahead. I’m listening.” He pulled out another bottle for himself.

I crossed my primaries and prayed to the goddesses that a second negotiation would work as well. “A slaver assault is on the way to Happy Hills, and I think the town would appreciate having a reliable gunsmith and armory available to them.” Sleazy’s eyes widened and he took a longer drag from his bottle.

“Assault? I’ve got rifles for that.” Sleazy grinned. “Get it? It’s a gun joke. Some of them shoot bucking acid. But really, I’m not sold.”

Not surprising, since I hadn’t expected it to work in the first place. “But do you know what the Steel Rangers like?” I needed a good hook to reel him in with.

“Technology, I know.”

“And they do love their guns.” My nervous grin muscles were really getting a workout today. “Once they find your stockpile, one of two things will happen.”

“I know where this one’s going. Sell to the tin cans or get steamrolled. Blah blah blah. Little pegasus, I’m upwards of two hundred years old. That gives me two and a half centuries of extor—er, business expertise under my belt.” Sleazy tossed the now-empty bottle over his shoulder and let it smash against the wall.

Welp. At least he’d saved me a lot of convincing to do. “So…” I hesitantly trailed off.

“I’ll have to sell to them, won’t I?” Sleazy responded. “There isn’t much I can do besides move my entire vault somewhere else. That’ll mean the town’s gone somewhere else and it’s dropped right out of the bottom.” He made an airy whistling sound and a spiraling motion with a rotting hoof. “Ha ha ha, that’s funny.”

“Vault? You have a vault full of guns?” I had a hard time imagining a room full of guns like my anti-machine rifle packed from floor to ceiling.

“Don’t you even try to hunt for it. The entrance is impossible to find. What I’ve got in the back there is a fraction of my collective firepower.” Sleazy rooted around for another bottle as he spoke. “There’s no use then, eh? I might as well make a few caps along the way. Beats dying again.”

Looked like my problem solved itself. “I guess you’ll sort it out with them, then?”

“Yeah. Sleazy Munitions doesn’t do refunds!”

~~~~~

“I hate my job,” Rumcake grumbled at me. He had his armor back on, and Baked was mounting an additional minigun to Rumcake’s armor.

“Quit yer bellyachin’ ye whiny little foal.” Baked whapped the back of Rumcake’s head with a wrench. “Stop movin’ about.”

Rumcake stopped fidgeting and continued talking. “I still can’t believe you convinced Inquisitor Soufflé to stay.” He shook his head and grinned. “Blackmailed him in his own office. Amazing. He even re-instated the town militia.”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.” I told him. How else did he expect me to get that idiot’s support? “You just needed his support. Didn’t mean I had to be polite about it.” I watched the two of them in slight disinterest.

“I didn’t know there were plans fer that. Huh,” Baked said around a mouthful of wrench. “How’d ye manage t’ get Sleazy onboard?”

“Don’t worry about it.” I nonchalantly waved my hoof. “Is he following through with his end of the deal?”

“He’s still working on it,” Rumcake answered.

A worried militiapony wearing a tattered red beret ran up to me. “Ma’am.” He sloppily saluted at me. “Somepony wants to talk to you.”

Uh… what? I confusedly saluted back and asked, “Who are you, and what’s going on?”

“That’s irrelevant. More importantly, some slaver showed up and just surrendered. On the condition they talk to you, and only you,” the pony in the beret answered.

“Uh… why me?”

Beret-head rolled his eyes. “They wanted to talk to ‘the pegasus’. Do you see any other pegasi here?”

“Good point. Where is he?”

“She,” he corrected, “is being held in Doc’s clinic under heavy watch. He insisted. Care for the ponies, and all.” He snorted in disgust. “Damn slavers should get what they deserve.”

“Alright, I’ll go check it out.” Oh well, if Doc wasn’t dead, then she should be somewhat talkative by the time I got there. The militiapony expectantly stared at me. “Uh… dismissed?” He sighed exasperatedly and trotted off. When they hay did I turn into the leader? Whatever.

And Doc’s Clinic was once again characterized by the telltale horrified screaming of an unfortunate “patient” coming from within. “Git away from me, ya wanker!” I assumed that was the slaver that was currently reconsidering her surrender. The other, slightly more entertaining option, was that Doc suddenly decided to develop a fillyish voice and change his speech patterns.

“Calm down. The more you struggle, the more fun—I mean painful this is probably going to be,” Doc said, trying to hide his glee. He had his bonesaws floating around a scared-looking navy mare in the corner of the room. Her orange mane was disheveled and covered in a thick coating of mystery gunk. “Now stop cowering and let me properly treat you.”

I roughly shoved Doc aside and pulled the slaver out of the corner. “Lay off her,” I told Doc. Then I turned my attention back to the slaver. “I’m here. Now, you’re going to give me some damn answers or I’m letting the good doctor here continue with invasive surgery,” I growled into her ear. “Just get talking.”

“Don’ hurt me! Ya gotta listen to me. I got information fer you.” She started wiping off her striped red body paint. “We can be civilized, right?” She laughed nervously.

With a heave and a ho, I unceremoniously dropped her onto one of the examination tables and I sat down in front of her. “I won’t promise anything.” I crossed my forelegs.

“You’re the one that flattened the Rad Lads, aren’t you?” She continued wiping off her red stripes, with little success. I gave her a blank stare. “I’m going to assume yes. Anyway, the rest of them are comin’ back in force to make an example of you gits.”

“What do you mean the rest of you?” I asked. “I thought that was your only base.” Crap. There were more of them? “And what do you mean by Rad Lads?”

“Red Eye pulled out our main force and integrated them into his army. Big Benny called up the rest of our lads to hold the fort,” she explained. “Unfortunately, somepony with a wee bit too much time on their hooves blasted our camp to kingdom come.”

“So why are you here and not with the rest of your force?” I asked, suspicion edging into my voice.

She shrugged. “Th’ Lads don’t have anything for me anymore. I don’ have a home, nowhere to go, so I might as well do th’ decent thing for once and warn you.”

“We know the slavers are coming. Based on what you’re saying, it’s the rest of the Rad Lads out for revenge.” She looked surprised but nodded anyway. I continued, “But let me guess—that’s not all, is it?”

“Our main force is approaching from the north. They’re just th’ distraction.” She pointed downward and I looked down. “They know about the tunnels. Benny’s sending th’ Lefties in while you’re distracted.” Of course! Underhill was still wide open and full of scavengers, and we’d never closed the sewers off from the Seapony Energy ruins.

“Why are you telling me this?” I pressed. “How does this help you?”

She slumped and mumbled “I don’ have anypony left. Th’ Hoof Lads were my life, and now they’re gone. I got nothin’ left to lose.” She glared at me, tears in her eyes. “I realized I wanted a change in my life. I’m done with being a slaver. I want to start over. Things changed, yeah?”

“Starting over I understand. But… are you willing to set up your entire gang?” I asked. She looked doubtful. “There will be no survivors. I’m very sure about that.”

“…Yes. I’m sure,” she whispered.

“Alright, we’re done here.” I stood up and left. On the way out, I jokingly ordered Flimsy, “Keep an eye on her, alright?” Flimsy the skeleton shifted ever so slightly. A chill ran down my spine and I quickened my pace. Okay, creepy factor has been doubled. Leaving. Leaving. Don’t make eye contact. It’s probably just the wind. Yeah, totally.

~~~~~

I was jolted out of my afternoon nap by a gentle poke. Unfortunately, I was in enough pain to make that poking feel like a shivving. I ignored the poking as much as possible. Gentle prods escalated to something more vigorous. Jab. Stab. I growled and suddenly flopped onto the hoof poking me. I was rewarded with some frantic pawing and swearing. Without opening my eyes, I mumbled, “Broken Parts, if you continue annoying me I will break your parts.”

“That’s bucking morbid.” Tabber snorted. “You’re a violent, evil little mare.” He continued trying to retrieve his foreleg from under me. “Heavy, too.” Hey! I resent that. “Dammit, move your fat flank before my leg loses circulation!”

I grudgingly rolled over and let Tabber have his leg back. “Whaddya want?”

“We’re going on a field trip. You coming?”

“What do you mean by we?” I asked, rolling back over to glare at him. “I’m not moving until I get some bucking painkillers.” My entire body felt incredibly sensitive and tender, which meant pain. Everywhere.

“Stop whining. Just wait till the withdrawal kicks in.” Tabber picked up a pillow and hit me with it. Of course it felt like being hit with a bag of fluffy rocks. I whimpered and curled up into a ball. Why do the damn pillows hurt too? “Sorry. But come on, let’s go.”

I hopped out of the bed and gingerly shook myself. I pulled on my armored duster and reattached my saddlebag. “Wait, how did you get into Rusty’s house?” Even though I did end up borrowing his key, I was ninety percent sure I relocked it afterward.

“Picked the lock. It was urgent,” he said simply. I shot him a dirty look, which he noticed. “If it’s any consolation prize, I didn’t molest you in your sleep.” I death-glared at him and ignored that comment.

“What’s going on?” I rubbed my eyes and finally noticed Tabber’s insane getup. He was out of his standard armor and now he was dressed in some reinforced black leather armor. He’d painted himself up with a large amount of red paint. He’d even dyed his mane dark blue. “You look… insane.”

“We’re going into the slaver encampment. They’ve set up over the hills a few miles away to the north, right where our informant said they would be coming from. You’ll fly us there.” He motioned at the door. “Let’s go.”

“I’m not wearing whatever you are,” I flatly stated. “Especially that paint. It looks like it’ll stain.”

“Okay.” He turned to leave.

“Wait, really?” Wow, that was easy. Wait. That was easy. Crap.

“You’d never pass for a Rad Lad. Even better, you get to be the bait. Or the distraction. Your choice, really.” He held the door open for me. “Ladies first.”

I walked past him and whapped him with my wing on the way out. “I hate you so much,” I snarked through gritted teeth, pushing down a squeak of pain.

He followed me out and I locked the door behind us. “Good to know.”

~~~~~

I didn’t know whether to be shocked or pissed. The second we’d landed in the darkness next to the camp, Tabber tied me up and gagged me. He’d even tied my wings to my sides. That damn traitor! “It’s all part of the plan. Relax. You keep ‘em busy, I’ll go set the charges. And don’t worry, I’ll keep your stuff safe.” Somehow I wasn’t sure about that.

“Mphph sffpth am attho,” I tried to yell through my gag. Dammit, I really hoped this plan could have gone differently.

Next time, ask what the plan is, exactly.

Shut up, brain. You’re in here with me too.

“Don’t worry about it. Just do what comes naturally,” Tabber idly mentioned. He picked me up by my bindings and dragged me through the dirt and gravel to the circle of shacks and tents where the remainder of the Rad Lads were camped.

I squirmed against my bonds. “Hrgh. Hudda hmph worf?”

“Shut up.” He dragged me over to the edge of the camp and yelled at the closest sentries “Now lookit the little birdie that I caught in the hills.” He roughly tossed me over to them. “Collar’d her up, too. Get her to the rest of the lads.”

The two slavers just stared at me in shock. “Oi, who’re you and wot’s she doin’ here?” One of them yelled at Tabber once he’d recovered. “I ain’t never seen yer ugly mug around here before.”

“Some twat sent me on a fetch quest when everythin’ went to shite. Headed over here as soon as possible,” Tabber easily replied in an accent more similar to what the Rad Lads sounded like. “Wha’s going on here?”

The other slaver that hadn’t spoken grabbed the rope around my torso in his teeth and dragged me off. I couldn’t see where he was taking me, so I took this opportunity to look around the camp in case I needed a quick escape. I memorized the exact path, down to the details of each tent we turned at. In order: red stripes left, gray right, ripped tan another left.

I was tossed into a suspended cage with several other sad-looking captives. A few of them were chained up, tied, or a combination thereof. All of them looked beaten, bruised, and emaciated. They were weary and they looked at me with sad eyes. As soon as the slaver that dropped me in here left, a pink earth pony crawled over to me and started untying me.

“Are you okay?” she hesitantly whispered. Her red mane was cut up and missing in a few patches, but it was evident she was very beautiful once. “Here, let me help you with that.” She gently pushed me over as I struggled to tear off my gag. My entire right side ached from being tossed into the cage.

“Ah, that’s better.” I spat out bits of rope. “This is getting old.”

She gathered up the bits of rope and nudged them over to me. “Here. Hold onto them.” I gave her my best what-are-you-talking-about face. “The guards don’t care if you aren’t tied up in the cage. If they take you out, they want you to be tied up.”

“Thanks.” I tucked the rope behind a wing. “So… what’s your name?”

“Friends call me Cherry.” She hesitantly motioned at my claw. “What’s that?”

I sadly flexed my claw. “It’s a prosthetic. I lost my hoof from something.” All this time, it still made me uneasy thinking about it. I still didn’t know what happened and I still felt a bit of loss when I looked at it. “Wait. Wow, okay these slavers really suck at prisoner management.”

“Oh. Wait, really?” She drew back in surprise.

“You wanna break out?” I raised a talon and pulled a bobby pin out of my somewhat tangled mane. “I think I’ve got the skill.”

Cherry violently shook her head. “No! That’s a terrible idea!” she hissed. “What if the guards catch us?” Her eyes darted around the cage to the other captives, all of which nodded. “I don’t wanna die,” she whimpered.

The fear in her eyes was evident. I put away the pin. “Alright. I didn’t really have a plan for afterward, anyway.” Now, how does one escape from slavers when trapped in a tiny cage? I idly chewed my fetlock in thought. “What happens now?”

“We wait to be sold off and pray to the goddesses for a merciful owner. How are you in the hay?” Cherry worriedly asked me. Some of the other prisoners also looked worried. “You good at all?”

“What do yo—” I started, then instantly started turning red. Of course I knew, but that didn’t really mean I wanted to talk about it!

You’re hopeless.

Thanks, brain.

“Uh, I guess I’m passable?” I scratched my mane awkwardly. Everypony else in the cage sighed in relief. “Why?”

“You’re a mare. There’s a reason you’re not fighting other slaves for their amusement at the moment.” Oh. Okay, so that’s how these slavers ran. “If you try to escape, well… you know,” she trailed off, pointing at a small pile of bodies at the far edge of camp.

“Then I assume you’re… uh… particularly skilled?” I hazarded a guess. She proudly nodded. “And you’ve never gotten around to escaping?” She sadly shook her head. I sighed. “So what do we do in the meantime?”

“Clean ourselves up. Hope for something better. Do slave-related things.” Cherry looked resigned. “Nopony else likes to talk to me. Everypony just keeps to themselves, just wishing for the moment they can escape.” Wow. Talk about depressing stuff.

“Don’t worry. If everything goes according to plan—” Which it wouldn’t, most likely. “—you won’t have to wait for long.” I took a furtive glance around for guards reflexively. “Assuming my partner hasn’t been caught or completely abandoned me, we’ll be able to escape soon.”

Hope returned to Cherry’s eyes. “Really?” I nodded. “That’s great news!”

“Yeah. One problem, though.” I chewed on my fetlock again. “I wasn’t really informed about the plan, if we had one.” The hope faded a little. “Sorry.”

Cherry was crestfallen. “Oh… well, there’s always a catch, isn’t there.”

“Sorry,” I repeated. I heard voices approaching from the dim edges of my vision. “Crap. Somepony’s coming.” All the prisoners, Cherry included, laid down and cowered in fear. “Uh… am I missing something here?”

“Remember what I said? In the hay? Oh horseapples, your bindings!” Cherry hissed. “Rope! Tie your forelegs up. Here, let me help.” She carefully tied my forelegs up in a loose knot. “If you’re the blood angel, maybe we stand a chance,” Cherry whispered.

What did she just call me?

What did she just call us?

Great reaction time, brain.

I didn’t have time to figure out what was going on. “So, ‘eard we got a new one,” a voice said.

“Yep! Newblood got ‘er sneakin’ aboot,” the other gloated. “You’ll like ‘er. She’s got wings. Yeah, I know right?”

“I got first dibs on her,” the first voice excitedly squealed. “Where’s she at?”

“Right here.” The owners of the voices stopped in front of the cage. The one that spoke was a tawny yellow unicorn. His gray mane was styled into several cheesy-looking spikes. “Whaddya think, mate?”

His friend was a bright obnoxious blue and his mane just happened to be a darker blue as well. Surprisingly well-groomed, considering. “I love ‘er.” I could feel his leery gaze all over my aching body. He reached forward and I tried to chomp his reaching hoof. “Oooh, feisty one. I like that.” He motioned me forward. “C’mon. You’re comin with me.”

I looked to Cherry for a little support. “Go. The longer you wait, the worse it’ll get,” she whispered. A frilly neon orange collar was tossed through the bars and I picked it up, mildly curious. Cherry motioned at my neck. “Put it on.” I rolled my eyes and tied it around my neck above my other stupid collar. Ugh.

Spiky Yellow opened the cage while levitating a shotgun at me. I growled at Bluey as I indignantly stepped out. “For your information, I like to be wined and dined first.” I really didn’t want to be here right now, but I didn’t have a choice. At least my wings were free, so if I couldn’t fight my way out I could fly away. “Also, I like long flights along the clouds,” I added. One of them clipped a leash to my collar.

As I was led away by Bluey by my equally neon leash, he started talking about a bunch of random stuff I didn’t care about. I zoned him out to try and find some other exit plan or catch sight of Tabber. That is, until he mentioned the Enclave military. “…is just a bunch of wussy little fillies campin’ in the clouds. I just can’t imagine what you see in them.”

“Hey! My dad was military, so of course I’m going to join up,” I retorted. “And anyway, we have ponies trying to help the wasteland. There was an initiative to distribute genetically improved sustainable food to select locations.” Something about it bothered me, but I couldn’t really put my hoof on it. “At least our leaders are more organized than you idiots.”

“For somepony that didn’t get nuked to the choir invisible, sure,” Bluey said dismissively. We came to a stop in front of a somewhat fancy olive green tent. “We’re here. Come along, get that sexy flank inside.” He gave me an encouraging spank.

I cringed but I went inside, against my better judgement. For a tent, he’d furnished it well. He had a somewhat acceptably soft bedroll along one wall, and the other side had a short table, a hooflocker, and a small cooktop. Hmm. I eyed the back of the tent. I could cut my way through…

“Would you like a cup of tea?” Bluey unhooked my leash and tossed it onto the table. I indifferently shrugged. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He poured some water from a few plastic bottles into a small dented pot and turned on the camping stove.

“You treat everypony like this?” I quietly asked. I was really expecting something along the lines of “get on the bed right now” sort of thing. Bluey was taking off his armor and piling it up in a corner.

“Even if I’m a ‘dirty slaver’, I’ve still got standards. Especially for the ones that aren’t trying to actively kill me the entire time.” He dropped a small bag into the pot and turned the heat off. “I’ve got a bit of scotch around here somewhere. You want a dash of scotch in your tea?” He opened the hooflocker and looked around in it.

Being the smarty flank I was, I replied, “I’d love some tea with my scotch.” If this was really going to happen, I was going at least try to get a little drunk. Why was this happening to me all the time?

“Alright, a double for you then.” Bluey laughed. I hesitantly and nervously chuckled along with him. He poured the tea into two teacups (yes, actual bucking teacups) and added scotch to each of them, one more than the other. He pushed the one with more scotch over to me. “Cheers.” He raised his cup.

“Cheers?” I nervously raised my cup too and drank the entire hot mixture. I immediately decided I didn’t particularly like tea. It tasted a lot like disgusting leafy cheap scotch. “Ugh. Needs more scotch.” I grimaced.

“I agree it isn’t as good as our usual stock, but… well, you know what happened to it.” Bluey shoved me onto the bed. “You little wanker. I’m going to make you pay for all of that.”

“Betcha love your big wankers too.” I sniggered.

Nice one!

High five, brain.

“Shut it, slave.” He slapped me, hard enough to knock the cup out of my hoof.

I didn’t like the way he was looking at me, especially how Li’l Bluey was looking at me too. Panic! Panic!

Hold up, maybe we can twist this into our favor. Just go with it.

Are you insane?

Asked the crazy mare talking to herself.

Dammit. Hopefully we know what we’re doing, brain.

He got down on top of me and I suddenly decided to grab him in a tight hug, which surprised me. I didn’t particularly like it and I was positively shaking in my fur. “Alright, alright. If this is going to happen, at least be gentlecolt enough to let me enjoy this a little,” I whispered into his ear.

I used my wings as leverage to flip us over so I was straddling his chest. “You’re like that, are you? I love that.” Bluey leered. He grabbed my flanks and pulled me closer. I inwardly flinched. I just want this to be over, please. I wanna go home! “I like my mares feisty.”

However, I resisted the urge to punch him in the face. “Really now?” I murmured. Ugh. He started planting kisses upward along my body. Do not want! Do not want!

Just go with it. Wait for an opportunity.

I tolerated his fondling, teasing, and kissing for an intolerably long time. Worst of all, I couldn’t find a moment to tear him apart while he was doing this.

“That’s enough of that. Time for the main course,” he gleefully sneered. He forcefully slammed me face-first into the bedroll. Crap! Nonononono! He slapped my flank roughly and laughed again. I could feel him rubbing against my butt. Okay, that’s enough! I desperately reached out with my wing and bumped the table hard enough to knock over one of the teacups. “Dammit. You’re making a mess.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him turn away from me just long enough to pick up the teacup.

Now.

I suddenly sat up and spun around to grab him in a chokehold. “If you don’t mind, I’m just going to skip right to dessert.” I picked up the leash and tied Bluey up with it.

Really? Dessert?

“Shut up! It was the coolest one-liner I could come up with at the time,” I hissed at, well, myself.

I wrapped up his muzzle with the last bit of leash that wasn’t tying his forelegs in place. Bluey attempted to yell something at me, but I couldn’t understand him. He attempted to kick at me and promptly fell over.

Suddenly cheering broke out throughout the camp. “Aw, ponyfeathers,” I muttered. Really hoping it wasn’t a we-caught-Frosty celebratory cheering. “Well, time to go!” As a closing thought, patted Bluey on the head. “Don’t go anywhere,” I joked. He only glared at me as I effortlessly sliced through the back of his tent and darted off into the night.

I stayed toward the edge of camp, creeping around the random patrolling slaver. An explosion abruptly cut off the cheering. Where there’s smoke, there’s explosives. And where there’s explosives, there’s Tabber. I climbed up a short hill overlooking the camp and scanned for Tabber and his stupid disguise. Or at least my bags. The slavers were now actively searching the camp, some of them were just running about screaming, but a blue-maned one was calmly trotting away from all of it. There he was!

I ignored the pained complaints of my body and took flight. I gained as much altitude as I could before dropping like a rock and snatched him at high speed. “Holy crap!” Tabber yelled as I dashed away from the slaver camp. “Thanks for the save there. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to save you too. I didn’t really have an escape plan.” He squirmed in my grip. “Do we have to go so fast? I think i’m going to get sick.”

“Stop squirming! I’m not staying here any longer than I have to. Please tell me you did something besides blow stuff up,” I yelled into Tabber’s ear.

“Oh yeah. Terrible news, the battle is about to begin and their special troops left hours ago. They’re in the sewers right now probably,” Tabber yelled back, covering his ear.

“Crap. Any idea how long it’ll take them to get to Underhill?”

“Anywhere between two hours and eight. Depends on how many of them decide to wander right into my traps.” Tabber thought for a minute. “Actually, I’d say we have at least an hour or so before they reach Underhill. There’s only five entrances into Seapony, and three of them are inaccessible from the sewers.”

“Great. Just great,” I grumbled. Tonight was going to suck. I craned my neck to look back at the camp. Cherry… I’m sorry. I’ll be back. I promise.

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Strong Back – Because your teammates won’t carry themselves. Stupid teammates. You can now carry an additional 50 pounds of weight.
Current Sub-perk: Diplomacy – Remember thy Charlamane. You gain +3 to Speech.
Current Status: Addicted to Med-X – It isn’t your fault. When withdrawn, your Agility and Intelligence are penalized by −1.

Author's Note

Don't forget to check out the prequel to Memories, H is for Heresy!

Chapter 10: Can I have my body back?

Chapter 10: Can I have my body back?

“Well, it can’t get any worse.”

We arrived back in Happy Hills panting and shaking. More accurately, I arrived panting and shaking. Tabber was mildly airsick, but I didn’t really care. The second I found a clear patch of dirt, I dropped him and haphazardly landed next to him. I was in a massive amount of pain. My joints ached, my wings burned, and I could barely stand. I collapsed into a sweating, gasping, shaking, pile of fur and feathers.

Breathe, girl!

Trying. Hurts… to breathe.

Tabber staggered to his hooves. “I am not flying with you ever. Again.” He finally noticed me cringing on the ground. “Hey. Hey! You okay?” He looked around to the slack-jawed townsponies for help. “You!” He pointed at one at random. “I need a medic! Get Doc, now!”

I weakly attempted to stagger to my hooves. “I… think I’ll be fine.” I took a few shaky steps then I slammed into the ground. Ow. Ow. Ow. “Can a’ corn. Can of corn, I’ll… be… fine.” I passed out at that point, just in time to see somepony show up with Doc in tow.

~~~~~

“On the bright side, at least we made it.” I woke up to the sound of Gala Frosty’s voice. Okay, my voice. Whatever. “How are you feeling?”

I hopped out of bed. “At least I don’t feel pain here,” I replied, testing my movement. “You notice anything out of the ordinary recently?”

“Well…” She pointed at Raider’s steel door. “It’s still open, but at least she’s not trying to maul us.” Both of us peeked into the room. Raider Frosty was just huddled up into the corner muttering to herself. “She just kinda… sits there.”

“Right. Uh. How’s the rest of us?” I asked, backing away from the door with Gala Frosty.

Gala Frosty looked over into the living room. “Well, Drunky’s been really… out of it lately.” She pointed at the prone pegasus lying down on the couch. “She’s just been quiet. Too quiet.” Both of us went over to her.

“Hayyy giiiiirls….” Drunk Frosty slurred. “Waaaz happeninn?”

“Uh… what’s wrong with you?” I asked. I looked around the room. No empty bottles, no drool on the pillows. “Are… are you okay?” Her eyes were unfocused and she just laid there, staring at the ceiling.

“Tooootally. Howyaa dooin?” Drunk Frosty lazily rolled over and fell off the couch. She giggled and stumbled to her hooves. “Hehe. You know, I love me.” I suddenly became the recipient of a sloppy whiskey-scented kiss. Don’t blame me for not moving. Or reacting. How often do you get the chance to kiss yourself? I mean, really.

Gala Frosty pushed us apart. “Okay, lovebirds, break it up.” Drunk Frosty plopped herself back onto the couch with a giggle. “Look, whatever’s going on with you is going to affect us. Figure it out while you can. There’s no telling what’ll happen if—”

Both of us stopped when Raider Frosty stalked into the room. There was something about her that made me hesitate to speak. She looked more bedraggled. More bloody. More… insane, if that was possible. The gaze of her bloodshot eyes landed on me. “Hungry,” she growled.

“Look, I’m sorry I haven’t gotten to any cherry snack cakes recently. Things have been hectic, you know?” I explained, backing away from her slow advance. “I’ll munch on a few later, okay?”

“No.” She tapped my nose with a bloody talon. “Hungry,” she emphasized, licking the blood off of it.

“Uh.” I looked to Gala Frosty for assistance. “How do I…”

“Bring me out. Let me out. Fight. Give in.” She pushed me against the wall. “Kill.”

And then as suddenly as it begun, Raider Frosty slunk back into her room and closed her door. It didn’t click shut, however. She’d left it slightly ajar. Her incomprehensible mumbling started up again.

“She’s creepy.” Filly Frosty sleepily mumbled, floating into the room. “I don’t like her.” She perched herself onto my head and settled in.

“I don’t either.” I reached up and scratched her ears. “How are you doing?”

Filly Frosty murmured something and snuggled into my frizzy mane. “You smell funny,” she simply replied. Thanks, me. Note to self, get a damn bath. “What’s wrong with everypony?”

“I don’t know. I think I just need a break. Or something.” I sighed and continued scratching Filly Frosty. “Something’s wrong with me, and I’ll eventually figure it out. I think.”

Gala Frosty looked thoughtful. “I guess that’s the best we can hope for.”

“Hey, speaking of which, what’s wrong with you?” I asked Gala Frosty. She looked away. “Each one of me is ridiculous, completely bucking insane, or tired. What’s with you?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Gala Frosty replied.

“C’mon. You know what’s going on in my head on a daily basis. It only seems fair that you tell me, right?” I said, patting her mane. “It’s not like you can be any more crazy than I am.” I grinned and she smiled a little.

“You know how I’m the representation of your sanity, hopes, and logic?” Okay, now I know. “Well, now you do,” she added, sensing my realization. “I think I’m going crazy. I see things.” Her voice dropped to a whimper. “Things that shouldn’t happen. Things that will. Things that don’t make sense.”

Filly Frosty climbed off my head and floated onto Gala Frosty’s head. “It’s okay. We’re all not feeling like ourselves. Yourself. Whatever.” She sleepily replied and stifled a cute little yawn. D’awww. I’m so adorable. “Everything’ll hopefully be back to normal in no time.

I really hoped so. I hugged Gala Frosty tightly. Was it possible for my split personalities to go crazy? I was a little scared that my calm, collected, smart version of me was panicking. “We’ll be fine. We’ll be fine,” I chanted. Would we? I closed my eyes and brushed Gala Frosty’s mane.

~~~~~

I woke up to the sound of arguing. The world was unfocused, blinding, and filled with pain. I was back in Doc’s clinic again, lying down in the beds in the backroom. I groaned and scooted myself toward the edge of my bed. Everything hurt, I had a cold sweat going, and my wings stung with pain. “I need a bucking drink,” I croaked.

The arguing voices abruptly stopped and then appeared in front of me. Rumcake was anxiously staring down at me. On the other side of the bed, Doc was surprisingly worried too. “Hey there, sport! Glad to see you’re not dead!” Doc enthusiastically blurted.

Rumcake reached over me and whapped Doc’s horn. “Hey. Get a little serious here, will you? Now, what’s wrong with her?”

Doc rubbed his horn irritably, then lit it with magic and placed it against my head. An unpleasant tingle washed through my body again. But at this point, it felt much better than the pain I was in. “She’s just going through some Med-X withdrawal combined with a little bit of complications from the last battle.”

“What’re my options, Doc?” I resisted the urge to retch when I tried to sit up. “Ugh. I feel like I got hit by a hailstorm.” Every little movement I made caused a little stab of pain.

Doc raised a hoof. “One. You ride out the withdrawal and stallion up.” He raised his other hoof. “Or two. I hit you with another Med-X. It’ll keep you up and running for a short while, but the withdrawal will be incrementally worse.” Okay, that sounds like a terrible option. “Or three.” He raised a hindleg. “I give you some Fixer. It’s only temporary, and I’m ninety percent sure it’s addictive on its own.”

“All of these sound like terrible choices.” I coughed. “Damn, I need a drink.” Rumcake gently pushed an open water bottle up against my muzzle. I eagerly slurped up the water, feeling a little more invigorated with each gulp. “Aaah. That’s better.” I sighed contentedly and the urge to throw up faded away.

“Well, the decision is all yours,” Doc continued, putting his hooves back on the ground. “What’ll it be?”

I weakly reached out for the Med-X on the far table. “Gimme,” I grunted, trying to will the syringe toward me. Anything to get rid of the pain. Damn these short legs! I waved my forelegs hopelessly at the Med-X. “Gimme.”

Rumcake swatted my forelegs disapprovingly. “No. The last thing I need is you turning into a painkiller addict.” He glared at me as he collected up the Med-X into a little pouch and stuffed it into of Doc’s pockets. “I need you clean.”

A whimper squeezed past my muzzle. “It hurts.” I curled myself up protectively. “Please.”

His expression softened. “Look, I know it’s tough. It’s painful, but I need you. I’m sorry.” His pink mane dangled into my face. If I wasn’t feeling like pounded crap, I would have been tempted to swat at it. “Oh, right, before I forget. Your callsign is ‘Pidgeon’, so don’t forget it.”

Of course it would be.

A fully-armored Steel Ranger burst into the room. “The Diamond Seeker squadron is geared up and waiting.” The Ranger shifted uneasily after a few seconds. “Sir, if I may ask, how many slavers are we expecting?”

Rumcake turned to the Ranger and patted his shoulder. “Too damned many.” Rumcake picked up his helmet off the ground and shoved his head into it. “Tell the Seekers I’m on my way.”

Rumcake left. I actually contemplated stealing the Med-X from Doc’s pocket the second he wasn’t paying attention. He noticed my sudden fascination with his pocket. “Look, going clean isn’t the easiest thing, I admit. But you need to kick the habit as soon as possible.”

I gave him my best sad filly eyes. “But…”

“Don’t look at me like that.” Doc tried to look away, but failed. “Alright, alright.” He looked around and pulled out an injection patch loaded with a familiar-looking orange syrup. “Here. Knowing you, you’re going to need this.” He tucked it behind my wing. “Try not to use it. Contrary to popular belief, I actually care about your health.”

Oh, really?

“Wow… thanks, Doc.” I held it tightly to my side.

“Don’t mention it.” He sighed and tiredly grinned. “Wait, seriously don’t mention it. Your coltfriend might kill me.”

Rumcake? My coltfriend?

Yeah. Totally. Get with the program.

I laughed anyway and instantly regretted it. Ow. Laughing hurts, too? Not fair. “He won’t kill you.”

He shrugged. “I’m not risking it.” He pointed at the ceiling. “I was informed by the Rangers that they need a sniper on a good vantage point. It turns out that my humble medical malpractice clinic is the perfect location. Your rifle is upstairs on the roof, Tabber’s waiting up there, and Sleazy left you a few things.” Yay. I laid in the bed and looked at Doc expectantly. “I’m not carrying you.”

After an intense staring contest, Doc gave in and levitated me up onto the roof. He refused to talk to me after that, though. I climbed the short ladder up to an elevated platform that seemed to formerly be a part of the second floor. Tabber absentmindedly waved at me while staring through a large pair of binoculars. “Welcome. I’ve been waiting for you.”

I stopped halfway up. “Wait, what?”

“Just kidding. Feeling better?” he asked, still scanning the horizon with his binoculars.

“Not really.” I winced. Even walking around caused slight discomfort. “Wow, where’d all this stuff come from?” I asked, finally noticing my beloved anti-machine rifle propped up by its bipod right next to an older model sniper rifle. There were several boxes of respective ammo lying next to them. My armored duster was neatly folded up in a small pile on top of my saddlebag, and right on top of my duster was a newly refurbished Philomena’s Touch.

“Sleazy really followed through. Pulled all the stops.” He pointed out weapons wielded by ponies as he brought them up. “Assault rifles. Shotguns. Rocket launchers. Even a few multiple grenade launchers. Everything battle-saddleable. Insane.” I tucked Philomena’s Touch into a pocket in my saddlebag.

At least he’d finally found the glimmer of generosity in his rotting heart. I pulled on my gear, holding back little whimpers of pain. Duster, check. I tucked the injector into an inner pocket before I forgot. Saddlebag, check. “Alright, how about a sitrep on our positions?”

“Blasters are at the barricades. Earthshakers are set up with their artillery inside the perimeter. Diamonds are heading down into the tunnels to wipe up the elite slavers. Rest of the Rangers are placed along the walls with the militia.” Tabber pointed out a spot on the horizon. “And… wait, what the buck is that?” he whispered in confusion.

If the team spy is confused, that’s not good. I laid down next to my anti-machine rifle (which had the enhanced scope attachment, thank Luna) and peered down the sight. Lo and behold, it was a glimmering shield blocking the path toward Happy Hills. “That doesn’t look good.”

He put down the binoculars, then took off his helmet, then took off his gas mask, then pulled off a glove so that he could rub his eyes. Huh, how tedious. “Looks like a unicorn shield on a much larger scale. I really hope they don’t have any damn super-unicorns.” He facehoofed. “Crap. Red Eye probably sent his damned alicorns.”

Strong, fast, and basically big fat cheaters on the battlefield, from what Tabber told me last time. The only one I’d spotted decided to pull a disappearing act, so I was going to have to hope that they’d go down without the velocity attachment.

I put down my rifle and examined the sniper rifle next to it. Didn’t seem very unusual at all. Just your run-of-the-mill earth pony sniper rifle with the massive button on the side for firing. “I suggest that you use this one for slightly less zealous overkill. After all, three-oh-eights are easier to find,” Tabber added.

While I examined the stock of ammunition we had and estimated how many targets I could fling into the sun as opposed to simply killing them, something pulled my attention away from the matter at hoof. “Oh hey, what’s that?” I tugged a slightly scuffed bright pink bobblehead out from under a few burned books and a large chunk of wall. “Don’t I have one of you already?” I mostly muttered to myself. That was a matter for later, so I pocketed the toy.

Tabber put all his gear back on. “Our best bet with the damned alicorns is to shoot them while their shields are down. Everything dies, after all.” I peered into the sniper rifle’s sight and attempted to make anything out behind the shield. At this distance, it was nearly impossible to see through it, even with the extreme magnification of the sniper rifle’s scope. Shapes were moving around back there, but I couldn’t see anything identifiable.

The sniper rifle was right-hoofed. Hm. I tested loading a clip, cycling the bolt, and just getting the feel for the gun. It felt weird, mostly because I’d been left-hoofedly firing my anti-machine rifle because of my claw. On the bright side, to switch weapons all I had to do was scoot over a few inches. “Wait, so are you here to keep watch or are you my spotter?”

“I’m your spotter,” he replied with disdain. “Oh, one more thing.”

Tabber produced a PipBuck—not any PipBuck, but the very same PipBuck that I had been strapped with all that time ago. “Here. I managed to snag this back for you, since it’ll probably help keep you alive.” PipBuck, PipBuck, PipBuck. And… now it didn’t sound like a word at all.

“Awesome!” I immediately snapped the PipBuck onto my right foreleg and watched the magical bars and stuff appear in my vision again. “What do you mean by ‘snagged’?” A warning box suddenly obstructed my vision, helpfully suggesting that I go through the tutorial once again. “What? No, I don’t want to read the tutorial.”

“The Rangers may not be aware that their quartermaster has an oddly disturbing attraction to socks and can be bribed to momentarily have a lapse of attention with them.” Tabber shrugged. “Keep your enemies close and your socially unacceptable kinks closer.”

Apparently I really needed to look at this tutorial, according to the PipBuck. “Go away already!” I tried swatting at the air where the ‘no’ button was still located, to no effect.

“That’s not nice.”

I took a turn to swat at Tabber as well. “Not you. Stupid window won— oh, there it goes.” Something I did worked, since the box went away.

“Now hold on a second, is this a bribe?” For all I knew, that was something he actively did, every gift—even the muzzle attachment for my rifle—seemed like it had an ulterior motive. “What’s your game here?”

Very unconvincingly, Tabber chuckled. “Hey, can’t a stallion be nice every now and then?”

I didn’t really feel like arguing as I looked over my PipBuck. There was a familiar-looking device plugged into the side of it, a device that I hadn’t had the time to thoroughly inspect when Broken Parts had given it to me. Why did she have it, again? “Oh, so that’s what the disruptionmajig thingy attaches to. Wait, you went through my stuff?”

“I pride myself on my ability to acquire anything I need.” Tabber pointedly ignored my disapproving glare. “I found it while I was going through your stuff. No, I don’t know what it actually does.”

Hold on a second, was that the sound of privacy violation? “You went through my stuff?” I narrowed my eyes at him.

I had a good feeling that Tabber was turning red underneath that stupid mask of his. “It was only to look for anything you may have needed.”

“You tell yourself that.” I was about to leave it there, but I was annoyed just enough for a playful jab. “Or does the big bad secret agent have a creepy crush on poor li’l Frosty?”

Without being able to see the look on Tabber’s stupid face, my little taunt didn’t really have the entertainment value that I hoped for. “What? You’re obviously seeing our professional relationship in completely the wrong light.”

Hmm. Suspicious stallion was suspicious, and I made a reminder to myself to keep an eye on him. “Aaaalright. Keep your nose out from where it doesn’t belong and we’ll be fine,” I brought us back on track to break the awkward silence. “So, where’s Baked?

“He’s down there with the Earthshakers,” Tabber replied, pointing at what passed for the town square. There were seven Steel Rangers sitting down with their legs apart to help balance the giant cannons mounted on their backs. I assumed they were sitting like that so when the guns fired, they wouldn’t fall over. Behind them were several piles of shells and ten scribes hurriedly cleaning the guns, making the Rangers comfortable, and the like.

“Those are some big bucking guns.” I whistled. “Impressive.”

“Yup.” Tabber looked through his binoculars again. “I’ll take first watch. I’ve got good caps they’ll attack at night.”

“I can’t sleep right now. I’m not tired yet.” I sighed and dug through my saddlebag for the velocity attachment for my anti-machine rifle. “I’ve spent too much time passed out.”

“Unconsciousness is not the same as sleep,” Tabber reminded me. “And everywhere is a bed if you try hard enough.”

“I know.” I rubbed my sore and stiff muscles in an attempt to reduce the pain. “I am not looking forward to shooting later.” Just touching my forelegs caused a little pain. I didn’t want to imagine the increased pain of rifle recoil.

A bottle was placed into my field of vision. “Sweet Apple Acres’ Hard Cider” was written across the label. “Here. Just a little. Just to take the edge off, but I don’t need you drunk.”

Hm. Cider, eh? I took a tentative sip from the bottle. Appley! Mmmm… a sort of warm happy tingling definitely made the pain disappear for a short while. I was tempted to drink the rest of it, but Tabber snatched the bottle back.

“Aww. But I want it!” I tried the sad foal eyes on him.

It wasn’t very effective. “That’s enough. Go to sleep.”

“I don’t wanna,” I pouted. “I’m not tired.”

Tabber gave an exasperated sigh. “Alright, fine. Help me keep watch then.” I hopped back onto my anti-machine rifle and continued monitoring the shield using the sight. I felt a hoof on my neck. “Sorry about this. Nighty night.”

“You’re not so—” There was a sudden pressure, then nothing.

~~~~~

I was brought out of my ninja-induced coma by an urgent shake. “Eyes up. Something’s happening out there.” Tabber pointed out toward where the shield used to be. “They’re gathering.”

I crawled over to Tabber and jabbed his flank. “You knocked me out!”

“Unconsciousness may not be as good as sleep, but it's better than nothing. You need to be in tip-top shape, but at least you’re looking a slight bit better now. How do you feel?” The pain was bearable, but still prodding annoyingly at my body.

“I could be feeling better if I wasn’t unconscious all the time,” I grudgingly replied. “So what’s going on down there?” I asked, looking down the anti-machine rifle sight again. Slavers were gathering on the road. There were so many slavers! So much red and blue striping everywhere! They seemed ready to attack, but they were just waiting for a large purple alicorn to finish wildly gesturing. “…Are they listening to a speech?”

“Looks like it, yeah.” Tabber settled into his corner. I double-checked the magazine and made sure there was a round loaded. “What are you doing?” He narrowed his eyes at me, probably guessing what I was about to do. “Targets. Purple in the middle, two greens, maybe a few more in the back. About nine hundred meters, southwest wind.”

“Doc Frosty’s diagnosis: Extreme Sociopathy,” I muttered, checking my aim. I adjusted for distance and wind. Deep breath.

One. The wind suddenly died down and I adjusted my aim accordingly.

Two.

Three. I slowly exhaled and squeezed the trigger. “Cure? Administer high velocity anti-everything lead therapy to the cranium.” The kick of the rifle slammed into my shoulder and brought tears to my eyes. Ow. Pain. Ow.

The alicorn’s entire head vaporized in a massive cloud of red. I cycled the bolt and wiped the tears away. “Woah. Talk about a show-stopper.” Tabber sniggered a little and continued. “Oh yeah, that got their attention. Green one, five meters to the right. Not happy.”

It was looking in all directions, its horn glowing with evil-looking magic. “Free samples!” I yelled, instinctively adjusting my aim for center mass. “Get some!” Boom, another alicorn down. Yay, super high caliber bullets! The cure-all for those damn shields. Unfortunately for us, the next green one looked right at us and began to charge a spell.

“To the left!” Tabber urgently yelled. “I don’t want to find out if they’ve got range to hit us.”

“I see it!” I yelled back, lining up the next shot. A fraction of a second before I fired, the damn thing disappeared from my scope. “Buck!” I cycled the bolt and located it for another shot. I fired again, and it dodged. “This thing is damn smart!” Apparently not smart enough to multitask. One of the Blaster Boys lined up a good shot and hit it with a rocket. The alicorn let out a keening wail and crashed to the ground.

I was about to confirm the kills when I realized I hadn’t been supplied with a two-way radio of my own. That also reminded me that I wasn’t actually sure what standard operating procedure for the Rangers actually were. Confirming kills didn’t seem to be a thing that they did, from my experience. I chalked it up to their armor keeping track of enemies and left it at that.

The rest of the Blasters laid into the downed alicorn with disturbing excitement, firing additional bullets and ordinance. “Well, if that isn’t overkill I don’t know what is.” Tabber scanned the gathered slavers. “Shock’s worn off. They’re regrouping and getting ready to charge.” He picked up a radio out of nowhere and calmly spoke into it “Earthshakers, this is Eagle Eye. Target zone Bravo. Hold five, fire for effect. Bring the pain.”

Something in the air pulled me out of my shooting trance. I turned this way and that, sniffing the air like a hellhound. It was something about the way the wind tickled my feathers and the faint tingle of moisture in the air. “Storm’s coming,” I said simply.

“Oh yes, indeed,” Tabber gleefully replied. “Watch.” The charging slavers were starting to spread out, but they were still a large semi-organized body heading directly at us. The Rangers stood there without reacting. The militia and townsponies were nervously glancing back and forth at each other and the Rangers. Suddenly the Earthshakers opened fire two by two (or three, for the last salvo of course) and a moment later large artillery shells smashed into the slavers, reducing their numbers greatly. “Yeah! Go explosives!”

I grimly watched through the sniper rifle’s scope. I’d switched after mentioning the storm because I wasn’t going to waste an entire army’s worth of anti-machine ammunition shooting slavers, as effective as it would be. “That’s not the storm I’m talking about.” I pulled my forelegs out of the duster’s sleeves and pulled the duster up over my head as a makeshift hood.

“What are you talk—” Tabber started, then was immediately assaulted by the freak rainstorm I was anticipating. “A little heads up would have been nice,” he dourly replied, trying to wipe rain off the lenses of his gas mask.

“I told you there was a storm coming,” I replied while I eliminated the largest, most flamboyant slavers in the charge. The Earthshakers were done for the moment, so everypony on the walls opened fire. “Keep an eye out for anything that seems to want to kill us.”

I had a sudden thought, thanks to the torrential downpour. “What if rain came down all at once and not in raindrops?”

“Just imagine thousands of ponies being pushed violently to the ground by a single sheet of water.”

And so I did try to imagine it, which caused me to miss a shot because I was giggling too hard.

The next few minutes passed like hours. Tabber pointed out targets for me, and I eliminated them aggressively. My stump felt like it was going to fall off. Every shot slammed the rifle’s stock into my poor aching shoulder. “This seems too easy,” I mentioned to Tabber. “A frontal assault is suicide, don’t they know that?”

“I think so.” Tabber pointed out a slaver armed with a rocket launcher. “Take him out.” That particular slaver had the other half of his brain removed with one of my bullets. “Flamethrowers near the gates.” I gave the three flamethrower slavers nosebleeds coming out of the backs of their heads.

“Wait… any word from the Diamonds?” I worriedly asked. Rumcake was with them! We hadn’t heard any news from the tunnels. As far as we knew, the slaver elite troops could have wiped out the Diamond Seekers.

“Relax. Their radios probably can’t get any signal. As far as I know—” Tabber urgently pointed at a pair of green alicorns that had erected a shield against the Blaster Boys’ rocket and grenade barrage. “Target sighted! Four hundred meters, green and angry!”

“I see them.” I scooted back to the left and picked up the anti-machine rifle. “Now let’s find out which one of you idiots has more blood in your head.” I took a deep breath and prepared to take two shots. One. Two. Three. I tensed my shoulder. Four. Five. I let the first shot loose and mechanically cycled the bolt for the next shot. The bullet removed the first alicorn’s entire neck.

My search for the next target was interrupted by a strange cracking noise that sounded disturbingly close to me. “Behind, behind!” Tabber shouted. I pulled out of my shot just in time to dodge a purple alicorn’s magical fireball laser thing. It was on the roof with us! How did it get there?! I scrambled backward, dragging my anti-machine rifle along with me. Tabber charged at the alicorn and actually caused it to stumble backward in shock.

It yelled at me. Or more accurately, it bellowed into my mind, “The Goddess tires of your petty attempts at combat!” I cringed. The last thing I needed was my brain to hurt as well.

Kill it! We’ll keep it out as long as possible!

The alicorn hesitated for a second. “What? How are you—”

A second was all I needed. I flipped onto my back and dropped my rifle between my hindlegs, resting the bipod on either shin. “I’m going to throw you into the sun!” I giddily yelled, lining up the shot.

The purple alicorn must have panicked, because she let off a brilliant burst of light that all but blinded me. Worst of all, I’d been looking right at her the entire time and her image was burned into my retinas. “Why can’t I move?!”

That looked like it hurt.

It did! I couldn’t rub my eyes or else I’d lose my aim on the alicorn… which hopefully hadn’t moved while I was blinded…

We won’t be able to hold her for long, so hurry up!

Alright. But first, a question.

Is this really the time?

Maybe I had a point. In the meantime, I attempted to blink away the blinding lights in my vision, to no avail.

“You can’t even hit me—you’re blind!” the alicorn gloated.

“Wrong answer. I don’t need my eyes to kill you at this range.” I heard Tabber dive for cover to my right. I pulled the trigger and several things happened at once. I was sprinkled with blood and gore, the rifle butt slammed into my chest from the recoil, and I ended up sliding backward a few feet as well. As I woozily climbed to my hooves, Tabber was experimentally poking the neckless alicorn with what I assumed was mild fright.

“That’s one way to take care of that.” Tabber walked over and gently took my head in his hooves. “How’s your vision?” he asked, dangling the cord of his binoculars in front of me.

I backed away and coughed. My duster had fallen off during the scuffle, and I watched the rain slowly wash the blood off my coat. My vision was slowly returning to normal, but the pain was back in full force. “Getting better.” A sickening cough prompted me to stop and lie down. “I think that broke a rib.” Again.

“Let’s get you dry first. Can you walk?” Tabber picked up my duster and draped it over me. I nodded. “Good.” He looked back to the battlefield. “Get down to the clinic. There’s a ladder underneath that plywood there.” He motioned at a boarded up opening. “I can keep the place covered.”

I spat out a bloody glob. Uh oh. “Right. Got it.” I tore up the loose boards and pretty much fell in. “Ow.” I’d fallen into the front of Doc’s clinic. “Medic.” And, for what must have been the third time today, was about to pass out. Again. Good work, brain.

I was grabbed and dropped into a bed before I could totally pass out. “Oh no you don’t.” Doc growled. “Now, let’s see what’s wrong with you.” Unpleasant tingle. “Ribs again, eh? Minor internal bleeding…”

“Ugh… can you fix me without cutting me up again?” I mumbled. “Las’ thing I need is less ribs.”

Doc placed his hooves on my chest. “Don’t worry. I think I know what I’m doing.” A strong magical tugging sensation built up in my chest. “I’ve only done this twice, so give me a little credit here…”

“That’s not very encouraaaaauuugh!” I screamed. It felt like something was trying to jump out of my chest. There was a muted cracking noise, and the tightness in my chest loosened up. “Ahh. That feels better.”

Doc hastily shoved a healing potion down my muzzle, bottle and all. “Your rib should be back in position. Potion should take care of the bleeding. I gotta go, patients to treat and stuff.”

I coughed up the bottle and uncorked it first. Wow, he was really in a rush. I drank down the potion and immediately felt better. Everything was starting to come up, Frosty! “Thanks Doc!” I called after him. I flew back up to the roof through the hole.

The road outside was no longer remotely recognizable as a road. Blood coated the dirt, creating a swampy, gory mess the slavers had to wade through and take cover in. Body parts littered the crater-marked landscape. Part of the wall on the northeastern side was breached, but the Blaster Boys were giddily defending it with their rocket launchers.

“Status report, Tabbie,” I singsonged. Needless to say my mood was improving, mostly because the unbearable pain had decreased to a dull ache.

He fired the rifle again. “They. Are. Angry. And there’s a lot of them too.” He reloaded the sniper rifle and motioned to my anti-machine rifle. “I need a hoof here.” Suddenly, an idea dropped into my mind. I laid down next to him and went through the motions of reloading the rifle. “It’s already loaded. What’re you doing?”

“This might kill me, so be prepared for anything. I didn’t buy these because they were safe or stable.” I carefully loaded one of the blue-banded shock bullets into my rifle. Don’t use in wet situations? I cynically observed my surroundings. It was raining. The gun was wet. My claw was wet. Heck, I was wet. I aimed for the largest clump of slavers hiding in a blast crater.

“Why does this seem like a bad idea?” Tabber sighed and emptied another clip. He shook his head. “Sometimes I question your sanity.”

“I don’t. I know I’m crazy.” I took a deep breath and focused on the fancy-hat wearing slaver sitting in the middle of his comrades.

One.

Two. I did a last minute adjustment when he moved forward a little.

Three.

Four.

Fi-Hurugugugurrrrhk! The firing of the shock bullet caused arcs of electricity to jump down the body of the gun, up my claw, and directly into my body.

“Dammit, why does this always happen to you?” Tabber dropped the rifle and rushed over. I was spasmodically twitching on the ground, holding onto my rifle with a death grip. “The last thing I need right now is to have to get the defibrillator.”

I took a few huge breaths, attempting to not bite my tongue off in the process. “I-I’m okay. Wow, okay, let’s n-not do that again.” I shuddered and wrangled my limbs back into my control. “Okay, I’m not dead. That’s a start. I may have peed myself a little.” Just to check, I shifted my hindquarters. “Yup. I did, in fact, just pee myself.”

I immediately shoved the rest of the blue-banded bullets aside. “So, let’s pretend that never happened.” My right hindleg involuntarily twitched. Yeah. Never speak of this. You too, brain.

What?

Shut up.

A loud explosion rocked the building. Both of us looked at each other. “That’s not good,” Tabber said.

“No shit.”

“Sounded like that came from the elevator,” he continued, ignoring me. He looked around the battlefield. “I don’t see any heavy weapons out there, do you?”

“What else could it be? Sabotage?” I asked. Wait. That slaver that surrendered. “Damn, I should have seen that coming,” I muttered. I mentally beat myself up.

Ow!

Stupid, stupid Frosty! “I trust ponies too easily.” I sighed. Dammit, this was my fault now.

Tabber punched me in the jaw. Just a quick jab but damn, it hurt. “Quit your whining and do something about it!” I shamefully looked back at him. “Look, trust isn’t something that’s easily found in the Wasteland.” He shoved me toward the edge of the roof. “Go check it out. I’ll do fine on my own.”

I nodded and pulled all my gear back on.

Duster?

Check.

Saddlebag?

Check.

AM rifle?

I stared at my my anti-machine rifle and slung it across my back anyway. Might as well bring it into a small enclosed space. Check. Neglected short-range submachine gun? Check.

Common sense?

Check.

You sure about that?

Shut up, brain.

I took off from the roof and flew directly toward the elevator that led down to Underhill. Fortunately, nopony thought it was a good idea to shoot at the low-flying pegasus. I made it to the elevator without a scratch. The elevator itself was a mess. The building was blasted and thick black smoke was leaking out of the grated doors. A Ranger stumbled over to me and collapsed. “Hey, corncakes… I think ah need a goshdarn medic.”

“What happened here?” I urgently asked. Wait… that voice… “Cabbage Stew?”

Cabbage Stew nodded. “Damn dirty slaver ambushed me with a mountain of ‘splosives.” He groaned. “And by all things holy and Celestia, that no-good ninja bitch needs to go to Tartarus.”

“Down the elevator?” I looked at the smoke leaking from the elevator shaft. Oh, this wouldn’t be good.

Cabbage nodded. “Eyup.” He crawled over to the elevator’s ruined grate doors and held them open for me. “Go on, ladies first.” He weakly chuckled. “Give ‘er a little frontier justice for me, will ya?”

“Sure thing.” I stood at the edge of the shaft. My eyes watered from the acrid smoke that still billowed out of the elevator shaft, but I could at least tell there wasn’t any fire waiting for me at the bottom. “Uh… will you be okay?” Blood was slowly bubbling through cracks in his armor. Not normal.

He waved me away. “I’ll flag down a medic. Y’all don’t worry about me.” He grunted and peered down the shaft. “Looks dark. Good luck.”

“Thanks.” I gritted my teeth and dived into the darkness. “Here goes nothing.” When I was riding the elevator before, I thought the shaft was miles deep. Flying in headfirst was a stupid idea. It was hard to see through the smoke, and I nearly had a heart attack when an obstruction materialized through the smoke. I barely had enough time to flare my wings for a stop and I slammed into the roof of the elevator car after less than two minutes of diving. “Ow.” I stood up and shook out the unpleasant tingle in my hooves.

A tiny crack of light showed through bits of rubble. Most of it was too large for me to move. Now how do I get in there? I spied a small hatch on the roof right next to where I’d landed. I smashed it open and slunk in, keeping to the ceiling. Luckily, the elevator crashed in such a way that I could still enter the tunnels.

The hub was untouched, but dark. No signs of combat, no blood, no tell-tale Ranger craters, nothing. I cautiously dropped to the ground. “Hello? Rumcake? Diamond Seekers?” I whispered. My quiet voice echoed off the empty tunnels. Not good.

I was walking around the hub, trying to find some trace of the Diamond Seekers. An armored foreleg that was sticking out from underneath a collapsed section of wall deep inside the East tunnel caught my attention. I looked around for any obvious traps. I crept over to the unfortunate Steel Ranger and poked the hoof, half expecting movement.

The hoof twitched. I think. “You alive in there?” I hissed. I started shifting smaller bits of rubble off the Ranger. A feminine groan rattled its way out of the helmet. “You okay?” I slid a large curved slab off her.

She coughed violently. “Feels worse than the time I beat Baked Potato at shots.” Her armor was crumpled and dented in some places, but it was slowly pushing itself back into place. “Hey, uh, Frosty.” I grabbed her forelegs and pulled her out of the Steel Ranger shaped indent in the floor.

“Uh… Sparkle Cola, I presume?” I dug around in my saddlebag and offered her a healing potion. “Can you tell me what happened?”

She shook her head. “Thanks, but I don’t need it. Built-in med suite.” She pointed down into the familiar dim tunnels I’d traversed once. “Somepony smart decided to override the Sentry Bots that still work and reprogrammed them to attack us. One of ‘em fired a rocket at us and I got flattened by that wall coming down.” She angrily punched the wall. “Stupid wall. What are walls good for?” That gave me a giggle.

After fiddling with the controls a bit, I was able to turn up the backlight on my brand new PipBuck to use as a flashlight. There was an alert waiting for me as I cranked up the brightness. I tapped in the flashing button and a message furiously wrote itself into my vision. ‘Mk.3 Electronic Disruption Device recharged.’ Cool. So I had that. The message erased itself and it was replaced with ‘Surge Arc systems booted and charged. 72% stability. Authorize anyway? Y/N’ Uh. Wat?

“Hey, you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Sparkle Cola waved in front of me. “Is there something I’m not seeing up there?” She glanced into the darkness ahead. “Anypony in there?”

“What?” I finally responded. I’d unconsciously stopped to read the text currently obstructing my vision. “What’s happening?” I tapped the ‘Y’ button. The message disappeared, allowing me to see again. I raised my PipBuck. “Sorry, my computer thingy was getting in the way.”

“My systems are still rebooting. E.F.S. say anything?”

“What’s E.F.S.?”

Somehow, even beneath her helmet I could tell Sparkle was rolling her eyes at me. “It stands for Eyes-Forward Sparkle. There should be a horizontal bar across the top of your vision. There’ll be little vertical bars inside that bar that represent living things. Blue bars mean it’s friendly, red bars mean it wants to kill you. Yellow means it’s an ambiguous threat.”

Huh, that’s convenient. I looked up. Just Sparkle-Cola’s blue bar. “Nope. Nopony here but us dust bunnies.”

“Good. Wait, where’s the rest of Diamond?” I heard her power up a pair of power hooves. “They’ve got to be in here somewhere,” she muttered, scanning our surroundings more vigilantly.

A new blue bar appeared at the top of my vision for a fleeting moment. I guess that meant somepony friendly was somewhere further down the tunnel and to the right. “Somepony’s up ahead. The E.F.S. says it’s not a hostile.”

“You lead. I have no idea where anything is,” Sparkle muttered, casting shifty glances at every shadow. “I’ll cover your six.” I followed the corridor according to my map in an approximation of where I’d seen the bar. Sparkle fell in line behind me, her charged power hooves stompity-stomping on the concrete floor.

Strange noises echoed off the walls. “Damn, this place gives me the creeps.” Even though I’d been here once, the dim lighting really changed the atmosphere. “Keep your grenade launcher away. Last thing we need is to get caved in,” I reminded, changing the subject.

Sparkle snorted. “I’m not geared with that stuff.” I looked back at her with mild surprise. Steel Rangers without grenade launchers? Preposterous! “Power hooves and a minigun. Perfect for close quarters combat,” she retorted with glee.

“Somehow I find a minigun for close combat a bit much.” I continued following the left wall of the tunnel, since doing that always brought you to your destination. “I think we’re getting close,” I notified her, dropping into a low crouch. The one blue bar had turned into a bunch of blue and yellow bars. “Uh… don’t call me paranoid or anything, but why don’t you go ahead and talk to the ambiguously friendly lines?” It just didn’t seem like standard Ranger protocol to stand about in a hostile area, and Sparkle was the armored one anyway.

“Are they friendly?” Sparkle hesitantly asked, her minigun popping out of her battle saddle.

“Uh, ambiguously? Blues are Diamond, and I assume the yellows are Diamond’s prisoners,” I deduced. There was only a wall separating us and the multitude of possibly friendly bars. “I’ll be here,” I quietly whispered, before attaching myself to the ceiling.

Sparkle stared at me in shock. “How are you doing that?”

“Pegasus magic,” I simply replied. She angrily glared at me. “Don’t ask me how it works. All I have to do is keep flapping. It’s a little awkward, but it just happens naturally.” I shooed her onward. “There’s a door a few yards down.”

“I don’t bucking use doors,” Sparkle growled. I curiously watched as she reared up onto her hindlegs and punched right through the wall. “Oh yeah!” she yelled, presumably surprising the ponies in the room. “Wassup guys?”

Nothing. Ah, the awkward joy of a ruined dynamic entry.

“Uh… hum.” The stampity-stamp of Sparkle’s hooves became fainter for a moment before a frightening crunching of metal nearly made me fall off the ceiling. “Oh, it’s dead. I can never tell with these stupid robots,” she muttered to herself, just loud enough for me to hear.

The mare herself reappeared a moment later. “Uh, sector clear? Hey, Frosty, we might be in the wrong room.”

I glared angrily at the misleading little bar at the top of my vision. “Well, I don’t really know how this thing works. Let’s just keep looking.” Maybe I’d figure it out later.

I heard some shuffling coming from a tunnel labeled “Maintenance access only”. Curiosity got the better of me, and I crept over to the door to investigate. I dropped down from the ceiling and pressed the button on the wall to open the door. The lights in this area were completely gone, but the backlight from my PipBuck provided all the illumination I needed.

Thoughts aside, I quickly returned to inspecting my new surroundings. A thick coating of blood covered the floor. Only the door’s threshold prevented the blood from seeping through into the next room. “By Luna…” I breathed. Five armored Rangers were piled up in the corner of the hall. “Well, I guess that’s where the geyser of blood is coming from.” I floated over the entire mess so my hooves wouldn’t splash in the blood. Sparkle disregarded all sense of cleanliness and basically waded in after me.

How warm is the blood?

C’mon, brain. Don’t… wait, you don’t sound like brain. Who is this?

…Uh, that was the maniac. Who else has an unhealthy addiction to violence and gore?

Oh. That makes sense. Are you back then, brain?

The blood! Tell me about the blood!

Apparently not. I hesitantly dipped my claw into the blood and licked it. Still warm. Eugh.

It’s fresh. Tastes like they’ve been bleeding out for less than an hour.

As I drew nearer, one body in the middle of the pile stood out to me. Even soaked in blood, that familiar pink mane was all too identifiable. Oh no. This couldn’t be happening! He had to be alive!

I performed a quick check of his vitals. His pulse was thready and weak, but he was still with me.

That’s good. Heal him up. He’s lost a lot of blood.

What about shrapnel or br—

Do it. He doesn’t have much time left. Doc’ll sort him out later.

I pulled out another healing potion from my steadily-dwindling supply. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Sparkle doing the same to some other Rangers with her own first aid kit. “Drink it, please. Please.” I uncorked the potion and tilted it to Rumcake’s lips, pouring a tiny bit of it into his mouth. Nothing happened for several heartbreaking seconds.Those seconds felt like hours.

I willed myself to be strong as I checked the other Rangers. Less luck there. Only one other Ranger was still alive, and just barely. I hooked my hooves around his chest gently and pulled him out of the pile of Rangers. From there I tilted the bottle back to his slightly parted lips, trying to get as much of the potion into him.

I couldn’t tell how Rumcake was doing. He was deathly still, apart from his chest moving ever so slightly from every uneven shallow breath he made. He was still losing a lot of blood. The potion was doing its work, closing up the little bullet holes and gashes. My hopes soared. He’d swallowed it! That means he wasn’t dead yet! My heartbeat quickened as I excitedly checked his heart rate.

I quickly realized my problem. My heart was beating so fast against my chest, pounding in my ears, thus making the task of hearing Rumcake’s own heartbeat nigh impossible. I couldn’t lose him. But I didn’t know how to help him. My eyes began to sting as my vision blurred, tears rolled down my muzzle and mixed with the thick blood all over him.

Good work not paying attention in med class.

Shut up.

If only you would’ve—

Shut up!

At this point I realized I hadn’t really spent much time with him. We’d joked around, we’d had our obligatory drunken fling, but that was it. “There could’ve been so much more…” I mournfully whispered. “I didn’t even get to hear your story…” My heart wrenched as I remembered my own near-death, and Rumcake’s anguished and panicked attempts to bring me back. “A-and you felt the same. I could have…” My voice cracked before I could finish, leaving room for a quiet sob to slip out of my throat. All I could do was sit there and pray.

After what seemed like hours, Rumcake finally started swallowing more of the potion under his own power. I could feel my heart rate calm down as I watched him drink. “Thank the goddesses.” I choked back another sob and watched his eyes slowly flutter open and adjust to the dim light. “Now, what have I said about not dying?” I jokingly chastised him through tears while giving him a small smile.

Rumcake weakly reached up and batted at my ear. “Well, I haven't died yet, have I?” he said weakly. “So stop the water works will ya?” He attempted to stand up, but I pushed him down. Instead, I grabbed him in a Frosty-sized ursa hug. “What’re you doing down here?” he grunted, nuzzling my neck. “You should be outside on a stupid roof.”

“Slight change of plans.” I pressed against him, unwilling to let go. “You sure you’re going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine.” He attempted to wipe off all the blood he was covered in. “This is going to stain.”

“Shut up. My fur’s teal and the blood comes out just fine.” I giggled a bit.

Focus, nincompoop. See a problem here?

Wait. Yeah, I do. Who cleaned out my fur that last time?

…I won’t dignify that with a response. Think. Weren’t there more? The yellow bars, remember?

Crap. I relayed this to Rumcake.

“We were ambushed on the way back by some sentry bots. Sparkle Cola got flattened when part of the tunnel collapsed, then we pushed forward right into sentry gun fire. Next thing I know I wake up to your adorable face while lying in a pool of blood.” Rumcake tapped my nose. “They’re still around somewhere, no doubt.”

“Will you be alright? You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I was hesitant to leave him alone, especially in his current state. “I think Sparkle Cola should be able to handle it.”

Sparkle tapped Rumcake’s hoof. “Right here, commie.”

“Sitrep.”

“Pally Carrot Fries and Pally Fruit Punch are still alive, but Punchy’s down for the count. I’ve sort of stabilized them, but I’m out of medical supplies. The new kid and Orange Juice didn’t make it.

He sighed and closed his eyes. “Ugh… well, it could’ve been much worse. You alive over there Carrot?” A shallow groan floated across the pool of blood. “Close enough. You two get out there and figure out what’s going on.”

Sparkle cocked her head at Rumcake. “Are you going to be okay here on your own?”

“I’ll be fine. Have ammo; will kill.”

I wasn’t nearly convinced. “I can stay with you, if you want.”

“As nice as that would be, Sparkle’s in no condition to fight alone—yeah, I see that stupid limp you’ve got going.” Rumcake groaned, shifting himself into a sitting position. “There’s at least four other hostiles down here with us. Search and destroy, Frosty. Search and destroy.”

I nodded uncertainly and went back out into the hallway. My breath quickened when I heard several voices arguing amongst themselves. Thanks to the magic of sound, there was too much echo to discern what they were actually talking about. I instinctively climbed the walls and made sure Sparkle stayed a good distance behind, creeping toward the hole she made earlier. My talons hovered over the red button on the disruption device. Should I? And what the hell did the Shock Arc system do anyway?

“You may want to like, turn off your radio or whatever,” I whispered to Sparkle. “I’m about to start some feedback.”

“Gotcha.”

I pressed the red button, hoping that it would at least jam their radios, if they had any, before I started killing them off. I jumped when big red text scrolled across my vision. ‘Error. Shock Arc not activated. Disruptor not activated. Reduce distance and try again.’ Well, crap.

“Uh, never mind. It’s not working right now.”

Logic here. Let’s try to negotiate with them first. They won’t know you’re with the Rangers, hopefully.

Oh. Yeah, that sounds like a better idea. Good work, me. I dropped off the wall and took a deep breath, silently praying to Luna that they didn’t shoot first and not bother with the questions. Alright, let’s do this.

Wait. Keep the SMG in the duster. Just in case.

I took my advice and secured my favorite and only other bullet-based weapon to the inside of my duster.

I confidently strode into the room like I owned the place. I mustered up as much snobbishness as I could, using Soufflé’s mannerisms to the best of my abilities. “Gentlecolts. Seems like you great lumbering buffoons are good for something after all.” A room full of slavers all turned their attention to me at once and, thankfully, didn’t immediately shred me on the spot.

Somehow, somewhere, somepony had found these five slavers some brand-new heavy combat armor in matte black. Even their weapons looked brand new! One of them even had a set of night-vision goggles around his neck. What gives?

I’d just walked in without a plan, so I prayed that Sparkle could come up with something. “Oi! Who’ja think you are, prancin’ in like that?” one of the slavers yelled. “Drop yer guns!” The slavers flanking him shook their weapons threateningly.

“Don’t point your crude weapons at me.” I sniffed haughtily and continued. “Have you not been informed?” I asked, feigning surprise. “The Great Red Eye has requested Enclave assistance for this particular assignment. Besides, both of us need these degenerate Steel Rangers out of the way in order for plans to progress. Our deal was that the Enclave would supply weapons and Red Eye would allow us to have our way with things.”

The leader-ish slaver nodded dismissively at his henchmen behind him then fixed me with a glare. “Stan’ down, boyos. So what’re you doing here? I didn’t think officers got their hooves dirty.” Oh good, at least I was coming off as an officer. Although it wasn’t exactly what I was going after, I’d work with it anyway.

“Depends. Are you in charge of this shoddy operation here?” I snorted and motioned at them. “I mean, this is the sloppiest operation I’ve ever seen.” I continued to advance on the group, trying to get close enough for a sneak attack or something. I was still trying to come up with a better plan than ‘wait for Sparkle to wait for my signal’.

Way in the back, one specific slaver’s eyes suddenly opened wide with fear, as if she suddenly recognized me. Why would… oh shit, that's the slaver from earlier! This doesn’t count as rehab at all! “Oi! That bitch is trying to trick us! Kill ‘er!” she screeched, bringing her assault rifle to bear.

IT’S THAT TRAITOROUS BITCH! Tag me in! I wanna gut her!

Or I could shoot her.

That’s no fun. The penalty for disloyalty is death by de-throaterizing!

What? That’s not even—

They’re right up in our face anyway, so you’re out of your element. You know how it goes—snipers wear diapers. Let’s do this!

…As much as I didn’t want to admit it, Raider had a point. Close combat wasn’t exactly my forté. Oh well, I guess it couldn’t hurt…

I relaxed and felt control of myself slip away. My muscles twitched with excitement. My vision slowly edged into red and we silently giggled under our breath.

“Suffer not the traitor to live!” Raider Frosty hysterically yelled. She slapped the button on the disruption device, but this time something different happened. A high-pitched whine emitted from the device and then lightning erupted from it, arcing outward and connecting between all of us.

I received a heart-fluttering shock from my PipBuck, but apparently not as badly as the heavily-armored and highly-conductive slavers, who apparently didn’t enjoy one point two-one jiggawatts of electricity to the face. Little curls of smoke floated off their armor as they continued to shake and spasm violently from the electrocution my PipBuck was giving them.

“Yes! Yes! Unlimited pooowaah!” Raider Frosty screamed. She forged on, pushing toward the slavers with lightning streaming from our foreleg. The lightning abruptly tapered off and died with a sputtering spark. ‘Charge Depleted. Disruptor re-activated. Have a nice day’. The warning quickly flashed into our vision and disappeared.

Great timing, Raider.

Wait a minute. I was brain now. It was strange having backseat control to my own body.

“Shut up! All of you will die!”

Only two of the five slavers managed to get back up. Unfortunately for me, the power hoof-armed leader was one of the two getting up. The other one was still staggering to his hooves and trying to find where his weapon had skidded off to.

“Think again.” The leader simply sauntered forward and lazily swung at us with his power hoof. Raider Frosty reared backward to dodge, but he still managed clipped the right side of our ribs.

Dammit, I need those ribs!

“Lucky shot,” Raider Frosty growled. She drew several ragged breaths.

Damn ribs punctured our lungs. Finish ‘em quick!

I noticed the slaver in the back trying to aim his assault rifle, but thankfully Raider Frosty kept the leader in between us and him. “Get over here!” She charged at the leader, keeping low to the ground.

“Stale moves, foal!” he gloated. Raider Frosty feinted to the right, but he was anticipating it. He brought his power hoof around and caught us on the right shoulder. Raider’s charge was abruptly stopped as we were slammed into the ground. Just by standing back up, I could feel that something in our shoulder was seriously wrong. Bones didn’t bend that way, did they?

At least the armor took most of it.

Blood slowly trickled down our right foreleg. “Give up?”

“Nowhere close,” Raider Frosty grunted, favoring our claw leg. We stood facing each other not completely unlike duelists. One looking battered, bleeding, and gravely injured, and the other looking quite pleased with himself. Raider kicked up a small whirlwind of dust and debris at him, giving her an opening to escape to the ceiling.

“That was a cheap trick!” He looked around. “You never should have come here…” he muttered.

“Right behind you.” Raider Frosty dropped down onto his back and gripped his neck in a chokehold. He struggled and tried to kick us off. “Stop it!” He tried harder and even attempted to slam us into a wall. “Stop squirming!” Raider yelled, narrowly missing his face with a wild swing from Philomena’s Touch. He swung wildly, trying to punch us with his own power hoof with very little success. “Knock it off! You’re making this a lot more difficult than it needs to be!” Raider pushed aside the pain in our shoulder and broke his neck.

The slaver leader fell like a sack of ice and finally stopped struggling. Raider Frosty climbed off of him and immediately got shot at by the last slaver before she could get off a witty one-liner. Bullets punched into our armored duster and I could hear the little metal plates inside getting shredded. Some of them were blocked by the armor, but a good number of them made it through. She staggered and weaved through the slaver’s haphazard aim and attempted to dive behind a desk.

She didn’t really make it completely behind the desk, but at least Sparkle was very calmly sitting behind the same one. She bit our duster by the collar and pulled us the last few inches into cover. “Are you okay?” she yelled, noticing the dangerous amount of blood dripping from us.

“Where the buck were you?” Raider yelled back using our voice. “A little help would have been nice.” She looked Sparkle up and down, taking note of her lack of helmet and missing half her body armor. “And where the buck is your armor?”

The mostly un-armored Sparkle rolled her eyes. “You seemed to have the situation under control, so I went back and replaced some parts of Commander Rumcake’s armor to get his meds working. Question is, are you okay?”

“Frosty’ll probably be fine!” Damn, this was going to be hard to explain later. Raider wouldn’t let me have control back, which prevented me from immediately resolving the situation at hoof. “Frosty needs your help. In a few hours, we’ll probably have a little case of dead.” She started licking our wounds, and it seemed like she was enjoying it a whole lot.

“Uh… you’re getting a bit creepy.” Sparkle chucked a rock at the slaver still trying to shoot us though the desk we were still hiding behind. “Trying to have a conversation here!” she shouted at him over the din of gunfire.

“I’m going to charge him. If I can get into his minimum range while he’s reloading, he’ll have to deal with me hoof-to-hoof.” She grinned and flexed my claw. “Then I can get down to the de-throaterizing.” The siren song of Doc’s orange slime called to her ears.

“That’s too dangerous! What if you get killed?” Sparkle exclaimed, slapping us across our muzzle. “And Rumcake would never let me live either if he found out I let you do something so stupid!” She pointed at my anti-machine rifle slung across our back. “Why don’t you just use that?”

“Only Frosty knows how to use it,” Raider Frosty glumly hissed, holding our cheek. “Snipers are wussies.”

“But you’re Frosty!” She prodded our chest. “I’ve heard of your deadly accuracy. You know what to do. Do it. It’s not like this asshole will ever stop shooting! How much ammo does this guy have?”

Raider and I both weakly laughed. Come on.

Give me control back. I’ll put an end to this right now.

No!

Calm down. Relax. Clear your mind.

“I don’t do calm!” Raider Frosty screamed, holding my head in her forelegs. “Let me execute him! Up close and personal?” she whined.

“Uh… I’ll just be over here…” Sparkle shied away to the other end of the desk, allowing me to continue my mental instability in relative peace whilst she picked up a dropped rifle and began to fire back.

Nuh-uh. Maybe some other time.

I could feel her conflicting emotions flying around my head. She finally let out a resigned sigh. “I’ll trust you on that.” She slipped away back into the disturbed depths of my mind. My movements were my own again, and with it, the impact of my injuries finally caught up to me.

“Oh, Luna, I think he hit my spleen,” I groaned, clutching my stomach. “I feel like I flew into the pointiest hailstorm in the world.” I could feel nearly every bullet in my body shift with each movement.

“Are… are you okay?” Sparkle finally piped up, tossing the empty rifle away.

“No. But I’m myself, if that’s what you mean.” I pulled my anti-machine rifle off my back and did a spot check for maintenance. My professionalism took over as I slid my SMG over to her. “I’m going to need three seconds of cover. Can you do that?”

She took my cue and confidently nodded. “On your mark.” I loaded one more shock bullet into the chamber and prepared myself in every way possible. Last-minute, I swapped out the magnification attachment for the velocity attachment. I’d be scopeless, but at this range I wouldn’t need it.

I mentally mapped out my plan. Once Sparkle had his attention, roll out of cover and shoot him. Bodyshot should be good enough. I didn’t trust my ability to accurately remove his face in my current state. “Now.”

Sparkle gripped the SMG’s firing bit tightly and swung out of cover. “C’mere y’ lit’l prick!” She fired short, controlled bursts, weaving back and forth between bits of rubble.

At the same time, I combat rolled out from behind the desk and firmly planted my anti-machine rifle’s bipod on the ground. My heart rate was all over the place, so I decided to forgo my usual counting. Steady. Boom. My heart jerked as the electricity flew from my rifle directly into my body again. The bullets and little bits of shrapnel still embedded in me became little points of fire. I probably screamed, but the adrenaline drowned it out.

I think I passed out. I woke up a few minutes later a few pints lighter and more sore than I would have liked to be. The slaver’s hooves were exactly where they were before. The rest of him wasn’t nearly as cohesive—there was some of him along the wall, over there in the corner, and on the ceiling as well. Ew. Sparkle immediately jumped over to me and dragged me up into a sitting position. “Please tell me you’re not going to die.” She nervously checked my bandages. When did those get there?

“At this point, it’d be a blessing,” I managed to croak. My world was mostly pain, tightness, and the annoyingly familiar feeling of at least two cracked ribs. “Will I be granted the sweet release of death?”

“You’ve lost a lot of blood, but I patched you up for the time being. Luckily enough, I had just enough of a healing potion left over for you.” She looked around at the little pieces of gore sort of plastered everywhere. “Whatever you just did totally made that guy fry then explode. It was kinda cool, in this really fascinatingly gruesome way.”

Oh, okay. So that’s what those bullets do.

Did you really think they were made just to electrocute the sniper?

Shut up, brain.

“Wait. Are they still alive?” I pointed at the three on the ground, one of which was the traitor.

“They’re sort of fried,” Sparkle flatly stated. “Although somehow your thingy didn’t kill any of them, so...”

“Excellent.” I stood up, against the protests from Sparkle and my body, and purposefully stomped toward the one in the back. “Now she can’t go anywhere.” I stopped in front of the unconscious mare. “I have a deal to complete.”

Sparkle uncertainly stood next to me, looking down on the hapless traitor. “Are you sure?”

I glared at her, my expression darkening. “Either you help me or you join her.”

Poor Sparkle didn’t need any further encouragement. She jump-started the traitor with an adrenaline shot then tied her up. I impatiently waited for a whole minute before agitatedly glaring at Sparkle. “Well? Why isn’t she up yet?”

Sparkle shifted on her hooves. “Give it a minute to metabolize. You zapped her good.”

The mare on the ground, stripped of her armor and tied up, faintly groaned.

I slapped the traitor a few times to wake her up, which actually made her gasp and flop forward into a sort of sitting position. “G’morning, sunshine. Enjoy the toast?” I gently patted her on the head as well, just because I was in a taunty sort of mood.

“Wha? Wot’s…” The slaver tried to rub the back of her head and instead caught sight of my crazed grin right up in her face. “Oh, tits.”

“Glad you could join us.”

Suddenly very much awake and conscious, the slaver immediately spat in my face. I grimaced and wiped the saliva off my face only to smear it right back onto hers. In the back of my mind, I felt Raider trying to make me spit on her face to return the favor, but I had better things to do.

“Now that you’re paying attention, I’m going to ask you a few simple questions. I’m angry, cranky, and injured to the point where I have zero tolerance,” I nonchalantly sing-songed to the traitor.

“Whatcha gonna do? Cry all over me?” With defiant words like that coming out of her mouth, I needed to show her I meant business.

“Shut it.” I reverently placed Philomena’s Touch on the ground as to keep it as scuff-free as possible and then punched the traitor’s muzzle as hard as I could. “You hurt somepony I love. You betrayed my trust. You nearly killed an entire town.” She held her bloody nose, anger burning in her eyes as I raised my voice. “Why should I not hurt you?”

She was silent. “Frosty…” Sparkle tapped my shoulder. “Maybe—”

One more glare was all it took to shut her up. I turned my attention back to the traitor. “At this point, there’s no chance for you to come out of this alive,” I said as firmly as I could. “It’s more like… if you cooperate, I’ll make it quick and painless.” To make my point, I made a show of examining my talons. “Drag it on, and you might not be so lucky. Understand?”

Eventually, the slaver rolled her eyes. “Oh, you really think you're so tough, don't you? M’ boy toy hits me harder than that,” she snarked at me, although it was hard to take her seriously with a bloody nose and a growing welt on her cheek.

Let me at ‘er! She just needs a little motivation.

Go away, Raider. I’m trying to conduct an interrogation.

“Alright, a bullet to the head is no longer an option.” I nudged my rifle endearingly and set it aside. “Change your mind yet?”

Ironic choice of words, considering my state of mind.

Tag me in. She’ll be coughing up words and teeth in no time.

“You're not gonna do anything to me.”

“Aaaand no throat-slitting for you,” I said. The stupid cocky smirk on the traitor’s face was unchanging. “That’s all the quick ones. You may want to reconsider your answer. It’s only going to get worse from here.”

I know a thing or two about intimidation. C’mon, let me!

Raider, buck off. I’m busy.

“Ooh, I’m so bloody scared I’m gonna piss myself.” The traitorous mare sarcastically waved her hooves in mock fear.

Hit her again, make her bleed. I want to taste her blood!

Ugh… fine. There really wasn’t any other choice left. I needed to break her will before I got any more information out of her. Lives depended on it.

Using my claw this time, I delivered an uppercut that audibly made something crack, making me feel much better about both myself and my lack of sensation in my mechanical limb. So hard, in fact, the traitor nearly made a complete backflip assisted by her face. I was about ninety percent sure that the sound was her teeth snapping together and not something breaking inside my claw, but I probably had time to figure that out later.

The traitor sat up, cradling her lower jaw and yet she still managed to chuckle. “You're pathetic, you know that?" sneered the slaver. "I just waltz right into town, admitting that I'm part of the group attacking your town, and you just let me lead you all into a trap. We almost didn't bother trying this plan because we didn't think anypony would be stupid enough to fall for it, but you proved us wrong.” She spat out a broken tooth as she continued to gloat.

I needed to get this interrogation back on track before I lost my cool. Raider Frosty was pushing her boundaries harder than ever, but I couldn’t afford to let her out. If Raider had her way, she would brutally murder the mare without bothering to get any information out of her, all while feeling quite pleased with herself.

“Why’d you do it?” I managed to hold back another swing to break her jaw, since she sort of needed it for talking.

The slaver continued to stupidly laugh. “Fifty caps and a Sparkle-Cola Rad.” That momentarily confused me when I remembered the Rad-less Steel Ranger standing behind me with the same name.

My ears flicked backward and my right eye may have twitched in annoyance. “You did this for bits of metal and a drink? Are you bucking kidding me?” I yelled in outrage.

“It was so buckin’ easy, too. All you self-righteous hero types think you can fix anything with the power of being extremely gullible.” My punching bag coughed up a tooth fragment. “Bust out the water works, the sob story, and anypony’ll jump in to be the big damn hero.”

Rip it limb from limb! Show her what real heroes are made of.

“I’m going to tear you apart if you don’t start cooperating right now,” I growled, placing myself one step closer to her.

Somehow, she managed to simply laugh that off. “You’re so frickin’ stupid, you know that? You charge down here recklessly, imagining yourself as a hero come to save the day even while you side with the Steel Rangers. The Steel Rangers. The ponies who do nothing but steal everything of value, kill anyone who's in their way, and take all the technology that could be used to restore Equestria and lock it away so that nopony can use it. You know, the 'heroes'.”

“Does your ass get jealous of the shit that comes out of your mouth?” I shouted at her. Granted, I didn’t really know what I was defending, but she didn’t need to know that. “Don’t make me let you suffer.”

"You claim that you're going to kill me for what I've done. It's an empty threat. I know it, you know it. You hero-types would never kill in cold blood. I call your bluff." The slaver flashed a victorious grin at me. "So, what are you going to do now?"

I stared at her for what felt like a long time, my frown deepening further and further.

The slaver stared back at me, looking amused by my level of concentration.

Okay, screw it. She wasn’t going to say anything useful, and she’d even called my bluff. She was literally asking for it and I’d had enough of her. “I’ll think about it,” I said, a sly grin creeping across my face.

“Of course ya would.”

I began to loosen my mental barriers and eventually stopped resisting the pressure that had been building in my brain. One request… when it’s your turn, say something cool. Put this bitch in her place.

Slowly and gradually, a low rumbling chuckle bubbled from my throat.

Go wild, Raider. You both deserve it.

“What’s so funny?”

“I thought about it,” Raider Frosty informed her, an almost sultry tone to her voice. “And I’ve decided I‘m going to have some fun.”

“Wha–wha–?” The traitor suddenly started hyperventilating, clearly seeing the shift in our demeanor.

“Frosty gave you the option of a bullet to the head,” Raider whispered evilly. “Then she gave you the option of slitting your throat. I'm not a big fan of either of those. In fact—" Raider got our face even closer than before to the suddenly panicking mare “—I heard that dying from a broken heart is the most painful way to die. I’ve always wondered if that was true.”

The slaver’s eyes widened in terror. She tried to squirm out of the psychotic mare’s grasp, but Raider Frosty was faster and she swiftly drove our talons deep into the traitor’s chest, puncturing her heart. “Let’s find out,” she giddily whispered. We stared into the traitor’s terrified eyes as she slowly bled out, second by second. I could tell Raider was enjoying this to a disturbing degree, but I really couldn’t blame her.

It ultimately took over three minutes for her to stop twitching and whimpering. She extracted our claw from the ex-traitor’s body and contentedly lapped up the blood. “Uh… are you done yet?” Sparkle cautiously whispered. “She’s dead.”

“I know. Frosty knows,” Raider Frosty replied. “And Frosty needs a break.” She stopped in her cleaning and perked up our ears. “Somepony’s coming.”

Rumcake stumbled in holding a first aid kit in his teeth. He was looking much better and less perforated, but still just still as bloody. “Found one more!” He galloped over to me and wrapped me up in a wet, hug. “You’re alive! Thank the goddesses!”

Can I have my body back?

No. Raider Frosty nuzzled against Rumcake’s neck. “Sure am. All thanks to you.” She placatingly licked the slightly coagulated blood off Rumcake’s chest.

“What?” He looked to Sparkle for help. “Uh… is she okay?”

Sparkle snorted. “No. Not at all.”

He smoothed our mane while Raider Frosty decided to give him a tongue bath. “We’ll fix you up. I’m here for you.” Yep. Definitely going to be impossible to explain this later.

END OF ACT ONE

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Ruthless – There is no mercy, only overkill. Your damage resistance is increased by +50%. Additionally, your Strength temporarily increases to 10 whenever your health is at 20% or lower.
Current Sub-perk: Bloodthirsty – Blood for the Blood God! You gain +3 to Unarmed.
New Quest Item: PipBuck 2000 Plus – You finally got back that computer thingy that the Steel Rangers stole from you ages ago! Technically it was theirs to begin with, but that’s not the point. You can now access E.F.S., S.A.T.S., map, radio, and inventory sorting spells.

Intermission: Intrusion in progress…

Intermission: Intrusion in progress…

“Don’t worry. I’m not supposed to be here either.”

Several weeks ago…

Nopony ever looked twice at a lowly recruit dashing back and forth from office to office, coffee in hoof and mail bag flapping behind him. It also really helped that Severe Turbulence had the most generic-looking face possible, which in turn made him hard to remember. A little mane dye to paint his outstandingly yellow mane a more generic shade of pastel orange to match his equally generic sky blue coat, and suddenly he was impossible to pinpoint in a crowd—something that he used to his advantage.

One stolen coltfriend’s uniform and four stolen “venti” coffees (plus convenient holder) later, Turbulence simply rushed right into the auxiliary data center and picked up the first mail bag that he found, all without being given a second glance. Entry had been the easy part—obtaining the data that he’d been hired to find was the hard part.

He’d managed to already bluff his way past two NCOs and their lackeys, but the locked door in his face proved to be just enough to halt progress. There wasn’t a keypad to examine or even a pressure-sensitive cloud anywhere—this was a simple lock, which needed a simple key to get past. Ironically enough, the only reason he needed to get into this room was because he needed yet another key open yet another door.

As not to look too suspicious to the scattering of ponies still doing their work, Turbulence placed the coffee holder on the floor and pretended to pat himself down for keys whilst he thought of another option. Lockpick? Didn’t bring anything besides the PDA. Break down the door? Definitely a no. Steal the keys? It was harder to tell who would have the keys to General Silverbolt’s office.

“You there! ‘Scuse me!” somepony called out, obviously pointed in Turbulence’s direction, but he chose to ignore it in favor of digging through the pockets of the mail bag for anything he could use to knock out a fully-grown stallion.

A hoof landed on Turbulence’s shoulder and he spun around, hoof still resting on the box cutter he’d just found buried in all the mail. “Yo. How can I help you, sir?” Just in case he hadn’t been blown, a nonchalant greeting would do for the time being.

The pudgy old stallion expectantly held out his hoof. “I’d like my mail, please.”

Turbulence didn’t miss a beat. “I’ll see if I’ve got it on me right now, but don’t count on it. Some joker in Sorting thought it would be funny if they dumped all the morning mail into one box to save time. I’ve been goin’ up and down floors all day trying to deliver packages.” He took out a random parcel and waved it. “This guy is third floor, but these ones”—a few letters joined into the waving—“go to different floors as well. All my mail’s messed up.” With that, Turbulence dumped all the mail back into the bag before the officer could read any of the names.

“That’s too bad. I’m expecting a very important parcel.” The—Turbulence glanced at the rank patches on the pony’s lapels and gulped—Major sighed. “Darn.”

Since appearances needed to be kept, Turbulence pretended to carefully look through his stolen mail. “Yeah, I’m not seeing anything. How ‘bout this—tell me what it looks like and once I deliver the General’s mail I’ll personally go find your package and deliver it to your desk, asap. Sir.”

“The mail waits for nopony, I suppose.”

Turbulence allowed himself a grin as he thought to himself, Neither do spies.

The Major tilted his head. “Say, I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”

“Stormy Storm, fourth floor runner. I’m usually not up here most of the time,” Turbulence bluffed, shaking the stolen mail bag again. “You know, mail things today.” He made a show of patting himself down again. “You wouldn’t happen to have a key to the General’s office, would you? M’boss explicitly told me to leave this dossier on his desk.”

“That’s not standard operating procedure, is it?” the Major asked.

Of course it wasn’t, which was why asking was a huge risk for Turbulence. “Hey, not my problem. The boss tells me what to do and I do it. Don’t shoot the messenger, sir.” He shrugged anyway, as if it was actually true. As an afterthought, he gestured at the coffee on the floor. “Coffee, sir?

“I’ll pass, thanks.” The Major examined Turbulence, searching for any signs of deceit. Unable to find any, the Major shrugged and produced a key from one of the pockets on his fatigues. “Don’t all you mail runners have keys to everything?”

“Fourth floor uses those new card lock things. Haven’t had a physical key key since I got here.” Turbulence chuckled, one wing behind his head and a hoof firmly on top of the box cutter—just in case. “Like I said, today’s been a weird day.”

The door unlocked and the Major nudged it open. “There you go, airpony. I expect my mail on my desk by the end of the day.” With that, the old officer ambled off to do other things.

Turbulence trotted in, making sure to call out, “Will do, sir!” over his shoulder. He shut the door and, as a precaution, locked it as well. Ha. Chump.

Down to business. General Silverbolt always kept a backup keycard hidden inside the framed picture of his family, according to the information that Turbulence had purchased. Just in case, a search through the rest of the desk wouldn’t hurt either.

Let’s see if you’ve got anything interesting in here, General. Unfortunately, there was only so much paperwork that could be considered remotely engaging before even Turbulence lost interest in it as well. Without anything to copy physical files with, all the documents would have to go back exactly where he’d found them.

Taking apart the photo frame wasn’t even a challenge. The ID card slipped out from between the backing and the picture, right into Turbulence’s waiting hooves. “Huh. Cute foals,” he muttered, examining the photo a bit more closely. Sans freakishly large wings on the red one, it seemed like the General had a happy little normal family at home. Picture frame replaced, it was time to continue the job.

Turbulence mentally ticked off acquiring the General’s ID card and proceeded to the next step: accessing the data center on the sixth floor using the newly-acquired card. Even at minimum staffing, there were still enough ponies around that might take notice of a mailpony trying to get into the backup data storage room.

To avoid any chances of being seen by anypony, especially that Major, Turbulence decided to jump out of the window and leisurely glide down to the sixth floor, where he gained a few more property damage points and hopped into somepony’s office.

Unfortunately, the office was still occupied.

“Ma’am.” Turbulence fished a random envelope from his stolen mail bag and offered it to the surprised mare with a dramatic flourish. “Mail.”

The small reddish-brown pegasus, seemingly some sort of office lackey as well, hesitantly took the envelope without giving it a look. “Uh… thanks?” She wouldn’t stop staring at Turbulence like he’d just broken a window lock and swooped right on in, which really bothered him greatly.

Turbulence bowed and doffed an invisible cap at the mare. “Efficiency is our priority. Have a nice day.” Before she could get another word in edgewise, he was out the door and quickly trotting down the hall. Every interaction increased the chances of detection, so grabbing the data and bugging out needed to happen in the next ten minutes.

“Six twenty three. Where the buck is six twenty three?” Turbulence muttered to himself as he trotted past doors. “Six fifteen, fourteen, nineteen, twelve, who the buck labeled these doors? They’re not even in order.”

It took a lot longer than necessary to find the right door, especially since six twenty three was right between six fifty nine and a janitor’s closet for absolutely no reason. If somepony even asks me to go kill the bucking architect of this building, I’ll bucking do it for free. Who even puts fifty nine and twenty three next to each other?

At least the General’s keycard worked. The door beeped once and unlocked, allowing Turbulence inside.

The data room was dominated by a single massive supercomputer—not a cloud computer, but an old pre-war supercomputer kept in tip-top shape. Another security gate locked with a keypad stood between it and Turbulence, but that wasn’t a problem. The seven-digit codes were on a predictable rotation—not really high security, but it was a backup database after all.

“Seven… three… five… five… six… zero… eight.” Turbulence took a step back after stabbing the last button, just in case an alarm triggered, the door electrified, or if the room would simply explode. This better damn work.

Once again, his informant had come through. Nothing stood between him and the server now.

A horrible, unthinkable thought crossed his mind. Unless the reports aren’t even here, which would make me angry enough to strangle a small animal. It was the one thing he hadn’t been able to verify before starting the job. Still, bits were bits and the hookers wouldn’t pay themselves.

Thankfully, there wasn’t any security on the server itself. Turbulence plugged his PDA into the terminal built into the side of the server’s humongous case and let the programming do the work. In a matter of minutes, his PDA had copied fifteen complete files.

“That’s funny… there should only be four of you.” Turbulence sat down and opened the first and newest report. Most of it was still classified and the other reports didn’t appear to be in any numerical sequence, but the simple existence of the files on this server was all that mattered.

Sample ID: 209-79
Duration: 3 Days.
Test Status: Stopped after Stage I tests.
Notes: Mutation of strain 205-4B. Weak protein shell creates structural instability. Consider harvesting genetic viable material for further study. See detailed research notes that follow. Refer to “Nexus” specimen files for annotations.
Status: New sample created (SID209-80F), SID209-79 destroyed.
Additional note: New sample redundant. Report removed.

Once again, Turbulence began to wonder what he had gotten himself into. Contents still not verified, he moved onto the next one.

Sample ID: 209-42
Duration: 7.3 Days.
Test Status: Stage II testing complete, tests terminated during Stage III testing.
Notes: This new strain seems promising, although it is unstable and volatile when dispersed aerobically. Researcher contracted SID209-42 during testing, pending observation. Consider returning to SID208-11 for a more stable version of the virus. See detailed research notes that follow. Refer to “Nexus” specimen files for annotations.
Status: Contained. 7 units preserved in storage, blueprint and notes logged.

Next. None of these were the right ones.

Sample ID: 206-98 “The Bees”
Duration: 18 Days.
Test Status: Completed, pending approval.
Notes: Although this version of the virus has been heavily modified for more subtle effects, there is still a high probability of transmitting the disease to other unintended hosts through bodily fluids and liquids. Unintended side effects include lethargy and vivid hallucinations. Under-performs to requirements. See detailed research notes that follow. Refer to “Nexus” specimen files for annotations.
Status: Strain viable. 25 units preserved in storage, all relevant research catalogued. New samples created for further study. (See annotations)

Turbulence began to wonder whether breaking into their cold storage could be worth a bonus. Crates of beer didn’t pay for themselves, either.

Sample ID: 205-01
Duration: 0.4 Hours
Test Status: Failed Stage I testing.
Notes: Specimen expired in the incubator. No research notes follow.
Status: SID205-01 destroyed.
Personal note from the Head Scientist: What idiot put this one together? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN WHY DID I HIRE THEM WHO EVEN SIGNED OFF ON THIS ONE?

“Heh. There’s always an idiot somewhere.”

Sample ID: 203-33B
Duration: 2 Days.
Test Status: Stage I testing completed.
Notes: This strain of the virus functions no differently to SID203-30. Testing discontinued to save resources. See detailed research notes that follow. Refer to “Nexus” specimen files for annotations.
Status: Strain viable. 1 unit preserved for records.

This “Nexus” specimen seemed like the file Turbulence was looking for, judging by the many references to it. All the files were dated from newest to oldest, so he scrolled to the bottom of the list. Sure enough, the last file in the list appeared to be exactly what he was looking for.

Sample ID: 198-23 “Nexus”
Duration: N/A
Test Status: Complete.
Notes: This is the recovered specimen being modified. The virus appears to have a very low reproductive yield with a very high efficiency rate. However, due to what appear to be manufacturing fallacies by the previous creator(s), pegasi appear to be immune due to the unique nature of their semi-avian blood cells; the virus simply remains dormant within the body. Testing on non-pegasus test subjects reveals the following: Irrational thought, hallucination, increased hyperactivity and outbursts of unprovoked violence. As the virus progressed, test subjects repeatedly voiced that they were hungry but refused to eat food offered to them, instead attempting to bite the researchers themselves. By the end of Stage V testing, eight of the ten test subjects had resorted to devouring their own flesh to sate their hunger. The other two displayed potential of free thought through the medium of very colorful death threats once restrained. All subjects were terminated or perished by the end of testing. The corpses have been preserved for future study and reference. See detailed research notes that follow.
Addendum: Pegasi with any of several specific genetic defects (all ranging from uncommon to rare; see attached list) have been proven to be susceptible to the virus to varying levels of severity. SID201-88U created to study.
Addendum: The virus appears to respond positively to certain combat drugs. Subjects that had experimented with drugs (tests revealed recreational or otherwise) appeared to have a weaker immune response to the virus, regardless of drug. Additional study on multiple subjects have revealed that the presence of certain drugs can negate a pegasus’s natural resistance to the virus. SID203-81B, SID203-84, and SID 203-87 should be divided for modification and testing.
Status: Multiple units stored for further manipulation and research. (See annotations)
Personal note from the Head Scientist: When the recon jocks said they hit a fruit cart for this stuff, they really weren’t kidding. Guy brings me an apple in a hazmat box and says “Science this, bitch.” Unbelievable. Anyway, whoever made this shit went through a lot of trouble trying to secretly test this stuff using the “care packages” that’ve been going down to the dirt-munchers. After initial analysis, I’ve noticed that this stuff is heavily modified—and we’re the only ones with the resources and time to do so. Stiffy thinks it’s the Thunderhead nerds, but there’s no way to confirm without running into all the red tape in the galaxy. There are markers in the genetic material that confirm my suspicions, but that’s really not my job to worry about it. Somepony’s going to get fired for losing their deadly pathogen, that’s for sure.

Turbulence smirked and tucked his PDA away. Thanks to that scientist, he had definitive proof that somepony had indeed stolen the shipment, knowing full well what its actual payload was. The research notes attached to it would probably confirm that this was the same stuff that his employer was looking for.

Suddenly, a foreleg appeared around Turbulence’s neck, seized him in a chokehold, and tried to push him to the ground. Being larger than his assailant, he didn’t budge and instead tried to find the box cutter in the mail bag before he blacked out. Elbowing the pony behind him didn’t even cause a grunt of pain.

“Woah there! Stand down, stand down!”

His assailant immediately allowed him to fall forward and gasp for breath. “As you wish, commander,” she droned. This wasn’t part of the plan. A double cross, then?

“Huh. Didn’t plan on seeing you here, Turbs,” the voice remarked. “This just got awkward.”

Turbulence knew that voice. He’d been hired by that same pony in the past several times. “Eight Gauge, is that you? You sound different without my dick in your mouth.”

“It’s Twelve Gauge, you asswipe.”

“Whatever.” Turbulence pulled himself back up into an upright position to confront the two ponies in the room with him. Twelve was definitely the bluish stallion in the back, still sporting his really stupid bronze-colored crewcut with an annoyed scowl on his face. Turbulence didn’t recognize the little teal mare standing slightly in front of him, but the vacant stare she was giving him was curiously perturbing.

Being the charmer he was, Turbulence decided that he needed to introduce himself. “Name’s Turbulence. Severe Turbulence.” He held out his hoof to the mare and tried not to stare at the gaudy blue stripe running through her white mane. “And yours, madam?”

The mare didn’t respond. In fact, she seemed to not even notice that she was being spoken to.

Twelve took a step forward and shoved the mare out of the way, who simply tottered to the side and took much longer than expected to recover her footing. “Enough with the small talk. What’re you doing here?”

“This place is haunted. Would you believe I’m an exorcist?”

“…No.”

The box cutter seemed like a very good idea to Turbulence at the moment, but it was possible that he could still talk his way out of the situation he’d found himself in. “So… commander, huh? When’d that happen?”

“It hasn’t happened yet, but I still outrank you.”

Confusion set in. “But she just called you—”

“Oh, she’s just sort of stuck like that for the moment.” Twelve gestured at the mare who was pointlessly—and still just as vacantly—staring at the wall. “It’s her go-to response.”

There were many words to describe a pony, but “stuck” usually wasn’t one of them. Peculiar wording aside, Turbulence still needed a way out with the data he’d just stolen. Twelve and the mare probably didn’t know just yet, since he’d managed to tuck away his PDA just in time.

“Hold on, don’t you dare change the topic. I’m going to ask you one more time: what are you doing here?” Twelve snapped.

Turbulence smirked. “I’m just trying to download the latest episode of ‘Honey, Where Are My Horseshoes?’. I can’t stop watching that show.” He needed to buy time until a plan could come together.

“How do you even manage to watch that show? It’s just half an hour of some retard walking around a house yelling about his lack of hoofwear.”

“But that character development!” Turbulence briefly considered the air vents. No, that leads right into the air conditioner. That, and this mare’s smaller than I am so she’ll have the upper hoof.

“What character development? He literally does nothing but ask where his horseshoes are for the entire episode!” It was a mind-numbing show and a terrible excuse, but Twelve still hadn’t caught on. “Hey, stop changing the subject!”

Or maybe he did. Curses.

There wasn’t anything in the room that would function as a weapon to incapacitate a stallion, let alone two battle-ready pegasi. “Look, I’ve got places to go and ponies to k–meet. We done here?” It was only after Turbulence had said that when he realized that wasn’t his best attempt at ending a conversation.

“I’m going to ask you one more time. What the buck are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” An idea came to Turbulence’s mind which could potentially buy him some time. Maybe if I can trap them behind the security gate, I can get out of here scot-free. “I’m doing maintenance on the server, buddy. What’re you two doing in here?”

Twelve snorted impatiently. “That’s it. Airpony, apprehend.”

The mare suddenly snapped to attention. “As you wish, commander.” She turned and pounced impossibly fast, showing no sign of the clumsiness that Turbulence had noticed earlier. Before he knew it, he found himself face-first against the tile with his wings and forelegs pinned behind his back.

“Let’s face it, Turbs. I know how you work, and meeting you here isn’t a coincidence. You’re after our research notes, aren’t you? Because, coincidentally enough, so are we.”

Turbulence didn’t answer, on account of the increasing amount of pressure being put toward bending his wings the wrong way. With no way out, he hoped that Twelve would monologue long enough for an opportunity to reveal itself.

“Who’s paying? It’s somepony from Thunderhead, isn’t it?”

“C’mon. You know how this’ll work. I’ll say no, you’ll guess again, I’ll mislead you, you’ll believe it, then you’ll get into trouble and none of us are any better off. I have never failed on a mission, Commander. Any mission.”

Twelve tapped his chin in thought. “In that case, one of use is bound to end up gravely disappointed, because neither have I. Airpony, break his wing.”

“Your wish is my command.” The mare on Turbulence’s back twisted her body for better leverage. She gripped the base of his right wing in her teeth and pulled backward until it made a cringe-inducing cracking noise.

“Aaaugh!” Turbulence screamed. “My wing!”

Disregarding the other pony’s discomfort, Twelve groaned and facehoofed. “I meant the other wing. The one that you were already holding onto.”

What could almost count as disappointment surfaced in the mare’s eyes for a brief, fleeting, moment. “Right away, sir.” Obediently, she carried out the mirrored action for Turbulence’s other wing and forcibly dislocated it with a hideous pop.

The sounds of Turbulence screaming were drowned out by Twelve shouting, “No, no—that’s not what—ugh, never mind.”

Turbulence was starting to feel that he wasn’t being paid enough to die for somepony else’s cause. Well, it was that and his tortured wings sending waves of pain that kept him from coming up with any other methods of escape. It was time to spill the beans, in the name of being able to fly again.

“Buck! I don’t know, okay? You know how I work—no names, no faces. It’s somepony from Thunderhead and that’s all I know!”

Somepony at Thunderhead must have noticed something was wrong and was trying to find out exactly who was responsible for the string of “unfortunate accidents” happening to their research. Pieces of the puzzle were suddenly coming together in Turbulence’s mind with the reports he’d just read. Neighvarro operatives must have hit the Volunteer Corps’s caravan in transit, knowing full well what its true purpose was. They’d then gone and had their science ponies repurpose the virus for their own means.

“Anything else you’d like to share?”

This much pain wasn’t worth the money he’d been paid, that was for sure. “They knew how this tricky shit went. They set a drop point, backup drop, surveillance, everything. Big league stuff,” Turbulence cried. “Just heal me up and let me go on my way already!”

Twelve thought about it for a moment. “Alright. Turn over the uniform, the bag, and whatever’s up your butt.”

“There’s nothing in my butt!” Turbulence lied, trying not to bring attention to his hindquarters. “That was one time, and you know it.”

Of course, the last time the two of them were on the same “team”, and Twelve’s other operative that had tagged along didn’t really want to touch the handle of the flip-knife that Turbulence had produced. As uncomfortable as it was, a safety knife up the butt had actually saved his hide exactly twice.

“Airpony, keep him restrained. If he struggles while I confiscate his tools, we’re going to have problems.” Thankfully, Twelve hadn’t decided to have his lackey shove her hoof up his bum to verify.

“Yes, commander.” The mare on Turbulence’s back tightened her hold on his forelegs. Not that he was even struggling to begin with, since his wings were still killing him.

With nowhere to go, Turbulence was forced to painfully lie on the ground as Twelve finally found the PDA with the reports on it. “What’s this then? Looks like you’ve been busy.”

“That’s all I found, okay?”

“And I believe you. Airpony, tie him up and treat him. We’re bringing him with us once I get the data transfer done.” Twelve turned away and began to do things with the terminal.

“As you wish, commander.” The mare abruptly snapped Turbulence’s left wing back into place, making him cry out in pain.

Twelve chuckled. “It’s a good thing this room is soundproofed. Otherwise it might sound like somepony’s getting raped in here.”

“That’s not—ow, shit—funny!” Turbulence growled as the mare roughly pulled his right wing back into alignment. “Only assholes make ra—”

He was interrupted by the mare cramming a potion vial into his mouth. “Drink.”

As he drank, his wing mended itself thanks to the power of magic. The mare quickly produced a pair of cable ties and tied his legs together in the meantime.

“The reports have been moved and the existence of the project no longer exists.” Twelve returned to observe the mare’s handiwork, apparently finished with whatever he needed to do. “Good job, airpony.”

“Thank you, sir,” she emotionlessly droned.

“You know what? Have a treat.” Twelve tapped the mare’s jaw and pulled out a small pouch from the pocket of his fatigues, carefully shaking out a small red candy. “Open.”

Obediently, she opened her mouth and waited.

He tossed it into her mouth and pocketed the pouch while the mare contentedly sucked on the candy, finally showing another expression other than “neutral”.

Satisfied, Twelve headed toward the door. “Come along now, Frosty. Don’t forget the spy.”

The mare nodded and effortlessly threw Turbulence onto her back. “I understand, and will obey.”

Footnote: Memory unlocked.

Author's Note

Yes, this is canon.

Chapter 11: Do you recognize her?

Chapter 11: Do you recognize her?

"I hope you realize how fortunate you are to have me as a mentor."

Just like most of the combatants of the Happy Hills Holdout, I got thrown into the infirmary as soon as possible. At some point between points A and B, with point B being somewhere with rest, Raider Frosty got bored enough to give control back to me just so I could pass out.

Well, sort of.

Sitting around in the depths of my mind was a hell of a lot more boring than I thought it would be. “Wow, there is nothing to do in my mind. I wish I had a soda machine in here or something,” I muttered to nopony in particular. “And now I’m talking to myself. Great.” Why couldn’t things be like before all this crap happened?

<~~~>

“Daaaaad! Summer took my Soarin action figure and won’t give it baaaaaaack!” I wailed in my younger voice. “Tell her to give it back!” Oh, the good old days. What I wouldn’t give for them. And for some damn video to go with this audio.

“Summer Winds, be nice to your sister,” my dad calmly replied. Dad… I’d only hear him again in my memories. And even then, it just wouldn’t be the same without him.

“Why should I? She always gets to play with him!” my sister whined. “And her Soarin doll is cooler than mine!”

“He’s an action figure!” I corrected her.

I heard Dad laugh to himself. “Now, now, girls. Stop fighting. Your mother and I hate it when you two fight. Summer, give back Frosty’s doll.”

“He’s an action figure!” I cried. “You heard him, sis. Give Soarin back right now.” I heard myself stomp the ground impatiently.

Summer groaned, but gave in. “Fine, here you go. Didn’t wanna play with him anyway.”

“Now go ahead and play nice with your sister. Here, I brought something for you two. Lab colts at R&D left a few samples in the officer’s break room. Uncle Updraft grabbed a bunch for me.”

“What are these?” Summer and I both wondered.

“Dunno. Calls ‘em blueberries. Looks more like purpleberries or blackberries though,” Dad said, sharing our confusion. Our following squeals of delight faded away into the fog in my mind…

~~~~~

“Ladies and gentlecolts, your attention please...” a deep voice growled.

Huh? What? Who was that? “Uh… knock knock?” I hesitantly tried.

“Very funny. Moving on.” A scene suddenly popped up in front of my eyes. “Remember this?” I was back in the Wasteland. Two other pegasi wearing Recon Force Blizzard patches were crouched behind me. “Do you?” I was holding a strangely familiar laser rifle in my hooves. Having an actual right hoof now felt unfamiliar and alien to me. At least my scout armor was still intact. Note to self, get another set of this.

“Not at all,” I muttered, checking the energy on my rifle.

A short burst of static crackled out of my earbloom. “This is Ashtray. Radio check, over.”

“Stormfront, checking in.” Shadow Breeze, I think. Was he the squad medic?

“Tornado. Still bored.” Uh… didn’t ring a bell.

“Defib here. I’m online.” Lightning Chaser, the medic. Wait, if she was the medic, then what was… ah, never mind. Whatever.

“Snowmare ready,” I whispered, focusing on the caravan inching its way toward our ambush. It wouldn’t be here for a while, so we had time to kill. Hehe, kill. I made a funny.

“Powerlevel, checking in.” Aha, Tiny Wings! He was armed with the squad’s only heavy incinerator. Just because, I suppose.

“All units, target is approaching the kill zone. Do not destroy the package. That means you, Powerlevel,” the familiar voice of Nest commanded over the radio. “Be advised, we do not have intel on their weaponry.”

“Roger Wilco,” Stormfront acknowledged from behind me. “Anything else we should know?” He scuffed his hooves in the dirt. “I don’t want stuff like last time.”

“Hey! How could I have known they had a damn cannon?” Nest protested over the radio. “Anyway, Powerlevel’s helmet viewfinder is showing four hostiles. They can’t be that heavily armed. Just take them out.”

I sighed and finished up my weapon check.

“New plan. Powerlevel’s incinerator is useless since he can’t control himself— Oh, don’t even start!” Dad nearly yelled. “You remember last time?”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t burn it till it gets away. Or runs at us,” Tiny Wings mumbled. “I said I was sorry.”

“Good. Snowmare and Stormfront will provide covering fire from the ridge up there. Defib and I will hit the caravan if we can take ‘em. Powerlevel, move into a flanking position. If they run, burn them.”

“Roger.” A large, bulky pegasus in a suit of Enclave power armor at the bottom of the cliff stomped his way into a larger group of rocks further down the road. “In position.”

The caravan was made of a wagon being pulled by a large orange stallion and a small army of guards. I couldn’t make out what was in the wagon, though. “Uh… Nest? That’s more than four hostiles. More like eight.” I peered into my laser’s scope. “Maybe more. Wagon’s got doors on it. No windows, possible hostiles inside.” There were seven guards in a loose ring around the wagon with the one orange stallion pulling the wagon.

“Copy. All of you hear that?” Nest asked.

A round of “Roger that” and “Copy” echoed through the radio. We all sat in silence, waiting for the caravan to scoot closer. I took a few deep breaths, trying to relax myself a little. If I was going to administer aggressive brain surgery, the shakes in my hooves needed to stop. “Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand…” I whispered under my breath. Yay, addicting music.

“Showtime. Everypony ready? Snowmare, prepare to take out the guards in the front,” my dad notified us. “On my mark.” The caravan slowed down in front of our pile of rocks. One particularly sharp eyed guard had signaled them to stop. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

A marker appeared on my visor over the farthest guard from the caravan. Okay, so he’d assigned me a target that the rest of the squad probably couldn’t hit. Movement from the back of the wagon drew the attention of my laser pointer of doom. A little head poked out of a door in the back, only to be pulled back inside. Uh oh. “Nest, we have possible noncombatants in the caravan. Please advise.”

There was silence on the radio. “This is Nest. Eliminate all targets in the area.” I turned around and shared an uneasy glance with Shadow Breeze. “No survivors, no prisoners. Copy?” I sat there in silence, trying to come up with an excuse. Nothing. “Snowmare, Snowmare. Do you copy?”

“Copy that.” I neutrally replied. Just another black mark on my already stained soul. “Da–Ashtray, on your mark.” I mentally placed another marker over the other guard in the back. “I’ve got the two in the back.”

“Roger that. Tornado, what’s the ETA on your strike?” I looked up to the sky and squinted at a gray smoggy figure circling the area. “We might actually need your help on this one.”

“About time you asked, sir.” He carefully waved a hoof at us. “Plasma mines ready. Plasma grenades ready too.”

“Copy that. Okay squad, ground team goes with me to pull the guards away from the wagon. Snowmare and Stormfront, covering fire. Powerlevel, eliminate any hostiles that are retreating.”

A chorus of affirmative responses filled the radio. “Looks like one of them is getting a bit too curious,” Lightning Chaser mentioned quietly. “Orders?” The same guard was blithely trotting toward the clump of rocks where half our squad was hiding.

“On my mark,” Dad repeated. “Three.” The guard observed the rocks, not knowing what was lying in wait behind them. “Two.” She appeared to have picked a rock and strode toward it. “One.” She was about to drop her helmet when… “Mark.”

We struck as one. A plasma bolt vaporized the unfortunate guard that was probably about to do her business. I fired my laser at the farthest guard and instantly shifted to the next guard. Another laser from the rocks injured one of the guards at the front, but he managed to survive. The surviving guards bolted for cover in the rocks or behind the wagon itself.

Dad, and Lightning feinted a retreat down the road, forcing the remaining guards to scurry out of cover to shoot at them. I dropped my other target and moved to cover Dad and Lightning with my laser rifle. I put the injured guard out of his misery with a precise shot through the vision slit in his helmet. “Clear the area. Mines away,” Tornado informed us.

The portion of the squad on the ground scattered away from the guards that were still chasing them. I ignored that entire area and refocused my attention to the wagon itself. The orange stallion was nowhere to be seen. Most likely dead, but hopefully he ran. A little green colt dashed out toward the fallen shape of one of the guards. “No survivors,” Nest had said. The little guy was crying his heart out over the body.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Just business.” I placed my sight over the colt. I hesitated. Sure, I’d done this a few times before. Heck, they’d even told us right into basic. “I’m so sorry.” I squeezed my eyes shut and pushed the button. My aim was true. I instinctively knew it. My rifle shook ever so slightly with the force of the shot.

I opened my eyes. Nothing left but a pile of pink dust. I sent my prayers for the colt to the goddesses. “Never gets easier, does it?” I lifted my visor and wiped away a tear. I strapped my laser over my back and turned around. Shadow Breeze had his visor up as well and reassuringly placed his hoof on my shoulder. “Let’s just focus on the mission, alright?” He whispered, keeping his mic away from his muzzle.

I smiled grimly. “You’d think after five it would get easier.” We surveyed the carnage below. “I need to get over there.” I pointed to a clump of shrubs a few yards away. “You coming?”

“Yo! Drop the chips and get me some damn ammo!” Powerlevel yelled through the radio, cumbersomely stomping his way toward the last guard. Wait, how’d he use up all his ammo just sitting there? I thought he wasn’t supposed to be firing…

“Calm your tits. You can handle it.” Shadow snorted. “We’re on our way down.”

“This is Nest. Recon Force Blizzard, give me a sitrep. Still alive out there?”

“No. That’s why we’re still on the radio,” Dad sarcastically drawled into his mic. The whine of a plasma rifle came to my ears. “And that was the sound of an area secured.”

I waited for a good few minutes for the rest of our squad to check the area. “Area secure,” Tornado called out. He jumped into the wagon. “The package is secure. Squad, regroup on Ashtray.”

Shadow Breeze and I swooped down to the wagon. I arrived and was immediately ordered to secure the package. The rest of the squad formed a defensive perimeter outside the wagon. Dad flinched away from Defib’s helping hooves. “Stop farking moving! I’m trying to heal you, not tickle you,” she fussed, attempting to slap a bandage on a bullet graze on his thigh.

“Aww… did the biggie-wiggie stallion get a widdle gwaze?” I cooed at my dad. He gave me a look. As in, I-will-take-away-your-all-your-dessert-rations-forever look. “Sheesh. Cool off, Dad.” I dropped my sugar-caked tone and adopted a more serious tone. “I’ll keep the ‘package’ secure, as per your orders.”

“Watch your tone, young lady,” he growled, finally letting Defib apply healing.

“Can we leave family matters out of this?” Tornado groaned. “I don’t wanna hear anymore stuff about your personal lives. I think I’ve been mentally scarred.”

“You’re the one that can’t keep it in your pants,” Dad snapped back.

“Are you ever going to let that go?” Tornado whined. “I didn’t realize it was a locker room!” Yes. We were totally going to hold it against him for the rest of eternity because it was funny.

I let them bicker outside as I pushed open the wagon’s back door, making sure not to step in the disintegrated pile of foal. Unsurprisingly, the interior of the wagon was dark, cramped, and lacking in all description of ventilation or exterior viewing. True to standard Wastelander construction, the only other furnishing was the pair of benches bolted to either wall. Otherwise, there was simply a large steel crate occupying the center of the wagon. Most likely, this was the package we were sent to recover. I looked around. Nopony here? Alright. Curiosity got the better of me and I peeked inside the crate.

Carrots. Apples. A few stalks of asparagus. Food, fresh food. They all had the same off-ish tinge that betrayed its origin. “Cloud-grown food? What’s this doing down here?” Well, I was hungry anyway so I snatched up a carrot and shoved it under my wing. “Don’t mind if I do.” Then I reached in and pulled out on apple. I ate it on the spot, and by Luna it was delicious.

Though it did taste a little… off, even for cloud-grown food. I chalked it up to the Wasteland being the contaminating pile of crap it was and left it at that.

Or maybe it was just the Volunteer Corps taking all of the slightly out-of-date food and giving it away to the Wastelanders. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, given the fact that most of us grunts would almost literally kill for a bushel of actual apples. Dried food and repackaged Meals Rejected by Everypony could only go so far. Knowing how the Enclave worked, it was probably either part of some charity scheme, tax break, or shady government conspiracy.

“So, what’s in here?” Lightning cheerfully asked, poking her head into the dark confines of the wagon with me. “Anything cool?” I hastily dropped the apple core in my muzzle and kicked it under a bench.

“Nofin’!” I blurted, wiping apple bits from my muzzle. “What’s the word?”

“We’re not out of the farking ‘Hoof just yet,” Lightning moaned. “I wanna go back to my bunk.” I completely agreed. My wings hurt from flying and I was just plain tired. “We’re going somewhere else apparently. Nest is sending somepony to grab this giant farking crate.” She fiddled with the straps on her plasma rifle battle saddle. “How you holdin’ up? Need anything? Pills? Bandages? Asprin? Mint thingies?”

I waved her off. “Nah. I’m fine.”

“Whatever. Your loss.” She popped open a tin of Mint-als and crunched one down. “Last chaaaance.” Of course she’d go as far as rattling the tin at me. “They’re gooood.”

I was doubtful. “I don’t think you should just be eating whatever you find down here. It could be toxic,” I pointed out.

“But where else can I play real-time hobo simulator and eat candy?” she pitifully whimpered at me. And of course she’d also use her sad eyes. Why did I even work with her? I mentally facehoofed.

“Fine. Just… don’t let D–Smoky see them. He hates it when we bring back random crap.” I uneasily shifted the carrot under my wing. Yup, nothing to see here. Nothing at all…

~~~~~

The scene faded away into the insanity-riddled depths of my mind. “Do you remember now?”

“Uh… I guess?” I tried. No idea what was going on. At all. “Can I at least get a name? Otherwise you get to be Creepy McStalkerpants.”

The voice groaned. “Is it too much to ask for some professionalism?”

“How about Chorwhacks Jigglebob?”

The soft tinkling sound of metal filled the air. “Fine. Call me Ice Storm.”

Alright, we have a name. “So, what exactly should I be remembering?”

Ice Storm sighed in exasperation. “Look, just… remember that, okay? It was hard enough keeping your mental walls busy, never mind trying to find the damn memory.” Wait. What? “We’ll meet again, at some point. Now piss off.”

<~~~>

Whether or not I liked it, I was conscious again. Everything hurt, and my head wouldn’t stop trying to kill me. Beeping. Antiseptic. Blood. Sound, smell, taste—things that told me I was still alive. I slowly realized I was back in the clinic. Again. I licked my lips, tasting crunchy, irony blood still stuck to my muzzle. I was thirsty and the blood coating the inside of my mouth was nothing compared to a morning after. “Watta,” I moaned, trying to use my saliva to clean out the blood. As much as I hated it, I opened my eyes anyway.

Instant Noodles’s head popped into my blurry field of view. “Oh, hey there!” She turned to somepony to the right. “She’s awake! And, uh, maybe another morphine.”

“Can’t risk it,” Doc muttered distantly. “Aha! Got another one. That makes it… fifteen to thirteen. Your turn.”

Instant patted my head. “Hold on. Be right back.” She screwed up her muzzle in concentration as she levitated an antenna with a magnet taped to the end of it past my face. “I need to beat a doctor at a game of operation.”

Huh? A sharp pinch in my gut caused me to whimper pitifully. “Ha! Point goes to me,” Doc gleefully cried. The pain withdrew and was swiftly replaced elsewhere in my chest. “Aww. That was stupid. You know, this would be a lot easier if your nose lit up.”

“What the buck are you doing down there?” I croaked. A snapping sound followed by a weak victory cry from Instant gave me a somewhat good idea.

Rumcake paced up to me, canteen in hoof. He tipped its contents into my mouth and grinned. “Now you know how I felt.” I greedily gulped down the refreshing water. It was a bit stale and funny-tasting, but I didn’t care. Water was water, and anything was better than the taste of hours-old dried blood. “Yay for bullet fishing,” he sarcastically cheered. “Look, I’ll be right here the entire time.”

I suffered through the pinching and victory dances for in indeterminate time period where I was being used as living board game. At least it wasn’t too bad with Rumcake comforting me the entire time through my whimpering and fits of colorful commentary. After I’d been sufficiently emptied of lead, I was healed up and allowed to carefully stand up.

Doc kept his aura wrapped around my wings and warned, “Don’t overexert yourself just yet. Go find yourself some apple juice or cookies or something to get your platelet count back up since I’m ninety percent sure that you’re going to reject all the blood I’ve got on stock.”

Cookies, huh? “Does this mean I need to stock up on snack cakes for medical purposes?” I giddily asked.

“Sure?”

My squeal of delight was rudely interrupted by a familiar mare suddenly storming up to me and seizing me by my collar. “I need to talk to you,” Instant demanded. “Sparkle Cola told me about what happened. Rumcake, too.”

I broke away, tripping over my hooves a little. “I’m feeling a little lightheaded,” I somewhat lied. “I guess I’ll just have a little lay down for a while.” I jumped back onto the mattress and feigned sleep, snoring loudly.

“Oh no you don’t!” Instant growled. I eeped as I was suddenly lifted up by an unseen force and pulled off of the bed. “We’re going to sit down and have a nice, long chat. All five of you.”

I was forcefully slammed back into the bed by Doc’s magic. “As her attending physician, I’m going to have to say… no.” Thank Luna that somepony had a little sense! “I don’t know how the drugs will react to any sort of magic treatment you’re thinking of doing.” Wait, what? Doc dropped a little tray that was nearly full of little bullets. “Have a souvenir. Or thirty.”

“Hold on, back the addict train up.” I pointed at Doc. “What the buck did you put in me this time?” Please, please let there not be more bits of me missing.

“Don’t worry about it,” he casually mentioned, carefully cleaning off one of his smaller bonesaws. “I’ve removed your need for Med-X. Or more accurately, you no longer physically require Med-X or other painkillers to properly function.”

“Oh,” I simply uttered. Doc, being helpful? What sort of magic was this?

“Though your mental need for Med-X is totally up to you,” he continued. “I’ll trust Rumcake and the rest of your fellows to keep you clean. Also, if you have an erection lasting longer than four hours, tell me. That shouldn’t happen.”

“Uh,” I pointed at my mare parts. “Hello?”

“Exactly. That shouldn’t happen,” Doc replied without looking. “Otherwise, don’t strain yourself. I don’t want to see you in here again for a while.”

“Or you could issue me a frequent visitor ca—” I began, before we were startled by a horrendous cry of pain.

“I’m just going to hazard a guess somepony’s coughing up a lung,” Doc said cheerfully. “Have a nice day!” And with that he trotted off to a curtained-off area near the back of room.

Instant shot me a dirty glare. “Look, I’ll explain it to everypony soon,” I consoled her. “But first, I have business to attend to.” I stretched my limbs out at Rumcake. “Carry me.”

~~~~~

“This isn’t where I wanted to be,” I whined.

This wasn’t even anywhere close to where I told Rumcake to take me. Instead, he brought me to Inquisitor Soufflé’s office. Well, that taught me to never take a nap during a pony ride ever again. The stallion himself was a lot more focused on using a lint roller on his fancy hat than anything else.

Rumcake sighed. “Just—please? It took a lot of effort on my part to even make Soufflé even remotely agree to this.”

“He’s right, you know.” Soufflé paused from his cleaning and replaced his stupid hat on his stupid head. “And as much as I don’t like it, he made a pretty good argument in your favor.”

And I still had no idea what was going on. “So… what’s going on and why am I here?” Hm. I felt like I’d asked myself this a lot more often than I should have for a normal pony.

Predictably, I was promptly ignored. Out of boredom, I tried to see what was doing on over Rumcake’s big head. For some reason, there were a pair of Ranger holotags that Soufflé was busy tinkering with on his desk. Nothing else his office had really changed, besides the freshly-repainted mural of the Steel Rangers logo behind him. The Neighton’s Cradle on his desk had somehow actually increased in size, taking up slightly more space than it used to.

Abruptly, Soufflé looked up and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Frosty Winds.”

“Your whole name.”

“Frosty Winds,” I repeated, a bit louder.

The driest look in the world appeared on Soufflé’s face. “Your real name.”

I felt blood rush to my face. “It’s, uh… Frostivus Kay Winds.”

Rumcake shifted as he tried to look at me. “What’s the ‘K’ stand for?” Yay for phonetics.

“Kay. K-A-Y. No idea if it’s special.” I shrugged and gave my wings a little shrug-like flap as well for emphasis.

Annoyingly enough, he chuckled. “Sounds like a stallion’s name.”

I covered my face and groaned. “Yes, I’m greatly aware of this.”

Soufflé did a few more things to the tags before lifting them and examining them against the single light fixture in the ceiling. He nodded in approval and placed them back on the desk again. A sword levitated out from under his desk and calmly hovered in the air beside him. “For this next part, I’m going to need you to stand.”

I shrank away and tried to worm my way into Rumcake’s armor. “What?”

“Just do it, Frosty.” Rumcake tried to gently scoot me off of him, but I wasn’t having any of that. I clung on as hard as I could. “C’mon. I promise it’ll be fine.”

Against my better judgement, I grudgingly obliged and managed to stand after a few awkward flaps. “Okay, what now?” I asked, still confused.

At the flick of a switch, some music began to softly play. It had an air of reverence to it, which gave me the tingling feeling that this was something really important that I should stop asking questions about. “Kneel,” Soufflé dictated, tags and sword hovering nearby. On closer inspection, the Steel Rangers’ emblem was engraved into the blade itself. Huh.

Obediently, I knelt and bowed.

“I, Inquisitor Soufflé of the Circle of Steel, am hereby present to bestow honors to those gathered here today.” The sword appeared in the corner of my vision for a second. “Do you vow to uphold the honor of the Steel Rangers?”

Uh… “Yes?”

Yet again, Inquisitor Soufflé got annoyed at me. “You’re supposed to say ‘I do’.”

I looked up at him. “What am I? Getting married?”

“Work with me. For the sake of tradition.”

“Ugh, fine. I do.”

“Do you vow uphold the integrity of the Steel Rangers?”

“I do.” Oh. I had an idea what was happening, but I wasn’t going to jump to conclusions just yet.

“Do you vow to uphold the Codex and—actually, we can probably skip that since you’re not going to read it anyway. Moving on.”

“Hey!” I began to rise, but a hoof on my back stopped me.

“Don’t interrupt,” Rumcake gently warned.

I had a feeling that Soufflé was also glaring at me again. “In times of need, do you vow to come to the aid of the Steel Rangers?”

“I do.”

“For loyalty, bravery, and performing above and beyond the call of duty, I hereby unshackle you from your mundane existence—” Abruptly, the weight around my neck vanished and the bomb collar hit the ground with a muted thud. Subsequently, I was having a really hard time keeping the stupid grin off my face for the remainder of the ritual. “—and enlighten you with the guidance of the Steel Rangers.”

The flat side of the sword touched my right shoulder. “We welcome a new squire to our ranks—” Then I felt it swish right over my mane and nearly clip my ears to touch my left shoulder. “—and a new member to our family.” Then the sword withdrew and the tags were looped around my neck.

“There we go. Now stand the buck up, Honorary Squire Frostivus Kay Winds,” Soufflé sighed. I stood and proudly saluted, which he unenthusiastically returned. “Congratulations. Now go be happy somewhere else. I have orders to distribute.”

Rumcake pulled me into the hallway after him. “You’re a Ranger now! Oh, I’m so happy!” He nearly crushed me in a bear hug that I couldn’t avoid.

My stupid grin still wouldn’t go away, just like my racing heartbeat. “I’ll be honest, this wasn’t something I was expecting,” I chuckled. “Why?”

“Since you’ve been on your best behavior and since you helped us at the battle, I thought that you deserved something for your efforts.” Rumcake squeezed me a bit harder, eliciting an involuntary squeak from me. “And I know you don’t like that bomb collar either.”

Was that the sound of my ribs straining or my lungs? “So you made me a squire?” I breathlessly gasped. “Also, you’re going to kill me at this rate.”

Grudgingly, Rumcake released me. “Yeah. You were basically one of us already, and now it’s official.“ I took a few steps and immediately tottered into a wall. He rushed to my side and allowed me to lean on him. “Huh. I think all the blood in your body went to your face. You’re super red right now.”

Yes, my face was excessively warm to the point where Rumcake’s face was actually much colder than mine. “I seriously have shit to do, so I guess it’s better if you carry me there.” I sighed in a sarcastically resigned manner.

“Whatever my little squire desires.” Rumcake crouched to allow me to climb aboard.

~~~~~

“I now realize that your desires happen to be along the lines of being lazy,” Rumcake groaned. “I should have seen this coming. Back on topic, that’s basically it. I mean, it’s not a really high rank, all things considered, but at least you’ll maybe get better treatment from the others. Although that does mean Inquisitor Soufflé might take advantage of the fact that he can actually order you around now…”

I was happily riding around on Rumcake’s back as I half-listened, half-ignored the things he told me about being a squire. His armor was a bit cold and dusty, but at least moving didn’t require effort on my part.

Rumcake abruptly paused. “When is it your turn to carry me around?”

I tousled his mane and replied “Never. Onward, wench! To Sleazy’s!” Rumcake dutifully tromped off toward the west end of the market. “So, anyway… what’s on your mind?” I asked out of boredom, resting my head on his.

“You, actually.” Rumcake sighed.

Uh… “Is that a good sign or a bad sign?”

Rumcake laughed. “It’s a good sign. I think. Seriously, though, I’ve been thinking…” He trailed off.

I blinked. “Well? What is it? Does your brain need a new hamster?”

“When we were in the fortress, you nearly died,” Rumcake whispered, abruptly spoiling my good mood. “For a while, I thought I would lose you forever. Part of me wanted to dismiss you as a loss.” Wow, thanks. “But… my heart told me that you were special.”

“Um…” My cheeks were burning. Where was he going with this?

“And then when I died… when I nearly died… I realized that I regretted not getting to know you better,” he wistfully told me. I floated off his back and landed in front of him. Was this really what he’d been going through this whole time? “Before, I just wasn’t really sure. You know, mortal enemies and all.”

The pieces came together and my breath caught in my throat.

Rumcake liked me.

Rumcake liked me.

I mean, sure, Rumcake was there for me from the beginning… he’d done his best to protect me… and he’d just gone and gotten me squireified… and we went on that date before… and there was that time we kissed, way back…

It really has been obvious for a long time, you know.

Shut up, brain.

I suddenly realized that I hadn’t said anything yet, and Rumcake was looking at me like a small kicked animal as the seconds ticked by.

It was adorable.

“When you were dying, I was thinking the exact same thing.” I smiled brightly at him. “The Wasteland is hell, and you really are the brightest part of it to me. I don’t remember if I had a coltfriend or marefriend before, but that isn’t going to stop me.”

“So this means that this—” Rumcake motioned to himself, then me. “—is a thing now?”

I nervously chuckled, half relieved and half… something else. “Yeah, I guess so.”

The two of us awkwardly stood in silence, not exactly looking at each other. “So, what now?”

“Damned if I know. I’ve never been a very good social pony.” My wings kept trying to spring to attention, but I was doing my best to keep them still.

Another moment of awkward silence. “Wanna bang?” Rumcake blurted.

My eyes widened in surprise, and then I laughed. “You know, most mares like a little subtlety,” I informed him.

“Says the tiny little mare with the largest bucking boomstick in the entire Wasteland that single-clawedly demolishes entire strongholds,” Rumcake retorted. Okay, I couldn’t really argue with that.

“Pretend I’m a normal mare.”

“That’s really hard.” Rumcake rocked back and forth, prompting me to flare my wings for balance. “You know, with the wings. And the claw. And the insanity.”

“I get it!” I whacked his head with my hoof. “I’m not totally normal. Or stable.”

Rumcake smiled. “You’re not like other mares, you know that?”

“What’s wrong with other mares?” My cheeks flared up again. And, for once, I liked the feeling.

“Anyway, so…” He scratched at the ground shyly. “Seriously this time. What do we do now?”

“Not me, that’s for sure.”

Rumcake’s expression flickered between looking like he was about to laugh and looking like he wanted to smack me. Luna, he was cute!

“So, uh, shall we have a real first date, then?” he finally asked.

“That sounds good.” I smiled encouragingly. “Have somewhere in mind?”

“Wanna kick it off at the Spritebot? Apparently Peppermint Shots isn’t such a bad chef, either. According to Bakey. Who’s usually drunk all the time.” Rumcake rolled his eyes. “Trust a drunk, am I right?”

“Well… at least it’ll get me a use out of that dress I bought a while back.” I bopped his nose playfully. “When do you want to get together?”

“How does tonight sound? I’ll pick you up, I guess?”

“Sure thing. I can’t wait.”

Ice Storm here. Are you forgetting something? Or, more specifically, somepony?

Oh ponyfeathers, Cherry… “Wait, crap.” I sighed. Go ahead and ruin my only day to myself, will you.

Rumcake looked concerned. “What? Did I do it wrong?”

I shook my head. “No, no.” How to do this… “I made a promise, and I need to keep it.” I told him all about our somewhat failed recon attempt into the Rad Lads forward base thing. Everything, including how I’d nearly been raped. Of course I got some disgusted and horrified looks from him, but I did manage to wrap up the entire story in a neat and clean-esque package.

“I still don’t understand why you didn’t just let me come along.” Rumcake pouted, still slightly perturbed. “You wouldn’t have to had gone through all of that if I was there.”

“Well, it was kind of a last-minute excursion,” I tried to explain. “I wasn’t really informed beforehoof. And as much as I hate to say, grenade launchers are not considered low profile.”

Rumcake had sat down during my story, and now he was crossing his forelegs in an unsatisfied manner. “No excuse to not bring me along. I do have experience in unarmored combat, you know.” He was a tiny bit miffed, but he did somewhat understand my reasoning. Hopefully.

“Well, that would have been useful to know a few days ago.” I rolled my eyes. “Could we get back on track? I have a base to destroy. Violently. If you really want, you can come with.” I snuggled up against him. “It could be like a day trip.”

From around the building, somepony shouted, “Come on! Just kiss already!”

Both of us bolted apart and looked around. Was it really so hard to get a little privacy in this damn town? “Show yourself!” Rumcake angrily shouted. “Is somepony out there?” A few townsponies gave us funny looks. A small trinket stand nearby rocketed away hastily, trailing little metal sculptures and flyers.

“Damn kids,” I muttered, snickering to myself a bit. “Well, back to our original plan.” I landed back onto Rumcake’s back again. “Carry me to Sleazy’s!” I pointed off to the facade of Sleazy McCheapkin’s Bargain Emporium. Rumcake whinnied and dashed off toward the crumbly store.

Once we were inside, we were immediately assaulted by Sleazy’s voice. A younger, more energetic, and less ghouley-sounding Sleazy. “From the ponies who brought you Pistol Jr, Pistol Sr, and Pistol Jr. Plus comes the Very Pistol. Full of Pistoley goodness and ready to deliver Very bullets into your very enemies' faces. All part of the summer catalog from Gunskill.”

Rumcake jumped in fright as soon as the impromptu advertisement blasted into the doorway. At this point, I’d gotten used to random bits of speech being thrown at me upon entry, but I was a little surprised at the voice itself. “You’re sounding much better,” I simply stated in the direction of the armory behind the front counter.

“Ah, those were the days indeed,” Sleazy distantly yelled from inside his armory, back to his ghoulishly horrid voice. “You like it?” I looked around and got a little confused by his sudden change in voice. What exactly was I supposed to be liking? His voice? “I refurbished my old vending machine!” Sleazy stumbled out of the armory and locked the door behind him. He looked a bit worse for wear, but at least he’d finally gotten around to removing the steel bar in his neck.

“Since when have you had your own vending machine?” Rumcake quizzically asked.

Sleazy pointed at a dimly-lit vending machine in the corner. Huh. That wasn’t there before. “A futile attempt at quadrupling profits,” he sadly explained. “Invested a massive pile of caps into fixing up one of my old gun vending machines. Turned out, most ponies didn’t carry around twenty-five hundred bits as spare change back in the day.”

“Hold on… you tried to sell guns. In vending machines,” Rumcake attempted to understand. “When was this a good idea?” He facehoofed.

Sleazy sat down in front of the machine and thumped its side. “Well, somepony I was competing against centuries ago decided to make machines that dispense ammo. Ironshod, I think.” My turn to faceclaw. “It seemed like such a good idea! Guns and ammunition, right next to your Sparkle Cola!”

“But nopony actually goes out thinking ‘Let’s go buy some soda and a gun!’, am I right?” I asked. I could see what he was thinking, though. Convenience over practicality, because we’re lazy like that. Or we used to be, anyway.

“Yeah. It was hard to turn a profit off them and sell cheap guns at the same time,” Sleazy wistfully replied. He suddenly brightened up. “Enough about the past. How about some guns for you, yes?” He happily clopped his rotting hooves together. “How can I arm you today?”

“I think you’ll be interested in this.” I triumphantly whipped out the pink bobblehead and placed it on the counter. “Also, I’m going to need some stealthy weaponry for the big guy.” I cocked my head toward Rumcake.

Rumcake analyzed the tiny pink bobblehead while Sleazy fawned over it. Just like the Applejack bobblehead, its eyes were off-centered and different sized. The little pink mare had an even pinker poofy mane. Little tins of Mint-als spilled all over the base, and her mouth was full of cupcakes and even more Mint-als. The edge of the base read “Schtable-Tec Bobblehead” and the word “PARTY” everywhere.

“Pinkie Pie! Oh, how I’ve missed you.” He hugged the bobblehead and placed it on the shelf next to Applejack. “That’s two of eight. Doing good!” He was prancing with glee. “Now, I owe you a bunch for that.” He looked over Rumcake appraisingly. “And I think I know what you need. Give me a moment.”

He disappeared back into his armory, singing something along the lines of smiling and stuff. Strange. “You know, I didn’t expect him to be the happy type,” I whispered to Rumcake. “More like the steal everything type, you know?”

“Maybe he was different before, right? You know, the Wasteland hasn’t been kind to anypony. Getting turned into a ghoul probably wasn’t good for his sanity,” Rumcake whispered back. Some loud clanking and very colorful swearing signaled Sleazy’s return. Both of us watched him drag a pallet into the room. “But slap me silly and call me Peaches, that is beautiful,” Rumcake breathed, ogling over the new arrival.

“Alright, Peaches, here you are.” Sleazy dragged the pallet in front of us and collapsed in front of it. “Enter the PB&J Decrusted minigun. Fully automatic, and five thousand rounds per minute. Best of all, it’s magically silenced.” He sighed and continued “Now, usually this comes with the PB&J Toasted Terror minigun as part of the PB&J Premium Platinum Lunchbox Edition, but I couldn’t get my hooves on it before the ponypies hit the fan. I did, however, get my hooves on the twenty thousand 5mm incendiary rounds for the Toasted Terror.”

Rumcake continued to stare at the minigun. I had to say, it looked amazing. The main body was a matte gray and the multiple barrels were painted a dark purple. It looked silly, but all five of the minigun’s barrels were fitted with pale brown silencers each embedded with a tiny orange gem. I nudged him. “Hey, Peaches. Stop drooling.”

“Wha—?” He wiped the saliva hanging from his muzzle. “I wasn’t drooling.” He ran his hooves across the Decrusted’s surface. “It’s so beautiful.” I bristled a little bit. Minutes ago, I was the subject of his adoration.

Colts will be colts.

Teehee. Thanks, brain.

“Now, the bad news.” Both of us perked up. “As much as I hate to say it, Pinkie Pie won’t be able to cover this beauty.” Uh oh. I shot Rumcake a look of panic. “Though we can work somethin’ out.”

“What did you have in mind?” Rumcake asked.

“I need you to go do something for me,” Sleazy said, standing up. “As fa—”

“We’ll do it,” Rumcake instantly piped up.

Hold on, what? “Wait, we will?” I blurted.

“Don’t worry. It isn’t anything we can’t handle.” I really hoped so. Feeling a tiny bit lightheaded, I simply leaned on him and let him continue.

Sleazy was shocked as well. “You don’t want any details?”

“Well, of course we want the details! But more importantly, we need this minigun.” Rumcake told Sleazy my story and what we had to do, minus a few insignificant details. “So we’re going to need to borrow this for a bit.”

Sleazy sat in thought for a minute. “I can work with that.” Well, that was a start. “How about this…” He thought about it some more, scratching at the hole in his neck. “I’ll mount the Decrusted and take your grenade launcher as collateral.” Both of them nodded in agreement. “I’ll give you the incendiary ammo once you’re done. I trust the Rangers have standard minigun ammo?” Rumcake nodded again. “Good! Then we have a deal?”

“Deal,” Rumcake agreed. “And the job?”

Sleazy rolled one of his eyes. I resisted the urge to vomit all over his store. Ewww. “I trust you to do what you think is right. Come back to me once you’re done.”

“Thanks for understanding.” I stepped forward to hug him, trying to not get his… ichor all over me. “How can we repay you?”

“You’re stretching my gratitude muscles as far as they’re willing to go, especially after the last battle.” Right. I’d forgotten about that. “My assignment will call us even. Trust me.” Sleazy shied away. “And you might not want to touch me. Seriously.” He motioned to himself. “This hasn’t been bathed in two hundred fortyish years.”

I reflexively gagged and backed away quickly. Ewww! “But that doesn’t make sense,” I protested. “Wasn’t the war only—”

…Oh, Goddesses.

Well, at least the radiation cleaned him off at some point. I hope.

You and me both, brain.

Rumcake hooked a foreleg over me and nudged me toward the door. “Go get some air. You look like you’re going to hurl.” I gagged again. He winced and smiled in sympathy. “Yeah, go outside. I can wrap everything up here.”

I gratefully stumbled outside. Air! I inhaled the dusty, stale-tasting air in huge gulps. Never again would I be able to see Sleazy the same way again.

What did you expect?

Shut up. I dry heaved in the street while I waited for Rumcake to finish fondling his brand new gun. At least now we were somewhat geared for one last confrontation with the Rad Lads.

~~~~~

“I can’t believe you have a silenced minigun,” Tabber muttered. We’d quickly stopped by the Spritebot to pick him up before departing to the slaver stronghold, since we needed somepony who had more explosives than anypony should reasonably have. “That should not be possible.”

“Buck logic.” I giggled. “We need firepower and stealth. Compromise, right?” We sat on the cliff overlooking the Rad Lads encampment. It was quieter than before and there weren’t nearly as many guards. Luckily, the slaves were still in their cages, so at least we didn’t have to go search for them.

Rumcake had his helmet back on at this point. “I have a plan.” He pointed at the back edge of the camp. “They don’t have a wall, so we’re going to walk in there and pull off a quick smash and grab.” Well, so much for stealth. “Secondary objectives are basically just kill everything and figure it out later. Questions?”

Tabber raised his hoof. “Can’t we just sneak in? I don’t want to mess with that.” He pointed at a large, heavily defended tent near the center of the entire mess. It had a few barricades going around it and even three sentry turrets scanning the immediate area. “If we can find the terminal that controls those guns we can wipe them out, easy.”

Rumcake sighed. “Fine. Tabber, hijack those sentry guns. Frosty, you stay up here and give us overwatch.” I nodded and double-checked my anti-machine rifle. The sight attachment was back on, and I had normal bullets loaded again.

Tabber pointed at a little gray box strapped to his shoulder. “I’ve got a radio on my frequency of forty one point oh one. I’ll radio in when the turrets are down.” A little message popped up in my vision that helpfully informed me a new radio signal had been located. I popped in the earbloom and fiddled with the volume settings.

“Where the buck is the mic sensitivity on this? Advanced?” I muttered to myself, flipping back and forth through the options menu of my PipBuck. “Is there even a mic on this? Oh great, there isn’t even a mic on this. Perfect.”

“I’m tuned in,” Rumcake informed us, tapping the side of his helmet. “I’ve got a two-way radio in here, too.” And of course that left me with the most complicated one-way radio in existence.

“Uh… how about me?” I asked, hoping for a radio. “How are we going to do this? My PipBuck doesn’t have a built-in microphone.”

Both of them stared at me with their blank, expressionless helmets. “Welp, I didn’t bring a spare,” Tabber groaned, patting himself down. “Any ideas? I’ve got nada.”

“Hmm.” My gaze landed on an empty Sparkle-Cola bottle. “I got it.” I picked up the empty bottle and stood it up on a chest-high rock. “Just ask me yes and no questions. If the bottle is up, that means yes. Down means no.”

Everypony agreed on our impromptu communication system. Rumcake trotted away toward the back end of the camp to set up an ambush. Tabber disappeared the second I looked down to place my second magazine somewhere reachable. No doubt he’d gone off to place explosives everywhere.

I kept my scope on the slave cages, just in case anything happened. There was no way I was going to let anything happen to them at this point. “Frosty, please tell me your rifle has a silencer,” Tabber whispered over the radio. I reached up and tilted the bottle over. “Well, buck.” I re-righted the bottle and refocused on the cages. “Two-pony patrol headed toward you, Rumcake.”

“Got them.” Two bandaged up slavers that were walking around the back section of tents were suddenly dragged into the shadows. “Is it safe to move up?” I scanned the camp and left the bottle up. There were still three more patrols circling the camp, but they were nowhere close. After a moment, Rumcake decided, “I’m taking that as a yes.”

He pushed through a tent and cautiously advanced closer to the center of the camp. “Oooh, shiny,” Tabber squee’d. “How many patrols are around me?” How was I going to answer that? “Just gimme a number.” I rolled my eyes. Really? I could hear him facehoof over the radio. “Okay, better question: are there any patrols?” I tipped over the bottle.

“I don’t want to hear fireworks just yet,” Rumcake growled, stomping through another tent. “We have things to do, and ponies to save.”

“Yeah, yeah. Got it.” All three turrets beeped for a split second before resuming their turning. “Good news. These turrets were overloaded in order to move them.” Okay… that didn’t really mean anything to me.

“Which means…?” Rumcake asked irritably. Thank you!

“Bucking noobs.” Tabber sighed. “The turrets think they’re looking at a beach in Zebrica for now. Basically, move fast before they notice it’s a still and reboot.” He dropped the volume of his voice in mid-explanation. “I’m cutting through the tent.” Silence. “Nopony home. Cover me. Going to hack the terminal.”

“Got it.” Rumcake moved toward the slave cages, neutralizing two more guards on the way there. “What should I do with the cages?” he asked, surveying the ponies within. Some of them looked to him hopefully, wondering if they would be saved. “Shh. We’re here to help. Stay quiet.”

Cherry was right there in the front. Still alive, and still clinging to hope. Thank the goddesses. The sound of crunching gravel behind me pulled me out of my rifle’s sights. Crunch. Crunch. Philomena’s Touch found its way onto my right hoof. “C’mere you,” I muttered to myself. Crunch. I pressed myself against a rock for cover. Crunch. A dirty purple leg stopped near my chosen bit of cover.

“Mhm… nofin’ ‘ere but a bottle,” Purple Leg muttered. “You’re seein’ things, mate,” he called to a pony nearby. Crap. So there were two of them. “Le’s get back to our post. Benny’ll be mad as bonkers if we’re not there.”

“Coulda sworn…” the other slaver replied. “One las’ poke around.”

“Fine! See ya back there.” The purple one stormed off.

I couldn’t see where the other one was. Somewhere on the other side of my rock, most likely. Carefully, I switched on the power hoof and watched the little rubies on the bottom light up. Hm. The walking stopped when he heard the low-pitched whine my power hoof turning on. Damn those powering up sounds! “What was that?” the slaver wondered out loud. Uh oh.

It turned out that he hadn’t exactly pinpointed where I was yet, so I still had a chance to pull a plan together. Think, Frosty, think! I glanced at my E.F.S. bar and duly noted that there weren’t any other enemies in close proximity, which meant I was—

…Wait, this stupid PipBuck also had its S.A.T.S. thing! I’d forgotten that this thing was more useful than just for inventory sorting. Remembering the tutorial, I quickly toggled S.A.T.S. on and off to check whether or not it worked. Sure enough, the targeting spell marked the slaver for me, saving me the trouble of having to actually aiming at him myself. It’s like I didn’t even have to try.

Thanks to the power of magic, he’d never see it coming. The drably olive colored slaver was about to circle around to the other side of the rock. However, he wasn’t expecting me to jump over it. A large blob circled his entire body with a little tag that read ‘95%’. I confirmed the hit and whaled into him in spell-enhanced slow motion.

The first punch smashed him into the ground. What I didn’t expect was for him to spontaneously combust. Violently. I nearly landed on top of his prone, burning form and punched him again. More fire! The spell faded away. Well, that was unex—

“Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow!” I frantically attempted to put out the flames that wreathed power hoof and the fur around it. “Hot! Gah!”

My duster ended up getting singed a bit, but at least the fire was out. Philomena’s Touch was placed back into my saddlebag, and I licked my burnt hoof in an attempt to ease the pain. Sure, the burnt hairs were disgusting, but at least my cool saliva was helping the pain go away. Note to self: acquire burn cream.

Yo. Idiot. Purple Leg down there.

Right. Uh, how would I inform Rumcake and Tabber? I thought for a moment, then I simply removed the bottle. Hopefully they’d get it.

In the little scuffle, my earbloom had fallen out. I picked it up off of the rocky ground and popped it back into my ear after a quick brushing. “—thing’s gone to hell! A freakin’ scavenging party came back! Frosty? You there?” Rumcake yelled.

I couldn’t respond. I could hear his suppressed minigun firing off sporadically, but I couldn’t place where it was coming from. Wow, so that actually worked. I stormed off toward the entry where Purple Leg had headed off to, just in case he was thinking of trying to hurt Rumcake.

And, of course, Purple was actually coming back my way, and we collided with each other coming around a mound of rocks. Just great.

“Oi! Who’re y—” he started. He was right in front of me. I had no time to take out a weapon or even Philomena’s Touch. In our collision, he’d dropped his weapon. A pool cue. A bucking pool cue.

Being in a situation that could potentially cause my imminent death, I panicked and chomped down on it before he could finish his sentence. “Cue in yo face!” I screamed, swinging wildly. My first swing missed, but I caught him on the backswing as he lunged for me. He stumbled backwards in pain, clutching the top of his head. I didn’t let up, yelling in between strikes, “I said—” Thwack. “CUE.” Whack. “IN.” Squelch. “YO.” Crunch. “FACE!” Snap. I panted in exhaustion, discarding the broken pool cue onto the dead purple slaver, leaving the other half in his eye socket.

“That… went better than expected,” I wheezed.

The turrets inside the base beeped wildly and started hosing the area with bullets. Uh oh. Not good. “I love computers!” Tabber laughed inside my ear. Eh? Wut? I heard minigun return fire accompanying it. Not. Good. What the hell was going on in there?

“What th’ buck’s wrong wif’ th’ sentryguns?!” a slaver presumably screamed. “Stop shootin’ us!” Well, at least he’d hotwired the sentries to shoot at our enemies.

“Oi! Asshole! Tell them to stop shooting me, too!” I heard Rumcake yell through the radio. Sounds of bullets bouncing off his armor also made it through the radio. “Stop scuffing my armor! I can’t afford to keep buffing it!” By the sounds of it, Tabber must have deleted the targeting data instead of reprogramming it. Lazy bum.

After a quick dash back up to the crest of the hill to retrieve my rifle, I headed back down to the makeshift gate. A cursory search of Purple’s body revealed a healing potion, a nearly broken pistol with all of three bullets in it, and two entire bottle caps. Glee. My newly-procured loot was promptly shoved into my saddlebag.

“Cova’ me lads! I got one las’ pulse grenade,” a different slaver yelled. Sounded like one of the sentry guns was getting luckier than the rest of them, by the sounds of all the screaming and yells of bloody whatevers. “Ready?”

“Way ahead of you.” I determinedly stepped into the camp, catching sight of the harried slaver grimly holding the anti-spell grenade in her teeth. Three bullets, eh? I gripped the pistol I’d recently acquired and triggered S.A.T.S. The five visible slavers were all facing away from me, but they weren’t my target. Even with S.A.T.S. telling me I had “73%” on their torsos and only “21%” on their heads, I wasn’t going to take a shot that wasn’t at least a ninety, since I was just as better off just aiming at something else. A very specific something else.

You’re going to shoot the bucking grenade?

Yes, brain. No need to yell; I can hear you too.

Instead of the easy shot, you’re going to risk a nine percent chance to hit.

Yep. That’s about it, brain. Questions?

Why are we so bucking stupid?

‘Cause we’re so bucking awesome.

The spell-assisted bullet exited the barrel of the pistol in slow motion. Even with the pistol obstructing my right eye, I could tell my shot was going to hit the grenade. Yes. Yes!

Of course, nailing the grenade would have chewed up all of my luck for the week, so the Wasteland decided to save it for me. The bullet only ended up slightly clipping the grenade’s surface, disappointingly enough. At least the impact caused the grenade to fly out of the slaver’s mouth and over their impromptu barricade.

The two of the five that were paying attention whirled around (ironically, the grenade slaver wasn’t one of them). I grinned sheepishly and dived behind a tent. Sporadic gunfire was pointed in my direction, but I weaved my way through random tents and hallways before they could pinpoint my position.

An explosion rang out from somewhere in the camp. “Can we turn off these bucking sentry guns? I’m running out of bullets to shoot them with!” Rumcake yelled again through my earbloom, sounding weary and incredibly pissed.

“What if I told you I couldn’t turn them off?” Tabber replied, laughing uneasily. “Wow, that’s never happened before.”

I snorted. “That’s what she said,” I remarked to no one, before mentally faceclawing myself. Really? Was this what was going through my mind at this moment? Ugh, I was so disappointed with myself. The gunfire appeared to not be aimed at my direction anymore, so I slowed down to catch my breath. I couldn’t risk flying into the fray; I wasn’t armored enough and I’d be a huge target.

Another series of explosions finally silenced the turrets. “Alright, I think our friends finally turned them off,” Tabber called out in my earbloom. “Uh oh. Gotta go.”

“Status report!” Rumcake shouted, to no response. “Oh, you gotta be bucking kidding me…” I heard more minigun fire in the distance. “Frosty, check up on Tabber! I need to entertain our new guests.” A devastating-sounding fwoosh came from the direction of one of Rumcake’s guests. “Ha! I’m fireproof, bitches!” Which was shortly followed by, “Ow, ow, ow! Okay, I’m fire resistant!”

Let’s assume he’ll be alright. As much as I wanted to help him, Tabber probably needed my help more.

Hold up. How are you going to kill those five slavers in front of the command tent?

Is that what it was?

Yes.

Okay. Tabber was inside, and up to five hostiles were in there with him.

I carefully scanned the area, which meant repeatedly triggering S.A.T.S. until I’d almost wasted a bullet on a stray radroach. After that near misfire, I put the pistol away and pulled out my SMG. It looked like the four red dots and the solitary blue dot on my Eyes-Forward Sparkle were all inside the tent. I looked toward the slave cages, then grudgingly decided to help Tabber first. The slaves weren’t going anywhere.

I kept my eye on my E.F.S. and watched the dots disappear one by one, accompanied by soft paffing noises. I lifted the tent flap, making sure to stay out of the actual entrance. “Friendly, coming in,” I called out, noticing the last red dot disappear with an audible thump.

“Come on in! Can I pour you a drink?” Tabber laughed, glasses clinking. I entered the tent to the sight of four dead slavers and three tied up, bloodied, slavers in the corner. “I’ve got…” He swirled around some liquids in a whiskey bottle. “…Drinks to die for.” He slipped on his orange glasses over the gas mask he was already wearing.

I faceclawed. “No. Just… no.” I pulled his sunglasses off his face and put them on myself. And then everything became that much harder to see. “How do you see out of these? Everything’s orange!” So much orange! And yellow!

“I don’t. That’s why I don’t wear them much unless I’m trying to impress somepony.” He scratched his chin in thought. “You know, that’s probably why that assassin couldn’t find me.”

Rumcake stormed into the tent, his armor caked with soot, dirt, and what looked like baked-on blood. “You would not believe what happened,” he said with a huff. “Out of all the weapons to bring, they just had to bring a flamethrower with them.” He stomped his hooves and shook himself, hoping to dislodge some of the crud on his armor. Ironically, the only part of him that wasn’t dirty at all was his Decrusted minigun. Must have had a heavy duty cleaning enchantment on it.

I helped him scrape off the worst of the grime. “At least they didn’t have plasma weapons,” I pointed out, tapping his armor at the same time. “That stuff goes through everything.”

“I know,” he replied bitterly. “I’ve seen it firsthoof.”

Oops. Touchy subject. “I’m a laser mare, myself. Eh heh heh…” I added hopefully.

“What’s with them?” Rumcake asked, allowing me to continue cleaning up his armor. I looked over to the tied up slavers. Tabber really did a number on them—their heads were soaked with blood.

Mmm.

Hey! Shut it.

Wait a sec…

“Keeping unicorns tied up is hard, so I chopped their horns off,” Tabber pleasantly replied, oblivious to the shocked and horrified expressions on our faces (or possibly behind Rumcake’s helmet). “Frosty, don’t give me that look.”

He’d chopped off their horns! What kind of monster does that kind of thing?

Obviously this one.

Thanks?

Even for my enemies, I wouldn’t want that kind of pain wished upon them. “Uh…” I stammered. “Who are they?”

“I’d assume they’re the leaders of this operation.” Rumcake stomped to the unconscious unicorns and slapped each of them. “Up. Right now,” he growled.

“Wot’cha want with us?” the bright blue one on the left wailed.

“Information,” Rumcake simply stated.

“Oi, I’ll tear ye a new arse!” the somewhat gray-white dehorned unicorn in the center defiantly yelled.

“Make it go away…” the dark red one on the right whimpered, his blood nearly invisible against his coat.

“Uh… do we really need these three? I mean, we could probably find things out ourselves since they’re still slavers after all,” I suggested, somewhat sympathizing with the bound unicorns.

“Good point.” Rumcake revved up his minigun and messily executed them all over the wall with an unnecessary amount of firepower.

I recoiled at the atrocities that had just been committed before my eyes. What, why? That wasn’t what I meant at all! “What the buck did you do that for?!” I screamed, backing away from the rapidly spreading pool of blood before part of me decided I needed a snack. “What the buck?!”

“I put them out of their misery,” Rumcake remarked. I continued to look at him in horror. Who executes enemies with a minigun? “What? At least I didn’t do it with a grenade launcher.” Nearby, I could faintly hear Tabber failing to hold back uncontrollable laughter.

“Worst first date ever.” I mentally forced myself to ignore the headless gore pile in the corner. Out of sight, out of mind, right? “We didn’t need anything from…” I racked my brain for the Rad Lads Leader’s name. “Big Benny, right?”

“Nah.” Rumcake pushed the bodies over with his armored tail and focused on the map on the desk near the back where a terminal was still sitting. “Hm. Interesting.” He turned to me. “Go help the slaves. That’s why you came here, right?” I nodded. “Go ahead then. I’ve got things to analyze.”

I bolted to the still-locked slave cages. Many of the slaves looked up, renewed hope in their eyes. “Hi there!” I feigned cheerfulness as I saw the difficult-looking locks securing the cages shut. Cherry was still in the same cage, and she was crying tears of joy. My demeanor deflated when I realized that the locks were hopelessly beyond my skill level. “Back off. I’m going to have to shoot the locks.”

A diseased and sickly mare in the back piped up, “Just pull the pins on the door hinges.”

Oh, huh, that was a much better idea. Saves me a bunch of ammo and probably a whole lot of shrapnel in my face.

A few minutes of improvised levers and enough swearing to call down the goddesses themselves, the cages were finally open. About fifteen slaves were now milling about in the general vicinity of the center of the camp around the large tent. Cherry galloped up to me with a stern look on her face. She seemed a bit worse for wear with a few scratches on her flanks and a new bruise on her cheek, but at least she was still alive.

“So, you just get up and leave, huh?” She slapped my muzzle hard enough to spin me around since I wasn’t expecting it. “Not a word?”

I regained my balance and stamped my hooves in the dirt. “Well, excuse me for breaking out and coming back for you, then.” I rubbed my jaw. “There were unforeseen circumstances, and I had to make a really quick decision, okay?” Cherry let up on her angry look. “At least the Rad Lads won’t bother you anymore. I think the Steel Rangers have sufficiently eradicated them from the Wasteland.”

Cherry froze. Like, completely ice solid. Didn’t even blink. “You!” she yelled, looking past me. “What the buck are you doing with that monster?” I turned around. Tabber was slowly plodding up toward me with a bag over his back. Cherry turned back to me. “Are you trying to get yourself sold?” she hissed urgently. “Quick, give me a gun.”

“Uh.” Could I really give a gun to a mare that I’d recently met? “Why?” I didn’t take my eyes off Tabber as Cherry panicked into my ear. Why couldn’t everything be as simple as kill that, don’t kill them? “Er, have you met?”

“Met?” The way she nearly screamed that at me gave me a sinking feeling. “He bucking killed my family and sold me to this lot!” The sinking turned into a full-blown crashing. Uh oh. “Still feel comfortable with that… thing?” she growled.

I turned my body and surreptitiously dipped a wing into my saddlebag for the pistol from earlier. Cherry caught my movements and hugged me to reach my wings.

The pistol was removed from the grip of my feathers. “Thanks,” she murmured.

“Howdy! Getting a little friendly with the convicts, are we?” Tabber happily called out, unaware of the revelation I’d just been informed of. I tensed myself for anything at this point. “Anyway, we’re ready to roll. Just one more thing to take care of.”

“Hold on.” I trotted up to him, Cherry in tow. She’d hidden the pistol… somewhere. Despite not wearing clothing. Stop thinking about it, Frosty. Focus. “Question.” I pointed at Cherry, who was glowering at Tabber. “Do you recognize her?” I couldn’t see his expression behind the mask, but his body language betrayed nervousness.

“No.” Tabber swallowed and backed up as I advanced on him. “…Okay, she looks somewhat familiar,” he admitted. “Why?”

“I’m going to give you one chance before I crater your face for being a liar,” I quietly threatened. Tabber nodded. “Do. You. Know. Her?” I locked my glare on his featureless glass eye holes.

“Yes. I do,” he finally admitted. “But there’s more to this story.”

“I wanna hear this story.” Rumcake suddenly appeared behind Tabber. “What’s it about?” Who knew power armor could be so sneaky?

To Tabber’s credit, he didn’t flinch. “About a job.” He lunged at me lightning quick and pulled me into a headlock. A large blade sprung from a slit in his barding and paused next to my neck. Well, I guess I could’ve seen that coming.

Yes, you should’ve.

Now is a bad time, brain.

“I’m probably not going to make it out of here, but I sure as hell can make it hard for you.”

Rumcake spun up his minigun very menacingly. “Let her go, asshole,” he growled. “If you touch a hair on her mane, I will end you.”

A muffled step at the edge of my hearing cued me into Cherry’s movement. Come on, girl! Just a little closer. I could smell the gun oil wafting through the air. “Oh no you don’t!” Tabber shouted, shifting forward just enough to buck Cherry with his rear hooves. Cherry managed to fire off one shot, but it missed. Damn. I heard her hit the ground with a crash, followed by the slaves not involved with us backing away.

“Just shoot him! I’ve had worse!” I yelled.

The knife pressed closer to my neck, causing my pulse to rapidly escalate. “Aww. How sweet. Power down now and maybe I won’t have you watch her bleed her out again.” I’d probably survive it, with my luck. Rumcake took a half step forward. A millimeter of cold steel sank into my throat. Gah! That hurt! “Ah, ah, ah!” Tabber chided.

His minigun slowly spun down to a standstill. “Dammit! No!” I screamed. Why does love always make everything so bucking complicated? “Just punch him, then!”

“I’m sorry,” Rumcake said, resigned. “I can’t see you hurt again.”

“Good! Then you can watch him get hurt!” Tabber gleefully told me. What? A flashing red circle appeared under Rumcake’s hooves. “See ya, sucker!” Rumcake had a good second to realize what was about to happen. Tabber pressed a button on his barding and I watched my beloved Rumcake get blasted off his hooves.

“NO!” I screamed, beating at Tabber’s iron grip. “Why are you doing this?” Tears fell from my face as I continued trying to rush to Rumcake’s aid.

“Caps. Mostly caps,” Tabber simply replied. He held me tighter, pulling me back. Big mistake. The second I could see him out of the corner of my eye, I triggered S.A.T.S. My claw was ready, and I wasn’t going to hold back. The display placed an ‘18%’ next to Tabber’s face. Better than nothing! Four swipes to get revenge. My first attack helped me wiggle out of his grip. Two and three did nothing but scuff his armored face. My last punch was directed into his throat.

I was interrupted by a knife into the underside of my jaw. It was like fire spreading through my head, followed by a flash freeze. No words could describe my pain. My tongue was speared, I was bleeding heavily again, and I’d been interrupted once again during a glorious moment. The knife withdrew and I heavily fell onto the ground. My mouth was slowly filling with blood. I couldn’t speak. The knife sank into my gut once, then withdrew.

A twanging of steel strings and a gust of wind summoned an ethereal form that protectively stood above my prone form. “It’s showtime,” It chuckled. I could only see the form’s teal hooves. “Stay away from the light. Keep to the darkness,” he whispered to me.

“Wha–wha–wha—” Tabber stumbled backwards, drawing a rifle from his pack. “Whaaaa?”

“I am fear. I am terror. I am nightmare.” Ice Storm fearlessly strode forward. He was an unimpressive-looking buck. Even being slightly transparent, he shared a strangely similar color scheme to my own. His mane was a ghastly free-flowing white speckled with little… stars? The blue streaks in his mane were the same as mine, only more bold and solid. Major difference—he was a unicorn, unlike the rest of my personalities. His dark blue magical glow surrounded a tiny revolver hovering at his side.

“Eat lead!” Tabber shouted, spraying bullets at Ice Storm. Ice Storm ignored the shots as they passed through his ethereal body without harming him. I could imagine his horror as the rifle went click. “Wha—” Tabber fumbled with some switches on a console strapped to his foreleg.

In other news, Ice Storm had a really sexy butt. Just pointing this out since I had a great view of it.

“My turn.” Ice Storm’s revolver roared with unparalleled rage and firepower not characteristic of his choice of firearm. Smoke suddenly shrouded the area in darkness. “Damn.” He fired two shots into the smoke; the second answered with an ear-splitting crack and a wail of pain. “Grazed him,” he spat in disgust. “I missed! I never miss, unless…” He looked down at my fallen form. “…Oh. Right. That’s why,” he muttered, crouching next to me. “Uh… now is a bad time, but I’m no doctor.” He started to slowly fade away.

Well… crap. Couldn’t see anything, couldn’t say anything, could barely hear anything anymore. Breathing was getting harder. Thinking was difficult in between choking. My stomach hurt. My face hurt. I was hallucinating to the highest degree possible. Great. Ice Storm was gone, back into the very disturbed depths of my mind.

I became aware of fearful whispering from behind me. I couldn’t get my hooves to move, never mind gather enough strength to stand. “Are… are they dead?” somepony quietly whispered. The smoke started to dissipate. I attempted to choke out some kind of response, but I only managed to sputter and bleed more.

An armored body torn and cracked by an explosion was dragged next to me. “Get her to the medical tent with this one. I think there should be something left we can still use to fix them up. Where’s Stardust? By the space butterfly, I am not letting you die now!”

Watch me. Ooh, hey! A bottle cap!

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Mysterious Stranger – A guardian unicorn, just for you. You insane little lunatic, you. Ice Storm will periodically show up to finish off your target when using S.A.T.S.
Current Sub-perk: None.
Status Removed: Addicted to Med-X – Congratulations! Now try not to get addicted to anything else.

Author's Note

Yup. Frosty has a full name now.

Chapter 12: I was dead?

Chapter 12: I was dead?

“Very well, I will fix it. I only ask one thing in return…”

Somepony once told me that, sometimes, you need to know when to give up. I’d never really understood why you would want to give up for any reason. Before, I simply decided giving up was overrated. But more recently, the Wasteland had changed me for the worse. It’s just… the Wasteland grabs you by force and grinds down your resolve until there’s nothing left.

“Wakey, wakey.” Gala Frosty gently nudged me. I groaned and buried my face deeper into the most comfortable pillow I could dream of. “Oh, come on. You can sleep when you’re dead.”

“Knowing my luck, that’ll be in about half an hour,” I muttered, sitting up in the bed. “Status report.”

Gala Frosty smartly saluted. “Your new friend is making himself at home.” Great. Another addition to my increasingly unstable mind. She leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, “He’s a sexy, sexy stallion.” I blushed and hopped out of bed. Of course the rest of me would find him attractive if I did too.

“Anything else?” I smoothed down my ruffled feathers and walked into the living room. Drunk Frosty was still mostly passed out on the couch. Filly Frosty was playing with a little blue doll in the corner of the room. D’aww. Raider Frosty and Ice Storm were both sitting at the one table in the room having a hushed serious-sounding conversation. “What the buck?” I muttered, puzzled.

“Huh? What?” Gala Frosty noticed Raider Frosty sitting at the table with Ice Storm and not in her room. “Oh. That’s new.” She trotted over to them and cautiously poked Raider Frosty.

“What do you want?” she snarled, baring her teeth.

“Woah! Okay, just checking.” Gala Frosty backed off and stood next to me. “Sheesh. Touchy, touchy.”

“It’s going to be stabby stabby if you do that again,” Raider Frosty grunted. “Now, where were we?” she asked, turning back to Ice Storm.

“I say we leave her be,” I decided. “Last thing I need is a fight breaking out.”

“Actually hold on.” Ice Storm grabbed my leg before I could leave the room. “I have something to show you. Or more like something you need to remember.” He magically hefted his revolver and stood up. “You ready?”

“I don’t really have a choice, do I?” I sighed. “Alright. Let’s get this over with.”

“Good. Let’s go.” Ice Storm checked his revolver for ammo and snapped it shut, satisfied. “I can distract the Warden for you while you look for the memory point.” He closed his eyes and an overglow lit up his already glowing horn. “I’ve put a marker over the building. Follow your Eyes-Forward Sparkle to the destination. Once you’re there, you’ll be safe.”

For a moment, I wasn’t sure what EFS he wanted me to use until it suddenly appeared in my vision. A second later, my PipBuck appeared around my leg. Oh yay, this thing followed me around too. However, I still didn’t understand what was happening. “Wait. Can’t you just use your unicorn magic thingy that you did last time?”

Ice Storm shook his head. “The only reason I could pull it off last time was because your Warden friend wasn’t aware of my presence. Now that he knows I’m here, my limited power is being suppressed. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t shoot at him.”

“Warden?” I asked, even more confused than normal. “What the buck is that, exactly?”

“Your little friend? The one that stopped your memory before?” Oh. He was talking about the Enclave officer that had complete control of my memories, if he ever got into them. “He keeps everything outside this home under lock and key.” He edged the door open and poked his head out. “All clear. Ready yet?”

“Will I need a gun?” I asked, staring at my suddenly-materializing saddlebag. “A big gun?”

“Nah. Don’t bring anything with you. You might contaminate the memory with anything you take into it.” He motioned me forward. “When I put my hoof out of this door, run. Down the street, into the square, and find the glowing memory point. I’ll do my best to hold him off.”

“Alright…” I agreed, unsure of what his plan was. “On your go.” Ice Storm calmly paced out the door and immediately the city turned a foreboding shade of red. “I know this is a bad time, but can we un-go? I just realized I might want to use the little filly’s cloud.” I cringed in the doorway in slight fear.

“Not now! Run!” Ice Storm yelled, sweeping his revolver down the streets. “I don’t know how long I can hold him off in my we—” He was suddenly slammed down an alley by a large steel panel torn from something.

“Well. That’s not good,” I muttered to myself, flying down the long street toward the square. A whistling sound from behind me gave me good reason to kick my wings into overdrive. I didn’t want to turn around to find out exactly what was following me. “Buck buck buck buck buck buck buck buuuuuuck!” I squealed as something clipped at my tail.

I dived and swerved around the wide street and finally lost whatever was chasing me by forcing it to collide with a wall. My victory was short lived when the officer from before suddenly dive bombed into the ground ahead of me. I banked around his little crater as he climbed out of it. “You are not welcome in my world!” he shouted at me. An obscenely loud revolver fired and the officer was flung back into his crater.

“Lead! It’s what’s for lunch, bitch.” Ice Storm jumped into the crater after him, revolver in tow. At least he shared my sense of humor. A vicious hoof-to-hoof fight broke out in the crater and he was launched into the air by a strong kick. “Let’s see you do that again!” he yelled at the officer, then frantically motioned me to keep moving before jumping back into the fray.

I made it to the square in one piece. Unfortunately I couldn’t see where the memory point was. My E.F.S. was telling me the memory point was in the square somewhere. “Where is it?” I frantically looked around for it. “There is no way I’m going to die looking for this damn thing.”

Ice Storm rocketed past me and smashed into a fruit stall. “Oh, you can’t die here.” He reloaded his revolver, munching on an apple out of the stall. “You’ll just become a prisoner of your own mind until a skilled memory digging unicorn can save you.”

“Good to know,” I muttered. “So, wanna give me a hint on what I should be looking for?”

“The hell should I know?” Ice Storm shrugged and dashed back toward his duel with my mental dictator. “It’s your memory!” he shouted, firing his revolver again. “You’ll probably know it when you see it!”

Great. Just great. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be looking for. I darted around the square, looking through random boxes, barrels, and drawers. I even resorted to staring at the mini-map while running around to find it. After a few panic-ridden moments, I realized that the memory point could be anything.

I dug through the first crate of imaginary apples and found absolutely nothing of interest. Maybe I was looking for something important? But what could it be? I turned around to search the nearby benches for anything that stood out. An explosion shook the ground and something behind me was reduced to kindling.

“Holy tits, this guy hits hard,” Ice Storm grumbled, apple bits leaking out of his hat as he stumbled past me. “Hurry up, would you?”

Easier said than done. “I’m trying!”

“Try harder!”

Just like that, something mildly shiny and nailed to a table with a knife caught my eye. It was a tattered, dented medal that had its embellishments violently scraped away. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t recognize it. I suddenly knew exactly what it was, exactly when I’d seen it. I closed my eyes and began to remember…

“Dad?”

<~~~>

“This squad assessment meeting will now come to order,” a bored voice intoned. I opened my eyes and found myself in a large, unfamiliar room. I was standing at attention in a line with the rest of my squad. To my left, Shadow Breeze and Dad. To my right, Tornado, Lightning Chaser, and Tiny Wings. Opposite from us, three high-ranking officers glared at us disapprovingly. The one in the middle had spoken, and he continued, “Would you care to explain what happened out there?”

“The situation needed to be handled delicately, and I proceeded as I saw fit,” Dad reported. “Unfortunately, the plan did not continue as planned, and my squad needed to improvise for safety, sir.”

The three officers conversed with each other. All of them were old and should have probably retired years ago. I didn’t remember their names, and they were all sort of grayed out and covered in a obscuring fog. Probably work of the Warden or something. “Somehow, we find it hard to believe you were forced to demolish a high-value target for your squad’s safety.”

I stayed at attention, resisting the urge to look at what Dad was shuffling around for. “Look, you bureaucratic snots. I don’t know what your idea of safety is, but I want to keep as many of my pegasi alive as possible.” He stomped right up into one of their faces. “You got a problem with that?”

“We do, in fact.” The officer shoved him backward. “Back in line, airpony.”

“Yessir,” Dad growled between gritted teeth and stepped back in line.

“You had a priority one assignment,” the officer on the right said. “Not only did you botch an entire operation, you destroyed our relations with a surface asset.”

“In our defense, he was kind of an ass,” Tornado pointed out. I stifled a snicker and attempted to keep a straight face.

The officers didn’t find that amusing at all. “Just because somepony is unbearable doesn’t mean we can’t work with them. And that certainly doesn’t mean you shoot his bodyguards with an incinerator.”

Tiny Wings uneasily coughed from down the line. “They were threatenin’ ta shoot th’ boss. I had ta think fast.”

“An incinerator? Really?” the rightmost officer asked sarcastically. “Where did you manage to requisition one of those?”

“Wif much difficulty,” Tiny Wings said proudly. “If ya know th’ right ponies, ya can get anythin’.”

“Gentlecolts, back on topic,” said the middle one (who seemed to be the one in charge, no surprise). “Which one of you will take responsibility for your failure?” I shared an uneasy glance with the rest of the squad. “Anypony?”

Dad sighed and assumed responsibility. “I’m their commanding officer, and I was leading the task force. The fault is mine. My orders were unclear, and I wasn’t focused on the op.” The officers murmured among themselves.

I took a deep breath and stepped forward. “Sir, it was my fault for not relaying more accurate intel to the rest of the force.”

Lightning stepped forward and simply added “I was high.” I resisted the urge to facehoof.

Tornado also joined us. “I jumped the gun and started it.”

Tiny Wings admitted, “I dun goofed. Probably shouldn’t have burned them first.”

All of us glared at Shadow. “What? I just followed orders,” he blurted. The rest of us probably gave him death glares from hell. “Okay, I probably should have thought out the plan more before I agreed to it.”

Silence. “So, all of you are taking responsibility? Well, we can’t have that, exactly.” One officer mused. He turned to his compatriots. “Plan B?” They all nodded. “Ladies and gentlecolts, you have one option available to you right now. Voluntarily submit to a court-martial where we will re-evaluate your usefulness to the Enclave, and we’ll leave your families out of this.”

We kept our muzzles shut like good little airponies, repressing our anger and rage. Finally, Dad calmly said, “That’s not going to happen.” He took a step forward, and we all followed him in step. “You’d better come up with another option.”

“There is no other option,” somepony called out from a walkway. “Commanders, stand down.” The pony swooped down to the floor where we were gathered. The officers saluted at him immediately. The rest of us saluted only after Dad did.

“So, Harbinger, what brings you to our little meeting?” Dad casually asked. “Here to ruin the rest of our lives?”

Harbinger laughed. “So that’s what the grunts talk about, eh?” He circled us while we were frozen at attention. I didn’t really remember enough about him, but my fragmented mind told me he was really important in some way. “If these fine gentlecolts don’t have an appealing offer, maybe I can help.”

“Let’s hear it,” Dad replied defiantly.

“I have a high-risk job for you and your team. Due to the unfortunate demise of the rest of your task force, it only seems fitting to let you have a second chance.” My heart stopped. What? As far as I was aware, Alpha Two had taken some fire, but nopony had died! Bravo and Charlie hadn’t even been on task, had they? “You look scared. Why?”

“Wh–wh–what?” Lightning stammered. “All f-fifteen of them?” She dropped out of attention and collapsed onto the floor. “H-how?” Her hysterics kicked into high gear as her whimpering sobbing threatened to escalate into something louder.

I dropped attention and sat down next to her. “Hey. Shh.” I dug through her pockets, looking for the damn tin of mints she kept somewhere. I felt my hoof brush something small and noisy. I grabbed the familiar tin with the zebra on it and popped it open.“Uh… here, these make you feel better, right?” I held the tin in front of her muzzle. She picked one out and popped it into her mouth, giving me a sad smile. “Better yet?”

“Yeah. Thanks for that.” Lightning sighed and pocketed the tin again. She turned back to Harbinger with an angry glare.

“As I was saying, after a horrible Vertibuck crash, your entire task force was unfortunately wiped out.” He grinned, quite pleased with himself, and continued ignoring our horrified and enraged expressions. “I have a special assignment that will fix all of that.”

“You kill my team. You threaten us with excommunication. You threaten my family. Our families,” Dad stated, barely audible. He was pissed. Like, really pissed. Even though he was being quiet, the tone he was using made it just as effective as if he were yelling at the top of his lungs. “You expect us to fall in line, just like that?”

Harbinger was unfazed. “Actually, yes. Smoky Winds, I’m giving you an option because we used to be friends.” They went to flight school together, then? Must have been terrible, because Dad never talked about anything related to flight school. “For old time’s sake, eh?”

Dad glanced at us, then back to him. “Fine. What’s the op?”

“Simple escort mission. Finish the op, you all get clean slates. That simple.”

Shadow Breeze sighed. “Dammit, I like my slate.”

I inwardly sighed in relief. Good, at least the “Let’s put the frag mine in the officer’s latrine” joke wouldn’t be on my record anymore. Yay for me.

“Y-you mean I c-can go back into the med suite again?” Lightning sniffled. Oh right, I’d forgotten about that. She’d been banned from ever entering the med-suite when they’d found her passed out in a pile of painkillers and other assorted medication. Thanks to my slight experience in addictive substances in the Wasteland, it was probably because of her addiction to the Mint-als she kept eating.

“Yes, I can let you go back into the med-suite again,” Harbinger clarified. “A fresh start for all of you. Don’t waste it.” Lightning gave Dad the saddest face she could muster.

Dad grudgingly agreed. “Fine. we’ll take it.”

“Excellent.” Harbinger stomped his hooves on the ground happily. “The Vertibuck leaves in eighteen hours. I suggest you prepare your team before then. My liaison will give you the details later.” He produced a small medal out of his jacket pocket and proffered it to Dad. “Well, congratulations on your ‘successful assignment’, Senior Master Sergeant Smoky Winds.”

Dad wordlessly took it. “So, what now, boss?” Tornado asked. The officers plus Harbinger left through a door behind them. “Boss?” Dad continued staring at the medal. Tornado gave me a worried look. “I know I’m his second, and I should know, but does he normally do this?”

“No, he doesn’t,” I quietly replied, floating over to dad. “Sarge? Dad?” He didn’t react to my voice, which worried me. Tornado nervously hovered next to me. Somewhere behind me, Shadow was attempting to get Lightning off her butt and get a bit more presentable again. Judging by the sounds of arguing and whining, she wasn’t going anywhere.

“Look, I’ll leave you with the boss. I’ll go figure out whatever… that’s about,” he said, gesturing at the scuffle behind him. “Regroup at the lockers later?” I nodded in agreement. “Sir.” He saluted at Dad then pivoted in place to yell at the rest of the squad, “Listen up, idiots. Clock out for five, meet at the lockers after for briefing. Got it?”

“Yeah. Later, sarge,” I distractedly mumbled.

Everypony else stopped their squabbling and saluted him. “Yes, sir!” They flew off through the other exit behind us, leaving me and Dad alone in the large room. A Raptor hangar of some sort, as I just realized.

“C’mon, Dad. It’s time to clock out.” He still didn’t react to me. I floated closer and rubbed his neck in some kind of hope that he’d snap out of it. “Are you coming?” I braced myself for an angry outburst.

Dad finally barked a scornful laugh. “Look at this.” He waved the medal at me. “This is my reward. Stupid, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“A monument to our sins, in miniature.” Dad went back to staring at the medal. “After six years of service, this is what I deserve.” He pocketed the medal in disgust. “That’s just great.”

“Let’s get you back to your quarters. I need to get some rest, and Luna knows when you slept last.” Ever since I was young, he’d habitually replace sleep with instant coffee and alcohol. “C’mon, Dad. Let’s go.” I attempted to nudge him toward the exit.

“Sleep is for the weak.” He snorted. “If you insist. Let’s go.”

A burning question popped out of my mouth before I could stop it. “Whatever happened to ‘the Winds never stop’, huh?” I asked more aggressively than I meant to.

Dad whipped around and slapped me across my muzzle. I recoiled, holding my hoof against my face. He pointed at me, anger in his story blue eyes. “Look, sugarpuff, we can’t win ‘em all. You’re young, and I admire your courage.” He deflated and continued, “Thing is, sometimes you have to know when to give up. Can’t win them all, sugarpuff. When you’re older, you’ll understand.” I was still frozen in shock and horrified by his outburst.

“But…” I finally stammered. My vision blurred with tears.

“Oh, Goddesses. I’m so sorry, sugarpuff.” Dad dropped his hoof and wrapped me in a hug. I collapsed into him and hugged him back tightly. “It’s just…”

“The stress talking. I know, Dad.” I wouldn’t hold it against him. “Let’s just get you in your bunk, okay?” I allowed him to lean against me as we walked out of the hangar together.

“I just can’t believe it.”

“What?”

He scornfully laughed to himself. “I just sacrificed fifteen pegasi for the lives of three worthless dirt dwellers. Whoopity bucking doo.”

<~~~>

I was pulled out of the memory by Ice Storm’s magic field. “That’s enough of that!” I had enough time to grab the medal in my teeth before I was thrown into the air unceremoniously. “Have a good time in there?” He ran along the street toward the cloudhouse where the rest of myselves was staying. I flew along above him, juking and diving to avoid incoming plasma fire.

“What the buck did you do to him?” I screamed hysterically as an electric green plasma bolt singed the feathers on my right wing. “He didn’t have a gun last time!”

“Yeah, so turns out shooting at him only made him mad,” Ice apologetically shouted back. “And whoever added him to your mind did not give a single buck about the rule of threes.” The rule of three? What? “Good news, I’ve weakened him enough so he won’t be a threat for a while.”

“Don’t you wish I brought my massive anti-everything rifle with me?” I had enough skill to fly upside down, but could I fire it while flying? Nah, that was stupid. If the recoil could break my ribs, firing it while flying would be spectacularly disastrous. Damn, would it look awesome, though.

“That hailslinger is nothing compared to my magnum,” Ice smugly replied. Well, somepony sure was very secure about themselves.

“How is that possible?” I cried, diving right down next to him to avoid a particularly accurate shot. “This thing fires, like, ninety caliber bullets. Yours doesn’t even clear forty five!”

“Firepower works in mysterious ways, sugarpuff.” He laughed. Wait, sugarpuff? “Almost there! Don’t stop running! Flying! Whatever!”

“Wait, how do you know—” Only Dad calls me sugarpuff!

“I was paying attention,” he simply replied. Raider Frosty opened the door and urgently waved us in. Even if she looked like somepony out of a nightmare, it was a relief to see her for once. “Just a little farther…”

A last bolt spattered off some kind of force field surrounding my house. Ice and I jumped in and Raider Frosty slammed the door shut behind us. “Cuttin’ it close, are we?” she growled with a hint of amusement in her voice. “You complete the objective?”

“Yeah, yeah.” I showed her Dad’s medal. “Got it.”

“Not talkin’ to you, dork,” Raider Frosty snapped. Sheesh, somepony’s got a cactus up her butt. Was I really this touchy?

“Calm down. Done, and then some.” Ice flopped onto the ground next to the table. “I need a drink.” He was promptly whacked in the face by a mostly-full whiskey bottle expertly thrown from the far end of the couch. “Thank you,” he grumbled to the room, rubbing his nose. Drunk Frosty waved back from her crater on the couch.

I glanced between Raider Frosty and Ice Storm. “Uh, am I missing something here?” The fact my subconscious was working with one of my other subconsciouses scared me a lot. “Do you want to share something with the class?”

They looked at each other and laughed. Did I mention how creepy I, uh… she was when she laughed? Like, it shouldn’t even be allowed to have that much creepy laughter in one spot. Even Ice Storm had a malevolent-sounding laugh. Raider Frosty finally caught her breath and replied, “Don’t worry your pretty little mane about it, filly.”

“Uh… ooookay,” I uneasily replied. Due to Raider Frosty’s aggressive nature, I decided to agree with her for my continued survival.

Gala Frosty strolled through the room and pulled me aside in one swift motion. “I need to talk to you. Privately!” she added, shooting a look at Ice Storm. Once we were out of the room and back in what looked like her room, she pushed me into a sitting position on the bed. Her room was simply covered in crayon drawings of dresses I’d designed for myself over the years. Other than that, there was the bed, a small nightstand, the closet, and a lamp.

“So, uh. What’s up? Feeling better yet?” I asked.

“A little,” Gala Frosty admitted. “But that’s not the point.” She addressed the rest of the room with, “Get your ass in here, right now!”

The closet opened and a full-blown skeleton fell out of it, tangled in his cloak. A skeleton had just fallen out of my closet. Okay, my subconscious’s closet, but hardly the point. “NO NEED TO BE ANGRY, GEEZ. COME ON, LORD OF DEATH HERE. CAN’T I GET SOME RESPECT?”

At first, the skeleton had simply alarmed me, but the second it started talking and identified himself, my heart froze. I simply stood and gaped, stunned into speechlessness. Nothing particularly witty came to mind. Don’t blame me for being shocked. Death himself just stumbled out of my closet.

All I managed to finally squeak was, “I’ve heard of skeletons in the closet, but this is ridiculous.”

If Death had actual eyeballs, he probably would have rolled them. “HA HA. VERY FUNNY,” he said sarcastically. Gala and I giggled anyway. “FOR A DEAD MARE, YOU’VE GOT A GOOD SENSE OF HUMOR. OH, WE HAVEN’T BEEN PROPERLY INTRODUCED. CALL ME MORT.”

…Mort? Oh! Mort! This must have been who Filly Frosty was trying to tell me about a while back. If only I’d paid more attention! Wait, what did he just say? I abruptly stopped in mid-giggle. “Wait, what?”

“YOU KNOW WHY I SHOW UP,” Mort simply stated. “WELL, THINK OF THIS AS A COURTESY VISIT. JUST FOR MY LITTLE CONTRACTOR.” For the second time today, my heart stopped. I was dead? And what did he mean by contractor?

Gala Frosty gave me a what-is-going-on look. “Wait, what? Are we dead? Or are we, like, dead but not really dead?” she rambled, unsure of herself. “Is that what a courtesy visit is?”

“NO. YOU’VE GOT A GOOD CHANCE OF DYING. THEREFORE, HERE I AM.”

Oh, joy. “…Okay, uh, and what do you mean by contractor?” I added.

Mort seemed genuinely confused. “YOU MEAN YOU DON’T REMEMBER?” He searched our faces for a hint of deception. “WOW. YOU REALLY DON’T. WELL, THIS IS AWKWARD. THIS REALLY HASN’T HAPPENED BEFORE.”

Okay, that didn’t sound good. I sprang up and grabbed him by his midnight black cloak. “What. Did. I. Do?” I growled, taking a page from Dad’s book of intimidation.

“WOAH, WOAH, WOAH. YOUR TITS. CALM THEM.” Mort struggled against my grip. “LET ME EXPLAIN.” I released his cloak and allowed him to explain. “THREE WEEKS AGO, YOU DIED. SERIOUSLY.”

And cue heart attack number three. I gave Gala Frosty a sidelong glance and asked, “Did you know?” She shook her head.

“IF YOU MUST KNOW, YOU BLED OUT. MANAGED TO FLY A FAIR DISTANCE AND SURVIVE A GOOD LONG WHILE BEFORE YOU ATE IT.” Mort sighed. “I’VE NEVER SEEN SOMEPONY SO DETERMINED TO LIVE.”

“So what happened?” I pressed.

“WHEN I ARRIVED, YOU STILL HAD FIGHT IN YOU. SO I DECIDED TO GIVE YOU A CHANCE.” Mort threw back his hood and settled down onto the other side of the bed. A talking skull was a bit disconcerting, but I really didn’t expect less from Death. “WE MADE A DEAL. YOUR LIFE, FOR SOMEPONY ELSE’S.” Crap.

“Could we get the deal in its entirety?” Gala Frosty asked, voicing my questions exactly. “What did we get into, exactly?”

“UH.” Mort looked uncomfortable. “I’M NOT REALLY ALLOWED TO DISCUSS THE DETAILS OF OUR AGREEMENT, DUE TO THE BINDING TERMS OF THE CONTRACT.”

“Wait, why?” I asked, still confused.

“YOU CAN THANK DEAD LAWYERS FOR THAT ONE.” Mort adjusted his hood. “ALL I CAN TELL YOU IS THAT IT’S NOT SOMEPONY YOU CARE ABOUT.”

“So it’s a revenge job, then? Is that even allowed?” challenged Gala Frosty.

“KIND OF.” Mort got that uncomfortable look again. “THERE WAS A BUNCH OF FINE PRINT, BUT YOU’LL HAVE TO FIND OUT WHAT IT IS WHEN YOU RUN INTO IT.”

Well, that bucking helped. “Somehow I don’t think that’s the entire deal…” I realized. “I find it hard to believe you did this out of the goodness of your nonexistent heart.”

“I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW MY NONEXISTENT HEART HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. BUT YES, THERE WAS A CONDITION.” Mort sighed and furtively looked around the room. He dropped his booming echo and continued, “If you couldn’t complete the contract within two months, I would take the claim on your soul and somepony else’s of my choosing, and therefore remove you two from this plane of existence.”

Buck. “Who?” I asked, not sure whether I wanted to hear the answer. When I made that deal in the throes of death, did I really think it through? Did I sacrifice somepony for the sake of my own revenge?

Mort shrugged. “Can’t tell you. Sorry.” He decided to change the topic. “What do you remember about our deal? Besides what I’ve just told you, of course.”

“Nothing,” I huffed, crossing my forelegs. “This is new information to me.”

“Hm. That’s interesting,” Mort muttered. “What? Not my fault! If I made people forget their deals, then they wouldn’t remember to do them. Wait, that actually ends favorably for me. I should start doing that… Nah, that seems like a dickish thing to do.”

“If I could kill you…” I growled to myself.

“Fine, fine. I think I could make a slight exception for you in this case.”

“An exception?” I dreaded the response.

“An annotation to the contract, as it were. But I’ll give you a little liberty with it since it’s not exactly important and it’s a little out there. Just insurance for me, basically.”

As strange as it sounded, I jumped at the opportunity. “I’ll do it.”

Before the words made it out of my mouth, Gala Frosty immediately slapped me across the face. “No, we’re not. Always ask for the fine print,” she scolded.

“Don’t worry, I’m not like that.” When Gala Frosty gave Mort a scrutinizing glare, he flatly responded, “What? I was getting to it.”

“Fine print. Right now,” Gala Frosty insisted.

“Somepony’s been messing with some dark magic of the death-defying variety. As long as the ritual or amulet or whatever is still intact, I can’t see or touch them. I’d like you to find them and pass judgement. If you make the right call, I’ll add an extension. If not, well, I’ll have to take a bit off to make things right.”

I glanced at Gala Frosty. To me, this seemed like exactly what I needed to give me a little extra time to get everything done. The terms were simple and straightforward, and I didn’t really see anything that stood out to me as malicious. Of course, I was going to defer to my smart side first.

“I guess it’s as good as it gets,” Gala Frosty finally admitted. “You only do live once, yada yada. Just don’t forget.”

A scroll and quill materialized out of his sleeve. “Let’s see now… I, Frosty Winds, being of sound mind, blah blah blah… My soul for another, yada yada… Here we go.” He dipped the quill into his mouth and added a little annotation. “Special pending extension for one pending reaping in the near future. There. All done!”

“How will we know who it is?” Gala Frosty asked, just as confused as I was.

“We’ll know when we see them,” I guessed.

“Give the mare a prize! That’s the plan. Currently all the pieces are moving right where they should be, so once I need you… well, we’ll be in touch.” He shoved to scroll back into his sleeve and got off the bed. “Later.” And with that, he disappeared.

If I owed favors to any more ponies, I’d need to either need to buy myself some self-control or start making a list.

“So… wanna explain what Death was doing in your closet? My closet? Our closet?” I asked Gala Frosty. “More importantly, why the balls do I have a dark and edgy personification of death in here with me?”

She strolled over to the closet and closed the door. “When he showed up while you were out being reckless, Raider actively tried to keep him out.”

“Really?”

“I got him to teleport into the closet until you got back. And that’s Death with a capital ‘D’. He’s not one of us—he’s the one and only.” I followed her out into the main room, a few more questions answered. “So, what’s everypony else doing?”

Raider was still conversing with Ice, Drunky was still crashed onto the couch, and Filly was still playing with deluxe action figure Soarin. By the sounds of things, Raider and Ice couldn’t come to an agreement on whatever it was. “Hey! Klepto! Over here,” Raider yelled.

I assumed she was referring to me. “What?” I irritably stormed over there.

“How would you feel if I took control a little more often?” she asked. “I mean, I can get you through more fights, I’m stronger than you’ll ever be, and I don’t have my stupid emotional issues holding me ba—”

I shoved my hoof into her mouth. “Listen here, you. I’m only going to say this once. I own my mind, not you. When I need your help, I’ll ask for it. Do we understand?” When I didn’t get an immediate response, I roughly twisted and slammed her head into the floor. “Are. We. Clear?” She rolled her eyes, nodded, and made me reconsider the placement my hoof with an aggressive nibble.

Gala Frosty gently touched my neck. “This isn’t what we do,” she whispered into my ear. I begrudgingly grunted an affirmative and wiped my hoof all over Raider Frosty’s head. “There you go.”

“Sorry. It’s… it’s probably just the stress,” I apologized.

“We’ve had bigger things in our mouth before. It’s aaaaaaallll good.” Drunk Frosty giggled from the couch. I might have turned bright red from the implications of that. Filly Frosty only facehoofed from her spot on the floor.

“Really now?” Filly Frosty groaned. “So immature.”

A cacophony of noise erupted from somewhere outside. “I think that’s your cue to leave. Sounds like somepony managed to save us yet again,” Gala Frosty informed me.

“Apparently so. I need to stop getting killed,” I muttered, heading to the closest bed. “Almost dying is getting repetive.” I hopped into the bed and pulled up the covers around me. “Wake me when you need me.”

“You are so cheesy.” Gala Frosty smiled and patted my mane. “Now go to sleep. You’ve got bigger things to do once you get back.”

~~~~~

The second I regained consciousness, a wall of fuzzy numbness hit me. My face felt like it was a huge flabby pillow tied together with tape and painkillers. On that topic, my muzzle was actually taped shut with a healing bandage. At least my torso didn’t really feel leaky anymore—only kind of burny. “Mmmngh,” I groaned.

Pretty clouds… Could use a bit more color, though.

Focus.

But my faaace hurts.

Oh, stop whining.

A cursory glance of my surroundings didn’t really make me feel any better. I’d been moved between two tents, and it looked like somepony was standing behind one of them. I was currently lying on what felt like a makeshift stretcher, judging by the uneven cloth on my right side. A passing light purple unicorn mare noticed my losing battle with the bandage around my muzzle. “You’re awake! Don’t move, please. You might open your wounds again.”

I stopped struggling and let her fawn over me. “Mnh? Hmnph mnn uu?”

“Who am I?” she asked. “Well, everypony used to call me Stardust.” I raised my eyebrow. Used to? Stardust caught that. “You know, slavers and all.” Ah. That made sense. “I assume you’d like to say something.” I nodded vigorously and instantly regretted it as a massive headache slammed into me. “Hold still. I don’t want to cut you any more than you already have,” she said, levitating a combat knife toward me.

“Mpph!” I weakly protested. Most of me wanted to back away from the mare with the knife, but she looked so calm and gentle I couldn’t help listening to her. I still reflexively edged away from the knife floating at my face, though.

Stardust sighed and magically gripped my head. “Stop moving! I’m just trying to help.” I struggled a bit more, to no effect. The knife edged ever so slightly between my lips and sliced the tape portion of the bandages apart on either side of my muzzle. “There you go. I didn’t realize the blood angel was such a little filly.” She laughed to herself.

“You didn’ ‘et sthabbed inna froat,” I whined. “Ith ‘urts!” And my swollen tongue was not helping my speech either.

“So, how do you feel?” she asked with a smile.

“Bweh.” I felt like I’d been, well, stabbed in the face. “Why awen’t we in th’ tenths?

She glanced at a tent next to us. “Just an assumption that the outsides are probably cleaner than the insides.” Eew. Probably right on that count.

I suddenly remembered Rumcake. “What ‘bout my fend?” I urgently cried.

“Your friend? Your Steel Ranger friend?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. I nodded slowly as to not bounce my brain around too too much. “He’ll be fine. Allegedly his armor’s med-suite is keeping him alive, but I think he’s got a little concussion. Minimum. He won’t let me get near him.”

“‘Emme talk t’ ‘im. ‘Ow bad ‘s it?” I stumbled to my hooves and ignored the twisting pain in my gut. Ow. Ow. Ow. Of all the times to not use painkillers, now was a really bad time. I resisted the urge to barf and followed Stardust into the space between two nearly identical tents. Looked like the the slaves I’d liberated had helped themselves to the slavers’ armor and repainted them while I was in dreamland.

The second I set my eyes on Rumcake, I burst out laughing. He was on his back, legs frozen in mid-flail. “Frosty? Dammit, help me out here.” I continued laughing, tears streaming from my eyes. “Stoooop it,” he whimpered. They’d gotten his helmet off, at least. His pitiful expression only made it even funnier.

I fell over and shook in uncontrollable laughter. I finally stopped long enough to squeak, “It hurth’s to breafe!” And then I continued giggling.

Rumcake abruptly broke out into weak chuckle. “What the buck happened with your voice?” I tried my best to look angry, but I couldn’t keep a straight face. “You sound so adorkable!” Stardust tapped me on the shoulder and mouthed to me that she’d be waiting nearby.

“Thath’s wha’ you get for gettin’ sthabbed in th’ face,” I gasped. Finally I drew in several deep breaths. “Okay, I fink I’m done.” Good thing I didn’t have any lunch, because my stomach felt like emptying itself everywhere. “So how’th your legs?”

Rumcake glanced down at himself. “Well, I think I might have broken my leg. And I think I sprained my neck. Oh yeah, my armor shut down, too. How are you doing?”

I laid down across his torso. “Bweh.”

“That bad, huh?” He sighed. “I guess we should radio for help. You’re in no shape to fly, I can’t move, and we have a whole load of liberated slaves that are probably in no condition to travel.” I grunted a general agreement. We needed help. “You wouldn’t happen to have a working radio, would you?” He chuckled. “Worst. Date. Ever.”

“Bweh,” I repeated, coughing up something bloody. “I think I tore somefing. Ugh.”

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked me, concern in his voice. Still feeling kinda bad, but it was bearable. I nodded. “Well, I think I have a maintenance pack in my armor somewhere. In theory, you should be able to reboot my spell matrix with your PipBuck.”

“I think I fail’th arcane-’ech class.” Which probably wasn’t an understatement.

“Don’t worry. I can walk you through it,” Rumcake said with a laugh. “I can’t take you seriously at all. Your voice is adorable.”

Too bad my claw couldn’t pierce his armor. “I will wip you faeth off.” I pouted. “Hmpth.” I pulled up my PipBuck and flipped through the different options. Hunger began to gnaw at my stomach and brought my lack of cherry confectionaries to attention. Well, in my current state I couldn’t really eat them anyway.

The next whole hour was spent with Rumcake teaching me how to plug a PipBuck into a suit of Steel Ranger armor and the procedures on what to do. Apparently I was frustratingly bad at using pre-war arcane-tech anythings. After a few near-crashes and a spectacular failure that nearly short-circuited my own PipBuck, Rumcake’s patience finally reached its end.

“Just give me your hoof. By Celestia, I can’t believe you are this bad at it.” Rumcake cried out in exasperation. I shamefully reached out and let him see the PipBuck on my hoof. “Now, let’s see…”

“Thorry. ‘Old you I thuck at this,” I muttered. Rumcake was focused on the screen, scanning the letters for some kind of magical information that I obviously couldn’t find. “‘Ow’re you goin’ t’ use it?” I’d been poking at the little buttons with a talon with a little difficulty. With hooves, it seemed like typing on its little on-screen keypad was impossible. Rumcake didn’t even have his hooves free!

“Easy.” He reached out with his tongue and started tapping away at the screen with it. His tongue. “I have more skills than you think.” He grinned and waggled his eyebrows at me. “Think about it.”

My face heated up faster than a laser gatling on full blast. Not to mention I broke out in a sweat somewhere more than anywhere else. “W-w-whaaaat?” I managed to stammer, trying my best to not drool. “I-I’m not finkin’ about it!”

“Oh, yes you are,” Rumcake singsonged, tapping away at the screen. “Your hooves are shaking. And your wings are all funny again.” Okay, wings, you can fold up now. Please.

“That’s th’ unsuppressed rage,” I stammered, still blushing. Fine, he was getting me riled up just thinking about it. Not totally my fault! Right?

Well, if somepony got herself a little actio—

Shut. Up. Brain.

“You’re so cute when you’re in denial.” Rumcake continued working at my PipBuck. I reminded myself to not punch him in his smug little face. “Aha!” His legs finally unlocked and his forelegs landed heavily onto my back.

“Ow!” Did I hear something crack? Hopefully not.

“Gah! Sorry, sorry.” Rumcake cringed in pain. “Ooh, ahh. Oh, that hurts.” A second later, he sighed in relief. “Yay, drugs.”

I squirmed around under his heavy armored hooves. Now that it was powered, his armor started to repair itself. Cracks fused and damaged panels repaired themselves. Coooool. “Anythin’ broken?”

“No. Doesn't feel like it, but I’ve been wrong before. Everything’s bruised for sure, dammit. Oh, now I don’t want to move anymore,” Rumcake groaned.

“‘Sthop whining. My everyfin’ hurts. Jus’ call for help.”

“Right.” He shoved his head back into his helmet and radioed in our position to whoever was in charge of the Steel Ranger radio post or whatever. After a long drawn out discussion, followed by an argument, followed up by some cringe-worthy pleading. “One of these days, somepony’s going to park a bullet in his face,” he growled, finally finishing up his radio call.

Unbearable, general hatred from everyone? “Thoufflé?” I guessed.

“Who else?” Of course. Who else. “We’re not supposed to go anywhere until he personally debriefs us. He’s steaming mad about all the mayhem that we just caused.” I had things to do! “Do you think you come up with anything to get us out of this?” he pleaded.

“I’m sure I c’n wing it.” Hehe. Wing. I made funny.

~~~~~

“Say ‘aah’,” Doc said, a pale blue glow still emanating from his horn. “I need to check whether that worked or not.”

“Aaaahhh.” I opened my mouth as far as I could. The moment we’d arrived back in town with our Steel Ranger escort, my first stop was to Doc’s clinic to fix my temporary speech impediment. My tongue had gotten more swollen on the way to back, and my basic knowledge of medicine told me I might have gotten an infection.

“Hmm.” A flat stick pushed down on my tongue. “Close enough.” The stick withdrew. “You can close your mouth now.” Doc tossed the stick over his shoulder. “This Stardust mare really knows what she’s doing with healing magic.”

“Really?” I snorted. “I didn’t realize.”

“Seriously, she really knows what she was doing.” I had to take his word for it, since I wasn’t exactly conscious for most of it. “Healing spells are hard.”

“Whatever. Everything good?” I moved my tongue around my mouth. My face felt right, if not a little sore. “The last thing I need is Rumcake making fun of me for the next week and a half.”

“Well, good news. Localized healing spell worked!” Doc jumped up and down with glee. “I can’t believe it!”

“I can’t either,” I added suspiciously. “What’s the bad news?”

Doc seemed puzzled. “Bad news? I guess stay away from really solid foods for the next, like, forty-eight hours?” I glared at him, and he shrugged “What? Can’t I have a moment without failure?”

“No,” Rumcake responded in his un-armored glory. “Hey, Frosty, I brought you a visitor.”

I craned my neck to look behind him. Lo and behold, Soufflé with his giant peaked cap was storming in behind Rumcake. “You better have a good explanation for this, Squire Winds.”

…I liked the sound of “Squire Winds” more than “science project”. It made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Okay, c’mon. Think, Frosty.

I got one!

Sweet. Go for it, Gala.

Gimme the reins.

Fine. The second you’re done, I want control back.

You got it, boss.

I’m not sure if anypony else noticed the slight elevation of my head, the shift in my posture, and the minute changes in my voice. But this wasn’t the violent haze of red like Raider Frosty. It was more calm, as it were. Like everything became more clear.

“Sir, let’s not be hasty,” Gala said, smoothly taking over. “I believe you are quite aware of your… unpleasant standing with the locals.” Soufflé snorted in what I thought was agreement. Or disgust. “Simply put, I have given you an opportunity to start changing that. Be a stallion of the ponies, as it were.”

“Get to the point.” Soufflé impatiently stomped the floor. “I’d like to remind you that I now have the proper authority to assign you to latrine duty in the event you wasting my time.

“As you wish,” Gala Frosty hastily agreed. “Now that we’ve effectively turned the only major hostile faction in the region into a large smoking crater, counter-operations and patrols can be reduced in favor for other uses of your Rangers. Maybe some PR? Luna knows you need it.”

“Do we really need public relations? I hardly care about what the Wastelanders think of us. We have a job to do, and I refuse to allow such petty things to get in the way.”

Gala slightly faltered, then swiftly recovered. “Think of it this way—now you can carry out your duty without needing to deal with those slavers anymore. ”

“Think of it this way,” Soufflé snarked back, mimicking my voice. “You took one of my more experienced senior officers on a high-risk operation with zero intel and no reinforcements. I’m sure you could imagine why I’m a little more than upset.”

I realized this, but it seemed that Gala Frosty had it under control. “And we considered this by bringing a stealth specialist with us. He did the recon, we carried out some sabotage on key structures, and got out of there with minimal injuries.”

“It was an unwarranted risk.”

“The ends justify the means,” Gala Frosty smugly replied.

“Hmph,” Soufflé dismissively grunted. “Fine. Your plan was not entirely asinine, but this will be your only warning.” His coat flared behind him as he spun around to leave. “Next time, clear your extracurricular operations with me and then we won’t be wasting our time.”

“Wow. Good work.” Rumcake observed as he watched Soufflé dramatically stroll out of the clinic.

“All yours, boss,” Gala whispered. Oh, good. She withdrew, leaving me in my familiar haze of confusion and pain.

“You say something?” Rumcake asked, coming closer.

I shook my head. Both as a negative, and to clear my head. “So, what’s next?” There wasn’t really much else to do. Even Doc looked bored since most of his patients had already checked out.

“You didn’t tell me how you got thrashed so badly,” Doc nonchalantly asked. “I just love stories.”

I shot a glance at Rumcake. We’d discussed it beforehand—Doc and Tabber were once squadmates or something, so he might take the news hard. “Uh,” Rumcake blurted. “Maybe—”

“Come on, tell me!” Doc bounced.

I sighed. “You want to know?” Doc nodded. “Fine. Your dear Agent Tabber suddenly decided he had his own agenda. Tried to tie us up with the rest of his loose ends.” Doc’s smile faded.

“The buck you do that for?” Rumcake hissed.

I rolled my eyes. “He was bound to find out eventually.”

When we looked back, Doc was gone. No longer in the room, or even the building. Just gone. “Well, what now?” I asked again.

“We need to do whatever Sleazy McCheapkins wants us to do. We have a deal, remember?” Oh right. Forgot about that. “Unless you have other plans?” Rumcake asked.

“I’m not breaking any promises now. Let’s get that over with.” I sighed. “I don’t want to owe Sleazy anything. I’m on a schedule here.”

“A schedule?” He cocked his head. “When did this become a thing?”

I couldn’t worry him with my own issues. “It’s just a personal thing. Don’t worry about it!” I mustered my most sincere smile.

“Uh… is it that time of month already?” Rumcake cluelessly asked.

I turned red and faceclawed. “No, no, no!” I flustered around trying to recover from that comment. “Uh, no it’s more like—well, uh… it’s a personal thing. No, not like that! It’s, uh—” I buried my face in his chest and screamed in frustration.

Rumcake was taken aback. “Uh… I’mma assume I got that completely wrong.”

“You have no idea,” I muttered into his chest. “Sometimes, I really want to punch you in the face. With my flaming power hoof of doom.”

“I love you too, Frosty.” He tousled my mane. “Shall we get down to business, then? I’ve got nothing better to do.”

~~~~~

“So, my little treasure hunters. Are you ready for your next task?” Sleazy rubbed his hooves together. “It’s important.”

“Let’s get this over with. Give us the details,” Rumcake replied.

“Ever since you moved in, trade has been picking up. And with trade comes guns. Now, here’s the problem: somepony’s picking off my dealers’ caravans in the past week. They make it to around here”—Sleazy pointed to a spot several miles farther from the slaver stronghold on the map stapled to his counter—“near the old downtown zone, and then they never reach their destinations.”

“So you think there are raiders out there?” Rumcake asked.

“It’s the more likely scenario,” I suggested. “They’re probably just waiting in the same spot for caravans to pass by.”

“Now, I need you two to recover the gun shipments. Feel free to help yourself to a few of them, but no more than three. I still have a business to run.” Sleazy pulled out an old notepad and scrawled a few things down onto it. “Here’s the full list of weapons, plus ammo.”

“And what if the shipments are being taken over by the merchants? Maybe somepony’s paying them off there?” I interjected. “I mean, this hasn’t been a one-time thing, is it?”

Sleazy scratched at the hole in his neck. Eeeeewww. “You make a good point.”

“So… what do you want us to do?” I asked, nearly failing to suppress my gag reflex.

“Eliminate with extreme prejudice. If somepony’s buying them up, then buy them back. With free, complimentary bullets. Courtesy of Sleazy McCheapkins.” He paused for effect, then deflated. “I need to remember to get my thunder noisemaker working again.”

“Anything else?” Rumcake asked.

“That’s about it. Oh, and bring back any bobbleheads you find, of course.” Sleazy smiled. “Any questions?”

“So… retrieve the guns, kill the merchants if they’ve gone rogue. Right? And acquire bobbleheads,” I summarized.

“Exactly! Now you’re thinking with power.”

Rumcake nudged me. “I’m going to go get my armor then. Meet you here in a few?”

I shook my head. “I need to grab some more… wait, nevermind. Yeah, I’ll meet you here later.” I was already in the one place to buy guns and ammo. Rumcake left the store, leaving me in the company of Sleazy.

“Vodcolt: You don't need to be a better shot, you just need to shoot more bullets! So, what can I do for you today, my little death machine?” Sleazy grinned, satisfied with the delivery of an obscure company’s slogan yet again.

“I need an upgrade.” I carefully placed the parts of my anti-machine rifle onto the counter. “I love the firepower, but I need some flexibility. You got anything?”

“Do I have anything? Who’dya think you’re talking to?” Sleazy scoffed, the gate to his armory popping open. “Come on in and let’s find you something nice, eh?”

After giving myself a few seconds to consider how creepy that sounded, I strolled on through the open door with Sleazy behind me. Curiously enough, more weapons lined the walls, floors, and cabinets than before in various states of disrepair and assembly. We carefully skirted around a haphazard—and very unsafe-looking—pile of what I assumed were mortar shells and to a pair of heavy-looking reinforced doors that I was very sure hadn’t been there before.

Sleazy sidled past me and unlocked the right door with a key he’d produced out of his neck. As I began to dry heave into an empty box, he politely held the door open for me. “Now, this—this is where true firepower happens.” He chuckled as I slunk past him.

The rest of the armory didn’t compare to this workshop. Weapon cases were neatly stacked in one corner, guns that I hadn’t even seen before were mounted along the walls, and a few more were in the process of being repaired on a few of the workbenches. Sleazy took up position behind the larger one in the middle of the room and placed his hooves on it.

I didn't even recognize some of these weapons! “Woah,” I breathed.

“Say no more! I know the way you think, my little sniper. And I know exactly what you’re looking for.” Sleazy strode over to the pile of weapon cases, and after appraisingly shaking a few of them, picked one and pulled it over to the bench I was standing in front of. “Say hello to the Steelpony Sights ‘AWpsy-Daisy’.” With a dramatic flourish, he undid the clamps on the case and flipped the lid off.

I opened my mouth to ask a question, but Sleazy answered it first.

“No, I have no idea why Steelpony wanted a whole division for specialty long rifles.” Sleazy gestured to the rifle in the box. “Anyway! Bolt-action, five round magazine, fires .338 magnum rounds. It’s been painted with a winter pattern, you know, since it’s part of the Arctic Warfare line of Sight rifles. This specific model has been fitted with a—”

As cool as it was, the last thing I really needed was yet another sniper rifle, even if this one used slightly more common ammunition. With all these other funny-looking guns liberally scattered all over the room, I stopped listening and instead began to idly browse the rest of his arsenal.

“…But I can see you’re a very special little mare that needs something a bit more special than this, of course,” Sleazy nervously chuckled, likely noticing my inattention. He slammed the case shut and nudged it aside. “Something ranged, too, of course,” he mumbled to himself as he searched the stacks of weapon crates.

There was a big monster of a light machine gun with the funniest barrel hanging on the wall that I was a lot more interested in, just because it looked really cool. “What’s this one?” I asked, making very sure to gesture just enough at it but not touch it.

“Ah, that’s an interesting one. If the label is to be trusted, it’s called the Discorderly ‘Champion Perforating Hydra’. Color scheme is supposed to make it look like a Hydra, but I’ve got my doubts. Thanks to Discorderly Corp’s unpredictable weapon designs, this one shoots standard-issue Equestrian Army combat knives for no good reason.” Sleazy pulled it down and let me handle it. “Since it uses runes instead of traditional gunpowder, it has a significantly lower rate of fire than other light machine guns. It’s what— Thirty, forty rounds max per box?”

After a little difficulty, I managed to pop the receiver open and stare down the belt-feed of knives that neatly sat in the attached box. “What.”

“There was a very good reason Discorderly Corp didn’t do well.” Sleazy took the ‘gun’ from me and remounted it on the wall. “And that’s one of them. Makes them quite rare, however—great for collecting. Maybe you’d like something as exotic as you are, hm?”

“Maybe?” I still wasn’t really sure what I wanted.

Sleazy chuckled again and motioned for me to follow him to a workbench with a mostly-assembled gun. “Exotic, deadly, and not quite all together. Say hello to the Sleazycorp Custom ‘Hail Queen Winter’ Support Shotgun.”

Even though it looked a little funny, it still radiated pure awesome. “Ooooh. I like the blue-white thing you’re going for on the paint.”

“Of course you would.” I couldn’t tell if that was Sleazy being sincere or sarcastic. “This bad filly packs twelve gauge slugs in a nine round magazine, perfect for support fire. She’s a modified version of a Vodcolt AutoAttack 24 with the barrel and dual mount stock from a PB&J Hazelnut Hellfire. I cannibalized the hoof-mounted grip from some Canterlot Excellence DMR, so it should be quite comfortable to operate. The scope is from one of the Vodcolt Sentinel-type rifles with a times six adjustable zoom. There’s space for an underbarrel attachment and a cup holder, for convenience.”

My jaw dropped. “What is this even for? Slugs are already blatant overkill—”

“The Hazelnut Hellfire was infamous for its stability and had an extended barrel because of its somewhat flawed design at the cost of fire rate, so I managed to tack it on with its built-in muzzle brake. After a few modifications, I turned this weapon into a sniper shotgun. Automatic, stable, and capable of accepting the AutoAttack 24’s twenty-four round drums if I can find where those went.” Sleazy scratched the hole in his neck. “It’s a bit longer than I’m comfortable with, but it can probably clean the flies off my ass at two thousand kilometers, so I’m happy with it. I’m still looking for a few parts to finish her off, but if you want her now I can go machine them.”

Suddenly, I didn’t really blame Rumcake for drooling over guns. “I want it.”

“I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement.”

I didn’t really have caps on me, and I didn’t want to sell anything I had with me at the moment either. “Bobbleheads. I can do bobbleheads,” I immediately blurted.

“Come on back when you’ve got them, eh?”

At least I had a new potential weapon, once I found another one of his stupid bobbleheads. “I guess that means I’ll need a resupply instead for now,” I begrudgingly sighed.

“Ah, let me show you my line of specialty ammunition as well! Lucky for you, not all the orders for Trotsworth Independent got shipped because of an unfortunate manifest error, aheh, heh, heh.” I judgmentally squinted at Sleazy as he continued to chortle uncontrollably.

As cool as it sounded… “I’ve got to dash. Maybe some other time?” I suggested.

“I’ll ring you up at the counter, then. BMGs, yes?”

“And some other stuff, too.”

“Let’s see what I can do about it.”

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Seamless Transition – You could say there’s a certain degree of skill to insanity. You can now swap sub-perks on the fly. Metaphorically and literally.
Current Sub-perk: Diplomacy – Remember thy Charlamane. You gain +3 to Speech.

Chapter 13: I wonder what Rumcake's up to?

Chapter 13: I wonder what Rumcake’s up to?

“And now for something completely different.”

“Hey! Hey, Frosty!” A red mare with a cherry cutie mark dashed up to me in the street wearing a pair of saddlebags on her back. Oh right, Cherry! I’d forgotten about her after the whole “got betrayed by a mercenary” thing. I flashed a tired smile at her. She skidded to a stop in front of me. “I didn’t get to thank you for saving us.”

“Not a problem. I’ve gotten used to waking up half-dead.” I yawned in her face. “Augh, sorry. So tired.”

Hey, brain. When was the last time I took a nap?

How the buck should I know?

Thanks, brain.

“Being a heroine isn’t as easy as it seems, is it?” Cherry laughed. “Especially being the blood angel, huh?”

Blood angel. There it was again. “So… wanna explain the whole blood angel thing?” Cherry cocked her head. “Why’d you call me that before?”

“You really don’t know?” Cherry pointed at my PipBuck. “Doesn’t that get radio reception?” The radio. For listening to the news. Duh. “DJ Pon3’s channel has the most reliable news in the Wasteland! Actually, I think he’s the only channel, come to think of it.”

“Who needs radio? I’m too busy with other things.” Or, translation: I forgot my PipBuck had a radio built into it. “Anyway, what’d he say?”

The Enclave had a terrible relationship with the anypony on the surface that didn’t share their ideas. I was a bit worried about what DJ Pon3 had to say about me. “So somepony saw what happened at the Rad Lad’s stronghold. Saw somepony doing good, and told DJ Pon3 about it.” Cherry waved her hoof in the air, trying to explain further with hoof gestures.

“Or saw somepony beating the shit out of their friends,” I muttered.

Cherry scrunched up her nose in thought. “I think he said something along the lines of ‘She was an angel out of the clouds, wreathed in flames and the blood of her enemies’ or something like that.”

My jaw dropped. Of all the things to have seen, that was it? I was pumped up on Doc’s super-crazy drugs and covered in napalm at the time. Hardly fair, considering the thrashing I’d been taking from everypony over the past few days. “What.”

“You’re so… Awesome!” she squealed. “Take me with you!”

I yawned again. “Look, I’ve basically died twice over the past three weeks.” Cherry’s face paled. “I’ve been shot, stabbed, drugged, exploded, abducted, and had more near-death experiences than the rest of my life combined.” She didn’t look too good anymore. “Considering your, uh, occupation, I don’t think this is a good idea for you.”

“H-how are you still alive?” Cherry stammered.

A little help from Death himself? “I ask myself that every day.” I sighed and rubbed the joint between my leg and claw. “I just lose myself, bit by bit.”

“Oh.” Cue awkward silence.

“Greetings, ladies! Your stallion in shining armor has arrived!” Rumcake showed up in his full suit of armor. Repaired and polished, I duly noted. “Ready to roll, Frosty?”

I shook my head. “Not really.” He looked confused. “As much as I’d like to, I need to sleep. I don’t even remember the last time I took a nap.” I flapped my disheveled wings to shake out some loose feathers. “I’m a mess, I haven’t cleaned myself up in forever, and I’m pretty sure I’m getting more crazy.”

“Oh. Uh.” Rumcake sounded disappointed. “Well, uh, I can take Sparkle Cola with me.”

“It’s fine. Give me a few hours.” First stop, find a spa. A look around made me realize Cherry was nowhere to be seen. “Lemme grab a power nap.”

Rumcake shook his head. “I’m moving out now. I want to finish this as soon as possible since the Inquisitor dropped another assignment on me and I think I might have to get on that right after.” I was disappointed that he wanted to leave without me, but at least it let me catch up on some sleep and other personal care.

“Sparkle’s a good Ranger. She’ll do fine,” I decided. “Ain’t nopony throw it down like me, though.” I grinned. “Go get ‘em, boy.”

If he could look doubtful through a helmet, he sure was right now. “Are you sure you’re going to be fine?” I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m just going to hazard a guess that was a stupid question.”

“No shit.” I hovered over to him and patted his helmeted head. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself, and I’ve got all the Steel Rangers here to keep me safe.”

Rumcake nodded and started heading back to where he came from. “You know what? Sleazy and Soufflé can wait a damn day.”

“Wuh?” I blurted. “What happened to ‘I’m leaving now, harg bla-blarg’, huh?”

Rumcake stomped back to me. “I don’t think our first date went well. You know, crashing a slaver stronghold, getting backstabbed and crap like that. Wanna try again?” He held out a hoof and droned in a silly robotic monotone, “Come with me if you want to party.”

That got me laughing. “Sure. Let’s go, Termineightor.” I hoofbumped him and followed him down the street. “Where to?”

“How about dinner?” Rumcake stopped to check the time. “Well, how about a late lunch? I hear Peppermint Shots makes a mean basket of hay fries.” Sounded nice. I could probably stay conscious long enough for some noms.

My stomach growled. “Might need a bit more than that,” I sheepishly added.

“Oh, I’m sure he makes other things too,” Rumcake nonchalantly replied.

We threaded around the streets and finally made our way back to the Smashed Spritebot, apparently the only location in town that sold decent, non-packaged food. And alcohol, but that was probably irrelevant.

For the afternoon, the Spritebot was kinda full. As in, there were a few more ponies sitting at the bar and at various tables than there should have been during a working day. “Looks busy,” I observed, looking around. We secured a booth in the corner where we could have an area for ourselves.

“You want anything in particular?” Rumcake asked, dropping his helmet onto the table. I collapsed, exhausted, onto the somewhat comfortable cushions and just stopped moving. He shook his head hard, freeing his poofy pink mane from its trapped form. “I hate helmet mane.”

I didn’t even look up to check the menu. “Fetch me a sammich, robot,” I ordered.

Rumcake laughed. “One sammich for the cranky birdie. Got it.” He spun around and strolled to the bar to speak to Peppermint Shots. I could hear him ordering two sandwiches and some drinks. Moments later, he returned with two sandwiches on a plate, a box of cherry snack cakes (Yes!) and a tray with a bottle of Wild Pegasus whiskey and two shot glasses. “Lunch time!

I reached for the whiskey first. “Yay, drinks.” Rumcake placed the sandwiches on the table and pulled the tray off his back. “Gimme.” He picked up the bottle with his teeth and poured a glass for each of us.

“Figured you’d like pegasus whiskey.” Rumcake started pulling his gauntlets off. “You know…” He motioned to all of me. “Yeah.” I politely waited for him to take off his other gauntlet so he could pick up his glass.

A thought came to mind and I raised my whiskey. “To friends absent and lost.” We solemnly clinked our glasses and downed our drinks in silence. Both of us had lost too many friends recently. Recon Force Blizzard was gone, and the Diamond Seekers were nearly gone, too.

“I didn’t know what you liked besides painkillers and violence, so I got you a reconstituted daisy sandwich.” Rumcake pushed one of the sandwiches to me. “It actually looks okay, considering a lot of things. Especially food.”

I took a tentative nibble out of the sandwich. He was right! It wasn’t all that bad. “Hm. Not bad. It’s actually kinda good! What’s yours?” I asked around a mouthful of bread and daisies, referring to his strange brown things between the slices of bread. Strange brown things that I admit smelled quite good.

“This? It’s a radhog and lettuce sandwich.” Rumcake happily crunched on his sandwich. Yes, he crunched on it. “It’s amazingly delicious.”

Gears in my head turned. “Wait… isn’t radhog… meat?” He nodded and kept eating it. “Aren’t we vegetarians?”

“Says the pony-blood drinking berzerker,” Rumcake shot back, an amused grin on his muzzle. “Here. Try a piece.” He proffered a small chunk of radhog meat to me. “It’s heart-stoppingly good.”

I gave him a suspicious glare as I leaned forward and picked the piece of radhog meat out of his hoof. After a few chews, I finally swallowed and replied “You know what? That’s actually really good.” Greasy, meaty, and deliciously disgusting. I knew I shouldn’t be eating meat, but it was so good! The little bloodthirster in me rejoiced a little.

You know you liked it. Reach over there and grab me the rest of that sandwich!

Against Raider’s insistence, I picked up my decidedly non-meaty sandwich instead. I was disappointed to find that my meal now tasted far less impressive.

“Told ya.” Rumcake kept eating.

Another question came to mind. “So, what did our dear Inquisitor want from you this time? Fetch twenty bear asses for a new jacket?”

At least that made him choke on his sandwich. Once he had cleared his airway and washed everything down with a healthy gulp of alcohol, he croaked, “Oh, he wants me to go secure a radio uplink since somepony blew up the old one. Until then, we don’t have long-range communications with other Ranger contingents.”

Interesting. But not interesting enough to continue on that topic. “So… what’s your cutie mark, anyway?” I asked between bites.

“What? You haven’t been staring at my ass? I feel insulted.” Rumcake pouted. I faceclawed. “It’s really not that interesting.”

Truth be told, I hadn’t really been paying attention to anypony’s cutie marks. Just trying not to die. Cutie marks didn’t really matter, anyway.

“If you must know, it’s literally the Rangers logo.” I couldn’t see his his butt through his power armor. “Except the sword is a bottle of rum. Get it? Yeah.”

“Story?”

“No.”

“Aww.” I scooted closer to him and rubbed up against his neck. “Pweeese?”

Rumcake nudged me. “You first.”

I stared at my snowcloud cutie mark. “I got my cutie mark moving clouds. That’s about it.” Rumcake looked disappointed. “What?” A loose daisy from my sandwich found its way onto his face at high velocity. “Not everypony can have an amazing, thrilling, totally awesome cutie mark story.”

“Now I’m going to feel bad if I tell you my story,” Rumcake dejectedly mumbled, pulling the daisy off his face.

I hugged him. “Aww, I still wanna hear it. What’s it going to do? Bore me to death? Am I going to die from the sheer awesome of it? Just, plonk—dead.” I giggled at my own antics and I mimicked face-planting into the table.

Rumcake didn’t think it was funny. “Listen, Frosty. Please don’t make those jokes,” he sternly stated. Shock caused me to hop backward in my seat. “When you do that, it’s like a stab to my heart. I care about you, and things like that… things like that aren’t jokes for you. Not with your track record.” I… I hadn’t really thought of it. “I have watched you die.”

It was my turn to put on a serious face. “I’ve watched you eat it too, you know.”

“I’m not the one taking unnecessary risks,” Rumcake sternly chastised. “But I was there when it happened. When I met you, and in the fortress.”

Hold on. What? “What do you mean ‘when I met you’?” I timidly asked, cringing from his glare. “Could you fill me in on that?”

Rumcake sighed and calmed down. “Ever wonder if love can bloom on the battlefield?” He chuckled to himself and stared at the ceiling. “I didn’t think so. That is, until I ran across a dying Enclave soldier on my patrol.”

Sounded like me. “Then what happened?”

“I followed procedure. Brought her to a medic.” He started turning an adorable shade of red. “Prepped her for interrogation using a program another contingent found in a pre-war facility.” That explained the PipBuck. “But once I got that damn helmet off…” He dreamily stared into my eyes. “Let’s just say I had a feeling.”

“Aww,” I cooed.

“Not a thing that I would change. I knew I couldn’t hurt you. So I broke protocol and decided to take a risk on you.” I refilled the glasses and pushed one to him, which we instantly drank. “Turns out it sort of paid off.” Rumcake sat back in his seat and poured another round of shots. “And I don’t really know why, but I decided that I should keep you safe. Or as safe as possible, anyway. You didn’t really pose a huge threat, and you didn’t have any information that would have been useful to us.”

“Well, thank you for that, then.” I noticed a red mare sitting at the far end of the bar chatting to Peppermint Shots. “Hey, is that Cherry?” She was leaning forward, holding her head up by her forelegs. Peppermint looked like he was actually enjoying the conversation, judging by how long he’d been cleaning that same mug.

Rumcake sat back up and peered down the bar. “I think so. Want her to come over?” He was about to stand up and walk over.

I hastily grabbed his foreleg before he could stand up. No! We were having a good time! Sort of. “Let’s let her do her thing. I’m sure she’d like some time alone with Peppermint or something.” I just wanted to spend a more time with Rumcake, who nodded in agreement. He sat back down, causing the booth seat to creak in protest.

Both of us drank another shot as we both searched for a different topic. “Wanna play a game?” he asked, abruptly changing topics. The last bits of my sandwich disappeared into my muzzle.

“Sure.” I refilled the glasses again. “What is it?” Was the bottle already empty? I waved the mostly-empty bottle at Peppermint. Like a good bartender, he brought over a new bottle just for me. I pulled open the box of snack cakes and unwrapped the first one that fell out.

“Simple.” He asked Peppermint for a few more glasses. “It’s a game we came up with after we saved a small town.” Probably after the technology, but I didn’t say it. The glasses were filled with whiskey, then arranged into a diamond shape. I watched intently, idly fondling the snack cake in my hoof. Once we had eight glasses each, Rumcake dropped a small pile of bottle caps onto the table.

I took a bite out of the snack cake and immediately stopped in mid-chew. Unless the formula had suddenly changed in this specific batch, something was very wrong. This wasn’t ‘Tart Cherry 12’ that I’d come to know and love! I held back a grimace. “You aren’t cherry flavored! You lied to me!” I yelled at the half-eaten apple snack cake in my hoof. A few patrons shot dirty looks at me, and I sheepishly grinned back at them.

“Well, that was uncalled for.” Rumcake held back a snigger. “Are they really not cherry flavored?” I scowled at him and showed him the pale yellow-orange filling inside the snack cake. “Okay, so they’re not cherry flavored. Anyway, let me explain the game before you flip the table.”

Whatever this game was called, it was fun. It was a lot of tossing bottle caps with my mouth into the shot glasses, hoping that they would land in the whiskey. We were supposed to drink the glasses that our bottle caps landed in. Halfway into the first round, I realized that Rumcake was too good at this, but that also meant his aim got worse as we continued.

The next several hours passed in a blur of drinks, bottles, glasses, something involving a few napkins and a carrot. Which may or may not have involved acts that may or may not have involved his tongue. Yeah. It was amazing. At some point in my mild inebriety, Rumcake forced me to go home, against my desired wishes.

Once outside, I replied, “Yes, sir.” I did a lazy spin in the air to get my bearings, then proclaimed loudly, “Naptime, ho!” Somewhere, I’d gotten the idea in my mind that friendship was carrots. Good thing I liked carrots.

Somepony grabbed my hindlegs. “Not so fast, you.” I looked down and realized Cherry was holding me to the ground.

“Can I please go? I wanna sleep,” I whined.

Cherry pulled me down to the ground, hard. She was definitely stronger than she looked. “I’m not done with you,” she replied in a sultry tone.

“Uh.”

“I’ll help you get cleaned up and stuff. Mare stuff.” She abruptly switched to a more disapproving tone. “Your mane is a complete disaster.”

“Riiiight.” I ran my talons through my mane and they immediately snagged on tangled knots of hair. “Fine, fine. Come along, Cherry.” I floated off in the vague direction of Rusty’s house because I still didn’t own a home in the town I’d saved. I’d seen the Ranger barracks, and that was the last place that I wanted to bunk down. Why would I trade my pile of comfort for a stiff bunk? Cherry tagged along below me from the street.

After knocking on the door a few times to no reply, I opened the door with Rusty’s key.

You didn’t give it back?

Shut up. You dropped the ball on this one, brain.

“So this is where you live? It’s… cozy.”

“I share it with two other ponies,” I informed her. “Don’t mess with anything on the ground. None of it is mine.” Cherry pulled her hoof back from the contents of the shelf she was about to touch. “That’s my stuff up there.” I pointed at the rafters. My duster and my bag got tossed next to the door in a disorganized heap.

“Uh… how do I get up there?” I flapped my wings at her to make a point. Being a pegasus allowed me to buck physics and just fly up there. Let’s see… how did Rusty and Broken get up there before? I looked around the room. “Wait, do you have to like, parkour up there?” Oh right.

“I think it was… from this table, then onto this cabinet thing, then up to the rafters,” I uncertainly told her. “Or I could just carry you up there.”

“Yeah, let’s do that instead. I’m no athlete,” Cherry replied. “Except in the bedroom. Eyooo!” I resisted the urge to punch her. “Get it? Because I’m a—”

“Yes. I get it.” I groaned. Before she could make another pun, I forcibly picked her up and tossed her onto the pile of blankets and cloth I called a bed. “Now shut up and let me sleep.” The piles of cloth weren’t as good as a nice poofy cloud, but it would have to do for now. Cherry laid down along the edge of my bedding as I rearranged it for optimal comfort.

Cherry pulled a brush out of one of her saddlebags. “Settle down and I’ll get you brushed. Goddesses know when you last had a bath as well.” I sniffed myself and nearly choked on my spit. I smelled disgusting. She patted my head. “Yeah. Exactly.”

“I really do need a bath,” I grumbled to myself. “First thing first, I need to actually get to sleep. Just like, brush me while I sleep. And if you do anything else, somepony’s getting a hoof in the face.” I pulled a blanket over my eyes and calmed my mind for sleep.

~~~~~

Have you ever slept so soundly that you didn’t hear an alarm? Getting up at the crack of dawn for every day of my enlisted life made sure I didn’t have a good night’s sleep, if at all. Sleeping in after about three straight days of fighting and unconsciousness felt amazing. No lucid dreaming, no interruptions, nopony trying to kill me. I opened my eyes and continued to lie in bed in the relative comfort of my cushions.

“Mmm.” Cherry happily moaned into my ear. Wait, what? She was curled up along my back with her left foreleg draped over me. She then playfully nipped at my ear, causing me to flick it reflexively. “You awake?”

“Mhm.” I twitched slightly when Cherry laid her head on my neck. After a calm, awkward silence, I asked, “Why did you kiss my ear?”

She shifted her head and sleepily asked, “Why are you holding my hoof?” I looked down, and sure enough she was right. Why was I holding her hoof?

Logic caught up to my sleepy brain. “Where’s your other hoof?”

“Between two pillows,” Cherry sleepily mumbled, snuggling closer. Wait… I didn’t have any pillows in here, did I? Maybe one pillow…

A tickle from between my hindlegs got my gears turning. “Those aren’t pillows!” I screamed.

Both of us catapulted ourselves out of bed and screamed. More like I screamed, and Cherry yelped because I may have bucked her to the other side of the bed. After I’d calmed down a bit, she blurted “Sorry! After I finished brushing your mane, I got super-comfortable and I fell asleep.”

I stopped hyperventilating and restrained my hooves against accidental face-cratering. “You scared me, that’s all,” I finally answered. “I’ve woken up to a lot of weird things, but a morning with a callfilly is new.”

“A night at Past Four will change that real fast,” Rusty informed us from the ground floor. Both of us jumped at the sound of his voice. “Now go back to sleep. It’s nearly first whistle and I have cleaning to do at Doc’s.”

Broken also joined in. “I’d tell you two to get a room, but you’re probably too poor to afford a room at the Smashed Spritebot.” My mouth opened for a minute, then I closed it. I hadn’t looted anything recently, so she was probably right on that count.

“Go back to sleep, sis. You too, Frosty,” Rusty grumbled. “All the mares in this town are unbearable…”

Cherry and I rearranged my bedding into a more nest-like pile. “You. Over there.” I pointed at the other end of the pile. “If I wake up with you cuddling me again…” I grumbled, settling down comfortably at my end.

“Yeah, yeah. I know. Hoof in face.” Cherry plopped down opposite from me. “You’re no fun.” She pouted.

“All work and no play makes Frosty a crazy mare. Let me try to get some more sleep before the voices tell me to kill you.” I shoved my head under a blanket and attempted to go back to sleep.

~~~~~

Cherry returned with a small paper bag clutched in her muzzle. “Brought you breakfast.” She dropped the bag in front of me with a grim smile. “You were making all sorts of noise and ruckus. Bad dream?” A cold, nervous sweat covered my body and I was hopelessly tangled up in the bedsheets, so that was entirely possible.

The base of my stump also ached for some inexplicable reason. Even if I wanted to, I didn’t detach my claw just because I’d have to put it back on after. “You have no idea,” I muttered, nosing the bag open. It smelled hot, sweet, and overly delicious. “What…what are these, exactly?”

“Damned if I know.” Cherry shrugged, dropping back into the bed to help me untangle myself from the rest of the sheets. “Did you know that handsome buck at the bar sells breakfast, too?” I snapped at one of the round, soft cakey things in the bag and wolfed it down. “Like it? Didn’t really cost much.”

They were delicious, soft, and definitely freshly made. Hints of fruit and maybe vanilla drowned out any traces of hundred year old preservatives in the pastries. I liked them. A bit dry and starchy for my taste, but nothing a bit of coffee, whiskey, or maybe water would fix. “Tasty.” I simply stated, diving into the bag for another. “Wait, how much were they?”

“Like, fifty caps.” A long-range inspection of my caps pouch using my PipBuck told me I was fifty caps lighter. “I had it covered.”

“Apparently breakfast was on me,” I deadpanned at her. “So, should I know anything else before we continue?”

“Whatever do you mean?” Cherry replied ever-so-innocently.

“I think you know what I mean. Stay out of my stuff. Got it?” I poked her chest for emphasis. “It’s my stuff, not yours.”

Cherry snorted. “Keep your panties on, sheesh. I got it.” She fished one of the pastries out of the bag for herself and munched on it.

“I’m not wearing panties,” I grumbled, taking the last pastry.

~~~~~

After a somewhat enjoyable breakfast of mystery pastries, I started gliding out to the Steel Ranger section of town to the machine shop. At some point in the week, I wrote down a reminder to visit Baked Potato for some claw maintenance. The claw that had replaced my foreleg almost a month ago wasn’t running as smoothly as I remembered it.

A strangely garbed tan unicorn wearing the most peculiar of eyewear caught my eye and I had to go investigate. I was almost there, anyway. He seemed to be talking to himself, intermittently conversing with a small robot that was following him around. On a whim, I soundlessly landed next to him and said, “So… you hear voices too?”

He jumped. “Gah! Oh, jeez, I didn’t see you there.” One lens of his glasses was blue, the other red. I couldn’t wrap my head around why he’d wear those, let alone make the lenses different colors! “Uh, well, this is awkward. Who are you?” He regained his composure and smoothed down his short brown mane. He was wearing a trench coat with the letters “NCR" on the back, overtop a bluish pre-war suit with a red tie.

“I’m Frosty Winds, local basket case. You?” I replied with a grin on my face.

“My name is Durt, and this is zebra lands or bust!” Durt proudly announced. “My goal is to walk to the zebra lands on my own without any kind of aid whatsoever. Except my faithful companion Wolfie, of course.”

I stared at the little robot. I guess it did look a bit like a robot dog. “Woof!” Wolfie barked, wagging his little robot tail. Aww.

“Woof indeed, Wolfie. As I was saying…” Wait, were we even on the same train of thought anymore? “…could you point me in the proper direction of the closest supply depot? I seem to be low on scrap and wool.”

I automatically gave him directions to get to Scrap Bank’s shop. This erratic stallion was making me very confused, but his naturally charismatic nature kept me somewhat entertained. “So why are you walking all the way to the uh, zebra lands? I mean—”

“Charity!” he interjected. “For the foals! Would you like to donate?”

Oh conscience, why must you interfere with this? “Uh… I didn’t bring any of my stuff with me. Is there any other way?” My cheeks burned pink.

“Indeed!” He took out what looked like a chunk of radroach and fed it to Wolfie, who happily gobbled it up. “You can donate on—”

Panicked screams and cries of anger were coming out of the machine shop. “I gotta go! Sorry!” Durt smiled and waved as I flew up to the building. My trained military mind made the connection that there was a struggle in progress. I yanked my SMG out of my saddlebag and barreled through the the doorway. “What the buck is happening in here?” I shouted.

Suddenly, cupcakes. So my trained military mind was not ready for a food fight. Neither was my face when a particularly well-frosted pink cupcake hit me squarely in the eye. “Oi, now tha’s not fair!”

“Who the buck throws a cupcake?” I whined, wiping frosting off my face. “Oh dear Luna, it burns! Ow. Ow. Ow. The hell is in these?” The frosting did look very delicious, and I could use another snack…

“Whatever yer thinkin’, don’ eat it.” My frosted hoof paused halfway to my mouth. “Whatcha doin’ in here, lass?” Baked Potato stood up from behind a workbench, more cupcakes somehow hanging from a bandolier on his body. “An’ put the gun away, willya?”

My SMG went back into my bag. “Will I be better off not knowing what’s in these cupcakes?” I asked with dread. A dark orange mare wearing the Rangers scribe outfit poked her head out from around a bench press. Banana Pudding glared at me from over a dented suit of armor that he was probably working on before the cake fight broke out.

“Ha! Frosty’s got frostin’ in ‘er eye! Ah, the irony.” Baked laughed.

I waved my claw at him. “Yeah, yeah. I’m just here for a tune-up, seeing as I’m really bad at maintainence.”

Baked took off his cupcake bandolier and motioned me to come closer. “Let’s see.” We gathered around his workbench. He then walked around to my side of the workbench, deftly unlatching my claw from its connection point to my stump. “Looks like nothin’ a bit o’ grease won’ solve. Anythin’ you wan’ me to do?”

“You’re cleaning this up, Knight!” Banana Pudding yelled, most likely complaining about the cupcakes still sticking to many surfaces of the machine shop’s interior.

“Can it, ya old coot!” Baked shouted back. “Anyhow, whatcha need?”

“Well, an upgrade would be nice, but I don’t think I really need one,” I groused out loud as I stared off into nowhere in thought. “I guess a tune-up will do.” He walked back over to his end of the table and dropped my claw down onto the surface of the workbench.

…Wait, what?

Suddenly one limb short, gravity took over and I fell over with a surprised bleat. “A little warning would have been nice,” I grumbled from the floor.

“Don’ whine. Walk it off.” He started disassembling my claw, neatly grouping the individual parts in little rows.

I sputtered at him. “Walk? Really?” My balance was thrown off enough by my missing leg and my saddlebag to make me unable to stand. “You’re a funny stallion.” After a few failed attempts at standing, I decided that the floor was comfortable enough for me.

“Ye wimp.” Sounds of machinery clinking and clanking could be heard on the workbench itself. Baked was humming something to himself while he worked, and the orange scribe from earlier was nowhere to be seen. Banana Pudding was back at work on the suit of Ranger armor. “Ew. You’ve been gettin’ into a lotta fights, haven’t you?” Tools clattered around inside a toolbox, then it was followed by a lot of scraping.

“Yeah. You could say that,” I replied, resting against the workbench. “Do you think you can sharpen the talons more? Just the tips, mind you.”

Baked groaned. “If yer gonna use it on offence, I’m gonna hafta install some rubber seals so th’ blood don’t muck about with the machinery.” He searched the room for something in particular, checking inside boxes, behind toolboxes, and even lifting me up to check underneath the workbench itself.

Or under your big fat flank full of cherry-flavored snack cakes.

Thanks for that, brain.

No problem.

Although, it was impressive that he only needed to use one hoof to do it. Hey, brain, maybe I’m not so fat after all!

He gently placed me back on the floor and checked yet another box. “You could have just asked, y’know,” I muttered, slightly annoyed. “Can I help in any way, at least?”

“I think I got this in the bag, lass. Can ye grab the oil from the shelf you’ve been usin’ as a pillow?” Baked replied.

After a bit of digging, I tossed a small black oilcan onto the workbench. “How long is this going to take?” I whined. “I have things to do!” Okay, it was more like I needed to go somewhere within the short space of a month before I randomly died when my “contract” expired.

I was answered by the sounds of power tools and Baked yelling over them. “Sorry lass, this is gonna take a bit o’ yer time.” I groaned inwardly, burying my face in my hoof.

“I wonder what Rumcake’s up to?” I muttered dejectedly. “Probably having a better time than me…”

X~~~X

“How about now?”

I sighed. “No.”

Sparkle waited for a moment before asking again, “How about now?”

Once again, Head Paladin Chocolate Chip proved herself to be correct. Less experienced Rangers—usually the Junior Paladins and apprentices—were like foals. They got bored easily, and they needed constant attention lest somepony ended up missing a leg. Sparkle wasn’t an exception, as I’d repeatedly found out in the past several hours.

“Act your age, Junior Paladin Sparkle,” I groaned in exasperation for the ninth time so far. At least it shut her up again for now.

The street ahead seemed like a terrible place to have to pass through, putting it lightly. All the ruined buildings to our left and right had second floors that could potentially house ambushing forces. Any of these places looked like a potential hive of scum and villainy waiting to strike. Just in case, I kept good ol’ Decrusty out on display to ward off anypony that thought that they could overpower us. Similarly, Sparkle had her grenade launcher out and loaded.

I tried to keep my thoughts focused on the mission at hoof, but I found myself thinking of Frosty instead. What was she doing right now? Was she getting in trouble? Probably staring somepony down with those sexy green eyes, wings all aflutter in unprovoked anger. A quick shake of my head cleared that image away. There was a time and place for that, and this was neither.

“Blips on E.F.S., near blue wreck. Second floor at our three o’clock,” Sparkle calmly stated.

Finally, something to keep me focused. I caught sight of an unruly mop of muddy green hair disappear under a windowsill. “Confirmed. Stay frosty.”

“What am I, your marefriend?” she joked good-naturedly.

It took all my integrity as a superior officer to resist the urge to punch my subordinate right on the spot. Instead, I stayed quiet and let her have her moment for now. Later on I’d have better opportunities for payback anyway. I kept an eye on the yellow dots wavering along my E.F.S. bar.

“More movement, next building over.” A tail vanished around a support beam and down the furniture-strewn stairs. “This doesn’t seem right though. Don’t shoot unless fired on.”

“Yes sir,” came the reply.

Good thing, too. Out of nowhere, a little foal no higher than my knees darted out of a hole in the blue building and began to whale on my foreleg with a lead pipe. I paused in mid-step to allow the young colt to get a few good swings in that threatened to dent my armor.

“Get away from my turf!” the little colt squeaked, showing no signs of relenting.

I stared at the little tan-maned rascal. “Well, I can’t say I was expecting this.” Either no cutie mark, or it was the same color as his cream-colored coat.

Sparkle regarded us with a slight hint of humor in her voice. “You look like you’ve got the situation under control.”

Just like a pre-war comedy routine, I pushed the foal back and kept his pipe out of range of my legs by putting my hoof against his tiny head. “Shut up. More importantly, where’d this kid come from?” I scanned the ruins lining the street, hoping that the parents were somewhere nearby.

“Movement in the alleys,” Sparkle warned, protectively placing herself in front of the colt in front of me. “Looks like we’ve got company.”

A zebra assault rifle enveloped in a pale gray aura floated out around the corner, which was quickly followed by a tiny mirror. “Release the kid or we start shooting!” a hoarse voice yelled, presumably by the unicorn pointing the gun at us.

By “we”, he obviously meant the five other pistols and automatic small arms protruding from behind various bits of available cover provided by the ruins. None of them were particularly threatening, although I didn’t feel like taking the risk of a bullet to the knee. From what I gathered from the slightly visible ponies in the windows, they didn’t really seem very armored or geared well either.

“What now?” Sparkle asked, giving me a puzzled look. “We could totally take them.”

I nodded my head to the right, indicating that Sparkle should open fire on the three targets there in case things went badly. “What do you think about these guys? I’m inclined to think that they’re scavengers or squatters.”

“I’m getting this creepy slaver vibe from these guys.”

“Really now?” Huh, I would think that slavers would be angrier and better armed than these bumbling fools.

“Totally. Look at all that raggedy stuff they’ve got on.”

Until they decided to do something that validated their slaver status, I’d give them the benefit of the doubt. However, it wasn’t unheard of for slavers to disguise themselves in order to take their targets by surprise. Just in case, I kept on edge so I could spin up Decrusty at any given moment.

Some loud commotion echoed through the empty streets. “Heart Attack, you get over here right now or I’m taking away your dessert for a week!” a mare who was probably the colt’s mother screeched from the building on the left.

The foal I was holding back abruptly halted his struggles. “Aww, but Moooooom!” he loudly wailed, dropping his metal pipe as well.

I pointedly cleared my throat and mustered by best demonic voice. “Listen to your mother or I’ll eat you for dinner, you little scamp.” Obviously, that got the reaction that I hoped for.

The little colt blanched and bolted, crying for his mother. Sparkle and I watched him retreat down the street and back toward the hovering assault rifle, just in case that the remaining Wastelanders decided to change their stance on non aggression. Sans the muted yelling of the colt’s mother, the next few moments passed in relative silence.

“I’d hate to be that kid right now,” Sparkle muttered to me over private communications.

“Too much?” I asked as the mirror and rifle retreated. “Oh look, they’ve come to their senses.”

Sparkle shrugged. “Seemed reasonable. Blips are pulling back.”

“You think we made the right call?”

The Ranger beside me loudly stamped her hooves on the pavement. “Eh. Probably. I don’t really give two caps. Kids annoy me.”

“Hm.”

“Speakin’ of which, how’s it going with Frosty? She want kids?”

Hello, random segue. “Ehh… no comment,” I grunted, shoving thoughts of little winged Rumcakes and Frosties scampering about underhoof.

“Rumcake and Frosty, sittin’ in a bunk. B-U-C-K-I-”

Song time was suddenly interrupted on account of Sparkle being insufferable. “Enough. Shut it, Junior Paladin. I don’t wanna hear it. I want silence from now on unless it’s mission critical.” I didn’t always pull rank, but it was reasons like this why I loved being a Paladin Commander.

“Yessir.” Sparkle pouted.

X~~~X

“Damn, I’m bored. Are you done yet?” I whined. Baked had been working on my claw for the past few hours. I would have used the restroom out of sheer boredom, but trying to walk there without falling on my face was annoyingly difficult. I’d just resorted to idly gnawing on my fetlock.

“Calm down, lass. Almost done…” More tool sounds. “There! All clean, reinforced, an’ super-pointy.” Baked walked around to my side of the workbench and helped me up. “Ye wanna do it on the floor or on the bench?”

“Ooh, sounds kinky,” I purred into his ear, leaning up against him for balance.

Baked rolled his eyes. “Personally, I’d enjoy ye bein’ on the table,” he rumbled back. Too much information. I think. “No. Sorry lass, but the wings just aren’t my thing.” Well, at least now I knew. “Let’s just get ye forelegs on the table then.

I obediently propped my stump and my other foreleg onto the table. “I’m going to assume on three?” I asked, mentally preparing myself for one. Baked nodded. I took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

Baked hefted my shiny refurbished claw. “One…” I squeezed my eyes shut and braced myself. “Two…” Any time now… “Three.” There was a sharp intake of breath from both of us, then nothing happened.

“Uh… did you forget something?” I asked, somewhat disappointed.

Baked looked around the table, looking for something. “I think th’ weight strut’s a bit loose…” He picked up a screwdriver in his teeth. “Hold still.”

“Why do I need to ho–AAAAAAGH! WHY DIDN’T I SEE THAT COMING?” I screeched. The second I moved my foreleg to hold down my claw, Baked moved lightning quick and plugged it into the socket in my stump. I knew better than most that reconnecting a receptive limb hurt a lot. I still wasn’t used to the pain, even after this many times.

Baked laughed. “Priceless! Outta colorful swears, are ya?”

I looked at him with tears in my eyes. “You have no idea how much this hurts.” But at least my claw felt like it was working much better now. And to my expectations, the ends of each individual talon were razor sharp. “Thanks.” I wiped the tears away and flexed my metal limb with delight. “I should name it Binky.”

I think he ignored my comment. “Now, lass. Did a few upgrades m’self.” He opened a small panel mounted on the side and pointed out a small purple gem lodged between a bunch of wires and steel parts. “That’s a recoil somethin’ or other.”

Against my better judgement I peered into the hole. “Do you mean a recoil dampener spell?” I guessed. It was wired up to a larger boxy, cylindrical contraption going down the center of my claw like a bone. “And what would I have to dampen, exactly?”

“Ballistic hoof mod.” Baked grinned proudly. “Holds two twelve gauge shells.” A slot on the underside of my claw near the hoof joint was probably where the shells went. “Fires ‘em one at a time. Flex yer leg all the way to pump it.” An experimental flex released a clicking sound from somewhere inside it.

“Cooool,” I breathed.

Baked dug out a pair of shotgun shells out from a pouch on a nearby toolbench and hoofed them to me. “I’ve rigged it to fire when ye punch things. Jus’ don’ forget to pump it.”

I hefted my mechanical foreleg with newfound glee. “Aww yeah.”

X~~~X

Ah, blessed silence for me to ponder about other things. Other, uh, teal and winged things. I shook my head to try to dislodge those thoughts; I needed to focus on my surroundings right now. We were still in dangerous territory, after all.

After an incredibly uneventful two hours of trudging and pushing through city rubble, Sparkle finally broke the silence. “It’s getting dark. We’ll need somewhere to hunker down for the night.” It wasn’t as dark as she thought it was, thanks to the cloud cover plus the shadows of the buildings around us, but she made an acceptable point.

“Keep an eye out. It’s not too dark yet, but let’s find somewhere defensible.”

Sparkle nodded. “Any of these buildings should do though, right?”

“Too many entry points and I don’t trust them to take more than a single grenade in case we have to go loud,” I pointed out, kicking a particularly large chunk of cinderblock out of my way. “We’re somewhere in the commercial district, so look for anything that looks like Stable access or the like. Lacking that, there should be an entrance to the underground train network somewhere around here. If all goes well, we might be able to use it as a shortcut to the alleged location of the radio tower we’re looking for.”

We arrived at a four-way crossing and stopped. A large barricade cobbled together from a delightful compilation of wrecked carriages, rubble, an entire wall from the three-story house next to it, and every single body-occupied spike in the Wasteland. Crude signs and imagery were painted all over it in a variety of colors. From the few legible bits of graffiti, we were about to enter "Skull Skinnerz territory (keepz otuz!)’’

The two of us stood by this massive pile of crap, unsure how to proceed. “Well, we could go around,” Sparkle suggested.

Severed limbs and loose organs lined the streets around the wall of twisted steel and gore. On consideration of the scale of raider infestation in this area, that seemed like an unnecessary risk. The spoils wouldn’t even cover the effort or ammo it would take to just pass through the area, even if it was faster.

“We’re going around. Watch for raiders that get too close; you know the drill.” They wouldn’t be a huge problem anyway—our armor could probably protect us from the majority of their heretically-maintained weapons. “This way’s probably faster. Come along.”

This new raider territory hadn’t been in the scouting reports from two months ago. Granted we hadn’t gotten much of anything done after the tragic “demise” of Elder Pizza Rolls and the consequent loss of the long-range broadcast array. I made a note to myself to update the maps back at base.

A covered stairwell going into the depths of the earth immediately caught my attention. “That looks like a good stopping point,” I said, taking note of the faded sign barely hanging on by a single chain to the overhang.

“What’s this purple circle for?”

I squinted at the faded text. “Oh. Purple line station.”

“Why’s it a circle?”

“Beats me. Let’s get in and find a place to fortify.” I immediately stomped down the worn stairs and toggled my helmet light. “Eugh. Looks like they got here too.”

Just like outside, the walls and floors had been liberally smeared with an assortment of blood, guts, and all the raidery goodness that they tended to leave behind after a slaughter. I swept my helmet light back and forth, keeping an eye out for anypony that wasn’t as dead as they appeared. From the bodies still mostly intact, it seemed like another group of Wastelanders had fought to their last pony and had also taken down a good number of raiders too. A large pile of pinkish dust at the very foot of the stairs gave me a little hope that this place was at least worth the trip.

“Police the weapons and ammo. Looks like one of ‘em had a laser,” I ordered Sparkle, who dutifully began to sift through whatever was left of the ponies. “Try to stay close if you can. Radio signal isn’t too good now that we’re under a pile of concrete and steel.”

I, on the other hoof, wandered around the bend and poked my head into the ticket booth next to the remaining few turnstiles. Predictably, I was disappointed in my findings. No weapons, caps, or anything worth taking. Just in case, I leaned in and gave the space under the counter a quick glance. Nada. Just a few empty cans.

Next stop, the bathrooms. It was a long shot, but it was completely possible that two hundred years’ worth of scavengers hadn’t checked the medical kits in there. I pushed my way past the turnstiles by simply bending the metal bars out of the way. Conveniently, there was a small junction that made up the bathroom entry off to the right of the main passage. As per the norm: left side mares, right side stallions. Old tiles cracked under my armored weight as I began to investigate the stallions’ room first.

Obviously, nothing. Every single stall had been destroyed, same as the glass and the sinks. The medical box that should have been mounted on the wall wasn’t even present in the room at all. I wasn’t really surprised as much as just plain annoyed that there wasn’t anything here.

“One bathroom clear,” I loudly notified Sparkle.

“Still workin’ on all this stuff,” came her reply.

“Copy that.” Hopefully the other restroom had something more worthwhile.

The mares’ restroom was in a better state than the stallions’. Only one destroyed stall and a pair of bodies decorated this one, not including all of the standard Wasteland filth and grime. Surprisingly enough, the butterfly-patterned box appeared to still be mounted on the wall and locked.

I was about to leave when I realized that one of the corpses sprawled in the corner was marked as aggressive on my E.F.S. How could that be? I tapped the side of my helmet where the E.F.S. sensors were mounted to dislodge any grime stuck to it. When nothing changed, I stared at my heads-up display in perplexion and wondered what was wrong.

I’m slightly ashamed to admit that it took a lot longer than it should’ve been necessary for me to realize I was looking at a ghoul that was playing dead. It was hard to tell what its original form had been, besides the unhelpful fact that it had been a pony at one point.

“I’m going to stand here for as long as I need to stand here.” I began to spin up Decrusty and take aim. “And you can just stay right there. Sound fine?”

Apparently the ghoul disagreed. Moving almost in slow-motion, the ghoul detached itself from its corner with a wet plopping sound and tried to push itself up. It was mildly interesting to watch it attempt to stand, so I simply kept watching. Once it had finished standing, it turned to glare at me with its single eyeball. With a feral cry, the ghoul lurched forward and, presumably, attempted to chew off my face.

Of course, I say “attempted” because it barely took two steps with its mangled legs before I hosed its face off with lead.

Even though Decrusty was suppressed, the keening wail of the ghoul dying coupled with dozens of bullets crushing bathroom tiles was loud enough to alert whatever else was down here with us.

“Hostiles, comin’ in!” I shouted, watching my E.F.S. light up with multiple red dots. “Get ready for ghouls!”

By the time I crushed my way back past the turnstiles and regrouped with Sparkle, I could hear the oncoming undead masses roaring and screaming their way toward us. “Well, I have good news and bad news,” Sparkle told me, backing up the stairs behind us.

“Good news.” I followed her up since high ground was too much of an advantage to pass up. “And it better be a laser.”

“Uh.” Sparkle hesitated. “We have a bunch of laser ammo?”

It did bother me a bit that Sparkle could never give straight answers. “Let me guess—there’s no laser.” I sighed, hitting the reload toggle on Decrusty.

The first ghoul rounded the corner and got immediately torn up by a grenade from Sparkle’s launcher and a hail of fire from me. “I broke what was left of the rifle down for parts.”

Better than nothing. “Large group incoming! Grenades, now!” I ordered right as a surge of ghouls rounded the corner.

Sparkle followed orders down to the dot, firing a dozen grenades down the stairs in rapid succession. Ichor and dust flew everywhere, obscuring everything at the bottom of the stairs. There was no point for me to add to the mess with minigun rounds unless I wanted to waste some more ammo hoping to do what she was already doing fine at.

Although I still couldn’t see. “Hold your fire.” Smoke and dust still clung to the air, refusing to settle.

A much larger glowing ghoul burst through the smoke and charged at us much faster than anticipated. Sparkle was in mid-reload and I’d stupidly let Decrusty spin down because I’d assumed that the plastering of grenades would kill anything coming at us.

“Make some room and belay that order!” I yelled, just in case Sparkle got her reload finished in time. “It’s a glowing one!”

Both of us continued to retreat up the stairs. I finally got Decrusty spun up and I began to give the balefire ghoul every bullet I had. Each shot that landed caused the ghoul to stagger and stumble, but it didn’t show any signs of stopping. If it got any closer we’d have some major problems that even Steel Ranger armor wouldn’t protect us against.

With a heart-stopping crack, my minigun jammed. I swore out loud. By the time I could get the jam cleared, the ghoul would be way too close. In a fit of panic, I did what nopony should ever do—I took a step forward and slugged the radioactive ghoul in the face, so hard that its lower jaw melted away into rotten skin and bone.

Too bad it didn’t even notice and decided to tackle me right into the ground.

I gasped in pain as I collapsed on the floor, trying to push myself back up on my hooves. I thought I was heavy enough to resist a knockdown! My armor brightly reminded me that I had entered a highly radioactive zone and suggested that I retreat to a safe distance.

The ghoul got right up into my face and roared, dripping slime and goddesses knew what else all over my helmet. It incomprehensibly gargled in my face and probably tried to say something, but that wasn’t a concern as I tried to fight it off. I could feel it punching and hammering at my armor, and every time I attempted to get up it got smart and punched at my less-armored joints.

“Look out! Danger close!” Sparkle yelled, turning her grenade launcher right on me.

I made a note to myself that she had reckless tendencies, just like a certain pegasus I knew. In an act of desperation, I grabbed the ghoul in a huge bear hug and flung it down the stairs as it growled and kicked.

“Give it to him!” I yelled, scrambling backward out of range.

Six more grenades finally finished off the glowing ghoul, to my relief. Sparkle sent a few more grenades at the eviscerated corpse just in case it tried to get up again. All the red dots on my E.F.S. had disappeared, so I cautiously walked back down the stairs.

There wasn’t anything left of the ghouls. “Alright, we’re clear.” I poked at one of the more intact corpses, just in case.

“Whew. That was too close.” Sparkle sighed in relief.

Speaking of which… “Hey, next time no firing grenades at your superiors, okay?”

“We both know you would have been fine.”

“Just… be careful next time, would you? You’re lucky I don’t have another Paladin to replace you with,” I scolded her.

“Yessir.”

“What’d you find on the bodies?”

“Healing potion, a hoofful of caps, assorted ammunition, a Dash inhaler, a few damaged guns, and a busted laser rifle. Not a whole lot.”

I wasn’t too disappointed at least. “Well, it could have been worse. Go find us a good place to crash. I’ve got a box to open.”

~~~~~

“I’m never trusting your judgement ever again,” I groaned, taking my gaze away from the recently unboarded record shop. “Even if this does look like a defensible spot.”

Down the stairs, past the turnstiles, around yet another corner, and past a series of stairways that went down to the actual train station, there was a small roundabout filled with shops arranged around a broken fountain. The only two stores that had survived with minimal damage were the record shop in front of us and the souvenir shop to its right.

Too bad I couldn’t change her mind since the record shop was tactically sound. There was only one entrance and a hole in the left wall that went into the ambiguous shop that could serve as an emergency exit after a bit of force was applied to it. The interior of the record shop was trashed—bins and boxes of music discs in various conditions were scattered everywhere.

“You know what, I’m not going to argue. I’m tired, I’m all goopy and disgusting, and I just want to get some rest.” I wandered inside, shuffling my hooves so that I wouldn’t accidentally crush any of the records scattered on the floor.

“It’s okay—that gives me time to sort through all this MUSIC!” Sparkle cried in glee. “Speaking of sorting things, what was in the box you were going to go open?”

Right. The medical box. “It was empty,” I groaned, facehoofing at the contents that I had found.

Sparkle tilted her head in sympathy. “Aww.” I didn’t tell her that I’d actually found a note that had a crude drawing of a butt.

“You take first watch. I know you’re going to sort through all that old music anyway.” I cleared a small spot around me behind the counter so I could at least lie down. “Don’t get too carried away. If I wake up dead or missing, there will be words.”

“Yep, yep. I know.” Too late, she was already sifting through broken records and opening boxes in search of her next musical acquisition. “Sleep tight and whatevs.”

I yanked off my helmet and searched for the rag in my saddlebags that I used for wiping up miscellaneous messes. “Ugh. Right after this.” I began the arduous job of scraping off dried gunk off my power armor and helmet before they became any more unmanageable.

A small grin spread across my muzzle as I listened to Sparkle sort through things while humming some happy tune. Most of the other Paladins didn’t understand how I managed to be approachable and responsible at the same time. Little did they know that I made sure that I learned about my recruits and did my best to remember their individual quirks.

“Eeeee!” Sparkle squealed, holding an intact record aloft in her unarmored hooves. “The reprint of ‘Ain’t No Sleepies for the Meanies’ as performed by Corral the Pachyderm! I love this song!”

Junior Paladin Sparkle Cola really had a penchant for music. I’d won her over by “misplacing” a pre-war portable music player into her personal belongings. It wasn’t long before she’d established herself as the resident DJ and party mare—which got her in trouble a lot more often than I was comfortable with. But, hey, a happy soldier was a loyal soldier and that’s what counted to me.

Hmm, if I remembered how that song went, it was something along the lines of: “I said you're such a sweet young thing / Why do you do this to yourself? / She looked at me and this is what she said…” I smugly sang, a little off tune but it was close enough.

“There ain’t no sleepies for the meanies! / Bits don’t grow on treees!” Sparkle began to sing, a lot louder than I was expecting.

A rotten book to the side of her head was enough to grab her attention. “Shh! Not so loud,” I hissed, peeking over the counter to check if anything had heard us.

“Sorry,” Sparkle quietly apologized.

I waved my hoof casually. “It’s fine. Just take caution and think before you act, alright?”

“Yessir.”

Back to cleaning off bits of… “Is that a bottle cap?” I awkwardly asked out loud, trying to fix my gaze on the little curved bit of metal that happened to look a lot like currency.

Sparkle continued to search through piles of old cardboard and cracked vinyl for anything else she wanted to take with her. With a bit of effort, I picked off the bit of metal (not a bottle cap) and finally gave up on trying to stave off sleep. I made myself comfortable, locked up my armor, and I was out before I knew it.

~~~~~

Sleep wasn’t as peaceful as I hoped. All I could hear was the foreboding thrum of ominous chanting and shifty shadows in the dark. Every now and then, one of the shadows would coalesce into somepony I knew. They’d stamp their hooves in rhythm, make strange muted noises, then melt away again.

The next phantom that appeared before me just so happened to be Frosty. Strange thing was, she wasn’t doing much of anything at all. She cocked her head at me and did a cute little ear flop. I continued to stare, unable to make a move or make a sound. When I didn’t do much in response, she carefully took a few steps closer and sat down right in front of me.

“Up all night to get lucky.”

Her voice sounded funny, but I didn’t pay it much mind.

Frosty made a few mumbling noises that I couldn’t understand. “Ooh, you’re a keeper.” She abruptly giggled.

The low beat rose to a fevered pitch, echoing through my mind. My hooves wouldn’t budge, so I tried to block out the noise by flattening my ears against my head.

“Hey. What’s that? Wake up.”

I tried to block out the noise, maybe try to actually get some sleep once this surreal nightmare passed over.

“Yo. Wakey wakey.”

Something began to tug on my ears. Eh.

“Hey, this is important! C’mon!”

Important. Important could wait until later.

I was jolted awake by something warm and slimy worming its way into my ear. Beside me, Sparkle was giving me the most amused grin I’d ever seen on her as she wiped off her unarmored hoof. For a moment, I thought I was still dreaming when the low chanting didn’t stop, but I knew I was awake.

“You did not just wet willy me.”

Sparkle stifled a giggle. “Maaaybe,” she answered with a shrug.

Eww. I unlocked my armor and halfheartedly rubbed my ear before popping my helmet back on. “I assume we’re about to be under attack?” I asked, checking the load on Decrusty.

“You hear that chanting?”

Now that I was awake, I could sort of tell that it was the same phrase being droned over and over by many voices. “What do you make of it?”

“Sounds like… I don’t know. Point is, it keeps getting louder.” Sparkle began to tidy up her new acquisitions—five or six records in their packaging and bound with a combination of metal plating and utility tape for security. “I think it’s been going on for an hour or so. Thought it could be bad.”

I glanced at my blank E.F.S. “By the looks of it, they aren’t in range. Their voices are probably echoing because of the tunnels.” Once again, I checked the load on Decrusty in case she was going to see a little more combat.

Multiple individuals, probably a fifty-plus group by the sounds of it, meant trouble. Trouble usually devolved into altercations, and altercations almost always ended in casualties. Seeing as though there were only two of us, I had to decide whether to pull out before we were potentially overwhelmed.

“Hey, how many grenades do you have?” I asked, genuinely curious whether we could actually fight off an entire decently-armed cult or gang.

Sparkle donned her helmet and stared off into space for a moment. “Uh… enough.”

“Enough isn’t a number.”

She opted out to slam her hoof against the side of her helmet. “Apparently I’ve got squigglyblob-five-zero-zero-Q grenades left.”

Note to self, make sure Sparkle actually performed her mandatory maintenance checks.

A yellow dot appeared at the edge of my E.F.S. bar. “Down, down!” I hissed at Sparkle, complete with frantic gesturing.

Both of us squeezed behind the counter, only poking our heads up over to see exactly who or what was coming. Whatever it was, it barely made noise and it sounded like it was having a really difficult time trying to get up the stairs from the train platform. A second dot joined the first, this one much louder than the last. It grumbled with a distinctly stallion-esque voice about how much his joints hurt.

“Are we there yet? I’m gettin’ craaamps,” the voice groaned.

“No,” the other voice, a much softer feminine one, replied. “When I said that we were ‘almost there’, that doesn’t mean we are there.”

They sounded way too coherent to be raiders, and they weren’t other Rangers since they weren’t heavy-sounding enough. From the sounds of it, probably just more Wastelanders. Harmless, really. Unless they were packing firepower on Frosty’s scale, we’d be fine. I was more worried about the large group behind them that was slowly becoming louder and louder.

Wait… now that I could make out the chants, it quickly became clear that it definitely was a cult and the Wastelanders approaching us were probably their scouting team. It was that, or it was just a small collection of ponies with very loud echoey voices all saying “chugga” over and over again.

“Buckin’… eeew. Is that a leg?”

“No, it’s a candy cane.”

Ah, yes. The female was a sarcastic little shit. I knew somepony that might appreciate her humor.

“What’s a candy cane?”

I heard a hoof impact the backside of a head. “I wasn’t being serious, Tender.”

“Ow! You keep hitting me in the same spot,” the one apparently known as Tender whined. “I’m going to get bruises on my bruise.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be so dense.”

“What’s dat mean?”

The mare sighed in exasperation.

“OW! Are you qui—OW, stop!”

“We’ve got a little extra time before Ticketmaster Busted Dial will get angry for being late. Let’s check out these stupid shops and see if there’s anything worth bringing back.”

“But there’s never anyth—” Another loud slap. “Ow, wha’d I say?”

“Not the point. Let’s start with this one.”

The two worst scouts in the entire Wasteland finally passed our shop and glanced inside, only to freeze in terror. Only too late did I realize that a pair of Steel Rangers were really obvious when they were trying to hide, especially when they were peeking over their choice of cover. We all made eye contact for a fleeting moment before the two of them dashed off, shrieking and screaming for help.

Sparkle slowly turned to face me. “Great first impression, sir.”

I conked Sparkle over the head with my hoof. “Shut up. Now they’re going to run off and alert all their friends.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. Besides, we’ve got high explosives, heavy armor, and bullets for days. What could go wrong?” Sparkle confidently replied.

“It’s the heavy armor I’m worried about. They’ve still got the numbers to simply overwhelm us and then they’ll have the advantage in close combat. We’ve got to get out of here before—”

“Greetings and salutations, honorable Steel Rangers. I hope our meeting finds you well?” A different voice, somepony much older and less whiny, called out. “The Train of Fate must be traveling in our direction; we could use your assistance in a matter.”

Damn, that was fast. At the moment, they seemed like they were willing to talk as opposed to immediately trying to sacrifice us to some sort of demonic eldritch god. As the Paladin Commander of the group, I decided to hazard communication with them and hope that I didn’t accidentally insult any of their misinformed beliefs. If that went badly, Decrusty was my Plan B.

I opened a private channel to Sparkle. “Keep quiet and do as I do. Safeties off. Don’t fire unless fired upon. Understand?” I curtly ordered.

Sensing the seriousness of the situation, Sparkle only nodded and stayed a few steps behind me as I confidently marched out of the music store. Patiently standing before us were a trio of bluish-gray robed earth ponies. Following the classic trend of leadership, the furiously huffing and puffing older one in the middle with the engineering cap and the gold-trimmed hood was most likely in charge.

Their leader (elder, commander, messiah, cult personality, whatever) couldn’t have been a more obnoxious clusterbuck of green. He was a pleasant puke-tinted green topped with a slightly more pale shade of barf for a mane. Similarly, a pale squarish patch of fuzz also stood out on his lower lip like a very small neon-green bloatsprite.

“Salutations, Steel Ranger. I am the honored Chief Engineer Soybean. How do I address you?” The robed cultist looked to me with a sort of reverence in his wizened eyes.

Well, this wasn’t the reception I was anticipating. “I am Paladin Commander Rumcake Rum and this is my subordinate Junior Paladin Sparkle Cola.” Sparkle made a hesitant waving motion at the the cultists.

Chief Engineer Soybean nodded and bowed his head. “These are my companions, Coal First Class and Tender First Class.” He motioned at the two hooded figures standing beside him.

So Tender was the larger stallion, and Coal was the abusive smaller mare to Soybean’s right. Disturbingly, both were the spitting image of the other besides the obvious gender difference. They had the coats the color of coal dust and the same emotionless orange eyes. Even their manes matched from the front—they were a good length longer than regulation with a thick orange stripe running down the far left side. Cutie marks were hidden under the boring coats they wore, so I decided to imagine that those were similar as well.

“So… Chief Engineer, what is this about needing assistance? We’re on a tight schedule with our own affairs,” I emotionlessly stated. “We do appreciate the amicable meeting. It’s nice to have a civilized chat in the middle of the Wasteland.”

“Let us hope it stays that way, Ranger.”

The way he said that sounded like a challenge. Maybe I was letting doubt cloud my mind, maybe it was just me being tired. “Are you testing my bounds, Chief Engineer?”

A shadow of fright flashed across Soybean’s face. “Let’s not make decisions that we’ll regret later.” He nervously chuckled.

I narrowed my eyes, the effect of which was lost thanks to my helmet. “Are you threatening me, Chief Engineer Soybean? Mind you that me and my subordinate can and will end you on the spot.” Just for emphasis, I gave Decrusty’s barrel a gentle spin.

“Eh, I think you mean ‘my subordinate and I’, as opposed to—” I increased the rotational speed of Decrusty’s barrel as Soybean spoke. “No, no no! Hold on, hold on—we can have a beneficial relationship if we just put our differences aside.”

“Explain.”

Soybean hastily pulled open Coal’s robe and dug inside before showing me a somewhat dented laser rifle. “I’ve heard you search for these? We’ve got a good number of these that we don’t particularly want to use since we don’t have enough ammunition to go around. If you help us with our slight problem, I can make a few of these yours.” Exposition done, he stood there and hopefully stared at us.

Darn it, he had my attention. “Alright, you have five minutes to fully explain what the problem is and what you expect us to do.” All three robed ponies almost began to prance for joy on the spot.

Realizing that his five minutes had started, Soybean quickly regained his composure. “A violent tunnel gang calling themselves the ‘Funnel Cakes’ moved into the next station on this rail line, which also happens to be our next stop. They have barred all passage through that area and are generally being a giant conglomerated nuisance about it.”

Assuming the raiders on the surface weren’t in the way, we wouldn’t need to use that path. “Have you tried asking what they want?” Never hurt to ask, really.

Coal loudly snorted. “Duh. That was the first thing we asked.”

“And?” Sparkle inquired.

“They kinda just want us to die, and stuff.” She stamped her hooves and shifted back and forth. “It’s that, or they like to say hi with bullets.”

Okay, so these “Funnel Cakes” characters were the shooty kind that didn’t care about making friends. “And I assume you want us to go bulldoze our way through their station so you can pass through?” I asked, heading for the obvious request.

“Essentially. I am partial toward the Love Train, but whatever gets the job done will do just fine. Secure us passage through to Central Station and you shall be greatly rewarded.”

A few more laser weapons would be a nice addition to our arsenal, for both personal and for the base armory when we got back. We probably had enough time to quickly do a little house cleaning for these Wastelanders and still maintain a somewhat feasible mission completion time. Maybe whoever was blocking the tunnel had some nice stuff to loot.

I made the command decision to go ahead. “Alright, we’ll do it. Point us in the right direction, and we’ll be back in a few.” Sparkle made a few annoyed grunting noises, but I didn’t really give her much mind since I was the one in charge.

Soybean gestured in a vaguely sort of leftish motion, away from the echoes of ‘chugga chugga’. “Look for the Station of Five at the junction of Street Nine and the Street of Flower. Once you see it, their fortification is just down the track.” He fished in his robe and offered me a little talisman on a string that looked suspiciously like a miniature steam gauge. “Some of our passengers have an aversion to Steel Rangers, but they might find you less daunting with a Blessing of Steam.”

“What’s it mean? Spend more money?” Sparkle frowned, watching Soybean loop it around my neck.

Normally I would have refused, but it seemed like going along with this crazy pony’s train of thought was a better idea. Train. Damn, they were getting to me. “It’s a charm that brings haste and speed to the wearer.” Soybean made sure to double-knot the little talisman in place.

“Does it work?” I asked, legitimately curious.

I heard Tender loudly snort. “Yeah, it gets you from zero to eighty-eight in about ten seconds flat.”

Sparkle thoughtfully tapped the chin of her helmet in mock thought. “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or you’re stupid enough to believe that.”

“All aboard the Overreaction Train.” Coal waved his right hoof around in a huge circle and then made a tugging motion. “Choo choo.”

“Choo choo,” the other two cultists hastily added.

I quickly switched on a private channel to Sparkle. “Don’t provoke them. They’re willing to pay, so let’s see where this goes.” Warning issued, I switched back to speech mode. “I accept your mission and I expect due payment on our return.” I did note the heavy static and realized that radio communications wouldn’t work well down here.

Soybean eagerly nodded. “We shall be waiting in the station. Find me, or any of the other Engineers. They will also be able to give you your payment.”

“Easy enough. We’ll stroll on down, lay down some explosive, and come right on back. Bingo bango bongo. Bish bash bosh.”

~~~~~

When we arrived at the bend just before the location specified by the Cult of the Train, I started to feel that we were being misinformed just a tad. The barricade that we had been tasked with clearing was, in reality, more like a castle.

Cleverly enough on the Funnel Cakes’ part, they’d cut a train car in half and turned it sideways to block the entire tunnel, while still being able to have their sentry guns point out of the open windows. They had three standard M.W.T. automated guns, probably taken from elsewhere in the station. Those automated guns could do a lot of damage, even to Steel Ranger armor.

They even had four guards standing on top of the train itself, partially obscured by the train doors welded to their blockade’s roof that they were using as cover. Three of four of the guards weren’t particularly paying attention, idly chatting with each other or fiddling with their gear. Gear, meaning their strange bomber jackets and assorted casual headwear. As for weapons, they were all armed with zebra assault rifles that looked like they were in quite good condition.

I retreated back around the bend to meet up with Sparkle, who was busy adjusting her grenade launcher. “Okay, looks like four potential hostiles armed with assault rifles and three automated M.W.T. guns. Shouldn’t be a huge problem, but we have no intel on what they’ve got inside.” Just in case, I double-checked the load on Decrusty and my missile launcher. One hundred rounds in the belt and two missiles left. Good enough.

Multiple scenarios passed through my mind. What if they were friendly? They had some really heavy ordinance—meaning that they had something to protect. If they immediately opened fire, would we be able to survive the first onslaught? Assuming so, we’d probably have a good five seconds to unload our respective payloads and another fifteen before one of us went down from a lucky penetrating shot.

“I’ve got enough grenades to punch a hole in anything,” Sparkle replied, still busy trying to do something to her grenade-delivery device. “That is, if this thing will stop jamming every six grenades.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“One of the teeth on the main gears broke off. Like, every now and then I’ll have to manually cycle the next grenade in. It’s not too bad, but damn is it annoying.” We probably had extra parts back at base, but she’d probably have to deal with that for the time being. “Ugh, the things I’d do for a bench right now.”

“Well, you don’t. Buck up and gear up—we’ve got work to do.” I gave Sparkle an encouraging tap on the back. “We’ll move out once you’re ready.”

In the time it took for me to about-face and take a deep breath, there were a multitude a of mechanical noises followed by the cha-clank of a grenade being loaded into a chamber. Sounded like Sparkle wasn’t going to give me the satisfaction of waiting on her.

“Let’s get to the beatdown.”

~~~~~

“Hold it right there, turd. Not a step closer or you’re getting more holes than a slut after… uh… ah… Just stop right there!” one of the guards on top of the barricade shakily yelled, which also alerted the other guards to pick up their weapons and point them at us.

Obediently, I stopped in my tracks. “I don’t like him already,” I muttered sidelong to Sparkle.

The guard in question, a sort of panicky looking young colt barely old enough to have his cutie mark, unsteadily brandished his rifle in our direction. He had a weak courageous facade plastered on his face, which really annoyed me for no particular reason.

“You are obstructing movement in these tunnels to the Cult of the Train,” I flatly boomed. “Dismantle this barricade and disperse, or face the consequences.”

A different one, one I also immediately decided I didn’t like, magically swung an oversized knife as us in what I assumed was supposed to be threatening. “Or what? You’ll cry all over us? I’m so buckin’ scared.” I also assumed this one was also some variation of gray, seeing as his poorly fitting gray balaclava blended into his face.

Unfortunate, but I’d been waiting for an excuse to fire off this one-liner. “Cry about this.” Decrusty spun up and began spew hot death metal at the guards on top of the train car. Beside me, Sparkle caught the hint and rapid-fired grenades into the automated guns before they had time to activate properly.

Within the next ten seconds there was nothing left of the half-traincar except a flaming pile of wreckage. Of course, that also meant that the turrets that I had hoped to salvage had been reduced to a flaming pile of scrap as well. We were alive, there was a hole in the barricade, and there were angry shouts and yelling coming from the other side.

“Stupid thing’s stuck. Almost made it through an entire belt, too,” Sparkle angrily grumbled. “I’ve got turntables more durable than this.”

A bright red strobe light mounted on the tunnel ceiling was being particularly annoying, so I decided to shoot it to spare me the post-combat headache. “Looks like we’ll have to push through and clear the area. Doesn’t sound like they’re too friendly.” A stray bullet pinged off my armor, thus proving my point.

“Give it a second.” There was a loud clank, then four grenades suddenly streaked through the air and detonated somewhere behind the destruction. “Whoops.”

Some of the yelling abruptly stopped, probably in a shower of gore and explosives. “You know, we could probably just leave and they’d sort themselves out,” I mused.

“I like that idea.”

A pitiful smattering of gunfire pinged off our armor. “What we agreed on was to demolish a barricade. Barricade no longer exists. Problem solved. Let’s go get our reward,” I finally decided, doing my best to ignore the ineffectual attacks on us.

One bullet managed to shatter Sparkle’s helmet-mounted headlight. “That stupid gangster just shot my Ravemakerinator Twenty-five and seven-fourths! That cost like, a lot of caps!” She was obviously enraged, but justifiably so—she’d searched hundreds of pre-war ruins for the one that just got destroyed.

Much faster than I gave her credit for, Sparkle dove into the burning fray and aggressively dragged out the one pony that I had found to be a complete eyesore. Somehow, he was not only relatively unscathed, but he also managed to keep a grip on his assault rifle as Sparkle dragged him over by one of his hind legs. Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for him, he fumbled his only spare magazine and fruitlessly pawed at it as she dragged him farther away from it.

Maybe I could come up with something witty. Or possibly something more menacing to make this ugly sod pee himself a little. Maybe something Frosty would say, just to see his reaction.

Hm. I guess I had that devious little pegasus on my mind.

Perhaps I would try smooth intimidation first, just to see what would happen. Sparkle roughly threw our brand new captive right in front of me before I had time to formulate something that wasn’t “Tell us everything you know and maybe I won’t turn you into soup”. Or maybe I could say something a little more retro like “Your move, creep”.

“Y-you won’t take me alive!” the little guy stammered. Blackish-gray bits of mane protruded from under his threadbare kepi, which had an old Equestrian Navy logo stamped on it. His muted orange coat nearly blended into the pale orange lining of his dark bomber jacket. Still didn’t like him.

That definitely caught me off guard and threw my hastily thought out response out the window. “We just did.”

Hm. That wasn’t remotely close to intimidating. Darn.

His next action was to futilely swing his empty rifle at my legs. I would have let him continue doing that until he got tired had the action not been scuffing my armor. A valiant effort on his part, though. I easily swatted the gun away before another scratch could be put on my armor.

“That’s enough of that. You’re coming with us,” I growled, giving our new prisoner a quick cuff on the forehead. He immediately squealed in fear and began to cower, curling himself up into a whimpering ball on the ground. “Huh. And here I was thinking that there would be a little more resistance.”

“What do we do with him now?” Sparkle asked.

I kept an eye on the smoking wreck in the tunnel just in case somepony decided to come check on us. So far, so good. Nopony from Orangey Prisoner’s group or gang or whatever decided to come check, probably because they were absolutely terrified of the two Steel Rangers that just wrecked all their cool toys. Toys that I sort of wanted to bring back to the base, but it was a little late for that. Reminder to future Rumcake: make Sparkle pack some spark grenades and tear gas for special cases.

Back on topic. “At least one of us has duct tape. Truss this guy up and let’s see if these train guys want some funnel cake.”

Sparkle loudly facehoofed. “Boo, Rumcake. Boo.”

~~~~~

Somehow, the Cult of the Train had amassed quite the following—much larger than either of us had ever anticipated. It was as if we had walked back in time when we returned to the station, our brand new captive in tow. Garbage and litter were nowhere to be seen, ponies—most likely cultists, based on their identical gray and black striped scarves—filled the station and milled about in a sort of drone-like stupor. The only sounds were our armored hooves stomping the ground and barely audible muttering of the huge collection of ponies.

“Holy Celestia, this floor was blue?” Sparkle pulled herself up to the platform, unceremoniously dragging Orangey over a pair of equally-clean tracks and up the short ledge. “By the code, they’ve polished the floors too. Damn.”

I silently marveled at the cleaning ability of these cultists and sarcastically remarked, “My goddesses, it even has a watermark.” Maybe these guys weren’t too bad after all. I briefly entertained the thought of abducting a few of them to go give Happy Hills a good scrubbing before dismissing it as far too silly.

“Eh?”

Right, all she did was listen to music. “Bad joke. Let’s go find this ‘Engineer Soybean’ and get paid. We’ve got better things to do,” I curtly stated, casting a sweeping glance at the crowd again.

Several ponies wearing the same exact striped hat with the same pattern cued me into the early conclusion that they had to have some sort of authority or power position in their cult. It was either that or that they just had very similar taste in hats. Hazarding a guess, I made my way to the closest hatted one by pushing past the several scarfed cultists in my way.

I opted out for a more polite approach, just in case. “Pardon. My subordinate and I have returned from a quest assigned to us by…” What was it again? Ah, right. Chief Engineer. That was his rank. “Chief Engineer Soybean. We were informed that upon completion of our objective to report to him, or any other members of his rank.”

The yellow earth pony I was addressing spent a few seconds to process my question, continuing to give me the same blank glaze-eyed stare. “Uh… Chief Engineer Soybean is overseeing a grand mission from the Conductor himself.” Perfect.

Sparkle groaned, “Great. Where can we find another Engineer?”

“Honey Comb probably knows.” He began to fruitlessly look left and right, which did nothing but unseat the unruly mop of brownish hair under his cap. “Honey Comb knows. Honey Comb. Honey.”

And now he’d suddenly developed mindlock. “This is precisely why intelligence tests are mandatory,” I muttered to myself.

“What’s your name, kid?” Great thinking, Sparkle. Give him something else to get confused about.

He gave Sparkle a very confused and glazed look. “Uh… Wash. Steward Wash.” The pony, Wash, happily grinned as if coming up with his own name was an achievement. “Hi.”

“Is Steward your name or your rank?” Good question, Sparkle.

“Rank. One day I’ll be one of the Engineers. Imagine the honor of serving under the Conductor himself!”

“Okay, Wash, where can we find someone in charge? Think about this for a minute.” I pressed harder, hoping to the Elements that he actually knew. Lacking that, hopefully the other Stewards were a little smarter. “No pressure.”

“Well… Chief Engineers Boa and Trot are usually away conducting their own crusades. Very rarely are all four Chiefs together in the same room. With Chief Engineer Soybean out, your only other option is Chief Engineer Flying Fish. Although to be warned, he might be asleep.”

“And where, exactly?” I pressed harder, this being the most helpful that Wash could probably be.

Unfortunately, asking for anything more resulted in Wash’s brain getting fried. He added a slack-jawed confused stare to his already glazed expression. All that I managed to get from him was a sort of half-nod before he returned to his business of staring at the wall next to us in the exact same manner.

“There’s one over there to interrogate,” Sparkle suggested, which wasn’t a bad idea.

Without any other options, I followed Sparkle’s gaze and caught sight of the hatted pale orange mare she was staring at. “Oh good, it’s a unicorn. Maybe she won’t be nearly as stupid.” Harnessing the power of brute strength, I pushed through the loose crowd of lesser muttering cultists.

“Excuse me, ma’am. We’re looking for one of your many leaders in order to notify them that their mission assigned to us has been completed,” I sort of projected at the back of her head.

In the moment it took me to blink, the mare had turned around and faced me with a worryingly ecstatic grin. She didn’t even bother to adjust the tangle of green that escaped her white ponytail. Although, similarly, she did have the same sort of glazed-over look that the last one did.

“Hey there! Glad to see a new fa—er, helmet around. Heard ‘bout you two from the other Stewards. We’re all busy little bees here, so your help’s darn tootin’ useful.” She reached over and, in a surprising display of strength, lifted up my hoof and shook it vigorously. “Howdy there! Honey Comb the Steward!”

“Hi. Could you point us to your Chief Engineer guy?” I retrieved my hoof from Honey Comb after a forceful tug or two. Something about these two bugged me greatly, but I couldn’t really put my hoof on it.

“Why didn’tcha say so?”

Very simply, I answered, “I hadn’t gotten to it.” This wasn’t exactly the conversation I had in mind, although this was going better than speaking to Wash.

Another mare, this one of a midnight bluish coat and slightly lighter mane, edged into our conversation. “Honey Comb, leave the Steel Ranger alone.” Oh good, a different unicorn to talk to.

“Li’l Scrappy, you don’t tell me what to do,” Honey huffed.

Scrappy rolled her golden eyes. “I do tell you what to do now. I’m a Senior Steward as of two days ago.”

“No!” Honey gasped.

Scrappy gave a her a confident grin. “Yep.”

I stomped my hoof against the aging floor tiles to get their attention. “Not to ruin the congratulations here, ladies, but I’ve got somepony to talk to. Can somepony please tell me where to find one of your Chief Engineers?”

Our recent capture groaned. “Want a free crazy pony?” Sparkle added with a hint of amusement in her voice.

“I’m sure that Senior Steward Scrap Heap knows all,” Honey sarcastically spat.

Scrappy—correction—Scrap Heap grinned. “Yeah, I do. Your best bet is Chief Engineer Flying Fish. He’s probably either taking a nap in the ticket booth or reading his weird comics somewhere.”

As fun as it would be, splitting up to search both options couldn’t be an option because of the lack of comms down here. “Which of the two is the more likely choice?”

“Sleeping,” both cultists immediately responded.

I nodded. “Thank you for your help.” Before I turned away, I made a little circling motion with my hoof. “And now you can return to your previous conversation. Come along, Sparkle.”

“Yes sir.” Dutifully, Sparkle hefted our captive and slung him over her back. “C’mon. Stop dragging your hooves.”

Then it was off to the ticket booth, which was conveniently marked out by one of the many arrows printed on the floor and the signs on the walls. I was about to question how any of this signage had survived until I caught sight of several groups of ponies garbed in all different types of clothing—raider barding, bodyguard’s armor, Wastelander rags, slaver barding—all working together with cans of paint and cleaning rags to restore the station.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Sparkle muttered behind me.

The first thing I’d assumed was that all the small fry joined up in the cult and that was that. However, there was just no way that everypony got along together this well. There weren’t any dirty looks, no aggression, no nothing. I was at least expecting the raiders—especially the more raidery ones—to scream, yell obscenities, or get violent. One of them, still wearing his bloody war paint and necklace of severed ears, was happily assisting a tiny little zebra push his bucket of muddy water around. Something about this cult bugged me a lot, but I couldn’t exactly say what.

At least Sparkle noticed as well. “What’s your take on this?” I asked, hoping she had an answer for me.

We stopped in front of the ticket booth, which was basically a small tin box with shuttered windows, ticket prices printed on the lower half of the closed shutters. Through the cracks of the shutters, I could see an amorphous pony-shaped blob in the darkness behind it.

“My bits are on some sort of really compelling idea or something. Rudimentary religion, maybe?” Sparkle suggested. “Something’s gotta be holding them together.”

That made sense. “Maybe. I’ve got a feeling there’s something more though. Just a hunch.” I gently tapped against the metal shutters to get the inhabitant’s attention. “Knock knock.”

There was a groan, one not unlike somepony rising from the dead. “What else can you really do to make ponies listen?” Sparkle asked in the meantime.

“Mind control?” It was the first thing that came to mind.

“That’s stupid. This many?”

I shrugged at the same time as the shutters squeaked open. “I don’t know how magic works. Beats me.”

“W’dya want.” Presumably Chief Engineer Flying Fish—the robes matched Soybean’s—groaned. “M’busy.”

“We’re here to report that your job assigned to us has been completed.” What I didn’t mention was that we’d literally fulfilled the bare minimum of the job. “And we were told that you could supply us with payment.”

Our captive squirmed and fell off of Sparkle with a panicked squeal.

“Who’s that?” the Chief Engineer grumbled, rubbing his eyes. “Friend of yours?”

I glared at Orangey. “We nabbed him on the way out. Want him?”

The Chief Engineer squinted at Orangey. “Well, well, well. So the prodigal son returns. You finally crawled out of that hole you’ve been hiding in, have you?”

The duct tape wrapped around Orangey’s muzzle was finally ripped off so he could get a word in or two, just for fun. “I’ll never join you and your scum!”

Flying Fish—as we were currently assuming—flipped back his hood and we got a good look at him. He had murky blue eyes that were more focused on us than the pony he was talking to. His mane was roughly cropped, odd length silvery mane sticking to and fro. His pale blue coat, however, was in much better condition. If I had time, I needed to figure out how he kept it that way.

“Bargain bin Laden, we’ve had this argument before. In fact, we’ve had it on four separate occasions. Make it easy for us and just give up.”

“You’re a flying fish out of water, asshole. Never.” Thank you, context clues.

“We’ll break you one way or another.” Chief Engineer Flying Fish nodded to us. “We’ll take him.”

I made a curt gesture to Sparkle not to do anything. “And of our payment?”

Flying Fish stood up and shook himself. “Of course. Follow.”

And follow we did, literally ten feet over to a locked door that was simply labeled “Cleaning Supplies (Wet Paint)”. Of course, there weren’t actually cleaning supplies inside the room—they’d converted the room into an armory. Although after the door bumped into my shoulder and left a smear of green, I figured the other half of the sign was true.

“Looks like we dropped the ball on that one,” Sparkle blurted at the sight of all the weapons literally piled up by weapon and by ammunition type. “That’s a lot of bucking plasma.”

I eyed the short pile of miniguns and the much larger pile of ammunition crates. “This is an alarming amount of ordinance. Enough for a small army, even.”

“And that’s all my shit!” Bargain angrily wriggled on the ground and tried to gnaw at Flying’s ankles. “If you don’t give it back, my mercs are going to wreck you into next month.”

Hold on. “Mercenaries? You mean Talon mercenaries or the rent-a-merc caravan guys?”

A grin spread across Bargain’s stupid annoying face. “My Talon buddies. They’re probably waiting for their reinforcements right now.”

That threw a wrench in our plans. Horseapples.

Very calmly, thanking my helmet for blocking my slightly fearful expression, I droned “Junior Paladin Sparkle, a word. Outside.”

“Uh… okay.” Sparkle nodded.

And outside we went, to the dull thrum of chattering cultists. I waited for the door to close behind me before revealing the bad news. “This guy hired Talon mercenaries to protect his shipment, probably. The shipment that these Train guys stole, probably. And these Talons want the other half of their pay or—”

“Probably,” Sparkle interrupted. “What’s the plan?”

As cool as bringing back several hundred weapons would be, angering the Talon mercs wouldn’t be a wise move on my part. Even without these guns, they still had firepower and skill that rivaled the Steel Rangers, especially my Rangers. The smart move would be to liberate the merchant that we’d captured and bring back his guns as well, but that required more time, work, planning, and supplies we didn’t have. Hm.

“Idea.” I smirked under my helmet. “We’ll pass ourselves off as the goody goody horseshoes Rangers and bug on out before the Talons arrive for their guy. Sure, we won’t get our weapons but at least we won’t get wrecked. Time to make a hasty advance in the opposite direction, Sparkle.”

“You mean retreat?”

Wording was everything. “A tactical advance away from this place.”

I opened the door a crack and very diplomatically stated, “As part of our new direction, we, the Steel Rangers, encourage the everyday Wastelander to take up arms to defend themselves against the hostile wastes. And, uh, keep the annoying little shit.”

I let the door shut on a very bewildered pair of ponies, being sure to minimize contact with the door. No need to look more green than I already was. Sparkle quickly followed behind me as I weaved and pushed through cultists to get back to the tunnels.

“Hearing you say that crap made me sick,” Sparkle finally spoke up.

“Saying that made me sick.” And then we hastily hauled it out of there.

~~~~~

As it turned out, the remains of the barricade finally stopped burning. It also turned out that whatever was left of the Funnel Cakes gang had either pulled back and abandoned the station or full-on retreated after our previous assault. Possessions had been scattered around the tunnel and platform areas, and grisly carnage was still plastered all over things because of Sparkle’s grenades.

On the way up the stairs out, a little broken toy pony stared up at me. “You know, I think my dad tried to give me one of those when I was growing up,” I suddenly decided to bring up. “I think he really liked the yellowish one. The stupid looking one with the funny hat, if I remember correctly.”

Sparkle stopped short. “Came with a tiny fiddle, right?”

I tried to remember. “Probably?”

We continued up the stairs. “I have the little gray one with the big fiddle. She’s a little scuffed up, though.”

“Big fiddle,” I repeated

“What? I don’t know what it’s called.”

I snorted. “Said the music mare.”

“It’s sooo old! I don’t need to know what it’s called anymore,” Sparkle whined. “You don’t know what it’s called anyway.”

Not to be outsmarted, I randomly guessed, “It’s a tuba.” The second those words left my mouth I realized that wasn’t right.

“Tuba. A tuba?”

Once again, I thanked my helmet for hiding my face. “Don’t even start. That’s an order.”

We emerged back out into the darkness of the Wasteland. Just as we were ascending the stairs, four Talon Mercs were doing the opposite. I should have caught them on E.F.S. but the “task” of coming up with the correct instrument had managed to take all of my attention.

I nearly walked right into one of them as I grumbled about Sparkle. At the same time, the griffon in front of me noticed me as well and squawked in alarm. A more precise term might be “piddling one’s combat fatigues while squealing like a little filly”, but that was difficult to apply to the menacing-looking tawny griffin falling over and squawking in front of us. Of course, it was easier to apply to Sparkle, who had decided to trip and bounce down the stairs we just came up from.

Being the cool, level-headed Paladin Commander I was, I firmly planted my hooves on the uneven stairs and unfolded Decrusty. Similarly, the other four griffins leveled their revolvers, shotguns, and double-barreled missile launcher. Two barrels!

“Oh shit!” one of the griffons—they all looked the same to me—swore.

“Hold it!” I yelled, at the same time.

Nopony moved, for once. Nopony fired or said a word. Well, except for Sparkle, who kept crying “Ow, ow ow!” as she bounced off more stairs, until she hit the bottom with a heavy clang and an “Oof”.

Finally, big fat armored griffin spoke up. “Lookit who we’ve got here! Tin ponies got lost.” He paused for a second to yell at the Talon on the ground, “Get off your ass, rook.”

“We have no quarrel with the Talons. You continue with your business, and we will continue with ours.” I made sure to keep Decrusty pointed at the rocket launcher griffin, just in case.

“Yeah. Buzz off, vultures.” Sparkle spat, having finally crawled back up the stairs.

Revolvers Griffin delivered a nasty haymaker to Armored Shotgun Griffin, who barely even reacted to the impact. “If Rangers wanted us dead, we’d be paste. Stow ‘em, boys. They ain’t fightin’ us today.” Shotgunny stumbled and comically tipped over like a turtle.

They did as they were told, so I retracted Decrusty as well. “What brings you to these parts?” I had a pretty good idea, but I would rather be sure.

“One of them caravans our boys got paid to watch got ransacked. The ‘ployer wants his shit back and my boys want their caps. I’m just here to keep my boys from doin’ something stupid.” She held out her claw. “The boys call me Big Fluffy.”

Behold the terror-inducing featherweight known only as “Fluffy”. How unironically creative. Being the polite stallion I was, I still reached out and shook it. “Paladin Commander Rumcake. You wouldn’t mind if I took a look at your contract, would you?”

Fluffy reached into the front of her vest and held a sheet of ragged paper in my face. “It’s a legit contract. What are you, Regulators?” At a glance, their papers were in order as per Talon bureaucratics.

“Blah, blah, blah, escort delivery of weapons, defense of goods and employees, blah, blah blah.” All of the standard boring crap that didn’t say anything out of the ordinary. “Hey, wait a second—I know that name.”

Ignoring the massive list of weapons and ammunition, the Talon Company had been paid to escort one “Bargain Bin Laden” and his caravan of goods to some backwater town I hadn’t heard of, on the payment of our very own Sleazy McCheapkins. Fortunate for us that we hadn’t taken the weapons for ourselves, otherwise we would have had a very interesting problem.

“Some crazy guys in the underground are taking him as a prisoner.” Not necessarily a lie. “Still alive, last time I checked.” Hopefully the Cult of the Train hadn’t decided to change that in the short time since we’d departed.

Big Fluffy victory-slapped Armored Shotgun Griffin and squawked, “Hear that? We got a lead, boys! Let’s get this done and we’ll be back in time for chow.”

X~~~X

“Since you’re Rumcake’s special little somepony, I guess you should be the first to know,” Instant Noodles idly mentioned to me while I lounged in the machine shop listening to Baked Potato’s silly stories and mindless prattle.

“Huh?” I roused myself out of my half-asleep state.

Eloquent as always, Frosty.

Shut up, brain. Hard enough focusing already.

“One of the other scribes told me Rumcake’s armor tag disappeared from our scanners a few hours ago. And Sparkle’s, too. It’s probably nothing, since they’ve missed a few maintenance appointments or they’ve just gone underground somewhere. If you want, I could tell you their last known coordinates.” Instant regarded me for a few more moments. “You look… off. Something on your mind?”

Worst-case scenarios flashed through my head. “No! Nothing at all,” I lied. “Just… didn’t really sleep well.” Damn it. I wanted to make sure if he was okay, but I really needed to get moving. I only had a month left, tops. No time to keep doing other things, Frosty! I was sure he could handle himself.

Can he, though? After him!

Dammit, brain!

Footnote: No new levels. Yes. Really.
Current Sub-perk: None.

Author's Note

Okay, this one might have gotten away from me a little.

Chapter 14: How do you feel about flight?

Chapter 14: How do you feel about flight?

“Thank you, but I don't think a couple of nuts will solve my big flying problem.”

“I’m going after Rumcake,” I declared. “That doofus probably needs saving, again.” He probably needed my help, and I was going to give it to him.

…Or maybe he’d fallen into a hole and gotten lost and didn’t need my help.

The conflicting thoughts running through my mind must have shown, because Instant frowned and mentioned, “You know, it’s probably nothing.”

Saying that only made me worry more. “But what if it isn’t?” I had a frightening image of Rumcake slowly sinking in a quicksand pit. The image was immediately ruined by an imaginary Sparkle-Cola trying to help by swinging a giant radpython to him.

“He’s our Paladin Commander. I’m sure he can handle himself,” Instant reassured me. “Besides, don’t you need some rest?”

Now that Rumcake was in danger—

Possibly in danger.

Fine, probably in danger. Point being, I didn’t feel tired anymore. “What if he forgot to, I don’t know, pack extra batteries?”

“Extra batteries?” Instant arched an eyebrow at me. “Really? Look, just forget I brought it up.” She regarded me for a moment. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“You made me paranoid!” I sputtered back, prancing in place. Imaginary Rumcake had sunk up to his neck in oatmeal and had begun to merrily rotate in place, pausing only to wave at Filly Frosty giggling from the edge of the bowl.

Hold on a second.

Don’t look at me. You’re the one with the nervous munchies.

“I need to know if he’s okay!”

Instant Noodles regarded me doubtfully. “If you really can’t be convinced otherwise, I’m going to have you take one of our scribes with you that can do armor repair. Just in case.”

“Sure, whatever.” I looked into my saddlebag for supplies. Supplies that I didn’t find nearly enough of. “I’ll go restock on healing potions and food later.”

“Help yourself to the pantry and medical building.” Instant left the room with her robes billowing out behind her. I was about to head out to the aforementioned buildings to acquire massive amounts of loot, when Instant charged back in. “Within reason!” she blurted. Damn. Well, there goes that idea.

“Would reason be… all the healing potions?” I nervously grinned.

Instant was not amused. “No.”

“Aww. Fine,” I mumbled. After taking a reasonable number of healing potions from the Steel Rangers’ ridiculously large stock and helping myself to a few boxes of apocalypse-proof food, I was ready. Well, almost ready. I needed to stop by Doc’s clinic first.

Doc was noticeably different. His mane was more bedraggled than usual, and it looked like he hadn’t slept yet. “Hey there, Frosty. Need anything?” he asked without even turning around. I opened my muzzle to ask, but he somehow knew. “Your clink-clanking kind of gives you away.”

I shook the uncomfortable feeling in my gut and asked, “Got any extra medical stuff? The Rangers only let me off with a hoof-full of healing potions and a few healing bandages.” Something told me that something was wrong with Doc, but I didn’t want to press the issue. Unless he wanted to talk about it.

Whatever it was, Doc didn’t want to share. “I think I can spare a few med-bands and some painkillers.” Wherever they were, I didn’t see them. They were probably stored somewhere more sterile. “Oh, and there’s also my slightly more improved combat stims,” he added as an afterthought.

“You mean the ones that killed me not too long ago?”

Doc looked sheepish. “If it makes you feel any better, I ironed out that teensy little problem.”

It didn’t. “I wouldn’t call it a small problem.”

“Sorry! You got the initial test batch since I didn’t have time to run trials.” A likely story, but I decided to listen anyway. “But it’s okay, I threw it through a distillery and refined it a little and now it probably won’t kill you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Probably?”

“I’m eighty-five percent sure that this is ninety percent safe about seventy percent of the time,” Doc brightly explained. “And I filtered out most of the asbestos, so this is even OSHA compliant.”

Maybe not paying attention in chemistry was finally paying off. Whatever asbestos did, I probably didn’t want to know. “Uh huh,” I neutrally grunted. “Screw it, I’ll chance one. Never know when I’ll need an ace in the hole.”

“Sure, sure.” He opened several of his many boxes and floated another syringe full of mystery syrupy smashy goodness into my bag, along with a few assorted other medical supplies. I stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do next. “I’m going to assume you need something else?”

I hesitated, then did what Instant would do in this situation. “Something the matter?” I walked over and placed a hoof on his shoulder. “Wanna talk about it?”

Doc sighed and dropped the medical bag he was assembling. “I just never took Backstabber as the disloyal type.” Then he broke down in tears. I held the grown stallion awkwardly in my forelegs as he sobbed into my left shoulder. “He… he used to be my friend!”

“Well…” I really wanted to call him an idiot, but now seemed inappropriate. Wait. “This wouldn’t be our dear Agent Tabber, would it?”

He nodded, sniffling.

Oh. OH! Now that made sense. “It’s not just you. He betrayed all of us,” I consoled him, before realizing that that might not have been the best thing to say. His tears trickled down the sides of my arm and pooled on the cool metal joint attached to my claw.

“It’s just…” Doc started, wailing harder.

I patted his mane. “There, there. We’ll get revenge one day. Lacking that, I will.” Tabber was the least of my worries right now, though. I still had to get to Friendship City before my contract ran out and I died for good. “Please, stop crying. You’re going to make me rust.”

“Sorry.” Doc used the edge of his doctor’s coat to wipe his face. “Unprofessional of me.” He backed away and silently sobbed to himself. “Shouldn’t have trusted him to change. Shouldn’t have let him go with you.”

“It’s totally alright,” I said while drying off my shoulder. “The Wasteland is cruel to the best of us. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” I knew that firsthoof.

…Well, okay, not really. Sort of.

“Look, let’s just get past all of this and move on,” I continued. “Whatever he was going to do, he failed.” At least I hoped so.

“The past always comes back to haunt you,” Doc whimpered. “You can’t escape it.”

Rusty wandered in from the back room holding a broom in his mouth. I hastily pointed at Doc, who had moved onto wallowing in a pile of empty bottles, and motioned for help. Rusty silently leaned the broom against the wall and pulled Doc out of the bottles. “C’mon, Doc. Let’s get you a drink, and maybe a nap.”

I silently thanked him and slunk out of the clinic. The little orange mare that I saw in the machine shop was waiting for me, decked out in her scribe robes. Her curly striped orange and white mane barely poked out of the hood she was hiding behind. I also noted a horn hidden underneath that hood of hers. “Uh, h-hello, Miss Winds? I’m Junior Scribe Tangerine. I’ve been assigned to you until our Rangers have been recovered.”

“Nice to meet you, Tangerine.” I held out my claw as a greeting, but she shied away from me. Was I really that scary? “Uh… right.” My claw was placed back onto the ground. “I need to go get some ammunition from Sleazy, then we’ll be ready to go.”

“I was informed of your arsenal, and I retrieved your ammunition accordingly.” Tangerine floated a small pouch out of somewhere in her cloak and placed it on the ground between us. “Three fully-loaded magazines for your anti-material rifle, two more shock rounds, and two mags for your SMG.”

When I stepped forward to pick up the small filled-to-bursting bag, Tangerine fearfully backed up. What the hell was up with that? “…Thanks,” I slowly stated. There was a snug corner of my saddlebag that just barely managed to accommodate the bag. Ammo acquired. Traveling supplies acquired. Medical supplies acquired. “Well, I guess we’re ready to head out.” I looked over her body. Not that way! She was on the small side, so I casually asked, “How do you feel about flight?”

Tangerine’s eyes got huge and she almost retreated into the depths of her robes. I was positively sure she was shaking harder than a leaf in the wind.

You’re a big stupid dum-dum, dummy.

Shut up, brain.

I can do it, just you watch!

Filly Frosty sounded like she knew what she was doing. Tangerine, on the other claw, was completely terrified.

“Fine… it’s not like I’m doing any better,” I growled as quietly as possible.

“Um… what?” Tangerine peeked out from behind her orange and white mane under her hood. Note to self, stop talking to self out loud. Apparently it’s not normal.

Of course, I wasn’t normal. Normal ponies don’t find themselves being suddenly kicked out of their mind and replaced with a child version of themselves. Until you’ve experienced a total personality shift, there really wasn’t a way to explain Filly Frosty taking control. It was like being happy. Suddenly, really happy. Not like a flood of rage like Raider Frosty. Colors brightened, that layer of grime that coated everything vanished, and I inexplicably felt much better.

Filly Frosty shook out our mane. “Nothing!” She smiled brightly. “I don’t know what’cha thinking, but I’m not gonna hurt’cha. Pinkie promise.” Other note to self: figure out where Filly gets her material from. Then she changed the topic by asking, “Whatchur favorite color?”

Somehow Filly’s foalish charm was making Tangerine open up a bit. “Orange!” Tangerine replied confidently.

“Orange! Orange! Orange!” Filly somehow bounced excitedly on all four hooves. Well, three and a metal leg. Whatever. “So, I heard you’re scared of flying.”

Tangerine scratched at the ground. “Unicorns shouldn’t fly. And I don’t like heights.”

“But it’s so much fun though!” Filly continued bouncing. “Just get on my back and we’ll go. Don’t worry, I’ll take it easy.” She stopped to lie down on the ground so Tangerine could get on my back. “Hop on!”

Tangerine backed away. “N-no… no thanks…”

Filly pouted. “Aww, c’mon… fraidy-cat!” Tangerine looked unsure. “Am I really that scary?” Filly asked, just as confused as I was.

“It’s… haven’t you heard the rumors? The stories?” Tangerine whispered.

Okay, playtime’s over, sugarpuff. Hoof over the keys.

Filly wordlessly retreated along with her whimsy and brightness. The Wasteland looked even more bleak after seeing things from Filly Frosty’s point of view. “Let me guess. Crazy and neurotic?”

“They say you bathe in the blood of anypony that crosses you,” Tangerine whispered.

“That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?” I arched an eyebrow at her and spread my wings . “Do I look like I even bathe?”

Tangerine cracked a small grin at that. “You make a good point.”

“See? What else does everypony say about me?” I was methodically trying to convince her that I wasn’t a total menace to her health. Or survival.

“Not much else, once I really think about it. Everything else is really stupid,” Tangerine decided.

“So… still wanna fly?” I hopefully asked. “I’ll go slow, then if you feel sick we can just walk there. Though I prefer we fly to save time.” Please just get on. Wasting too much time. Back legs falling asleep. Ow.

“Well, I guess I need to try it once, since I might not have another chance…” Tangerine looked up, a determined expression on her face. “If I tell you to stop, you stop. Got it?”

I agreed and allowed her to get onto my back. She wrapped her thin forelegs around my neck and pressed herself against me. I think her eyes might have been closed, not sure.

I stood up and experimentally flapped my wings. Tangerine tightened her grip on my neck, unintentionally cutting off my airflow. “Loosen… grip… can’t… breathe!” I gasped, barely audible. She still didn’t loosen her grip. My hoof pounded at her impossibly strong grip. “Air… useful! Stop!”

Tangerine let go and apologetically squeaked, “I’m so sorry!”

I inhaled like there was no tomorrow. Knowing my luck, I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true. “Just…” Inhale. “Don’t.” Inhale. “Do that…” Cough. Inhale. Choke on spit. Cough. “While I’m flying.” Cough. Inhale. “Got it?” I felt her nod. “Good.” Cough. “Let me finish coughing up this lung.” Cough. “And then we’ll finally bucking leave.”

~~~~~

Instant Noodles had supplied me with Rumcake’s last known coordinates, so at least that wasn’t going to be trouble. And speaking of trouble, Tangerine was a terrible flyer. I hadn’t even gotten a meter off the ground before she started to panic. After a bit of consoling and the loss of an apple-flavored snack cake, I finally got her to relax at a gentle cruising speed of really slow. Admittedly, as a pegasus I had a really skewed definition of what was considered “fast”.

“Can we slow down? I feel… sick.” Tangerine tried to suppress a gag on my back. Please don’t vomit on me. Dear Luna don’t let her vomit on me. She was still holding onto me tightly with her forelegs wrapped around my chest and her hindlegs tightly clutching my back. Where were those last ribs when I needed them? She held on so tightly I was getting worried about circulation, since the metal plates in my duster were starting to chafe.

I kept flying toward the heading that I had charted out beforehoof with a little assistance from Tangerine to account for hazards, “You do realize if I fly any slower we’re going to crash, right?” I called out over my shoulder. “But if you want we can take a break.” Wings were getting tired anyway.

Tangerine choked back her breakfast. “We’re making good time.” Unfortunately it was getting dark, and at our speed we wouldn’t even get close, thanks to pre-flight difficulties. “Can you keep going for another two hours? There’s a small encampment along the way that we can try to stop at.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I flapped onward, directed by Tangerine’s outstretched hoof. “Wait. What do you mean by try to stop?” I felt somewhat insulted. “Do you not trust my ability to land myself?”

Tangerine queasily giggled, barely holding in her breakfast. “No, that’s not it.” She waved a paper map that smacked me right in my face with the wind. Repeatedly. “See the big red ‘T’ with a circle around it?”

“Well, my right eye knows what you’re talking about,” I replied, doing my best to navigate with only my part of my left eye being able to see ahead. Darkness was still approaching, and the encampment that sh—Oh, wait, there it is. At the very edge of the sunset a heavily fortified set of three buildings became visible. I pushed the map out of my vision. “I see it. Over there?”

“Yeah. But one teensy little problem: they’re Talon Mercs.” Oh joy. The self-proclaimed public military organization, available for a just a few of your hard-earned caps, assuming our intel was correct. All griffons, all angry, all the time. “And let’s say they don’t like the Steel Rangers very much.”

“Well, good thing I’m two-thirds griffon,” I jokingly tossed back. “Just in case, can you assemble my rifle and load the mags? The parts should be in my saddlebag, and one of the magazines is in one of the pockets on my duster.”

Tangerine dutifully started levitating parts out of my saddlebag and skillfully assembled my favorite death-dealing machine in record time. “Are we expecting combat?”

“No. But just in case I need to relocate a few brains, we’ll have that option.”

Somehow Tangerine also maintained her gut-crushing hold on my, well, gut the entire time. “Ready.” The barrel suddenly protruded into my field of view on my right side. Soft clicking on my back told me my magazines were being reloaded. Excellent.

A miniature fireball whizzed past me and exploded a few feet away to my left. “Woah, woah, WOAH!” I banked out of the way, barely avoiding the flaming bits of shrapnel. Tangerine screamed behind me. “Hang on!”

Another one zoomed past me. “Don’t drop me!” Tangerine hysterically screamed into the back of my head.

“Doing my best!” I dodged another flaming shell. “Stop shooting at me!” I screamed at the encampment. Looked like they were still shooting flares at me. “What the buck?” A flare that I thought would miss barely clipped my right wing. “Ladies and gentlecolts, please fold your tray tables in the upright position.” A few primaries on the edge of my right wing were singed to bits, and we were slowly losing altitude. I could still glide to the ground, but flying was out of the question. Hopefully healing potions fixed feathers.

Tangerine was screaming her head off, and that really didn’t help trying to land at all. As far as crashes were concerned, we were descending at a leisurely rate instead of spiraling out of control. I managed to hit the ground at with at a brisk trot, barely staying upright. She was still hanging onto me for dear life, and I was forced to violently pry her off.

My sharp vision combined with the setting sun revealed that it indeed was the right encampment. Either that or there was another settlement somewhere in the Wasteland that was surrounded with Talon mercs. Unfortunately, they still wanted to kill me.

Tangerine was huddled up on the ground, likely completely traumatized. I unceremoniously shoved her behind a largish rock for cover and dove behind it after her. “I need this!” I pulled my anti-machine rifle off her prone form and retrieved my mags.

“Are we dead?” Tangerine whimpered.

“Not yet, we aren’t.” My first mag got loaded, but before I could cock the bolt...

Hold on. What if they see you as a threat?

“The hell gave you that idea?”

“Whaa?”

“Not talking to you.” Go on, brain.

Don’t griffons have a standing grudge against pegasi?

“Yeeees?” I wasn’t sure what I was getting at.

Enclave? Super anti-everything? And after the war we didn’t really have good relations with them.

Hmm. “You do have a good point. What’s your call?”

“Hide! I don’t wanna die yet!” Tangerine poked her head out of her hood.

“What the buck do I do now?” I growled under my breath.

Just surrender. You mean no harm, and hopefully they don’t either. Lacking that, we can destroy them. Right?

Fine, you win.

“Got anything white?” I pointedly asked Tangerine. “Or anything we can wave at them with?”

Silence. “Wave your hooves in the air?” Tangerine suggested.

“That’s a terrible idea.”

“Got anything better?”

“Not really.” I slung my anti-machine rifle and stood up out of cover. “Okay, you big oversized rats. We surrender!” I yelled, waving my hooves wildly. A stray bullet ricocheted off the rock next to me. “I’m willing to dismiss that as a mistake…” Stay calm and don’t murder them. I continued waving, seemingly oblivious to everything.

A pair of griffons descended from one of the shorter buildings. While I waited for the welcome party, I decided to analyze the encampment for potential weaknesses. Two identical tiny two-floor buildings flanked a sprawling five-floor complex.

“You know, this is a bit large for an encampment. I’d say it’s a full blown field command.” I pointed out the mounted guns hidden in a few windows of the short buildings. “Plasma turrets in the windows.” The corners of each building had a lumpy shadow occupying it. “They’ve got a few snipers. Or missile launchers. Someone on the roofs, to say the least.”

“Okay, our intel may be a teensy bit out of date,” Tangerine admitted.

Two giant armored griffons wearing the Talon insignia landed in front of us. “You’re far from home, Dashite,” one of them boomed. “You know our airspace is restricted.”

I bristled. “I’m no Dashite, retards.” I lifted my duster and showed them my cutie-marked flank. “We just need a place to stay for the night.” Tangerine slunk out from around the rock and rejoined me. “We’ll be out of your feathers in the morning.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Stable hunters usually got good stuff,” one of them muttered to the other. “A little accidental misfire, split it fifty-fifty, hmm?”

“You mean Stable dwellers?”

“Same thing.”

The other one became much more agitated by that. “It’s not the same thing, you dimwit!”

“Stuff’s the same.”

Silence. Maybe they were a little bit stupid, maybe they just didn’t care that I could still hear them talk about us. I contemplated simply strolling past them and trotting right into the Talon base, but that option may very well put me in a body bag.

“Point taken.”

Tangerine stomped her hoof in the dirt. “What am I, diced onions?”

I was surprised by her outburst, as were the two griffons. “Nobody cares about you,” Lefty instantly remarked.

“Ouch,” I muttered. “But seriously, got room for the Blood Angel and her sidekick?”

They looked at each other and groaned. “It’s another eggin’ social justice wanderer. Screw it, let’s just let the boss take care of this one.” The other one picked Tangerine up in his talons. “I’m not dealing with this. Let’s go, featherbrains.”

My wing worried me, so I flapped it experimentally. I could still fly, but I’d have to watch my balance more often. “Lead the way, then.” The griffons led us to the roof of the tall building. Halfway there I couldn’t get enough lift due to my injured wing and I was impatiently carried the rest of the way just like Tangerine. It was humiliating, to say the least.

“Hey… is your wing okay?” Tangerine whispered, edging up to me after the guards had dropped us off right up at the roof.

“Yeah. I’ll be fine.” I picked off the remnants of my burnt feathers in disgust. “I just can’t fly very well because I don’t have control anymore.” While we were waiting I quickly preened myself to make myself presentable. “Bleh.” The burnt taste lingered in my mouth. Disgusting.

A different griffon came up a flight of stairs behind a pile of rubble. “Follow me, and don’t touch anything.” We obediently followed the griffon down the stairs and into a large fancy apartment around the corner from the stairs. He stopped us in front of a huge female griffon flanked by two equally large bodyguards.

“I’m Thundercane, acting commander of Firewing’s Talon mercs. What are you here for, pegasus?” she lazily asked.

“Just need a place to stay the night, ma’am.” I smartly saluted. Kissassery wouldn’t hurt. Or professionalism, depending on who you talked to. “We thought your establishment would exceed our expectations. Ma’am.” She was eyeing my claw with mild disinterest. Or veiled interest.

Thundercane laughed hard. “I know ass-kissing when I hear it.” Tangerine’s hoof clanked off my metal right leg, which I pointedly ignored. “But I like your tone, filly. If only some of these meatheads shared that.” Thundercane threw an empty can at our escorting guard. “They’re cleared for the night. But keep an eye on them. Especially that one.” She pointed at me. “That one’s interesting.”

“Not sure if that’s a good thing,” I whispered to Tangerine with a sidelong glance.

The griffon behind us padded forward and motioned for us to leave the room. “Ma’am.” I saluted again and about-faced to leave.

“Hey, pegasus,” Thundercane called out to me. I turned around questioningly. “What’s your name?”

“Frosty. Winds, Fr—shit.” I’d just ruined a badass turn moment because I was too excited to seem cool. “Frosty Winds, Honorary Squire of the Steel Rangers.” I sighed, resignation weighing down my tone.

“Honorary Squire?”

By the way she said that, I got the feeling that Steel Ranger “Honorary” things weren’t distributed as much as I had assumed. “It’s a long story involving a chivalrous Paladin, angry ponies, a creepy doctor and an equally creepy merchant, a slaver invasion, a spy, a plot twist, and plenty of murder. You know, all of that good corny stuff.”

After a few tense seconds and an intense staring contest, Thundercane finally broke down and chuckled. “Sounds like a story I gotta hear.”

I didn’t really want to make time for story time. “Maybe another day. Anything else?”

“I’ll keep you in mind.” Thundercane thoughtfully sharpened her talons. “Dismissed,” she lethargically added.

“Ma’am.” I saluted once more and followed our escort down more flights of stairs. Whatever this place had been before the war, it looked really drab and monotonous. Just room after room of short walls. Some floors had been forcibly renovated into sleeping quarters for the mercenaries or other types of rooms.

As far as I knew, the building had five floors. First floor was populated by a few sparse shops, a weaponsmith, and a bar. The next two were sleeping quarters and private rooms for the more veteran mercenaries. The next was an armory, then the floor that we’d already been on was Thundercane’s penthouse. According to our escort, the other two building were full of mercs and weapons.

“You’ll be staying here,” the escort informed us, showing us to a small corner room with two somewhat clean mattresses side by side. We had just enough room to pile our stuff next to the doorway as floorspace. “Do not go upstairs, ever, unless Big Bird summons you.” Presumably Thundercane. “Is that clear?”

“Crystal,” I replied. The escort grunted and left, his job complete.

“What do we do now?” Tangerine whispered.

I had gotten distracted by the writing on the wall. It looked like it was old, maybe meant for somepony important. “Bad Times Friend Ahead. Maybe NO Terminal Maybe NO HOme. I Will GO Way But We Are TwO Of SOul. I will return.” I reread the message again, hoping it would make a little more sense. Either way, it gave me the shivers. Foreboding shit right here.

In the end, I decided not to bother. It wasn’t something meant for me anyway. My saddlebag was discarded and dropped in the corner. “I’mma sleep. My wings are tired, I’m sweaty, and my sides hurt from being squeezed for hours on end.” Tangerine bashfully looked away. I plopped myself down around a stained section of mattress.

“Looky here. Some sexy tail just arrived,” a voice leered. I opened my eyes to see a Talon mercenary leaning against our doorway. “How much for the night?” Truthfully, he wasn’t bad looking with those multicolored red and purple feathers. He’d painted his face and beak with black paint, just to be super-obnoxious. Somewhat on the twiggy side, but his attitude really had a lot to ask for.

Tangerine shrank back against the wall. However, I’d already had enough of this idiot.
“I just met you,” I sneered, pointing my claw at his face. “And this is crazy.” He hesitated. “I have buckshot.” I pumped the internal shotgun in my claw with a resounding click. “Prepare to die, maybe.”

“That’s so hot.” Well, crap. Shooting him in the face was definitely out of the question, especially here.

“Leave her alone, guy.” A mud-colored earth pony mare wearing combat armor emblazoned with the Talon company logo on either pauldron roughly shoved the offending (and offensive) merc out of the doorway. She brushed her straw-like mane out of her murky green eyes. “And you—” She poked the merc hard.“ —still owe me meat from that—” The merc bolted up the stairs and disappeared. “…And that takes care of that.” She sighed and held out her hoof. “Riverbed Ransom.”

“Frosty Winds. Thanks for the save.” I analyzed my claw. “Where the buck is the safety on this thing?” I laid back down on the mattress to figure it out.

“Tangerine. Steel Rangers Apprentice Scribe.” Tangerine shook Riverbed’s hoof. “What’s a pony like you doing in a Talons camp?”

Riverbed Ransom sat down and gestured with her hooves. “Lemme set up context real fast. So, like, there's this random-ass ranch out west at the ass-end of Suburbia, right? Some dipshit kid owns the ranch ‘cuz his gramps left it to him. Thing is, gramps never got around to, like, telling the kid how to use the stills, but I did my research and figured out the guy's recipe. All I need right now is, like, three thousand caps and the ranch is mine. And, like, Talons’ll pay pretty good for a pony with my skills, guy. You?”

I searched the surface of my mechanical leg for some kind of safety mechanism. A button, switch, anything! No dice. Tangerine threw back her hood and sighed. “Wandered the Wasteland for a bit. I followed the Watchers back and forth for a few years, then I joined the Steel Rangers. That’s it, end of story.”

A twenty gauge shell “accidentally” firing into the ceiling from my claw abruptly ended the conversation right there. “Welp, I found out how to fire it without punching something!” I grinned, pretending to not notice my ringing ears. Maybe if I picked them up, they’d stop. Turned out if I just mimicked a punch, the mechanism would fire. “Nothing happened! Carry on!” I yelled to the rest of the floor, just in case.

“The safety is probably somewhere around the elbow, knowing Knight Baked Potato’s work. Otherwise he forgot to make one.” Tangerine crawled over me, aggravating my bruised sides. “Right there.” She simply pushed a button that was flush against my claw’s surface exactly where she’d said it would be. “There. Safe.”

“Thanks.” I sighed. Note to self: empty shell loaded. “Ow!” Tangerine stomped back across my torso, possibly intentionally stepping on my bruises. “Not cool! You’re hea–OW!” I curled up in pain when she kicked my ribs for good measure. “I liked the scaredy-foal Tangerine better.”

“That’s for calling me your sidekick,” Tangerine sing-songed at me.

“So… where’d you two come from, anyway? We don’t get travelers very often. Wait, shit! What’d Thundercane tell you?” Riverbed hurriedly asked.

“Uhh…” Brain, start working.

No.

Well, buck you too.

“Not a whole lot, really.” I scratched at my mane hoping to dig up anything else.

“Crap. Well, I guess you’re paying the fifteen meat premium,” Riverbed muttered. “That used to be the price for drop-ins, at least.”

Wait. What? “Meat? The hell happened to caps?” Did pieces of metal get replaced with… meat? “Why do I get the feeling that I’ve just promised some bits my plot won’t be able to cash.”

Riverbed dropped the small burlap bag that she was carrying around in front of me. “Meat. Just chunks of meat, about this big.” She opened the bag and all of us were assaulted by the stench of her spoils and her freshes. Tangerine nearly lost control of her stomach again, to my chagrin.

I was rendered speechless. Tangerine cried, “Why in the name of Celestia is the currency meat, for crying out loud?” Good question.

“We don’t get travelers or merchants all the way out here, so caps are worthless to the Talons here. Well, more accurately, they’re, like, only worthless locally because there’s not much to spend them on,” Riverbed told us, closing the bag up. “Instead we use meat. Works as currency and food, guy.”

If they used meat as currency and food… “Wait, what do you eat?”

Riverbed shrugged. “I try to get paid in caps. Otherwise I trade my meat for caps as much as possible. I do favors to get some of the mercs to fetch stuff for me, guy.”

“What favors do you do, exactly?” I idly asked. Maybe I could get one of them to retrieve some cherry snack cakes. She opened her mouth wide, held her hoof in front of her mouth, and bobbed her head. She topped it all off with a sly wink and a nod.

“So like, I’ve made something like two hundred thirty one and a half caps a week blowin’ these guys, guy.”

I couldn’t help but make a snarky remark. “Who gave you the half cap?”

“They all did,” Riverbed replied, the most serious expression on her face.

After taking a good solid minute to consider my next words, I finally responded with, “I can’t say that’s not impressive. Still, it’s sort of weird you charge by the inch.”

Sick burn.

“Pfft, that’s great!” Riverbed held up her hoof, which I bumped instantly.

Tangerine only managed a groan. “You’re so immature.”

“Right, uh… I bet your ass there’s a good chance that Thundercane will, like, make you do something for her,” Riverbed causally mentioned. “Hope you have time to spare.” That couldn’t be good.

“And what if I don’t?”

Riverbed stood up. “Better think of something, then.” With a flick of her uneven tail, she went back downstairs.

I shared a somewhat panicked look with Tangerine. “You know what? I’m going to sleep. Worry about it in the morning.” I dismissed any feelings of doubt and made myself comfortable on the somewhat disgusting mattress. And since I was lacking a bedspread or even a blanket, I draped my duster over my body in an attempt to get more comfortable.

Tangerine pulled her hood back up and over her eyes. “If you say so.” She snugly wrapped her robes around herself and laid down on her mattress. “See you in the morning.”

~~~~~

The universe decided that letting me sleep was too much of a good thing to happen. Sometime in the middle of the night, someone did their best to sneak into our little room thing. Someone, because the sound of claws clicking against the floor and the padded noise of paws hitting the floor definitely meant that it was a griffon. I cracked open an eye and groggily peeked out from under the edge of my duster. From my very low vantage point, I could only see legs. Griffon legs. My saddlebag moved on its own accord, opening up to display its somewhat valuable contents.

“Nopony touches my junk!” I sprang up and seized the mercenary by his throat. Even though he was slightly taller, I could still rear up on my hind legs to reach optimal strangling height. He managed a strangled squawk as he struggled to break free from the steel grip of my claw. “What do you want?” I growled, all vestiges of sleep gone.

“Lookin’ for meat?” the merc squeaked, struggling for breath. Those obnoxious patterns…

Hey, isn’t that the idiot from earlier?

Yes. Yes it is.

“Wrong answer.” He received a quick jab to his gut that knocked the little remaining air out of his lungs. “Think out your next reply very carefully.” Philomena’s Touch was retrieved from my bag without looking. “Or I might aim lower,” I whispered into his ear. Or at least I think I did. I failed anatomy class.

“Okay! Fine! Let me breathe!” the merc gasped. I pushed him away in disgust and dropped to all fours. “Ha! I’m not tellin’ you anything, Dashite! I can’t be—” he gloated, but I didn’t let him finish.

I seized his stupid face by his stupid beak and shut him up in mid-sentence. “I’m very annoyed, very tired, and very unwilling to put up with your bullshit right now.” With a sharp tug, I brought his face level to mine. “Consider your next words carefully.”

Very slowly, I released his beak and angrily waited for a response. “You’re so hot,” he positively moaned.

Raider could feel anger boiling to the surface and I had to take a deep calming breath to keep her from trying anything. If I got any more annoyed, there wasn’t much I could do to stop her. Quietly and threateningly, I asked, “I’m not sure you know what this is—” I menacingly tapped him in the chest with my power hoof. “—but I’d bet my left leg that I could take your head clean off, then some.”

His eyes darted to my prosthetic, then back to me. “Can you do that again, but with a little more allure? You’re a little stressed, I’m a little stressed—I’ll toss in a few extra caps.”

Urge… to kill… rising.

One love tap! C’mon!

No. Raider, stop.

You know you want to.

I did want to.

Can I have some fun then?

I sighed. Ground rules first: no dismemberment, no eviscerations, no executions, and absolutely no disintegrations. With every additional term, I could almost feel Raider sulk and pout.

Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Whatever!

With that, I cautiously allowed Raider to steamroll her way into control. I felt a cocky grin make its way onto my face and I got slightly more worried. Before I could deem all of this a bad idea, she began to chuckle.

Raider pressed our nose right up against the griffon’s beak. “So, you like it rough? We can play rough” she whispered, shoving him onto his back.

A second later, she playfully straddled his chest and most likely tried her sultriest look on him. “Oh shit, you look great with yellow eyes,” he approvingly muttered.

“Quiet.” Worryingly enough, Raider kept Philomena’s Touch on as she ran my hooves along his sides, pausing only to teasingly rub the base of his wings. “You haven’t seen anything yet, big boy.”

A pair of talons appeared in the doorway and Raider looked up to address the very surprised gender-unidentifiable griffon. “Yes, this is exactly what it looks like. Join in or get the buck out of here,” Raider snapped. When the griffon didn’t respond, she waved our claw at her and sneered, “Go on. Shoo.”

It didn’t take much more angry judgemental glaring to scare away our uninvited guest. Raider returned to doing… whatever frighteningly sultry things she was doing to our griffon, and I was trying to ignore how comfortable it was to be sitting on top of him.

“Shit, this is gonna be awesome.” The griffon under us chuckled.

Raider traced my talons up his chin and rested them on his beak. “Alright, zip it.”

“I was ju—”

“Zip it.”

“B—”

“Ziiiip.”

“I just—”

Apparently this guy couldn’t take a hint. “Zip it good.”

“I could go get—”

“Zip.”

“C—”

“Zizip!”

“How—”

“Zipahzipah!”

“I ha—”

“Ugh, just zip it.” Raider snarled. “Do you want to wake my little book-butt over there?” With our talons still wrapped around his beak, he excitedly shook his head. “Good. Now, where were we? Oh yeah, I remember.”

Without even bothering to take her eyes off of the stupid griffon’s stupid face, she brought Philomena’s Touch down onto his right wing at full force. She didn’t even bother wiping the self-satisfied smirk off our face that entire time, either. All she did was grin wider when the stupid griffon’s brain finally caught up to his sudden lack of right wing.

Of course, he tried to scream, but Raider made sure to clamp down my claw around his beak dangerously tight. “I’m going to turn you into hot wings and dipping sauce,” Raider cooed, which was frightening in its own regard.

The griffon tried to scream again.

“Aww. No? I thought you liked it rough,” she innocently asked. The griffon frantically tried to escape, but Raider wasn’t letting him go anywhere. She caught sight of the thin sheen of blood spattered on my power hoof and sensually licked a thin rivulet off. “Mmm. Tastes like chicken.”

At this point, the griffon was only interested in the fastest means of escape from the crazy pegasus straddling his chest. He frantically mumbled something unintelligible and stared with pleading eyes.

“You don’t want it?” Raider sounded mockingly hurt. Theatrically so.

“Nnn-mnnn!”

“That's a lot of syllables for no. Are you suuuure you don’t want it?”

“Nnnnnnn!”

“Good.” Raider violently yanked the griffon’s face right up against ours and growled, “Get the buck out of Frosty’s face before I get a hankering for some Aldornian Fried Chicken. Gotcha?”

The griffon frantically nodded again. The second our weight was off of him, he bolted, broken wing and all. Conveniently enough, he had left behind his currency pouch for compensation for our trouble, intentionally or not.

Raider chuckled. “And that’s how you do that. Wimp. What’s next?”

I somehow managed to catch her off guard and wrest control of myself back. “Now, I follow my dreams by going back to sleep.”

~~~~~

Jab. “Meeeh.” I moaned, rolling out of poking distance.

“What the flank happened last night?!” Tangerine practically screamed into my ear. “Where’d all this blood come from?” I blearily lifted my head and looked around after removing my disturbingly clean power hoof from my mouth.

I giggled to myself. “Someone came looking for bits. But I gave him a helping hoof.”

Tangerine slowly backed away from me. “And now you know why I’m still scared.” Of course she couldn’t back up very far, but the attempt itself pained me. Even though I probably deserved it, I really needed to stop making these impressions on everypony.

“On the bright side, if you don’t give me a reason to hurt you—” I leaned in uncomfortably close as Tangerine scooted backward as far as she could. She fearfully pressed herself against the wall trying to escape. “I won’t.”

Riverbed Ransom coughed from the doorway. “Am I interrupting a rousing game of Grabfannyclutchbutt?” Tangerine roughly shoved me away.

“Not particularly.” Riverbed eyed the blood stain the floor, then back to me. “Yes, there might have been a little misunderstanding last night,” I grumbled. “I took care of it.”

“Yeah. Heard Fragface got his wings clipped, guy.” She winked at me. “Thanks, I think.” Well, at least somepony appreciated what I did. “Big Bird wants to see you.”

“Wait. Why are you telling me this?”

“Thundercane thinks sending her goons after you might not be conductive to their usefulness.” Riverbed snorted. “So she decided to send me because you might not punch me in the face, guy.”

Tangerine closed my saddlebag and draped it around my neck. “Better not keep her waiting. We need to leave, fast.” My PipBuck told me it was nine in the morning, much later than I anticipated. I needed at least half a day to fly out to Rumcake’s last known coordinates at a comfortable speed for Tangerine.

“Yeah, yeah.” I took off my saddlebag and replaced it on my back. “Let’s go.”

Our meeting with Thundercane was awkward, to say the least. Anxiety was kicking in when I realized she was looking very smug. “So, I invite you into my base and you repay it by maiming one of my squad leaders.” Oh feathers. “I don’t think that’s very polite.”

Think fast, brain!

I got this. You’re hopeless.

Thank you, Gala Frosty.

Thanks to her help, everything became clearer. “You’re just looking for excuses. We both know that was not an accident,” Gala spat.

“And what gave you that idea?” Thundercane innocently replied. “You’re in no position to make accusations.” The bodyguards behind her menacingly hefted their assault rifles. “So, what’s your answer?”

Gala threw our head back and laughed. “Looks to me like you owe me.”

Thundercane looked surprised. “Oh really? Enlighten us.” She motioned to her bodyguards. “They might have different opinions, though.”

“First off, one of your m–contractors said he had it coming, as it were.” Gala counted. “He was an abrasive, annoying, self-centered lout that didn’t advance a professional environment.” Thundercane looked interested. “Just by the way he held himself, he probably had it coming.”

“Hmm…” Thundercane smiled. “Continue, please.”

We were about to take a massive swing in the dark. “So you had him rifle through my belongings as an excuse to get rid of him. I’d find out, then you’d use that opportunity to publicly get rid of him,” Gala tried, her tone wavering just a bit. “I appear to have saved you a whole load of trouble.”

One of the bodyguards tapped Thundercane’s shoulder and whispered something to her which didn’t make her pleased at all. She turned her attention back to us. “Good news for you. I’m willing to ignore your little outburst last night if you do something for me.”

“But it was your plan all along!” Gala screamed in exasperation. “There is no other explanation that works in your favor!”

Thundercane grinned. “You keep thinking that.” Urge… to punch… rising. “Anyway, it’s nothing important. Deliver a message for me, and we won’t have to go through any more of this.”

“Buck this, you’re on your own,” Gala Frosty quietly muttered at the ground. She retreated, leaving me feeling very lost and confused. Thanks, me.

“Ugh. Fine. What do I need to do?” I groaned. “Be another glorified messenger in the Wasteland, then?”

“Somewhere, there is a griffon named Blackwing. She’s the leader of the Talon mercenary group called Blackwing’s Talons.” Thundercane threw a map me, which I deftly caught with my face. “Tell her that the book was last seen in Horseshoe Tower.”

As confused as I was, it still didn’t add up. “What do I say if she asks where I got this intel from?”

“Just tell her you saw some of my thugs casing the place or something. I’m sure you can think of something.” Thundercane looked to her guards. “Get them out of here.”

Riverbed ushered us out before any of the bodyguards got near us. “Like, I told you so,” she said smugly. Several flights of stairs later, we were standing outside the building. “Well, it was nice knowing you, guy,” she said, and before we could reply she turned and strutted back inside, slamming the door in my face.

A moment later the door slammed back open and Riverbed got thrown outside. A pair of small saddlebags followed her out. Brushing herself off, she said, “…Okay. So, like, maybe we’re going to get to know each other better after all.”

Tangerine shook her head. “Let me guess. You’re coming with us to make sure we deliver the message?”

All of us looked worn out already, and we hadn’t even started yet. “Well, you get to tag along with us because we’re going somewhere else first. And without some information, we won’t have any idea where Blackwing has her base, anyway.”

Riverbed slammed her head against the wall repeatedly. “I hate my job.”

I eyed the embarrassingly bald patch on the tip of my right wing. Had I preened them out while I was asleep? “Hey, you think healing potions fix feathers?”

“Probably? We can find out.” Tangerine rummaged through my saddlebag and retrieved a single healing potion.

Once we had arbitrarily decided on a “safe” amount, I swallowed it and waited. Not a moment later, the feathers reappeared with a little prickle, good as new. Yay!

Flying was still out of the question though, since I couldn’t carry two ponies my size. “Well, I guess you’re walking then. I’ll keep you two covered from the sky.” I did a little jump and spread my wings. I landed so I could pull my rifle off my back, out of the way of my wings. “You’ve got a day’s worth of walking ahead of you. Get going!”

I took to a higher elevation, flying in lazy circles around Tangerine and Riverbed below. Great wide wonders! Unburdened flight! On a whim, I decided a miniature acrobatics show was in order. Dives, loops, barrel rolls, everything I could do! The cheering coming from below was all the encouragement I needed.

Ah, I missed the feeling of wind under my wings, the breeze in my mane, the goddamn bullets whizzing by my head…

The air show was paused for a moment as I snapped my wings shut to drop like a stone. Faster drop, harder to hit. Who was shooting at me? There! A pony shaped blob a fair distance away firing a rifle in my direction was the answer. I winced when I flared my wings out trying to slow my descent.

A dim cry of panic from below nearly distracted me. I raised my anti-machine rifle to my shoulder, doing my best to ignore the wind whipping my mane everywhere. I deeply inhaled and did my best to line up the shot.

One.

Two.

I fired, and instantly knew I missed. Recoil from my super powerful rifle launched me backward head over hooves, spinning out of control.

“I am spinning through the air, this is not good!” I cried. Screw it. I called upon the marvels of modern pre-war technology to potentially save my life. S.A.T.S. slowed time down to a crawl. Even though the spell was locked onto a nearby radroach, I didn’t fire. All I needed to do was figure out where the damn ground was.

A moment of confused flapping later, I managed to right myself and safely glide to the ground. “I’m going to guess that wasn’t part of the acrobatics,” Riverbed snarked at me. “What happened?”

“I’m fine, by the way.” I spread my wings out to relieve the uncomfortable burn from the strain of stopping my entire body, plus gear. “Ow. And no, that was not planned. Somepony out there was shooting at me.”

That prompted some very worried glances from my companions. “Did you get a good look at them, guy?” Riverbed asked, a shotgun suddenly appearing in her muzzle. “Lef’ get’m.”

“And what do you plan on doing with that shotgun at this range?” Tangerine snorted.

I faceclawed. “Girls, can we stop fighting for a moment and just get reorganized?” Doubtless the shooter was farther away by now, or had completely lost interest. Or so I hoped. “Tangerine, some directions, please.”

“Because the one with the supercomputer on her leg doesn’t know how to use the damn map function correctly,” Tangerine muttered, floating out her paper map once more. “We’re here.” She pointed at the base of a patch of mountains on the right side of the map. “About another day away is where we’re going to start looking.” She dragged her hoof around in a small circle. “You could also learn how to use your map at some point.”

Even though my PipBuck had a map function, among other things, I rarely consulted it because I wasn’t really used to having some of these abilities at my command. I’d only had the thing for, what, a few days? Map, map, map. No, not items. Map. “Oh. There it is,” I sheepishly replied. All the way at the top right corner of the map, a small box simply labeled “Trading Outpost” flashed once at me. Hmm.

“Can we go now?” Riverbed impatiently stomped the ground. Somehow, she’d stowed her shotgun away while we were talking. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and I don’t want to be caught out in the open at night.”

Somehow I was very worried by the nervous mercenary. “What’s so bad about night? Sure it’s a bit dark, but there really isn’t anything to be afraid of,” I chided. “Right?”

Riverbed nervously chuckled next to me. “Yeah. It’s not like the mole bandits come out of their holes at night and like, kill us in our sleep. Guy.”

Tangerine shook her head. “Really? Mole bandits?”

“They’re everywhere!” Riverbed whispered conspiratorially. “Let’s just keep moving. Even with the mountains to our right, it’s not safe here. We’re too vulnerable out in the open.” I looked around and grudgingly agreed. There were too many places we could get shot at by potential ambushers in the mountains.

We kept walking, idly chatting along the way. Tangerine was taking point, Riverbed took up the rear, and I hovered just above them. There wasn’t much to see nor do, for that matter. Besides the random radroach or bloatsprite encounter, nothing was threatening enough to stop for. Though Tangerine did keep glancing around the area. I dismissed it as her constant fear of me, nothing more.

During our idle talk, we somehow got back on the topic of Riverbed’s choice of employment. “I’m just saying, I find it really strange a pony works for a company made up of griffons,” I pressed, much to the annoyance of Riverbed. “Seriously, what did you have to do to get hired there?”

Riverbed shrugged. “Like, a lot of dick.” Well, of course. “And thanks to a few agreements, I managed to get myself hired as a negotiator. Basically.”

“And what is it that you do, exactly? You know, besides the other mercs?” Tangerine snorted in disgust. “Doesn’t sound like such a useful job.” She spun around to glance at me. “Even you’re more useful than that.”

Can’t tell if sincere or sarcastic.

Indeed, brain. Indeed.

I floated along upside down, trying to think. It was just one of my quirks. Shut up. “Now I have to know. What do you negotiate, exactly?” I added, my curiosity now piqued. “Don’t the Talons just shoot everypony that disagrees with them?”

“And that’s what they want you to think, guy.” Riverbed grinned. “In actuality, the Talons make sure to keep traders safe.” She stopped, then corrected herself. “Or whoever’s paying the caps, actually.”

“And what do you do, exactly?” I inquired again.

Riverbed impatiently whinnied. “I settle disagreements between the Talons and, like, anyone under their protection. Everyone generally takes more kindly to a pony than a menacing and heavily armed griffon.”

She had a point. “So they let you hang around to clear up anything that requires pony-to-pony interaction, right?” I clarified.

“Yes, guy.” Riverbed groaned in frustration. “Can we please talk about something else?”

I agreed. “Sure. Like what?” I asked, still completely bored. Keeping watch wasn’t nearly interesting enough, mainly because Riverbed would start flinging buckshot at whatever caught her eye.

“How about you, guy?” Riverbed shot back. “You always want to know everything about us! How about you tell us your story, for a change?”

As if I couldn’t have written a book about it by now. Grudgingly, I told her most of everything I remembered. How I got here, what I’d done on the way here, all that stuff. I left out as much information about my life above the clouds as I could. Well, not like there was much more I could leave out since something or someone had already done that for me. At least both of them were listening in rapt attention.

“So… are you really going to try going back to the Enclave?” Tangerine asked. “Didn’t they try to kill you or something? Multiple times, right? You might as well stay with us, since you and Rumcake apparently have a thing going on."

She has a point.

Shut up!

“Well…” Did the Enclave really have anything left for me? “I have a few scores to settle. But…” I hesitated, my mind temporarily straying back to Rumcake. “Well, we’ll see. One thing at a time, I suppose.”

But what would I do?

Revenge. Luna knows how great revenge is.

After that, I mean.

Up to you. Or, you know, settle down. Have your average two point four six foals. White picket fence and a dog. And a wagon.

Yay for indecision. Thanks for the input, brain.

“How could you have just forgotten everything? Like, I find that even harder to believe than my bucking life story,” Riverbed cried.

“Look, it wasn’t my choice. I blame PTSD,” I growled.

Tangerine suddenly butted in. “We’re being followed.” We all stopped and stared at her. “What? You haven’t noticed?” she asked innocently, as if we were unwitting foals. “They’ve been behind us for the past few hours.”

“How the buck do you know?” I asked, looking around. Nothing. “I don’t see anything out there.” Besides the random mutated critter trying to kill us periodically, nothing particularly stood out. “Unless that tumbleweed works for the mole bandits.”

“Will you shut up about that?!” Riverbed raged. She raised her hoof, readying up for a fight. “Maybe I’ll just send your ass you to them!”

I instinctively fluffed up my wings and dropped into a low combat stance. “You want some?” My talons dug into the dirt. “Get some!”

Tangerine whapped both of us over the head with the map. “Girls, seriously. We’re being followed.” We shrank away from each other, the fight completely disregarded. “Now cut out the foalish attitudes and listen!” I flapped back into the air and mumbled an apology. “There’s consistently been a strange shimmer following us around.”

“Really?” Riverbed snorted. “That’s called paranoia, guy.”

I’d had enough of this. “Alright, let’s clear this up right now.” I double-checked the breech on my anti-machine rifle and spun around. “If you see it, tell me where.” I laid down on the ground and looked down the sights.

We silently waited for something to happen. Tangerine stared off into the distance behind us, looking for her mystery shimmer. Tense minutes went by, but nothing moved. I didn’t even see what she was talking about, if it was there at all. “I know I saw it,” Tangerine muttered.

An hour crawled by painfully slowly. “I’m telling you it’s just paranoia, guy,” Riverbed grumbled. “Overactive little twerp. Come on, let’s get a move on.”

I shifted my wings, positively twitching at the thought of moving. I’d barely moved since dropping to the ground. “Hey. It’s okay to be jumping at lights,” I murmured to Tangerine, trying my best not to mess up my aim by speaking. “It’s okay to be paranoid. Keeps you from getting killed.”

“I’m not paranoid!” Tangerine screamed. She magically yanked my anti-machine rifle out of my claw and fired one shot. The recoil caused my rifle to fly out of her weak telekinetic grip and knocked Riverbed to the ground. But that’s not what I was staring at. Several hundred feet away, the body of a blue alicorn materialized and collapsed to the ground. Its head bounced off the ground three seconds later. Cue dumbfounded silence.

“Well,” I managed to squeak, rubbing my slightly bruised cheek. “That escalated quickly.”

“Geeh,” Riverbed groaned, limping over. She sharply inhaled, holding her right hindleg where my out of control rifle had collided with. “Aaaagh. Nice grip, guy.”

Tangerine didn’t even care. “Told you! And that’s all I have to say about that,” she proudly answered, levitating my anti-machine rifle back into my care. “Shall we, ladies?” After that, she turned around and kept walking.

“Lucky shot,” Riverbed idly dismissed, still rubbing her sore leg. “Stop sleeping on the road and like, let’s go.” She laughed, kicking dust into my face.

I stood up, dusted myself off, and launched myself back into the air. I kept my anti-machine rifle in my forelegs, just in case I needed to shoot anything else. But… “Hey! Hey! How did you know?” I shouted after Tangerine.

She glanced behind her and simply told me, “I may not be as strong, as fast, or as brave as you are, but I’m a hell of a lot smarter than you are.” Ouch.

Ooh. Need some ice for that burn?

No. Just… no.

“And I was paying attention.”

“How does paying attention allow you to, like, see bucking invisible alicorns?” Riverbed whispered to me with a sidelong glance. “Seriously, what the buck, guy?”

I rolled my eyes. “I call bullsh—”

“There’s a cave up ahead that we can hunker down in for the night. Riverbed, care to do the honors?” Tangerine continued, ignoring our conversation about her. “I don’t want to wake up to an angry horde of bloatsprites in my face.”

Riverbed grinned. “Whatever, guy.” She brought out her shotgun and charged headlong into the cave. It looked dark, scary, and totally not full of monsters. Unfortunately, it was the only place that had some semblance of safety.

A cacophony of un-ponylike screeching was followed by wild shotgun firing. I mentally debated whether I should go in and help, but I decided on simply watching on for the entertainment value. By the sounds of it, something—or somepony—must have just been thrown violently against the walls. Increasingly shrill filly-like screaming began, abruptly stopped, started up again. An explosion shook the pebbles outside the cave, and the screaming transitioned into choking laughter.

A few minutes passed. “All clear!” Riverbed weakly called out, walking back to us. Her armor was more scuffed than before, to my slight amusement.

“What the buck was even in there?”

“Radroaches.”

“I heard screeching and what sounded like wet meat pinballing everywhere.”

“Big radroaches.”

I failed to suppress a snort. “Sure.”

“Get in the bucking cave, guy.”

“What? Get assaulted by a hundred angry radroaches?” I sneered at her, floating into the now-secure cave. “Ooh, scary,” I sarcastically added, flailing about in mock fear.

“Let’s just calm down and get along.” Tangerine trotted in after me. “Is it safe?”

Riverbed kicked one of the many semi-intact radroach bodies in the small cave. “Cave ends right here. It’s just deep enough for safety.” She pointed at some rocks near the entrance. “We can use those as cover, if the need arises.”

“Speaking of which…” Tangerine used her magic to scoop out a hole in the loose gravel at the very back of the cave. “The little fillies’ hole in the ground is back here. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

Riverbed suddenly piped up. “Dibs on next!”

I suddenly decided that my anti-machine rifle needed a good cleaning. A very long and thorough cleaning. I dropped my saddlebags onto the ground and used it as a clean surface to place my completely disassembled rifle. Rag, check. Gun oil, check. Ignoring bathroom sounds, check.

I’d gotten through the firing mechanism and part of the barrel before I realized everypony that needed to do their business had already finished. In fact, our cave’s interior was nearly pitch dark because the residual light from outside had finally faded. Nighttime had fallen, and the others decided to bed down for the night. “We should sleep in shifts. I’ll take the first, since I need to finish this up.” I motioned at my disassembled rifle with a grimy wingtip.

“Eh, I’ll take second, guy.” Riverbed yawned. She’d even brought along a bedroll for herself. Note to self: get one. “Tangerine, you good with third?”

Tangerine looked up from her spot against the wall. “Whatever’s good for you two, I guess,” she meekly replied. “Hush now, quiet now, rest your sleepy head…” she sang quietly, tugging her hood over her eyes.

I listened to her song, glancing up occasionally to stare out of the cave’s mouth. Something about the music, or maybe just her voice, calmed me down. Made me feel safe, if you will. The whole time, I kept cleaning out my rifle. Anywhere I couldn’t reach with my hooves or my teeth with the rag, I used the tip of my non-singed feathers to carefully clean out the grime. At some point, Tangerine had fallen asleep in mid-song while I wasn’t paying attention.

My rifle reassembled, I quietly plodded out to the very edge of the cave, keeping watch and basking in the cool night breezes. I stretched out my wings and gently flapped them, hoping to dislodge any dust hiding in my feathers.

“You need a bath.”

I jumped, startled. Ice Storm stood next to me, apparently enjoying the night air with me. “I didn’t give you permission to bother me right now,” I chided. I crossed my forelegs and rested my head on them. My metal leg was colder than a snow cloud and even the slightest contact against my fur was very uncomfortable, even when I had my right leg on top. Body heat, go!

Ice just kept staring. “I don’t care. Can’t I just enjoy myself once in awhile?” He sighed. “Beautiful night, huh?”

“Yeah. It’d be better if I could see the stars. And the sky.” Because it reminded me of home. Home. Something I hadn’t thought of in a while.

Ice must have known what I was thinking. “Do you miss them?”

“I… I don’t know. In the back of my mind, I’m expecting Lightning to pop up any minute now, telling me I’ve OD’d on whatever new chems she’s made.” Even though I knew that wouldn’t happen. “But…”

“Things?”

“…Yeah. I miss Dad.” I sniffed and held back a tear.

We shared a moment in silence. “I’m bored.”

I resisted the urge to slap him. Though I realized that since he was a particularly strange figment of my imagination, I couldn’t physically hit him. “I’m sure you can think of something. I’m keeping watch,” I replied in a hushed tone. “And besides, can’t you hang out with all the rest of me?”

“They’re not doing anything, and your violent side is taking a nap. Ergo, bored.” Ice sighed, sitting down on the ground. He dropped his fedora on the ground between us. “So bored.”

“Can I ask you something?”

Ice regarded me somewhat lazily. “Sure.”

“Who are you, exactly?” I asked. “I don’t think I know any unicorns.”

He chuckled. “Not somepony that you used to know.”

I quickly checked my PipBuck for the time. Three in the morning. “Well, if you’re really bored we can go grab another memory later. I sure as heck wouldn’t have anything against it,” I decided. “Well, actually… can we go see one of my older memories? I… I want to see Dad and the others again.”

“Can’t.”

“What? Don’t I still have Dad’s medal?” I protested.

“You do. But that’s not how it works.” Ice conjured up an ethereal cigarette that gently glowed blue with each puff. “You’ll have to go to the menu to watch them again.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it.” He took a much longer drag from his cigarette. “I’ve been wondering…”

Riverbed stumbled in behind me. “Meeh. Who ya talkin’ to, guy?” Disturbingly, she dropped down right next to me halfway inside Ice Storm. Needless to say it was quite disturbing. “I hate mornings.”

“Uh. Could you, say, move over a little?” I suggested. “Personal space.”

Riverbed moved a bit farther away from me. Ice picked up his fedora, shaking it off and replacing it on his head. “I’ll leave you two to it.” With a sweep of his trenchcoat, he bucking disappeared. Just like that.

“Soooo…?”

“Have fun doing nothing.” I started to grin, but widely yawned out of nowhere. “I’m going to slip into something more comfortable, like a coma. See ya in the morning.”

Riverbed grunted incoherently in response. I made sure all my belongings were stowed away securely where I wouldn’t forget anything. Moments like these made me curse my forgetfulness. Now I had to sleep on the cold, hard ground like any other poor, beddingless soul. Not even a cumulus to flatten out. So sad. I cleared a space in the gravel with my wing and laid down in it. A few more sweepings to get rid of the pebbles that kept poking me, and I attempted to go to sleep. Just some normal sleep, no hallucinations, no interruptions, nothing.

~~~~~

“Do we wake her up?”

“Hit her with this bottle, guy. It’ll be hilarious!” Clink. Tinkle.

“You do it. I’m too pretty to die!” At this point, I was completely awake. I resisted the urge to open my eyes and ruin their little squabble. Ah, the joys of teamwork.

“Don’t be such a wimp. Let me do it, then.” Clink. Step. Crunch. Step. Crunch. There was a sharp intake of breath, and that was when I decided to strike. For added effectiveness, I used S.A.T.S. for a major increase in accuracy. Riverbed was swinging an empty Sparkle-Cola bottle by her teeth directly at my face. One hit to the bottle, one to the face. I watched with some sort of twisted humor as I smashed the bottle out of her mouth, then threw her onto her back using an excessive amount of force via claw to throat. “Gaah! The buck?”

I grinned crazily at Riverbed as she was pinned under me. I intentionally held her down as long as possible, drinking in her increasingly panicked expression. Finally I burst out laughing. “Oh, goddesses, that was priceless.” I rolled off her and kept guffawing. “That’ll teach you to wake me up!”

Tangerine quietly sniggered across from me. “You know, that was actually kind of funny.”

“Yeah, yeah. Yuk it up.” Riverbed picked herself up and glared at me. “Are you quite done? I’d like to go before somepony dies from, like, excess amounts of funny.”

The noise of something powering up outside caused us to freeze in our tracks.

“Did you hear that, guy?”

There were two things that made obnoxious charging noises of that pitch. One was the night-vision goggles on those… uh… “Fracture Force” assholes, I think? The only other thing was energy weapons, which was far more likely because of the number of high-pitched whines there were.

“What’s going on?” Tangerine whispered to nopony in particular.

“Does it look like I know?” I spat back.

“Frosty Winds, you have been convicted of crimes against the Enclave and her ponies. You have been found guilty of desertion, treason, multiple counts of murder, multiple counts of theft, sabotage, espionage, and embezzlement. What say you in your defense?”

I growled and my hackles raised. “Lies.” Everypony else stared at me, dumbstruck. “What are you waiting for? Take up positions!” I yelled. If the Enclave wanted a fight, they’d have a fight.

Rape face time?

Yes, Raider. Time to get our rape face on.

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Quick Thinking – Because knowing is half the battle. You gain +5 to all sub-perk skills. Mysterious Stranger now has a better chance of appearing against enemies with high health.
Current Sub-perk: Bloodthirsty – Blood for the Blood God! You gain +8 to Unarmed.

Crossed Hearts DLC installed.

New locations unlocked.

New weapons are waiting for you at your home.

New perks available.

Author's Note

Featuring cool guy Ipochike's Riverbed Ransom!
Fun fact: Riverbed's dialogue nearly exactly match the way I talk IRL. Isn't that interesting, guy?

Chapter 15: I’m going to Tartarus for this, aren’t I?

Chapter 15: I’m going to Tartarus for this, aren’t I?

“Now stop right there! Let's not let things descend into petty insults.”

“Would you believe she’s with the Thieves’ Guild?” Tangerine called out while making herself as small of a target as possible against a rock.

“What?” I hissed at her. “The buck kind of excuse is that?”

Tangerine floated a laser pistol out of one of her saddlebags. “I read it in a book once.” With practiced ease, she checked its charge and kept it ready. “You never know?” she said shyly.

A moment later, we were answered by: “Do you have documentation?”

No. There was no way they were this stupid.

“This can be much less inconvenient for the both of us if we can just discuss it,” they continued.

Tangerine grinned at me triumphantly, but before she could say something smart I interrupted her. “Don’t get cocky just yet. This has to be a trap,” I growled, cycling the bolt on my rifle. “We don’t have a Thieves’ Guild, much less any semblance of organized crime.” Come on, brain! Think of a plan!

Rape!

As much as I would like to, I think we need a better plan.

“You have two minutes to consider our offer,” the Enclave pegasus outside droned. Crap. Crap. Think! Anything!

Riverbed pumped her shotgun. “Maybe you should counter their trap with another trap, guy,” she suggested.

Hmm. A devious thought flashed through my mind. If I could get a little lucky, then everything would go together just fine.

She caught my look. “I assume you thought of something.”

I resisted having a diabolical laugh moment. “Not really, but it’ll have to do. They sound restless out there.” I searched for the key components to my plan inside my saddlebag. “And now time for a cleverly placed jump-cut.” To punctuate that, I pumped my claw-shotgun and evilly grinned.

“What?” both of them blurted.

I exhaled violently through my clenched teeth. “These are extremely unlikely circumstances that are causing me Luna knows how much stress and mental anguish. I think I’m allowed to pretend my life is a movie at this point.”

“Whatever boats your float, guy,” Riverbed huffed impatiently. “So, director. Like, what’s the plan?”

~~~~~

“Don’t shoot. I’m coming out!” I yelled as I slowly flew outside to confront the Enclave pegasi. There were seven of them standing around in a loose semi circle formation surrounding the mouth of our cave. In the center, a more fancily armored pegasus with the tell-tale golden oak leaves of the major’s rank was flanked by three soldiers on either side. I didn’t know whether to be honored or insulted that the Council sent a bucking major after me. A cursory examination of the other pegasi revealed nothing of interest. A staff sergeant, bunch of non-NCOs. Standard squad composition.

“Airpony Frosty Winds, we have been ordered to bring you back. We have been authorized to use deadly force,” Major continued to drone. I noted standard issue laser rifles, an entire multi-laser, and plasma rifles for Major’s squad.

“And why do I need to go with you, exactly?” I tensed up and prepared for anything. “What if I have a different opinion about your orders?”

“You don’t have a choice, traitor!” Staff Sergeant yelled. “You’re damn lucky one of the higher-ups is really bucking interested in you, otherwise I’d shoot you myself.”

I snorted. “Well, thanks.” If I wasn’t dead yet, my plan was going well. “I’m flattered.”

“Stow the chatter!” Major ordered. “And you—” He pointed at me. “Would you kindly disarm and stand down?”

There was something I wasn’t expecting. “Would you kindly buck off?” I snapped back.

“Shit, maybe it’s the other one,” he muttered to himself, then he cleared his throat and tried again. “Subject, executive command Lockdown Tango.”

My body decided to snap to attention against my own will, a disturbingly familiar sensation. Seriously, what was this? “Yes sir! Awaiting orders,” I yelled against my own volition. Even if I tried to make myself move my body wouldn’t respond. Damn you, weak mortal body! Why must you fail me so?

“Excellent.” Major raised his right hoof and spoke into it. He probably had some kind of audio recorder built into his gauntlet, most likely. “The subject responds well to subliminal commands. She does not appear to be aware of them, judging by her reaction.” Thanks a lot, brain. He turned his attention back to me. “Subject, sitrep.”

“Ready to fly,” I obediently responded. What the hell? I didn’t want to say that!

And, of course, he then asked the most obvious question possible. “Subject, what happened to your leg?”

“Needed a new one, sir. Misplaced my standard issue one.” Yay for my shining personality. At least I wouldn’t have to spend four hundred twenty years working off the cost of my missing standard issue leg.

“Subject, debrief,” Major continued. At least the squad behind him wasn’t as disciplined as I feared. They had stopped paying attention to the events unfolding in front of them, which would hopefully get them killed if anything else went to plan.

“Primary objective complete. Secondary objectives unresolved.” What? Huh?

Major blinked at me. “Subject, advise on objectives.”

“Primary objective: Operation White Noise. Secondary objectives are out of your pay grade, sir,” I answered. I didn’t even know what my objectives were!

Major made a note to himself on his audio log thing. “Find out what the subject’s objectives are.” Note to self, same thing. “Subject, you were given a direct order by a major in the Grand Enclave. Need I remind you that I outrank you and your commanding officer? I will repeat myself—what are your objectives?”

“My orders are out your pay grade, sir. Any further attempts to obtain intel on my confidential orders will make you subject to court-martial.” Also note to self: figure out what part of me actually remembers this crap.

Major cursed under his breath. “More questions. Great. I hate politics.” He turned his attention back to me once again. “Were you aware that your primary objective was not complete?”

“Negative,” I duly responded.

“We had to send another team to finish the job, and even they failed.” He sighed. “What do you grunts find so hard about pushing a damn button?” Wait. I’d gotten killed for nothing? My friends had died for nothing?

Apparently the docile, rule-obeying me had the same question. “Sir, I was not aware of the objective status. My previous interpretation led me to believe that the objective had been completed.”

“You’re a complete failure, subject. Hooves out.” Major advanced toward me with a set of hoofcuffs. “Prepare for transport.” A wicked grin spread across my muzzle. Excellent.

“What’s so funny, traitor?” Staff Sergeant yelled, catching sight of my evil glee. “Can’t wait for the slammer?”

Major did his best to lock one side of the hoofcuffs around my claw. “You just activated my trap card,” Raider Frosty sniggered with glee. My vision blurred with her angry crimson tint.

“What the—” were the last words Major managed to utter before Raider Frosty forcibly replaced part of his brain with buckshot. She pumped my claw to eject the spent shell and pointed it at her next target, Staff Sergeant.

Unfortunately for him, his reaction time wasn’t as quick as his mouth. Raider used S.A.T.S. and queued up several attacks into him. The spell wasn’t smart enough to realize that my ballistic claw was no longer loaded with shells. However, she did get several good punches and slashes into the weak points of his armor instead.

“Squad! Open fire!” Staff Sergeant choked out, wildly swinging back at me. Thanks to the undisciplined nature of his squad, they hesitated. That whole second of pause gave me enough time to grab Staff Sergeant in a stranglehold. At this moment I realized I hadn’t been using my anti-machine rifle, which would probably be the better choice for killing armored enemies.

“I don’t want to kill any of you!” I managed to yelp through Raider Frosty’s control. “Leave me alone!”

I was roughly shoved out of the control of my own body yet again. Today was just not my day, was it? “Any of you moves, and your sergeant dies,” Raider menacingly growled, jabbing one of my talons through the thin seal between the base of Staff Sergeant’s helmet and the rest of his armor.

The rest of his squad exchanged what would probably be confused looks at each other. Really, I wouldn’t blame them. “You heard Sarge! Kill her!” one of them yelled. Their energy weapons slowly powered up as they attempted to target me behind their leader.

“Wrong move.” Raider Frosty pulled back Staff Sergeant’s head as far as the armor would allow and sliced his throat wide open. Judging by the copious amount of blood liberally spraying out of the big hole that used to be part of his neck and the little strangled noises he was making, he probably wouldn’t be long for this world. More gruesomely, she was using the spraying blood to obscure the other pegasi’s visors.

Raider called upon S.A.T.S. once again. She was employing some tactics that could be considered, uh, uncouth. Her combat logic proceeded as follows: throw the body, grab idiot number two (left to right, of course) and break his neck, jump number one as a distraction, then attack number four. If it was any consolation to the late sergeant, his body flew quite far and crashed into number six, knocking him to the ground.

Our wings beat powerfully and Raider launched us at unfortunate number two. I got a good look into his terrified eyes behind his visor before Raider clutched his visor in my claw, pirouetted in midair, and showed him exactly what was behind him accompanied by the sound of a sickening crack. Raider then jumped us behind number one and slashed the wires on his plasma rifles, rendering them unusable. The rest of the surviving squad kept tracking my movement and unloaded their combined plasma and energy fire into unfortunate number one. “Nice shot, idiots!” she taunted.

We cast aside the charred, slightly melted corpse of number one and bolted right at number four. He backed up faster than Raider could charge at him, to my dismay. Raider still swiped at him in a hopeful attempt of landing a hit. Out of nowhere, a slow guitar strum echoed through the battle and Ice Storm materialized, emptying his powerfully tiny revolver into number four. He was dead before he hit the ground.

I heard armored hoofsteps approaching behind me.

Hey! Pay attention! On our six!

But Raider was having too much fun. “Shut up.” Boom! Gore spattered the back of our head. We spun around to the sight of one of the remaining pegasi fall over without the back of his head, right where his mane used to poke out of the back of his helmet. Yay for weak points!

“Looks like you’re doin’ just fine on yer own, guy,” Riverbed joked around the shotgun she was pumping in her muzzle. A magical energy beam streaked between us and melted number six’s gauss rifle, to my great relief, since it was pointed at my head. “Great save, Tangie!” she called out to the little hood that had an energy pistol barely poking out of it inside the cave.

Six charged brazenly at Riverbed, who irritably swatted him out of the way with the butt of her rifle. “Two little annoying birdies left.” Raider stalked toward number five, who was frozen in shock at the grisly demise of his entire squad.

“Puh-puh-pluh—” Okay, correction. Her entire squad. “Eeeep,” she squeaked. Silence reigned on our skirmish grounds. None of us moved. I breathed heavily, completely spent by the fight. My armored duster was sticking to my sweaty coat, and saliva dripped from my mouth. Raider was getting worked up by all the blood and gore over the area.

Number six put himself between us and five. “If you’re going to hurt her, you’re going to have to go through me.”

Raider Frosty and Riverbed exchanged nefarious looks.

Okay, that’s enough. Hello?

Raider Frosty didn’t let me have control back. Uh oh. I knew exactly what she was about to do, and I was powerless to stop her.

Riverbed smirked and simply responded, “I think I can live with that, guy.” She raised her shotgun and blasted six in the face at point blank range. His head exploded like a well-bucked meat cloud, scattering gore everywhere.

Five let out an anguished wail and broke down crying.

Okay, that’s far enough. Stop. Now.

Raider Frosty didn’t care at all.

Stop.

She calmly stepped over six’s body, all while thinking very violent thoughts.

I managed wrest control of my right hoof and punched myself hard. “Stop!” I managed to choke out.

“No! They need to die! They need to be taught a lesson!” Raider hissed. “Rip them apart. Gouge their eyes. Drain their blood!”

I think I deserved another facepunch, which I dealt accordingly. “They were… just… following… orders.” Fighting through Raider Frosty’s control was mentally draining, to say the least. When did she get so strong? I could barely get myself back in control!

“They need to suffer for their interference!” We collapsed to the ground, clutching my head. Riverbed was probably getting really creeped out, but I didn’t have time for that.

I needed my mind back before this got out of control. “Get. Out!” I gave myself another punch to the jaw. “This… is my! Mind! I’m in control!”

Raider Frosty roared with laughter. “Really? That’s funny.”

I looked up to Riverbed, who had the greatest look of confusion plastered on her face. “Hey… would it… would it be weird if I told you to punch me?” I croaked.

She answered me with a blank stare. After giving it a whole two seconds of thought, she shrugged and said again, “I can live with that, guy.”

Somehow she decided that the word “punch” meant “hit Frosty in the face with the side of the shotgun”.

“Ow, shit!” The force of the impact threw me to the ground. The right side of my head felt like a giant bruise was already forming. With its addition, I felt much worse but at least it felt like I was back in control. I silently whimpered to myself while rocking back and forth on the ground.

Riverbed looked like she was legitimately worried. “Did I, like, hit you too hard?”

“I bit my tongue,” I joked. “It hurths.” Obviously not my greatest worry, but for some silly reason it stood out more than it should have.

“The buck was that?” Riverbed hauled me back onto my hooves.

“Long story.”

Silence. Gravel crunched somewhere, probably Tangerine joining us with the carnage. “Wanna talk about it? We’ve got time.”

I considered it for a moment. “Nah.” I’d told this story too many times anyway, and I really didn’t want to tell it again. Especially because it wasn’t a particularly cool story, either. Maybe later, I’d write a book about it. If I survived that long, that is. “It’s actually so confusing that I have no idea either.”

Tangerine trotted up to us, skirting the larger puddles of blood and flinging the bigger bits of flesh and gore away from her using her magic. “I’m just going to address the Enclave pegasus in the room.” All of us regarded the hysterical wreck of a pegasus crying in the dirt. “At least I now have more nightmare fodder about you in case I actually get a good night’s sleep.”

“So… like, you want me to shoot her, guy?” Riverbed ventured.

“Uh.” I paused. Weeks ago, that could have been me. Heck, as far as I knew this exact scenario could have happened to me. Empathy kicked in. “I think we should let her go.”

They looked appalled. “What? What if she gives away our position?” Riverbed objected. “Or even better, what if she grabs reinforcements, guy?”

I’d make sure that didn’t happen. I confidently strode up to number five and yanked her visor open. “What’s your name?”

She stayed silent, regarding me with angry, teary eyes. I didn’t blame her. Three insane maniacs had just destroyed her squad and their commanding officer in under three minutes. Months of psychiatric help wouldn’t even dent what she’d witnessed today.

“Alright, fine. I get it. But I’ve got my own plans, and you just happened to be in completely the wrong place at completely the wrong time.” I sighed. “I don’t expect an apology, but I do expect this: tell the Council what happened here today. Take your commanding officer’s recorder or whatever as proof.”

Tangerine levitated Major’s gauntlet to the pegasus. “The data should still be intact.”

Number five snatched the gauntlet from Tangerine and shoved it into a pocket somewhere on her armor. “Now leave, and tell ‘em Frosty’s not going down without a fight,” Raider Frosty gloated out of nowhere.

...What? Hold on, what?

~~~~~

After the pegasus had departed, I looted all the bodies. I was repressing the feelings of horror and shame by drowning it out with happy collections of weapons, gear, and random tidbits. To my eternal annoyance, I never got proper training for Enclave power armor so I didn’t really know how to work it. At least it conveniently folded up into a small pile of superarmored plates, somehow. Whatever, buck logic.

“So, what’s the plan now?” Riverbed idly pawed through one of the Enclave pegasi’s armor compartments that I hadn't looted yet.

“Nothing changes. We keep going, and hopefully we find Blackwing along the way. Otherwise you get to hang around until you get bored.” I sighed, then glumly added, “I’m going to Tartarus for this, aren’t I?”

Tangerine deposited something into my saddlebag from a distance using her magic. “Um… it was bound to happen?”

“At this point it’s go big or go home,” I grunted neutrally as I gathered up all of the weapons from the fight. Most of them had gotten really banged-up from being tossed around, something that I found incredibly annoying about magical energy weapons, so I had to take them apart later on to find the gems that were still intact… or basically whatever wasn’t broken. “I didn’t have to kill them,” I said quietly. “We could have done something else.”

Riverbed was examining a plasma rifle still attached to the same suit of armor she had been looting earlier. “You know what? I need a battle saddle. My face hurts from firing this thing, even with this anti-recoil enchantment.” She rubbed her jaw.

Right on cue, Tangerine navigated her way around the bodies, using her magic to pick out medical supplies from them. A small cloud of bandages, healing potions, combat drugs, and RadAway hovered after her, surrounded by her orange-tinted magic. She grinned as she walked by, flaunting her magical powers.

Again, I tried to push out unpleasant thoughts out of my mind while I salvaged parts from the assorted weapons left. The gauss rifles were trashed beyond belief. Even if the outer shell was only a bit scuffed, an entire set of armor falling on it trashed the important internals just enough that I couldn’t perform field repairs on it. At least I managed to salvage enough of a laser rifle to make it usable. I tied the reassembled laser rifle to the side of my saddlebag.

Somepony cautiously poked me. “You okay? We’re ready to keep going.” I looked back to catch Tangerine’s very concerned stare. “Hey… are you… crying?” At first, I didn’t know what she was talking about until I rubbed my eyes. My hoof came back wet with moisture. Huh.

“I… I guess I am.” I wiped away another tear.

“Um…” Tangerine searched for something inside her cloak. “Okay, I can’t find it. But today’s been hard, and nopony should have to do what you did today.” She patted me on the back. “Bottle it up and move along. I feel your pain, I really do, but suck it up. The Wasteland is a cruel, cruel place and we simply don’t have time for it.”

I nodded and absentmindedly collected the rest of my things. And since I felt like it, I gathered up the magic crystals from the disassembled gauss rifle. More importantly, I pocketed Major’s insignia pins and patches. Just in case, or just as a petty act of vengeful kleptomania. While I’d been feeling sorry about myself, Riverbed had pilfered a plasma rifle from one of the Enclave pegasi and jury-rigged it to her saddlebags as a crude battle saddle.

A single glance at my tattered duster made me realize I needed better protection. It was speckled with holes, shrapnel, blood, and grime, not to mention the fact that many of the protective armored plates lining the interior were dented beyond belief. Against my better judgement, I pulled out one of the less-mangled suits of Enclave armor. “Can one of you help me put this on?” Naturally, Tangerine stepped up and started unfolding the armor with somewhat practiced ease.

“You know, this isn’t all that different from Ranger armor. It’s much lighter, in fact,” Tangerine remarked, fitting the wing plates onto my back. The unarmored underside of my wings always seemed to be a weak point to me, but I didn’t have a choice at the moment. Due to the nature of the helmet itself, I steadfastly refused to wear it. Tangerine also had to leave the hoof gauntlet off the left leg in order to leave my claw operational. “And if its design is anything like Steel Ranger armor, then it should be secured. Feeling awesome yet?” She sat back contentedly.

The thing I noticed first was the tail blade thing attached to the end of the armor that my tail was encased in. It curled around like a manticore’s tail, and it was so weird to have a weapon attached to my tail. Although the greatest change was the extraordinary amount of speed and strength that I suddenly gained. “Woah. This is cool.” To demonstrate my new power, I took a step, intending to perform a spin-buck, but I hadn’t anticipated nearly this much power. I stepped forward and face planted into the ground. “Just in case I forgot what the ground tasted like,” I groaned.

“Slow steps. Just let us handle the fighting, if there is any,” Tangerine kindly advised me. “You’ll get used to it.”

I nearly punched myself in the face multiple times while trying to get up and rub my nose. As Riverbed and Tangerine went back to their own devices, I figured out how to move without killing myself. “And now you know why I never completed power armor training,” I muttered to nopony in particular. After a few more careful steps and tentative movements, I slowly managed to figure out how to move without dismembering myself.

“Hey guy, does this plasma rifle make my butt look big?” Riverbed casually joked, shaking her plot at us. What did she take me for? A depraved, sex-starved bisexual? There were probably enough of those in the Wasteland. “C’mon, crazybrains, let’s roll before your friend brings back reinforcements.” She immediately started walking in what I hoped was the direction we were supposed to go in. I didn’t check.

“Yeah, that sounds like a plan…” I plodded along after Riverbed, who was building up to a fast trot. I picked up my pace in order to catch up, depression momentarily forgotten. Tangerine chased after us, her hood flying back from the wind. Since I was up to a nice brisk pace, I spread my wings and skimmed along the ground. Somepony poked at the back of my mind that I shouldn’t have been able to adapt to the power armor this easily, but I had more distressing matters occupying my attention at the time.

“Hey!” Tangerine puffed from behind us. “Not so fast!” We slowed down our pace to let her catch up to us. “My short wimpy legs can’t move as fast as yours!”

Riverbed impatiently snorted. “Never had a brisk morning jog before? Or a morning marathon, in my case? Catching up to griffons in flight is hard.” She kept moving, albeit at a much slower speed so that those of us that were less physically motivated could keep pace.

I watched the ground slip by under my hooves. What would I do? Where would I go? There was no way I would be able to get away with killing a ranking officer and his security detail by any stretch of the imagination. The second I returned to Enclave-controlled airspace, they would probably execute me right on the spot.

Return was no longer an option. I’d just gotten myself burned, and I was stupid enough to make sure of it.

No survivors, remember? The hell happened to that?

That was me being stupid. Dammit, Raider. Why’d you make me go and do that?

That was all you, sport.

Was it?

Your ego got the best of you, and you just had to go and rub it into the faces of the Council.

Damn. Good work, me.

I bumped into Riverbed’s decidedly ample posterior when she abruptly stopped. “Yo, guy. Asked you a question.”

“Huh?” I looked back up.

Riverbed pointed at the large, derelict building looming ahead of us. “Wanna look for lunch?”

According to what was left of the sign, it was called “per Ma”. Little was left of the remaining facade, let alone the fortifications that had been hastily erected around the entrance. Dried blood was spattered all over the pavement, the walls, the barbed wire had been twisted and mangled into uselessness, and there were holes blasted through various walls.

“Sure. I’m hungry,” Tangerine piped up. She followed Riverbed toward the building, but hesitantly turned around. “You coming?”

My keen observational skills pointed out movement inside the building. The shelves inside had been re-arranged into almost a inverted trench formation, which didn’t make me feel safe at all. I debated for a second, but my stomach made up my mind first with an angry growl. “Sure, I’m in. Keep your guard up, though. I don’t like the movement back there.” Submachine gun, check. Ammunition, check.

I froze in mid-step. “Well, whatcha waiting for, guy?” Riverbed taunted. Unbeknownst to her, a pale red dot danced across her chest.

“Sharpshooter!” Good thing Tangerine decided to shove Riverbed out of the way as I alerted everypony in the area by pointing out the obvious. I fumbled for the laser rifle strapped to my saddlebag, cursing my skill in tying things up.

All hell broke loose.

If tiny little lights could be menacing, this was it. Dozens upon dozens of red dots spontaneously appeared all over each of us. Maybe the Wasteland was being cruel to me, maybe somepony before the war just had too much time on their hooves. Heck, maybe somepony was just really accuracy impaired. But the brightest, most obnoxious laser in the entire Wasteland came to rest on my forehead. I could even visually follow the laser all the way back to the roof right above the “M” on the building. What. An. Asshole.

A voice from inside of the building, amplified by loudspeakers, boomed in our general direction “Hold it right there. State your intentions, or get painted across the pavement.” Many of the lasers refocused onto our faces. Riverbed looked over her shoulder at me expectantly, arching an eyebrow.

“What? I’m not negotiating. You know exactly how well that went last time!” I hissed. There was another, Raider-Frosty-related reason I was successfully repressing why I didn’t want to negotiate. “You talk to them, guy!”

Riverbed rolled her eyes.

Shit, she was rubbing off on me. Bad Frosty!

Tangerine piped up in a quiet voice. “If you want, I can talk to them.” Somehow, that seemed like a better idea. Rather than the self-serving merc or the completely insane pegasus potentially negotiating for their lives, they might take more kindly to the soft-spoken Steel Ranger scribe. “We’re just passing through. Do you have anything you would like to trade, out of sheer curiosity?” she called out.

A few of the dots detracted from their dancing. I was hoping they were conferring among each other about letting us in, and not which one to shoot first. “The Steel Rangers have been kind to us, so I’m willing to make an exception. You, scribe. Approach slowly and don’t make any sudden moves. The rest of you stay outside—if any one of you two so much as sneezes, my snipers will kill you.” I was forced to shut my right eye as the bright obnoxious targeting laser bounced across my vision. Again, what an asshole.

Tangerine decided that since she was the only one going in, we’d have to give her all of the things we needed to sell. I hoofed over all of the random bits and bobs that I had accumulated over the course of my adventure, minus the one or two trinkets that I found interesting.

“What about the other suits of armor?” I asked when Tangerine added them to the ‘to sell’ pile. “Don’t you guys want that stuff?”

Without pausing for a second to reply, Tangerine responed, “It’s nearly useless to us. Not only are our Rangers not properly equipped to efficiently use your Enclave power armor, but we already have blueprints for it in our records.”

That wasn’t the answer I was expecting. “Spare parts?”

“Most of the Enclave power armor is incompatible with Steel Ranger power armor. The parts that are shared are both easily replaced.” Tangerine opened my saddlebag again and peered inside. “So there’s no real point in keeping them except for repairing the one you’re wearing. Anything else you got?”

I reluctantly agreed to sell four of the six sets of armor and most of the helmets that I was lugging around. I kept one helmet , just in case I needed the built-in targeting systems for the battle saddle on my armor. Including the armor that I was wearing, I held onto two so I had parts to swap with.

Riverbed ended up piling Tangerine up with dozens of guns, miscellaneous pieces of junk, and a missile. Where’d she get that from? “I don’t really need anything, so, like, bring back caps.”

“Got it. Frosty? You uh, want anything?” Tangerine asked, visibly straining by the weight of the items she was holding up with her magic. The very, very few unicorns I’d known in the Enclave never seemed to have a problem with moving things. I guess you learned something new every day.

Was there anything I really needed? “Anti-machine rifle ammunition, some bottled water, a few grenades—if there are any—and… cherry snack cakes. Lots of cherry snack cakes.” I listed off the top of my head.

“Healing potions!” Riverbed added at the last second.

Tangerine hefted the huge pile of stuff and mentally recounted the giant list of things to acquire. “Got it. See you in a bit.” She trotted into the building under our watchful gaze. As frustrating as it was, we couldn’t follow her in.

“Shout if you need help!” I yelled after her.

“Okay!”

We watched her tail disappear around a corner, followed by what was probably thousands of caps’ worth of our loot. Much to our disappointment, the laser and the dots didn’t leave with her. “So…” I awkwardly started, giving Riverbed a sidelong glance.

“So.”

“So….” Talk about an awkward moment. The threat of our potential sudden and-slash-or impending doom wasn’t really conducive to conversational topics. “How’s things?”

Riverbed scoffed. “I could ask the same about you, guy.”

“The hell does that mean?” I bristled. “I’m fine. Could be better.” No need to reveal any details of my personal woes to her.

“Don’t tell me that you’re fine. I think I know what ‘fine’ looks like for you, and this—” Riverbed motioned at all of me, ignoring the fact that we weren’t supposed to be moving. “—isn’t it. You’re lethargic, quiet, and mopey, guy. Spit it out.”

“I’m going to keep this quick and concise. I just fought my former comrades whom believe in a government that I no longer work for. A government, need I remind you, that has tried to kill me. What do you think?” I spat, my tone absolutely dripping with acid.

And of course that caused even more awkwardness. Riverbed no longer wanted to talk to me, most likely because she’d irritated me enough already. She suddenly became very transfixed to a scorch mark on her shoulder pad. With all this free time, I took an opportunity to study our surroundings.

For some incredibly stupid reason, we had decided to approach the building from the front where the large expanse of pavement we were standing on connected to the broken road we had come down from earlier. Along one wall, somepony had plastered several monochrome posters of a smiling unicorn, under which read “READ”. There were a few broken chariots and remains of others scattered around either side of us. I was forced to cover my eyes as the pony with the laser attempted to blind me with it.

“That guy is an asshole,” I said with a groan. “That bucking laser.”

Riverbed giggled. “Maybe it just wants you to know it’s a sniper rifle.”

“I mean, what kind of idiot puts such a strong laser on a gun? It totally defeats the purpose of being hidden, let alone it being on a sniper rifle.”

“For our convenience, maybe?”

“Asshole.” I kept my eyes shut, lest I get blinded when I opened them. What I did instead was give him a rude gesture with my claw that I’d noticed from the Talon mercs. While I waited, I had nothing else to do but stare at the insides of my eyelids. Like a ghostly apparition, a memory floated to the surface of my mind.

<~~~>

“You get to seek this time! Now count to fifty. No peeking!” Summer squealed.

My eyes were still closed, and I could feel my hooves pressed over my face. I still missed the feeling of my left hoof. More accurately, I missed receiving sensations from my left hoof. “One. Two. Four. Wait, three.”

Something soft and plush bounced off the back of my head. “No cheating! Start over!”

I sighed adorably and started again, correctly this time. “One. Two. Three…”

<~~~>

“Yo. Wasteland to guy. Hello?” Riverbed waved a hoof in my face. I shook my head trying to push the memory off to the side. What just happened? Why did I see that particular memory? “Don’t flip out on me right now.”

What was the question? Right. “I’m good. Kinda zoned out there for a little.” Once I started paying attention again, I realized that the red dots and the laser were gone. In fact, Tangerine was waiting at the entrance of the building, urgently waving us in. “What happened?”

“I dunno yet. So, like, we’re just standing there, right? Then all of a sudden all the lasers go away, including the sniper. And then Tangie says we can go in.” Riverbed galloped to the building, me barely coordinated enough to follow at that speed. “Time to find out.”

Tangerine waved at us, grinning widely. “Good news, everypony! They’ve agreed to not shoot you on sight.” Well, that was nice of them. “On one condition.” Uh oh. That was never good. “I’m so sorry, Frosty. But it was the only way.” She winced apologetically.

Well, if it was the only way… “Fine, what do they want?”

An old, wizened unicorn wearing a battered, graying outback hat that looked just as old as he was appeared behind Tangerine. His eyes were shockingly blue, which was the first thing I noticed when he scrutinized my ill-gained armor in disgust. Somehow, I got the strange feeling that I’d disappointed him. I didn’t even know him!

Underneath his very well-used light armor, his pale red coat showed the signs of age and extended combat. His tail had been cropped as short as possible, and what wasn’t gray was a faded brown streaked with more gray. As far as I could tell, he was either very bald or he had a very short crewcut under that hat.

He took offense to my question. “They want you to take care of a little problem.” I caught minute movements on top of the shelves. “If you haven’t noticed already, security is a tiny bit tight around here,” he drawled. There was a hint of some kind of accent to his voice that I couldn’t identify. “Welcome to Perma.”

“What’s your name, guy?” Riverbed asked.

His eyes darkened. “You will call me Boss. Got it, whelp?”

Riverbed gulped, shying away from him slightly. “Got it, boss.” Sheesh, talk about commanding respect. This old stallion really knew how to get anypony’s undivided attention.

“Yessir,” I saluted, hoping to snag a few bonus points from Boss. “Orders?”

Boss roared with laughter. Once he’d caught his breath, he finally said, “You know what, filly? I like you.” He abruptly switched to a much more serious tone. “Long story short, shit hit the fan. We had an agreement with a local gang that decided that we needed some security.”

This old trick. “Either you got greedy or they did, I assume?” Riverbed asked, looking around the interior. She cocked her head at a small alcove occupied by an auto-turret. “I’m just going to assume they did?”

“Indeed they did. Those greedy swine tried to double their rates!” Boss yelled. “I gave ‘em a piece of my mind. And a good hunk of my lead.”

I heard a ruffling sound above our heads. Being a pegasus, I could recognize the sound of flapping wings from anywhere. A pegasus landed on the floor with a barely audible scattering of dust. He was armored up from nose to tail in pre-war military-issue ghillie camouflage. One little problem: the camouflage he was wearing was patterned in a way to be used in a snowy environment. Ergo, the dusty whites and grays he was wearing made him stand out in the Wasteland like a beacon.

His head was covered with a black balaclava and his eyes were obscured by a pair of massive goggles. Strips of white-gray cloth from the ghillie suit’s hood dangled over them. The underside of his armor had been spray-painted black along with the rear legs, leaving the top half and the forelegs white. The suit draped over his form, giving him the look of a walking cloud. “Y’all are lucky ah didn’t splatter yer brains all over the pavement.”

Another pegasus? And why did his accent remind me of somepony? But a more pressing question popped out. “Now, I’m not one for fashion, but isn’t your outfit a bit…” I struggled to think of another word. “Out of season?” I finished, a silly grin on my face.

“An’ why don’t y’all go eat a bag dicks,” he retorted.

Boss cleared his throat. “Sergeant Airhead, stand down. And introduce yourself, for Celestia’s sake. ”

“Whatever ya say, Boss.” Airhead held out his hoof to me. “Former Second Lieutenant Airhead, Special Operations. You?”

Spec Ops? Wow. I shook his hoof. I opened my mouth to introduce myself, then I realized that calling myself a Steel Ranger might cause problems. “Ex-Scout Frosty Winds. Recon Force Blizzard. So, what brings you to the Wasteland?” I was somewhat prepared for some sort of sob story about betrayal or something along those lines.

Airhead pushed his goggles up onto his forehead. Turns out his natural coat color was blue, and his eyes were a dull brown. “Bucking politics an’ those big damn bigwigs doin’ all their fancy dandy shit. How long ya been down here?”

I needed to think about that. A month? A few weeks? “Maybe a bit less than a month. I think.” But how long had I really been in the Wasteland?

Airhead seemed relieved. “Good. I don’t have to explain nearly everything. So, you should remember the Cloudbright assassination, right?” I had to think really hard about that one. Why did it sound so familiar?

Wait. My jaw dropped. No. Way. No. There was no way.

“You seem surprised, guy. That name actually mean something to you?” Riverbed asked, leaning over to close my mouth for me. “Dude, I think she zoned out again,” she told everypony else in the room.

Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out. But I did manage to put two and two together, then everything spilled out all at once. “Ohmigosh ohmigosh ohmigosh!” I squealed. “You’re the Cumulus Hotel sniper?”

Tangerine got my attention with a nudge. “What’s the Cloudbite assassination?” she whispered, obviously very confused.

“The Cloudbright assassination,” I corrected her, “was the greatest political assassination ever. Basically, Councilpony Cloudbright was riling up a whole lot of bad publicity on how we should be the ones helping and putting the Wasteland back together.”

Airhead nodded. “Eyup. Rest’a the Council didn’t think the same way.”

“So during a speech, somepony snipes Cloudbright and his entire five-pony bodyguard in less than eight seconds.” I continued to gush in full blown fanfilly mode. “Mysteriously, half of the footage disappears and the shooter was never caught.” But that was where Airhead came in. He’d be able to fill in the gaps. I stared at him expectantly while trying to keep all my hooves on the ground.

All eyes were on Airhead. He sighed, sliding his goggles back down. “Yes, ah did shoot him. Somepony picked me ta do it in exchange for my career, and ah did it without askin’.” Hmm. Why did that sound so very familiar? “Took ‘im out and then ah got branded behind the scenes. Shoulda seen that comin’.”

Lightbulb. “Wait… let me guess. Harbinger?” I suspected. The impassive silence in the room confirmed my suspicions. “Seems like we have something in common.”

Boss slapped both of us. “Storytime’s over. You going to help us or not?”

I checked with the others first. After confirming that we were going to help, I replied, “Yeah. But we’re already trying to do something first. Is it alright if we come back later?” Judging by another one of his disappointed looks, the outcome might not be favorable.

“All on your own time. We’ve got ammo for years, and enough firepower to keep them away.” Boss casually dismissed. “But if you can’t help us, we can’t help you. Sorry filly, but you’re on your own till then.”

As unfortunate as it was for us, he was right. We wouldn’t be able to use Perma as a rest stop, not until we cleaned out that gang. “Seems fair,” I decided. “But can we load up on some supplies first in order to guarantee our survival so that we can live long enough to get back?”

Boss thought about it for a moment. “Your little unicorn already swindled most of our caps, but if you think there’s anything else you need go right ahead. Follow the shelves down to the end.” He then pulled Airhead off to the side. “Sonny, we need to talk.”

Tangerine led us down the zigzagging rows of shelves. She levitated a small pouch of caps, along with a few healing potions and a hefty-looking can full of shotgun shells to Riverbed, who took them gratefully. On the other hoof, I was passed a very large bag of caps and five boxes of cherry snack cakes. Yay!

After I deposited a portion of the bag of caps into my saddlebag, the other half into the compartment on my claw, I checked my PipBuck to see exactly how much I’d just received. The answer was not as much as I was hoping for. “The buck? Only nineteen hundred?” I shouted in complete dismay. “That’s it?”

“It was as much as I could get for them.” Tangerine hid herself in her hood. “I’m sorry, but I also had to use most of it to cover supplies.”

Control yourself, Frosty. “Ugh. Sorry.” I faceclawed momentarily. “I was just hoping to get more for something that would normally cost me my wages for four hundred years, give or take a decade.”

Riverbed laughed behind me. “Like, your Enclave bits aren’t worth anything here. That’s probably why.” Damn this skewed economy and its silly exchange rate. “Heck, even pre-war bits are barely worth anything anymore. I make, like, shotgun shells out of ‘em.”

Which brought me to a better point. “Wouldn’t bits be better? Before the war, they were a perfectly acceptable and stable currency. What’s the problem with continuing to use bits?” I asked, legitimately confused. Why would bottle caps be a good substitute?

“Easy. After the war, bits became worth their weight in caps. The metal itself was more useful being used for other things, and bottle caps were produced to a certain point where they were scarce enough yet plentiful at the same time. Therefore, somepony decided that the bottle caps were useless for crafting, yet good enough to be used as currency,” Tangerine rattled off. “At least, that’s how I think it happened.”

“Or it’s like water, caps, backing, somethin’, something, here we are. I stopped asking a long time ago, guy.”

Once I thought about it, it sort of made sense, to a very limited degree. “I still think it’s stupid,” I replied. “I mean, why does it need to be bottle caps? Why not something like… those posters outside? There are plenty of them, and I wouldn’t need this giant bag to carry around bottle caps.”

“Paper degrades. Ergo, stupid,” Tangerine calmly replied. Once we finally reached the end of the shelf trenching, we emerged in what used to be the bakery section. Behind the short display cases, a heavily armed and armored stallion stood imposingly by his wares. “Well, knock yourself out. They don’t have much in stock, but go right ahead if you see anything you would like.” She tugged a small book out of the depths of her robe and opened it up to an arbitrary page. I caught a glimpse of the cover and decided not to ask about why two strangely-drawn stallions were comically making out. Shopping time!

Two griffons and a pony wearing vault security armor were arguing among themselves at a table with caps and ammunition scattered across it. Both griffons were playing some strange card game involving six stacks of cards and probably some rules that I wouldn’t be able to understand. Riverbed cocked her head at the group at the table. “I’m going to, like, get caught up with the Talons. Be right back, guy.” I nodded, then approached Perma’s resident merchant.

“Buy somethin’, will ya? I’ve got anything you need,” the merchant rumbled. “We’ve got a special sale on small plastic dinosaur toys.”

Was it wrong that I actually considered buying a dinosaur toy? As much as I did, I still managed to maintain focus. As for ammunition, he didn’t stock anything anti-machine, but at least I managed to buy another full magazine for my submachine gun. I also secured myself a decent bedroll that was only slightly stained with blood for the decent price of twenty two caps, and a personal hygiene kit for six caps. The bedroll wasn’t a cloud, but it would have to do. Better than using my lumpy bag as a pillow. Other than that, he didn’t really have anything else of interest to me for sale.

“It’s dangerous to go alone, jerkwad. Take one of these.” The merchant dropped a grenade onto my bedroll before I could shove it into my bag.

It took all of my self-control to not throw everything across the room. Very carefully, I asked, “Why did you just give me a grenade?” And on closer observation, I noticed “Minus the pin?” The smarter part of me was nearly literally yelling at me to drop it and run. Like the idiot I was, I didn’t listen to me.

For some reason, the opposite face of the grenade had, well, a face. Somepony, presumably the merchant, had scrawled a crude happy face onto it. “It’s a buddy system. Heck, it might save your life one day. And yeah, it’s inert.”

Out of sheer curiosity, I asked, “Uh… how much?”

Riverbed mouthed something at me from behind one of the griffins, most likely along the lines of “Are you insane?” To which the answer was yes.

“Three caps.” Eh, sure. I bought it, just because. “Somepony bought that? Holy crap! Enjoy your shit.” the merchant exclaimed.

Somehow, I felt like I’d been duped. But I didn’t care! I had a grenade with a smiley face on it now! I rejoined Riverbed, who was still in the middle of conversation with the other group.

“…and how do you expect to tell them that?” the bluish griffon idly asked, dropping a seven of hearts on top of one of the piles. “We’re in enough trouble as it is.” I gently tapped Riverbed’s shoulder to get her attention. She nodded, still listening to the griffons talk.

The other griffon slapped a king of spades down on top of the seven. “Take that, Straybeak! How you like these kings?” Straybeak groaned, throwing down his cards. “But he’s got a point. Neither of us really want to report back to the boss right now.”

“Damn it, Skyward! Why does your deck have sixteen kings in it?” Straybeak put down his cards and started taking cards back from the piles. “Why do I even play this game with you?” he moaned.

“Because I’m the only girl that’ll play against your deck of nine jacks and four jokers,” Skyward haughtily replied, collecting the rest of her cards from the scattered piles. As she was pocketing her small pile of cards, she noticed me standing there. “Hey! Another pegasus. So many of you are popping up these days; it’s like you’re going out of style.”

I wasn’t sure how to answer to that. Instead, I asked Riverbed, “So, trying to get the message across?”

“Yeah. But these two birdbrains are being chicken,” Riverbed taunted.

Both griffons faceclawed along with me. “That one almost broke my brain,” I groaned. Oh, the puns. “Care to get any more of them out of your system?”

“Oh, don’t egg me on,” Riverbed continued, grin on her face. Okay, that was enough. I grabbed her muzzle with my claw to stem the incoming tide of bad puns. “Mmm mmmphmh?”

Both griffons agreed with my decision. “Thank the goddesses for that. Last thing I need is for Skyward to lose her last three brain cells.” Whap. “Ow! Sky, the heck?” Whap. Whap. “Ow!” Straybeak covered his head under Skyward’s playful swipes.

Both griffons stopped immediately when Riverbed decided to mention, “One Talon to another, are you going to tell Blackwing or not?”

They didn’t seem pleased by that. “What the hell gives you the right to be a Talon? You aren’t even a griffon,” Skyward roared. “And even if you think you are, you could have just painted that logo onto your armor. That isn’t going to fool us.”

Riverbed sighed in exasperation. “I hate having to explain this every single time.” She pointed at the Talon Mercenary logo on her armor. “Listen, guy. I’m one of Firewing’s mercs. He drafted me, and that’s all you need to know.”

Skyward and Straybeak looked at each other. “Problem number one: Firewing’s Talons fell off the map. We stopped receiving transmissions and mission updates months ago. Number two: ponies don’t get drafted into the Talons,” she quickly summed up.

Something told me that Riverbed hated to talk about this particular subject. Perhaps it was just her constant annoyed look, or maybe the way her ears flicked back for no reason. “Would it help if I filled in the gaps? For instance, he likes his whores with a side of apple bourbon at night,” she spat. “No respect for anypony whatsoever, but at least he tips well.”

“Well…” Straybeak mumbled. “That does sound about right.”

More venom laced Riverbed’s tone. “One day, he met his untimely demise after one of these sessions. Let’s just say he had a particularly violent accident. In the middle of the night, he accidentally stabbed himself in the back several times with a bowie knife while falling down some stairs. On fire.”

“Accidentally.”

“Yep.”

Straybeak wasn’t nearly as fazed as Skyward was. He followed up with, “Wait, if Firewing’s dead then who’s in charge?”

“Thundercane, his second in command.”

Skyward tapped her chin. “You know, that might explain a lot. Isn’t Thundercane the one that wanted the Talons to join up with that Red Eye character? After taking over, she might have just cut off comms altogether.”

Straybeak agreed. “Yeah. I guess. But I never really took Firewing as the one to let a pony into the Talons. I guess it was a good thing that somepony finally took him out.”

“It’s not like I had a choice in any part of it…” Riverbed grumbled under her breath. “Anyway, will you deliver the message?”

The answer was a resounding “Nope” from both griffons.

“Why not?” Riverbed cried, stress causing her voice to crack slightly.

“We’re already in trouble, and you want us to deliver unverified intel from a rogue agent?” Once Skyward put it that way, I didn’t really want to deliver this message either. “And here’s the best part: there’s no way for us to know for certain if you’re one of Firewing’s or not.”

Straybeak spoke up. “Wait, didn’t Butcher say he was going to Horseshoe Tower? You think Blackwing already knows?”

Riverbed groaned. “You’ve gotta be kidding. Blackwing already knows? Well, this entire trip was a waste for me.”

“Your intel is stale. There’s no way we’re going to piss off Blackwing any more. You’re on your own.” And with that, both griffons started ushering the pony they were with down the aisles. “Let’s get out of here and get paid already. C’mon, Bargain Bucket.”

“Bargain Bin Laden!” the other bedraggled pony complained. “My name is Bargain Bin Laden! Why do I get the feeling you do that on purpose?”

Skyward laughed. “Sorry, Bargain Basket.” I could hear him grinding his teeth in rage as they circled around the shelves on their way out. What a strange little group.

Says the crazy robot chicken tromping about with her stupid robot-hugger friends and a stupid bird-merc who isn’t a bird.

...Thanks for the observation, Raider.

I noticed that Riverbed was staring at the ceiling dejectedly. “Hey. So what are you going to do now?” If I remembered correctly, the only reason she was still here was because Thundercane needed to make sure that I delivered the message.

“Buck this shit. I’m leaving.” Riverbed stood up and shook out her mane. “My job’s done. Unless you want to buy my services, I guess I’m going back to base. Thundercane owes me a lot of answers.”

Having a mercenary follow me around for personal defense seemed like a good idea. As much as I would have liked to, I knew getting answers was more important than anything else. Heck, I was one to know. “Some other time,” I answered, giving Riverbed my best sincere smile.

Whether Riverbed was grateful or not was anyone’s guess. All she did was give me a little nod. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me. See ya later, guy.” And with that, she turned tail and gave me a dismissive wave over her shoulder. It didn’t seem like she was going to head back just yet, so I probably had time to hire her back if I changed my mind. I liked her. It was just something about her casual nature that put me at ease. Maybe one day, if I survived that long, I might hire her back just to enjoy her company.

That brought my motley little crew down to just Tangerine. “Well then, let’s get out of here,” I told her. “There’s nothing else we can do here. I guess it’s time to go.”

“Finally,” Tangerine grumbled. She shoved her book back into her robes. “The faster we find our missing Rangers, the faster I can get back to reading—er, researching two hundred year old, uh, literature.”

“Literature?” Something about the way she said it made me feel like pressing the issue further. “What kind of literature?”

Tangerine’s hood seemed to obscure her face more. “You know… literature.”

The cover of her book came to mind. “You mean the kind of literature where a stallion loves another stallion very much and, uh…” Where was I even going with this? “I didn’t really think this one through first.”

Either way, Tangerine steadily turned more scarlet.

Right. Research.

We exited Perma posthaste right after a quick snack of snack cakes and water. For the sake of time, I picked up Tangerine against her will and flung her onto my back. I ignored her protesting cries and took off at high speed with only a few faltering flaps because of my lack of training for the power armor. I was also flying in the wrong direction, as I quickly discovered once I consulted my PipBuck.

One course correction later, we were on our way once again to the coordinates. Hopefully too much time hadn’t been wasted and Rumcake was still doing fine. It was still about afternoonish, which left plenty of time to cover lots of ground. Too bad I didn’t have time to stop at every single building that I saw to empty them.

Flying at such high speed assisted by the power armor I was wearing was something I really needed to get accustomed to. Most annoyingly, my right ear flapped slightly more in the wind than the left due to the missing bit halfway down where an earring used to be. My left ear was still being screamed into by the diminutive unicorn on my back. Thanks to the power armor, I didn’t feel Tangerine hammering away at my sides or choking me with her panicked grip.

“Can you slow down?” Tangerine continued to wail. “I’m gonna hurl!” Due to the urgency of my mission, I was going to risk dirtying my armor in exchange for increased speed. The entire time, she wouldn’t cease in her efforts to make me slow down. However, I did notice that my wings didn’t feel nearly as strained from long-distance flying as before I had the power armor. At this rate, I wouldn’t even need any more formal training on how to use this Enclave power armor.

“Directions, navigator?” I shouted to Tangerine over the sound of wind whipping through my mane. Looking at my PipBuck was difficult while flying, especially at this velocity. The last thing I needed was to collide with a suddenly appearing wall.

Hooves thumped against the collar of the power armor I was wearing. “Slow down and I can check the map because you’re too stupid to use yours!” she shouted back. I gave in, flaring my wings out in order to decrease our speed. Now that my wings were reinforced by some kind of metal that I didn’t pay attention about, sudden stops like these no longer hurt at all.

Once we’d slowed down enough, Tangerine unfolded the map in front of my face using her super awesome magical powers. “We’re here.” She tapped a spot only a few inches from our destination. “If you continue this way”—her other hoof extended out in front of me and slightly to the right—“we should be there in no time.”

“Excellent.” I took off as fast as I could in the correct direction the second Tangerine floated the map out of my face. “Onward!” My wings beat powerfully in the wind as I did my best to fly quickly and keep the wildly swearing unicorn on my back at the same time.

~~~~~

Tangerine pointed out a specific street for me to land on in the middle of the ruined city. “We’re close to the last known coordinates. From what our intel—”

“Your painfully outdated intel?” I interrupted.

Even if I was right, Tangerine wasn’t going to let me have that satisfaction. “We need to proceed with caution. This place is infested with raiders and scavengers and they might be smart enough to look up once in a while.”

I made sure that my rifle was loaded and at my side before proceeding down the cracked pavement. Ruined buildings towered above us, which made me increasingly nervous about not having a height advantage. Ambushes usually came from above, and all the open windows and rooftops gave them ample opportunity. I comforted myself with the fact that my anti-material rifle could definitely penetrate all of the buildings here.

“Hmm.” Tangerine looked around. “Do you see a ‘Purple Line Station’ around here? That’s basically where we’re going.”

Unless the station looked a lot like a raider-built barricade, we probably weren’t there yet. With all the graffiti and bodies all over it, it was actually a little bit difficult to tell what was behind it. Casting caution aside, I launched into a low hover to try to get a better vantage point in case there were a few raiders waiting to pounce.

Thankfully, nothing. Just a lot of trash, gore, and all the things that raiders liked to play around in. Weirdly enough, it looked more like nopony had been around for a while.

“See anything up there?”

I rotated in place while maintaining my hover, scanning for anything out of the ordinary. Being between buildings didn’t really—ah. “Uh… hold on, there’s a junction up there. Gimme two.” Without waiting for Tangerine to reply, I darted to the center of the intersection and performed another scan.

Again, no movement. Maybe all the scavengers had gone home? I also didn’t see anything that looked like a train station, but at least the area was clear. I zoomed on back to Tangerine to relay the news.

“Looks clear. Besides the barricade, streets are empty. I don’t see anything that looks like a station, though.”

“That’s weird.” Tangerine consulted her map again. “Says it’s right on that intersection right over there.”

“Well, it’s not there anymore. Maybe it’s under that barricade?”

Tangerine packed up her map and glared at me. “Well, if somepony knew how to use their own map that automatically marks out landmarks, then we wouldn’t be having this problem.” Nevertheless, she trotted on and pointedly ignored the raspberry I blew at her.

I hovered along behind Tangerine, rifle at the ready. The second she set foot in the intersection, she immediately set her sights on some covered stairway going down. She glared at me, then back at the stairs.

Apparently, I’d missed something painfully obvious again. “What?”

“No station?” She pointed at the polished sign hanging above the stairs and I facehoofed. “So what’s this, then?”

“Right. Purple Line Station, I get it,” I groaned.

“You’re an idiot.”

I sighed. “I’m an idiot.”

“Come on, let’s head on in.” So we did, while I tried not to look at Tangerine in case she had something else to add to it.

While I was avoiding eye contact, I couldn’t help but feel like something seemed a little off about the whole place, but I couldn’t really put my hoof on it. Maybe it was my nerves, or maybe it was because I was still annoyed that somepony had built a train station underground. Going down the stairs increased my unease, but I was starting to notice why.

This place was clean. Well, it would be if there weren’t dead bodies littered along the sides of the stairway.

“Whoever came through here knew what they were doing.” I paused to dig through the pockets of somepony that must have been some kind of caravan guard. “They’ve been looted, and whoever came through here was even thoughtful enough to scoot them to the side.” I moved on to the body next to it, somepony that used to be a slaver. “Nothing again, except for this ear.”

Tangerine scanned the multitude of bodies all the way down the stairs. “Hey, notice anything else about these ponies?”

“You mean besides they’re all dead?” They’d also been dead for less than two days, but I assumed that she already knew that.

I heard a groan from the unicorn as I regarded a small animal’s foot on a keychain. “Yes, besides they’re all dead. It’s just… come on down farther. It gets really weird.”

After pocketing the bunny appendage, I trotted down to the bottom of the stairs and followed the bend left. “Can it though?” I asked, then immediately stopped. “Huh.”

“Yeah…”

The immediate entry of what I assumed was the lobby was utterly destroyed. Barricades had been set up at one point, but a well-placed demolition charge had made a large enough hole for a force to charge in.

I picked up slightly burnt perforated tube from the ground. “Flashbang. Huh.”

A spent shotgun shell bounced off my head, courtesy of Tangerine. “Yeah, but check out these guys.”

Tangerine was standing next to a bizarre pile of bodies by the bathrooms. It looked like they hadn’t been moved, but it still didn’t make sense. Two raiders, a sort of Wastelander doctor, and a Ranger scribe were all piled up in the corner, riddled with bullet holes. The door opposite of the corner was smeared with a large quantity of blood, but no body.

“Looks like they got cornered.” Tangerine sighed. “It is weird, though.”

What drew me in was the scattering of bloody tawny feathers on the ground. I picked one up and examined it. After regarding it for a moment, I determined that it wasn’t a pegasus feather. “This came from a griffin,” I smartly deduced.

“Are you sure?”

On a whim, I licked it. Tangerine cringed.

Tastes like chicken!

I groaned and facehoofed. “Yeah, Raider’s definitely sure. It’s griffin.”

“Uh… what’s going on here, anyway?”

I looked around the remains of the lobby. “I don’t even know. Why would these ponies even work together?” Things just weren’t adding up. “Maybe this is just a lot more trouble than it’s worth investigating.”

“Griffins mean Talons,” Tangerine hopefully suggested.

“And Talons means somepony needed somepony dead,” I added, then looked at the bodies again. “Well, in this case, that is.”

My E.F.S. wasn’t picking up anypony else but Tangerine, so I decided, “You know what? Let’s split up and search the area. From what we’ve noticed, there won’t be anything left to take. If you get in some deep trouble, try to make as much noise as you can when you die so I can avenge you.”

To my surprise, Tangerine narrowed her eyes at me and growled.

“Don’t give me that. C’mon, can you come up with anything better?” I sighed.

Tangerine rolled her eyes. “No. Fine.”

“Regroup here in like, ten minutes?”

“Um… okay.”

As expected, all the bodies were equally cryptic. Not only did they appear to be from every possible faction in the Wasteland, but it seemed like they had been working together, as opposed to fighting each other. As for loot, we didn’t find anything of value besides mildly interesting odds and ends that I felt like keeping. Griffin feathers kept showing up here and there, but we still hadn’t seen any of their bodies. There was also a downstairs portion with the actual train platforms that Tangerine had discovered, but I was more distracted by the micro-mall that I’d found.

First stop, the record shop. If I remembered properly, Sparkle had a thing for music and stuff, so it seemed like a nice thing to do if I brought a few back for her while I was here. “Hey, do you know exactly what kind of music Sparkle likes?” I asked, in the midst of pawing through broken records and damaged cases.

Tangerine shrugged. “I’m really not too sure. Half of it’s just noise and static, so good luck finding any of that here. I do remember something about rock and roll, and maybe something about trancing or something?”

I stopped what I was doing and began to poke through what was left on the shelves. “Do you think it’s trance?”

“Maybe? I organize useful things, not music.”

The farthest my musical knowledge went was classy jazz music and whatever my dad had listened to. One of the records on the shelf looked more intact than the others, so I slid it out from under the damaged ones and examined it. “Well, do you think she’ll like this one? I think it’s fine, but I can’t really make out what the cover is.”

I squinted at it and even turned it sideways, but the muddled blur of garish colors and lines still didn’t make sense. Perhaps it was some sort of art that I couldn’t properly understand. Eh.

“Screw it, I’ll pack this one up. Remind me to give this to her.” I gingerly nudged the record itself out and examined it one last time, then tucked it away in its protective case and then into my saddlebag.

Tangerine was more interested in the other junk scattered on the store’s ruined carpet. “Hey, I think Paladin Commander Rumcake is still a few steps ahead of us. Check this out.” I trotted over to her and peered at the things she was showing me.

It was a tuft of neon-purple hair, a broken gear, and something that looked like a really tiny funny-shaped knife. “Uh, what am I looking at, exactly?” I asked, cocking my head.

Sometimes, I just felt really stupid. “In order, we have what looks suspiciously like Sparkle’s split ends, yet another broken K-2p cycling gear, and Sparkle’s crafting knife.” Tangerine sighed. “Long story short, we’re on the right track.”

I completely ignored the problem at hoof and replied, “I’m more curious what the crafting knife is for.”

Mentioning that made Tangerine grimace. “Uh, well… it’s weird.”

“I’m weird,” I flatly replied. “Whatever it’s for can’t be weirder than me.”

Begrudgingly, Tangerine launched into an explanation. “Sparkle makes little figurines of ponies she knows. They fit in your hoof and they’re stupidly detailed.” I opened my mouth. “Yes, she made one of you.” I closed my mouth and politely continued to listen. “It’s her little hobby when she’s not making noise. Oh, that also explains why there’s a little corner on your tail that’s a lot shorter than the rest.”

I resisted the urge to spin around and check, only because I couldn’t actually see it anyway. “What.”

Tangerine nodded. “Same goes with the weird short bit on the back of your mane. She tends to make her figures as, uh, authentic as possible.”

Ignoring the new spots in my mane and tail that would bother me to the end of time, I summarized with, “I’m going to point out that she’s a grown-ass mare that plays with dolls. Makes dolls. Plays and makes dolls. Whatever.”

“There’s nothing wrong with playing with dolls. A busy mind breeds no chaos, as the saying goes. I think.” Tangerine scratched her head. “I just read that a few days ago, too.”

“No, I’m just more annoyed that mini-me might be being used for other, more nefarious things,” I muttered.

“I’m sure it’s fine.”

I glared at Tangerine. “Think about it. There’s one of me, one of Rumcake, probably one of you, too and who knows who else. Sparkle could be shipping us right now and we wouldn’t even know.” I mimed holding a pair of figures and bumping them together.

Just like that, Tangerine shifted from pale to extremely rosy. “And, uh, we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

“No.”

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Intimidation – Boo! Word about you has spread, and your mere presence inspires fear and terror against your foes. There is a slight chance that enemies will run away instead of taking their chances against your rage.
Current Sub-perk: Bloodthirsty – Blood for the Blood God! You gain +8 to Unarmed.
Status: Unfamiliar Ease – You never did pass that training course, did you? Enclave Power Armor still grants you +40 to Damage Threshold and +45 Damage Resistance, but you receive no stat bonuses from wearing the armor.

Author's Note

Don't forget to check out Frosty's off-screen adventures as well in Fallout: Equestria - Natural 20!

If you’re reading this text, that means the story has been updated and this is the new and correct version.

Got a question? Ask Frosty!

Chapter 17: Was this how it had happened?

Chapter 17: Was this how it had happened?

“I'm not trying to steal your slippers! I'm trying to steal this book!”

The one thing that Violet hadn’t mentioned about the bookstore was that it was part of a pre-war outdoor mall that seemed to be somewhat intact, ripe for the picking. Well, it would be if there weren’t several hundred bloatsprites and radscorpions crawling all over the place. The buildings were arranged in a horseshoe formation around a large expanse of faded asphalt, populated with hunks of scrap metal on pedestals. There were only few signs that were still legible and intact out of the entire lot. I was lying down on top of a hill a short distance away, simply observing through my rifle’s magic sights.

A small cluster of bloatsprites hovered right in front of my target, the bookstore. I made a mental note to avoid the former coffee shop, now the nesting grounds for radscorpions. On the other side of the horseshoe, there was a one-bit store still bravely holding onto its last grimy barred window. Behind the window, however, something small, plastic, and among the head-bobbing variety drew my eye. Too bad the interior of the store was absolutely teeming with more bloatsprites. Ooooh, I wanted it!

Even with the little amount of sunlight making its way through the cloud cover, enough managed to reflect off the body of my rifle, making my reconnaissance a tad bit difficult. For the first time since I got this anti-machine rifle, I mourned not having an actual scope.

I tugged my dad’s officer’s cap a little bit lower on my head. Using my claw to do it almost seemed like a bad idea, but these hats were made to be strong. The brim and front of the hat were reinforced with thin metal plates, a somewhat outdated tradition that was intended to prevent cranial emancipation. Too bad they didn’t do anything against energy weapons.

Now that the glare obstructing my vision had been reduced dramatically, I continued trying to formulate a plan that didn’t involve getting completely destroyed by bloatsprites and radscorpions. While I was watching, a lone bloatsprite flitted a bit too close to the coffee shop and several very angry radscorpions swarmed the bug and reduced it to a gory pile of bug bits. It appeared that the radscorpions really hated bloatsprites, but not enough so that they would actively chase them. Hmm. Maybe I could use that to my advantage.

Since I still had plenty of ammunition, I fired three rounds into the radscorpion nest one after the other. Even though the bulk of the nest was behind a window and Luna knew what else, my heavy anti-everything bullets made short work of the aged masonry. Suddenly, hundreds of radscorpions poured out of the coffee shop!

…Okay, fine. Eight reasonably sized ones scuttled out of the demolished structure and immediately started attacking everything in the area.

Of course, I wasn’t counting on retrieving the bobblehead in the one-bit store just yet. A peek over the hill proved my point exactly. Most of the bloatsprites that had been circling the parking lot aimlessly were gone, only to be replaced with several large radscorpions.

I mentally went through my options. I could fly on over and retrieve the book thing, or I could have a little fun and charge right through the front. “Screw it, they’re just bugs. I can take a few bugs,” I reasoned to myself.

With all the pseudo-airborne threats neutralized, I decided that a reckless bum rush right to the bookstore was the more fun option. If I dove through one of the higher windows, the radscorpions wouldn’t be able to get me. I secured my anti-machine rifle and gave my wings an experimental flap. With my power armor’s increased strength, I wouldn’t have to push myself nearly as hard to gain the same amount of speed.

I took a few steps back and allowed myself to build up a running start. I leapt at the highest point of the hill and pumped my wings as fast as possible, pointing myself at the second floor of the bookstore. High-speed flight wasn’t really my forte, but that didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. Wind whipped through my fur and mane, past my extended forelegs. I had to narrow my eyes to block the flecks of dust and dirt trying to get in my eyes and, for once, I wished I was actually wearing a helmet. I’d managed to get myself up to a good speed, leaving the radroaches scuttling after my wake, but dust was getting in my eyes. In the second I blinked, everything decided to go sideways.

Look out for that wall!

When I opened my eyes, I reflexively brought my forelegs up to protect my face. True enough, I’d somehow miscalculated my launch and was headed straight into the wall below and to the right of the window I was aiming for. Good thing I had braced for impact. I caught a glimpse of the small crater I’d placed in the wall with my face. I hit the ground awkwardly with a heavy thump, knocking the wind out of my lungs. “Ow. Missed it by—” I struggled to catch my breath. “—that much. Ugh, my spleen.” I clambered to my hooves, still slightly struggling to breathe. Belatedly, I dug around in my saddlebag and switched out Dad’s cap for the stupid helmet that I had appropriated.

A lot of angry hissing brought be back to the present. Several really angry radscorpions were closing in on me, determined to brutally eviscerate me to death. To the window! No, up the wall? Something about sweat? Damn it, now was not the time to be witty! Doors! Doors were good. I could barricade those!

With renewed haste, I galloped at the hopefully not-barricaded double doors in front of the building. These stupid crawlers were literally nipping at my hooves! Just a little farther… “Haha!” I triumphantly squealed. “See ya later, shitbugs!” I grabbed the old brass handles of the doors and pulled as hard as I could.

…Strange, the door wouldn’t budge. As the radscorpions got closer, I continued to pull on the door harder and harder. In a panic, I smashed the tiny dirty window on the door and peered in. Stars and stones, somepony really had barricaded the door! Depressingly enough, that somepony’s skeleton was still slumped over a couch that they were presumably adding to the barricade. Well, I wasn’t going through there. “Crap.”

The radscorpions weren’t going to let me escape. I attempted to take off and fly to the second floor but pincers grabbed at my limbs, keeping me rooted to the ground. Even with my bladed tail, I couldn’t do enough damage to their chitinous limbs to make them let me go. While they were holding onto me, I couldn’t fly away either. Without any other alternative, I hammered away at the wall and hoped to carve out enough hoofholds to climb.

“Maybe you should have played it safe,” Ice disapprovingly tsked, unseen.

“Shut up!” There were more pressing matters than how good my hindsight was.

“And you! Get. Off. Me!” I yelled, still somewhat trapped. Stingers slammed into my armor and more claws tried to crush my armored legs. At least I had the armor, so their little stingers weren’t really doing any serious damage to me, but I wasn’t going to chance them getting lucky. Punch. Heave. Shake leg to dislodge bug. Repeat. When the bugs clinging to my legs and tail were down to the single determined survivor, I was unburdened enough to push off the wall and spin in the air. With physics doing its work, I was free of bugs and I took the opportunity to blow a raspberry at the bugs below.

I pulled myself onto the window ledge and smashed in the window, rolling myself onto the small ledge inside. I breathed a sigh of relief. The radscorpions hissed at me angrily from below me, unable to reach me with their claws or stingers. Now that I was safe, I decided to check my injuries. At least my armor was mostly intact, save for a few scrapes and the big dent in the shoulder from when I hit the wall.

I was safe, for now. Close enough!

Still have a job to do, remember?

Right, the book. Upon cursory inspection of the bookstore, it would be a miracle if I actually found Violet’s book in this mess. Books were scattered all over the place, a good majority of which were burnt and/or destroyed beyond recognition. Here and there, a few salvageable-looking books hid underneath their less fortunate brethren. There was one spot that stood out—a short stack of unblackened books laid on a desk under me, right next to a huge gaping hole in the floor.

I managed to safely glide down onto the desk. As for the books, none of them appeared to be Violet’s book on cursory examination. But if I ever needed advice on how to bake an outstanding red velvet cake complete with creamy frosting, or know the ins and outs of advanced transmutational theory (Volume Five of Sixty-three), I knew where to look.

Currently, I was working under the assumption that Violet had been working here when she’d gotten attacked by bloatsprites. All the books in the piles looked a bit worn on the outside, but a good portion of the pages within looked perfectly readable. I would have opened a few and skimmed them, but a really annoying buzzing in the back of my head made it really hard to focus. I rubbed my temples. “Better get out of here before I pass out,” I muttered. Concussion? Maybe concussion. What were walls good for, anyway? Even the words on the page I was staring at wouldn’t hold still.

The buzzing wouldn’t stop. Without further thought, I shoved every single book on the table, around the table, and under the table into my saddlebag. I no longer had time to look at every single one. Feverish was a good word to describe how I was feeling. Cold sweat? Check. Difficulty breathing? Check. Worst of all, I was developing a migraine from the buzzing noise in my head. I looked around in case I’d missed any other books. My thankfully still-sharp vision caught sight of the small faded placard attached to the doors that read “Pull”. I cursed my lack of thought in the midst of my panic earlier.

Turns out there was a good reason why the buzzing wouldn’t stop. A giant spike suddenly lodged itself between the back plates right between my wings. I whirled around and found myself muzzle-to-weird… claw… mouth… leg… things… with the largest bloatsprite in the entire wasteland. Fun fact: that hole in the floor was there for a reason (which was buzzing angrily in front of me). This thing was the angriest, Raptor-sized, multi-winged, razor-sharp neon green pom-pom with angry googly eyes I’d ever seen. If it didn’t have regrowing projectile spines that it had fired at me, I probably wouldn’t have been as scared as I was.

I blinked at it in the most confused manner possible. Words, Frosty. “You’re not in the manual,” I sputtered. “Cheater.”

The Gargantufly responded by firing more of its projectiles at me. Three of them hit me hard enough to knock the wind out of my lungs again. I was thrown out of the air and into a bookshelf. One of the spikes easily fell out, thanks to my armor. The other two, however, refused to budge. WIth a wince and a hard yank, the one in my lower neck came out, slick with my blood. In no time at all, blood started to drip from the wound, armor integrity be damned. I laid there and listened to the pitter-patter of my health draining away. The one in my right hindleg would have to wait.

C’mon! You’ve taken more than this. Get up!

Tired. So tired. Didn’t help that I couldn’t feel my right hindleg already, only a constricting painful sensation. “Buck it, I didn’t make a deal with Death to die to an over glorified fly!” I raised my rifle to my shoulder and fired off a shot into one of the Gargantufly’s hideous eyes. “Ha!” I pulled the trigger again, but nothing happened. I sort of stared at my trusty rifle in absolute confusion when I realized, “Right, cycle the bolt…” Now that my rifle was properly primed, I fired one more shot. My second shot went wide, destroying the other half of a burned bookshelf. “Oh. That’s awkward.” I let my rifle drop to the ground. Had I used six shots, or seven?

I wasn’t feeling particularly lucky.

For a moment, I thought I was going to die. What other way to go out than in bliss, right? I injected myself with both emergency morphine shots out of aforementioned survival kit and sighed in relief as the pain washed away. The stabbing, unbearable pain in my leg subsided into a dull throb, which I was completely fine with. I poked at the open wound on my neck, partly thinking that I should have probably patched that up first. The other remaining spike in my leg, courtesy of the Gargantufly, had a small little sac on its end that pulsated against my own heartbeat. I was too tired to do anything about it anymore.

After staring at my blood-slicked chestplate for an indeterminate amount of time, I had to wonder—why hadn’t it finished me off yet? This was also one of those moments where I needed a cigar and maybe a brandy to make this a truly dramatic moment. I looked up. Motes of dust floated toward me, looking almost like little gray clouds leaving the cloud cover to join me and keep me warm. Just as my luck would have it, one of them landed in my eye and completely ruined the moment.

“Ow! Shit!” Once I had blinked the tears away, I was greeted by the sight of a very large winged pile of green goop. “H… how convenient.” I coughed. Since I appeared to be safe again, I attempted to stagger onto my hooves. All I managed to do was shift forward from sitting on my butt to sitting on my face. Thanks to gravity, blood started dripping down my neck and onto my chin. “Screw you, physics.”

A loud, very audible thumping forced me to roll onto my left side and cover my right ear with my hoof. I just wanted to pain and noises to stop! Why didn’t everypony carry around some asprin in their survival kits, anyway? “Sit up, pegasus. Drop your weapons. You are now a prisoner of the Steel Rangers. Comply, or I will not hesitate to use force,” a very angry voice growled. Well, at least I wouldn’t die at the hooves of a giant fly. Maybe if I could bring my shotgun-claw to bear faster than he could pull the trigger on his bit…

“I’d hate to make your ugly mug uglier,” I chuckled under my breath. I had exactly one chance to get away with this. If I wasn’t poisoned or maybe just had a clearer head, I might have approached this situation much differently. Since that wasn’t the case, I foolishly pounced at the Ranger in question and pulled my claw back for a powerful strike.

The beginning of my triumphant squawk was instantly countered by an armored hoof to the side of my face, forcefully knocking me to the ground once more. It didn’t hurt, thanks to the power of clinical-strength drugs and face armor. What it did do, however, was violently rattle my brain inside my skull. “I said, st—HOLY CELESTIA! FROSTY?!” I woozily grinned at the Ranger from my spot on the ground and gave him a friendly talon wiggle. “Shit, I’m so sorry!”

Whoever it was, he helped me onto my hooves. “At le-east it didn’t hurrrrt.” I sighed, poking at my wound again. It felt like the small hole in my neck had changed from a small puncture wound into a swollen lump, which might have stopped the bleeding temporarily. Was it stuffy in here or was it just me? I popped off the stupid helmet so I could get more air. “If y’ren’t helpin’, at leas… least help me over to that gif’ shop. I need that…” I had to stop in mid-sentence to catch my breath. “...that bobblehead.”

“When the heck did you get power armor?”

Weren’t there more pressing matters? “Long… story,” I panted.

The Ranger pinned me to the ground. “Woah, woah, woah. The hell is that?” With a sharp tug, he yanked the spike in my leg out. I gasped at the sudden shock of feeling returning to my entire hindleg for a second. “Are these poisoned?”

I dumbly nodded. “Prob’ly. Feels like it. Healin’… healing potion, anypony?” My entire body felt really heavy, so I leaned against the Ranger. Maybe if I took a nap first, I’d feel well enough to continue on without further issue. “I feel like crap.” Hopefully, I’d pass out before the morphine wore off. “And my head hurts. Who are you, again?”

A healing potion was gently eased into my mouth. “Here. Drink this and—” Was that the sound of radscorpions getting closer? “—keep your head down!” I suddenly found myself on the ground, the Ranger protectively standing over me. I sort of went with it and happily slurped down the potion. A low whirring noise built up to a crescendo and abruptly changed to a dull roar.

I had to cover my ears while simultaneously holding the bottle with my teeth. “Eeeh… it’s so loud!” I whined. In order to keep getting healing, I rolled onto my back so that the magical healing liquid continued to flow into my mouth.

“Be glad you’re alive, Frosty. Feeling better yet?” My wounds were disappearing as I drained the potion, but I still didn’t actually feel any better. “We need to get you out of here before anything more angry shows up.” The Ranger pushed me onto my hooves. “Hey!” He slapped my face, which I didn’t exactly feel but react to. “Stay with me. You going to have one of your breakdowns again?”

Very briefly, I tottered on my hooves before regaining my balance. “I… I’m going to be good. Gimme five… five minutes.” Nap time took priority over running time, which might have been before or after snack time.

“What? Now? Damn it, here is a really bad place!” the Ranger yelled. He opened fire with his minigun and released a rocket at the approaching swarms of radscorpions and bloatsprites. “I’ll take care of ‘em, easy peasy. Sheesh, how many of you are there?” Somehow they’d gotten over their collective differences and decided to kill the two armored ponies in front of them.

What could destroy hordes of angry bugs? When in doubt, C4. Or lacking that, kill it with fire. “Hold yer horseshoes, I got this.” I had my PipBuck retrieve my new flare gun. “I got it.” Due to my hampered hoof-eye coordination, it took a few tries to shove the bit into my mouth. I carefully aimed my the striped barrel of my flare gun at the oncoming horde. “Got it!” The bright light that arced from my face dramatically bounced off a bloatsprite, causing it to spontaneously combust in a rather dramatic fashion. The flare itself continued to burn bright red, deterring the rest of the bugs.

The Ranger finished doing whatever he was doing and opened fire with his minigun again. “That didn’t help! Now I can’t see what I’m shooting at.”

“Sure it did. They’re not coming at us now, are they?” I giggled, loading my last shot into the flare gun. As I was speaking or reloading, I must have released the trigger, which apparently triggered the flare’s detonation. The flare on the ground suddenly exploded into a myriad of orange flames, scattering searing embers everywhere. All the bugs frantically retreated to their respective dwellings. I had to frantically put out a lick of fire that had ignited the forward tip of my mane. “Told ya I got it,” I weakly chuckled. The world started to spin and the flare gun dropped from my mouth. “Just… five… more…” I think somepony might have called my name before I blacked out.

<~~~>

“Twenty-five minutes to mission start. Eyes front, everypony.”

“Does it seriously need to be Meat Locker again? I thought we cleared it.”

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. “We barely scraped through it, ya dingus.” Thump. “Stars alive, it’s great to see you back, Clappy!”

“Yeah, yeah. The great Thunderclap returns. Revel in my glory, or whatever.”

A sudden loud crash next to my ears made me bolt upright and shriek in fear. “Miss Winds! Are we boring you?” the very angry, large, bearded pegasus yelled, his rancid cigar-laden breath causing me to sputter and choke.

My first response was to yell, “No, sir!”

From glancing at his collar, I determined he was a very angry, stinky sergeant. “Maybe ten laps around the parade grounds will wake you up,” he sneered at me. “Senior Airpony Breeze, make sure this recruit doesn’t try to take shortcuts like the last one.”

I spun around in my seat, finally getting a good look at my surroundings. My whole squad—Lightning, Shadow, Thunderclap, Tiny, and Dad—were sitting around me in the same uncomfortable plastic seats as I was sitting in. Apparently, we were about to start a training mission or something, but I’d fallen asleep. A light aqua mare also wearing the Recon Force Blizzard patch on her uniform strolled up to me. Her short gold mane still had that familiar red-orange band in it. “Double time, recruit,” she simply stated. “Time for a walk.” Begrudgingly, I followed her out the door and into the parade grounds, where dozens of armored and geared-up pegasi were going through their daily drills.

“Day five and already getting in trouble, huh sis?” My big sister, Summer Breeze, laughed. “I guess it does run in the family.”

I warmed up my wings with a few brisk flaps. “Yeah, yeah. I blame basic training.” Both of us took to the sky and began the first of ten laps. “You do realize you don’t have to follow me, right?” We proceeded to fly along at a brisk pace.

Summer rolled her eyes. “But it’s been forever since I spent some quality time with my baby sister!”

“I’m not that much younger than you,” I huffed. If I had any sort of control over this memory, I would have reached out and hugged Summer on the spot. It had been far too long without seeing family, and I took comfort in the fact that somewhere, she was alive. Hopefully.

We pulled into a sharp turn and temporarily put a pause on our conversation as not to collide with a squad also doing laps around the parade grounds. “So, how’s your new squad?”

“It’s fine. They’re bearable, but I’m pretty sure Recruit Chaser is a drug addict,” I told her. “Thunderclap won’t stop staring at my flank, and Shadow is super dark and super edgy. Super, with a cape. It’s terrible.” Ah, the good old days, back before we were a solid team. How I missed them. “It’s meh. But did I hear the Lieutenant say Senior Airpony?”

My sister, the perfectionist, proudly nodded. “Yep. Got a promotion last week.” Of course she’d get promoted faster than I could get signed up for service. “And I got a commendation for valor.” Right, I’d forgotten about that one. Assuming memory was serving me correctly, she’d saved half her squad from a malfunctioning assault drone rampaging through the practice courses.

I groaned. “Of course you would. I wish I could be as awesome as you.”

“Aww. Don’t be like that, sis! You’ve got your own charm that makes you special, like…” Summer blankly stared ahead. “Uh…”

When my sister didn’t immediately answer, any hopes I had left dropped. “Thanks,” I grumbled.

“Hold on, give me a second to come up with something.”

“Have I mentioned that I hate you with the intensity of a thousand suns yet?”

“Yes, many times. Focus?”

“Huh?” After three and a half laps of circling, I was actually getting somewhat dizzy.

“Your unique charm. Focus, y’know? In those rare times when you’re actually dedicated to something—”

“Hey!”

“—you get really, really focused on it. It’s either that or simply because you’re the most stubborn little mare I’ve ever known.”

Sure, Summer was a bit larger (ergo, heavier) than I was, but I still playfully body-checked her anyway. “That’s not true!” And then I facehoofed. Of course I’d immediately proven her correct. “Have I mentioned I hate you?”

“That’s what sisters are for, hating each other for all eternity.” Summer laughed. “You know it’s true.” Kudos to that, I guess. “Race ya to the end!” She bopped me on the nose before rocketing off ahead of me. In an effort to not be bested, I flapped harder to keep up.

We raced around the parade grounds at dangerously high speeds, each trying to beat the other. At lap six, Summer was just barely ahead of me by a quarter of a wing. Lap seven passed with my lead by just a wingtip. We were tied at laps eight and nine, neither of us leading. “Is that all you got?” I yelled to my sister. “Looks like all those extra dessert rations aren’t paying off!”

The tip of her wing clipped my chin. “Shit!” Summer swore as she swerved out of control momentarily. “Not my fault I get free ice cream!” she yelled as she recovered. I took advantage of her stumble to pull ahead. “Hey! Cheater!”

“It’s not cheating if you goofed!” I heckled back at my Summer. “See ya, sucker!”
I stared straight ahead, bent on victory. This was the final leg of the race. Just a few more yards…

Suddenly, I was blown out of the sky by the wake of something, no, somepony zooming by at high speed. From the cloudy surface of the parade grounds, I watched with everypony else as a cone formed ahead of Summer’s hooves. The cone grew narrower and narrower as her speed increased. Just when I thought she was going to go supersonic, the cone abruptly snapped backward and launched her backward right into my face.

“Owww,” Summer groaned. “And I was so close. At least the ground isn’t as hard as I thought it was.” That was because she’d crash-landed right on top of me. I futilely hammered at her flanks, trying to make her budge. “Oh.” She rolled off me and helped me up. “Sorry about that.”

“Have I mentioned—” I panted.

All around us, a few pegasi sympathetically clapped. Sis had gotten close to pulling off a rainboom, which would have catapulted her all the way up to Wonderbolts training camp. “Yes, you have.” She sighed.

“That was still a nice try, though. I thought you were actually going to do it that time.” I didn’t really care nearly as much that she’d landed on me, rather than she’d actually tried to win a simple race with a sonic rainboom. Show-off.

“Thanks.” Sis sighed again. “I’ve been trying for a while.” As she led me back to the briefing room, a few airponies came up to her and shared some words of encouragement. “Hey guys! You saw that, huh?”

The only one that stuck around was this big armored jock. “Nice to see you blazin’ by, Breezy. Who’s this little firestarter here?” he asked, suddenly taking interest in me. “She’s cute.” I didn’t feel cute at the moment. I was sweaty, tired, filthy, and feeling a bit like a crash pad.

Summer roughly shoved him back. “Eyes front, buddy. That’s my sister you’re talking about.” The armored pegasus took a step back. “Keep your grubby hooves off her, okay Diver?” She leaned over and whispered to me, “He was part of my recruitment group. He’s a nice enough stallion until he starts hitting on you.” In the meantime, Diver had escaped back to the safety of his friends.

“Sis, I’m old enough to stand up for myself!” I whined, turning slightly red from embarrassment.

Against my will, I got pulled into a hug. “But that’s what big sisters are for. Embarrassing you in public.” A few onlookers laughed at us, but the joke was really on them. However much it appeared I didn’t like Summer, I appreciated having a sibling at all. Standard Enclave law dictated one foal per family, except for officers or other special cases (read: well-connected and laden with enough bits to bribe the guy in charge).

“Hate you.” As a spectator of my own mind, though, I was enjoying it.

Summer patted my head. “I know.” At least she had the common sense to release me before she pushed me back into the briefing room. “Look sharp. And tired.” With a mild amount of indignation, I realized she hadn’t even broken a sweat.

Inside, the briefing was coming to a conclusion. Some sort of battle plan had been put together for our next training exercise in the “Meat Locker”, which was a close-quarters combat simulation. The last time we’d attempted this mission, well… the results were decidedly not pretty. Academy records indicated that somepony, just one soldier, had flawlessly completed the simulation designed for an entire squad with a single laser pistol. Hopefully our second run would bring us up to par.

“Nice of you to join us. Enjoy your walk?” Dad casually asked. The angry officer was nowhere to be seen. Most likely he’d left after yelling at my squad for being so incompetent. “Speaking of which, great to see you again, Summer. What events have transpired for you to grace us with your presence?”

Summer rolled her eyes. “Daaaaaaad! I’m on base security, remember? And I’ve been super busy, so shut up about that.”

Pain suddenly lanced through my body and caused me to curl up on the floor. The entire room shook like it was in the middle of a storm. I shut my eyes and prayed everything would just stop. The lack of any sort of reaction by my family or compatriots around me led me to the conclusion that this wasn’t part of the memory.

“Whatever. Have fun with your training, guys,” Summer’s voice echoed.

Every movement brought pain. My head pounded like somepony started a rave up there and cranked the volume to thirteen.

“Get your head back into the game, Snowmare! Contact, zero-nine-zero!”

Unquestioningly, I shook my head and opened my eyes. Initial shock was washed out by ridiculous degrees of pain. We weren’t in a room anymore. Somehow, I’d been transported into an active Wasteland war zone. Everypony around me was fully geared and in the middle of laying down fire into the dense smoke around us.

“Yes—” I tripped, stumbled, and crashed to the ground again. Hello again, dirt. Long time no eat. C’mon, Frosty. Get your act together. “—Yessir.” I tried again at the task of standing up. Where was my gear? Heck, where was my combat barding? Second time wasn’t the charm. I succeeded in eating dirt again, to my immense displeasure. I looked down at my left leg, or what was left of it.

Shadow turned around. “What the heck are you wa—” A flying saw blade cut his words off short. He collapsed, clutching at the steel disc lodged in his neck. No. This wasn’t happening. No. I was forced to crawl toward him, since I couldn’t stand. If I could reach his crash kit before he bled out, maybe I could save him.

A gout of flame from Tiny’s incinerator was met with a rocket to his face. As his chunks splattered to the ground, somepony yelled, “Powerlevel’s down, Tornado’s hit! Defib, get on him!”

“Roger!” Lightning stopped firing her plasma rifle and dashed toward Shadow’s fallen form. “Snowmare, cover me!” Was this part of it? I didn’t have a leg, much less any weapons. My sidearm was gone. My standard-issue knife was gone. I didn’t have my laser rifle or my newer anti-machine rifle. “What the hay are you waiting for?” she yelled as she slid to a stop a few feet from me.

I opened my mouth to reply, but it was too late. A well-placed heavy caliber bullet exited the front of her visor. She was dead before she hit the ground. The words in my throat were choking me, suffocating me. My friends lay around me, dead and dying. Was this how it had happened? “Medic down!” Thunderclap yelled.

If this was the end, I think I was better off not knowing how it had happened. We hadn’t even put up a fight. Teal hooves planted themselves in front of me. “Get up. I should have stopped this hours ago,” Ice Storm snarled. “This isn’t a memory anymore.” Well, that made me feel a tiny bit better.

“I… I can’t stand,” I whimpered, showing him my bloody stump. “My leg’s gone.”

Ice bodily grabbed me and held me at eye level. “And when the hell has that stopped you?” Well, right now for starters. “Walk it off, wuss.”

If I wasn’t in so much pain, I would have laughed. A snort still managed to escape my muzzle, in spite of the gravity of my situation.

Unfortunately, he managed to catch the pained giggle I was trying so hard to suppress. “I now also realize I should have considered my wording first.”

“Walk. Ha!” I still laughed, despite my pain. “Ow. Oh, it hurts to breathe.”

Now that the moment had been suitably wrecked, Ice dropped me to the ground with a huff. “Damn it, Frosty. I’m doing my best to capture your subconscious, and you’re not making it any easier.” What? “I’m a bit out of practice, but this is silly.”

Thunderclap’s head exploding brought me back to the issue at hoof. “Friendly down! Sugarpuff, it’s just you and me! Suppressive fire!” Dad yelled, frantically firing his sidearm laser pistol. “What’re you waiting for?”

“I have to help him,” I muttered to Ice while I tried to haul myself to his side. “I’m not letting him die again. I can’t lose him.” My best friend’s body was right in front of me. Her sidearm, a compact plasma pistol, was still snugly lodged in its holster. “I can’t…” Tears began to blur my vision. “I just can’t…”

Somepony’s hooves cradled my head. “Frosty, he’s not real.” I blinked tears out of my eyes and stared into Gala’s. “This is a nightmare. You’re stronger than this, aren’t you?” A nightmare. Of course it would be. But I still couldn’t just let him die.

I looked to Ice for help. “I can give you power. I can help you save him. All you have to do is say the words.”

Gala glared at me. “Oh no. No. No. I know that look. Don’t do it.”

“I can help you.”

“Don’t bucking do it. This is a trap, and you know it.”

“Do it. Just do it, you wimp!” Raider yelled, appearing out of nowhere. She received angry glares from everypony currently involved. “Hey! Just trying to move it along. Sheesh, tough crowd. Buck you guys, I’m out.” She vanished as abruptly as she appeared, accompanied by a puff of red smoke.

It pained me to agree with Raider. “I’ll do it. Give me power,” I pleaded to Ice. Gala sighed in resignation, slowly dissolving into the wind.

Ice smirked. “Your wish is my command, princess.” Dark blue magic collected at the tip of his horn, swirling with energy. He brought his horn down to my forehead. Surprisingly, he was the one that hesitated. “Are you sure you want to do this? I’m sort of morally obligated to tell you that the last time I did this, it didn’t really go well…”

“Do it!” I yelled. Ice dismissively nodded and jabbed his horn into my forehead, releasing his built-up magic. The pain in my body, namely my hindleg, evaporated instantaneously. I felt good, really good! Thanks to whatever spell he was using, I was good ol’ me again. My bloody stump was back to being a technology-boosted stump, and my trusty anti-machine rifle was back.

Whatever was shooting at us was about to have a bad time. I was about to get some goddesses-damned revenge, complete with mandatory battle cry. For this much revenge, I decided on using S.A.T.S. to precisely distribute my fury with the power of math. Once inside the spell’s interface, I expected the shadows in the fog to be clearly outlined for me to target.

Nothing. There was nothing in the fog, according to S.A.T.S. I pulled myself out of the spell. So it didn’t work here, did it? Fine. I’d just have to do this the old fashioned way. Since the enemies didn’t show up on S.A.T.S. or my E.F.S., I had to resort to waiting for them to fire and give away their position. Every time I saw muzzle flashes, rocket plumes, or any such indication that something was shooting, I placed a shot into the center of the target listened for the tell-tale sound of impact.

The gunfire died down drastically once six lucky winners received their special prizes, courtesy of me. I floated in the air, waiting for something else to reveal itself. “That all you got? You ain’t so tough now!” There was no answer, reply, or retort in any form. I wearily chuckled to myself. “That wasn’t too hard.”

I landed next to Dad, expecting some sort of monologue or eulogy from him. Instead, the reply that I got was more along the lines of the barrel of his laser to my face. “Get away from me right now.”

A nervous grin spread across my face. “Real funny, Dad.” Gun safety 101! “Care to point that away from me?”

“I don’t know you.”

That hit me right in the heart. I was his daughter! How could he not recognize me? “Dad, it’s me.” I insisted, tapping my chest with my claw. “It’s… it’s me…” I trailed off when I caught glimpse of myself in mid-tap. Somehow in the last ten seconds, I’d managed to get myself covered in a nice slick coating of blood. “…It’s Frosty.” It was seeping into my fur, into my feathers, and I suddenly realized why he hadn’t recognized me to begin with.

Dad jabbed his laser pistol into my nose harder. “I raised an obedient little foal, not a traitorous monster.” Hearing those words from my own father was like a lightning bolt to the heart. “Take her away, boys.” Heavy power-armored legs grabbed me from behind. “Lock her up.” I couldn’t breathe, instead coughing and choking on my own saliva as I momentarily forgot how my lungs functioned.

A headless power-armored stallion strode up to me. “You are hereby stripped of your rank as a soldier and as a citizen of the Grand Pegasus Enclave. Under military law, you are allowed one court-martial composed of your peers to judge your actions. In the event of your permanent incarceration or execution, you are permitted a final request. Do you understand your rights as they have been given to you?” He managed to grunt, even without a head.

I kept my mouth shut since I was too caught up trying to process what had just happened. This was too surreal. The pegasus to my left sported a gaping hole in his neck, while the one to my right appeared to lack any sort of stable connection linking her head to her body. Her head flopped sideways in such an unnatural manner that I had to assume somepony had gone and broken her neck, based on the state of the other power-armored zombie pegasi.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then.” The headless pegasus sighed, which was an eerie sound since it came from his neck hole. “Get rid of her.”

The two pegasi holding me down knocked me off my hooves and slowly dragged me around to a dark hole in the dirt. I fought back, trying to dig my hooves into the ground and get in some cheap punches. Wherever that hole went, I didn’t want to find out. “Get your undead hooves off of me!” I yelled, struggling harder.

“Don’t… fight it…” the broken-necked airpony growled from my right. “Accept it.”

I finally managed to free my claw from the slit-necked sergeant. “You know what? Accept this!” I yelled, balling my talons into a fist and throwing out a haphazard punch. When my attack of opportunity didn’t collide with face and instead caused a mind-startling bang, I found myself wide awake.

<~~~>

It was just a nightmare. Just a nightmare. In my nightmare-fueled rage, I’d literally punched through the mattress under me. As I extruded my metallic limb from the shredded cloth and broken springs, I found I was uncomfortably sticky from all the dried sweat all over my body. My right hindleg was bound around the knee with stained rags and what looked like some dried twiggy things. Just to top off my discomfort, I still felt sore and stiff all over. A whole, undamaged canteen lay on the short table just out of my reach, reminding me to the fact that I was thirsty too.

“C’mere.” I weakly pawed at the air near the canteen, trying to will it into reach. “Here, drinky, drinky, drinky.” Obviously it wasn’t getting any closer no matter how hard I talked at it, so I had to scoot my entire body closer to it. Even at the edge of the mattress, I still couldn’t reach the canteen’s dangling strap. “Almost there…” I futilely continued to swipe at it, hoping that the tip of my talon could catch it.

Something thudded behind me. “Whuh! Huh?” Correction—somepony fell over onto the floor. “Woah, let me get that for you.” The canteen was enveloped by an orange magic field and floated into my flailing hooves. “Thank Celestia you finally woke up!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, chugging down the canteen’s contents. Oh, it felt good to be hydrated again. It didn’t really matter as much to me that the water was mildly radioactive. Tangerine sat next to me, rubbing her eyes. “And how long have you been here?”

The tired orange mare yawned. “Long enough. You wouldn’t stop groaning and crying the entire time.” She adjusted her disheveled mane and looked around the room for something. “Though I can’t really blame you. You’re lucky to be alive after that much venom. It couldn’t have been a simple walk around the track, even for you.”

I finished off the canteen and flopped onto my back contentedly. With my thirst quenched, my next priority would be to clean myself up. “Hey, uh, where’s Rumcake, by the way?”

Tangerine picked up an pink and orange patterned hairpin off the floor behind her. “Oh, that Galactic fellow told him to get some actual rest instead of watching you freak out in your sleep.” I felt my gut involuntarily twitch. “And since he didn’t trust anypony else to keep you safe, and since Sparkle had to rest after getting back, I was the last possible pony he trusted.”

“Wait…” I warily muttered. “This wouldn’t be Doc Galactic, would it? Milky coat, crazy blue mane?” I gestured to myself in order to establish context. “Has a penchant for slicing things up?” I added, remembering our previous encounters. “Or ponies.” My lower ribs twinged in response. I suddenly had the horrible thought that he’d done something to me while I was passed out. Thanks to my overactive imagination, I got the picture of my body sliced open, guts for all to see.

The old springs on the mattress creaked as Tangerine climbed onto it. “The one and only, as I’ve heard.” For a moment, I wondered what she was doing and why she was getting so close to my face. She placed the back side of her hoof on my forehead. “Eh, at least it looks like your fever broke. I’ll go grab him.”

“No! Don’t!” I squeaked. “I’m totally fine now.” I stood up and vigorously flapped my wings for show. “No need for him, see?” I got shoved onto the bed before I could bolt.

“Something tells me it’s going to take more than an apple to keep him away from you,” Tangerine observed, bodily pinning me down to the bed. “Like it or not, the doctor can help you better than we can. And stop squirming!” I used my wings to slap her in the face while my legs were immobilized. “Ow!”

I caught a glimpse of a medical coat coming off the ladder. “He-llooo ladies! The doctor is in.” There was a brief pause, then he continued, “Well, the doctor could be out in the event that you need a few minutes. Or I could watch, if you’d like.”

“Um, uh—it’s not—” Tangerine stammered, her face gradually turning crimson.

To make it worse, I immediately interjected with, “This is exactly what it looks like.” Right on cue, Tangerine began to incoherently stammer and squeak.

“I’m just gonna—uh… look, a distraction!” Abruptly, a much redder Tangerine clambered off me and escaped down the ladder. Sneaky little git.

Doc Galactic, the resident doctor of Happy Hills, stood before me once again. “So, now you’re my little animal attack victim. What happened to being careful and all that stuff?” he jokingly chastised.

Begrudgingly, I sat up. A cursory examination of my body revealed that nothing had been (visibly) surgically altered or removed against my will. “Well, you obviously haven’t been swarmed by hundreds of angry bugs.” I tugged at the bandage holding the mysterious poultice wrapped around my leg. “What the heck is this stuff, anyway?”

To my immense discomfort, the doctor levitated several scalpels and one of his smaller bonesaws out to carefully cut away the used bandage. Excessive overkill, as always. “One of the books you two brought back had a good chapter or two on survival in the great outdoors. Who knew everything was so green back in the day?” He peeled away the allegedly healing herbs from the welt on my leg. “But truthfully, I have no flippin’ idea. Oh, that looks good.” The spot where I’d been stung was still tender and slightly discolored, but at least it didn’t hurt nearly as much as did before.

A random worried thought drifted into my head. “Wait, if you’re here… who’s helping everypony at Happy Hills?”

Doc opened an old battered first-aid strongbox and levitated out a roll of clean gauze. “I actually left half of my practice to Rusty for the moment.”

“Rusty? He’s a doctor now?” I asked, somewhat shocked. “He doesn’t seem like the medical type at all.”

“What can I say? I’m a great teacher,” Doc proudly told me. “And a great doctor.” He applied some sort of actual medical salve on my stings. Ooh, cold. Hot. Cold again. What the hay was this stuff? “As long as nopony gets something sliced off, he’ll be fine. Probably.”

“So… I’m good?” I cautiously asked, my leg going hot again. My stomach growled loudly, reminding me that I was no longer thirsty, but starving. Doc slowly unrolled a short length of gauze and stared at me with an amused expression the whole while. “Heh. Because I am hungry.”

As Doc wrapped my leg with a clean dressing, he casually replied, “Two days will do that to you. Speaking of which, I heard your adorable coltfriend had a great time trying to hydrate you while you were flipping out the entire time.”

“Two days?” I muttered, not particularly surprised anymore. Worrying? Yes. “Hmm.” A few more days of involuntary nap time and maybe I might get some kind of award if this was some kind of silly game.

The new, clean length of gauze was secured to my right hindleg. “There. Keep it dry, and don’t overexert yourself. I’m not entirely sure what was in that giant bloatsprite venom, so I kinda shot you up with all the general anti-toxin stuff.” All of Doc’s sharp pointy implements returned to their respective resting places. “And remember, if you have an erec—”

“I know.” I facehoofed, anticipating his next few words. “Four hours, I know. Does all your medicine have that potential side effect?”

A shrug. “Just covering my bases. Would you prefer the four-hour erection warning or ‘Symptoms include: nausea, heartburn, stroke, seizures, depressing thoughts, loss of muscular control, sudden death, liver failure, and nosebleeds’.”

I blinked at that impressive list. “Are those really…?”

“Oh, that’s just the common ones.”

“Liver failure?”

“Again, the common ones.”

“I think I prefer the erections.”

Doc barely held back a snort. “I’ve heard you do.”

Huh? Had we already had this conversation?

Think about your previous words very, very carefully.

What? I prefer the… Oh. OH. I felt my face heat up instantly. “No! I don’t—no wait, I do, but like—er—graaaah!” Doc broke out laughing as I mashed my face into the mattress to dampen my screams of frustration.

~~~~~

With my leg properly handled and once Doc had given me a “close enough” bill of health, I headed down in search of lunch. Following his suggestion of not exerting myself, I decided to take the ladder instead. The scarred orange vendor selling food and other food-like objects still stood at the counter taking orders and yelling at patrons, but this time he was most curiously sporting a black eye in addition to the rest of his previous facial injuries.

I calmly plopped myself down on one of the plastic tables and waited for Rumcake to show up, since I apparently wasn’t allowed to buy anything from the food ponies. Racist bastard. The seat that I had chosen was reasonably close to the back so that I was hopefully out of sight while still being able to read the menu.

I kept lightly tapping my hoof against the table’s surface involuntarily the entire time since I was no longer distracted by the mildly frustrating task of living. Hunger was starting to set in at full force, making me feel weak and twitchy as a result. Where was he? Everything on the menu was starting to look good, including the dangerous “coffee” concoction from before. Heck, I might just eat my other foreleg if he didn’t show up soon.

Unfortunately, I either wasn’t far away enough or my tapping gave me away. “Oi, Birdface! Git ’cher feathered arse over here,” the orange pony angrily yelled.

Oh goddesses, here we go. Maybe if I pretended not to hear him he wouldn’t—

“Don’t ignore me, ya cheeky li’l bugger!”

There was no avoiding it. Slowly, I trudged toward the counter with everypony watching. Just for increased awkwardness, everypony in the immediate area quieted down to hear what was about to happen. “What, am I not allowed to sit here anymore?” I lowly spat. “Are these tables just too good for me, dirt-munching sack of shit?”

The orange pony chuckled nervously. “No, nothin’ of the sort at all.” He suddenly grabbed me by the neck and pulled me closer. “I don’ like you any more than your li’l twat face likes me, so let’s make this quick. I’d be willin’ to tolerate your existence only ’cause the bosspony says so.” I stumbled backward when he let me go and shoved me backward. “So we can be best o’ friends, right?” he brightly asked. “Name’s Easy Greasy. Go piss off.”

Without another word or any indication of service, Easy retreated from the counter and ducked into what I assumed was the food locker. A younger buck with a smoky gray-black coat stepped up to the counter, shaking his head. His mane bordered on a combination of brown and tan colors. “Welp, that didn’t take as long as I thought it would. Can I take your order?”

I hesitated. “Wait, no racist comments?”

“Nah. If Boss don’t got a problem with you, I don’t either.” The young stallion took out a rag just as dark as his coat and started scrubbing down the counter. “Gonna buy anything? You were out for a while, so maybe all you need is a hogchop. Hogchop’ll fix anypony up good.”

A hogchop didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard of, but I could probably guess. “You want me to buy meat. For eating.” When was this a good idea for anypony? “Aren’t we vegetarian? Heck, aren’t you vegetarian?”

“If there’s a demand, then we’ll sell it. Well, I’ll cook it and Easy there’ll sell it because it’s a perfectly marketable idea for a stallion named Burnt Toast to cook everypony’s food.” Burnt Toast sighed and continued to wipe the counter, with minimal visible progress. “Hey, Nightfire’ll eat anything. I even fed her a radiator once.”

I examined the rest of the menu. Nothing much had changed since last time—the menu still consisted of just boxed food, water, and “coffee”.

Just buy the meat. It’s good for you.

I didn't really want to become a carnivore just yet, even if a slab of fried meat sounded delicious. Don’t give in, Frosty. Don’t give in. I could probably get by with a box of dried apples and some hay fries. “Uh—”

Burnt immediately wrote something down on a scrap of paper and slid it to me. “One hogchop, comin’ up! Your number’s on the paper.” Apparently I was order number twenty-three. “That’ll be five caps.”

“I didn’t even order!”

“Five caps,” Burnt insisted.

I was too hungry to argue or complain anymore, so I reluctantly agreed. “Fine, fine. You’ll have to wait until my coltfriend gets here since he’s got all the caps.”

The very familiar sound of armored hooves coming up behind me was accompanied by Rumcake’s soothing voice. “I heard you’re spending my money.”

“Shaddup. I’m hungry. Just pay the stallion, would you?” I lightheartedly demanded.

After lunch had been paid for, we returned to my chosen seat to find it occupied by an obnoxiously giddy little orange colt. His light green mane hadn’t been cut in the longest time, so he had to periodically sweep it out of his eyes as he bounced in place. “Hey! You!” he squeaked, seeing me approach.

“Kid, I’m not in the mood. Out of my seat, right now,” I growled, legitimately annoyed. “Nopony takes my seat.” Something about this little colt really ticked me off, but I didn’t know what is was. Maybe his voice?

“But wait! Want to see my pot of gold?” the colt excitedly blurted.

I didn’t have a snappy reply to that. “Is that a euphemism for sex?”

Rumcake tried to pull me away. “Let’s just find somewhere else to sit, okay?” Against his will, I stood there and adamantly and waited for the mangy little colt to move. “C’mon, let’s just sit over there.” He continued to try half-heartedly dragging me away, to no avail.

“Heck no! I got this seat first!” I protested.

Back at the counter, Easy shouted, “Orda’ twenty-one.”

“What number are you?” Rumcake asked, ignoring the little colt’s incessant nagging about his pot of gold.

I needed to double-check the paper. “Twenty-three. And I swear to every star out there that I will kill that kid if he doesn’t shut up about that pot of gold,” I growled, directing the second half of my statement at the colt. “Scram, before I turn you into dinner.”

The little colt scampered off, still frantically advertising his pot of gold to every single pony that wouldn’t listen. “Well, at least he left.” Rumcake sighed, taking the spot across from me. “So, you’re feeling better?”

“I’m sore, stiff, cranky, and hungry,” I groaned, sitting down. “But at least I’m alive, so I guess that counts.” I reached up to pull Dad’s hat over my eyes, but all I felt was my dirty, tangled mane. I patted my head in vain, hoping to find it. “Rummy, where’s my hat?” I sat bolt upright, fear edging my voice.

“That one brownish scribe you know has it,” Rumcake replied, oblivious to my worries. “Right, I forgot. After I dragged your comatose butt back here, she was curious about all your stuff and the books you brought back.”

“And you just let her take everything?” I blurted, raising my voice.

Rumcake winced. “Hey, calm down. I made her promise she wouldn’t destroy anything or else I’d find a way to make her life a living hell.”

“Twenty-three!”

My ears perked up. “Yay! Lunch! Be right back!”

Easy was standing at the counter again and Burnt was doing the cooking at this point. “You twenty-three?” Easy asked, somewhat annoyed. I nodded. “All ye winged bastards are the same.” He snickered. “Take it an’ scram.” Without another word, he pushed the plate of crispy piece of meat toward me.

I picked it up on a wing and took it back to my seat. Rumcake wordlessly stared at me in blatant abject horror, then to the plate, then back to me. On the other hoof, I was more concerned with how I was going to eat it. The entire hogchop was ovalish in shape, about one and a half hooves large, with a long bone going down one side. Light pink blood deliciously oozed out from under the slice of meat. I should have been more concerned about why this looked so good rather than how fast I could cram this in my mouth.

Finally, Rumcake found his voice. “You’re going to eat that?”

“I guess so.” I stared at the hunk of meat, still trying to figure out how to properly shove it into my face. “You have, like, a knife or something?” Rumcake dumbly nodded and laid a small utility knife on the table. “Thanks.” With mild difficulty, I sawed little bite-size strips out of the piece of meat while pinning it to the plate with two of my talons.

“You’re going to eat that,” Rumcake repeated. “A whole pork chop?”

“I don’t think I can finish it.” Not the response he was expecting, apparently. “What? You eat meat too, don’t you?” I asked, spearing a slice of meat on my trigger talon.

“In moderation, yes,” Rumcake conceded, watching me drop the first slice into my mouth.

I started chewing the piece of meat in my mouth, somewhat enjoying the chewy and stringy texture. The porkchop, er, hogchop… whatever it was… was much different from the bacon from his sandwich last time. Then, the salty and slightly metallic taste of blood hit me. Regardless, I continued chewing and attempted to swallow.

“By that face you’re making, I assume it’s not as good as you thought it was.”

For some stupid reason, I stabbed another slice and dropped it into my mouth. “Eh. It’sh okay.” I swallowed the lump of cooked flesh with a grimace. “Could be better.” It wasn’t the same as pony blood, and I certainly didn’t remember what griffon blood tasted like, but at least the porkchop wasn’t as unpleasant. “It’s like… eating a salty, watered-down crowbar.”

Rumcake wiped his knife against the table and stowed it back in one of his many pockets. “Oh, right!” He patted down several of his other armored pockets until he finally found what he was looking for. “Ta-daah!” He triumphantly dropped the bobblehead I’d spied back at the one-bit store onto the table. “Score one for the paladin!”

I was positively ecstatic. “Eeeee!” I squealed, picking up the bobblehead to examine it. Once again, it was a Schtable-Tec Bobblehead, with the words “D-d-d-diamonds!” imprinted on the base. The pony’s coat was a brilliant white and her curly purple mane flowed magnificently, sans a few unkempt ends. This time, the Ministry Mare in question was only visible from the neck up because everything below that was covered by all sorts of fake gemstones. And, in true Schtable-Tec fashion, her bright blue eyes were off-center and completely insane.

“No idea why you were dying to grab this particular one, but I went and grabbed it for you anyway,” Rumcake replied. I stopped his line of questioning by planting a kiss right on his lips. “You know what? I don’t care anymore,” he happily mumbled after I broke contact.

I grinned and went back to my meal. “Thought so.”

“Today’s a good day.”

Considering a lot of things, today sure was relatively good. “Well, I didn’t die, I got one more awesome bobblehead”—I shook the bobblehead gently, causing the mare’s head to wobble comically—“and I’m back with you. Everything’s comin’ up, Frosty.”

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Mysterious Power – When using this skill, all your stats are multiplied by a factor of 1.3 and your resistances are doubled. But at what cost?
Current Sub-perk: Mysterious Presence – Yeah, he’s still not being useful. You gain +8 to Window Washing.

Author's Note

If you’re reading this text, that means the story has been updated and this is the new and correct version.

Got a question? Ask Frosty!

Chapter 18: You callin' me stupid, punk?

Chapter 18: You callin’ me stupid, punk?

“I'm just glad I haven't been replaced by a bucket of turnips.”

We finished eating and went to find Violet, partly because I didn’t trust anypony else with my stuff and… well, I just didn’t trust anypony with my stuff. Based on Violet’s personality and mannerisms, I was already fearing for the safety of my trusty anti-machine rifle. Rumcake elected to stay behind, claiming he had “clerical responsibilities” to attend to before escaping my line of sight. Without anywhere else to store things, I stored my brand new bobblehead underneath a wing.

I heard the scratching of multiple quills and flipping of pages before I was halfway up the ladder. Based on the excited mutterings of the two ponies causing the parchment-based noise, it seemed like Tangerine and Violet were having a great time in each other’s company.

“…and if we work under the assumption that the Ministry of Wartime Technologies didn’t alter the specifications of the spell matrix in the government publication, then it all comes down to the simple task of isolating the cubic-stack pentagram system from the armor’s spell matrix and copying it over to the old repair talisman,” I heard one of them tell the other.

“That’s impossible!” Tangerine groaned. “I’m barely capable of advanced field repair as it is, never mind our lack of detailed instructions.”

More shuffling of paper. “I don’t need instructions. I have science,” Violet asserted, moving around several books at once with a heavy thump. “Besides, who said you would be doing the magic work, anyway?”

Poking my head over the lip of Violet’s flat, I noticed that a large space had been cleared out and had subsequently been flooded with scrolls, bits of paper, and open books. Somewhere in the midst of all the chaos, the two unicorns were still immersed in whatever they were doing and hadn’t noticed me yet. Tangerine had her hood down and was face-first in a torso-sized tome while levitating a notebook at hoof. Part of her was covered by a fallen stack of paperback books, but she didn’t appear to care. Violet was surrounded by several floating volumes while also writing in a well-worn book. To my extreme annoyance, she was still using my feather as a quill.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tangerine shot back. A corner of very familiar battered cloth caught my eye from beneath several scrolls in various states of stowage. With as much caution as possible, I attempted to slide my bag out from underneath all the things on top of it. “Are you suggesting that I’m a magical featherwe—aah!” The hovering notebook faltered as I knocked over several more books and scrolls in the process.

She exasperatedly exhaled and snapped, “Bloody hell, Frosty. You scared the living daylights out of me.”

Violet hadn’t reacted at all. “That’s why. I sensed her coming five minutes ago.” She turned her attention to me, looking up from her multitude of orbiting books. “Speaking of which…” My right hoof was roughly yanked into the air by a hazel magic field. “Now hold still while I look something up real fast.” I tried my best to withdraw my hoof, but Violet’s telekinetic grip was simply too strong.

After finding out that no amount of struggling wouldn’t get me anywhere, I had nothing better to do other than observe. Tangerine had gone back to her book, and Violet was keeping me in place while looking through the book that she’d been writing in previously. On the topic of books, it might have been orange or purple at one point, but the many multicolored patchwork repairs made it hard to tell what color it actually was. Besides the owner’s name scrawled on the front, the original title was barely readable.

“The Omniarcanus?” I read out loud. “What’s that mean?”

“It’s probably too complicated for you. However, I do have to thank you for finding it for me again! I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t brought it back for me.” Violet indifferently continued to flip through pages, many of which were of different sizes and shades. Much like the book they were contained in, a few of them didn’t appear to be part of the original text.

“Here it is. Hold still.” She closed her eyes and charged her horn with magic.

Even though I couldn’t go very far, I still leaned back and braced myself for what was coming. “Well, I don’t really have a choice,” I muttered. Just in case, I protectively placed my claw over my happy bits.

Whatever spell Violet had used last time still creeped me out just enough to put me on edge. There was a flash, a sudden full-body tickling sensation, and then it stopped. I prepared myself for the inevitable tentacley things that were about to touch me, but they never came. When I opened my eyes again, Violet was writing in a different page of her book.

I didn’t want to press my luck finding out what had been done to me this time, so I simply asked, “That’s it?”

A response might have been asking too much. Violet was furiously scratching away at a page with my feather-quill, an excited look plastered on her face. Whatever had happened, it was probably good.

“Oh, that’s all for now. You can go.” She continued to write away. “Fascinating.”

Without missing a beat, she went back to conversing with Tangerine. “Did you know that pegasi have their own unique magic fields? Fields that have the ability to retain unicorn magic?”

“Really? I thought—” Tangerine paused. “Hold on, what?”

“As observed by a Professor Skim Reader, pegasi have limited weather-related magic abilities, unlike a unicorn’s potential all-encompassing magical skill,” Violet explained, completely ignoring my presence. “But it appears that extended contact with unicorn magic makes a pegasus’s latent magic more pronounced, yet no more powerful. However, your dear little Frosty here has a really strange magic signature that I don’t recognize. I’m just going to assume it’s a decaying mix of both of our magic signatures since that’s the only way it makes sense.”

Magic fields? Signatures? What? Apparently Tangerine had a better grasp on what it was than I did. “That’s cool and all, but what does that have to do with repairing a repair talisman?”

“Nothing. Let’s get back to that.”

I blankly stared at them. “I don’t get any of this,” I whimpered, completely lost and confused.

Escape, Frosty! Escape before I get more confused!

Great idea, brain. What a bunch of nerds. In the meantime, I fished out my bag and started checking the contents to make sure everything was more or less where I left it. Since I probably couldn’t get a word in edgewise, I would just have to hope nothing had been messed with too much. At least I got Dad’s hat back, which I immediately plopped onto my head.

Both unicorns gave me a condescending look, almost as if they pitied my lack of intelligence. “I really didn’t expect you to understand much more than point and shoot,” Violet stated with a little snicker.

I didn’t really care about this conversation since it wasn’t being productive anymore. By an unspoken agreement, the unicorns went back to their fancy smart things and I went back to checking my bag. Over by one of the support beams, I spied my anti-machine rifle doing its best scroll rack impression. Once the rolls of parchment had been relocated, I field-stripped my rifle and shoved the parts into their convenient compartments on the inside of my saddlebag. Now all I needed was my armor…

I retreated down the ladder before the concentration of technological jargon in the immediate vicinity overloaded my brain. Without really thinking about it, I decided to go find Rumcake. Maybe he knew where my armor was. Before I forgot about it, I carefully tucked my little white gem addict bobblehead into the safest spot in my bag.

Once again, Sparkle and Rumcake were standing next to their armor at one of the many workbenches conveniently placed nearby. I say “standing” because even though their much more repaired-looking armor lay against the workbench, they weren’t really doing anything except staring at something I couldn’t see on top of the bench itself.

“Hey guys! What’re we all staring at?” I cheerfully asked, coming up behind them. I squeezed my way between the two of them.

Well, I found where my armor went. Somepony, presumably Sparkle judging by the screwdriver still clenched between her teeth, had taken it apart down to the bare armored plates and bolts. With the barest hint of rage coloring my voice, I quietly stated the obvious.

“You took apart my armor.”

Rumcake sidled away from me ever so slightly. “It was Sparkle’s idea.”

My first instinct to attack her came out of nowhere, but I held myself back thanks to the sheer shock of it all. I was better than a mindless destruction machine. Calmly, I turned to Sparkle. “Was it?” I asked, even softer yet still managing to maintain an air of menace.

“Uh…er— I ‘ean, uh,” Sparkle stammered around the screwdriver. “—‘aybe?”

My hoof met my face with a barely audible groan. “Please, please tell me you remember how to put it back together. I don’t have that many spares stored and I’d like to have my current armor as intact as possible.”

Sparkle stared at the neatly arranged piles of metal plates and other armor-related parts. She dropped the screwdriver and sheepishly squeaked, “I might need to take a look at one of your extras.”

Wordlessly, I reached into my bag and dropped an impossibly neatly folded suit of Enclave Power Armor in front of her. “I’m not even going to ask why you even needed to take it apart.” All it took was an angry glare to make her immediately get to work.

“If you’re done threatening Sparkle, I think we might need to have a talk,” Rumcake mentioned, poking my side. “In private.”

I had a bad feeling about this, mostly because he sounded much more serious than usual. Bad feeling aside, I followed him over to the wall and braced myself for anything.

We stared at each other for several indeterminate seconds.

“This is the part where you tell me why you’re doing this,” I said.

Rumcake opened his mouth, but continued to blankly stare.

“Hello?” I waved my hoof at his face.

Finally, he answered. “I forgot what I was going to say.” I facehoofed again. “Wait, wait I remember now—we trust each other, right?”

I cocked my head. That went without saying, didn’t it? But if he had to ask, then what was wrong? “Yeah, of course. I trust you,” I replied, puzzled. “If the time called for it, I’d put myself on the line to protect you.”

“And I would too, basically.” Rumcake sighed. “But the problem is… if you trust me so much, why do you insist on running off on your own and getting yourself killed? I do love you, Frosty. You know that, right? I just can’t bear the thought of losing you any more than I already have.”

It was my turn to stare with my mouth open. I couldn’t blame convenience, since backup would have been helpful.

“Every time I’ve left you alone, bad things have happened.”

I could only blame time, but that seemed like a feeble excuse out of context.

After attempting to rack my mind for any other excuses to little avail, I sighed and hung my head in shame.

“I’m sorry.” As much as I hated it, he was right. I was taking too many unnecessary risks, and for what? In hindsight, my reckless abandon was probably going to get me killed even before my deadline arrived.

I looked back up at him. “I probably should have waited, but I just couldn’t!”

“Why?” he simply replied.

I wanted to tell him everything, my deal with Death, how I only had less than a month left to live, and how fractured my psyche really was, but I didn’t want him to worry about it. Speaking of fractured, Raider had other plans for the direction of this conversation.

“But the killing leaves so little time for the waiting!” she fanatically cackled.

Rumcake backhoofed me across my face, snapping me back into control. “Ow,” I grumbled, rubbing my cheek. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” I probably deserved that.

“Did you know your pupils do a weird creepy twitchy thing when you stop being, well, you?” Rumcake told me, now staring directly into my eyes. “It’s actually kinda disturbing.”

For a moment, I couldn’t figure out how he’d noticed my deteriorating mind since he hadn’t really been around for some of my best freakouts. Sure, he’d been around for a few of them, but they weren’t that noticeable, were they?

“Wait… Tangerine told you everything, didn’t she?” Yeah, that made more sense.

“Sparkle too. From what they’ve told me, you’re not in good shape,” Rumcake admitted. “Apparently you’ve created a few different personalities or something? Care to enlighten me?” He glared at me expectantly, eyebrow raised.

Well, there was no more avoiding this particular conversation then. With a defeated sigh, I prepared to launch into a full explanation. I pulled out the earliest, most severe example that I could remember that Rumcake had been present for. “Remember that time in the tunnels under Happy Hills?” He nodded. “And you remember how I was being all creepy and violent?”

“Yeah… Instant said she had a hunch, but I don’t think she ever followed up,” Rumcake realized. “Hard to forget that time though. Never again will anypony get the jump on me.”

Oh right. I’d never gotten the explanation behind that.

“That was the violent one in control. I—she has this thing for excessive brutality and gore. I’ve also got one that basically acts like my logical thinking or something and another one that’s usually playful and stuff.”

So that was Raider, Gala, and Filly Frosties accounted for. “The other ones aren’t nearly as important.” No need to cover Drunky and Ice Storm just yet, and especially Officer. I had a pretty good feeling that he wasn’t part of my mind at all.

Just by Rumcake’s head angle, I could tell he was trying to process all of the things I’d just told him. “Is it possible to talk to the logic one?” he finally asked.

I flattened my ears against my head. “You callin’ me stupid, punk?”

“Uhh… I think you’re smarter than you look?”

“Not helping.”

“Sorry, you just blew my mind so hard that I can’t words.”

I allowed myself an empty chuckle. “I really don’t know if I can arbitrarily switch between each of my personalities.” A good portion of the problem was that I had no idea how I would go about doing it in the first place. Usually Gala did her own thing instead of waiting on my every beck and call.

“Most of the time they just kinda—hngrrk!” I was suddenly struck by an inexplicable feeling of vertigo which caused me to stop in mid-sentence.

On their own accord, my hooves raised to my face. (Claw and hoof, whatever.)

“Now that our life isn’t in danger, I finally have a chance to remark that this is excessively strange,” Gala Frosty flatly stated, testing my claw with a few flexes. “And why does your body feel so dirty and stressed?” She partly groaned at me, stretching our wings and legs.

“Uh, Frosty?” Rumcake looked very confused as he stared at me with questioning eyes. “Is… are…” He cocked his head. “You’re not normal Frosty, are you?”

If there was an award for stupid questions, Rumcake had just won it. Gala pouted at him. “Well, if you prefer boring old Frosty, fine by me. I thought you wanted to talk to me, sheesh.” She casually flipped my mane and let out a dramatic sigh.

Just as theatrically, Rumcake grabbed my shoulder. “Wait! I have questions!”

“I thought so.” Gala smirked. “Ask, and you shall possibly receive.”

For some reason, his first question was, “Does this mean making out with you doesn’t count as cheating?”

Both of me blankly stared at him. Really?

“What? It’s a valid question.” Colts will be colts, I guess.

As if telling a secret, Gala whispered, “You do realize that your Frosty can see and hear you, right?”

Rumcake immediately blanched, though I did feel a little bad for him.

I’ll let it slide… this time.

I felt our lips tug into a grin. “Smooth moves, Coltanova. Good thing Frosty’s willing to let it go this time. Next question.”

I could tell he was really thinking about it carefully this time. After much tapping and hmm’ing, Rumcake eventually came up with a question. “If you’re Frosty’s smart bits, does that mean that you know more than she does?”

Actually, I wanted to know the answer to that one too.

We sat down on the ground and leaned against the wall. “Well, that’s complicated. All of us share the same consciousness, sort of, but I think we might have access to different parts of our mind,” Gala explained, even getting my attention.

“Thing is, I haven’t really tried since—” I mentally warned her about telling Rumcake about Officer Frosty. Whatever he or she was, I didn’t want to say anything about it. “—well, I just haven’t really tried,” she lamely finished.

“So does this mean you know about Frosty’s missing memories and stuff?” he immediately asked.

If only it were that easy.

Gala tapped our chin thoughtfully. “There are things missing from our collective memory, but I might be able to find something. That is, if the rest of Frosty’s okay with it.” She didn’t really wait for an answer. “Hold on, be right back.”

I found myself sliding face-first into the ground, since I wasn’t ready for having control of my body back. Thanks to my great reaction time, I sat back up before I kissed concrete. “Woah, a little warning would have been nice,” I growled to myself.

“Wait, you can switch at any time you want?” he actually sounded amazed.

I had to think about that for a moment. I used to be able to only switch at certain times, but now… “Well, the others choose when to show up and when they want to say something, but I can’t really force one of them to take control. They just, you know, kinda do their own thing.”

Rumcake looked a bit disappointed. He dragged his hoof across the floor as we sat in abject silence. “Sooo… what’s the word on smarty hooves?”

“Huh?” I looked up from the wing I was idly preening. After I’d essentially told myself I was an untidy mess, I planned to do something about it immediately.

“The smart one. Anything?”

Oh. That’s what he was talking about. “I have no idea. Usually they—”

Right on cue, I was no longer in control of myself. “Boop!” Filly Frosty reached out and bopped Rumcake on the nose. She happily giggled as he sat there, looking confused as all hell.

“Wha—”

“Boop!” Filly Frosty poked Rumcake’s nose again. “You’re silly.” She laughed, poking his nose again.

Obviously, my sudden change in attitude caught Rumcake by surprise. “O-kaaay. I wasn’t really expecting—”

“BOOP!” More giggling.

Rumcake rubbed his nose. “—that. Frosty? I need you t—”

“Boop!”

“—to stop.”

“Honk.” Filly Frosty changed tactics, choosing to squeeze Rumcake’s nose instead.

“Stop.” Another honk. “STOP. Frosty, what are you doing?” Followed by another boop, which Rumcake barely dodged. “Frosty, stop!”

Against Filly’s wishes for one more well-deserved booping, I pushed her into the recesses of my mind. “Ugh, sorry. I think the rest of me is just itching to speak to you directly now that you’ve asked the question.”

I sighed. Switching back and forth so much in such a short period of time was actually giving me a slight headache. “And if you need to know, that was my foalish personality. Why I have one, I have no idea.”

The migraine prodding at the base of my brain decided to crank it up a notch. “Hi! I’m back. Good news, I found some information. Bad news, this might be bad news for some of us here.” Gala burst out of my mind as if she had just returned from somewhere.

“Nnghh… what does that mean, exactly?” I groaned, pushing myself out over Gala’s influence.

“Shush. The only things I managed to pull out were basic information, but you might find this useful: about five or so years back, Frosty’s parents had a falling out. Frosty sided with Dad, and Summer Breeze; my—her sister sided with Mom. Long story short, her parents don’t—didn’t speak much after that, but Summer and I still stayed in good relations.”

I couldn’t really explain it, but it was like I could actually feel holes in my memory filling in. Dad found out that Mom had been cheating on him while he’d been on deployment, and after that their marital situation had declined.

“We agreed that each of us would make sure that Mom and Dad would be okay. I went with Dad, since I took after him more than Mom.” I managed to croak, tears threatening to assault my vision.

Gala wiped a stray tear from our eye and sniffled. “There’s a good part to this—Mom insisted that Summer transfer out of the task force Dad was in and find a different one to squad up with.” My heart soared. That meant Summer was definitely still alive somewhere! Hopefully, she’d dodged the purging of Recon Force Blizzard. “Though that information is, uh, classified.”

I leaned forward and grabbed Rumcake, pulling him into a tight hug. There were no words for the relief that I was feeling. I simply buried my face into his fuzzy shoulder and cried tears of joy, sadness, and regret. For the first time in a long while, I let everything out. The impact of all my actions finally caught up to me—the kill team, all of the senseless, needless murder. I cried for all of them, every single one that I’d killed in cold blood. I cried for what I’d lost and all the pain I’d caused.

“Shh…” Rumcake stroked my mane. “I’m here for you.” All this talk about family was making me all sad and nostalgic, and his body was so strong and warm…

“But could you loosen your grip a bit? I can feel your talons digging into my back.” I muttered an apology between sniffles and shifted the hold I had on his back.

My throat ached from choking back sobs. “Why do you love me?” I felt his muscles tense under my cheek. “What makes me so special?”

The hoof on the back of my head paused as well. “Would you be mad if I said your body?” Rumcake whispered back.

I wasn’t sure whether to be mad at all. From what everypony always said, I wasn’t particularly surprised. In fact, I was more surprised that he was either bold enough to say it directly to me or telling me the truth. Sure, I would have liked to hear something like “oh, I love you for your strong conviction” or “your personality is what makes you sexy”, but I really did lack both of those things. I’d settle for just sexy.

Funnily enough, Rumcake’s heart rate escalated slightly. I listened to him breathe as he expected me to answer. When I didn’t, he finally asked “Are you mad at me?” He took my extended silence as a bad sign. “I feel like I’ve chosen poorly.”

I pulled away with a sigh. “No, I’m not mad. I guess I really just don’t have other redeemable qualities.”

Personality was right out—I had too many of them. I wasn’t graceful at all, especially in the air. Smart? I barely got through basic, let alone actual education-like courses. Sure, I knew what I was doing most of the time, but that was about it.

“Doesn’t help that I’m crazy as shit.”

Clattering and clanking brought my moping to a standstill. Doc was standing close by, still just as grimy and still armed to the teeth. “Paladin? I need a word, if you would. In private.”

Rumcake gave me a worried glance. “Looks like Doc needs something. Are you going to be alright on your own for the moment?”

I nodded. Well, I guess I should probably get something done instead of feeling bad for myself.

“Alright. Love ya.” He gave me a quick kiss on the head for good luck and then trotted off with Doc.

I, on the other hoof, decided that leaving two unicorns alone with nearly literal tons of pre-war information was a recipe for disaster. That was my excuse for storming over there and enthusiastically asking Violet whether she’d done anything to my gun while I was recuperating.

Something seemed to be happening by the town center, so that immediately took higher priority. I pushed my way through the small gathering to find out that the two unicorns I was looking for were making a scene. Violet, wearing her tattered scribe robe, stood next to a worried-looking Tangerine, wearing a robe in much better condition, backed up by an unarmored Sparkle.

“What are we watching?” I whispered sidelong to the dusty brownish stallion standing next to me.

After seeming to consider his answer, he finally replied, “I think it’s some kind of magic show. I dunno.”

The two unicorns proceeded to delicately take apart Rumcake’s slightly battered armor to get to the internals. I strolled over to Sparkle and away from the pair of unicorns, since I didn’t want to distract them from their very delicate task. I mean, they were floating around little lines and circles and things! Whatever they were doing, it was definitely too advanced for my own good.

Sparkle wasn’t exactly very happy as she snapped one of my armor’s shoulder plates back into position a bit harder than necessary. “So, how goes things?” I asked, peering over her shoulder.

She checked the fully intact suit of power armor that I’d helpfully supplied and fished out several large short flat bolts from the small pile she’d collected. “Eh.” Sparkle grunted in annoyance as she picked up the opposite shoulder plate and bolted into place as well. At least I’d be armored up by the end of the day, judging by her progress.

“It could be worse.” The moment those words left my lips, the entire room suddenly dipped into darkness. “What the b—”

It looked like we weren’t allowed to see anything, courtesy of the two unicorns in the room. All the light in the room was being sucked into one spot, courtesy of a certain brown-tinted mare. I also found out I could see in the dark—as in, I could see a whole lot of dark.

Save for the pale orange glow that was being overshadowed by an intense hazel light emanating from Violet’s horn, barely anything was illuminated at all. The parts of my mind that were still working insisted that this much light should have lit up the entire area, but I stopped listening to them a long time ago. Suddenly, a myriad of rainbow-colored circles, lines, rune-ish things, and a whole lot of other stuff erupted out of a small colorful gem suspended in an orange field.

Just as suddenly, another dark red gem floated up and exploded into cracked and fragmented red circles, lines, rune-ish things, and a lot of other broken-looking stuff. Slowly and carefully, Violet swept away the worst of the damage from the red squiggles. A large section of rainbow circle-things lit up with a bright hazel outline, slowly brightening floating away. The original lines and circles stayed behind, while the hazel outline continued to carefully navigate toward the red stuff.

All of the red things jolted slightly to the left. Both unicorns sharply intook breath at the same time, then Violet glared at Tangerine angrily. “Are you seriously trying to mess this up? If you goof it right now, everything breaks.”

“Sorry, sorry. Lost focus for a second,” Tangerine apologized, shutting her eyes in order to concentrate. “Continue.”

Violet gave Tangerine a warning glance before going back to moving the sparkly hazel outline. Once the outline was replacing a good portion of the shattered red lines, Violet closed her eyes as well. Her already-glowing horn gained another layer of glow and sweat beaded on her brow. The hazel lines and stuff flashed once, then faded away to red. After that, everything went back to normal. All the magic stuff coming out of the gems whizzed back into their respective rocks, the lights went back to normal, and Violet flopped onto her haunches.

“And it should be working,” Violet panted. She wiped the sweat off her face with the edge of her robe’s hood as Tangerine slotted the gems back into the armor in front of her. “Go try it.”

A bright red laser appeared out of nowhere, then came to rest on the armor. The report of a sniper rifle rang out, followed by a small hole being punched in the neck plating. Very slowly, the steel around the hole melded together and reformed so that it was like nothing had happened.

“It buckin’ works! Now y’all gonna stop buckin’ with th’ lights now?” Airhead yelled from his flat. “Y’all have no respect.”

“Hey! No shooting in residential!” Boss yelled from the distance. “Keep your bullets to yourself!”

Rumcake sauntered back over with a pair of weird little orange biohazard-marked pouches slung around his neck. “Hey, did you guys know that this place has a working long-range radio? Because I just got off the radio with base, and we’ve got a new mission directive. Well, it’s more like an optional objective. Everypony ready to roll?” he asked, looking around at our conveniently assembled group. He nudged his power armor on the ground. “And is this fixed yet?”

Violet proudly stood next to it. “I’ve patched up the repair talisman, but without more power and information I can’t do a perfect fix.” As amazing of a job she’d done, she didn’t look pleased with her work. “It’s still going to work, but the repair rate has been severely hampered.”

“But it works, right?” Rumcake asked again.

“Yeah, I guess,” Violet glumly agreed.

Rumcake smiled warmly. “That’s what counts. And I can’t think of any other unicorns that have the ability to repair talismans like that.” Even Tangerine agreed with a wry smile. “So in my book, you did a damn fine job. Sparkle?”

The very annoyed Ranger snorted. “Fine, fine. I’ll admit you’re skilled,” Sparkle grudgingly agreed. She shoved the last few bolts into my armor’s leg plates. “And I guess you did a good job.”

Then it was Tangerine’s turn. “They’re right. You’re smart, you’re skilled, and the Rangers need mares like you.” She smiled hopefully. “Maybe you can teach us a thing or two from that book of yours.”

Violet stayed silent, considering her options. “I don’t know…” She nervously shifted on her hooves. “Mom left the Rangers for a reason, and nopony looks at my book. Nopony but me.” With newfound confidence, she glared at everypony gathered. “And if anypony touches my stuff without my knowledge, it will be the last thing you do.”

The tension in the air could have been sliced with my claw. “O-kay… don’t touch the book. So now that all that’s out of the way, let’s get down to business. Uh, what’s the op?” I asked, very unsure whether Violet could actually kill me with a book and very anxious to change the subject. From what she’d just demonstrated, her claim wasn’t too far-fetched.

We held a moment of silence for our collectively lost time. In the meantime, Rumcake picked up his helmet and secured it on his head. “One of our scouts found intel on an unopened stable a few klicks away. With luck, we should be the first in. After that, it’s off to Bucklyn Cross for a quick checkup.” He stomped his hooves into the armor’s boots, then paused. “Damn it, these are the rear ones.”

I glanced at my armor as well. “Might as well get this stuff on if we’re leaving.”

The chestplate was closer, so I dipped my head down and threaded my head through the neck hole. When I raised my head, I realized the entire thing was on upside down. Even if I wasn’t normally rated for power armor, why didn’t I know how to put this on by now? I struggled with trying to flip the armored collar piece around as I mulled this over.

Finally, I gave up and asked, “Somepony help me with this.”

The two other ponies in attendance stared at us. “You know what, I think you two make a great couple,” Tangerine piped up, then glanced at Sparkle. “Look at them bumble around like it’s their first suiting-up.”

I was still having trouble getting the chestplate around my neck to spin around while Rumcake had finally gotten his boots on right.

Sparkle snorted. “You’re right, that is kinda adorable. They do match, after all. You help Frosty, since she’s having a load of trouble.” She stomped over to her own suit. “I’ll help Rumcake if he needs it.”

We spent the next hour or so making sure everything was prepared for the journey. Armor was re-equipped, rations were acquired, and bullets were purchased. Everything needed to be bought before we left — including dinner, since we weren’t coming back anytime soon. A few shopkeepers and locals were somewhat dismayed by the news, but Boss took it worse than anypony else.

“It’s a shame to see you go, but remember—I, for one, welcome our new pegasus overlords,” went his exact words. Of course I doubted that event since we—the Enclave—kept postponing the fabled return to the surface.

Speaking of the Enclave, Airhead also wanted to talk to me. I was on my way back from a last-second munchie restock when he stopped me. “Heard y’all are haulin’ ass outta here.”

I regarded him with guarded suspicion. “You might have heard correctly.”

For once, his confident facade cracked. “From what Ah’ve seen, ya still got’cher cutie mark. An’ that means ya can get back into the grand bucking vagina fortress in the sky.”

That brought questions to my mind, questions that I’d rather not answer to myself. I chose my next words carefully, guarding my tone. “Maybe. Why?” For a sniper, I was kinda expecting him to be more dodgy and less direct. Heh, stereotyping.

Airhead nervously chewed his lip, which was really the only part of him that I could pull any ideas of his body language from since only his muzzle protruded from his balaclava. “Y’all got family left? Up there, Ah mean?”

After my heart-wrenching epiphany earlier, I really didn’t want to talk about family. “Get to the point, asswipe,” I snarled,

“Who put a sack of dicks in your lunch? Sheesh, y’all gotta calm down.” Airhead sighed. “Ah got my fiance up there, an’ all she knows is that Ah betrayed the Enclave an’ got executed.” He stared off into the distance. “Her name’s Cy, by the way,” he added. “For Cyclone, or somethin’ like that.”

Well, his motives were obvious. “And you want me to tell her that you’re still alive and well, I assume?”

Airhead was taken aback. “An’ why the hell would ah do that? No, Ah need you to go tell her she’s a goddesses-damned bitch.” And with that, he unfurled his poorly-camo’d wings and flew off. What the balls did I just agree to?

We gathered outside Perma once everypony was ready. “Since you’re traveling with us now, you’ll need this.” Rumcake came up from behind me and clipped something to my right shoulder.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a little rubber antenna extending from a small device attached to my right pauldron. “It’s a short range two-way radio so we can actually communicate with each other in the field.”

I was about to say something until he held me in place and looped something that snapped in place around my neck. “Since you already have an earbloom, I’ll sync the radio so that it detects this throat mic and your PipBuck’s earbloom as one audio device,” Tangerine explained, pulling out her little device that I’d seen before.

This probably made for the most useful thing Rumcake had ever given me. “Aww, this is such a nice gift!” I cooed. “Better than roses and chocolates any day.”

Even though both of us were armored up and he had his helmet on, I still tried to tackle him into a hug. Unfortunately, with armor, he was heavy enough so that I bounced off his body.

“Woah there, toots. It’s just a freakin’ radio. Chill.” Sparkle rolled her eyes. I stuck my tongue out and blew a raspberry at her. She was just jealous.

The five of us (me, Rumcake, Sparkle, Tangerine, and Violet) started down the road, Rumcake in the lead. Our target destination was less than a days’ worth of travel to the west. It could be less, but not everypony with us had wings like I did. Ergo, we were all stuck walking. Periodically Rumcake would send me out to scout out the path ahead, but that got boring and repetitive when there wasn’t anything trying to kill us. I did, however, get a great view of dull brown wasteland and dead shrubbery.

A few hours before sunset, I was sent out on patrol one last time to make sure our location of camp was secure. Contrary to popular belief, the Wasteland at sunset was depressing as heck. There was no fabled reddish glow, no actual sun, though I will admit the cloud cover did turn a nice shade of purple sometimes.

Eight moving dots north of our position stopped my train of thought. I brought my rifle to bear and used its magic scope to get a good look at them. Only three of the eight were armed with guns, since the other five were marching in a straight line and shackled together. Each of the five had little black bands around their necks. A slave train? Uh oh.

I swooped back down to the ground where everypony else was idly chatting and standing around. “Guys, we might have a moral problem.”

Of course saying that would get their attention. “But does that mean that we can set up camp soon? I’ve got my eye on a run-down diner over there, and my hooves hurt from walking,” Violet whined.

“What did you find, exactly?” Rumcake asked, completely ignoring the previous statement. I brought him up to speed on what I’d seen. After he’d heard what I needed to tell him, he stayed silent. Presumably, he was deliberating on whether or not to do anything about the slaves, but he could be thinking about anything under that helmet.

I felt like I had to give my own input on the situation. “As much as I’d like to save them, I don’t know what we’d do with five civilians in our current objective. We can’t bring them with us, nevertheless send them somewhere without an escort.”

“Did any of them have energy weapons?” Rumcake brightly asked. I shot him a dirty look and he simply replied, “What? I have priorities.”

On that thought, I wasn’t really sure if they had any energy weapons. With the low light conditions and just me being a little tired, I wasn’t really sure. “Maybe? I mean, it’s a possibility. I don’t think it’s really worth it.”

A pebble bounced off the side of my head. “No, buck you! We rescue them. Anything is better than being a slave in the Wasteland,” Sparkle retorted, completely and pointedly ignoring Rumcake’s questionable priorities. Maybe she had a slightly valid point. Even my short time in captivity was terrible.

“Last time I checked, dead wasn’t any better,” I spat, adjusting Dad’s hat on my head. Inside, I really wanted to rescue them too.

Violet spoke up. “Wait a sec, anypony here have any bomb disposal training?” We all looked at each other, hoping somepony would either raise a hoof or ask why. When nopony said or did anything, she followed up with, “So I take it none of you have any idea about the bomb collars then?” I cocked my head and nearly opened my mouth to ask exactly how stupid she was. “Just by Frosty’s dumb expression, I can hazard a guess all of you forgot about those.”

Oh right, she hadn’t been around for my bomb collar days.

Still, insults demanded retaliation! “I can defuse an overloaded plasma charge in ten seconds flat,” I lamely shot back. Conveniently enough, defusing or disposing of anything energy-related that was also about to detonate generally involved throwing and getting to a safe distance. “And yes, I did forget about the bomb collars.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t do our best, though. If we can kill the slavers fast enough, they won’t have time to detonate the collars!” Sparkle insisted. “There’s five of us and three of them. We can take ‘em!” She brandished her repaired grenade launcher and stomped her hooves on the ground.

We looked at each other again. We were at an impasse, and it just so happened that Rumcake needed to make the final decision. He looked at me, then to Sparkle.

“If it helps, I don’t really care what we do,” I simply stated, trying to help him along. “As long as we don’t get killed too brutally, I have no problems.” I had no fear, just doubt.

Rumcake stared at me, then Sparkle, then to Tangerine, and finally at Violet. “Yeah, I don’t think we can really be bothered. As shitty of a situation they’re in, I don’t think we’d do much good either. Slavers are usually quick on the draw with those detonators. Let’s just hoof it to that diner that Violet wants to sit in.”

So then that was that. That was a whole lot of potential loot and good karma that was slowly ambling away, but Rumcake was probably right. Fighting them was probably more trouble than they were worth.

Blue smoke wafted past my nose. “Calm down, loot whore. Caps will be caps, and it’s not like you don’t already have enough random crap you’re not using,” Ice drawled. “Besides, you should be keeping an eye out for some fags.”

I turned to my left and raised an eyebrow at my ethereal gun-toting badass. “Excuse me?”

Ice floated out a crumpled carton of cigarettes and shook it at me, its meager contents glumly bouncing against each other. “I’m low on smokes. Get with the lingo already.”

“You did that on purpose,” I accused him, narrowing my eyes at him as well. Like any good cryptic messenger, he gave me an encouraging cocky grin before fading away into blue dust. Funnily enough, this time he left behind wispy hoofprints and a flattened cigarette butt. Wait, had he done that before as well?

I was snapped out of my psychotic reverie by the all-clear signal. “Come on in, the water’s fine,” Sparkle called out to us. “But seriously, the water’s still working. Amazing, huh?” she said on our way in. Working water? Rumcake was in the middle of demonstrating it by eagerly sucking at the slightly rusty tap at the counter. His helmet was off, obviously, and precariously rocked on top of a ruined display case.

The whole time that I had been being angry and insane, the Rangers were securing the diner that we had seen on the road. Over-hydration complete, Rumcake mentioned that he wasn’t happy with the diner due to its small nature and the number of exposed entrances, but it was either that or the probably-infested warehouse farther down the road that I had spotted on a reconnaissance flyover. Me, I was standing on my own across the street and behind an exposed pipe. The two unicorns were on the other side of the pipe quietly discussing various magical things that I still didn’t understand.

The rest of the diner hadn’t fared any better, evidenced by broken tables, chairs and plenty of superficial damage to the walls and floors. The two butterfly-printed medical strongboxes on the walls had both been broken into and their contents stolen long ago. The diner itself was designed somewhat like an oval-shaped dartboard, with the counter being the center ring, followed by chairs, walkway, then more tables. The windows, or the lack thereof, followed those.

“You really didn’t think of being this exposed, did you?” Violet asked, looking out the very same windows I was. “We’ll get sniped if we even sneeze wrong.”

“It was either rest now, or probably get shot at or eaten. Which would you prefer? And it was your idea, too,” I snapped back with a scowl. Outside, darkness was falling. “If you’re going to bitch about it you go and find somewhere else to hunker down for the night.”

The second I saw the determined look in Violet’s eyes, I was actually worried that she’d actually go out there and look. She opened her muzzle to say something, then closed it when Tangerine pulled Violet’s shoulder, hard. “Don’t. It’s been a long day; worse for some more than others.” Tangerine then glared at me. “So quit your fighting and help me with these tables.”

I hovered backward and held up my hooves in surrender. “Fine, fine. What do you need me to do, then? Especially with those tables.”

With a creak and a wrenching noise, one of the window side tables freed itself from its rusty mountings, assisted by an orange aura, and slammed itself against the wall. Tangerine had effectively created a barricade to cover the space where the window was before. “We can cover some of the windows so we have some kind of safety.” She paused for a second in thought. “Actually, Violet is probably better for this. Nevermind.”

The brown mare pranced past me with a smug expression on her face. “Not my fault I’m just plain better.” She smirked, and proceeded to help the others in barricading the windows.

I was feeling useless at the moment, since I wasn’t moving tables or bolting them to the walls. Of course I could have helped, but I wasn’t needed. Thankfully, Rumcake noticed me aimlessly hovering in place before I drove myself crazy trying to figure out what to do with myself.

“Frosty?” My ears perked up to the sound of Rumcake’s voice. “Could you go up and keep watch while we finish this up?”

I saluted. “Aye aye, captain.” With that, I hopped out of the diner via the hole in the roof and perched myself on top. As the darkness continued to fall, being able to actually see was about to become a problem. Still, I kept my eyes open for any possible threats to us. Being up on watch also gave me time alone to myself, which I was starting to find somewhat annoying.

“Never gets old, does it?” I heard my voice say next to me. I twisted around in surprise. Light fabric swished in the breeze as a very familiar set of teal hooves gently touched down on the metal roof beside me.

Begrudgingly, I answered Gala Frosty. I didn’t even want to begin thinking how this was possible at all. How was she out here, in the real world? “Nope.” I sighed, continuing to apathetically stare out into the wastes.

“Kinda makes you wanna…”

“—Break into song?” I finished, studying her suspiciously neater appearance. If only I took time out of my day to comb my mane to a lustrous sheen and don spotless fancy clothing tailored perfectly to my figure. Oh well.

And just in time, Filly poked her head out from under Gala’s dress. “Yup! Everypony sing it with me…”

I slammed my claw against the roof’s weathered steel plates. Too late, I realized there were other ponies below me probably wondering what had just happened. “No. Just no,” I flatly stated, keeping my voice as low as possible. “I know the bucking song, and the last thing I need is that tiny little part of it endlessly looping in my head while I’m trying to sleep tonight.”

Just like any self-respecting foal, Filly looked me right in the eyes and began to hum the tune just loudly enough so I could hear it. At least she squeaked and dove back under Gala Frosty’s dress when I snarled menacingly at both of them.

“Everything okay up there?” Rumcake called out.

Right, I’d made a bunch of noise earlier by stomping on the roof. “Yeah! I, uh, fell down some stairs,” I blatantly lied. Quickly, I scanned the terrain around the diner we were fortifying for threats. “But it looks all clear from up here.”

There was a loud clatter from below. “Great, great. Ow!”

“Sorry, didn’t see ya there,” Sparkle apologized.

“You hit me with a chair!”

“Sorry!”

I had to facehoof at their antics. It was hard to believe that these were the soldiers I was trusting my life with. “Sounds like you four are having a harder time down there. Need a hoof?” I jokingly called down to them. Well, they were the idiots I trusted the most in this dark, grim wasteland. Especially my Rumcake.

A small dark blur scampered across the landscape and disappeared behind the remains of a fenced-off giant blank billboard. Hm. It was probably just a radhog or radscorpion, but it was too dark to see anything anymore. I decided to trust my judgement on this one and decide it could probably have been a radhog looking for food.

“So what’re you two here for?” I asked my two imaginary counterparts, without looking away from the wasteland.

Gala gave me a puzzled look. “Whatcha mean? Something wrong with enjoying the view?”

By the way she grinned at me, she knew I knew that couldn’t have been the reason. Filly was nowhere to be found, probably and hopefully she had gone back to the confines of my mind. But this was still a problem: first Ice Storm, now these two were here. Calling this a problem was going to be an understatement. Keep it together, Frosty. No going full-blown insane until I die.

“You know what I’m talking about,” I shot back, all the while watching the other dark dot stumbling its way across the last rays of light. It was nowhere near us and it wasn’t getting any closer, so I ignored it as a threat. “You shouldn’t be here.”

I could tell that Gala was smirking at me because I suddenly felt the need to laugh. “What? I’m not allowed to come out and stretch my wings?” She giggled, brushing the underside of my chin with the tip of her wing. The way the feather actually tickled me meant that I couldn’t have been hallucinating. Right?

I looked around and sighed. Without any better lighting or night vision, there was no way I was going to see anything. Granted, my vision was good, but complete darkness was where I started being useless. In addition, Gala had conveniently disappeared back to my frazzled mind when I had turned around. Well, I guess she didn’t want to wait for me to come up with a snarky response.

As it turned out, talking to Gala barely killed half an hour. That left me with the dreary, boring, very uneventful wasteland to stare at. Just to stave off boredom, I kept alternating between scanning the surroundings and neatly organizing my caps into stacks.

The clatter of metal on metal caused me to involuntarily twitch in surprise. I whipped around to find that a makeshift ladder had been erected so that everypony that didn’t have wings could also access the roof. “Group meeting. Your coltfriend demands it,” Violet droned, poking her head out.

The interior of the diner had dramatically changed in my absence. The windows had been barricaded, chairs had been stacked against the aforementioned barricades, and obviously the ladder had been added as well. All of the Rangers, Violet included, had set up their sleeping bags and cots behind the round counter where they would be the most protected. I realized that there wasn’t any space for me behind the counter since all the available space was taken up by all the other ponies’ stuff.

“Before we start the meeting, may I ask where I’m going to sleep?” I asked in a slightly annoyed tone. All I did was keep watch for—I checked my Pipbuck, which helpfully told me it was eleven thirty-ish at night—several hours, and suddenly I didn’t have anywhere to sleep. Great. What didn’t help was everypony staring at me.

Rumcake and Sparkle both had their armor stripped down to just the chestplates and weapon mounts. Tangerine had her robes off, for once, and Violet was already sitting on her bedroll reading her book. “Well, you can sleep with me,” Rumcake immediately answered, much faster than anypony anticipated.

Everypony then decided it was a great idea to stare at Rumcake next. “I’m going to guess you were planning that the entire time and leave it at that.” I sighed.

Tangerine clopped her hooves together loudly. “Okay, what are we doing, Commander?”

“Right. As I was going to say, this place is locked down. We’ll stay the night and roll out tomorrow morning when we’re rested. Since I lack the ability to wake up, and I happen to be the highest rank here, I’m taking first watch. Any volunteers for next?”

“Dibs on second,” I piped up, raising my claw in the air.

“Last watch!” Tangerine immediately followed.

A low groan from Sparkle probably meant she didn’t want any of the remaining spots left. Violet, you’re on fourth watch.” When Violet didn’t even look up from her book, Rumcake said in a slightly louder voice, “Violet? Did you hear me?”

There was a pretty good chance the bookworm hadn’t heard us. All we got was a partial head tilt and a half-assed “Hm? Yeah, whatever.” Hopefully Sparkle could get Violet to understand why both of them had to wake up in the middle of the night to stare at absolutely nothing interesting.

“As for our itinerary: we’ve been tasked with investigating an unopened Stable somewhere in the area. Tangerine, you have the coordinates, right?” Rumcake asked, looking to her for confirmation. After receiving a nod from the orange scribe, he continued speaking. “After that, things get a bit sketchy. The good Inquisitor thinks something’s going down at Stable Twenty-Nine, so we’re apparently going to investigate firsthoof. Inquisitor Soufflé isn't one to trust only radio transmissions.” Right after Rumcake started talking about Stables and stuff, I completely stopped paying attention.

“I’m just going to pop out for another fly-around,” I added.

Rumcake pointed his hoof at me. “And there’s where things get dodgy again. Frosty, you’re no longer allowed to go anywhere far without me.”

It was like every nerve ending in my brain melted down. Excuse me? “What?” I blurted, losing balance as my wings flapped out of sync. “Woah!” I fell off the counter I was standing on with an ungraceful dive. Once I regained my footing, I asked, “Wait, wanna run that by me again?”

This time, Rumcake looked me right in the eye. “I’m coming with you. There’s no way I’m going to let you drive yourself into the ground. All you do is do stupid shit and take risks that’ll get you killed.”

“I’m perfectly fine.” I asserted.

“Frosty, you have developed multiple personality disorder, sustained severe mental and physical trauma, and you have a history of drug abuse ever since you got to the surface, not to mention whatever you did above the cloud layer,” Violet helpfully informed everypony. “I’d say fine is the least descriptive word.”

How did she know about that? “Sorry, she got into my notes for like, less than five minutes,” Tangerine apologized. That answered that then.

There wasn’t really much that I could really say against that. “Well…” My retort died on my lips. “I can get better?” I weakly suggested. Of course nopony bought it, but I couldn’t come up with anything better.

Good thing Sparkle came to my rescue by changing the topic. “About Stable Twenty-Nine, what’s got Soufflé’s jimmies all shaken up? Last I checked, that’s Rangers’ territory, right?”

“It is,” Tangerine butted in. “But there’s been rumors of dissent coming from them. By the sounds of it, about a third of the Rangers stationed there are ready to break off.” And I thought Enclave military relations were bad. “Orders from Soufflé are to assess the situation and report back.”

Wow, some real big brother shit going down, huh?

Time to zone out, Frosty.

Agreed.

While they were doing their thing, I had stealthily maneuvered to Rumcake’s bedroll and already gotten my three boots off without incident. Taking the greaves off was an entirely different matter, however. My hooves and armored limbs repeatedly bounced off each other as I attempted to undo the catch on the underside of my right greave with my claw. “Buckin’… why’s this thing stuck?” I muttered to myself.

“That’s because you haven’t cleaned or lubed any of the hinges ever since you got that flying suit,” Rumcake softly whispered into my ear. In response, I playfully whapped his nose with a flick of my ear. “Here, let me help.” His brown hoof reached over and undid the first clasp with ease.

I shook out my freed foreleg as Rumcake went to work on the remaining parts of my armor that I still couldn’t remove on my own. Okay, it was more like I no longer wanted to try just so Rumcake would continue, heh, undressing me. Now only if we had the diner to ourselves, maybe I’d see some action other than getting shot at.

We piled up my discarded armor in a somewhat neat pile beside the bedroll. At the moment, I patiently laid on my stomach and waited for Rumcake to finish unbuckling my wing plates so that I could have a bit more comfort. With them I was armored, but I desperately just wanted to air out my wings. Power armor got a lot more sweaty than I thought it would.

There was a loud pair of clicks from my back. “Ha! Got it,” Rumcake triumphantly pumped his hoof in the air. “But seriously, take a day off to oil this stuff. You have no idea how rusted some of these joints are. The only reason you don’t notice is because your armor makes you strong enough to ignore it.”

Begrudgingly, I nodded. “Fine, I’ll clean it. Eventually.”

Rumcake struggled with trying to take off the rest of my armor, to little success. “Well, I can’t get this one off because the clamp’s just stuck.”

“Oh well.” I sighed. There went my plans for comfort and sexy times. “We’re in a combat zone, so I wasn’t really planning on taking this off anyway.” I hammered the collar of my armor for emphasis.

I felt heavy weight settle on my back. “Mnmh. Hey, make yourself comfortable. I’ll wake you when it’s your turn to keep watch,” Rumcake muttered. The weight lifted as he stomped away.

“Have fun, Cakey.” I gave him an awkward sideways kiss on the cheek for good luck or something. At the time, it seemed like the best fillyfriend move to do. Too bad I hadn’t ever had much practice in that department.

At the top of the ladder, Rumcake said, “Nighty-night, Frosty.” And then in a slightly more hushed tone as he tromped across the roof, “Wait, that’s not a nickname…”

~~~~~

In light of impending death, my brain problems, and the ridiculously lumpy bedspread I was on, I was incredibly surprised at how easily I fell into a dreamless, dark, coma-like state. The last thing I remembered doing while awake was preening my feathers and cooling myself by leaving my wings spread out. When I was rudely poked and prodded back to life, I tucked my head under my right wing and groaned something vaguely threatening.

“C’mon Sweet Cheeks… wake up. It’s your turn,” Rumcake whispered.

I groaned again. “Mnnh… Sw’t Cheeks? That the best you came up with?”

A hoof grabbed the edge of my wing and pulled it up, bringing harsh bright light with it. “I literally spent a few hours on that. Shut up.”

Since I obviously wasn’t going to get back to sleep, I stretched out and hugely yawned. Too bad we didn’t have any insta-ground powdered coffee to start the day with. My mind wandered to the “coffee” mixture that I drank a few days ago and I arbitrarily decided I was a tea sort of pony now. “Greeeh,” was all I managed to say to him.

“Well, good morning to you too, sunshine.” Rumcake’s voice came out tinny and ever-so slightly echo-y because of the lamp he was wearing on his head. Okay, it was actually just his helmet light, but damn was it strong! I kept my eyes closed and draped my right foreleg over my my muzzle to protect myself from the glare. He got the hint and turned it off.

I grabbed Dad’s cap off the ground where it had fallen off my head and gave it a good dust-liberating shake before securing it on my head. “Gimme a minute to grab my sniper cannon.” I yawned, carefully retrieving all the parts of my anti-machine rifle and did my best to put it together in a timely manner while still half-asleep. It turned out a Frosty-minute was along the lines of about three or four minutes, for the record.

With my rifle in hoof, I lazily flew up through the hole and plopped myself behind the raised edge of the roof. Since I couldn’t see in the dark all that well, I opted out for the velocity attachment instead of the scope. A moment later, I was joined by Rumcake.

“Don’t worry, I know how to keep watch,” I assured him.

A snort. “I would hope so.”

“So… what? Can’t sleep?” Yet another dot scampered across the wasteland, shortly followed by another. “Hm. There are a lot of things awake at night,” I observed.

Rumcake sat down next to me. “Yes to both of those.” For some reason, he still had his helmet on. “I was wondering, though. What did you used to do in the Enclave?” he asked, shifting his weight slightly.

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Like, military stuff I guess.”

“Well…” A slightly sensitive topic, but I knew just enough to give him the general overview. “I was part of a reconnaissance team. We’d get missions from higher-up to go check places out. As for as I know, our squad was used as some kind of recovery team or something. I’m not really sure what else we did.”

“So… you just flew around looking at things,” Rumcake incorrectly summarized.

I facewinged. “Not really. If something needs to be cased from anywhere, you call scout teams. Those buckers get good at infiltration and stealth. Otherwise, recon teams usually do all the things in-between. Smash and grabs, stakeouts, sometimes assassinations, that kind of thing.” Or in my case, weird recovery missions. As an afterthought, I added, “You?”

My coltfriend scratched his helmet, stopped, took off his helmet, then actually scratched his head. Ah, one of the many reasons I loved him. “I pretty much assign Paladins to go do things and Knights to go fix things. Periodically, I go out into the field to break the monotony of yelling at Initiates and stuff.”

“Ooo. Fancy big shot over here.” I giggled.

I heard Rumcake quietly laugh under his breath. “About a month and a half ago—maybe a week before I met you—I was out on a patrol with a few Junior Paladins to show them the ropes, stuff like that. We were on our way to clean out an abandoned Stable-Tec building, and we get jumped by a roving band of marauders.”

I took a moment to look away from the wasteland to raise my hooves to my face in mock despair. “Oh no! What did they want?” After I delivered that stunning example of acting, I went back to observing another blob retreating into the distance along the road. Stupid low—er, no light surveillance.

“They wanted our weapons and gear.”

“Mm? Then what?” The dot was practically invisible now. One less thing to worry about, assuming it didn’t come back.

Rumcake chuckled. “I dropped a pie plate on all four of them.”

I blankly stared out at the road. “A what now?”

“Launched a frag round at them before any of my scrubs reacted. Cleaned ‘em right off the cliff before they had time to fire their missile.”

Eh. I had to admit, that was pretty eh of him. “And you became the big hero, right?”

“Of course! Everypony was going on about my epic snapshot for days! Well, that is, until you showed up.” Rumcake sighed, then took out the small orange pouch I’d seen around his neck at one point. He stared at it for a moment, then put it away again.

Most of me wanted to ask what it was, but I didn’t want to give him the impression that I wasn’t keeping watch just because I was good at multitasking. “I wish I could be a hero,” I mumbled. “Though you can keep the rank. I don’t care much about that.”

“Why’s that?”

Now I regretted saying that. If he wanted to know… “You know I’m a sniper. All it takes it the push of a button, a click of a trigger, and whatever I’m pointing at dies. Other ponies tell me what to point at, and I do my job.” Speaking of which, I took aim at a vaguely pony-shaped blob. “I’ve done bad things, Cakey.” I pulled my rifle back once I realized I was about to dematerialize a tumbleweed half-obscured by a crumbling wall. “I’ve learned things about myself that I don’t want to know. Then again, I wasn’t really expecting much less.”

There was silence as both of us simply kept watch. We knew that we were about to run into some really uncomfortably touchy conversation. I could tell him about the food recovery mission that I retrieved from a memory, but I wasn’t sure if I should. Would he also see me as a monster? That little tidbit from my nightmare still broke my heart just enough to hurt.

“I’m no hero, and I never will be. There are things I’ve done, ponies I’ve killed, that I don’t want to talk about. I don’t save ponies. I kill them.” My tears began to blur my vision, compromising the task at hoof. “And it takes much less out of me if I can tell myself I’m following orders,” I confessed, letting out a big sigh. “Doesn’t help that I can’t take responsibility very well either.”

“Frosty…” There was a soft clank as Rumcake’s hoof placed itself on my back.

I tried to casually laugh everything off, but it came out as a half-giggled sob. “For the goddesses’ sake, everything’s changed since I got trapped down here.” Very carefully, I dropped the bipod on my rifle and placed my gun on the ground. I held out my metal prosthetic leg. “I didn’t have this before I got left for dead. I never asked for this.”

Beside me, Rumcake nervously swallowed. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?”

“What doesn’t kill you makes you wish it did,” I spat.

More silence. “O-kay… maybe we need to change the subject. I’m sorry I brought it up,” Rumcake apologized, giving me an encouraging head rub. “Did you ever, uh, play hide-and- seek?”

I was wiping tears from my face when I answered. “We played search and destroy. Losers lost their dessert privileges. We didn’t have carrot cake for months at a time.”

“Sounds… a bit excessive.” Rumcake held out a small, mostly clean blue rag which I accepted gratefully.

Upon wiping my eyes, I felt something thick and slimy smudge itself across my lower cheek. I used the outer edge of my claw and scraped whatever it was off and stared at it. “Grease? Really?” The offending grease got wiped onto Rumcake’s coat, right below his cutie mark. “Thanks.”

“Wow, thanks.” Rumcake snatched the rag from me and began frantically wiping. “That’s never going to come off.” I angrily pointed at the dark smudge on my face. “Okay, fine. That won’t come off easily either.” He licked the back of his hoof a few times and scooted over to me. “Let me wipe that off for you.”

“Huh?” I had enough time to turn my head and get a hoof-full of spit rubbed against my cheek. “Hey, the heck?” Rumcake held me in place as he continued to rub vigorously. From somewhere else, somepony else was protesting as well. Even as I tried to point my ears at the source of the sound, he wouldn’t stop fussing about the spot on my face.

Very faintly, I heard, “—ves hurt, and we’re stopping now!”

“Brevity, hol’ yerself. An’ keep it down, fer cryin’ out loud!” A much deeper, hushed voice. Old, male, probably the leader by the sounds of it. “Anypony could be out here.”

I fumbled for my rifle. “Cakey! Stop!” I urgently whispered. When he didn’t, I gave him a swift sucker punch to his throat. While he staggered backward and choked on his lungs, I quickly snatched up my rifle and trained it on the five dark shapes approaching us. “Five tangos, closing in at walking speed.”

“Hnk… was that necessary?” Rumcake coughed. In case I tried it again, he grabbed his helmet and put it on.

“Shh!” Full mag, one in the chamber. Safety off. “Looks like Wastelanders to me. Shabby armor, average weapon quality. Three earth, two unicorn. Advise.” One of them was wearing some kind of large helmet-like apparatus which made an excellent target.

The barrel of my rifle dipped. I swatted the hoof away in mild annoyance and fixed its owner with a death glare. “Don’t worry, I’ve got it,” Rumcake assured me. He cleared his throat and poked a button on his helmet. “Fellow Wastelanders, halt in thine advances.” There was a horrendously frightening squeal of feedback. I used my one free hoof to cover one of my ears. Below us, the Wastelanders did the same. “Sorry!”

“Princess? Is that you?” a very small, young voice squeaked.

“Sure, let’s go with that.” Rumcake had to suppress a snort. “They think I’m a princess. Ha!” He turned his voice changer back on. “Now get those hooves in the air!”

Several pairs of hooves reached for the clouds. “Really?” I whispered, taking my sights off the group. “What’s next? You going to make them wave them?”

“Great idea. Wave them. Your princess demands it!” Hooves frantically waved back and forth.

As evil as this was—posing as a deity, abusing said position, and frightening innocent Wastelanders—it definitely was just a tiny bit funny.

“Now bring me every mug you find.”

“Wh-what kind?” This was a new voice, frustratingly androgynous and young.

Rumcake looked at me. “What should I say?”

“You don’t know? This is your show, after all.” I rolled my eyes and searched for any other threats that weren’t being yelled at in front of us. “Just make something up.”

“What color are mugs?”

“Seriously?”

“What? We usually don’t take those with us when we repossess prewar tech.”

On that note, I’d forgotten what colors the mugs were too. “Uh. They’re white. Right? Mostly white, kinda dirty?”

“Your princess demands all the white sparkly mugs!”

Some of the Wastelanders reverently bowed and began walking down the road once more, pursued by the remainder of their party. Just as a precaution, I trained my sights on the large one in the back. Could never be too careful in some cases, especially if they found out their “princess” was a crazy stallion with a megaphone.

We continued to watch them disappear into the darkness. I pulled my rifle back and folded the bipod. “I swear to Luna, if you just started a religion…”

Rumcake whipped off his helmet in one swift motion. “Don’tcha worry about it.” He wrapped his hoof around the back of my neck and pulled me into a kiss that I wasn’t expecting at all. I threw caution to the wind and returned the kiss. I tried to pull away from him when I heard somepony coming up the ladder. Even for decency’s sake, he wouldn’t stop.

Sparkle poked her head up from the ladder. “Yo guys, I’m awake for my shif— Oookay, I can come back later.” With that, she disappeared back to ground level.

Finally, I managed to break away for air. “Why do you have a vacuum for a face?” I gasped. “Seriously!”

“He gets horny when he’s tiiiireed!” Sparkle chimed.

“Do not!” Rumcake shot back.

To add insult to injury, Tangerine was also awake. Turned out the Canterlot voice changer was loud enough to wake everypony downstairs as well. “Didn’t you try to make out with Paladin Fruit Punch that one time?”

“It was just once!”

“Three times.”

“How the hay do you remember that?”

“She broke your nose the third time.”

Rumcake tapped his nose thoughtfully. “Right.”

Most of me felt insulted. “Three times?” I mouthed to Rumcake. “Really?”

“What? I was young, naive, and really bucking horny. Don’t give me that look,” he shamefully muttered back.

“And then there was that time with Junior P—” Tangerine continued, undeterred.

With surprising quickness, Rumcake sat up and snapped, “Stop right there before I kill you. We don’t talk about that.”

Tangerine sounded like she choked on something. “You’re too lazy to do the work.”

“Hm?” I mumbled, barely even paying attention anymore.

“You would not believe the paperwork it takes to kill somepony,” Rumcake muttered back, still rubbing his nose. “That doesn’t even include the debriefing.”

Paper? Here in the Wasteland? That seemed like a laughably impractical use for it. Back in the Enclave, paper was hard to come by because of the lack of excess trees and tree substitutes. “And how, may I ask, do you have enough paper for that?”

“We retrieved enough terminals to re-invent the informal office correspondence. No paper, just digital updates. It’s terrible.” Rumcake picked up his helmet and squeezed his head into it. “I hate desk work.”

The two of us swapped places with Sparkle, who was on next watch. Once I told her about the fairly active wildlife and to keep her eyes open, I flew down the ladder and landed on top of Rumcake.

“Hey, watch it!” Rumcake protested.

“Not my fault you’re in the way. Eep!” With utmost ease and care, I was gently flipped onto my back. I tried to squirm away, but several hundred pounds of hunky Steel Ranger and part of his armor piled onto me first.

There was a very annoyed groan from nearby. “Will you two lovebirds just shut up?” Violet rolled over. “I was having a perfectly sexy lucid dream until the bucking prince of the night completely ruined it with a steamroller-powered voice.”

“Sorry for having a social life,” I sarcastically apologized.

“My condolences.” Violet flipped back over to her other side and flattened her pillow over her head. “Now shut up.”

“What she said,” Tangerine added, doing the same.

Going to sleep seemed to be a good idea. “Maybe we should be quiet and just sleep,” I whispered to Rumcake.

“I’d like to see you try after I’m done with you.” The helmet came off once more as a hoof trailed down the side of my body and stopped on my thigh.

Against every fiber of my being, I pushed the hoof away. Sure, I wanted it—but here and now was a bad time. This was unknown territory, not to mention there were many other ponies here and no walls to separate us. Maybe later, hopefully.

“Let’s just sleep. I’m tired and I’m not in the mood either.” I managed to escape Rumcake’s crushing body mass and sprawled myself all over his back, much to his amusement. We tossed and turned with each other for a while, playfully fighting for the single blanket. I hadn’t noticed how tired I was until I fell asleep during a lull in our skirmish.

~~~~~

“YO. SUP.” I woke to the comforting sight of the deathpony Mort staring me in the face. My first reaction was to scream like the little filly I was, fall onto my rump, and scoot as far away from him as possible.

We were in a gray, empty plain populated by just Mort and me. Where were the other versions of me? There weren’t even any fake clouds anywhere. At least there wasn’t anything visibly metal around, so I knew I wasn’t in Officer Frosty’s territory.

“YOU KNOW WHY I’M HERE.”

“No! Buck you! There is no way in Tartarus I just died,” I shouted, throwing the first thing I heard my claw collide with. A plush green throw pillow fulfilled its sole purpose in life and bounced off Mort’s skeletal head. In my fearful haste, I hadn’t noticed what he was wearing. “Are you… are you wearing a suit?”

The incarnation of death was wearing a gaudy pastel green, ill-fitting three piece suit with his standard hood tucked into the collar. The legs were obviously too loose, the chest was too tight, and his equally green tie was too long. He also looked just as uncomfortable as his suit, which I got a chuckle out of.

“JUST KIDDING. I HAVE JURY DUTY TODAY.” Mort pulled an ornate golden pocket watch out of his suit jacket. “IT DOESN’T START FOR ANOTHER TEN MINUTES.”

“So… I’m not dead?” I asked, letting out a relieved sigh.

“IS IT WRONG FOR ME TO JUST VISIT MY FAVORITE NUTCASE?” Mort attempted to fiddle with the length of his tie, with much difficulty. “Stupid tie…”

“Okay, you’re just making me mad. There is no way you’ve had that tie for that long and not know how to tie it.” I reached out with my claw and grabbed the tie’s knot, which came off of Mort’s collar with a snap. "Oh. It’s just a really bad clip-on.” I stared at it in dumbstruck awe. “Well, that’s just your problem then.”

Mort’s “voice” died down a little as he went from intoning to just talking. “Yeah, it is. By the way—”

“Hm?”

“—you might want to WAKE UP.”

~~~~~

On Mort’s prompt, I found myself bolting to my hooves, my claw already gripping my rifle’s handle and bringing it to bear at… nothing. “The buck?” I whispered to myself, carefully flying myself over Rumcake’s sleeping form. Thankfully, he hadn’t decided to hold me like a teddy bear this time. “The buck was that? Premonition? A warning? Hallucin—ah, screw it.” It was too early to deal with metaphysical mumbo jumbo.

Crunch. Snap. Ka-click. Crunch. Shuffle. Somepony armed and very bad at sneaking was trying to get around us! More scuffling and noises of metal on metal became more audible as I started paying attention. I closed my eyes and kept listening in order to figure out what was happening. “Two behind, three on the left, one on the right,” I told nopony in particular. “We’re going to get surrounded.”

A quick survey of who wasn’t present revealed that Violet was supposed to be on watch. I stealthily made my way to the roof, and when I got there, I nearly screamed in frustration. The impossible smartass mare had fallen asleep at her post! She wasn’t even facing the right direction! “Next asswipe that takes a step eats lead!” I yelled into the dim light of the morning.

I heard hooves stop in their tracks. On the other side of the street, there were definitely a few pony-esque shapes hiding in the ditch next to the road. One of them decided to hazard a peek over the edge, which was about to be the last thing he/she/it did.

I toggled S.A.T.S. to make sure I made a lasting statement. Head? No, I wanted him alive. Using little head motions, I scrolled through the options open to me. Torso? With a five percent chance, I didn’t think so. Left hoof? Sure, I had an eighty-seven percent chance. I left that possibility open and searched for others. Eyes. The buck? Eyes? Why would I need to do that? Even at a ninety-five percent chance, I wasn’t going to do that. A warning shot needed to be a warning. With no better options, I targeted the left hoof.

An ear-shattering crack broke the relative silence, accompanied by an explosion of bone and gore from my target. Based on the scream of pain, he was launched backward into the pit by the force of impact. Wait. I had a gun that fired bullets the size of other guns. As the unfortunate buck wailed, cursed, and bled out, I realized that I hadn’t thought my strategy through once again.

“Sorry!” I shouted. “That was supposed to be a warning shot.” Nevertheless, I chambered the next round. Beside me, Violet spasmed and scrambled awake. Unceremoniously, I shoved her in the direction of the ladder and made a circling motion with my hoof. If the others weren’t awake now, I was hoping she would wake them.

“Warning shot? His whole leg’s off!” the reply came, nearly drowned out by pained screaming.

“It’s just a flesh wound,” I grumbled, carefully peeking over the edge to spit a loogie onto the raider taking cover next to the wall under me. “I see you down there! Back off.”

Sparkle appeared next to me, fully armored. “How many?”

“Seven around, five, maybe more, in the ditch,” I told her. “Let me guess—Rumcake’s still asleep.”

“Mmhm.”

I heard clanking behind me. “What’s going on?” Violet asked, a panicked tone added to her voice. Her book floated past my hooves and safely into hers. “Why’s somepony trying to break down the back door?”

The grenade launcher on Sparkle’s battle saddle unfolded. “I got it.” She took two steps to the hole in the roof and simply dropped to the ground floor with a heavy thud. Something splintered shortly thereafter, probably the back door. “Hellooo, boys!” There were a series of deafening explosions and meaty splats that probably meant the raiders behind us had been taken care of.

“Back your boys up or you’ll be picking them off the walls!” I shouted at the shapes in the ditch.

Very cautiously, a head poked out just enough to yell “Fall back!” and quickly dropped back to the safety of the trench. Four raiders retreated back to the trench. “We only want the Rangers. Give ‘em up.”

I went back to the hole in the roof and poked my head in. “Hey guys, they said they want ‘the Rangers’. You want to surrender? Should I surrender? Do I count?”

“Well, I don’t think so. Any of you feel like giving up?” Sparkle asked the others.

We all heard the extensive loud yawn. “What’z happ’n?” Rumcake groggily asked, still rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Not much. Like, a bunch of guys are across the street and demanding ‘the Rangers’ give up and turn themselves over,” I casually mentioned. “Nothing new.”

Rumcake yawned again. “Okay.” Another yawn, followed by face rub into bedroll. “Tell ‘em to go buck themselves so we can go back to sleep.”

I nodded. No arguments here. After politely waiting for everypony else’s opinion, which was generally the same, I withdrew my head to deliver the response. Apparently Sparkle had different plans for them, because she stopped me before I had time to turn around. “Hold up, I got this, li’l sis.” She picked up a steel rod off the ground and carefully climbed the ladder to the roof. “HEY ASSHOLES! GO BUCK YOURSELVES!” She threw the rod in their general direction. “HERE, THIS’LL HELP!”

By the sound of her smug satisfaction, I could tell one thing. “You’ve been waiting to pull that one for a while, huh?”

“You would not believe it.” Sparkle giggled, carefully making her way down the ladder.

Metal clinked on metal, and a small round metal sphere dropped into the room. Simultaneously, every military mind in the vicinity had the exact same outburst. “GRENADE!” Both unicorns did the smart thing and dove for cover. Rumcake lazily rolled away and presented his mostly-armored back to it. Sparkle scrambled back up the ladder. I stared at my claw and got an idea.

I located the grenade and grabbed it in my claw. “Hot potato!” Very quickly, I flung the explosive so hard it must have gone into orbit. An explosion above us meant that we were safe. Everypony breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s solved.”

“We’re still stuck here, genius,” Violet gasped, clambering back over the chair she’d taken cover behind.

She was right. As long as those raiders were over there, we wouldn’t be leaving. Unless… “Hold on, I have an idea.”

“Uh oh.”

“The back door’s blown, so we can leave out of that. Problem is, they’re going to notice if we suddenly leave. We need a distraction.” Bits and pieces of ideas in my head started coming together. “And I have the perfect idea.”

“Oh no.” This time, Rumcake sat up and glared at me. “I don’t want to hear one of your stupid suicidal plans.”

Ouch. I winced inwardly, mentally berating myself for what I was about to say. “Uh, remember when I said I wouldn’t do anything stupid?” Rumcake slowly nodded. “Just one more?” I sadly smiled at him.

“No. I won’t allow it.” Rumcake planted himself in front of me, steadfast.

I fumbled with the catches on my armor. “Well, if you come up with a better idea…”

“Oh, and you’re going in without armor? No! I’m not letting you leave.”

I rolled my eyes. “Please. You haven’t even heard my plan.” The chest plate and back plates of my armor fell to the ground with a light thud. “It’s great!”

“Really now? Enlighten us, then.”

Rumcake continued to glare at me, so I told them what my plan was.

“That’s a terrible plan,” Violet flatly stated.

Tangerine looked uncomfortable. “I’m going to have to agree.”

“I’m not letting you leave,” Rumcake stated again.

It seemed like I didn’t have any supporters. Thankfully, Sparkle had my back once again. “You know, that’s stupid enough that it might work.” Wasn’t sure if it was a compliment, but I was taking what I could get.

I winked at Rumcake. “You can’t stop this.” With that, I whipped out my wings and launched myself through the hole in the roof. I only needed to go far enough to make it to the other side of the road, so I didn’t get too much height. At the apex of my launch, I pulled myself into a controlled spin and crashed into a conveniently placed raider in the ditch.

There was a moment of shocked awe from both parties. One raider came to his senses faster than I could pick myself up. “Kill him!”

I felt a bit insulted. “I’m a girl.”

Silence. “Kill her?” one of the other ones suggested.

“KILL HER!” In a snap, I was surrounded by seven and three-fourths raiders.

“Woah, woah, WOAH!” I backed up and raised my hooves and wings in the air. “I’m just here to negotiate!”

One of the raiders, an older eyepatched stallion wearing a particularly nice set of extra-spiky riot gear, slapped the raider next to him. “Let the lady talk.”

I sighed. “Thank you.”

“You have ten seconds.” Eyepatch took out a revolver and loaded it. “Starting… now.”

I took a deep breath. “The Rangers took me prisoner and forced me to work for them and now that they’re in trouble they took all my stuff and made me come out here to maybe come to a peaceful conclusion with your leader and PLEASE DON’T SHOOT ME!” I screamed at the end, cringing as the revolver’s barrel pressed against my forehead.

Eyepatch raider regarded me with his one good eye. “Fine.” He holstered his revolver. “Follow me.”

Very quickly, I was shoved out of the ditch and hustled down the alley between two abandoned buildings. At some point, we turned right and ended up in what looked like it used to be a garage. A hasty camp had been set up inside, but these weren’t raiders. Well, unless raiders routinely carried around giant cages full of slaves.

“Uh… which one’s your leader?” I shyly asked Eyepatch, who was still pulling me along. Besides Eyepatch and his friend that had followed us, there were only five other ponies in the camp. I hazarded a guess that the one wearing the gaudy crown was the leader, but I needed to be sure.

Eyepatch pointed out a different pony, this one wearing some impractically large armor which was offset by the silly bowler hat perched on his head. “Warboss Gork’s in charge. You get to talk to him, and make it quick.” Eyepatch grabbed me by the neck and looked me in my right eye. “For your sake, get to the point quickly. He doesn’t have a very good attention span.”

I was abruptly released and forcibly shoved at Warboss Gork. A small pile of rubble and steel that I tripped over caused me to lose my balance and I collided with his armored ass. I stumbled backward and ended up sitting down right on the spot. The more scary part was, the bucking ground shook when he started turning around. “Oi, wha’z dis git doin’ ‘ere?”

“You’re the leader here?” I asked, looking around for somepony less menacing.

“Dat’s me, and I call’z da shots.”

I was also expecting somepony more intelligent, for some reason. Oh well, it wouldn’t matter in a second. “And you are the leader, right?” I asked one more time, just making sure.

“Wot’s you not understandin’? I’s the boss.”

“Excellent.” I lunged forward and swung my claw at the Warboss as hard as I could. When the hit connected, the shotgun built into my metal leg went off, blasting bits of his head all over the far wall. Everypony in the room stared in shocked horror as I cooly strolled away from the headless corpse and ejected the spent shell from my ballistic claw. “Okay, now take me to your second in command.”

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Split Personalities (Level 2) – I’m not crazy. You’re crazy. No, you. Each of your sub-perk personas now has their own S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats. They do not have their own perks.
Current Sub-perk: Diplomacy – Remember thy Charlamane. You gain +8 to Speech

Author's Note

If you’re reading this text, that means the story has been updated and this is the new and correct version.

Got a question? Ask Frosty!

Chapter 19: You get the feeling we're being watched?

Chapter 19: You get the feeling we're being watched?

“If you're scared, you can just admit it. You don't need to put your hoof around me.”

So there I was, standing over the nearly-decapitated former leader, looking quite pleased with myself. Not only had my plan worked, but I had even managed to drop a witty one-liner that had stunned the assembled rabble into submission. Now if only they would actually let me deliver free shotgun pellets into their second in command.

On hindsight, there probably wasn’t any way anypony with two brain cells wouldn’t figure out what I had planned. I busied myself in looking calm and collected while the remaining raiders… slavers… whatever they were, argued amongst themselves.

Maybe I should have thought out this plan farther than ‘walk in and shoot the important guy’. “Wow, there are a lot of you assholes,” I nervously muttered to myself.

Sure, there was an assault rifle pointed at my face, but they didn’t know how many shells I had loaded in my ballistic claw. Maybe if I used S.A.T.S. to target them one at a time, I could probably take them. Unfortunately, I might end up eating lead without Raider Frosty’s help. Help that I really didn’t want.

“Don’t dat make ‘er th’ new warboss?” I heard one of them say to another.

Color me intrigued. Since I was only being held at gunpoint by the mottled gray-ish buck across from me, I sat down and started licking at the spattering of blood coating my claw in earnest.

“Dos it work ‘dat way?” the dirty, grimy mare in the back with the extra spiky shoulder pads loudly asked.

“How’d you think we got rid of Warboss Link’n?” Eyepatch replied to that.

“A rotta’ blew ‘is brains out da front,” the first one yelled.

“Exactly. And then we got Warboss Gork—”

“When Gorky offed da rotta’!”

There was a round of “oooohs” around the room as the group collectively realized how their system worked.

The assault rifle pointed at my head lowered just a fraction in the process. Apparently, I was now the warboss and leader of a motley group of… whatever these ponies were supposed to be. Just great. What was I even going to do with them? I definitely wasn’t going to let them follow me around.

I stomped my hoof on the floor for attention. “Do you recognize your new warboss?” I demanded at the gathered group.

Eyepatch fanatic, who was looking more and more like their approximation of a lieutenant, bowed his head in respect. “Hail Warboss—” He appraisingly stared at me for a moment. “—Warboss ‘Urt‘oof!”

A cheer that sounded more like a war cry went up from my new followers. “‘Boss ‘Urt‘oof! ‘Boss ‘Urt‘oof!” they all cried in unison as Eyepatch riled them up into an insane fervor.

Uh oh. Once the chanting started, I knew there was no turning back. In some form of cruel, twisted fate, I was the leader of a Wasteland raiding party or something. Which brought me to my next question…

“Hey! Patchy! I need a word.” Without waiting for Eyepatch’s response, I grabbed him by his scruffy collar and dragged him over to the former warboss’s mostly-headless corpse. “What did I just get myself into?” I hissed at him.

Eyepatch might have winked at me, but it also could have just been a blink. It was hard to tell. “Few things you might need to know. Keep the fillies and colts separate, or they might get into fights. Or, heh, into each other.” With mixed units, it wasn’t surprising since it was bound to happen at some point. “Two, they’ll be expecting a fight or some kind of raid at least twice a week. Lacking that, you’ll have to arrange some kind of violence substitute.”

“What.” Being a bad guy seemed like a lot of work.

“Yeah. Don’t be afraid to keep them in check with a quick conk to the skull.”

Yes, this was definitely starting to seem like a lot of work. I idly glanced at the cages. “What about them?”

Just like any good Wastelander, Eyepatch rolled the body over and searched for any valuable personal effects that Gork might have had on him. “What about them?”

While Eyepatch kept rummaging, I continued on with my line of questioning. “Like, why do you ke—” I saw a cap pouch poking out from under Gork’s dented stop sign chestplate. “Mine!” I demanded, snatching it away before he could grab it. “—keep them around?”

“Hey, I wanted that.” Eyepatch glared at me.

I gave him a good bop to the forehead. “I’s da boss, and dat’s dat,” I scolded him, adopting the same strange speech patterns as my new minions. Ooh! To add insult to injury, I also stole the former warboss’s smaller combat hatchet that had been tucked up to its head in his armor.

“Anyway, they’re the ones that decided that trying to steal from us was a great idea.” Eyepatch held up a collection of well-worn bloody clothing looted from Gork’s armor compartments to the relative light. He discarded a majority of them, but decided on a slightly out-of-shape tan kepi. “We keep ‘em around for sport. Or for clearing minefields, in case we ever run into them.”

It made me feel just a tiny bit better that at least they’d done something to earn their spot in the cages. Somewhat unwillingly and hesitantly, I nodded in agreement. “Well, I guess it’s a legitimate strategy…”

Very casually, Eyepatch mentioned “Yawp. Used a few of ‘em to clear out a sniper hiding in a minefield last week. Went through all that trouble for a broken sniper rifle, some junk, and, like, five caps.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah. So, what about your cool Ranger friends? A little friendly revenge, perhaps? Me and the shoota colts are behind you all the way.”

Right. Problem. “Yeah, about that… we’re kind of on good terms—as in, I sorta am a Ranger. We just needed you guys to stop trying to kill us.”

Eyepatch blinked his one good eye at me. “You’re a sneaky little one, aren’t ya? I’m even feeling a bit annoyed that you had to kill Gork just for that.”

“He started it.”

“As I recall, you knocked his block off. Violently.”

“He started it,” I insisted.

Eyepatch regarded me curiously. “I’m pretty sure that yo—”

“I can demonstrate on your face.” I menacingly flexed my talons at him.

Eyepatch stared at my claw and I could tell he was very carefully considering his options. “Well, I guess he did start it. My bad.”

I approvingly nodded at him. What a quick learner. “Good thinking. But seriously, I can’t be the warboss. I can’t do this. I never asked for this.”

To my chagrin, Eyepatch didn’t even look fazed. In fact, he looked more relieved than anything else. He picked up Gork’s helmet and examined it in his hooves. It was big, red, spiky, and several sizes too large for him. Then, to my irritation and horror, he dropped it on my head. It stank of musty sweat and other unidentifiable stenches. Worse of all, the helmet slid down my face and stopped at the top of my muzzle.

Once the initial shock wore off, I cast off the helmet with a flick of my head. “Ewwww!” I squealed, prancing on my hooves in disgust.

“Yeah, I can’t see you as a crazed battle-drunk lunatic.” For once, a bad guy had actually complimented me. He didn’t know it, of course, but it was the thought to me that counted. “But—”

There was the word that I was dreading. “But what?” I somewhat fearfully asked.

“But those idiots won’t just let you waltz away.” Mentally, I sighed in relief. I was really scared that he would say something else.

“Then what?”

Eyepatch looked at me with this really, really creepy smile. “It’s simple.” He took a step toward me. “We kill the Warboss.”

I felt my eye twitch and my claw leg raise. “Touch me and die.”

“No?”

“No.”

We needed an actual plan. I wasn’t about to go prancing about the Wasteland as a crazed bandit leader, as cool as it may have sounded. Too much management, and obviously too much wrongdoing. I had an objective now, and I needed to stay on track.

A temporary solution came to mind. “I’m the Warboss, and anything I say is the law, right?”

“Right…” Eyepatch slowly nodded.

“Excellent! By the power vested in me, I’m temporarily putting you in command until I get back,” I brightly told him. “That work?”

“I think so. Let’s see.” Eyepatch turned around and chucked Gork’s helmet at the small group of assembled minions. “Oi, gitz! Da big boss’z gots words fer ya!”

Were there more of them now? “Bad news, everypony. I’ve gotta take care of things before I do anything else.” There was a collective groan from the gathered crowd.

“I’ll be in charge until Warboss ‘Urt‘oof gets back,” Eyepatch yelled over them. Funnily enough, they proceeded to complain louder. “Shut it, runts! Especially you. And you. You too!”

“No more beatin’s! No more beatin’s!” the crowd chanted.

“THE BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES!” Eyepatch roared at the gathering of raiders.

I gave Eyepatch a sidelong glance. “Hey, you called off the guys shooting at my Rangers, right?”

“Whoops. Forgot.” He cleared his throat and yelled at the group again. “Regroup! Those Rangers ain’t worth our time. I hear the Spiked Balls needs a new one ripped!” A halfhearted cheer went up. “He’s got dinner, and we’s all invited!”

Once again, I was surprised by how cooperative they were, especially Eyepatch. A small war-painted filly dashed out through a crack in the wall, probably to get the heat off Rumcake. Not only had I killed their previous leader, doing so had made me the leader. I still couldn’t believe it. What was I going to do with these idiots?

“Sorted. See ya around the Wastes.” Eyepatch gave me an encouraging pat on the back. “Get outta here, Warboss ‘Urt‘oof.”

I sighed in relief. “Thanks. To be fair, I wasn’t expecting anything like this. I was prepared for a massacre.”

“What? We have honor too. It’s just kinda misplaced.” Eyepatch smirked. Before I made it to the large hole that I had entered through, a small object pricked my right wing. I picked up the small thrown object and examined it. “By the way—”

It was a small skull-shaped metal token no larger than my ear with a large crude lower jaw attached to it. It was made of several different kinds of plastic and metal, with the exception of the half Sparkle-Cola bottle cap pretending to be a helmet. Little gray rods protruded from the sides of the cap in an imitation of horns.

“—welcome to the ‘Ard ‘Eads.”

~~~~~

It turned out that Rumcake was incredibly angry with me and my last-ditch crazy attempt at “negotiating” with my newfound posse. On the bright side, I found out his rage face was no less adorable than his happy face. Additionally, it was great to know that everypony else was relieved I was alive, Violet more apathetically so.

“That was stupid and completely reckless! Damn it, Frosty—I thought you were done with that! I thought we agreed that you would stop doing things like that,” Rumcake angrily scolded me. “What would I have done if you got yourself killed?”

I cringed as I was yelled at. “I took care of the situation, didn’t I?” I was getting flashbacks to being back in the Enclave and getting yelled at by my superior officers. In order to look as apologetic and pitiful as possible, my ears were drooped and I kept my tail tucked. Big sad eyes mode activated.

“Just…” Rumcake caved and then grabbed me into a tight hug without warning. “Don’t do that again, okay?”

“That’s the last time,” I lied. “I’ll be more careful from now on. On the bright side, I’m a warboss now.”

I showed him the pin I got while I gave him the quick run-down of what happened. Just in case, I altered the story slightly so that I had left Eyepatch in charge. Hopefully I wouldn’t see them again and be out of their territory before anything else happened.

Sparkle was dumbstruck. “Seriously? It was that simple?”

“If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t think it would work either,” I admitted. I pinned my complimentary warboss pin to my dad’s hat.

Rumcake got his helmet back on. “Okay, we’ve got to get a move on. Our target location isn’t too far away, and I’d like to get there before nightfall. Everypony saddle up and get packed.”

“That’s it? We’re just going to ignore what just happened?” Violet demanded.

All of us sorta stopped and stared at her. “Uh, yeah? That’s actually kinda how we roll, kiddo. Just keep movin’ forward,” Sparkle told Violet.

“Basically, we know what happened and it’s probably best if we don’t dwell on it since it won’t get us anywhere if we do.”

Once I had my armor back on, we exited the diner through the large crater of a back door and carefully stepped around the bits of meat and liberated body parts haphazardly strewn around. Even though those particular raiders were on my side, Rumcake didn’t want to exit out the front because he was just that paranoid. We managed to make our way back to the main road after getting slightly lost in the maze of alleys behind the building.

Being back on the road reminded me that walking was boring. Any remaining adrenaline in my system had drained out, and I was feeling tired and a little crabby. Tangerine was whistling some kind of happy tune that I couldn’t place.

“I’ll scout forward. I’m bored,” I announced to the group.

“Don’t get stabbed,” Sparkle jokingly chastised.

Rumcake shouldered Sparkle, knocking her off balance. “Not funny, Junior Paladin.”

“Just a joke, Cakey,” I groaned, taking to the sky. “Chill.”

I made lazy circles around our group. “With Frosty’s record, I don’t doubt that it might happen,” Rumcake growled.

“Hey! That’s not nice,” I shouted back, flapping for altitude.

As I flew out of earshot, I thought I heard them arguing about me. Something about how impulsive I was or something. They could talk all they wanted, but I really didn’t care. If they were real friends, they’d tell me to my face if they had concerns.

Focusing back to the task at hoof, there wasn’t anything remotely threatening in the immediate vicinity. There was a firefight going on a kilometer away in some kind of demolished park or something. A glint of light reflecting off something would not stop trying for my attention. In order to get a better look, I unslung my rifle and aimed down the sights to get a better look.

Well, it was moving. Very slowly, but moving nonetheless. I kept a mental tag on the curious reflective object as I completed my scouting run on the road ahead. An overturned shipping wagon looked like a tempting target for some well-deserved scrounging, but it was hard to believe that hundreds of scavengers had actually missed something. Nonetheless, I tucked that little tidbit away as well.

“—diet is not an actual dietary plan! I mean, just because everything is vowels doesn’t mean you’ll lose weight!” Violet protested. “There’s no possible explanation for any weight lost, other than your brain leaking out of your ears.”

I landed, apparently in the midst of a very interesting argument. “Road’s clear. Unidentified target approaching, probably half an hour out. There’s also a wagon to scavenge, if you’re curious.”

Rumcake approvingly nodded. “How dangerous is the target?”

“Really bucking bright.”

I got a blink in response. “That doesn’t help.”

“I know.” I winked at him and then proceeded to ignore him by searching for snacks in my saddlebag. There had to be snack cakes in here somewhere…

“Hey, you can’t keep this figure without having a diet!” Tangerine shot back, swishing her robes back and forth. “Ha.”

Violet tossed her head in visible frustration. “No. I refuse to believe the secret to a healthy lifestyle is eating anything that starts with a vowel.”

In order to add to the fire, I helpfully added, “Apples are good for you.” I took a bite out of the next snack cake in the box I’d retrieved. “I hear that indigo does wonders for your coat.”

Just as planned, Violet was positively seething. I had to shove another entire cake in my mouth in order to not burst out laughing. Unfortunately, I only made the problem worse when I tried to swallow in mid-chew. Little bits of dry, stale crumbs ended up rocketing down my throat and I started to cough and choke on the lack of moisture in my entire oral cavity.

“Help!” I sputtered, still attempting to swallow. “I’m dying!”

Violet rolled her eyes. “Always the drama queen.”

“Haaackgnk!” I continued choking.

Water! I needed water! Just in time, Rumcake pressed a canteen to my lips and I chugged the liquid greedily. At least I managed to swallow the wet lumpy mess in my mouth.

“Nice and slow, Frosty. You good?” I nodded thankfully at Rumcake for the water.

I heard jingling at the edge of my hearing. “Wait, what’s that?”

“Maybe a dinner bell,” Tangerine suggested hopefully.

“Yeah, no,” Violet indignantly shot back. I had a good feeling that we wouldn’t be hearing the end of that argument anytime soon.

Around the bend at the end of the road, a stallion and a mare both wearing the simple garb of a Wastelander appeared, the stallion pulling a wagon behind him. I stared at it in confusion, as the wagon appeared to serve no other purpose than to be bright purple and gaudy, even going to the extent of having a big chrome ball mounted on top. So that’s what it was.

“What the…” several of us muttered in confusion.

Curiosity got the better of me. “Fine, I’ll go check. Cover me, in case that cart’s full of explosives or rabid bees or something. Or exploding rabid bees.”

“The horror,” Sparkle agreed.

With a slight touch of suspicion added to my analysis, there was a good chance that this could be a trap. Nonthreatening target shows up, then the real heavy-hitters slam you when you least expect it. Although on hindsight, I hadn’t seen anything that looked remotely like a raider or scavenger.

I flew over to the cart-hauling duo, prepared to fight. “Hold it right there! What’s your business?” I yelled at the pair.

The mare was acting as the defense escort for the stallion pulling the cart. She was armed with a battle saddled hunting rifle, which was currently pointed at me. It was hard to take such a pink mare seriously, especially one with a hilariously haywire neon green mane. The combat armor she was wearing, however, wasn’t remotely funny. I spun my anti-machine rifle around my back on its strap and pointed it in their general direction, threateningly hovering my claw over the trigger.

While the mare was an obnoxious blend of colors, the stallion was completely boring. Dark charcoal mane with a barely visible orange streak buried in there, and his light gray coat didn’t betray anything but hard times and stress. He was wearing a peculiar outfit that wasn’t immediately familiar to me. What did a wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses, and a funny shirt mean?

The stallion reached out and pulled the firing bit out of the mare’s mouth. “Be not so hasty in your judgement, Carbine.”

“Sorry, Father,” the mare apologized. A family, then?

Wait. The clothes. They were the religious type, great. Still didn’t explain the gaudy cart. Since they didn’t pose an immediate threat, I lowered my rifle and waved everypony over.

Tangerine confirmed my suspicions. “Holy crap, it’s a wandering priest.”

“Or a rabid train worshipper,” Rumcake grumbled.

“Preacher, please,” the stallion told her. “Preacher Market, at your service.”

I didn’t really want anything to do with religion. Too complicated. “Preacher, as in your job?” I asked, just for clarification.

“Folks just call me Preacher nowadays.”

“Maybe he follows the Church of the Sparkly White Mugs,” I jokingly told Rumcake.

“Yeah, we haven’t heard enough about them.” Sparkle was probably smirking under her helmet.

Rumcake facehoofed. “Stop. Just… no.”

“Another pony of faith? Tell me about it,” Preacher asked Rumcake. “I quite am curious about this new following that I haven’t heard of.”

“Don’t…” Rumcake sighed. “Don’t ask.”

The preacher gave him a questioning look. “I shan’t pry into your matters, then.”

“Tell me, noble Steel Rangers. What business do you have socializing with this winged devil?” Carbine said, angrily glaring at me the entire time. It probably didn’t help that I still had my rifle in claw and a talon on the trigger.

Winged devil? That wasn’t nice. “Hey, I resent that!”

Carbine picked up her firing bit. “I tell the truth as it is.” We glared at each other.

Tangerine raised her hoof. “Actually, she’s with us. Nopony here but us Rangers.”

“Children, children! Let us not fight! Surely we can be peaceful!” Preacher yelled, mostly at the two of us.

As an act of good faith, I slung my rifle over my back and held up my hooves, still hovering in place. Carbine simply flicked on the safety and tucked the firing bit into her collar. The rest of our group visibly relaxed a bit as well, since it didn’t appear like we were in any danger at the moment.

“So, what’s with the traveling show-wagon?” Rumcake asked, curiously examining the wagon. “Spreading your words of faith?”

“Yes, of course! Would you like to hear about the glorious Goddess?” Preacher didn’t wait for a response as he opened up his wagon, transforming it into a podium. “There’s quite a story, you must know.”

“Well, I’ll bite. We could use a break, anyway. And by we, I specifically mean Violet. She looks like she’s about to fall over or something,” Rumcake teased, giving the slightly winded mare a friendly nudge.

Immediately, I touched down and began to zone out. Religion was complicated and way too much trouble for what it was allegedly worth. Rumcake sat down and let me lean against him as I started taking apart my weapons for cleaning. The first one I pulled out just so happened to be ex-Warboss Gork’s combat hatchet.

Now, I was no expert in the construction of Wasteland weaponry, but I knew the head on the axe was at almost twice the size that it needed to be. It was large and square, until it curved into a slight hook at the end. However, I had an inkling feeling that choppy-choppy stabby-stabby weapons shouldn’t have a fire mode selector.

On closer examination, it did seem like the handle of the hatchet had used to be some kind of rifle. The safety setting had been relabeled “NAda daKka”, and the single fire had been scratched out completely and now read “onE DAakKa”. Funnily enough, the burst fire setting was the most used setting, the words “mOa dAKkaa”. I just hoped that it really didn’t do anything to the actual use of the weapon, lest the rest of my sanity went down the drain.

I placed that on the ground as Preacher continued to loudly do his namesake. Next, I decided that my submachine gun needed a bit of work since I hadn’t fired it in a while. That, and I was looking for an excuse to yank the frost attachment off the end to see why it never actually worked. Now where was my gun kit?

Very carefully, I took apart the weapon into its individual parts. Moments like this made me appreciate my claw. Before, I would have had to hold things with my hooves and wings, but now I could hold or move things with my claw for more stability or fine movements. Even better, I could pick at little bits of dirt and grime off the parts with the tip of my talon.

I ended up greasing the slide for good measure, cleaning some residue off the firing mechanism, and swearing at Sleazy McCheapkins for selling me the faulty frost enchantment gem attached to the gun. I reassembled my submachine gun and placed it on top of my new combat hatchet in order to keep it as clean as possible.

The next thing I was going to clean was my trusty anti-machine rifle. I unslung my rifle, mentally adding to get the strap itself replaced at some point in the future. When I reached for the rag I was using before, it had vanished. Strange. I looked around and also noticed my submachine gun had tucked itself away of its own accord.

“Wha?” I muttered, looking around. “I coulda…”

Preacher was still spouting religious nonsense that I was doing my best to tune out. I rubbed my eyes, hoping that maybe I put everything down in a different spot than what I remembered. Where was it?

“You’re lucky that I’m here to protect your ass,” Ice Storm growled into my ear, roughly yanking my head back.

What just happened? “Ow!” I cried, pulling my head away from Ice.

The Wasteland was gone. All of its browness and gloomy dark shadows had disappeared. Instead, we were in a bright steel-and-cloud patchwork approximation of the Wasteland. Buck, we were in my mind. My friends were gone; however, Preacher and his podium was still in front of me.

“Hold on a sec, this is different.” Preacher looked around, completely puzzled.

With the sound of a fairy farting, Ice showed up and promptly dragged off to the side by the magical grip on my claw. “We might not have much time. As adorable as your younger version is, I don’t think she’s got more material than ‘be cute and obnoxious’. I’ve got us in an invisibility field, but I don’t know how long it’ll hold. Why couldn’t you just be a damn unicorn?” Ice grunted, still dragging me along.

“Well, excuuuuse me, princess,” I haughtily shot back, allowing myself to be dragged. Ice seemed to know what was going on, so I let him take the lead.

We stopped behind some kind of boxy cloudish metal thing. “You don’t realize how much energy it takes to convert your gods-damned body,” Ice groaned, throwing me into cover. “I’m too tired and old for this crap.”

“The buck is going on?” I hissed at him.

Unceremoniously, he mashed his hoof over my mouth. “Here’s the Sparklenotes—welcome to your first psychic assault. All we need to do is get rid of him before he does any serious damage.”

I peeked around the corner just in time to watch Filly Frosty hop up and down, demanding a magic show. Hopefully she could keep him busy until we came up with a plan.

“So, do you have a plan?” I asked Ice, unconsciously chambering my rifle.

A cigarette pack waved itself in front of my nose. “Care for a smoke?” Ice asked, already trying to light the blue-banded cigarette in his mouth. Curiously enough, he was using a polished silver lighter stamped with a stylized crescent moon as opposed to just using his magic.

I politely declined his offer. “I don’t smoke.”

“Suit yourself.” Ice pocketed his smokes and drew his revolver. “Any second now, your little clone is going to run out of material and then we’ll have to deal with the intruder.”

“So… we shoot him?” I asked.

A small teal blur flew past us and embedded itself in a cloudy wall. “Ow,” Filly whimpered.

Gala Frosty appeared only to yank Filly out of the wall. “Kill it. Whatever it is, it’s strong, and very strong with mind control magic,” Gala told me.

“He’s a big meanie no-pants,” Filly weakly squeaked from Gala’s back.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I told them both.

“Come out, come out! I know I didn’t throw you that hard!” Preacher snarled.

Ice cautiously peeked around the corner. He hastily pulled his head back and gave me the military hoofsign motion to stay put and alert. He darted over to a rectangular pile of clouds and steel, seeking cover in the relative shadow behind it. I could hear Preacher trotting closer and closer to us thanks to the metal plating scattered across the ground.

“Wait for it…” Ice whispered, pointing his revolver at head level from behind the wall.

I felt my muscles tense in anticipation. “What am I waiting for?”

Before my question had time to die in the air, a roaring red and teal thundercloud bolted through the space between us and tackled Preacher. “What the—” he managed to snarl in surprise before a bloodstained steel claw smashed into his jaw.

“Nopony!” Pow. “Hits!” Crunch. “FOALS!” Raider Frosty screamed into Preacher’s bloody face. Well, at least now I knew she had standards. “You wait for them to get to abusal age first!”

I couldn’t tell how serious she was from the wall I was hiding behind.

“Get off me, monster!” Preacher shouted, with what sounded like a strong kick to Raider’s stomach.

“You’ll pay for that!”

There was a loud zapping noise. “I think not.” There was another zap, and I somehow knew that Raider had been knocked out.

“Some kind of incapacitation spell,” I noted, quickly hazarding a peek around the corner. It looked like the crazed killer version of me liked to sleep with her mouth wide open and pouring drool. Nice.

From my left, Ice whispered right into my ear, “If you wait long enough, her hooves twitch in this really cute way like she’s running after something.”

This was one of those moments where I hated my reaction time. I had to clamp my claw around my muzzle to keep from screaming. When I withdrew my steel talons, they came back slightly tinged with blood. Whoops.

Once I swallowed my heart, I slowly took a few breaths. “How did you get behind me?”

“Circled around. Got some help. Get on top of this thing and wait for my signal,” Ice told me.

“Let me guess… I’ll know it when I see it?”

Ice tipped his hat at me. “Read my mind. Be ready.” With that, he literally melted into smoke and shadows.

As quietly as I could, I climbed up onto the cloud and metal surface and set up the bipod on my rifle. Preacher hadn’t seen me yet, but he was still expectantly looking around in what seemed like a confused manner.

Somewhere, I heard a bottle smash. The signal! I resorted to using S.A.T.S. to acquire my target since I’d been caught slightly off-guard. I had a good ninety percent chance to hit his torso, but I needed a better shot. Right hindleg was an eighty four percent. Right foreleg was worse at seventy three. Scrotum was a nice ninety four percent, reasonable. Left hindle—WAIT A SECOND, WHAT?

I scrolled backward to target Preacher’s balls, which just so happened to be highlighted in all their glory through his tail. No, this wasn’t professional. Even if it was the highest chance to hit, I really didn’t want to. However… at this range and angle, and accounting for caliber, it would definitely be a kill shot.

“Don’t do it, Frosty,” I muttered to myself. “You’re better than this.”

A nearly guaranteed kill overrode my sense of honor. My logic decided that since this was the dream world, a dishonorable shot of opportunity wouldn’t be too much of an asshole move. I took one last check for any other possible options before confirming the shot to S.A.T.S.

I tried to close my eyes since I really didn’t want to watch what happened. But lo and behold, the magic of S.A.T.S prevented me from not seeing. It was either that, or since I was seeing everything in slow motion, I moved in slow motion as well.

Just don’t look. Just don’t look. Focus on something else. The butt of my rifle kicked against my shoulder. The bullet exited the barrel and the empty shell gracefully spiraled its way out of the ejection port and slowly fell to the clouds under my body. The round parted Preacher’s tail and blew it out of the way and right into his family jewels.

I didn’t want to look. Blood exploded everywhere, for starters, and I’m pretty sure I saw something small and round bounce away into the distance. As the bullet continued to move forward, so did Preacher’s body. He slumped forward, his hindleg twisting much too far and tearing right off. His head slammed into the ground with enough force to snap his neck and somehow rip his head right off. More blood and gore continued to pour from the new hole in his posterior.

My ovaries were positively cringing in sympathy. What a mean thing to do. I was a bad little pony.

“What the buck was that?” Ice yelled, throwing a large gear at my head. The piece of machinery barely missed my ear. “I mean seriously, are you trying for a section eight?”

Something told me I’d done something wrong. “What?”

“THAT WASN’T THE SIGNAL, IDIOT!” Ice shouted at me, throwing another broken gear at me. “That was the distraction!”

“…Oh.” Yep, definitely one of those moments where you do something stupid and then you realize your horseshoes are filled with peanut butter. “At least I got him?”

Ice waited for me to hop off the object I was using as high ground. “You suck at plans.”

“Shut up, he’s dead,” I shot back.

Well, I guess it’s time to stop playing games and put an end to this.

“Okay, I know you’re dark, edgy, and creepy, but I need you to stop that,” I told Ice, glaring at him.

Ice glanced back and forth between me and Raider, who had just gotten up. “Not me. That you, Toasty?”

“Look at this face and tell me I’m being dark and edgy, bitch,” Raider snarled.

I stared at the two of them. “Toasty? You’re calling her Toasty?” I asked incredulously.

“What? It works.” Ice shrugged. “You’re mellow and happy and shit,” he said, pointing at me, “and she’s all mad and ragey and stuff. Opposites, you know? Frosty? Toasty?”

I continued to glare at Ice. “That’s terrible.”

“It’s bucking genius, shut up.” Raider Frosty, er, Toasty slapped me across the face, raking a trio of bloody lines along my muzzle. I retaliated by punching Toasty in the face with my hoof.

Hey, stop ignoring me!

“Wait… if the voice isn’t me, you, or her… who is it, then?” Ice muttered, looking around.

I am the most powerful psychokinesist in the entire world! Fear—grah, I’ll just have to show you. Dance, my puppet, dance!”

Toasty was in mid-swing when she abruptly stopped and shook her head. “Grah, I just had the weirdest thought.” She scratched at her right ear with her claw and shuddered a bit. “Kinda creepy too, once I think about it. I think.”

What? Im-impossible! You! How about you!

There really wasn’t any way to explain it other than something gripping my mind. Visions of fire and… somepony else’s thoughts? Huh? I felt myself shudder as if I was cold. Kill? Where did that thought come from?

I raised my claw and ineffectually poked Ice’s leg. “Huh. I think it just happened to me, too.” Maybe I needed a nap before I lost my mind even further.

“You poked me. Why would you do that?”

“I… don’t really know. I felt like it, I think?” I replied in confusion. “Ugh, I do need a nap.”

Why aren’t you killing? Why don’t you do my bidding?

Ice looked around. “Hold on a sec, be right back.” He wandered over to Preacher’s body, and for a moment I wondered what kind of loot he would be carrying. I remembered I wouldn’t be able to bring anything back to the real world, so I decided not to put in the effort.

Blam! I slightly jumped when Ice fired his revolver into Preacher’s head, ripping it clean off Preacher’s ruined neck. Blam, blam, and blam again. Apparently Ice wasn’t going to be satisfied until he’d emptied the entire cylinder into the head, continually chasing it along the ground with bullets.

Once the slight ringing in my ears had stopped, I very loudly asked Ice, “Are you quite done with that?”

“Yes, please shoot it a few more times in case the head decides to gnaw our ankles to death,” Gala sarcastically added, patting an equally annoyed Filly on the head.

Instead of letting Ice use his revolver, Toasty opted out for the more hooves-on approach and stomped the remaining limbs off Preacher’s corpse. She didn’t stop until every single limb had been severed and the torso had been reduced to a large, messy pile of meat and bone.

“There? Happy?” Toasty panted, galloping over to the head to give it a good kick. It bounced off somewhere, not sure where. “He’s dead.”

“You have no idea how dangerous that guy could have been.”

“Could have?” Hmm, come to think of it, that weird nagging in the back of my head had stopped.

Ice facehoofed. “Just… just wake up.” He sat down and began to wave his hooves aimlessly. “Oh gods, you’re hopeless. Just get out.”

“How?” I asked.

Toasty strolled over, roughly turned my head toward her, and planted a wet, blood- soaked kiss right on my lips that immediately stunned me into submission. My brain immediately shut down trying to comprehend how this was working, why this was happening, and whether this was okay or not. There was no way for me to notice the haymaker coming from my right.

I awoke with a jolt, hyperventilating and clutching at my face. My submachine gun clattered to the ground. Just a hallucination. No need to panic. It’s only a kiss, right? With myself, sure, but nothing wrong with it, right? I wiped my lips and checked for blood. Nothing. I rolled onto my back and sighed in relief. What had just happened?

When I looked to my left, my heart nearly stopped again. Rumcake’s Decrusted minigun was pointed right at me and spun up. “I just had the weirdest dream…” He turned off his minigun and sat down on the ground.

Violet got up and vomited a little. “I—” She cut herself off by throwing up some more.

“Woah, what happened?” Sparkle groaned, sitting up. “I think I fell asleep or something.”

On the podium, Preacher had completely shut up because he was completely passed out against the sparkly backdrop behind him. Carbine was next to him, doing her best to try and revive him.

“As soon as Violet’s done upchucking, I think we should get a move on,” I told everypony else.

Rumcake rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, I’m getting… I don’t know. Tell him I’m sorry for falling asleep during the sermon,” he told Carbine.

“The Father must be exhausted… I shall relay your apologies to him once he awakes,” Carbine continued to fan Preacher with her hooves.

We all politely waited for Violet to finish what she was doing. Once she had, she made us swear to not talk about what had just happened. After giving Carbine our last remarks, we continued onto the road, looking for the Stable that the Rangers wanted to loot so badly. I did my best to ignore what I’d witnessed in my mind. Anyhow, to adventure!

~~~~~

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“Are we—”

“NO,” Rumcake yelled, finally silencing my demands for a comprehensive update.

“Oh, come oooon! I’m bored!” I whined, stomping my hooves impatiently.

“Well, it’s not really our fault that the hidden underground Stable is both hidden and underground, Frosty. There’s nothing you can really do except keep an eye out for anything Stable-Tec related,” Tangerine told me. “Besides, if you’re bored, why don’t you just go fly around some more?”

I groaned in exasperation. “I’ve already flown recon for this area like, five times.”

“And has anything changed?” Sparkle asked in a more bored tone.

“No! There’s just this random group of four Wastelanders just walking around,” I reminded Sparkle. “They’re not even going in the same direction as we are.”

We passed what was left of a giant Sparkle-Cola billboard. I still wasn’t sure what we were looking for, other than any mostly intact buildings that could possibly hold a super-secret government society testing bunker. In order to relieve boredom, I’d periodically flit to doorways and high windows to peek in.

“We’re almost at the waypoint that our scouts sent us. It’s gotta be somewhere around here,” Tangerine called out, making sure that everypony heard.

We slowly approached the remains of what used to be some upscale tourist-ey grouping of buildings. It looked like there used to be a sign to welcome travelers, but now whatever left of it was full of bullet holes. Very conveniently, there also used to be a gift shop right behind it that had been equally vandalized for target practice.

My PipBuck notified me that I’d entered the “Hang ‘Em High Hotel Ruins” area. Maybe they’d put the Stable underneath the hotel for safekeeping. By the looks of what was actually still standing, this looked like maybe some kind of gambling town back in the day.

Part of a billboard was attempting to advertise some restaurant called “WholeCookie” under it. “Hey, Pally Commander, mind if I scavenge that over there?” Sparkle asked, pointing at the same building I was looking at.

After taking a moment to think about it, Rumcake replied, “Sure. Looks promising.”

“This looks like the right area, I think.” Tangerine continued to consult her portable computer device. “I’ll keep looking.”

Rumcake examined our surroundings. “In case this isn’t the place, let’s do a quick comb of the area and see if anypony finds anything interesting. Travel in pairs, and meet back here in three hours. If you find anything or run into trouble, check in on the radio.”

“Roger that!” I saluted and hovered next to Sparkle. Both of us made eye contact, then looked at the restaurant. “Let’s go, then. Dibs on the snack cakes.”

“I call dibs on everything else,” Sparkle immediately shot back while the two of us trotted or flew toward our target. Rumcake and Tangerine went off in another direction, probably going for the Stable hidden here. Violet wandered off somewhere while I wasn’t paying attention.

“You can’t call dibs on everything!”

“Sure I can. I just did.” Sparkle tipped her helmet at me. “Too slow.”

I pouted at her. “Cheater.” I tried pulling open the door. “Damn. It’s stuck.”

Sparkle kicked down the door in our way and launched it into the opposite wall with her power armored hindlegs. “Boom. No more door.”

I peeked into the room around Sparkle’s massive armored tush. “So… it’s a little dark in there, is it?” I really couldn’t see anything until my eyes adapted to the darkness.

Suddenly, the room burst into a multitude of rapidly flashing lights and colors. “Whoop, shit.” The colors began to alternate faster and faster. “Hold on, I almost got it.”

Was it weird that I could feel my eyeballs twitching? I had to stop hovering because I was losing my balance. Finally, the lights stopped alternating and stopped on an illuminating nice pale yellow.

“Got it. Forgot I left the helmet light on rave mode.”

I had to rub my eyes a few more times and ignore the migraine forming in my brain. “I think I just caught epilepsy.”

Once the room stopped spinning, I got a good look at the interior of the restaurant. To our left there was a dilapidated greeting desk in front of a pair of heavily barricaded double doors. Luckily, it looked like we had taken a side entrance and avoided the barricade entirely. Other than that, there were booth-style tables everywhere. Along the left side, it looked like there used to be buffet troughs arranged around a much larger and fancier table. There were a few doors in the back behind all of the buffet stuff which probably led to the kitchen.

I flew over all the obstacles in my way in order to get to the kitchen. “Here’s hoping there’s something useful back here,” I muttered to myself.

Sparkle began inspecting the buffet troughs for one reason or another. “Go on ahead. I’m going to see if I can tear down some of this for scrap.” She hammered an armored hoof against the sturdy object in front of her. “Never know when you need repairs.”

I pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen. There wasn’t anything of interest on first impressions. Ovens, stoves, grills, nothing that looked mobile enough to take with us. A few rickety old stools here and there, rusty knives around the place, a few looted first-aid strongboxes…

There was the sound of grinding and tearing metal. “Find anything?” Sparkle called out between cutting of metal.

I took another look around the kitchen. “Not really. I mean, there’s a bunch of potential scrap back here, but that’s about it.” A large locked door bearing evidence of several years of attempted lock-pickery.

“Yeah, there isn’t a whole lot here. Whoever came through here last time must have cleaned it out. I got, like, three bits and a bottle cap,” Sparkle complained, nearly knocking the swinging doors off their hinges as she stormed her way in. “Ooh, locked door.”

“Yup,” I simply answered, staring at the door. “What do you think’s behind it?”

“Treasure!”

I wordlessly watched Sparkle start grinding away at the reinforced hinges with a heavy duty saw. “Did, uh, did you try the handle?” I loudly suggested over the sound of cutting.

“No point. It’s probably locked.”

I didn’t care if it was locked, the grinding and cutting noise was getting on my nerves. A simple turn and yank later, the door slowly creaked open. Sparkle turned off her saw and probably glared at me from behind her helmet. Too bad it looked like shelves and shelves of already looted things. There were still a good number of cans and boxes left, but it didn’t seem like anything was left.

“Well, that was a waste of time. Nothing here.” I glumly padded into the storage room. “Still, I’ll see if there’s anything worth taking. Extra food’s good too.”

Sparkle pushed her way past me. “Show off.”

“What? It’s kinda your fault for not checking the door first.”

A cursory examination bore nothing particularly salvageable besides two cans of sweet potatoes, a can of corn, and nine cans of beans—assorted varieties, of course. Somepony had definitely been through here, though. Whoever it was had left behind a haphazard pile of Wasteland clothes, a few bricks of scrap, the useful half of a shotgun, and one very flat and very destroyed black mini-suitcase-looking thing.

True to her word, Sparkle began taking everything in sight that was remotely worth anything. I managed to snag the the half-shotgun before she noticed, just out of spite.

My radio squealed suddenly, nearly causing me to pee myself. “Hey, Frosty? Change of plans. I need Sparkle in the casino. Meet us at the poker tables.” I could hear Rumcake shuffling around on the other end. “Got eyes on Violet?”

I held my hoof over my earbloom. “No idea. Where’s the casino?”

“Are you still in the same building you started in?”

“Last time I checked, yeah,” I replied, looking around.

“Two buildings down, look for the giant sign that looks like a pair of playing cards. It’s the largest intact building in this area, if you get lost.”

Okay, giant sign next to a giant building. “Got it.”

“Might as well. Bring Violet, if you find her.”

“Roger that.”

I looked up at Sparkle, who nodded. “Yeah, I heard. Nothin’ else left here anyway.” She looked around one last time, just in case, as we made our way out.

Rumcake was right, it was hard to miss. Apparently he and Tangerine had immediately gone for the hotel from the get-go. The giant pair of poker cards—a crossed ace of spades and a queen of spades—had a broken marquee attached to the front. The massive print below it probably used to read “Hang ‘Em High Casino and Bar” or something along those lines.

What was left of the blue-gray interior was still stunning, even in its looted and blood-stained form. The entry used to have groupings of four slot machines, creating several neat squares stretching past a sunken pit on my right where there used to be a few card tables. Above, there was a walkway that stretched from a balcony to my right all the way into a doorway on the right. Below the balcony, there was some kind of windowed box—probably some kind of security booth.

“Hey! Over here!” Rumcake called out from the top of a ramp at the far end of the casino. “There’s a bunch more up here.”

Once we got over there and up that ramp, we trotted into a more secluded, more fancy card room. I mean, the poker tables were made of engraved wood and what looked like it used to be green silk. Tangerine was sitting on a cushion that used to be attached to one of the many booth seats around the room. She had her head lying on the cushion, a small glass ball glowing with pale orange magic barely touching the tip of her horn.

I was about to reach out and touch the object, but both Rangers slapped my hoof away. “Careful. She’s in a memory orb right now, and I really don’t want two brain-damaged mares in this party.”

“Hey!” I protested.

Rumcake failed at choking back a laugh. “You know it’s true.” I didn’t have a good comeback, so I settled for angrily growling in the back of my throat.

“So…” Sparkle apathetically dragged a hoof through the torn carpet. “What now?”

“We poked into the basement and it doesn’t look good. Ghouls are everywhere down there, and I’d rather not bring Tangerine into a firefight. So, here’s the new plan: Frosty and Tangerine, you two do… whatever. Maybe go find something to keep Violet on a leash or something. Sparkle and I will clear out the infestation. Questions?”

I resisted the urge to poke Tangerine, lest I accidentally break her. “How long is she going to be like this?”

“Uh…” both Rangers chorused.

I faceclawed. “I guess I’ll sit here and wait.”

The Rangers departed to go look for their precious technology hoard. I, on the other hoof, made myself comfortable on a surviving booth seat. In order to keep myself busy and awake, I began work on my rifle since I hadn’t really cleaned it at all because of that weird dream trip. As I was taking out my gun cleaning kit, a yellow blip appeared on my E.F.S. very briefly.

I clamped my submachine gun in my mouth and pointed it at the door. Whatever it was, it had disappeared. Overreacting, Frosty. I placed my rifle and submachine gun on the table and exhaled heavily. Probably just some bug or something.

Drunk Frosty was sitting directly opposite to me, nursing a nearly empty… bottled… unlabeled… drink. Huh. “Bu–hic–bugs’re all red an’s stuff! Yellow’s th’ mellow and blue’s in the goo!” she basically yelled at me.

Well, Drunky did make a good point, as inebriated as she was. “Fine, then what is it?”

Why did I even bother asking? “Why y-you askin’ me?”

I had to resort to the legendary face-everything. Both wings, hoof, claw, and table. “I have no idea.”

“Well, great minds—er, similar minds think alike?” Gala Frosty suggested from next to me. “Lacking that, you do do a lot of stupid things most of the time…”

I glared at her and tried to wipe that stupid smirk off her muzzle. Gala’s only response was to giggle at me and playfully bopped my nose. I groaned and attempted to get back to cleaning. My personalities, all two of them at the moment, indulged in their own conversation while I kept myself busy.

“Where do you keep getting your drinks, anyway? We don’t have a bar,” Gala asked, clearly puzzled.

Drunky put down her bottle and produced a full bottle of rum from under the table. “Dun’cha worry ‘bout that.” With a slight bit of difficulty, she popped the cap off the bottle and took a long draught from it.

“Uh, mind if I get a bit of that?”

Drunky shoved the bottle across the table. After Gala wiped the mouth of the bottle with the back of her hoof, she hesitantly took a small sip and instantly regretted it.

“Bleh! That’s disgusting!” Gala sputtered, attempting to get rid of the taste in her mouth by rubbing the back of her hoof on her tongue.

“Wimp.”

“Drunken lout!”

“Butt.”

“Inbred drunkard!”

“You’re an inbred butt.”

“If we were anymore inbred, we’d be a bucking sandwich!” Gala practically screamed. “Just stop!”

“Butthead.”

“Stop.”

I took out my warboss axe and violently buried it into the table, immediately silencing the argument at hoof. “Enough! What’s this about being inbred?”

“Right, you don’t remember. Let’s just say that grandpa Vanilla might have had a few too many drinks at a family reunion back in the day, one thing led to another…”

“Really?”

“The truth.”

When I heard a scream of fear, the first thing I did was pick up my submachine gun and trigger S.A.T.S. in order to target the threat in the room. Turned out it was simply Tangerine, me, myself, and I. I canceled the S.A.T.S. and put my gun back on the table.

Tangerine had both hooves clamped over her head. She was breathing heavily and her eyes were dilated like crazy. Whatever was in that memory orb must have been traumatic or something, for sure. She looked around the room and saw me first.

“Screw the Stable, this entire hotel is a weaponized goldmine!” she excitedly sputtered at me, hastily brushing her mane down and putting her hood back on. “We’ve got to go find it right now!”

“What kind of casino has a weapon stockpile?” Gala asked.

“No idea. Shut up,” I told her, then noticed Tangerine’s confused expression. “Not you.”

Without missing a beat, Tangerine continued. “I was watching through the view of some kind of security pony. He was guarding his boss, presumably the owner, and he overheard his boss talking about some laser system or something. We need to find it!”

“A laser, huh? That’s cool.”

“Yeah! Think of the possibilities!” Tangerine patted herself down to make sure she still had everything. “Funny thing is, all he kept saying was ‘I need more time’ and stuff like that. Whoever he was talking to said they could fix that, strangely enough.”

Interesting information, but… “Where does the screaming come in?”

“Let’s just say I don’t want a repeat experience. My point of view died, to put it simply.”

I’d had experiences like that, so I decided not to press the issue. “Alright then. Where’s this laser?”

Tangerine’s shoulders slumped. “That, I have no idea. I just know it exists.” I raised my eyebrow at her. “Fine, it should exist. He did say that he’d invested a sizable portion of his bits into it.”

So it had to have existed at one point, and that was good enough for me. “Well, if I wanted a giant doom laser, I’d put it on the roof. Maybe put the power generators underground, for safety.” Logic, logic, logic.

“What if the Stable is part of it all? What if the laser is in the Stable?”

That was actually a good point. “Well, I assume the Stable has a generator?” I asked, which I got an affirmative nod from Tangerine. “Well, the power probably comes from there. I still say the laser is on the roof.”

“The elevators here should still work since the exterior is relatively intact. I’ve got a few materials to spare in case it doesn’t work.” Tangerine opened a smaller heavy duty looking bag and pawed through it. “A spark battery, some wiring, a circuit board off a bending unit, soldering wire, two pounds of explosives, a few more tiny battery things, a transistor, and three firing caps. I know I have some wire strippers and some wonderglue here somewhere.”

“Somehow I don’t think blowing up the elevator is going to get us to the top floor in record time,” I flatly replied.

Tangerine giggled. “When in doubt, C-4.”

“I’d rather doubt your doubt.” I tapped my earbloom again. “Hey, Cakey? Tangerine’s up. We’re headed—”

“To the roof,” Tangerine loudly added.

I sighed. “Yes, to the roof. She’s got a hunch about a laser that probably is or is not up on the roof.”

The radio crackled for a second. “Copy. Hey, if you see an important-looking keycard or anything security-liberating or something like that, gimme a heads up? Grenade launchers don’t work as keys,” Rumcake replied. There was another short burst of static. “I’m a little busy. Ow! Hey, I-I’ll call you back.”

“What’s going on? Is it the exploding bees? Hello?”

No reply.

Hopefully, he would be fine. I took my hoof off my ear and quickly reassembled my rifle. Tangerine and I both got our things together and performed a quick weapons check. As I patted myself down for gear, I noticed a faint glow coming off of Tangerine’s robes. It strengthened when a wave of orange magic flickered over them, meaning that they were magically enchanted in some way.

“So what does that spell do, exactly?” I asked, watching her sweep her pale orange magic over herself one more time.

Once Tangerine finished with her spell, she looked up and wiped her forehead. “It makes the cloth more impact-resistant by causing the strands of the fabric to—”

“Right, bulletproofing. Got it,” I interrupted her, not wanting to hear about the details.

We left the VIP room and went to go look for the elevators. Well, I was looking for the elevators and Tangerine was leading the way. Up the stairs, across the hall, over the hastily-built barricade made of slot machines, and down the dead body road. Actually, it was more like the skeleton-littered road, but close enough.

I kicked a skull out of my way. “So, these bones… Postulate.”

Tangerine stared at the bones scattered along the edges of the hallway. “I assume they died of radiation poisoning. Otherwise they came here for refuge and… didn’t make it, I guess.” Both of us stopped to give a moment of silence for those who had been forgotten.

Surprise, surprise! The bucking yellow bar appeared again. By the time I looked up and had my weapon ready, it had disappeared. What the buck was it?

“Hey, you get the feeling we’re being watched?” I asked Tangerine.

Tangerine shook her head. “No. Why?”

Damn. I had been hoping that she’d detect something in the area. “Hmm. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but the PipBuck doesn’t lie…”

“Sorry if I doubt you, but you don’t really have a track record for being sane,” Tangerine apologetically told me, turning left down a corridor. “If it would make you feel better, I can take a look at your PipBuck later.”

Well, that that would definitely make me feel better. “If it makes the random blips go away, that would be great.”

We arrived at the elevator lobby. Just like everything else, most of the things in the lobby were falling apart, but overall it was still in surprisingly good condition. Each of the three elevators on either side of the room were closed. Tangerine immediately went to work trying to call an elevator.

Back before the war, this hotel might have been a very fancy place. The floors were marble, for crying out loud! The four pillars in the room were engraved and embossed with gold leaf, just like the ceiling.

Tangerine moved to a different elevator panel, leaving the previous one in ruins with its wires exposed. “Zero for one. The circuitry is all melted in the back.” She started to unscrew the next panel.

Out of sheer boredom, I pressed all the remaining buttons in the hopes of actually calling an elevator. “Hey, this one works!” I called out as the little up arrow lit up. “No need to—”

A whine of tortured metal and a deafening snap echoed through the room. Screeching followed shortly thereafter, accompanied by rattling noises that both became louder and louder. There was a whoosh of air and my mane blew back from the air that suddenly blasted into my face through the cracks in the door. The elevator itself stopped when it collided with the bottom of the elevator shaft.

“...I think we’re zero for two.” Little licks of fire burst through the doors when the demolished elevator imploded. “Yeah, definitely broken.” I sheepishly grinned as Tangerine glared at me.

My radio crackled. “You guys hear that?”

“Sorry, blew up an elevator. Carry on,” I apologized.

Rumcake was silent for a second. “No, that wasn’t it… Stay sharp. I’ve got a bad feeling about this place.”

“Got it.”

Tangerine continued to mess with wires and whatever she was doing. “If you keep destroying these elevators, we won’t be able to get upstairs at all.”

“It’s all fun and games until somepony gets pancaked by an elevator. Besides, there are stairs, aren’t there?”

“Stairs are overrated.”

Who needed stairs if I had wings? “You’re just lazy.”

“Do you want to climb up three million flights of stairs? Because I’m not.” Electricity exploded out of the control console in front of Tangerine. “Gah! That’s zero for three, then.”

I noticed an air vent over the last three elevators on the left. “Hold on, I have an idea.” Maybe if I shoved my way in, I could just hop into the elevator shaft and get upstairs that way…

First, hovered up and firmly planted my hooves on a fancy ornate sun carving on the ceiling. These vents were much larger than they looked, especially once I got up here. A peek through the vent revealed that it did, in fact, lead directly into the elevator shafts. I angled my head around a bit until I could figure out whether any elevators were actually on our floor.

“What’s your idea?” Tangerine absentmindedly asked, still pulling and fiddling with wires. I replied by ripping the air vent cover off the wall and waiting expectantly.

I pointed at the elevator door below me. “Good news, this elevator’s already on this floor. What I was thinking is that you go in there, fix the elevator itself, and we take it to the top.”

Tangerine stared at me for a moment, probably judging how feasible my plan was. “What if I get stuck?”

“Let’s not worry about that,” I told Tangerine. I gave her a few seconds to gather all of her tools before floating down to pick her up and shove the diminutive mare into the excessively large air vent. “I mean, I’d go in but unfortunately I’ve got a collarbone and no technical experience.”

As I assisted Tangerine by pushing her robed butt into the the vent, my E.F.S. lit up with yellow and red contacts for a fraction of a second. “Holy—” I gasped, fumbling for any of my weapons. Unfortunately, that left her hind legs dangling for a moment and she frantically scrambled the rest of the way into the vent.

My radio hissed again, this time with Sparkle on the other end. “Frosty, you see that too?”

“I’m telling you, something’s up. Keep an eye out for a jammer or scrambler somewhere. There’s nopony else but us here,” Rumcake ordered. “But you are seeing it too, right?”

I nodded, even though they couldn’t see me do it. “Yeah, I nearly dropped Tangerine when it happened.”

“No thanks, by the way!” Tangerine retorted.

“Just fix the elevator, you little foal,” I shot back.

Tinkering sounds. Cranking noises. A zap and squeak. Finally, there was a heavenly ding and a little light above the door lit up. “Hey, it works!” Tangerine yelled.

“Fault,” the mechanical voice droned. I could hear gears grinding and breaking. “Please stay calm. A repair technician has been notified. Please stay calm.”

“Well that’s awkward.” I sat down and began to wonder how to get Tangerine out of the elevator at this point.

I heard something large and probably tool-like hitting something metal. “Okay, good news is that the elevator works and door on this side is open. The lights are on, too.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“All the lights are on!” Tangerine screamed in frustration.

Well, at least I wouldn’t have to haul a squirming unicorn up who knew how many floors. “Hold yourself, I’ll be in there shortly.” I managed to slip my talons into the crack of the door. With less force than I expected, managed to make enough room so I could slide my hoof in to spread the broken elevator doors apart. I stood up on my hind legs for more leverage.

The second there was enough room, I attempted to get in by dropping to my hooves and diving in. However, my big fat butt was having a really hard time getting in. With a wiggle and a tug, I managed to pull myself in, until my tail blade got caught in the door.

“Stupid… rusty…” I muttered, yanking it in and flicking my tail back and forth along the ground. “Let’s just get to the roof.”

Tangerine was equally as grumpy as I was at this point. “This might take a while,” she said, pointing at the brightly lit control panel.

With a soft dinging sound, the elevator lurched to life. Not a moment later, it abruptly stopped and the doors opened. “Floor Two. Concierge and Dining on this floor,” the elevator helpfully informed us.

“Like I said, this might take a while.” Tangerine sighed and tugged her hood over her eyes and attempted to squeeze in a nap.

As the doors closed once again, I remembered my PipBuck’s radio function and turned it on, just in time for the beginning of a song.

I don’t want to set the world… on… fiiiire…

~~~~~

“Floor Twenty-Three. Rooms twenty-three oh one to twenty-three eighty.”

I groaned in irritation. “I should have just flown to the top myself.” The pair of fives and the other useless three cards in my claw weren’t really helping my mood.

The doors slid closed and we lurched back into motion. “How long have we been here?” Tangerine asked, throwing a king on top of my stack of a ten, a nine, and a four. “Overloaded. Get rid of that garbage.”

There went another caravan. I checked my PipBuck while Tangerine discarded my cards. “Well, we’ve been going up for the past twenty minutes.”

“This is a slow elevator.”

“Yeah.” I placed one of my threes back in the spot where my caravan used to be.

Tangerine dropped a jack on top of the three I just played and smirked at me.

“You little bitch.”

~~~~~

“Floor Sixty-One. Rooms sixty-one oh one to sixty-one eighty.”

“Got any nines?”

“Go fish.”

“I swear to Luna you’re cheating…”

~~~~~

“Floor Ninety-Four. Rooms ninety-four oh one to ninety-four eighty.”

“OH COME ON!”

“Relax, we’re almost there.”

~~~~~

“Floor One Hundred. Penthouse floor.”

The doors opened, and both of us dashed out, thankful that the longest elevator ride in history was finally over. “We made it! Yes!” Tangerine cheered.

I looked around the grand entry lobby that had found ourselves in. Everything was in near-perfect condition—the marble floors were only caked with dust, the intact little side table still had an ashtray sitting on it, and even the white walls were still beautifully clean.

“Okay, we’ll need to find the roof access.”

Tangerine pushed open a door on the right. “Oooh. Pretty.” She wandered inside, not waiting for me to finish my train of thought.

“Lacking that, we break a window and I fly us to the roof from there,” I said to nopony in particular. “I guess we’re just going to explore, then.”

I headed through the door opposite to the one that Tangerine had gone through. The heavy clank of my armored horseshoes was replaced with soft thuds when I stepped onto carpet. I felt a little bit bad for leaving little bits of dried dirt all over the light green carpet. There was a long white table surrounded by chairs, so this was probably a dining room.

Suddenly, static loudly burst out of the walls and ceiling. Without thinking, I drew my rifle and pointed it at the door. As abruptly as it started, it stopped and the room became silent once more. I glared at the entire room with great suspicion as I continued to search for anything interesting. “I am seriously not in the mood for spooky shit, room. Stop.”

The kitchen didn’t seem to be very interesting. All the drawers and cupboards were open and they were all empty anyway. A large multitude of boxes and cans sat next to the trash that really needed taking out. I walked into the pantry and found it just as bare as the rest of the kitchen.

“Anything?” I yelled.

“No,” came the faint reply. “There is, however, a really nice painting in here.”

I moved past the kitchen and into what looked like the master bedroom. Whoever had been in here was really living the high life. The bed was bucking massive and looked like it could be softest thing in the world. Another door to the right probably led to the bathroom. The curtains were drawn, making the room much dimmer than the rest of the penthouse.

I was about to wonder where the resident of the room was until I noticed the unicorn skeleton crumpled in the couch next to the bed. Loosely clamped on the skeleton’s left leg was an old PipBuck. The short bedside table had a few objects on it, including yet another memory orb. “Hey, I found an orby thing that you’ll love,” I yelled to Tangerine.

“I wanna see! Hold on, I’m on my way.” I could hear her excited trotting coming from the other side of the penthouse. The other two things on the counter were a revolver and an interesting-looking watch with a PipBuck-compatible plug attached to it.

I picked up the revolver first. It wasn’t anything special, really. It was a simple thirty-eight caliber revolver with a custom cylinder and a cool engraving along the side of the barrel. The cylinder was painted with alternating red and black numbered stripes, and the engraving was a bullet flying through a cowpony’s hat. Curiously enough, when I checked the cylinder for bullets, there was only one loaded. The rest were empty casings.

Onto the watch. Besides the PipBuck attachment capability, the only special thing I noticed about it was the fact that the little hand was a diamond, as in the playing card kind, and the big hand was a heart (again, the playing card kind). I flipped the golden pocket watch over and found a cryptic message engraved on the back.

“To my dear friend: Persevere, and always bet on red. From ‘Time Cop’ Don Belle,” I read out loud. “Huh.” Sense of duty compelled me to steal the PipBuck as well.

Tangerine showed up as I was staring at the watch. “Where’s the orb?” she excitedly asked.

I pointed at the orb still lying on the table and pocketed the revolver, still puzzling over the message on the watch. A grin finally made it across to my muzzle. Of course the Time Cop would have a special watch.

Springs creaked behind me and I almost unslung my rifle again until I remembered Tangerine was in the room. She’d picked up the memory orb and was trying to make herself comfortable on the bed, which definitely looked as soft as I though it did. I found it funny as she tried to go to the center of the bed without comically sinking and losing her balance.

I had to hold back a giggle. “Having problems?”

“Shut up!” Tangerine shouted back, blushing slightly. She settled on lying down where she was with the orb nestled between her forelegs. “Cover me, would you?”

“Can do.” Jokingly, I grabbed the sheets and gently pulled them over onto Tangerine, showering her with a layer of dust.

Tangerine didn’t move and instead glared at me very, very angrily. I didn’t like the look she was giving me, so I pulled the sheets over a little more so that they covered her face as well.

“There we go.” I patted the lump where Tangerine’s head should be. “Covered.”

I could hear her adorably growling from under there somewhere. “Just keep watch. No goofing around.”

“Fine, fine.” I made sure to aggressively pat the lump again. “You’ll be safe, I promise.”

“I’d better be,” I heard Tangerine mutter. Once I was sure she was watching whatever was on that orb by peeking under the sheet, I sighed and settled myself down onto the dreamily soft bed.

Back to this pocket watch, however. My PipBuck had a clock built into it, didn’t it? So why did I need a watch attachment?

“Maybe it’s just for showing off. Impracticality is fashionable, last I heard,” Ice Storm told me. He was sitting in the chair opposite from the skeleton, idly twirling a nearly burnt out cigarette through the air in front of him.

I read the inscription on the back once more. “Well, it is shiny.”

Filly Frosty just happened to be sitting at the foot of the bed. “Maybe it’s there because you can go ‘ooh let me check the time on this really cool watch that you don’t have!’ Or something like that.” She rolled around on the bed and waved her hooves in the air.

“Or maybe their PipBucks didn’t have clocks,” Gala Frosty helpfully added from the doorway. “I mean, this guy’s a big spender after all.” She pointed at the skeleton. “He probably had a PipBuck when they first came out.”

“And they forgot a clock function,” I flatly declared.

Gala scratched her head. “Uh… there was so much technology in it there wasn’t any more room for a clock?” she replied with a shrug.

“Doubt it.” I flipped over the pocket watch again. “There’s gotta be something special about this thing.”

There was a loud thud from the other side of the bed. “H-hey… I thiiink dere’s a mini bar over by the sideways wood thing.” Drunk Frosty attempted to drag herself onto the bed and failed a few times.

The creak of unoiled hinges made several heads turn (or in one case, roll) toward the bathroom. A tumbleweed bounced out of the bathroom door, around Gala, and whirled into the dining room like it belonged. I blinked and rubbed my eyes in shock. When I looked back at the bathroom door, it was closed again.

“Did we all just—” Officer Frosty blinked and rubbed her eyes as well.

Toasty slapped me in the face very roughly with the back of her hoof. When I reeled backward and nearly knocked over the skeleton’s skull, she nodded in satisfaction.

“Yup. We just collectively hallucinated a desert plant,” Toasty told the rest of me. “Bucking brilliant.”

“Why the hell did you hit me?” I angrily demanded.

Toasty shrugged. “Just making sure you didn’t nod off.”

“Was it really necessary though?”

Toasty pretended to think about it. “No,” she finally agreed. “But it was fun.”

I pointed at Officer Frosty. “And what the buck are you doing here?”

“What? It’s a party, so I might as well drop in as well.” She cocked her head at me. “Problem?

I sighed. “Ah, forget it. I really don’t wanna deal with you right now.”

“The mare makes a point,” Ice told Officer. “But seriously, what’s going on? There’s a lot of weird stuff going on, and that’s saying a lot coming from a room full of Frosty.”

“Yeah!” All of us pumped a hoof or a claw in the air, minus Ice and Officer.

Gala peeked into the bathroom. “Breaking news: the toilet seat is gold.” She trotted inside, only to emerge seconds later. “I lied. It’s just acrylic.”

I really had to be really bored if I wanted to look in the bathroom. “So, any ideas on what’s going on in this hotel? This many creepy things can’t be coincidence.”

“Maybe you should check your radio,” Officer suggested.

“How would that help?” Gala asked.

Officer shrugged. “Just suggesting the Enclave news channel might help.”

As if. “You and what reception? Come on, I can’t even get Propaganda Nightly down here,” I sarcastically shot back.

“Or the muuuusaaak chaaannaaaa,” droned the drunken voice sprawled out on the floor.

Filly rolled around on the bed. “Maybe if we need some nap time!”

Hmm. Nap time did seem like a great idea. However, I really wanted to know what was so special about the watch. I unplugged my disruptor and tucked it away safely with the rest of my stuff. To be safe, I blew off the PipBuck connectors on the watch before plugging it in.

The watch’s arms spun and spun until the time matched up with what I had on my PipBuck. Three forty-two in the afternoon. Looked about right. Other than that, it didn’t appear to do anything.

I didn’t have time to wonder if anything had changed. “Wait, what’s that sound?” Toasty asked, fearfully whipping her head back and forth.

Never before had I ever seen me, or even the most brazen, violent, angry version of me this scared. She was shifting uneasily on her hooves and nervously flicking her ears around. In her nervous shifting, she was digging little holes in the carpet with her talons. Her yellowed eyes kept searching for something invisible in the room.

“Uhh…” I glanced at Gala and Ice Storm. “So… any of you hear whatever it is?” Both of them shook their heads.

“You don’t hear it?!” Toasty screeched. “It’s so loud! Make it stop!” She looked around and finally resorted to darting under the bed.

“Hic! Weccome!” Drunky greeted Toasty.

Somepony slapped somepony else under there. “Speak again and I’ll shove that bottle so far up your ass you’ll be choking on it!”

Silence.

Tick… tock…

“Guys… I think I caught the crazy,” I warned everypony.

Where was that coming from? It seemed like it was coming from everywhere. I was getting the same looks that Toasty was receiving a moment ago. Tick… tock… The door! Wait… clock noises… I glared at the watch plugged into my PipBuck.

I reached for the clock and I was about to yank it until I heard a new sound—buzzing. “Okay, that’s not normal.” A large chitinous limb reached around the door frame, followed by another.

If the ugliest bloatsprite had decided to reproduce with the help of a few radroaches, that’s kind of what I was looking at. It had big ugly red bug eyes and a big horrendously fuzzy midsection that had horrible fly wings attached to it.

“Get down!” I yelled, not waiting for anypony to actually get down.

They were figments of my imagination after all, so they probably didn’t need to get to a safe distance anyway. I kicked on S.A.T.S. and put three shots into the creature’s eyes. Only after I let the spell do its job did I realize I was about to fire a very large gun in a very small confined space.

I caught Ice taking his revolver out of his trenchcoat. “Huh. That’s interesting.”

I fired off three shots consecutively into the thing’s right eye. Boom! The first shot blew cleanly through its eye. The next two added insult to injury by creating two more massive holes in its already ugly face. All three reports from my rifle were deafening in the room. My ears didn’t hurt yet, but I braced myself for intense ear pain in a moment.

As Ice jumped into action and started to empty his revolver into the oversized bug, complete with his appearance chime, everything froze and suddenly adopted a black, white, and red motif. A large red poker heart swirled out of the ground and flattened itself in front of me.

“What the—?”

Time for more. It did a little twirl and popped out of existence. I didn’t recall that ever happening before…

Ice continued in normal motion, firing his last two rounds into the bug. Strange thing was, I hadn’t come out of S.A.T.S. yet like I expected to. A quick glance to my AP meter puzzled me further. Hadn’t I used up all my actions on my three shots?

The only comfort I had was that Ice was just as confused as I was. “Hold up a sec, this is where I disappear like a mysterious badass and slow motion stops.” He looked around at everypony else still floating where they’d either dove for cover or not moved at all.

I canceled S.A.T.S. and was immediately slammed by the damage of eardrum-shattering gunfire. I dropped my rifle and clutched at my ears. Before anypony started asking questions, I shook my head pointed at my ears. A quick cough and a swallow later, and felt my hearing come back with a slight pop.

“Okay, what the hell just happened?” Ice demanded.

Gala pointed out the door and at the big hole in the ceiling, which was now gently raining dust and debris. “Well, Frosty flipped out and forcibly added a skylight into the ceiling, that’s what.”

I rubbed my eyes. “There… there was a giant bug there a second ago.”

“Don’t look like it anymore,” Toasty snorted, picking at her teeth with the tip of her talon.

But it had been so real… S.A.T.S. had even targeted it! Well then again, I was talking to several representations of myself. Maybe I needed some real medical attention after all.

The pile of sheets violently spasmed. “Don’t plug in the watch!” Tangerine yelled suddenly. Looks like she was awake again.

“Well, you’re a bit late on that count.” I reached over and yanked the tangled sheets off of her. “Welcome back.”

Obviously the first thing Tangerine noticed was the hole in the ceiling. “So you started on getting us to the roof?”

“Long story. What’s wrong with the watch?” I held up my PipBuck with the shiny watch attached to it.

Tangerine groaned. “There’s a prototyped spell attached to it with a security binding spell keeping it secure. By attaching Don Belle’s watch to your PipBuck, attaching it to any other PipBuck won’t do anything anymore.”

“So?”

Apparently not the reply that Tangerine was looking for. “Don’t you see? We can’t research the spell because you just assigned it to your PipBuck Two Thousand, as opposed to our PipBuck Three Thousand Dev!” She punched my shoulder, and immediately regretted it as her hoof clanged off my armor.

For some reason, I still didn’t really see the problem. “So why not just look at my PipBuck for the spell, then?”

Tangerine facehoofed. “Your PipBuck is an older, slightly outdated model. It lacks a lot of features that the Three Thousand model has by default, not to mention that yours isn’t even a developers’ kit that allows us to access the interesting parts of the spell.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.” Tangerine collected herself and wormed her way off the bed. “Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re pretending or if you’re legitimately this stupid.”

I watched her tuck the memory orb somewhere under that robe of hers. “Hey, I’ll be as stupid as you need me to be.” I winked at her.

Tangerine cutely blushed and avoided eye contact with me by rearranging things in her saddlebags. Mission accomplished.

“You just can’t stop picking on her, can you?” Ice flicked his burnt out cigarette at me. “And get some more smokes, would you?”

Tangerine suddenly switched from being bashful to full combat mode, even going as far as levitating her laser pistol out. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?” She shook the pistol at the wispy unicorn sitting on the couch.

Wait, what? “YOU CAN SEE HIM?” I yelled back at her incredulously.

Ice sat up and slammed his fedora down on the armrest of his couch. “WHY ARE WE YELLING?”

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Intimidation (Level 2) – Your reputation as a Warboss is spreading. Raiders have an increased chance of retreating from battle. However, there is a slight chance that they will instead double their attempts to kill you.
New Item Ability: Don Belle’s Lucky Pocket Watch – You have a 50% chance to replenish any consumed AP when using S.A.T.S. This ability may only be used every three hours.
Current Sub-perk: Confused – I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of how crazy I am. You gain no stat bonuses.

Rising Storm DLC installed.

New locations unlocked.

New quests added.

New perks available.

Chapter 20: Whose idea was this, anyway?

Chapter 20: Whose idea was this, anyway?

“Sometimes I dream of cheese.”

“It’s not possible. IT’S NOT POSSIBLE!” Tangerine’s laser continued to unsteadily point at Ice Storm. “You don’t exist. You can’t exist!”

I glared at Ice as well, but stayed silent. If everypony was having hallucinations, maybe I could pass him off as one. Lacking that, maybe she was seeing someone else instead. The last thing I wanted was Tangerine telling Rumcake how bad my crazy was getting.

“You… you were in the front row. I remember you because you winked at me.” Tangerine slightly lowered her laser. “How…”

Ice stood up and placed his fedora back on his head. “Don’tcha worry about it.” He placed his hoof on Tangerine’s lips.

“Mph?”

“Sleep it off. It’ll probably make more sense later.” Ice gently pushed Tangerine, who fell onto her back and immediately fell asleep. “Whew.”

Ice sighed once she was out and slightly drooling on the bed. “What the hell was that about?” I quietly demanded.

Ice attempted to produce a cigarette from his crumpled cigarette box, but he found out that it was empty after a few shakes. “I feel like you deserve an explanation, especially after all this time.” He turned it upside down and shook it just to make sure.

I must have snorted hard enough to dislodge ceiling tiles. “Damn right.”

“Well, let’s start with this—I’m not one of your crazy partition personalities.” Ice took a seat back in the armchair. “I’ve been trying to get them to trust me this entire time while still doing my thing.”

“So there was something going on under my nose the entire time.”

“It wasn’t going to be a moustache.”

Dammit, another joke I didn’t understand. “Huh?”

Ice sighed. “Under your nose? Moustache? Come on, it’s not that hard.”

That joke deserved a facehoof. “Just get back to explaining.”

“Fine, fine. Sheesh, you military types don’t have a sense of humor.” Ice settled himself in the chair. “I’m a spirit from an era long, long, gone. After what happened over… I don’t know, over a thousand years ago now, I guess? I ended up being thrown into the world without a friend to keep me company.”

Wow. That sounded dreadful. “…What happened?”

“Let’s say the last pony I hung around with may have overreacted to a petty argument and got sent to a faraway place,” Ice carefully responded. “A while later, we came back and more bad things happened.”

“Like…?”

I received a cold, well, icy glare from Ice. “I’m not going into any more detail. Bad. Things. That’s it.”

Based on just that story, I was somewhat skeptical about his motives and his impact on my mental health. It wasn’t like I could do anything about it, though. I was stuck with Ice for the foreseeable future.

“Hey, but at least I found you. You’re a nice mare, but truthfully—you’re not my type.”

It was my turn to glare at him. “Wow, thanks.”

I heard a groan from my left. “I’ll just pop out now. Something about that watch or this place messed up my selective vision spell, and I really want to know what. I’ll make sure it won’t happen again.” With that, he vaporized in a hasty pile of pale blue fog before I could ask him any more questions.

Tangerine sat up and stretched, releasing an adorably squeaky yawn in the process. “Ugh… I just had the strangest nightmare… WAIT.” She noticed her laser pistol on the floor where she’d dropped it before.

Uh… “You started yelling about somepony or something and then you drew your pistol. I panicked, and I might have accidentally knocked you out,” I hastily lied. Great job, me.

There was a really good chance that Tangerine wasn’t buying it. She gave me a weird look along the lines of “right, I’ll believe you for the moment” as she tucked her laser pistol away. I gave her a reassuring grin while I folded up my bipod.

“Let’s just find that laser so we can leave. This place creeps me out.” Tangerine shuddered. “Seriously, if I’m seeing things we have problems.”

The mare made a point, even if she had been slightly wrong. “Yeah, I’m not doing good as well. After that giant bug and the noises, I just really want to get out of here. Heck, I’ll fly us to the bottom too. Buck that damn elevator.”

A pillow bounced off my head. “No. We’re taking the nice and safe elevator. As much as I trust you, I’m not going to let you fly me to the bottom of this building and risk the chances of me pancaking all over the dirt.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

The same pillow lifted off the floor and slapped me about the other side of my head. “Shut up and find the roof access.”

To the roof it was. Tangerine wandered off back to where the elevator was while I stared at the hole that I’d blasted into the ceiling. Maybe if I had some explosives, I could widen the hole just enough so that I could shove Tangerine through it.

“Assuming the laser is really on the roof, wouldn’t blowing up the roof be a bad idea?” Gala Frosty asked as she curiously examined an empty glass box built into the dining room wall. “And you don’t have the explosives, don’t you?”

Damn you, common sense. “Well, maybe if we blow it up really carefully, we won’t need a ladder,” I responded, hovering close to the ceiling.

I heard something metallic and heavy hit the ground somewhere, followed by loud wrenching noises. “You’re not –ngh– blowing anything up, Frosty.”

Play it cool, Frosty. “Aww come on! Please?” I whined.

There was a lighter metal on floor contact sound. “No means no. I think I got a way up to the roof, anyway. Could you give me a hoof? I can’t get any good leverage at this angle.”

I continued to stare at the hole I’d made. “I’m telling you, if we used just a little—”

“No! Just get over here!”

Depressing gray clouds floated just out of reach right on the other side of the hole. “How about if we jus—” I stopped as something grabbed my right ear and dragged me off in the direction of where Tangerine was standing. “Ow! OW OW OW!”

I stumbled into the elevator lobby by my ear. Once I noticed the wisps of magic dissipating from Tangerine’s horn, I became more annoyed that she’d dragged me around like a foal. The elevator doors were open again, curiously enough without the actual elevator. On the other side of the yawning pit, there was an old rusty ladder with an even more rusty hatch above it.

An iron monkey wrench floated next to Tangerine. “I can’t get a good angle on the screws holding that hatch’s hinges on. I hope the architect that designed this place fell down a flight of stairs and into a den of flaming pit vipers. Seriously.”

Since Tangerine had gone through all the effort of forcibly bring me back to the elevator lobby, I felt like I had no choice but to help. “Fine, Let’s see…” I carefully weaved my way around the old rusty wires and examined the hatch carefully.

“Do you need the wrench?” Tangerine called up to me.

Where had she even found it, anyway? That issue aside, the head of the wrench was too large for the small space. Although now I could see how she couldn’t get a good angle on the screws either.

The hinges looked like they had been weakened by centuries of rust—weak enough to probably break at the drop of a feather. “Nah, I probably won’t need it.” I tapped my power armored hoof against the hinges, loosening a sliver of rust.

Tangerine began to mutter to herself. “Stupid architects.” I imagined she started to bob her head as she mimicked voices. “Why do you have a ladder in an elevator shaft? To fix the elevator! How do you get to the ladder? You take the elevator that doesn't work! Who thought this one up?! Unbelievable.”

I was trying to figure out how to buck the hatch on the ceiling while still maintaining a stable hover. There wasn’t room to safely hover upside down, nevermind pull a daredevil-esque sideways hover and a three-inch buck.

“Aww buck it, I’m taking the easy way.” I landed back in the elevator lobby so I could get Philomena’s touch on.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Tangerine noticed. “Wait, what are you doing?”

“I’m about to open that little hatch into next week.” I flew back into the elevator shaft, placed my claw against the frame of the hatch, and swung my special power hoof as hard as I could.

On hindsight, it was sort of a bad idea. Not only was I going to have to wash all of the rusty flecks out of my mane and off Dad’s hat, but I managed to launch the hatch right off its hinges and into orbit. Before I could announce my success, an impressive amount of gravel and debris poured down the hole. Thanks to my smart decision of not wearing a helmet, some gravel managed to make it inside my armor.

I kept my mouth and eyes closed until things stopped falling on me. “Yeah, I think we should have thought this through a bit more.” I rattled my way back into the lobby.

“We?” Tangerine huffed.

“Shut up.”

Rocks and whatever else was accompanying my lower neck and shoulders made it incredibly uncomfortable to move. What was worse, every time I took a step or even moved at all, more of the rocks in my armor dropped farther into every possible space they could.

“Get this armor off me. I’ve got rocks in my collar and rocks in my mane…” I groaned, tossing my head to dislodge a rock in my ear. At least shaking myself shook off most of gravel trapped on my armor.

Tangerine ignored me and instead peered up the empty elevator shaft. “Well, at least you got it open. Now I need to figure out how I’m going to get over there.”

After a bit of fumbling, I managed to undo my chestplate and sighed contentedly as a modest collection of gravel poured out. Once I was sure I had as much debris out of my armor as possible, I managed to replace everything on my own for once.

I peered into the elevator shaft. “Wow. That’s a really long ladder.” The giant rusty ladder ran from the top of the shaft all the way down into the deep dark depths.

“If you expect me to jump across and snag the ladder, you can think again,” Tangerine added, peering over the edge with me.

“Hm.” A devious idea wormed its way into my mind. “Maybe you can find something to bridge the gap. Or maybe we can call the elevator down to the floor below and use it as a platform.”

Tangerine stepped back and consulted the mess of wires that was the elevator control panel. “Well, it shouldn’t be that hard…”

Chance! In the moment that Tangerine had been distracted, I wrapped my forelegs around her midsection and easily picked her up. Thanks to her small size as well, I managed to swoop us around the big steel cables and prop her hooves up on the rungs of the ladder without any problems. Well, problems for me, anyway.

“AAAAAAAAAHHH!” Tangerine belatedly screamed.

“Yes, I’m aware,” I winced, flattening my ears against my head.

To the disappointment of my ears, Tangerine continued screaming in sheer fright. Why did her voice have to be so high pitched? I made sure that I had a good hold on her before reaching around and forcibly shutting her mouth by clamping my claw around her muzzle.

Tangerine squirmed in my grasp. “If you keep moving and screaming, I’m going to drop you. I’m sure you don’t want that,” I warned her. Immediately, her struggling stopped.

I gave Tangerine a chance for her to grab the ladder now that she wasn’t completely scared witless. I continued to flap in place, suddenly realizing that flying into the shaft so quickly was a terrible idea. Not only was the space not as large as it appeared, I could have clipped one of my wings on something!

Concerns aside… “I’m going to take my claw off your mouth, and you’re going to stop screaming. Okay?” I felt Tangerine nod, so I shifted by claw down to her waist.

“Was it too hard for you to ask first?” Tangerine started climbing up the ladder very slowly with me hovering up behind her, in case she lost her footing. I’d already released her at this point, by the way. “You know I’m afraid of heights.”

“That’s why. Pretty sure you wouldn’t have agreed to it, so I decided to take action first,” I proudly replied. “Watch those edges, by the way.”

I continued to protectively hover at the top of the shaft as Tangerine climbed out onto the roof. “I swear, one day I’m going to get you back for every single time that you’ve scared me.”

“Good luck with that.” I snickered.

Tangerine pulled herself out and immediately got a corner of her robe caught on what was left on the hinges. I unsnagged her robe and climbed out after her, right into a gust of wind that whipped my rusty mane into my eyes. The roof wasn’t as interesting as I thought it would be. No obvious giant death laser, only big rusty box things and some kind of broken machine along the edge of the roof.

“Well, this is a bit disappointing.” I looked around for anything that could be a huge laser.

The two of us performed a slightly more in-depth examination of the roof. It turned out that the big rusty boxes were only air conditioning units, and the machine was a busted window-washing unit for non-pegasi. How disappointing.

“It’s supposed to be right here!” Tangerine whined, stomping the gravel beneath her hooves. “And I had my hopes up, too.”

“Did the memory orb tell you anything?”

Tangerine shook her head. “Whenever that memory was captured, the laser was ‘in progress’, whatever that means.”

I looked around the roof again. Unless there was some sort of super-secret hiding place for a laser, it definitely wasn’t here. “Maybe they moved it at some point,” I suggested.

“A laser that big? Not possible.” Tangerine pawed at the gravel surfacing the roof.

As I cast another baleful look around the roof, I idly realized that anything that complicated would have gotten destroyed by the weather. Well, that or whoever owned the hotel must have had a personal brigade of pegasi to manage the weather for them. Think, Frosty. If I was a superweapon on the roof, where would I be? I noticed a glint of steel where there should have been concrete under the layer of gravel.

Officer Frosty stood next to me. “I’d be under the roof. Safety, and it’s a good excuse to install a super-secret roof hatch.”

I stared at her. “Hold on, since when do you provide commentary?”

“Hey, don’t discriminate. You’ll get your commentary whether you want to or not.” Officer stared at the broken window washing unit. “Hey, maybe you can send the scribe down in that.”

“Looks like a death trap,” I remarked.

“Exactly.”

“You’re a dick.”

Officer snickered. “Joke’s on you. You just called yourself a dick.”

I faceclawed. “Ugh. I hate me.”

I felt a hoof pat my head. “Don’t worry. I hate you too.”

Tangerine trotted up to me. “What are you muttering about now?”

“I got an idea that there might be a super secret blast door on the roof.” I mulled my own words over in my head. “Wow, that sounded a lot less stupid before I said anything.”

Tangerine gave me her very familiar ‘Frosty-you’re-an-idiot’ look. “Whatever gave you that idea? Don’t get my hopes up.”

“Let’s just say I have an idea.” I swept gravel and dirt away from the metal sheet, which revealed itself to be much larger than expected.

There definitely was something. A reinforced cable ran from one corner of the metal sheet in the roof to one of the rusty air conditioning units. Tangerine re-examined that particular unit and jumped back in surprise when a panel opened and a miniature terminal hit her in the face. She rubbed her nose in annoyance as she went back to the face-ramming terminal to examine it.

I peeked over Tangerine’s head while she did her complicated sciencey things. Neon green words started to filter onto the screen and I didn’t understand any of it. Something about activating, some other things about nonessential something or other, and all-around boring stuff. Still, it was kinda interesting watching her magically type away.

“So… what’s all of that mean?” I asked, pointing at a passing “access denied” warning.

After taking a few seconds to angrily hammer something into the terminal, Tangerine huffed, “Like any responsible pony, there’s a password on the entire system.” A buffet of wind threw her hood back, which she pointedly ignored.

“Did you try ‘password’ yet?” I helpfully suggested. Tangerine glared at me again, then levitated her hood back into place.

“What kind of stupid pony makes their password ‘password’? I mean, it’s like making your locker combination ‘1-2-3-4’.”

I took a step back and nervously looked elsewhere. “Hah! Yeah, what kind of—eh, heh heh.” My response petered out as Tangerine stopped in her technological sorcery to gape at me. “Hah?”

When Tangerine didn’t respond, I daintily took half a step forward and closed her mouth for her. I grinned and proceeded to hide my face under the brim of my dad’s hat.

“Goddesses, you really are that stupid,” Tangerine finally exclaimed.

My face instantly heated up to boiling. “Hey, I don’t have to change default codes! They’re easy to remember and nopony ever expects it!” I retorted, still trying to hide behind my dad’s hat.

“I’ve lost all of my respect for you.”

“Shut up and get back to doing…” I waved my claw at the terminal. “Whatever that is.”

Her taunting finished, Tangerine went back to fiddling with the terminal again. I, in the meantime, decided to cool my head by flying a few circles around the roof. Once I was sure there weren’t any threats in the area and she wouldn’t be ambushed, I launched myself off the roof.

I let myself drop for a few seconds before opening my wings and climbing back up to roof level. A few powerful pumps of my wings gave me enough speed to rocket around the perimeter of the roof at a pulse-pounding gliding speed. I relished the slight adrenaline coursing through my body and the wind ruffling my mane.

“While you’re up here, maybe you should listen to some calming Enclave tunes,” Officer Frosty suggested, flying right along my right wing.

What was her deal with the radio? “No. I just want to fly in peace so I can think.”

“Check those tunes sometime.” Officer performed a smooth bank turn and soared out of my peripheral vision. Hm.

I really wanted to take all of my armor off so that I could actually enjoy the cool breeze like Luna intended it to be. Too bad we were in a potentially hazardous area and doing so would really lower my already low chances of survival. At least I wasn’t wearing a helmet and all this flying was very slowly removing all the bits of rust in my mane.

Flying made me feel more at ease in my current predicament. I didn’t need to worry about anything except feel the thermals beneath my wings and not crash into a wall. So peaceful. I used this opportunity to breathe deeply and just let my worries disappear.

“Frosty! Down here!” Tangerine broke my calm train of thought. “What do you know about energy weapons?”

What didn’t I know about energy weapons? “Hello, Enclave training! Sure, I know enough,” I replied, swooping toward the roof for a landing.

In the time that I’d zoned out and flown a few laps around the building, Tangerine had figured out how to open the roof up. Turned out I wasn’t as crazy as I thought! Sure enough, there was a large turret-like device slowly elevating from horizontal to vertical. If that wasn’t a super-laser, I didn’t know what was.

“Wow. That’s a big laser.” I marveled at the complex pre-war weapon in front of me.

Tangerine trotted around the edge of the open blast doors. “According to the control console, it’s missing a lot of components. There’s almost no power, for starters. The adjustment panel is completely rusted out, and it looks like one of the components hasn’t been installed.”

I pulled up next to an open service panel and peered inside. “I’m assuming this is just a really large laser rifle, so let’s see…” Good thing one of the only classes that I paid attention was weapon maintenance.

“I know a group of Steel Rangers that might want a fully operational battle station.” Tangerine endearingly tapped the outer case of the laser.

Yeah, that wasn’t close. “I’m afraid this battle station isn’t even partially operational.”

“A mare can dream.”

“The alignment rod is bent. It’ll have to be replaced, but at least I think you can use anything as long as it’s as straight as possible,” I immediately observed. “There aren’t enough crystals to power a device of this size, unless the crystals are overcharged and power output is exponential in relation to size at this point as opposed to logarithmically.”

I smirked when I saw Tangerine’s dumbfounded face. Excellent, everything was going to plan. “Whaaaa?”

I reached in and carefully unplugged a small cylindrical device. The tube was transparent and held a crystal attached to some kind of circuit board. A few of these were attached in a ring formation around the tube, so I could only assume it was some kind of oversized capacitor. To my slightly professional opinion, those actually looked okay if they were wired up correctly.

“The heat sinks aren’t in optimal position since they’re nowhere near the cooling vents,” I added, peering down into the bottom of the laser. “Actually, the heat sinks aren’t even in a good place at all. Some of the energy couplings are missing as well. Good luck finding enough raw copper and tungsten to make giant wires.”

“How do you know all of this?” Tangerine sputtered.

Who was the one laughing now? “There were two things that I paid attention to, it was stuff about energy weapons, marksponyship, and bartending.”

“Two?”

Weapons, shooting, drinks… whoops. “Math was obviously not one of my strong suits.” Yet another double facehoof moment.

“So… how viable is this laser?” Tangerine gazed at me with a hopeful expression.

I flipped myself over and stared up into the top end of the laser. “In theory, most of the main components are fine. You should be able to repair it if you find somepony else that actually knows how energy weapons work. I just know enough to fix and diagnose problems.”

A rock bounced off my armored wing. “So will it work or not?”

The fuse box I was staring into didn’t even have any fuses in it. “I’d say you’ve got a twenty percent chance of actually getting it working. There’s a lot of design problems and a lot of parts are missing.” I backpedaled in the air to get my head out of the laser.

Tangerine kicked the side of the air conditioner unit holding the hidden terminal. “Damn. I wasn’t expecting it, but thanks for your help.”

I pumped my hooves in the air. “I am so smart! S-M-R-T!” I singsonged.

“You missed a letter.”

“That’s the joke,” I grumbled. However, I wasn’t going to let it bother me because I was having a better time just having shown Tangerine that I was better than her at something.

Before I could properly bask in my glory, my radio burped to life. “Fros… where… are, pull… Rally… ign and pull out… found Violet and… o good news.”

I tapped my earbloom. “Did not copy. Say again, did not copy.”

Nothing but more static and unintelligible speech. “Well, all I got was regroup somewhere. It’s always the repeat that never makes it through.” I stared accusingly at the radio mounted on my shoulder.

Tangerine was back at the terminal. “There’s a lot of interference up here. Give me a second to copy the software on this thing and I’ll follow you down.”

~~~~~

“We’re not taking the elevator,” I asserted, refusing to step inside the metal box.

Tangerine attempted to drag me into the elevator. “Come on, I really don’t want to ride you this far down to the ground.” I did my best not to make a disappointed whine or a questionably funny comment.

So maybe I’d given her a bad experience with her first few flights. “It’ll be fine. I promise there won’t be anything too drastic in the way of aerial maneuvers.” I stealthily shuffled my wings in a pegasus approximation of an obvious lie—also why I was bad at poker. Hey, I wasn’t going to give up the chance to dive this far straight down!

“I’m taking the elevator, and hopefully it won’t have to stop on every single floor.” Tangerine stood in the elevator and waited. “You coming?”

On hindsight, maybe dive bombing the ground was a bad idea. “Fine, fine. Just so you won’t be lonely on the ride down.” Grudgingly, I glided into the elevator.

The doors dinged and slid closed. My heart lurched when the entire elevator shuddered and groaned. After that slight hiccup, we began to descend at a painstakingly slow rate. The little readout along the top of the elevator slowly counted down from one hundred. Ugh. At least the lights on the floor selection panel had reset, so we weren’t going to stop on each floor this time.

Tangerine broke the silence. “So… know any cool tricks?”

Ninety one. “I have this one really cool party trick.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I can appear at parties I’m not invited to.”

Eighty seven. “I don’t get it.”

“Aww come on! Party trick? A trick that gets me into parties?”

Realization dawned on Tangerine. “Ooooh! I get it now!”

I had to faceclaw after that one. If this kept up, there was going to be a good chance I’d stab an eye out. Maybe the little scribe needed to get out more.

“What about you?” I asked, legitimately curious. Unicorns had to have really cool tricks with all their magic and stuff, right?

Seventy three. “Not really, no. Most of my spells are for practical use.”

“That’s boring. Can you even cast fireworks or something? Or like, sparkles?” She had to know something entertaining.

I noticed Tangerine shrinking into her hood and beginning to take interest in a corner of the floor. “W-well, not really…”

Curiouser and curiouser. “Go on…” I inched closer to Tangerine.

“Uh… let’s say when unicorns get really excited…”

Ooh. I liked where this was going. “Yes?” I scooted a little closer.

Tangerine looked amazingly uncomfortable. “And sometimes, w-we uh, do this thing…”

“And?” I was close enough so that I could almost feel the heat radiating off Tangerine’s face.

“Where, uh—” Tangerine’s voice broke off at a squeak.

I leaned in and breathily whispered into her ear “Does this happen when you cloooop?”

Tangerine sprang into the wall in what I assumed was surprise. “Yes. No! Nononono!” Her face was redder than an apple right now.

Just in case, I tucked that information away for later. “That’s cute.” I hopped back to where I was standing previously like nothing had happened.

Tangerine and I spent the next few dozen of floors standing in embarrased and smug silence, respectively. Every time she looked in my direction, I grinned and winked at her which caused her to blush profusely and stare at the wall again.

“Floor forty-one. Rooms forty-one oh one to forty-one eighty.” This time, I gave Tangerine a more serious look and grabbed the first weapon in my saddlebag—the revolver with the striped and numbered cylinder. Good thing she understood and readied her laser pistol as well.

The doors opened and the two of us pointed our respective weapons out into the floor’s elevator lobby. There was nopony there at first glance. The carpeting was worn and torn, bloody marks adorned the walls, and there was a pile of bones right next to the hallway.

Since nopony appeared to actually be waiting by the elevator, I pressed the “close doors” button. “Hm. That’s weird,” I mentioned as the doors slid closed and the elevator began its descent once more.

“Hey, can I see that gun you’ve got?” Tangerine asked.

I pulled the revolver out of my mouth and gave it to her. “Sure. Why?”

Tangerine examined my revolver intently, even carefully taking it apart with her magic. “That’s really cool.” She spun the cylinder in her orange magic field.

Too bad the elevator was too small to effectively use my anti-machine rifle. “What is?” I asked, making sure to rearrange the contents of my saddlebag so that my submachine gun was on top.

The side of my revolver’s loaded cylinder was shoved right into my face. “It’s numbered like a roulette spinner thing! There’s also some kind of enchanted gem built into the center pin.” Once she mentioned it, the similarity was striking.

When Tangerine spun it one more time, a single bullet fell out because of the angle. “Floor twenty-seven. Rooms twenty-seven oh one to twenty-seven eighty. Spa also located on this floor.” My revolver’s parts flew together at lightning speed and pointed out the opening elevator doors.

I was caught off guard. There wasn’t anything there, so I couldn’t activate S.A.T.S. out of panic. My stupid rifle strap was getting in the way thanks to how I’d rearranged everything on my person.

A ghoul dressed in what probably used to be a very fancy ball dress suddenly appeared. “Eeeee! KILL IT!” Tangerine squealed. I heard the hammer on my revolver fall six times in a row, but there was no actual firing.

It’s a good thing that I was too distracted by trying to figure out what color the dress used to be. “That’s racist, you know that? And how’d ya get a gun in here, anyhow?” the zebra ghoul growled with its gravelly voice.

Tangerine urgently hissed at me, “She still thinks it’s the past! Quick, improvise!”

“Sorry! My, uh, cousin won it at the gift shop. It’s just a toy, see?” I hastily bluffed, taking my revolver back and pulling the trigger several more times into the floor.

The ghoul placed one of her rotting hooves in the doorway, preventing the doors from closing. “What’s with the getup?”

“Gaming convention?” I hopefully suggested.

“Hmm.” The zebra ghoul continued to stare. “Going up?”

“Down,” Tangerine quickly replied.

The ghoul withdrew without another word and wandered off, muttering about stairs. The elevator dinged, and the doors slid closed once again. The two of us sighed in relief. Disaster narrowly averted.

The two of us sighed in relief. “It would be the dirtiest zebra.” I chuckled to myself.

I examined the bullet that had fallen out of my revolver. Nothing special, but hadn’t there been six loaded in my revolver a moment ago? I checked the load on it and found it was completely devoid of bullets. Carefully, I picked up the bullet and slid it into one of the empty chambers and held back a surprised grunt when five other bullets materialized in the other vacant slots. Snapping the gun shut caused the cylinder to spin a few times before stopping.

“That’s really bucking useless.” I finally sighed. “At least it’s got a cool paint job.”

“Hm?” Tangerine was too busy waiting for the last eight floors to go by.

I showed her the tricky bullet thing. Seriously, who does that? One real bullet? With a function like that, this thing was completely impractical to actually use in combat.

“It’s a Lucky Punk Roulette gambling revolver with full fairness functionality! That’s why it’s so familiar,” Tangerine exclaimed. “They’re super hard to find, and, well… impractical.”

“Why don’t I just take out the magic part?”

“Ground Floor. Casino floor and Front Desk. Bar is on the right.”

Tangerine shrugged. “Probably compromises the gun’s integrity. Not sure, really. I mean, maybe—”

We were aimlessly walking into a random hallway that, according to the sign on the wall, led directly to the bar. “To the lobby,” I interrupted her. The lobby seemed like a reasonable place to have a rally point. “Anyway, continue.”

We changed directions and headed to the front of the hotel. “Maybe it’s possible to machine a new chamber for it. That’s as close as it’ll get, I think. Without proper tools I won’t know how far the crafting and spells go.”

“Hey! Double time, soldier!” I spied a familiar Steel Ranger helmet from behind a row of slot machines ahead of us. “Get those wings in gear!”

I was greatly confused. There was no immediate danger, so what was the rush? Multiple heavy hooffalls that weren’t my own meant that Sparkle was nearby. A lighter, softer set probably meant that they’d found Violet as well. Or maybe it was just Tangerine tromping along behind me.

Speaking of which… “You’re probably not going like this, but it’s our boss and my coltfriend giving the order.” Again, I didn’t wait for a response before performing a little bunny hop into the air and grabbing Tangerine as she trotted under me.

“Wait, no no no NO!” Tangerine screamed as I built up speed and weaved my way around and over slot machines, tables and small neon signs. “Stop!”

Deep down in the corner of my mind, I felt a little bad for her. “Keep your legs tucked in. Don’t want to catch them on anything,” I yelled down to her as I weaved us through the missing glass pane in dividing wall.

I caught up to Rumcake much faster than he expected as I dropped a protesting Tangerine onto his back. “Wah! Woah, you scared me,” he exclaimed, still galloping.

“She doesn’t like the way I fly, so you’re better off carrying her,” I told Rumcake, spinning around in mid-air to fly backward to keep pace and talk to him.

“You fly like a maniac,” Tangerine yelled up at me.

I shrugged. “Okay, maybe I might be a little more reckless when I’m in a rush. It happens.” A low wooden beam collided with the back of my head.

“I think I see why.” Violet grabbed me with her magic and pointed me in the right direction. “Watch where you’re flying and maybe you’ll be more careful.”

Needless to say, I was thoroughly embarrassed. “Hey, that doesn’t usually happen!” I rubbed the back of my head and flew with a little more direction by facing front.

The front doors of the hotel were in sight. Instead of stopping to open them, Sparkle opted to launch a few grenades into them. Bits of glass and metal debris flew everywhere, one of which managed to slice my lower jaw. I ignored the biting pain and sped up to swoop through the giant hole first.

The rest of the Rangers, and Violet, stormed out right after me and stopped a good distance away. “Okay, this should be a safe distance,” Violet panted.

“Someone want to explain why we just hauled ass out of a perfectly good casino?” I asked the collected group.

Violet pulled out a tiny device and squinted at it. “We made it out just in time. There’s nineteen seconds left on the timer.”

Timers were only good for two things—alarms and timed explosives.“You’re blowing it up? There’s still valuable tech in there!” Tangerine exclaimed in shocked rage.

“It wasn’t my idea. Violet comes up to us in mid-search and says ‘oh, I planted a bunch of explosives in the basement without telling anypony else’, so we had to run,” Rumcake angrily replied. “Mind explaining yourself?”

Violet calmly shook the dirt off one of her hooves. “There was an evil monolith focusing dark magic hiding in the basement. Dropping a building on it probably should break it.”

There was a muted explosion and the ground sort of vibrated under my hooves. Centuries of dust cascaded from the building’s facade and a few windows shattered. More sounds of breaking and cracking suggested that some of the structure’s integrity had been compromised and was falling apart as we watched.

When the hotel didn’t fall, Violet looked incredibly annoyed—as opposed to Tangerine, who sighed in relief. “I guess that room was more reinforced than I thought. Well, you win this time. You can keep all of your random old crap, but have fun with recurring nightmares and hallucinations. Oh, and ghouls.”

Rumcake stared at Violet. “Thanks for helping with those, by the way.”

“They could have been exploding ghouls,” I helpfully added.

“Fine, there were sparkly seaponies swimming down there and they were looking at me funny.” Violet defiantly glared back at Rumcake. “Feel better?”

They were muzzle-to-helmet at this point and it was up to me to come up with something to stop this silly argument because Sparkle was sitting right next to us doing absolutely nothing but being amused. “Whatever happened in there happened. Get over it and move the buck on,” I yelled.

“Granted, she could have blown up a lot of valuable pre-war tech,” Tangerine mentioned.

“And the Stable,” Sparkle also added. “Well, what would have been a Stable anyway.”

Tangerine quickly added, “And a giant laser.”

Immediately, Rumcake’s ears perked up. “Giant laser? I like giant lasers.”

I felt the need to elaborate. “Well, it’s more of a”—I made several air-quote motions with my claw—“‘laser.’ Maybe pointed at the ‘moon’.”

“There’s some sort of defense laser on the roof of the hotel, but according to Frosty here, it’s mechanically flawed,” Tangerine explained. “In addition to being in disrepair, obviously.”

Defeatedly, Rumcake groaned. “Why can’t anything go right? First the Stable, now this.”

I saw a chance to derail the conversation. “Speaking of which, how’d the Stable search go? I assumed you two would have found it first.”

Sparkle shook her head. “We were probably close, but we ran into a huge pile of ghouls on the way down. They had the numbers and we had to weld the door shut. It also happens that they don’t care about strobe lights and using a grenade launcher in a hallway is a bad idea.”

Violet clopped her hooves together. “So that’s why I couldn’t leave the same way that I came in from.”

“We had to go around through a few maintenance tunnels and a service shaft. Guess what? After all that, we only found a bucking boiler room. We backtracked a bunch and managed to find it out of sheer luck.”

“And?” I asked.

Rumcake stomped up to me and dropped a bottle right on my head. “We found a Stable, alright.” I fumbled at the bottle on my head and barely caught it.

The faded label told me that it was “Firegrass” branded whiskey. Not only that, but it was still sealed and in pristine condition. I took one peek into Rumcake’s armored saddlebags revealed more bottles and cans.

“It just so happens that Stable Sixty-Nine is a nightclub. A nightclub that just so happens to imitate the style of Stable-Tec’s stables. Somehow underground bunkers became a popular design back then,” Rumcake snapped. “When we get back, I’m going to wring somepony’s neck for wasting my time.”

Sparkle patted Rumcake’s shoulder. “Hey, at least you got—”

“Say anything and I’ll make sure you get a month of kitchen duty when we get back.” Rumcake immediately shot back.

Sparkle immediately backed off. “Alright, alright. Chill.”

It wasn’t every day that Rumcake got flustered, so maybe there was a great story I was missing. Maybe it was something hilariously embarrassing! “So, what now?” I innocently asked, mentally reminding myself to have Sparkle give me the juicy details.

Tangerine consulted her large fold-out map. “Well, it’s possible there might actually be a Stable around here somewhere. There used to be an old mining town a few miles away from here before the war. It’s possible that there’s still old-world tech in those tunnels.” With a bit of her assistance, she helped me mark the location on my map.

“Worth a shot. We’re close by and we might as well,” Sparkle responded.

Rumcake unwillingly agreed to it. “Sure, whatever. I’m just mad right now. Let’s keep a low profile and follow the road as far as possible. Assuming the rest of our intel is trustworthy, this area is teeming with scavengers and raiders.”

Violet snorted. “Nothing the three heavy hitters can’t handle.”

Something warm and wet was tickling its way down my chin and spattering onto the ground. I wiped the back of my hoof across it and hissed at the slight stab of pain. Right, I’d forgotten that I was bleeding. I stared at the crimson liquid staining my armor and suddenly felt a little thirsty. I gave in and began licking and sucking at what was there.

Violet, Rumcake, and Sparkle continued to argue about exactly what to do next. Tangerine, however, was intently staring at me. I raised an eyebrow at her as I continued to wipe my jaw and lick the resulting mess off my greave.

“You’re bleeding,” Tangerine reminded me, quietly pushing me aside so that I wasn’t facing the rest of the group.

If that wasn’t blood, then that meant I was full of cherry syrup. “I think I noticed.” Mmm… cherry syrup.

Tangerine stared at me in worry. “What are you doing?”

“Eh.” Annoyingly enough, my face was running out of blood to feed me with. “Not my fault I’m deliciously irresistible.”

“You need to stop that. It’s a bad habit. It’s also really disgusting.” Tangerine attempted to get me to stop rubbing at the wound.

I shrugged. “Fine, I’m not getting any more out of it anyway.” I allowed her to apply a small healing bandage to the cut on my jaw.

“It’s just a minor laceration. You’ll be fine if you don’t make it worse.”

“Thanks, I guess.” At least I’d gotten a nice drink while I could.

Rumcake tapped me on the shoulder. “Whatcha girls talking about? Woah, what happened to your face?”

“Wow, that’s polite.” I pouted.

“I-I didn’t mean it that way!” Rumcake stammered.

Of course he didn’t, but it was fun to see him sweat. “Just a little cut. I’ll be fine,” I replied.

Rumcake patted my cheek. “I hope so. By the way, what’s your range?”

“Range?”

“Yeah. How far can you fly, round trip?”

That was actually a good question. I’d really never found out or ever really needed to, since we had enough downtime between missions to be able to fly back . Otherwise, we’d all had heavy stress training and could push ourselves much harder than anypony else in case we needed to make an urgent escape.

“Uh… enough?” I guessed.

“Do you think you could check out the mining town before we get there? I need to know layout, population, anything that seems helpful.”

I sighed. “Fine, I’ll go scout. Keep ya posted.” I flapped my wings a few times to get myself warmed up again and then leisurely flapped into action.

As I flew out of earshot, I barely heard him yell, “If there’s any danger, you come right back or I’m turning this adventure around! D’ya hear me?”

~~~~~

The mining town was a hell of a lot farther than it looked on the map. Many times I was tempted to ask “are we there yet?” but there wasn’t anypony but me to annoy. Dust, hills, dirt… yeah, nothing interesting. I’d spotted a small collection of ramshackle huts and some kind of tower that could possibly be a small settlement in our way.

For a brief moment, I wondered whether I was in radar range. I was a lot closer than I should have been, but I was high enough that I would probably blend into the cloud cover. There was no way they’d have one anyway, so I passed them and continued on the heading that I’d been given. Not a few minutes later, a two-floor building poked over a hill. I pulled up to get a better view over the terrain that was in my way.

A quick peek at my PipBuck told me that I was right next to where I wanted to be. Mining towns definitely looked simple, if this one represented all of them. There was a large main street flanked by varying buildings. The mine itself was a reinforced hole in the side of a much larger hill that used to have a cart track leading up to it.

Movement! I unslung my anti-machine rifle and made sure the magic scope attachment was securely in place. There was one pony limping down main street, one of his saddlebags were torn and the pistol clenched in his teeth looked like it was broken. I wanted to say he was a scavenger, just because he wasn’t decked out in raider gear.

I lowered my rifle and continued to observe. “Hello? Anypony here?” the scavenger called out.

Nopony ever looked up, did they? I continued to gather information just in case. The scavenger dragged himself into one of the small buildings—maybe a commissary, judging by what was left of the sign out front. Besides that, there were no other signs of life.

So just one pony wandering about, negligible threat. More than likely he had friends, but they weren’t around to back him up at the moment. Yet.

There was a sudden explosion from inside the commissary. Toxic-looking green sludgy smoke began oozing out of the doorway and cracks in the building. When he didn’t emerge again, I mentally crossed the pony off the potential danger list.

“O-kaaay… traps and biohazards.” Now that I knew, I double-checked my saddlebag for healing potions. “Good. To. Know.”

I caught sight of movement once more. A small pony—maybe mid-teens, androgynous in build—wearing some light combat armor darted into the building. Before he’d dashed in, I noted the muzzle-only gas mask and the diving goggles. A pale green-yellow horn protruded from under a black bandanna sporting an indiscernible white pattern.

Moments later, the mystery pony scrambled out with the scavenger’s saddlebag, dragging it back into an alleyway while sickly smoke trailed him. What the pony didn’t notice was the trail of empty shells and caps he was also leaving behind. One more note to go into my report back.

Thwip-thwip-thwip. What was that noi—?

Something thick, heavy, and ropey tangled itself around my left wing. By how much it knocked me back and destabilized me by its weight alone, it could have probably broken something if I wasn’t wearing my armor. I attempted to regain control and flight, but the primitive device wrapped around my wing was weighing me down.

“Shit, shit shit!” I continued to flap erratically in my best attempts to escape.

I was losing altitude, but at least I wasn’t about to slam face-first into the ground. At a survivable distance from the ground, I ceased my struggling and raised my forelegs to protect my head. I hit the ground at a speed that knocked the air out of my lungs, but at least I survived the impact.

My nose wasn’t broken, so that was a welcome consolation prize. I’d crash-landed in a former park-like thing, which meant there was little in the way of cover. A look at my left wing told me that I’d been taken down with bucking bolas. It was simple arrangement of ropes and heavy weights on the ends. I mean, really?

I rolled onto my belly and deployed the bipod of my rifle just in case. If the heading of the gas mask scavenger was any indication of a base, they were bound to come in from the right. I pre-sighted the corner where I thought they would be coming from, but I kept a sharp lookout with my peripheral vision just in case.

Unfortunately, I didn’t think to check behind me. The barrel of a gun pressed against the bruise on the back of my head and I had to bite back a violent twitch in case it was the last thing I did.

Whoever was holding me up was a heavy chain smoker—I was annoyed that I hadn’t smelled him coming first. “Don’t move, ya winged rat,” snarled the angry stallion standing behind me.

Too bad S.A.T.S. wouldn’t let me get a guaranteed kill on him. “That’s not polite,” I hissed back, careful not to make any sudden moves.

My rifle was surrounded with a dark green aura and it floated out of my grasp. Against every nerve of my being, I resisted the urge to snatch it back. The gas masked scavenger crept around the corner, similarly illuminated with dark green light. I’d recon’d myself right into a trap.

“Me an’ my associate are gonna relieve you of yer stuff, and we’re gonna split. Got it?” the chain smoking scavenger dictated at me.

I felt the weight on my back lessen when my saddlebag was removed from my possession. “S’ry. Nof’n pr’snal,” the gas mask scavenger muttered. Restraints tightened around my limbs, regardless of my struggling.

“Oh, it’s about to be.” I chuckled. “Expect raiders to follow your asses around until both of you are dead and your heads on their spears.”

Chain Smoker laughed. “I’d like to see ya try.”

“Hrr? T’k a lookit dis.” Gas Mask yanked Dad’s hat off my head and showed Chain Smoker the badge pinned to it. “Ifn’t dat…”

The gun touching the back of my head faltered. “Hard Heads. Shit. Those buckers are violent and un-bucking-stoppable.”

“And guess who’s in charge.” In a moment of extreme bravado, I sat up and snatched Dad’s hat back. “Give me back my stuff, right the buck now and you might live to see tomorrow.”

Gas Mask exchanged a panicked look with Chain Smoker. Speaking of which, the reason Chain Smoker stank of smoke was probably because of the flamethrower mounted on his battle saddle. He also had a red-barreled shotgun levitating at my face, but it didn’t look like he was about to use it. He was a ruddy dark red color, and he’d somehow found an intact firepony’s suit to wear, complete with shielded helmet. The magic surrounding his horn and my saddlebag was orange, just like his eyes. I found that kinda interesting, for no good reason.

“Heh, I bet.” Chain Smoker snorted, shifting his cigarette to the other side of his mouth. “Cute bluff, but I don’t care. Hey, wanna hear a story?”

As interesting as it could be, I really didn’t have time for this. “No,” I flatly replied.

“A few months back, Pestilence’s town pissed off some raiders. Not long after that, the Hard Heads showed up an’ ransacked the place. He was the only survivor, thanks to your other boss guy.” Chain Smoker comfortingly patted Gas Mask—Pestilence’s head. “Those degenerates demolished my scavenging team for trespassing on your territory. If you’re one of them, maybe it’s time for War to get a little petty revenge.”

Pestilence made one. Chain Smoker was two. War made a third. “So, where’s your third hanging out, huh? Or is he just chicken?”

“Hfm?” Pestilence incomprehensibly mumbled.

Rancid smoky breath blew into my ear. “There’s only two of us, birdbrain.”

Oh, so I was just really stupid. “You’re War.”

“Yes.”

“Did you know you sound like an idiot when you speak in third person?” Then something clicked in my mind. “Wait, if you’re Pestilence and War, where’s Famine and Death?” Ha! I’d learned something at one point in history class.

War and Pestilence exchanged an awkward glance. ”We had a Conquest with us at one point, but she’s dead now. Prob’ly for the best.” Great, so there used to be more of these idiots.

“Those aren’t your real names. If they are, your parents were idiots.”

“Hey. At l’st m’name makes s’nse,” Pestilence grunted, pulling out what looked like a refitted land mine.

It wasn’t anything I’d ever seen before, that was for sure. The main casing of the mine had been taped shut with silvery tape because there was a large pair of vials containing black-green sludge protruding from the ends. Wires and cable ties poked out here and there, and the big orange button usually found on mines had been replaced with a black square plate.

Pestilence proudly showed off another one. “T’xic gas.”

“Kid, I’m having a hard time understanding you behind that mask.” I rubbed my forehead with my hoof.

Pestilence reached around behind his head and loosened the straps holding the mask to his face. As it fell to loop around his neck, I immediately regretted my decision. Even with what I’d seen and done, his face was nightmarishly horrifying. Based on his occupation, I assumed what were chemical burns along the right side of his mouth. The left side was partly missing, showing scarred flesh and bone. If I mentally blocked everything below his eyes, maybe I could keep whatever was in my stomach down.

“I make poisons, toxic gases, corrosive explosives, et cetera,” Pestilence bragged. “Diseases are a little out of my league until I find a really stocked lab.”

War hefted his flamethrower and returned his shotgun to the sling across the front of his chestplate. “I burn things.” The fuel tank on the right side of his battle saddle sloshed noisily.

I unsuccessfully tried to untangle myself from the bola. “Whose idea was this, anyway?” I asked.

It turned out that War had really good reaction time. “Mine.” He took the opportunity to smugly untangle me from them.

“You’re a cruel, evil, sneaky pony,” I complained. “I mean, really? Who even uses bolas anymore?”

“I do.”

Enough was enough. “Protip, you two—get the heck out of Junction while you can. The rest of my group are on their way, and they might not be nearly as nice as I am. Now untie me and scram.”

Pestilence snickered. “Ha, that’s not going to happen.”

Similarly, War didn’t find my threat to be—uh, threatening. “I gotta agree. We’re just trying to live our lives here. If you think you’re going to make us leave, think again.”

“Aww, it would be a shame if I had to kill the both of you right now.” I began to try loosening the rope bindings around my limbs while surreptitiously searching for places to take cover from a flamethrower.

“And we were about to be such good friends,” Toasty chuckled using my voice.

What was more worrying was that Pestilence wasn’t actually armed with any visible weaponry. That was definitely more dangerous, especially because he was slowly inching off to the side. War leaned his head off to the left and lit the pilot light of his flamethrower with the cigarette in his mouth. What a badass!

“You’ve got home court advantage. You can serve,” Toasty confidently taunted, using all our strength to snap my bindings like they weren’t even there.

Immediately, I lost track of Pestilence when War charged me with his flamethrower. I easily dodged the first two gouts of flame he fired by swooping backward and throwing bits of gravel at his face on the way. After that weird thing with S.A.T.S. earlier, I really didn’t want to use it just yet. I gained a bit of altitude before firing off a shot at War’s fuel tank.

War was uncannily fast. My shot only managed to graze his back, only damaging his battle saddle. He retorted by quick-drawing his shotgun, but I was ready for a counterattack. I raised my forelegs in front of my face, and I nearly screamed when an even more intense heat scorched my forehead. I lowered my forelegs just in time to catch him pumping his shotgun. Seriously? Fire bullets too?!

“Cheating asshole!” I spat, dodging and weaving with renewed vigor. “Eat this!”

Of course, I wasn’t going to land a hit in mid-flight. I air-braked to gain a whole second of stability and fired my rifle at War again, this time leading him and anticipating a move. “Gnh! Lucky hit, ya bitch,” he grunted, stumbling from the gaping wound on his left hindleg, right above the ankle.

I was more amazed that his leg hadn’t come off from that hit alone. He must have had some armor on under that fire suit, because there was no way an impact like that would do so little damage. Hm. Maybe I needed something sharper and lower velocity.

“Oooh, choppy choppy time? I love choppy time. Can it be choppy time?” Toasty begged me.

The safety of a rooftop seemed to be a great place to hang out while War lamely limped at me. I slung my rifle and drew my repossessed combat axe and prepared to put him out of his misery. Just in case the settings on it actually meant anything, I switched the fire selector to “Moa Dakka”. Heck, maybe it made me swing faster.

“Ready?” I asked Toasty.

“Always,” Toasty cackled, taking control. “Let’s show him what this is good for.”

My vision ran red as Toasty vaulted over the lip of the roof and landed on War’s back right before he was about to enter the building. “What th—” War managed to stammer.

Toasty dropped the axe into our waiting claw and chopped at War’s battle saddle. The first swing severed half of the firing line. The second and third swings only caused superficial damage, but the fourth swing severed the bundled power cable and fuel line for the flamethrower. Now he was one weapon down.

That was all the damage we were able to inflict on War. “No free rides!” he yelled as we were thrown clear of him.

War attempted to open up with the flamethrower as Toasty attempted to recover from the fall. “Well, shit,” he muttered when there was no pegasus-toasting fire from his left and instead resorted to opening up with the shotgun again.

“Ha! I have you now!” Toasty triumphantly yelled while she dodged flaming buckshot at nearly close range. “Die!”

Toasty took one step forward and we heard a click under our hooves. “Mine!” I shouted, and dove us as far as possible from the chemical explosive.

We’d gotten lucky. Whatever had been in that mine didn’t have anything corrosive in it, but there was gas instead. We’d only inhaled a little, but my lungs were already burning and I couldn’t see properly. I felt like vomiting.

“Ngh… pain is… weakness! Leaving the body!” Toasty raved. “I feel no pain!”

“Can’t see…” I muttered.

Toasty grabbed our neck and briefly throttled us. “I can see just fine!”

With our vision problems apparently taken care of, Toasty flung the axe at War, but he dodged too quickly again. She took advantage of his dodge by rapidly closing the distance, reaching forward and yanking the shotgun right out of War’s holster using her claw.

“Checkmate.” Toasty awkwardly pulled the trigger of the shotgun using the our claw and snarled in rage when it didn’t have the desired face-vaporizing effect she was hoping for.

War chuckled. “What’s the matter? Feelin’ empty?”

Toasty dashed to where the axe had buried itself in the ground and yanked it out. “Shut up!” she roared, breaking into a flying gallop with the ramshackle weapon in her claw.

At least War didn’t have any more weapons besides his hooves. Toasty swung at him, but he was able to simply back up out of range. Fuel still leaked from the severed hose from his battle saddle, but I didn’t have any flares left to light him on fire with. Too bad he’d also dropped his cigarette at some point.

My axe suddenly flew out of my claw and the shotgun followed shortly thereafter. “That’s enough of that.” War smirked, twirling both weapons in the air with his damn magic.

“Give it back!” Toasty roared, unwilling to do anything but brandish our claw at War. “Don’t make me rip that horn from your face.”

I watched War load more fire shells into his shotgun. “Come an’ get it.” He dangled my axe right over our head.

That was all War needed to goad Toasty into flying into the air after the axe. She was so distracted by getting our axe back, she didn’t notice the shotgun being leveled at her. I attempted to wrest control back to dive out of the way, but I wasn’t able to in time.

The first shell that War fired tore into our left wing and knocked us out of the air. Our feathers were on fire and there was too much pain to continue flying. His next few shots missed, but I managed to force us to land in order to at least put the fire out.

That cauterized wound wouldn’t bleed me out, at least. “Ngh… cheap trick,” I groaned after I put the fire out.

“Evened out the playing field.” War loaded and pumped his shotgun again.

We were forced to keep our injured wing folded and armor-side up so it didn’t get more flaming buckshot embedded in it. That also meant Toasty had to back up and weave from the next few shots from War’s shotgun.

The ground slightly gave way under one of my hooves and my heart leapt into my throat when I realized I’d trodden on another mine. Luckily enough, I managed to stumble out of the way of the cloud of choking gas that exploded out of the ground.

Toasty smartened up and covered up our mouth and nose with the crook of our leg, hopping and dodging backward. Annoyingly enough, War had gotten smart and at some point he’d donned a rebreather so he could ignore Pestilence’s toxic gas mines. Every few steps I’d back up and step on a mine, and have to waste precious time and distance escaping traps. The moment War was in spitting distance, he’d open up with his shotgun.

“Stop runnin’!” War followed up that command with a flaming shell. “You’re makin’ this a lot harder than it has to be!”

Instead of running, Toasty complied and rolled toward War instead. “Fine. Let’s see how you like this!” She swung our improvised combat axe at him and managed to cut through part of the fireproof barding around his neck and draw blood.

“That’s more like it, bitch.” War pressed the material of his barding against the wound to staunch the bleeding and grinned. “And I thought this wasn’t going to be fun.”

I could already see we were in trouble. Toasty didn’t want to listen, so I had no choice but helplessly watch while she got us corralled into a corner. Little black spots stood out in the dirt where there were land mines buried in the ground. When did that little brat have time to turn this place into a minefield?

Toasty took hesitant steps left and right, and snarled in rage. “You coward!”

“Looks like you’re trapped. Don’t move, an’ this won’t be too painful for you.” War calmly leveled his shotgun at my face.

Why was Toasty so adamant on melee combat? And why was she so easily baited into reckless actions? Most importantly, why wouldn’t she just use one of my many guns? If I survived this, we were going to have words. Even stranger, she started to madly giggle.

War did what confused mercenaries did best. “What’s so funny?” he suspiciously asked, slightly lowering his shotgun.

“You’re the one that’s trapped here with me.” Toasty withdrew a small syringe full of thick orange liquid and immediately injected it into my neck.

As my heart rate skyrocketed and my pulse pounded in my ears, I realized it was the syringe that Doc had given me a long time ago. If I recalled, the last time that I’d used it I’d nearly gotten killed by it. Hopefully with this unnecessary power boost, I’d be able to wreck War’s ass in a timely manner and move on to finding Pestilence before my heart gave out. I dropped to my knees to wait out the hammering and pounding.

“You’re crazy.” War snorted and raised his shotgun again.

Toasty glared at him with bloodshot eyes. “That’s what I do best.” Without caring about where the landmines were, she leapt up and charged forward at War.

When War witnessed Toasty literally smash a mine to pieces under her hoof, he panicked and fired a shot into my face. He didn’t miss, but while I was under the effects of Doc’s potion, the flaming buckshot broke apart against my upper cheek and continued to burn without consequence.

Toasty snarled and lashed out with the axe in a fit of excessive rage. Finally, she landed a solid blow, burying the axe all the way down to the handle in War’s left shoulder. He roared in pain and staggered sideways, right into a gas mine.

The mine exploded, spraying its toxic payload into War’s face. He attempted to stagger out of it but before he could get clear of the gas, Toasty ripped his rebreather off and shoved him back into the green gas for added effect.

Even if we were invincible, we were still knocked back from War’s heavy-hitting punch to our jaw. He stumbled out of the toxic gas, coughing and clutching at his eyes. Now that Toasty was without a cutting implement, she swung a shotgun-claw attack right to his face. Thanks to unfortunate luck for one party, War staggered right out of the way and managed to escape with a flesh wound.

Toasty pumped our shotgun claw again in annoyance. “What are you good for if you won’t stand still either?” She swung again and missed when War opened his eyes just in time to hastily hit the deck and even sweep our legs out from under us.

I rolled onto my back just in time so that we could dodge War’s poorly timed ground slam. He did, however, follow that up with a blind flaming shotgun blast at close range. My armor stood no chance against firepower at this range and I felt lances of heat stab at our upper chest and neck.

War stood over me, grimacing in pain and barely able to stand. “What th’ hell kills you, bitch?” He staggered and groaned as he yanked my axe out of his shoulder.

“Absolutely nothing.” Toasty leapt to her hooves and yanked the axe out of War’s magical aura. “Thanks for getting that out for me, by the way.”

The look on War’s face when he realized he’d effectively sealed his own fate was amazingly satisfying. “Shit,” he muttered as he hobbled backward.

Toasty seized War by the leg and spun him around into a right-legged headlock. She picked up the axe and hovered just high enough to make his hind legs dangle off the ground. He struggled and kicked, and even tried to levitate the axe right out of her claw until she gave his horn a good whack with the hilt of the axe.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Toasty bellowed. “Wouldn’t it be a shame if I have to make this little piggy squeal?”

I was starting to feel tired and exhausted, which meant that Doc’s super-serum was wearing off. Pain was creeping to my brain from my injured wing, which was also slowly becoming a problem. I could hear my ragged pulse pounding away at my brain. Good thing Pestilence didn’t know that yet.

Right on cue, an assault rifle appeared from around a wall, followed by Pestilence himself. “Don’t hurt him!” Even so, he decided to keep the worn rifle aimed at me.

“It’s a little late for that,” Toasty darkly chuckled. “Put down your guns, and your little buddy here might live to see another day.”

Threateningly, Toasty pressed the edge of my axe against War’s throat hard enough to draw blood.“Don’t do it!” he still managed to choke out.

“Drop ‘em!” I yelled.

“Little cuz…” War coughed. Plink. “Just remember…”Plink. “I love you, an’ I’ll be with you forever.” Pestilence started to back up, solemnly nodding. Plink. “Even after I TAKE THIS BITCH ON THE HIGHWAY TO HELL!” Plink.

I quickly realized what that sound was. Several grenades suddenly appeared around me, all missing their pins and all glowing with orange magic. Pestilence turned tail and ran, quickly looking back one last time. All at once, every grenade shoved itself either against me or into spaces in my armor. Just to make sure I couldn’t escape, War wrapped some kind of binding field around me so I couldn’t push him away or throw him.

Toasty reacted like anypony would react when unwillingly strapped with grenades. “Let me go, freak!” she screamed in panic.

“Sayonara, bitch!” War fanatically chuckled, right as the first grenade blew.

In the matter of moments, it was like I was at the center of a sledgehammer fight. Shrapnel and meaty chunks scratched and tugged at my face, and pieces of my armor crunched and failed under the relentless onslaught of explosives. I was thrown into the ground by the force of the explosion.

A little cartoon colt appeared in the upper right side of my E.F.S., looking all sad with his little x’d out eyes. His head, torso, left wing, and left hind leg were all made of dotted lines, which probably wasn’t good. Some of those must have been high-explosive—frag grenades couldn’t have hurt this much, especially with armor.

At least War was dead, I glumly noted. Flaming pieces of debris and chunks of distinctly pony-shaped parts lay all around me, and what was left of my armor had been liberally coated with a combination of soot, shrapnel, and blood. I’d been lucky enough to have the tail end of Doc’s super-serum, but only judging by the searing pain everywhere, especially in my chest and throat, it might have worn off already.

I looked around for Pestilence. “Never leave a job unfinished,” I barely managed to breathe, duly nothing that several things felt broken.

There he was. All the way down at the end of the street, maybe on the way to the mineshaft. Like anypony with a lack of common sense, Pestilence was running directly away from me, the crazy pony that also happened to be armed with a long range destruction device. You should always fly perpendicular from a faster enemy—that’s what I’d learned in basic.

Pestilence was just barely visible, right at the edge of my blurry vision. Very painfully, I sat up and tried to haul my anti-machine rifle off my back. I pawed at my back a few times, then realized that it must have been thrown clear in the blast. Panic set in and I frantically began to scour the surrounding terrain for my valuable rifle. Thankfully, it had landed in the dirt not too far away, strap broken and looking very worse for wear. Cursory examination showed no signs of damage to critical components, so I raised it to my shoulder and wrapped my right leg around my claw to create a stable firing position.

I felt like I’d only get one shot at this, and I wasn’t leaving any of it to S.A.T.S.-based chance. I held my breath and focused on the fleeing target in my sights.

Th-th-th-thump.

Normally, I would listen to my heartbeat to count and calm my nerves, but this absolutely wasn’t helping.

Th-th-thump.

I nervously swallowed the metallic liquid pooling in the back of my throat and attempted to concentrate.

The unicorn was rapidly sprinting out of my weakened sight and began to stumble up the mountain path in extreme slow motion. “Focus on your target. Block out all distractions,” a calming voice reassured me.

Under direction of the voice, I took another deep breath and did my best to blur out the agony coming from my entire body. “What’s the wind?” it asked.

“Uh…” I gauged the wind tickling my ears and my feathers. “Barely southeast. About a klick or less.”

“Good. Did you lead the target?” the voice reminded me. “Keep in mind the velocity of your weapon.”

I double checked my aim. “I don’t need to lead him too much. Even a graze at this distance should take a leg off.”

“And why not go for a headshot?” the voice wondered. “A true professional gets a headshot.”

No, that wasn’t smart. “Too much chance for error, and a hit to the neck is just as good. With this caliber, a body shot should instantly kill as well. It’ll just make a mess.”

“Good girl. Remember what I taught you—one, two, exhale, fire.” I nodded and mentally counted, ignoring my errant heartbeat. “Focus only on your objective.”

I drew another breath to prepare myself for the shot.

One. The barrel of my rifle dipped downward.

Two.

I let my held breath escape through the corner of my mouth and squeezed the trigger. The stock of my rifle kicked against my shoulder and I barely maintained a sitting position. Off in the distance, there was a spectacular spray of blood and a foreleg sailing away. Oh good, at least I hit him.

“Nice shot, sugarpuff. Real proud of you.”

Wait. “…Dad?” Pain was no longer a factor—I had to see.

I flipped myself around and flared my wings in surprise, expecting… well, I wasn’t sure. I just wanted to believe, I suppose. Instead, I found Gala Frosty standing behind me, a shamefully embarrassed look plastered on her face. My wings drooped and a cold heavy weight settled on my heart.

Gala bowed her head. “Sorry. You looked like you needed some motivation or something, so I managed to pull up an old memory for you.” At least it had worked, so I wasn’t too upset—just disappointed.

Up on the hill, Pestilence began to drag himself away—sans leg, of course. “Right, this asshole refuses to stay dead. Damn, and I was hoping he’d die from shock or something first.” I sighed and proceeded to stagger all the way over to him. His body wasn’t going to loot itself after all.

Progress was slow because the servos in my left hind leg were shot, my legs felt like jelly, and things in my chest didn’t feel right. My wing still hurt too much, so flying was out of the question as well. I’d get him eventually, and, lacking that, Pestilence would bleed out by the time I got there so I could loot the body.

Stomp. Stomp. Scraaape. Stomp. I was at the bottom of the path up to the mines, and already blood was creating a little stream beside the path. Just a short ways away, Pestilence’s leg slowly rolled down the hill in a way that I found extremely comical. All things considered, he did have an admirable amount of staying power. I mean, he still hadn’t bled out, and he’d lost a leg!

Every time I moved my left hind leg, a sharp jolt of pain would shoot up to my hip.“You’re not looking so hot,” I heard Officer Frosty remark from my side.

“You try getting blasted and shot multiple times, and throw in some goddesses-damned hellfire to the face, too. I’d like to see you try getting out of this without a scratch or ten,” I snarled back a bit too violently, making something in my wing stab back at me. “Ngh… hurts.”

Finally, I made it to where Pestilence was lying. The massive puddle of blood surrounding his body definitely meant he was almost out of blood to lose. He shook and whimpered to himself, all the while pawing at the swampy crimson muck with his one remaining foreleg. At some point, he’d dropped all his headgear and thrown off his saddlebags as well.

I stood over him. “Well, well, well. Look what we have here.” Pestilence shifted his head and stared at me in plain fear.

“Wh-why are you d-doing this?” Pestilence begged. “Why?”

The spreading pool of blood began to create a new river that ran right into my right hoof. I glared down at him. “You tried to kill me for ‘petty revenge’. Those are the exact words your friend used. I like the sound of that.” I scratched at the tickle on my cheek with the back of one of my talons and wondered where the bandage had gone.

Pestilence stared at me. “We… we didn’t w-want any trouble…” he choked out.

“Let me tell you a story.” I sat down next to the dying Wastelander and ignored his choking gasps. “Once upon a time, you died. And I lived happily ever after. The. End.”

“Bul-llshit.” Pestilence coughed. “That’s a terri-rible story.”

I grinned humorlessly. “Just like how your story ends. Badly.” The blood flowing around my hoof was distracting, so I shifted myself back a little.

Pestilence coughed violently and cringed. “Ah, buck it. We did our best.” He sighed, rolling onto his back.

“Only losers whine about their best,” I pettily snapped back.

I was getting more and more impatient that Pestilence hadn’t bled out yet. Although I really didn’t know why I was just sitting here and waiting for him to die…

Looked like it was time to put Pestilence out of his misery. “Alright, as a somewhat respectful soldier, I’ll let you have your last words.” I began to take out my new roulette revolver, then decided against it due to its completely random nature.

Pestilence’s dying wish took me by surprise. Much faster than I anticipated in his condition, he reached into a pouch strapped to his upper thigh and ripped a tiny derringer-like device out of the hidden quick-draw holster there and pointed it at my face.

Reflexively, I brought my hoof to cover my face and wildly swung with my claw. “Get down with the sickness!” Pestilence weakly yelled.

Before he could pull the trigger, I claw-shotgunned him in the face and sent him off to the big emu farm in the great beyond. “You dishonorable little twat. That’s also a shitty one-liner.” The tiny gun skittered away and landed in the bloody dirt.

Now that Pestilence’s jawless and semi-dismembered body no longer had any life left in it, it was time to loot the corpse and steal all his stuff. Out of contempt, I dug his derringer out of the bloody muck and decided to take it with me. I shook off the gunk coating it and examined it a little more closely. The handle was barely long enough to have a trigger attached to it, and there was a simple two-slot chamber that acted as a barrel as well.

I shoved the tiny gun into a reinforced pocket on my right foreleg. “Mine now,” I muttered to myself.

Now all I had to do was loot his bag. The bottle caps became mine, the ammo was mine, and I took his last three gas mines. Other than those, I didn’t find anything else really worth the weight. I did drink his soda on the spot, though. It made me feel a little better immediately and momentarily took my mind off the aching throb in my chest.

Unfortunately, now I had to trudge all the way down the hill and all the way back into the town just to loot what was left of War’s body, if there was any. As I got closer to where the skirmish had been, I realized exactly how difficult looting a collection of meaty pony chunks was.

I morosely dragged myself through the carnage. “If only there was a way to take somepony’s belongings regardless of whatever state they were in.” Something abruptly tightened in my chest and made me momentarily choke. “Be still, my beating heart. Loot awaits.” Luckily, War’s shotgun had mostly survived with its red-barreled glory so now it was mine.

Cursory examination showed that the only thing interesting about the shotgun itself was the painted red barrel. Obviously, the next step was to unload its remaining four shells and revel in their custom-packed glory. To my untrained eye, the shells were packed with what smelled like phosphorous. I ejected the last empty shell from my claw and loaded War’s special ammunition into it. And for looting’s sake, I broke down his shotgun down into its parts and stowed them away wherever they fit.

At the moment, I really needed a nice, strong, pain-numbing drink. I hastily uncapped the bottle of Firegrass whiskey that Rumcake had given me and immediately took a long, comforting draw from it. For good measure, I opened my injured wing and liberally splashed the alcohol all over the wounds just in case they were infected. I had to bite back a good amount of swearing from the sterilizing burn alone.

“Well, that’ll have to do.” I gently waved my wing back and forth, savoring the cool bite of evaporating alcohol (was that how science worked?) on my wound. “Don’t hurt to keep a drink going, either.” The tightness and pounding in my chest felt less like a prison riot and a bit more like a caged animal after a few draughts of whiskey.

“Heh. Alcohol—wha’ can’t it solve, amirite?” Drunk Frosty slurred from on top of an old water trough.

“You bean besides alcoholism?” I coughed after an excessively large gulp.

“Weeeell, maybe… you’re… uhh…” Drunky thought about it while stammering some sort of comeback. “Yer a butt.”

I blinked, unable to quickly formulate a witty response. “I’m a butt. Well, thanks for that.” The bottle felt so nice pressed up against my burning forehead.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You really look beaten up—seriously, at least let me take a look at our wing.” Gala Frosty nervously hovered nearby and continued to tap her hooves together. “We shouldn’t use healing potions until we know all the buckshot is out and the bones in the wing aren’t broken.”

A few test flaps caused a little pain, but I wasn’t sure whether the it wasn’t that bad or I was inebriated enough to ignore the most of it. Sure, it looked bad—the feathers were burnt and scorched around little bloody holes in my wing—but it didn’t feel like anything was broken there. However, I’d been wrong before.

“I’m doing just fine.” I sighed, taking another sip of whiskey.

Gala sat down in front of me and crossed her forelegs. “If anyone asks you how you’re doing, you almost always say you’re doing ‘just fine’.” She pouted.

I located a sturdy-looking set of steps and leaned against them, uttering a barely audible grunt. “I am fine. I just… just… need a nap or something.” Either the dirt was excessively soft, or I had the most comfortable butt in the world. “Oh jeez, Rumcake’s gonna pee himself being mad at me now.”

As the world drifted away and my head began to slump against the rotting wood post next to me, I was dimly aware of Gala, Toasty, and Filly all crowding around me. Whatever they were yelling and complaining about… I couldn’t focus on it. It was nap time, and possibly food time right after nap time.

X~~~X

If I wasn’t the patient hyper-intelligent unicorn I was, I probably would have called this group a complete and utter waste of time. If only mother could see me now… following around a veritable lunch box across the Wasteland. We had the armored cake, who wouldn’t stop worrying about his precious marefriend; the equally armored soda, who couldn’t decide between silence or humming questionable music—none of which sounded like any of the classics I was familiar with. And, of course, there was the cloaked fruit, who knew just enough about magic as to not get on my nerves just yet.

Although the only reason I continued to persevere was because of that intriguing pegasus that had managed to evade all explanation. “I’d hate to interrupt your banter, but can we take a break? My hooves hurt.” Of course, I was ignored once again—the fifteenth time so far.

“I’ll bet you anything that Frosty’s off doing something a lot more exciting than walking along a dirt path,” Soda groaned. “It’s so booooring.”

No doubt the pegasus was compulsively seeking excessive danger as opposed to doing what she should have been doing. “I’m worried that she’s gotten herself in trouble again. We’re not too far away from the town, and unless her military training is a lot different from ours, she should be back by now. Scouting doesn’t take this long, does it?” the cake fretted. “I shouldn’t have done it. Shouldn’t have sent her on her own again.”

Tangerine, the lone fruit course of the party, had to toss in her two caps on the situation. “Maybe she got lost? Frosty barely knows how to use the map function on her PipBuck.” She made a point—I’d observed that the pegasus was bad with anything not dealing with guns in the time I had spent with them.

Perhaps the compendium of knowledge hovering in front of me might be able to help. “Could we discuss this around a campfire or something? Or at least not walking?” I loudly suggested, only for it to fall on deaf ears.

I clearly remembered writing down details about military strategy and formations at one point, but where was it? Pages flew by while I attempted to find the clear definition of “scouting” or, at the very least, “reconnaissance” for these poor uneducated jarheads. Let’s see… knots you should learn… Equestria’s final hours… the many uses of catnip… how to conjure a trap beam and the many variations of…

“Contact ahead, coming down the road,” Cake notified us while checking the belt feed on his ridiculous minigun. “Get ready for a fight, just in case. Rangers would have hailed us already.”

What he didn’t know and I didn’t mention was that we were on a known trade route for caravans and merchants. For whatever reason, dessert and company hadn’t bothered to bring updated maps with them on their journey.

Imagine my complete lack of surprise when four heads and a wagon appeared from around the hill to the west. The old beardy one with the scraggly gray coat and the rags that hadn’t been washed in years looked like he was the caravan’s merchant. That meant the huge burly armored stallion with the combat armor and a helmet/facemask combination helmet was the guard. On the bright side, his assault rifle couldn’t compare to all the firepower that the lunch squad was packing.

Which brings me to the two-headed abomination of what approximated to a pre-war cow. According to a farming almanac that I’d read in the past, cows didn’t have two heads until after the bombs fell. Every time I looked at one of these “brahmin”—as somepony once decided to call them—I always felt like I was going to be ill. In those rare moments that I had to communicate with them, I didn’t know which head to be looking at. Safe to say I did my best to avoid them.

“Ahoy there, Steelios!” the merchant called out in his disgusting back-country accent. “Lookin’ for a da-gum fiiiine gatlin’ laser?”

I groaned in aggravation. With the ponies I was making company with, I swore I could feel myself becoming stupider. As everypony else stayed put and patiently waited for the caravan to get closer, I busied myself with reading up on the first topic that I flipped to in my magic book. “How to Create a Simple and Sustainable Farm in Five Easy Steps” seemed like a nice reading topic for the moment.

Of course, I wasn’t actually paying attention to the words on the page. I was just looking for an excuse to escape socialization with these lowlifes. “Hey, we could definitely use a gatling laser back at base, Rumcake,” the fruit exclaimed.

“I’m curious. Let’s see see if this guy has anything interesting on him.” Oh good, so the cake spontaneously decided to buy things from a shady merchant.

My book continued to levitate in front of my face like a shield from stupidity. By the time I got through farming and made it all the way to “How to Construct a Fire-Based Blasting Rod in Three Easy Steps”, the lunchboxes were in the midst of trading and getting ripped off. Every now and then I picked up bits of conversation between them and the merchant.

“I like how your advertisement has absolutely no correlation with the actual product,” remarked the fruit, complaining about something that should have been expected of a Wasteland trader. “There’s no crystals in it, the entire rotary assembly is broken, and somepony replaced half of the heat sinks with pre-war bits glued together!”

“Li’l girlie, I’mma just sayin’ that it costs two hunnred caps.”

“I’ll give you three caps, and that’s generous.”

“Two hundred.”

“Three.”

“Two hundred five.”

“I’m not sure you know how this works.”

“Two hundred ten.”

Angry stomping probably meant one of the lunch warriors was getting aggravated. “You should be lucky I’m not about to turn you and your little operation here into scrap for this,” Soda threatened.

Oh right, I forgot exactly how touchy they can be with old tech. Although in this situation, I would have probably done the same. Gatling lasers were hard to find in this day and age and they were impossible to find in perfect condition. One that broken was probably a lost cause, but still, who let such a fine piece of weaponry deteriorate this badly? Ugh… these Steel Rangers were rubbing off on me too much.

“Hoooold on a sec! What’cha say ‘bout a brand spankin’ new puh-laaaasma gun?” The merchant began to toss bits of scrap and miscellaneous items out of the bags strapped to his brahmin and finally flourished a heavily dented plasma pistol.

An outraged girly scream. “That’s nowhere near new at all! Junior Paladin Sparkle, flatten this heretic like the scum he is!”

Weapons, most likely Soda’s, rapidly unfolded. This was a good time to think about where this conversation was about to go. Somewhere in this book, I had a muting spell written down. Although, if memory served correctly, I added it in simply because the “Cone of Silence” spell that I tried out didn’t really work. Hmmm… how did that spell go again? Imagine a circle on the ground around you, and pull all the edges to your horn or something? I began to flip through my book to go look for it while everypony around me began a frenzied firefight.

Since I wasn’t a complete numbskull, I quickly flipped to one of my bookmarked pages—the ever-so-useful force field spell while Fruit cast her own spell. “Eat magic missile!” As I channeled energy into my horn, I took a step back to dodge the incoming projectile just in case.

The protective bubble formed around me just in time to deflect a burst of rifle fire. “I cast actual missile!” one of the Steel Rangers bellowed.

Muting spell, muting spell… I did my best to tune out the skirmish happening around me, but explosions that shook my entire body did not really help me focus at all. A large chunk of wheel and axle bounced off my shield and caught me off guard for a moment. I had to pause in my searching to focus a little more energy into my shield.

I made a note to myself to bookmark more than just quick combat spells and simple useful spells. Around me, the shooting and extreme overkill had finally stopped. That meant I could probably safely release the force field spell. Just to make sure, I peeked over the top of my book to observe the snack squad picking through the carnage. Good, it was safe.

“Sparkle, let me emphasize this one more time: no disintegrations,” Cake insisted. “It’s a bit counterproductive if you blow up the things we’re trying to reclaim.”

Overkill soda Ranger shoved half a brahmin corpse over in case there was something under it. “He was asking for it. You saw what he did to that tech!” Typical Steel Rangers.

The cake sighed. “Yeah, I did, but restrain yourself next time. Sweep the wreckage and burn the bodies.” Sparkle saluted and began to carry out his orders.

I sensed somepony attempting to edge up alongside me and I immediately slammed my book shut. “Hey, Violet. So, what’s really in that book, anyhow?” Kumquat… wait, what was her name… Orange? No, uh…

“Tangerine, I would really appreciate it if you didn’t pry.” I protectively floated my book around to the side away from the mare in question. “I’d also like it if you just gave me a little space. You stink.”

That comment prompted the decidedly not citrus-scented mare to surreptitiously sniff herself and her hood. “Aww, come on. What, are you writing a book of your adventures and it’s not done yet?” the fr—Tangerine guessed.

“Yes, that’s exactly right. Right now it’s about a smart unicorn, the stoic knights she travels with, the crazy pegasus, and this asshole,” I sarcastically replied in full deadpan, ending with a dirty glare at the merchant who was making his best “coating of paste” impression on the ground.

For whatever reason, the lunch scribe seemed a bit annoyed. “You’re being sarcastic,” she flatly stated.

As smart as this fruit was, she really didn’t show it all too well. “Whatever gives you that idea?” I continued to sarcastically drone.

“Come on, what’s the big deal?” Tangerine whined.

I heavily sighed. “If I tell you, do you promise to keep it to yourself?” She nodded, and even though I didn’t really think she would, I decided to tell her the bare minimum.

“This tome holds a vast collection of knowledge that I have compiled over the years.” To illustrate my point, I quickly flashed the rapidly flipping mismatched pages at her before slamming it shut again. “For reasons I refuse to disclose, it’s very special to me and that’s why I’m very possessive about it.”

This time, the scribe before me seemed a bit disappointed. “I was expecting something more along the lines of ‘ancient cursed book of dark magic and forbidden practices’.” There was only one book that came to mind, but I didn’t know where that particular book had disappeared to thanks to the ambiguity of location references in pre-war literature.

Armored cakebutt attempted—and failed—to discreetly edge into our conversation. “Hey Tangerine, I think I’m going to need your help with the plasma rifle. I’d like to have it working just in case we run into anything that needs to be slagged. As much as it pains me do it, scrap the gatling laser for its useful parts. The rest of it isn’t really worth the weight.” Typical useless stallions, always asking us for help.

Turned out that Fruit might have had the same thought. “Fine, I’ll see what I can do.” She snatched the weapon away from Cakebutt using her barely competent telekinesis.

“Oh, and by the way?” Cake added, obviously preparing for a follow-up jab.

Tangerine turned around. “Hm?”

“Leave the orders to me next time. I know you didn’t mean it, but you know how important the Chain That Binds is. Do not let it happen again, or I will deliver the punishment myself. Do you understand?”

Typical bossy stallions. “S-sure, sorry!” And then Tangerine scampered off to go do whatever fruit did with plasma weapons.

“Violet, can you cast some sort of locating spell?” Cake asked me. “I’m really worried about Frosty. It’s been four hours, it’s getting dark, and she’s still not back.”

The way Cake cared about that insane pegasus was cute to an almost nauseating degree. “I’ll try. I’ll need something of hers—fur, hair, feathers, stool, or blood. I’ve got a spell that might work.” Conveniently enough, I had several different locating spells bookmarked for all my searching needs.

I could tell I was getting a blank stare from behind that expressionless helmet. “Is it not possible to just to locate the nearest pegasus in a ten-mile radius?”

The impossible amount of stupidity speaking to me forced me to slam my book into my face. “You really don’t know how magic works, do you?” I groaned into the patchwork cover of my spellbook. “Goddesses, I can feel my IQ dropping.”

That had the desired effect. The big dumb confectionary backed off, muttering about something called “doing his best”. How laughable. Although I actually did need to go find our quirky pegasus companion, since she was the only reason I was following the… darn, I’d run out of funny names for Steel Rangers. Note to self: come up with more puns.

In the inevitable case that no Frosty bits could be recovered for the framework of a locating spell, I began to study the four or five spells available in case there was an alternative that was just as good. I retrieved my pegasus feather quill out from a small pocket on the inside of my robes.

Wait.

I stared at the feather that I was levitating right above the page, poised for note-taking. “Great. It’s already happening,” I chimed.

Using the carefully detailed instructions that I’d copied down, I set up the framework for a precise locating spell focused on my crazy pegasus feather quill. “What should happen is the feather will want to be together with Frosty’s wing due to the Theorem of Arcane Entanglement, so by channeling the spell into the feather, it will lead us to her,” I demonstrated and explained, only to find that everypony had very quickly lost interest.

“My talent is wasted on this ungrateful swine,” I muttered, waiting for the feather to stop spinning and glowing. “Any day now, magic.”

Eventually, the enchanted quill stopped spinning and drifted into my outstretched hoof. It bobbed and danced for a few more seconds before deciding on a very definite forward-and-right direction. I gently pushed the feather and watched it bob back into pointing the same way. Good, so at least the spell worked for pegasi.

“I have a direction on Frosty,” I proclaimed, holding up the gently glowing feather. “That way.”

Right on cue, the feather began to erratically bob and pitch. “Is it supposed to do that?” the drink asked.

Unfortunately, no. “The only reason it would be doing that is if the target is moving as well,” I replied with the only explanation I had. Even though it wasn’t looking good, I continued watching the feather in case it stabilized and decided on a direction that wasn’t into the air and all over the place. However, if it was telling me to go into the air that meant Frosty was in flight.

Suddenly, the feather pointed nearly straight up and dropped to my hoof. “Well, that’s weird.” Thankfully the answer showed itself in a timely manner by spectacularly crashing into the ground a short distance away, slightly trailing smoke.

The first to break the awed silence was the scribe in charge of stating the obvious. “Is that Frosty?” She then immediately did the second dumbest thing, which was trotting over to the probably comatose pegasus and prodding her with a stick.

I was waiting for Frosty’s inevitable snappy comment as the pile of fur and armor began to unsteadily stand up. Something seemed wrong, though. Normally, she was uncannily graceful in the way only pegasi could be. Now, she could barely get onto her hooves and crawl out of the shallow trench she’d created. Her movement could be called unsteady, at best.

The pegasus settled for a haphazard sprawl on the lip of the furrow in the ground. The initial shock wore off and solid metal cake moved in for assistance. All she did was heavily breathe and groan, which was worrisome, but I was more curious whether she was still going to be alive in a few hours.

Even if we did live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, it was good to know that chivalry was still barely scraping by on life support. Rumcake had Frosty dramatically draped over his back, her creepy griffin leg wrapped around his neck for safety. If only we were on a hill, maybe a backlight over there next to that twiggy brush, and some sort of inspirational backdrop, this could have easily been a pre-war propaganda poster. Maybe in big bold font: “Defend Equestria!” or something equally gallant.

The bedraggled pegasus managed to lift her head and look around. “I think I fractured my motivation,” she managed to drowsily choke out.

Took her long enough.

After making sure her witty remark had been acknowledged with a round of confused utterances or expressions, she promptly decided that passing out was the most sensible plan of action.

END OF ACT TWO

Almost to standard level cap. Crossed Hearts additional content found. Rising Storm additional content found. Continue with additional levels from the Rising Storm DLC?

Yes | No

Level cap increased to 30.

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Blast Deflection – Explosives deal reduced damage if heavy or power armor is equipped. Cannot be combined with the Heroic Dodge perk. Damage reduction cannot exceed 45% with other bonuses.
Current Sub-perk: Bloodthirsty – Blood for the Blood God! You gain +8 to Unarmed.
Achievement Progress – Master of the Apocalypse (2/4 complete)

Special items from Rising Storm acquired (3)

14 × “Brimstone” 12 gauge shotgun shells
1 × “Mosquito” pistol
3 × Wide-dispersal “Cane Toad” mines

Intermission: Infiltration in progress…

Intermission: Infiltration in progress…

“Ah, must have noticed my night vision goggles. Ooh! Night vision-y!”

About a month ago...

Log, day four.

Finally, this place wasn’t the waste of time that I expected it to be. The ponies brought back a pegasus who just so happens to be owned by the Steel Rangers that showed up. This might be my ticket in. Scratch the merchant mare and the caravaneers, those stupid Rangers might not care enough about the pegasus to ask questions. Makes her the new candidate, but… I’ll have to see whether I can get into her head and create a passable persona of her before the Rangers take her back.

Reminder: Avoid the doctor. He might blow my cover.

Notes concluded, I slapped my trusty hardcover journal closed and tossed it onto the growing pile of stuff in my rucksack. If this was going to work, I needed a plan. As far as yesterday went, those Rangers had already located her, so I needed to find an opportunity to slip in undetected and observe. If I’d known that the pegasus had been in the tool twins’ hovel, I could have easily broken in and did my work there. Darn.

My little bug wings buzzed in excitement at the prospect of a challenge. If I was going to pull this off today, that meant I needed a disguise for the approach. I stood up and scooted myself into view of the fold-out mirror that I had strategically unfolded by the door of my rented room.

As always, the plain little changeling drone in the mirror blankly stared back at me. I had a few personas in mind, but I just couldn’t decide. Hmm…

Time and time again, he’d been reliable, so I closed my eyes and began to envision him in my mind—a simple earth pony with a medium build, a smoky gray coat, and a swept-back dusky mane topping off the perfect unassuming look. Dark, shadowy, and simple enough to not warrant a second glance. Horn and wings melted away in the green fire surrounding my body, instantly being replaced by what was in my mind. I opened my eyes and blinked back at the oh-so-dependable Sir Veilance in the mirror. Maybe the red eyes was overdoing it, but I liked the look. I nearly forgot the butt-tattoo, so I slapped on his default security camera cutie mark.

“Just on business,” I grunted at the mirror, my voice coming out with a bit too much gravel. Clearing my throat, I felt my vocal cords change slightly then I tried again. “Ahem. Just on business. That’s all.” Unassuming, normal, plain. Sounded fine.

Unfortunately, unassuming probably wouldn’t get me close to the pegasus. “Maybe she might be more partial to her own kind?” Sir Veilance suggested back at me.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used a pegasus persona. They were so rare in the Wasteland, especially with the Enclave’s shoot-to-kill policy on Dashites. I’d gotten a glimpse of a fresh Dashite a few weeks ago, so I did my best to recall his look. He’d been red—garishly so. That I couldn’t forget. Green fire flashed across my body as I altered my appearance again. His mane I could replicate by simply changing Sir Veilance’s brown, so that wasn’t too much of a problem. His eyes could have been some shade of silver or gray, but I couldn’t have been sure so I decided on silver. Oh, and I couldn’t forget his giant freakish wings.Those popped onto my body at the last second.

But what about his voice? I decided on a sort of whiny jock voice because it… well, it fit. Personality? Well… actually, maybe the Deadshot Calamity accent too? Most pegasi sounded like that, right? “Howdy there, li'l lady. Iffin' y' don't mind me sayin' so, yer right purdy as the moon an' stars in the midnight sky, sure as m' name is… Red.”

Nah. Too silly.

On retrospect, that one had been a stupid idea. I burned away the disguise and decided that I needed visible spellpower—which meant I needed to be a unicorn. Staring at my reflection, I realized that I hadn’t been a mare in a while, so there was the first step in building a persona. Magical green fire wreathed me again and the reflection changed to a bored-looking emerald mare, slightly shorter than I had been before.

“What color shou—by the queen, that’s frightening,” I abruptly declared once I heard my own deep-ish voice coming out of the mare. A quick change later then I tried, “Hi there. I’m… uh… I’m new here.”

Cutesy, not too fillyish, but just enough rasp to pull off the “awkward filly” thing I was going for.

“I need a name.” Names, names, names. Screw it. “Trouble. Call me Trouble. Yeah, sounds good.” As for my mane, I decided that something short would do. Maybe a shade of blue? Good enough.

Now that I looked like the average Wasteland mare, I fished out a set of equally unassuming rags to throw on. As an afterthought, I applied a generic pickaxe cutie mark just in case anypony managed to get my barding off.

I pranced back and forth in the mirror one last time. “Lookin’ good. Maybe a little too good.” All the ponies in this town always looked tired and exhausted, so I quickly altered my appearance to match: dark circles under the eyes, disheveled coat, and a bit of fake dirt to complete the look. I threw all of my combat gear into a small saddlebag and slung it onto my back, safely hiding it underneath a poncho tied around my midsection.

“Dressed to kill, as always.” I winked at my reflection in the mirror and swished my billowing tail at it. “Time to ride.” Thankfully, nopony saw me leap out of the window and land face-first where my exit dumpster should have been.

~~~~~

It only took twenty minutes of sitting in the back of the Smashed Spritebot inn and a few free drinks to Burly the shift manager to find out that the pegasus was scheduled for the next shift—the same shift as he was. After a little sweet talk, he’d even signed me into his shift without any extra “encouragement” on my part.

About an hour later, I found myself on the cargo elevator down to the mines. I’d surreptitiously managed to scoot and nudge my way through the small group of haggard ponies to stand right next to the pegasus. I used my proximity to get a good look at her so I could create my persona of her for later. Cyan-teal coat, mostly white mane—the blue stripe would be hard to get perfect, but once I had her cocooned I’d have an easier time. My eyes lingered on her prosthetic limb and realized that it might be a problem to copy.

Still… “That’s really cool,” I muttered under my breath. Apparently too loudly, because the pegasus noticed and glanced at me curiously. “How’dja get it?” I innocently asked as the elevator lurched into action.

The pegasus looked uncomfortable as we descended, something that I noted for later.

“I don’t remember,” she instantly replied.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Typical.

“Wanna help me out?” she continued. “I’m… I’m Pat. I’m new here.”

A blatant lie for sure, but I let her get away with it. Instead, I sweetly smiled and replied, “You’ve got a silly name too? The ponies around here call me Trouble.” Shit, I hadn’t come up with a cover story yet! Uh… “I operate in the south tunnels. You?”

Damn, I shouldn’t have said that. Shouldn’t have said that. At least I did my homework on this place, so at least I could make my way around. What was the worst that could happen?

~~~~~

Thanks to my quick thinking and momentary lack of planning, I quickly lost track of where “Pat” had gone. The original plan was to make her think that she was alone then follow her, but she had somehow disappeared into the woodwork. My new plan turned into scrounging for goods and updating the map that I had been creating of “Seapony Energy”.

As I plodded down the thoroughly-scrounged tunnels, I caught sight of an intact air vent. “Air vents are secret passages, right?” In no situation ever was that the case, but I actually knew where the central air conditioner was. Maybe this one was different.

Without giving it much further thought, I broke out my multi-tool and popped open the vent cover. The smaller stature of this disguise allowed me to fit in the claustrophobic vent without much difficulty, provided that I took off my gear and pushed it in ahead of me. I began the menial task of pushing my kit forward, grabbing a hoofhold, then pulling myself forward. Everything would have been fine until I accidentally pushed my kit into a downward junction in the vent. It must have fallen through, because I heard a grate hit the ground right before my stuff.

“Shit,” I silently swore to myself. “I guess this is my stop.”

Well, it would have been if I hadn’t gotten stuck trying to slither out of the vent. I’d misjudged how far I needed to bend myself to fit and now my flank wouldn’t let my legs bend far enough to get out. I wiggled my hips and literally humped at the vent with no avail.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned at the floor. In a fit of frustration, I flailed my trapped legs in the vent. “Somepony’s probably out there thinking some bugs are having a great time in the walls,” I belatedly realized.

Reminding myself that at least I wasn’t trapped inside that oil barrel on that refinery, I exhaled and shifted my butt forward again. Eventually, I managed to slide myself out of the vent and flawlessly land on the floor. “Well, that wasn’t too hard.”

Just for opening my mouth, the loose vent cover broke off its last hinge and bounced off my head.

“I hate this place.”

~~~~~

Log, day five.

Cover might be blown. No idea if anypony was watching, but there was an active security camera watching me. Also a reminder: the metal armor probably isn’t necessary. It seems like the townsponies here did a good job clearing out all the hostiles in here, even the radscorpions.

As for the pegasus, I managed to link up with her later after I stashed my gear in the air vent. Attempts at mingling failed, but I tailed her to her “other plans” which consisted of terrorizing a shopkeeper then going home. I got a few of her quirks nailed down for my persona of her, but I still need more information. Headed out again in a bit to try and follow her around in the “mines”. Wish me luck.

WE HAVE A PROBLEM. STEEL RANGER BODYGUARD SHOWED UP. BUCK.

I slammed my journal shut and buried my face into my hooves. Couldn’t I just have a simple walk in the park for once? My best option now was to separate Frosty the pegasus from the Steel Ranger so that I could extract everything I needed from her the old-fashioned changeling way. Of course, that also meant that my Trouble disguise was now irrelevant and I could switch to my favorite combat disguise.

Using the limited space I had in the cubicle that I had discovered yesterday, I threw off my rags and began to change form. With a burst of green fire, the mare was burned away to reveal my true form beneath. “Ah. That feels better,” I sighed, buzzing my little wings to get some feeling back in them.

Down to business. Over the course of several years and under the advice of a lonesome queen that I had met in my travels, I had assembled a persona that was perfect for combat. Being a large stocky earth stallion gave me a little extra staying power, since stamina and a gun was more reliable than magic. Everypony seemed to be frightened by scarred ponies, so that became my next obvious choice. At some point I’d decided that purple eyes looked good against a burnt orange coat and maroon mane—cropped short, because long manes and tails got caught in things. Like helmets. And doors.

Especially doors.

I shuddered at the thought.

Never again.

As I was digging through my bag of goodies for my combat barding, I remembered the pegasus’s cybernetics and her Steel Ranger master. “Hm. Maybe I should be wearing the metal armor.” Every Ranger was a walking tank, so I’d need all the protection that I could get. I burned away my disguise and cast a silencing spell on my armor so I wouldn’t clink clank my way through the tunnels. Alternatively, invisibility was a fun spell to use, but in the case it failed or if I was spotted, I’d be toast. Stealth… brute force… actually, stealth probably would work better. All I needed to do was separate them.

Once I was suited up in my tactical combat barding—plus gas mask—and armed, I unfolded my map and started to narrow down my plan of action. From what my listening devices around town had picked up, the pegasus and her owners were headed down to the reactor room to investigate something or other that didn’t concern me. Assuming her owners weren’t completely incompetent, they’d eventually find their way there, so…

I’m going to be a cheeky shit and hide in the ceiling. Good plan. I gave myself a pat on the back.

~~~~~

Less than twenty minutes later, I found myself shoved into yet another air vent. Waiting. Stalking. Idly wondering how a pretzel had cemented itself into the metal surface next to my right forehoof. I was beginning to think that I’d been misled by my own intel. Either that, or the pegasus was a lot more spontaneous than I’d expected and had subsequently gotten hopelessly sidetracked, leaving me on the fifth most uncomfortable stakeout I’d had.

I was even contemplating leafing through the well-worn saucy magazine rolled up in my barding when I heard voices. My hoof unconsciously wandered to the stun baton strapped to the front of my barding’s tactical vest.

But then they blathered on, and on, and on! I thought they were never going to split up until the pegasus finally trotted into the control booth I was hiding in. Finally, something was going according to plan!

“…no idea. Come over here. I need to see what these buttons say.” That was the pegasus.

“You find anything else back there?” The doctor? Why would he even be here? “It’s getting boring out here.” Pacing noises. Or was that just me breathing? “Hey, what’s this?” I faintly heard him trot out of the room—probably the distraction that I’d placed earlier.

“Doc?” Predictably, no reply. “Ha ha. Very funny, Doc. Where’re you hiding at? Doc?”

This was my chance. She was separated, alone, and vulnerable. Soundlessly, I slithered out of the vent and landed on the ground behind her on padded hooves. Even more carefully, I drew my stun baton and clicked the “on” switch. I’d forgotten about the charging noise and I cringed when her ears perked up. Thankfully, she still didn’t turn around since she was too busy looking around the doorway.

I couldn’t help but quietly grunt, “Gotcha.” Then I smashed in the back of her face with hard plastic and thirty volts of electricity.

The pegasus instantly crumpled to the ground into feathered heap. A quick glance out of the control room window revealed that the Steel Rangers hadn't noticed a thing, and the doctor was still distracted. In order to get the pegasus to a good place, I needed to goop her up and drag her out of here before somepony noticed she was gone.

Looking over her prosthetic, I quickly found the release mechanism and unplugged it so she wouldn’t be able to attack me in the unlikely case she managed to wake up. I coughed up a gooey ball of multi-purpose construction slime into my hoof and prepared to gag the pegasus by covering her mouth with it.

That is, until the queens-damned doctor came trotting back—lab coat, smug grin and all.

Problem was, I knew him and he definitely knew me. We’d been comrades once, but “unfavorable circumstances” had ruined things. Bad decisions were made, ponies panicked, some died. I separated myself from that organization shortly thereafter, but he’d been a decent fellow for the time I knew him.

“You know, the ‘motorized scrap pile’ trick only works if the pony hasn’t actually seen it before.” The doctor-pony chuckled. “It’s been a while, Backy. What’s it been—five months? And you still don’t have the decency to ask a mare out to dinner before turning her into a green burrito?”

I inwardly groaned and shoved the goop back into my mouth for reprocessing. Wiping my slimy hoof on the underside of my barding, I snapped, “I’m in the middle of an op, and you’re about to blow it.” And then I had to remind him, “And don’t call me that, Stitches.”

“You don’t know how adorable it is when you use stupid handles, Mister ‘Back S. Tabber’.” The former doctor laid down on the ground and stared at me like a damned schoolfilly. “So, tell me moooore.”

“Stop that.” Briefly, I considered shooting him. It wasn’t like he was going to actually squawk about my plans. It was more like him to sabotage my efforts at the last second, just like the last time. “Obsidian Equestria’s paying for gear, relics, guns, anything that’ll do damage. I’m here for some classified tech and the whatever the Rangers have got in their arsenal.” I began to unroll rope from my kit and tie up the pegasus as we talked.

“Do you have a plan?”

“Yeah.” I left it at that, refusing to elaborate any further.

“Does it involve eggs in my rectal cavity again?”

“We were drunk. You passed out with your ass in the air; ergo, you asked for it,” I matter-of-factly replied while finishing the trussing on the pegasus. On that topic, I asked, “What happened to those eggs, anyway?”

“They live in a formaldehyde-filled mason jar somewhere.” He then noticed the length of rope that I was hefting in his direction. “Aw, Tabber, are you tying me up too?”

“Yup.” I glanced out of the broken window and curiously watched the two Steel Rangers kick down a door and disappear. “Dignity or without?”

“Can I hang from the ceiling?”

I rolled my eyes. “…Fine. Without it is.”

“Awesome.” Galactic held out his hooves and grinned.

And I still needed to put my metal armor back on before the Rangers came back to killerize me. If any more wrenches got thrown into this plan, I could open a hardware store.

~~~~~

An inadvertent betrayal later…

From when I’d been a youngling larva, my brood mother always chided me about believing in myths and occultery. They were things for silly ponies to worry about, not for a strong little changeling like myself. At the moment, I was extremely upset about being right about it for once—a queens-damned spirit with a gun had shown up at the last second to save Frosty, and he’d blown off a good chunk of my right hindleg.

“Giggle at the ghostly my ass,” I angrily muttered under my breath, warily eyeing the hardening all-purpose goop holding my leg together. Ironically, the mystery holes that every changeling had in their limbs had actually saved me by breaking at their weakest points. “Of all the mares in the wasteland, she’s the one with a guardian angel.”

I couldn’t head back to Obsidian Eq. empty-hoofed, and especially not after I’d burned dozens of favors and hundreds of caps to get this far. “Agh, shit. That hurts.” I tried to apply a little more goop to my makeshift cast, groaning in pain when I accidentally shifted my wounded leg. Chitin grew back, but a good third of my leg was missing! Hydra wouldn’t even work on me and healing potions could only do so much, so…

My mind shifted back to Frosty, the luckiest mare in the Equestrian Wasteland. “You know what? You think you’re hot shit?” Out of spite, I transformed myself into her and hobbled to the broken mirror. I had her look perfected—the gaudy blue stripe, the confused green eyes, her somehow endearing expression. “Let’s see how you like it when it’s you. Versus. You.” My eyes flared with emerald fire and my preferred purple irises replaced Frosty’s green.

It only took an extra second to alter my voice to match hers. "There's only room for one asshole, and it’s gonna be me."

Footnote: New character unlocked.

Author's Note

If you’re reading this text, that means the story has been updated and this is the new and correct version.

Got a question? Ask Frosty!

Chapter 21: You’ll give me an alibi, right?

Chapter 21: You’ll give me an alibi, right?

“You’ve been kind for far too long, my dear. Time to be cruel!”

Waking up to the sight of yourself with a maniacal grin and hefting a gore-stained bladed chopping implement really got the adrenaline flowing. Utilizing speed I hadn’t expected, I bolted out of bed and streaked into the living room to escape the bloody devil. As I skidded to a stop thanks to the carpet, I couldn’t help but hear the assortment of laughter behind me. In other news, somepony had gotten around to moving a reclining chair into my imaginary living space.

“I dunno about you three, but I think I win this one,” Toasty gloated. “Pay up.”

I heard a clinking sound, most likely bits being exchanged. “I don’t think that really counts. It looked like she just happened to come to during your turn,” Gala Frosty glumly replied.

“You’re a big fat cheaty cheaterpants.” Filly Frosty stormed out of the room and down the hall. “Cheater.”

Toasty followed her at a slight distance. “You were the one that agreed to it. Don’t be such a pantsless sourpuss over it. You’re just jealous that I’m scarier.”

“Am not!”

“Yeah you are.”

“NOT!”

“Uh-huh!”

“NUH-UH!”

“YUH-HUH!”

“MOOOOOOM!”

“NO! NO MOM!”

Gala emerged with a feather duster. “Don’t make me come over there!” Contrary to what she’d just said, she still advanced toward them.

“What? Wait, what is that? Nononooo—hee! Haaaha! St-stop!” Toasty uncontrollably giggled. “Sto-op, I’m g-going to pee myself! Haaahhaaa!”

I wordlessly sat on the carpet and listened to the epic tickle fight occur. “You know, I could get used to this place,” Ice Storm sighed from the recliner.

“Shove off, hitchhiker,” Officer Frosty snarled from behind the mini-bar. “Don’t get too comfy.”

Since he was out of things to smoke, Ice had opted out for a bright orange lollipop. “Says the backstabbing snake-in-the-grass.” The candy treat made a shooing action and placed itself back into his mouth.

Officer poured herself a snifter of brandy and marched out with the glass balanced on a wing. Ice tipped his hat in her direction as she did her best to leave in a dignified manner. She disappeared through a steel door and slammed it shut, the door vanishing behind her. One day, I needed to get to the bottom of all of this nonsense.

“You know what they say,” I muttered under my breath. “Two’s company, three’s a crowd, and four makes it very difficult to get through doorways. And I’m running out of room in here, too.” By the hysterical pained laughter coming from somewhere in the cloudhouse, the others were running out of things to keep them busy with. “The things I deal with.”

Ice responded simply. “Yep.” He struggled with the reclining mechanism for a moment before the leg rest popped out.

I settled into the imaginary cloud under my tush. “So… what happens now? I mean, I’m still unconscious, right?” Could you blame me for being worried about my body?

“I’m doing my best. You got thrashed out there, and trust me—this is a much better alternative to feeling all that pain.” Ice’s hat levitated off his head and began to fan its wearer. “Besides, this means we can spend some time together!”

Before I could open my mouth to reply, Toasty bolted through with Filly still riding on her back. “Get off me, scamp!”

Filly squealed in delight. “Faster, faster!” After bucking and twirling in place, Toasty reversed direction and went back to the room.

Pinning my ears back, I pouted and responded to Ice, “…I don’t wanna.”

Almost disappointedly, Ice blinked at me and sighed. “Okay.” He swirled the orange lollipop around in his mouth. “Have it your way.”

The recliner wobbled as Ice attempted to close the leg rest, unsuccessfully hammering it with his hindlegs. He leaned over to the side and tried pulling the lever, only resulting in failure. Eventually, he finally decided to simply roll himself off the side of the chair and gracefully face-plant into the floor.

“Uh…” I hesitantly raised my hoof. “Do you need help?”

Ice staggered to his hooves and mashed his fedora back onto his head. “No, no. I’ve only messed up a dramatic moment. Hold on.” Patiently, I waited for Ice to gather his thoughts and give his lollipop another swirl. “Okay, let’s try that again.” He paused, presumably for effect. “Have it your way.”

I opened my mouth to ask, but I was rudely interrupted by a lollipop being shoved into into my gaping maw. He then pushed me onto my back by bopping me on the nose, and then nothing.

~~~~~

Very slowly, I realized was that I was conscious. Something smelled clean—almost like antiseptic. I shifted my shoulders and felt something soft. Combined with the uncomfortable warmth along my back, I came up with the conclusion that I was in a bed. Or a bed-like device.

And then I realized I had to pee.

As in, I was going to explode if I didn’t pee.

I sat bolt upright, regardless of the things in my way and announced, “I need to pee.”

At least I’d managed to startle an unarmored Sparkle, who had been comfortably leaving a puddle of drool in my crotch while slumped over in a chair on my right. Now she stared at me in partial fright, still slightly drooling in the same spot. I could barely hear muffled noises coming out of the cheap-looking and scuffed bright purple headphones on her head. There were a few questions I would have liked to ask her. For example: why do those things have a silhouette of a root vegetable on it? What are you doing with your face in my junk?

But the more pressing matter was, “Where do I pee?”

“Not on me,” Sparkle quickly replied, sitting up and adjusting the headphones.

“I will if you don’t point me at a bathroom.” Looking around, I observed an almost professional-looking hospital motif around the room. At least this place was designed for a single patient, as opposed to Doc’s clinic back in Happy Hills. “Okay, better question: where in the everloving dominion of Luna are we?” I demanded.

Sparkle yanked her headphones off and neatly wrapped the cord around a small device in the reinforced carrying case at her side. “Well, we carted your comatose butt over to the closest bit of civilization, which happens to be this trading outpost. Oh—this place is great! There’s a working toilet in every motel room, a fire service, this walk-in clinic, the works! It’s a little slice of actual, working, civilized civilization in the Wasteland.”

I deeply inhaled and immediately regretted it. “Ow.” The bandages wrapped around my midsection were on way too tight, and the myriad of other medical tape and gauze attached to the rest of me were similarly uncomfortable. At least whoever had treated me had taken care not to destroy all the feathers on my left wing to attach a healing bandage. How considerate.

“Don’t go anywhere. I need to go get Rumcake. Just sorta… relax? Please?” Sparkle got to her hooves and performed a few stretches. “But seriously, if you go anywhere in the five minutes I’m outside, I’ll personally find many ways to turn your life into a living hell.”

I watched Sparkle trot out of the room and immediately remembered that I still really needed to pee. That thought was set aside as I patted the unbelievably soft patchwork quilt still covering me, realizing that the bed I was still sitting in was comfortable enough to validate another few minutes of lying down. “I need to pee,” I glumly muttered to myself, then pulled up the covers to my chin. “But it’s so warm and comfy.”

The mere thought of me actually being comfortable must have annoyed somepony, because several ponies burst into the room and ruined everything. “Welcome back to the world of the living, Frosty.”

I sighed and scooted myself back up into a sitting position. “Hi again, Tangerine.” I rubbed my eyes, yawned, then opened them to see a very angry, unarmored Rumcake looming over me. “I’m going to close my eyes, count to five, and I’d better not see the the wrath of the moon staring at me when I open them again.” Very casually, I covered my eyes with my hooves and began to mentally count.

“Frosty…” Rumcake fumed.

“You can’t see me. I can’t see you.”

With a bit more rage, Rumcake growled, “This is no time for jokes.”

Defeated, I sighed and uncovered my eyes. “Fi—”

Getting punched by Rumcake wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. Maybe I deserved it, but that really stung! I clutched my reddening cheek and stared back at him with a mixture of fear and anger. “W-what the buck was that for?” I incredulously gasped.

“You had one job,” Rumcake snarled, jabbing me in the chest. “Just go bucking look at something and come back. What was so hard about that?”

“I didn’t—” I twisted my body ever so slightly so that the next prod wouldn’t hurt nearly as much.

“But nooo, that was too boring.” Rumcake began to mimic my voice. “Let’s go pick a fight and get absolutely buggered because doing my job is too easy.”

Indignant, I snapped back, “I don’t sound like that! And that’s not what happened!”

Thankfully, Sparkle came to my aid and eased Rumcake off of me. “O-kay lovebirds, you two can play house later. This nice stallion would like to talk now.”

“We’re going to have a long talk about this later.” Rumcake glared at me, then forced his way past the wastelander standing by the door.

Sparkle gave me a sympathetic shrug and gestured at the door. “I’m gonna—uh—yeah. Tangie, you do the thing.”

Whatever that meant, Tangerine understood and smartly saluted. “Yup! I’ll do my best.”

I looked over the newcomer, a slightly unnerved, stereotypically-dressed doctor. The unicorn coughed and adjusted his thick square-framed glasses before trotting up to my side. Somehow, he’d managed to find the one clean white doctor’s coat in the entire Wasteland and kept it in nearly perfect condition, which also happened to blend in to his equally white fur. His white mane was short, somewhat curly and thinning, as was his stubble. Looking him over, it was beginning to look more likely that he’d fallen into a vat of bleach as a foal and it had stuck. The pink eyes only sold the idea.

“Before you ask: yes, I have albinism. No, it’s not contagious. No, I don’t go outside. Yes, I have candy on my person. No, you cannot have any.” The doctor wearily sighed, a pink aura bringing his stethoscope to his ears. “Miss Winds, I’m going to make sure you’re not an unwitting host to an alien parasite swarm like my last patient and then you can go back to getting some rest, okay?”

I gulped. “Wh-what?”

The doctor stared at me and replied, deadpan, “I’m joking.” He scooted a bit closer and placed his hooves on my shoulders. “Okay, I’m going to need you to sit forward for this next part.”

Well, he looked like a doctor. Better him than Doc Galactic. “Uh, alright.” I complied, scooting forward a bit and leaning forward.

Something cold touched my upper back by my right shoulder. “Deep breath.”

Obediently, I did.

“And exhale.”

And I did.

The cold end of the stethoscope moved to the opposite side of my back. “In and out again.”

I complied.

“You know, you could make some small talk while we’re doing this.”

Why was he expecting me to start? “So, uh, have you examined many pegasi before?”

“Just one. Breathe.”

After I exhaled, I asked, “Was he okay?”

“If he was, he wasn’t by the time I was done with him.”

…What? A mini panic attack almost made me spin around and attack him.

“No, I’m joking. It was an autopsy. Take a few calming breaths—you’re ruining my observations.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” I nervously chuckled.

Behind me, I heard the doctor rearrange his equipment. “Well, I’m sorry I said anything.” Something pointy edged into my ear and I flicked it back in response. “I’m just trying to take a look in your ears, so cut that out.” I stopped, then he flatly stated, “You should clean your ears out sometime. It’s disgusting in here.”

I rolled my eyes and sarcastically shot back, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Oh, you never mentioned your name,” I suddenly realized.

Cold touch. “Hm. I didn’t, did I? Breathe.”

I exhaled much harder than I needed to. “Okay, what’s your name?”

"You can call me”—his hooves extended into the edges of my vision and made quote motions—“ ‘Doctor’.”

…Okay, this was getting creepy. “You are actually a doctor, right?” I asked nervously.

“Yes, of course I’m a ‘doctor’. You can call me ‘Doctor’,” he repeated, once again making quote motions with his hooves every time he said the word.

I stared at him, shuffling away from him slowly. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to condemn Doc Galactic.

Apparently I wasn’t as stealthy as I thought, because the stallion groaned and rolled his eyes. “My name is Airquotes. I’m Doctor Airquotes. You can call me ‘Doctor’.” He paused, waiting for my reaction. “You’re supposed to laugh.”

It wasn’t funny. “Well, doctor, are we done here?” I impatiently asked, deciding to ignore whatever it was that just happened. And I still had to pee.

“No, no. Say it with me—‘Doctor’.”

“No.”

Airquotes leaned over. “You’re no fun. Fine, your lungs sound fine and nothing new has popped up as of yet.” He scooted back to the foot of my bed and clopped his hooves together. “No complications is good for a change.” A clipboard floated out from under my bed and he made a few notes on it.

“And that’s all?”

A large pink glow collected on Airquotes’s horn and popped off, only to happily float by him as a very bright mote of light. “Nope. Eyes. Look at the birdie.” Even though he gestured at the little bobbing ball, I stared down at myself because I was a smartass. “Ha, that’s funny. Because you’re a pegasus. Where was your sense of humor before? Okay, but seriously, look at the ball.” I complied, and allowed him to move the ball left and right as he peered into my eyes.

In the corner, Tangerine interjected, “Can you teach that spell to me sometime? That looks useful.”

“Probably.” The mote of light winked out. “Okay, one last check and we’re good to go. Miss Tangerine, if you don’t mind, Miss Winds would probably like a little privacy for this part.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to fondle her mare parts and you’re either watching or you’re not. Miss Winds would probably rather you weren’t.”

“For the record, I’d like to agree with the motion,” I pointedly mentioned.

Tangerine turned a shade of pink and glanced at me. “I’ll be right by the door.” She popped outside and flashed me a sympathetic grin.

Airquotes eased a hoof around my back and gently told me, “Okay, out of the bed. Carefully, and don’t strain yourself.”

With Airquotes’s useful (but unneccessary) support, I managed to stand next to him, slightly shivering from being out of the comfortable warmth. “Oh yeah, I still need to pee,” I suddenly blurted.

Airquotes dragged a large pot out from under my bed. “Here you go. I’ll turn around.”

I stared at the heavy metal pot. “Uh…”

While I was still stunned into confusion, Airquotes exasperatedly asked, “Do you need help?”

Blushing, I shot back, “No!” Somewhat awkwardly, I crouched over the pot and, uh, drained my bladder.

And it continued to drain.

And drain.

Awkwardly long.

It was even getting to Airquotes. “How many liquids did you consume?” he bashfully asked as I somehow continued to urinate.

My cheeks turning redder, I mumbled back, “I might have put off potty time to today.”

“Hm.”

After what felt like forever, my bladder was finally empty. “Do you have anything I can clean up with, by chance?” I shyly asked.

A clean-looking rag lawered into my vision. “Here you go.”

Using the rag that I had borrowed, I cleaned myself up and sighed, “Okay, that’s been taken care of. Whew, I feel better already.”

Airquotes sighed in relief and turned around to face me again, nonchalantly pushing the dirty rag and the pot back under the bed. “As I was saying before our intermission, I need to examine your posterior and posterior accessories. Especially the accessories.”

Now that he phrased it that way, I was immediately not okay with any of this. I clamped my tail over my fun bits. “Nuh-uh. No way.”

With another exasperated groan, Airquotes charged his horn with magic and burst into pink light. I had to cover my eyes for the moment, but when I opened them, my jaw dropped. In the place of Airquotes, I was staring at a Miss Airquotes. She looked nearly exactly the same, save her more demure appearance and the exchange of stubble for a much longer unkempt mane.

“There. If you’ll allow me to examine you, you can examine me if you want.” Airquotes weakly chuckled, a much higher-pitch voice coming out of her mouth. “Heh, I made an innuendo.”

No words came to mind besides, “What.”

Another eye-roll and sigh. “Since some ponies get uncomfortable around the opposite gender in a medical setting, I have ways to accommodate patient needs,” she droned.

“Are you actually a mare?” I finally asked.

“Does it matter? Point being, you have no idea which is my standard gender. Just let me do my job so you can go back to doing whatever.” Airquotes didn’t wait for me to reply and gently manouvered me around to face the wall. “There you go. Relax and don’t kick. Please.”

I allowed her to fiddle with my bits, reminding myself that he/she/it was probably a medical professional. Probably. At least she was gentle about it. Awkwardly, I shifted on my hooves and tried not to eep in surprise every time I was prodded.

At least it was over very quickly. “Your plumbing appears to be in order. Alright, we’re done here. Rest up, don’t strain yourself, don’t do drugs or you’re a loser.” Airquotes gave my rump a comforting pat. “Have a nice day.”

I crawled back into bed as Airquotes collected her things and left, giving a very surprised Tangerine some instructions. Thankfully, the plush quilt was still warm and I slid myself under the covers. I had to shift myself to allow my wings to spread out and share the comfort as well.

I heard Tangerine waltz back in. “Uh—was that the doctor?”

“Nah. Just ‘Doctor’.” I lazily embellished her name with hoof-gestures.

I barely made out Tangerine murmur to herself, “I should learn how to do that.” The potential implications aside, I still giggled at the thought of stallion Tangerine awkwardly trying to talk to Sparkle without having a panic attack.

Out of curiosity… “Say, you didn’t get a good look at her butt, did you?”

“Ofcoursenot!” Tangerine blurted, waving her hooves in front of her.

So she did. “Relax. I just wanted to know what his stupid cutie mark was.”

It must have been hard to see with her lab coat on, but I was hoping that it would tell me a little something. Besides, cutie marks didn’t lie. Unless they were cryptically generic or just plain silly, that is.

“I’m pretty sure it was an open quote, a caduceus, and a close quote. Though, all I got a glimpse of was part of the caduceus and the close quote. Inference,” Tangerine thought out loud.

Interesting. “I’m going to get some rest,” I said, fully intending to do so despite some more pressing issues I should have been dealing with. “Wake me when you need me.” I took advantage of the cozy pillow I had squished under head and buried my face under it, contentedly sighing into the softness.

Of course, now that I’d drawn attention to it, I wasn’t allowed to sleep anymore. I heard Tangerine clomp up to my bedside and sit down. “So… what happened out there? I’d just like to know the full picture, that’s all.”

“I’m going to just go out on a limb”—I dismissively waved with my claw—“and say that Rumcake thinks I picked a fight. Right?” Who was funny? I was funny.

Hooves anxiously clopped on the tiled floor. “Well… you do have a mean streak of reckless abandon. That was my initial thought, too. Sorry?”

I froze in mid-wave and clenched my talons, hoping it would come off as angry. To sell it, I even angrily exhaled into the pillow. Hopefully it would get an entertaining reaction.

Tangerine squeaked in fright. Perfect!

“Bahahaha! Okay, that was funny,” I sniggered, rolling onto my back. “Priceless.”

A very annoyed Tangerine reached over and bopped my nose. “You’re a meanie.”

“Worth it.” Fun aside, I needed to be serious for a moment. “But anyway, it wasn’t me for once. I got caught off guard by some lunatics and I had to fight my way out.” But now that I thought about it… “Although I guess I could have bailed from that fight, now that I think about it.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

Because I didn’t really think? Because I let my impulsiveness get the better of me? Because Toasty really wanted the kills?

“Don’t blame this on me, nerd,” Toasty snarled into my right ear.

But I easily could have bailed from the fight. The problem was, had I really wanted to? I could blame War’s stupid bolas keeping me from leaving. Heat of the moment? If I could twist the truth slightly, I could maybe get away with just the slap across my face.

“You know how it is—colt meets filly, colt ties up filly, then filly beats the crap out of him because petty revenge is hilarious,” I smoothly improvised. “But in all seriousness, I was literally roped into a situation and I couldn’t do anything about it. The only way to get out was fight back. Gimme a break—I didn’t ask for this.”

I could hear Tangerine just thoughtfully regarding what I told her, then she responded, “You know, Rumcake isn’t mad at you.”

It didn’t seem like he was very happy to me. “He’s super mad at me.”

“…Well, okay. He—”

To make my point, I interrupted, “Super with a cape.”

Slightly confused, Tangerine hesitated before continuing, “Uh, he’s steaming mad. But he really does care about you.”

I opened and closed my talons to imitate talking motions. “And he loves me dearly, looks out for me, would do anything in the world for me? Yadda yadda yadda. What is this, a bad soap opera? No, all he wants is a sexy flank with wings attached to it. He’s angry. He won’t forgive me. I’m going to be on a leash for the rest of my life.” Now that I had just made myself sad, I shoved my face into the pillow for comfort.

“You’re just overreacting. Look at it this way: he’s basically saying very nice things extremely loudly. Every mare has to deal with an angry coltfriend—or fillyfriend—at some point. You’ll get over it and realize you’re just being dramatic.”

“I don’t remember the first time I had to deal with an angry coltfriend. If any,” I mumbled into the pillow.

“Frosty, please. When you got injured this time, Rumcake took it hard. He’s blaming himself because he sent you on recon alone, after he said he wouldn’t let you go solo again. Maybe you should apologize or something—make him feel better?”

That sounded like a lost cause. “Meh.”

The door opened. “E-excuse me, but y-your friend is cleared to leave. We n-need the room, ma’am,” a very young, unsure, coltish voice stammered.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? My friend’s still a bit beaten up.”

There wasn’t any way I was surrendering this stupidly comfortable bed, so I pathetically mewled and coughed just loud enough to sell it.

“S-sorry, you’ve g-got to go. Doctor’s orders.”

Tangerine and I groaned. “Okay, I’ll we’ll be out in a few. Let me get my friend on her hooves and grab our stuff,” she impatiently replied. The door quietly clicked shut in response. “C’mon, Frosty. Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!”

Eggs and bakey be damned, I just wanted to snuggle in an actual bed. “Uuugh. Fine, I’m up. I’m up.” I oozed out of bed, starting with my hindlegs, and eventually I reached a wobbly standing position.

Tangerine worriedly glanced at me. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Did I feel okay? Not really, but I could cope. “Yeah. Just a little woozy and sore.” My injured wing was still uncomfortably tight, but at least I could still stretch my other wing. I inhaled and winced again when the bandages constricted my chest.

While I was in mid-stretch, careful not to choke myself again, Tangerine helpfully looped my saddlebag back onto me. “I kept your stuff safe, so you don’t have to worry about Violet nosing around into things that she shouldn’t be.”

“Oh, uh, thanks.” The second the full weight of my saddlebag landed on me, I nearly choked anyway from the pain. Did the strap always hurt this much? “This is too heavy.”

“What do you mean it’s too heavy?”

“I appear to be over-encumbered.” I hefted the bulk of my saddlebag and grimaced. “This is a lot heavier than I remember it being.”

Cue confusion. “Oh, you’re not power-armored. Let’s get that set up.”

~~~~~

So it turned out that I really needed to sort out the hoarding problem that was propagating in my saddlebag. On the bright side, at least my power armor gave me enough of a strength boost to conveniently put that issue off until later. Once Tangerine helped me get my armor on and I was ready to go, we left the nice hospital and re-emerged into the Wasteland.

Tangerine gestured at the four-way crossing in front of us. “Welcome to Strongbox.” Well, it lived up to its name as a fort. Each of the roads had been expertly blocked off with reinforced walls, sturdy fortifications, and a very functioning defense force. For whatever reason, the ponies living in Strongbox had decided that the Wasteland needed a library, which was directly across the street from us. It was a massive, ugly gray rectangle that took up the entire block. There was a small recessed overhang on the street corner as well as a smaller cylinder perched on top that looked like it had been refurbished into a watchtower, complete with an artillery piece.

If the little rock in my brain was right, then I was facing due east-ish. To the north there was a toy store, which somehow still had its oversized wood blocks out front—right next to giant statues of wooden Royal Guards. The heavily armed ponies in metal armor and minigun saddles standing out front made me figure that it probably wasn’t a toy store anymore. I determined it was likely an armory, judging by the five ponies lugging crates marked “Explosive Ordnance” into the pastel yellow double doors from the burger shop to the my left.

The burger shop still appeared to be a burger shop. It looked a lot like a soda can—two primary colors, vibrant lettering, and gaudy patterns splattered everywhere. At least a dozen ponies were sitting inside eating, but a few were hanging around the area between the wall and the far side of the building.

That left the building behind me, which read “Fifth Street Bank”. Two floors, and probably both of them had been changed into a hospital. Interesting. But that didn’t matter, since Tangerine was more intent on dragging me to the library instead.

“Where’s your radio?” Tangerine asked me as I followed her through the library’s rotating door. “Sparkle told me she’d make Rumcake meet up here, but who knows where he’s gone off to. Oh yeah, keep an eye out for Violet. She’s around here somewhere.”

The little rubber antenna wasn’t protruding into the bottom edge of my vision, so I probably didn’t have the radio clipped to my shoulder. I absent-mindedly followed behind Tangerine as I fumbled through the depths of my bag of holding to retrieve said radio. Eventually, I found it buried underneath a few stray bullets and my somewhat neglected submachine gun.

Tangerine started prattling along about values or something, so at least I wouldn’t miss anything if I tuned her out. I gave her a little poke and showed her my radio, then nearly dropped the throat mic attached to it. “Can you help me clip it back on? I can’t really reach back that far,” I asked, a tad embarrassed.

“Sure thing,” Tangerine brightly replied.

I sat down and continued to pretend-listen to Tangerie while she helpfully attached my radio setup to my armor. All I needed to do was tell Rumcake I was sorry for making him worried, follow it up with saying it was my fault for being stupid, then patch it all over with a sappy “I love you” and a smooch. Yeah, that’d probably do.

“Somehow, I don’t think an apology is going to cut it,” a voice said. With the sound of swishing fabric, Gala Frosty appeared by my side. “You really made him worried.”

I adjusted my throat mic so that I was comfortable and made sure to click the radio to the “off” position. “Won’t hurt to try.” Tangerine seemed to know where she was going, so I followed her.

The two of us stayed silent to think. “Bribe him with food?” Gala suggested.

Just to add to the party, Ice appeared beside Gala and waved his green-flavored lollipop at me. “You know what they say—the fastest way to a stallion’s heart is through his stomach.”

To my other side, Toasty appeared and chortled, “And the fastest way to a stallion’s stomach is through his butt.” All of us, sans Tangerine, stared at Toasty in disgust and maybe shock. “What? Don’t give me that look.”

“That’s… frightening.” Gala huffed and adjusted her dress.

I blinked. “Wait, are you implying I cram a snack cake up his butt?” Ew.

Beside me, Toasty abruptly halted. “What? I was implying a giant, plastic—”

“Uh, Frosty?” It appeared that, in my fit of crazy, we had arrived to our destination with Tangerine giving me a concerned look. “I don’t want to interrupt your argument with yourself, but Rumcake’s right at the end of those shelves with Sparkle and Violet.”

I peeked around the corner of the metal shelves—filled with actual, readable books—and witnessed Sparkle building a book fort around Violet, who was in the middle of copying things into her spellbook. Rumcake was silently fuming into the corner, which worried me greatly.

I faced Tangerine. “Okay, there’s a chance that I’m going to buck this up big time. In the likely case that it happens, will you help a sister and bail me out?”

“Uh…”

“Good enough.” I took a few relaxing breaths and pounded my chest once. “Okay, Frosty. You can do this shit.” Confidence restored, I walked between the shelves to my doom.

Sparkle stopped trying to build a portcullis out of a small stack of encyclopedias and waved at me. “Hey! Looking a lot better, sis!” She cocked her head at Rumcake’s armored butt and mouthed, “Super pissed.”

“Thanks, Sparkle.” I wryly grinned at her.

Now for the hard part. I took another deep breath to psych myself up and prayed to Luna that everything would be okay.

I cleared my throat and trotted right up behind Rumcake. “Hey, uh… I’d like to say I’m sorry for making you worry about me. The situation got way out of hoof and I should have called for backup.”

He didn’t react, but I hoped he was just being dramatic.

“I was being stupid, and it was my fault.”

All I heard back was an annoyed huff.

Uh… what was I supposed to say next? “It’s not your fault.”

“I should never have assumed that you would stay out of trouble,” Rumcake finally growled. “I should have considered your tendency to attract risk. We didn’t need the intel that badly.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it! It was my stupid decision to go and—”

“All you had to do was fly over a shitty little place and look at it. It couldn’t have been easier and you still managed to find some way to buck it up.” With every word, Rumcake raised his voice. “You think a simple little sorry is going to fix this? You keep doing this! Over, and over, and over again! Do you just find this funny? Is that it?”

I opened my mouth to explain myself, but Rumcake wasn’t having any of it. “Is this just revenge for the whole bomb collar thing? Or do you have a need to recklessly find a fight whenever it’s possible? Don’t even start with the ‘oh, danger finds me’ bullshit, because I know you’re just dying to drop that one.”

Shit. I hadn’t seen Rumcake this mad in… well… ever. He was pissed. But just when I thought he was done, he launched into another rant.

“I’ve had enough of you running off with your suicidal tendencies. From now on, I’m going to assign an escort to you at all times. In the rare case you find yourself without one of us around, you are to immediately find us. Do you understand?”

I wasn’t sure if saying anything would help. Rumcake’s whole reaction alone had shocked me into silence.

“Did you understand, Squire Winds?” Rumcake bellowed.

My chest throbbed painfully and instinct kicked in. “Crystal, sir!” I snapped to attention and nearly punched my eye out trying to get my hoof up fast enough. He pulled rank on me! He pulled rank on me!

And then, Rumcake’s demeanor went from being the bringer of my doom to just a tired armored stallion. “Good. I’ve had Violet working on something for a while to make sure you’ll hold up your end.” When he paused, he retrieved his helmet and peered inside it. “Look, it’s almost time for lunch. Sparkle and I need to go blow up a radwasp nest to cover the surgeon’s costs and the meds so that we can be back for dinner.”

Now I was beginning to feel terrible and guilty. “O-okay,” I meekly stammered back.

While I sat in place, frozen in apprehension, Rumcake paced over to Violet and spoke to her in hushed whispers. Maybe I shouldn’t have fought War and Pestilence. Maybe I should’ve flown away the second I broke free, and everything would have been fine. After finishing up their short chat, Rumcake and Violet came back to face me, a small bright red band of leather floating in midair beside her.

Frightfully, I asked, “Uh… what’s that?” A stupid question, since I knew full well what it was, but I just really didn’t want to believe it.

Rumcake gently pulled it out of the air and dangled it in his hoof. “I had Violet enchant a collar to make sure you won’t stray too far from us. I’m not sure how it works—”

“In laypony’s terms, it prevents the wearer from wandering farther than fifty yards away from specific targets. I’ve also added another spell that prevents Frosty from taking it off or shredding it, as per your request.” Violet immediately interjected. “Did you know that this spell was originally used to locate lost home keys?”

“Yeah. That.” Explanation done, Rumcake proffered the collar to me. “I’d like you to wear this from now on.”

My heart sunk. This again. I couldn’t really say no to it, but I also didn’t want to be collared up again. But… I’d already caused so many problems for Rumcake. As much as I didn’t like it, I was already feeling so guilty about all the things that I’d done to him. I was distraught, but I couldn’t say no.

“I’ll wear it,” I choked out.

I couldn’t look Rumcake in the eyes as he carefully secured the collar around my neck. Strangely enough, when it tightened around my neck, it actually became plushly soft and comfortable—while still keeping enough tightness to stay furtight. Annoyingly enough, it was constricting enough to remind me it was there without being too uncomfortable.

“Please, please, please stay out of trouble for once and just stay here with Tangerine and Violet. Sparkle and I won’t take too long. Keep your radio on, just in case.” Without waiting for a confirmation, Rumcake beckoned for Sparkle to follow him. “Let’s get out of here.” Turning back to me, he emotionlessly reminded me, “I’ll be back.”

I wordlessly watched him wind through the shelves and disappear around a pillar. That left me crushed, confused, and altogether confounded on what to do next. In all the time that I had known Rumcake, he’d never acted like that before.

Thankfully, I was there for myself. “Single by choice. We could totally pull that off. Right?” Gala nervously chuckled from beside me.

I wistfully sighed. “It’s just not my choice.”

A lollipop bounced off my nose. “You’re being dramatic.”

“You’re being a stallion,” was the first snappy and witty thing that I came up with.

Ice narrowed his eyes at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ah yes, the classic “what’s that supposed to mean” riposte. The logical follow-up was, “You don’t understand the amount of stress I’m going through right now.”

Suddenly, Ice’s mane burst into ethereal, white-hot flames as he erupted, “I am literally older than dirt! You don’t know what stress is like. You can’t imagine.” Immediately following his outburst, the fire died down and his mane returned to normal, his fedora floating back onto his head. “Whew. Okay, be cool, be cool. I’m cool. Ice cool. Alright.”

“Neat! Do it again!!” Filly Frosty squealed, appearing out of literally nowhere.

Endearingly, Ice reached down and patted her. “No can do, little filly.”

“Shit, Frosty. Get a handle on yourself,” Violet disinterestedly stated. “Your coltfriend is also into some really kinky stuff, by the way. Seems like he’s been holding onto that for a while.”

I snapped out of my psychological meltdown and gave my head a good shaking, which also made my collar start jingling. “What the buck?” I shook again, this time a little harder, and the jingling returned. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Tangerine failing to hold in laughter. Of course, I wasn’t in the mood for it, so I snapped, “The buck’s so funny?”

It only took a split second and a head-turn-jingle to reduce Tangerine into a hysterical mess. Once she caught her breath, she finally gasped, “You’re like a doggie!”

Normally I would have found that somewhat amusing, but recent events had ruined my sense of humor. “And you’re a fruit that can’t understand when to shut up.”

“Does the doggie want a treat?” She even went as far as bobbing a snack cake in the air above her.

Maybe she couldn’t take a hint, or maybe I just wasn’t visibly upset enough. Quietly, almost menacingly so, I asked Violet, “You’ll give me an alibi, right?”

At least Violet was still somewhat paying attention enough to halfheartedly reply, “Eh. How come?”

Absolutely hysterical, Tangerine continued, “We even have a cute little leash for you, too!” And then she had the nerve to begin to coo, “Who’s a good girl? Who’s a good girl? You are! Who wants walkies? Do you want walkies?”

That was enough. “Because I’m going to turn Tangerine into a headless smear on the floor in a second, and I need to be somewhere else when that happens.” I snarled at the mare in question.

“You can do that after she finishes doing her part of the research.” Violet gestured at the ruins of Fort Sparkle. “She’s the one that wanted to play with magic beyond her reach, so here I am doing all the work. Again.”

“What do you mean by ‘beyond her reach’, huh? I can do just fine, thank you.” Tangerine haughtily snapped at the other mare.

Violet looked up from her book and simply stated, “You could barely maintain a levitation spell on Frosty earlier.”

“She’s heavy!” As an afterthought, Tangerine quickly blurted at me, “No offense.”

I decided that angrily narrowing my eyes at her would do. I was very offended by that.

“She’s literally twenty percent—on average—less dense than the average pony. Unless your flank generates its own gravitational field, Frosty weighs less than she should.” Using her quill, Violet gestured at me, then Tangerine. “Actually, she probably weighs less than you.”

The two unicorns could bicker at each other to the end of time, but I couldn’t care less. Since I wasn’t going to be going anywhere unsupervised and I wasn’t feeling like my perky self, I decided that the next best thing to do was sit down and wait. It’s what Rumcake wanted from me, after all. The corner across from Violet seemed like a nice dark place to take a nap in, so that’s where I went.

“If I had a horn, I could be the angsty robot princess that I’ve dreamed of being,” I mirthlessly chuckled into the wall. To make myself feel better, I added, “Maybe with a laser face. A mare can dream, after all.” Satisfied, I flopped onto my side, curled myself up, and draped my wing over my head.

That only made my collar uncomfortably cut into my neck, reminding me that nothing had really changed after all. At least this collar wouldn't explode like the last one.

And then all I had to do was try and sleep without crying.

Which was a lot more difficult than it sounded.

I accidentally allowed my mind to wander into Rumcake yelling at me and I let out a choking sob, curling up just a little tighter.

Damn you, brain.

It wasn’t more than a minute before I heard hesitant hoofsie noises behind me. Maybe the thought of allowing a distraught mare a little mopey-time was just a teensy bit stupid. Or maybe Tangerine had a death wish, because pulverizing somepony would make me feel a teensy bit better.

“Hey, I need your help.”

Oh, it was Violet. What a joke. “No you don’t. Get Tangerine.”

Persistently, Violet took a step closer and insisted, “No, seriously. I need to try something.”

Wouldn’t she just go away? “Go buck yourself.” Take a hint!

Violet sighed. “This is what happens when you have a relationship. This is also why I haven’t ever had one. Frankly, you probably don’t need one either.”

“Thanks, Violet.” Venom and sarcasm, all rolled up into two words.

“Yeah. But seriously, I need your help.” Once again, I couldn’t tell whether the mare actually knew what sarcasm was or if she simply didn’t care.

Why wouldn’t she just take a bucking hint and leave me alone? Maybe she needed a quill. “Here, just take a few,” I muttered, presenting the underside of my wing to her. “I just don’t care anymore. Not like I’m going anywhere, anyway.”

I heard Violet take a step forward, then hesitate. “Ah… I appreciate the offer, but that’s not what I meant. I’ve been reading up on the first version of Professor Crescent Moon’s Dispersed Magicka Proof, and I need to test whether or not it’s possible for a non-unicorn to impart Will— capital ‘w’— onto things using very ancient magick. So old, in fact, that it’s spelled with a ‘k’.”

The last thing I wanted to do was socialize, but then again… doing so could distract me from being mopey and edgy. Then again, anything with Violet probably wasn’t fun. Decisions, decisions. I just wasn’t in the mood to bother.

“Stop being a whiny-pants and get off your butt,” Gala scolded. “You might as well spend a little time with Violet. Get to know her, maybe.”

And maybe come up with a plan on how to kill her.

Gala’s hoof came to rest on my head. “No, you’re not killing Violet. Stop being weird.”

Scratch that plan. All I needed was an excuse to eviscerate Tangerine. That would definitely make me feel better.

“And then we need to find a pike!” exclaimed a weight settled on my back. Probably a murder-happy, imaginary weight that apparently really needed a pike.

“Do you even know what a pike is?” Gala annoyedly huffed. “Also, no murdering party members. Come on. Standards.”

A polite cough from the actual mare behind me made my two hallucinations shut up. “So?” Violet sort-of impatiently asked.

Using as little effort as possible, I rolled over and groaned at Violet, “Fine. Whatever.” Maybe it would help.

“Great!” She plopped herself down on her haunches and magically brought her book into her waiting hooves, along with a few other pieces of Sparkle’s crumbling book castle. “Now stop being so glum. Here I was thinking you were a strong mare.”

I sat bolt upright and snarled in outrage, which didn’t faze Violet at all. “Who says I’m not?”

“Not much. You, mostly. You’re acting like you’re twelve.”

Maybe I was. “Fine, fine. What do you need from me that isn’t feathers?”

“Hooves out and up. Focus power into your hooves. Hoof.” Violet pawed through some pockets in her robe and drew out a tiny satchel of what appeared to be salt. “I’ll set up the framework the traditional way since you are both incompetent and not a unicorn.

Following Violet’s directions, I held out my hoof and claw and perplexedly stared at them. What even did “focus power into your hooves” even mean? It must have been a unicorn thing, but I still attempted to do it anyway by attempting to think at my hooves. Being confused probably didn’t help whatever she wanted me to do, but I tried not to show it.

I was more preoccupied with trying to figure out what was being drawn on the floor than I was with the focusing nonsense. She’d drawn a circle filled with silly lines laid inside another circle. Somehow, she’d also managed to draw immaculately delicate moon-runes in the border between the circles.

Once she had finished, Violet gave me an appraising look. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” she stated wearily.

I stared down at my hooves. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Violet also saw me staring at the circle. “You also don’t know what that is.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Now that I think of it, you’re probably confused.”

“I’m probably confused.”

Finally noticing what I was doing, Violet finally stopped and realized, “You’re just repeating what I’m saying.”

I somewhat smugly replied, “I’m just repeating what you’re saying.”

Violet looked like she was doing her best not to rip her mane out. “I’ll give you the simple explanation, lest you die from boredom.” She gestured at the circle-thing. “This is an attunement test spell framework, last performed in this manner nearly seven hundred years ago or more before being outdated by the advent of Hay’s Projection. It’s a simple spell that uses raw input to give somepony a little idea of what they might be good at.”

“So… how does this relate to me, again?”

“Hold on, not done yet. If the law of averages is correct, you should be somewhere in the blue or yellow spectrums of magick—again with a ‘k’—because apparently that’s what magic theory was back in the day. Pegasi do weather things, so that’s considered ‘blue’. Yellow’s something really stupid, so let’s not bother with it.”

That brought me to my next question. “So… how do I, uh, magic? With a ‘k’.”

“It’s hard to explain because you’re not a unicorn, but think of it as exercise for your brain. Maybe you’ll figure it out.” Violet patiently watched me make constipated noises as I did my best to cooperate. “It’s mostly about willing something to happen, since this still deals with runes, sigils, and weird-ass fetishes. Not to be mixed with weird, ass fetishes.”

I stopped thinking at myself and got confused. “You mean like bondange and mares with stallioney bits?”

“No, not the things that Rumcake is into. Think statues, but magic. Actually, think zebra magic but less herbs.”

Ew, zebras. “Well, let’s give this a try.” Again, I tried to somehow pull power from myself and channel it into my hooves, which I still completely didn’t understand.

“Once you’re ready, place your hooves at the edges of the circle, just barely touching it—but not disturbing it—and pour the energy into the circle. Maybe imagine it as a river flowing into it, perhaps?”

While still focusing on what was probably the pulsing of blood into the squishy bit in my hoof, I cautiously placed my hoof on the right edge of the circle and my claw on the left. I used Violet’s example and imagined flowing—what, exactly? Something flowing out and into the circle. In case everything randomly exploded, I squeezed my eyes shut and slightly leaned away.

“That’s interesting.”

“Am I about to blow up?”

“No, you’ve actually barely charged the circle. Somehow. Although it’s curious that magical flux only connects to your hoof, not your prosthetic.” I heard some very excited writing noises. “Now cast a spell.”

“How?”

“Um. Try something weather-related. Water related, maybe? You’ve sort of got to point it in a direction first. Now that your Will—again, capital ‘w’—has been imbued into the spell framework, you should just have to think at it.”

The first thing I hazarded was thinking of pushing a cloud. That was magic-related, right?

“Are you trying?”

“I’m trying! I think!” I snapped.

“That’ll be a first. Keep trying.”

Next was compression. Making big clouds into small clouds was super important.

“Weird. Something might have moved. Keep going.”

It was probably her imagination, but I indulged her curiosity anyway. What else was there? Maybe forming snow? That was something cool, I guess. Cooling clouds was an inherent skill that I had, so maybe that might have something to do with it.

“Keep going—something’s happening. This is unprecedented!”

She was probably making fun of me, but I kept pushing at that thought anyway. I began to visualize the process of shaping, pressing, then manipulating the cloud , and I actually started to feel tired. Weird.

“Okay, stop. You’re probably going to burn out, and I’d really like you to not explode in case you do,” Violet urgently warned me. “Still, this is… extremely unexpected. Thank you for cooperating.”

I exhaustedly exhaled and opened my eyes to… not much. Nothing had changed to my untrained mind, but I’d been wrong before. “So… what’d I do?”

Violet pointed at an imperceptibly small damp spot on the floor. “See that? You probably expended upwards of sixty percent of your passive magic—uh, ‘magicka’, making a snowflake. Still, Crescent Moon’s proof holds merit.”

“Yay?” I halfheartedly cheered. “Am I done?”

“You’re done.” Violet was more focused on taking notes than replying to me, so I decided that I’d go back to sleep. Try to sleep, rather.

“Oh, Frosty?” I looked over my shoulder and was surprised that Violet was actually giving me the barest hint of a grin. “Honestly, I really appreciate your help. Chin up, hm? Strong mares don’t cry. You’re making us look bad.” Without another thought, the look disappeared and she went back to writing.

I blinked. She was right. What was I doing, moping and whining like a little schoolfilly? I was Frosty Winds, the Blood Angel, the Warboss! Rumcake wasn’t the boss of me—

“He actually is the boss of you,” Ice smugly reminded me.

…Right. Darn.

After several indeterminate seconds later, Ice whirled his lollipop at me and asked, “You’re not going to finish that thought?”

I sighed. “No, you made me lose my steam. I got nada.”

“You were on a roll.”

“I know. Thanks a lot.”

I was rewarded with a consolatory pat on the head. “No problem. Hey, at least Vi-vi over there got your mind off of being mopey.”

She did, didn’t she? “Yeah. You think she did it on purpose?” I cast a suspicious glance at the studious mare.

“Beats me.” Then, brightly, “So, how’s it feel to be a brand new mare? Magic’s cool, isn’t it?”

Huh? “What do you mean by that?”

“How do I explain it…” Ice thoughtfully tapped the brim of his fedora with a wrapped lollipop. “Well… you’re like an old spark battery, right?”

“No.”

The lollipop bounced off my nose. “Let me finish. You and I know that with a little jolt, an old spark battery can be revived. You’re the battery and I’m the jolt, see? It only took a little bit of magic here, a little magic there, bada bing bada boom, you’re magically attuned now!” Ice summoned his candy back to him and began to unwrap it.

I stared at my hoof, slightly perplexed and mostly confused. “So… I can magic now?”

“Yes, Frosty. You can magic now. You’ll probably have to find some way to add to the little dregs of magic in you that you’ve made, but it’s a start.”

“Wait, what else have you been doing to me?”

Ice simply shrugged. “Things and stuff. C’mon, let’s go for a victory lap. It beats hanging around in here. Books are boring.”

“You’re right. Reading sucks.” I thoughtfully nodded at him, then I glared at the frightened pile of books—rather, the ruins of Fort Sparkle. “Come along, meat balloon. We’re going shopping.”

Tangerine peered over the same book she had been cowering behind. She took one look at me, and I saw the gears in her head turn. “Does the doggie—snrk— want walkies?” She burst into even more hysterical laughter and destroyed the rest of Fort Sparkle falling over and rolling around.

“I’m really not in the mood for this right now. I’m almost getting too over-encumbered because I can no longer carry my saddlebag without my power armor,” I angrily stated at the scribe. “You’re either coming with me under your own power or in a can.”

“The spell won’t work if she’s in a can,” Violet helpfully chimed in. “If it can’t find somepony to attach to, you’ll implode.”

Really? Was exploding simply not what cool kids did anymore? “Why?” I groaned at the smarter of the two unicorns.

Violet opened her mouth, reconsidered, then replied, “Magic reasons.”

Oh good, at least I didn’t have to ask for the easy version. I appraisingly glanced at Tangerine, deciding whether she would actually fit into a tin can. “Does she have to be alive?” Maybe if I took off her head—

Slamming her book shut, Violet actually shouted, “If I go with you, will you stop being a moron?”

The pile of books shifted. “It’s okay, I’ll give Frosty a walk. Can you finish with, uh, the thing? I really don’t know where to start.” Tangerine weakly coughed.

Again, Violet groaned. “You’re all useless. Fine.” She flipped her book back open and began to consult pages from it.

Once Tangerine had extracted herself from the ruins of Fort Sparkle, she adjusted her robes and spruced herself back up. “Okay, let’s go for some walkies,” she brightly chirped, just barely holding back laughter.

I waited for Tangerine to try and trot past me before I decided that enough was enough. While she was still distracted chuckling to herself, I nonchalantly sidled up beside her. “You know, one day your mouth is going to get you into trouble.” She didn’t catch the sinister sneer in my voice.

As she turned her head to spout a probably dog-related reply, my talons leapt forth and tightly snapped shut around Tangerine’s throat. I made sure to restrain myself just enough so that she could still breathe, even if it was just barely. She gasped and struggled for breath, and I looked on with vengeful satisfaction.

“You’re lucky that I need you to get around, or I might have been a lot more enthusiastic otherwise. I’ve had a shitty few hours and poking fun at me isn’t bucking helping.” I tugged at the stupid red collar around my neck as well. “I’m being treated like a damn animal—again—and you think it’s funny?” I snarled.

Tangerine made a few choking noises.

Imperceptibly, I began to squeeze harder. “How’s this for funny?” I almost laughed at how Tangerine tried to hammer at my leg to break free.

“Hey, you’re going to hurt her! Stop!” Gala urgently tugged at one of my wings, equally hoping for my attention.

Sense returned to my mind and I immediately let go of Tangerine, shoving her away. A glance at my claw showed thin traces of red on the tips of my talons, which shocked me. Had I really intended to hurt her? I was angry and it did make me feel a lot better, but…

Those thoughts frightened me.

As if nothing had happened, I casually reminded her, “I gotta sell stuff. Let’s get there before the Paladins come back.” I hoped she didn’t hear the frightened undertone in my voice.

On her knees, Tangerine wheezed into the floor, “You weren’t going to help me?”

“You were going to be fine,” Violet offhoofedly reassured the throttled mare.

“Fine in a can,” I snarled under my breath.

~~~~~

It turned out that there was a side entrance to the toy-store-turned-armory that had been sectioned off to be used for the local merchant’s guild, according to a morose Tangerine. She’d refused my advancing apologies, so I left it at “I tried”. She didn’t apologize to me either, so maybe we were even.

Inside the store, however, the two of us were having a great time. There were shelves upon shelves lined with goods of all kinds—food, weapons, ammunition, funny-looking bits and bobs I didn’t care about—and we excitedly browsed among our options. The yellowish stallion behind the makeshift counter eyed us expectantly, either waiting for us to buy or making sure we didn’t steal anything.

When I accidentally made eye contact, he immediately remarked, “Welcome, friend. Haven’t seen the likes of you around.” The stupid look on his face actually paired quite well with his gaunt build and shady eyes.

I carefully slid the somehow-intact snowglobe I had been examining back into its position on the shelf. Pointedly ignoring his remark, I replied, “Just browsing for now. I’ll probably going to be selling goods and loading up on ammo.” Maybe if Tangerine wasn’t too upset, she could sell these things for me so that I could get best value.

The same moment I made eye contact with Tangerine, she spitefully snapped, “I’ll be back here leafing through the books. I’m sure you can handle a sale.” Okay, so maybe she might still be mad at me.

With a defeated sigh, I cast away thoughts of cheap food and easy caps. Slapping on the cockiest grin in my arsenal, I swaggered up to the sideways soda machine that the stallion was using as a desk and casually remarked, “Cute little store you’ve got here.”

Ever so slightly, he leaned to the side to get a better look at something behind me. “Cute friend you’ve got there.” Oh. I looked behind me as well, getting a good look at Tangerine’s idly swaying posterior.

I cleared my throat and turned his head back toward me with the flat edge of a talon. “Focus, buddy. I just need to offload some goods and stock up on a few other things.”

“Like what?”

The easiest way to find out what I needed was to heft my saddlebag and slam it onto the counter. “I don’t know. Let’s find out.” On that thought, I had explosives in there. Probably shouldn’t do that again.

“Why don’t you just gimme a list of what you need while you unload your stuff.” The merchant pony eagerly began to examine the mounds of crap I was digging out of my saddlebag.

Most of the things I had in there were nearly worthless—mostly broken weapon parts and random odds and ends—but then that one dead guy’s PipBuck I scavenged from the hotel rolled out onto the table. “Where are you going, little guy?” I jokingly scolded the device.

“I’ll buy that.”

“How much?”

“Eight hundred.”

As if she had felt a tingling in her common sense, Tangerine appeared by my side and janked it off the table. “Not. For. Sale.” Without even bothering to help me, she stormed back to the shelf of books.

I sheepishly grinned. “Apparently not for sale. Better luck next time?”

“Eh. Doesn’t hurt to try. I’ll give you one hundred twenty seven for the shotgun pieces.”

Not a bad price if I heard any. “Hm. Sounds fair, I guess.” A small pile of combat drugs rolled out from under a crushed snack cake box. “Uh… maybe I’ll hold onto those.”

“We could use Med-X. I’ll give you fifty-five a dose.”

I didn’t really want to part with any of my drugs, but maybe it was in my benefit if I got rid of them so I wasn’t tempted. “Well…” I muttered, contemplating whether I had the will to actually get rid of them. Did I need them? No. Did I want them? Probably not, but I’d rather have and not need rather than need and not have.

The next best thing was just to move on while I couldn’t make up my mind. I left the drugs on the counter and let the merchant do his counting and math. “Hey, do you want some land mines? I think they still work, but they’re silly little custom things. I’d keep them but I don’t want to blow myself up.” Carefully, I unpacked the gas mines that I had retrieved off Pestilence and laid them next to the neatly arranged drugs. “Oh, and these stupid guns I don’t need.” The roulette revolver and Pestilence’s derringer followed suit as well, since they were practically useless.

The merchant pony gasped, almost in what I thought was shock. “Where did you get that?”

I lightly nudged the revolver closer to him while I also laid out extraneous ammunition that I didn’t need. “The stupid chance revolver thing was in the casino ruin. Still works and is in near-mint condition.” Hopefully that would fund most of my restock since it was essentially a novelty piece.

“No, where did you get these?” He hefted Pestie’s stupid gas mines.

“Got ‘em off some psychos that I liquefied.” I recalled my fight with War and Pestilence and shuddered at the thought. “Wasn’t worth the effort.”

His expression darkened. “In all my excitement, I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself. Folks call me Short Supply.”

Talk about funny names. “Hey, Shorty. I’m Frosty.” I was more focused on trying to figure out exactly how many rounds I had left for my anti-machine rifle rolling around the inside of my bag. Just when I thought I’d collected all of the strays, a few more would peek out from under my miscellaneous junk.

“Oh, but you can call me Famine.”

Whatever he’d said didn’t register because I was more busy trying to do math. Seven rounds per mag… thirteen extras… three and a half full mags… thirty-eight? No. Ugh, screw it. Completely ignoring his previous statement, I threw out my mental math and blurted, “Right, right. Hey, I’m going to need as many fifty BMGs for an anti-machine rifle as you’ve got. I’d like some flashbangs, smoke, any type of tactical grenades. I’m sick and tired not having options.” That was my essentials covered. “If you’ve got cherry snack cakes or canned goods, I’ll buy a few. Depends on how much you’ll give me for all this stuff.” And that was food taken care of for the time being. “And I guess I’ll take a look at any weapon mods you’ve got back there.”

“I’m not sure you heard me.”

I looked over the plethora of goods I had laid out on the table and I nodded in satisfaction. That would probably buy me everything I needed. “So, how much for some flashbangs? Do those even exist here?”

Short Supply’s anger quickly changed to disbelief. “Are you a little stupid? Did you even hear me? I. Am. Famine. You killed War and Pestilence. You killed my friends.”

Oh.

Wait, oh shit.

Maybe I should have been paying more attention. “To be fair, they tried to kill me first.” Things were about to get violent, and I needed a plan.

Famine began to reach for something under the table and menacingly began to raise his voice. “You killed them, and now I’m gonna—”

The first plan I came up with was to leap over the counter and seize Famine by the throat, which scattered all my stuff everywhere. Inertia caused my full body weight to land on top of him, and I made sure to pin down one of his hooves with my free hoof. His one remaining hoof kept pawing at my hooves and face, but I managed to ignore it. If I hadn’t been the finely toned heavy killing machine I was, he probably could have thrown me off easily by attempting to roll.

If he called for help from his goons outside, then I was toast. I couldn’t execute him with the shotgun built into my claw, because that was going to make even more noise. Without any other options, I put more weight on my claw and began to squeeze. The seconds ticked by, and Famine stopped trying to hit me and began to fearfully writhe and choke.

“Wow, you’re taking a long time to asphyxiate.” Good thing my claw was mechanical, otherwise I probably would have gotten tired by now.

Angry hoof-stomping behind me probably meant Tangerine was having a panic attack. “Frosty, what the buck are you doing?” she hissed at me, most likely frightened for her life.

“Self defense. He asked for it.”

“Cut it out!”

Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea. “You know, that’s a very poor choice of words.”

In one smooth motion, I clamped my claw down on Famine’s throat and reduced it into ribbony, fleshy shreds as I tore out his neck-pipe. Breathing tube. Whatever that was called.

Outraged, Tangerine smacked me in the back of my head and exclaimed, “Why did you do that?!” She pointed at the now-drowning merchant, as if I hadn’t noticed.

I dropped the paltry meaty pile into Tangerine’s outstretched hoof and she recoiled in disgust. “You told me to.” For an improvised situation, I felt like I’d done quite well. Who deserved a snack cake? I deserved a snack cake.

Toasty darted into my field of view and kicked the dying merchant. “And another one bites the dust! Wooo!” she cheered.

While I began to search the immediate vicinity for my scattered stuff, Tangerine wordlessly gaped at the now-deceased merchant. At least it gave me time to think. Sure, it was weird that it was a lot of fun to kill him, but—

“What’re we gonna do now? The guards won’t let us leave now!” Tangerine freaking out wasn’t helping me shove crap back into my bag.

Oh hey, my stupid orange sunglasses! How convenient. “Well, we can say that these deals…” I slapped them onto my face, somewhat annoyed that one of the lenses were scuffed. “Were to die for.”

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Spellbound – You are limited to spells of only one type, but they become significantly stronger. Your casting is severely penalized due to your race.
Current Sub-perk: Confused – I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of how crazy I am. You gain no stat bonuses.
Achievement Progress – Master of the Apocalypse (3/4 complete)

Author's Note

Finally, new content!

Got a question? Ask Frosty!

Chapter 22: Did I do something wrong again?

Chapter 22: Did I do something wrong again?

”This is your chance to fly with the winners!”

“Sparkle, as your Paladin Commander, I order you to tell me how mares work.”

To my right, Sparkle Cola cocked her helmet at me and sighed. “There are a few things in this world that you don’t want to know, that’s one of ‘em. I understand how mares work and trust me—just don’t bother.” She vaguely gestured at me with the barrel of her grenade launcher. “I think you just need to learn to deal with mares without being an obsessive creep.”

The deserted landscape around us hadn’t changed in the past half hour, so I kept a wary eye on my E.F.S. because I was getting too complacent. “I am not a creep.” A quick look at my map told me we were still a few blocks away from the designated area of operations as per the extermination job.

“‘Obsessive’ is the key word here, actually. There’s a reason Knight Habanero broke up with you.” I’d gotten over her months ago, but Sparkle wasn’t helping at the moment. “Of course, it probably didn’t help that you eloped with her sister.”

“They look the same!” It’s a good thing she couldn’t see me turn red under my helmet.

“How? One of them is orange and the other is green!”

“Well, in the dark they do!” Not to mention they even took the effort to style their manes and tails in the same exact fashion.

“See, the problem is you’re a dumb stallion.”

I stopped in my tracks and stared down the Junior Paladin behind me. “I could have you demoted for that remark,” I threateningly snarled.

“You’re not petty enough to do that,” Sparkle instantly answered. “I’d also like to remind you that you thought I looked like Violet just because we share mane colors.” Unfortunately, that had been one of my dumb moments. “You have zero tact when it comes to deciphering the mysteries of Frosty and her infinite emotions.”

To think of a reply, I turned away and continued walking. “But I’m keeping her safe!” I finally shot back after a few steps.

Still following closely behind, Sparkle pointed out, “In the most controlling way possible, sure.” There was an edge of unfriendly sarcasm there, but I wasn’t going to nitpick right now.

“If she’s going to do something reckless—which is inevitable, by the way—it would make me feel a lot better if somepony was with her.”

“You put a collar on her.”

“For safety reasons! So that she can’t recklessly rush into situations without help.”

Sparkle made a noise that sounded somewhere between a snort and a chuckle. “I’m not sure you noticed the implications. Not only did you restrict her freedom, but this is literally the second time you’ve done it.”

“It’s for her own good.” Keeping Frosty close would dramatically lower the odds of her doing something stupid.

“Yeah, but that’s not what Frosty thinks. She’s probably thinking you just want an obedient little funfilly for when you need a little ‘stress relief’.”

Where would she even get that idea from?! I whipped around and harshly snapped, “I do not!”

With a simple shrug, Sparkle brightly replied, “Hey, that’s my two caps on the matter.”

We began to trudge along in silence, Sparkle finally giving me time to think. Why would Frosty even get the idea I wanted to take advantage of her? She should have known by now that she was too confident for her own good. I was simply giving her a reality check. I’d told her how much I loved her, how much I cared. She knew it, right?

“Maybe I did something wrong,” I lethargically grumbled.

“Maybe you did.”

So I found a tight-fitting collar and had gotten a skilled mage to enchant it, giving it the ability to chain the wearer to whatever—or whoever—I chose in order to keep them safe. And I’d tied it to the mare I loved and cared about, binding her to my will. Again. “I overreacted.” Realization dawned over me. “I’m stupid.”

“Yeah…” Sparkle trotted a bit faster and pulled up alongside me. “You’re what—zero for three on relationships, including Frosty? Maybe you should consider something more open. I mean, it’s working out for me.”

Pointedly, I responded, “But you’re a slut. I don’t want to be Paladin Commander Beefcake.”

“Rude.” As if to glorify the matter, Sparkle turned up her nose with a huff. “I prefer to call it… morale padding.”

Depending on how much faster that mare was getting around since the last time I’d heard, I made a quick assumption. “That means contingent morale should be at an all-time high.”

Haughtily, Sparkle huffed. “You’re just jealous.”

A low-pitched buzzing hum began to creep into the background static of my helmet speakers. Just to make sure they weren’t just malfunctioning, I gently tapped the side of my helmet and listened again. Yup, still there. That only meant that the radwasp nest was nearby, and there were a lot more of them than Stronghold’s job mare had told me about.

The map wasn’t giving me a more precise location than “somewhere within these five hundred meters or so”, marking the buildings around us inside a huge green circle. “We’re here. Keep an eye open for patrols, try to minimize noise. We’ve just entered their territory and I’d rather not corrode to death, got it?” Taking on a much more serious tone, I slowly treaded onward.

“Roger roger.”

Evidence of radwasp activity increased with every step we took into the ruined maze of buildings. Holes melted in walls, burnt corpses, holes melted in burnt corpses nailed to walls; the works. The barely standing acid-worn billboard advertised this place to be some sort of storage complex (Affordable! Cheap! Spacious!), but the overgrown insects had converted it into a breeding ground or something.

Alarmingly enough, my E.F.S. still didn’t register any hostiles save the errant radroach. I didn’t even dare rev Decrusty in case the noise would attract unnecessary attention. My armor was still damaged, so that was the only possible cause.

I manually raised my mic’s receive volume and whispered to Sparkle, “Is your E.F.S. working? Nothing’s coming up on mine.”

There was a muffled sneeze from the other end of the conversation before she replied, “Colors on mine are broken and the compass still doesn’t work. I’m using my standard-issue optical observing devices for tracking.”

That left one partially functioning E.F.S. between the two of us, but at least Sparkle had the power of area of effect grenade damage to make up for any failures in accuracy. Still, I had to ask: “What?”

Muffled snort. “Eyeballs. I’m using my eyeballs. Use your standard-issue memory storage unit.”

Of course. I groaned and turned my attention back to watching my E.F.S. and ignoring the ever-increasing buzzing. They were around, but why couldn’t we see them?

“I’m talking about your brain.”

“I wasn’t going to dignify that with a response, but I got it. Don’t worry.”

“Are you su—stopstopstop, on your three o'clock!” Sparkle urgently hissed. “Bug butt.”

The two of us froze. Sparkle had indicated a direction that must have meant the other side of the corner I was approaching since I couldn’t see anything. E.F.S. didn’t pick up anything either, which probably meant it was broken for the time being. Damn cultists and their spark battery traps.

A wickedly curved stinger stretched into view from around the acid-worn shed to my right. It shivered in the air, droplets of green slime dripping off of it and sizzling on the pavement below. With a deft twitch, it disappeared back around the corner. Moments later, the rest of the mutated insect crawled up over the storage shed and buzzed its wings.

Unconsciously, my breathing had quickened and I was fighting the overwhelming urge to either bolt or open fire. I’d seen firsthoof what radwasp acid did to ponies. Armor barely helped once the acid landed on it, and once it burned through the same would happen to the pony inside it. It was a painful death, one that I’d watched several initiates suffer a long time ago.

Very carefully, I began to spin up Decrusty—starting at low velocity—and watched for a reaction from the radwasp. The low-pitched whine of her motor was thankfully drowned out by the much louder buzzing in the background. She was suppressed, so hopefully if I had to kill the bug it wouldn’t attract more attention.

Thankfully, the radwasp didn’t seem to find the frozen Steel Rangers very interesting. It swished its wings and buzzed into the air, seemingly attracted to something. Once I was sure it wouldn’t be coming back, I released a sigh of relief.

“All we need to do is plant your demolition charges on their hive, then we can get out of here,” I muttered to Sparkle. “If we follow the buzzing, we’ll eventually find it.”

The grenade launcher on Sparkle’s armor folded up and retracted. “But what if the buzzing finds us?”

True to what Sparkle getting at, the low buzz was slowly becoming a cacophonous noise in my ears. “Uh… we go sit in a corner and cry.”

I kept Decrusty spun up as I rotated myself around to face the loudest of the buzzing. As the horde of radwasps descended on us, I belatedly realized that I should have switched to the incendiary rounds first.

X~~~X

“Would you just stop that already and find us a way out of here?”

“I’m having a great time.” For a ruthless killer, I was having an excessively good time rearranging the body for my own amusement. “Look, he’s trying to rub one out!” I just couldn’t stop laughing!

“He’s dead!”

“You don’t know that!” I breathlessly choked out.

“You gave me his larynx! He bled out two minutes ago!”

“Is that what it’s called?” I hiccuped, then continued to chuckle and choke. “Not like he was using it.”

“Do you even know—no, I’ll come up with a plan.”

Gasping for breath, I gleefully sighed, “Ahh, it hurts to breathe.”

While I laughed about repositioning the dead merchant so that he looked like he was trying to lick his butt, Tangerine was trotting back and forth from shelf to shelf searching for things. For now, I was having a disturbing amount of fun posing a corpse for my personal amusement. At least my spirits had been lifted, right?

“Uuugh. UUUUGH! Why do you make everything so dif—” I stopped trying to tuck the merchant’s leg around the back of his head to observe Tangerine staring up at the ceiling. “Wait, that’s it!” she exclaimed.

On a spur of the moment, I had a better idea what to do with this guy. “You’re a genius!” I seized the forelegs of the merchant and raised them in the air, turning his body to face her.

“I… I haven’t even told you the new plan yet.”

I enthusiastically wiggled his floppy legs in the air again. “Genius!”

“Just…” Tangerine took a calming breath. “Okay, do you see that vent up there?”

Sure enough, there was an air vent in the ceiling between the hanging light fixtures. I wasn’t sure exactly what the plan was, but I hoped she knew that air vents usually led to air conditioners rather than secret passages. Looking at the size as well, I noticed that I probably wouldn’t be able to fit into it. Regardless, I replied, “Yeah.” For comedic effect, I tilted what’s-his-face’s head back to look up as well.

“Okay, here’s what we do. If you can rip the vent cover off, then we could probably get away with framing somepony else with this whole ordeal,” Tangerine rapidly blurted. “Put the body right next to his caps and I’ll figure out a few things that’ll be missed.”

It was a good plan as any, but I really didn’t see a problem with simply nonchalantly strolling out. “Alright. Let me see what I can do.” Gently, I slumped the corpse onto the counter. I spared a second to scoot the body’s foreleg so that it looked like he had died while furiously humping the tilted soda machine’s coin slot. “Pfft. Perfect.” I chuckled, then flapped into the air to talk to a vent.

Tangerine was still trotting back and forth in a hectic frenzy, so I looked on in amusement instead of doing what I should have been doing. She seemed to have an odd fixation with wires on the walls and she kept muttering muttering half-baked plans to herself, frantically searching for something.

“If you dropped a contact lens, you’re probably not going to find it.”

“I’m a little worried about the guards outside executing me for your insanity. Just get to work on the vent—carefully remove the cover and hold onto it, okay?”

I rolled my eyes. “Got it.” Hovering higher up to the vent, I noticed it was already on the verge of coming off. Using the very edge of a talon, I squeezed it into the gap between the vent cover and the vent itself and used the leverage to twist and break the flimsy metal tabs holding it in place. Unsure of what to do next, I allowed myself to drift closer to the floor with the vent cover in claw.

Tangerine trotted up to me with a small box trailing frayed wires clutched in her magical aura. “Okay, okay. Just drop that right on the floor over there, and, uh—” She stared at my claw in disgust. “And clean that blood off of your leg. They’re gonna know what’s up if they see that.” She left the computer parts with me and quickly trotted around the soda-machine-counter and through a door I hadn’t noticed before.

Maybe the tacky coating of blood slathered all over my talons was actually a problem. Belatedly, I realized, “Wait, with what?” And then I felt a rumbly in my tumbly and the answer came instantly. “Never mind. I figured it out.” I licked my chops and inhaled the sweet scent of blood.

As I ran my tongue over the first talon to “clean up” the deliciousness stuck all over it, Tangerine trotted back in—presumably to ask me something—and recoiled. “That’s not… do you even know what kind of potential diseases you can get from blood?”

Undeterred, I kept licking. Some of it was actually starting to congeal and stick, which forced me to gnaw at it until it broke free. “I’ll be fine. Besides, we can’t get in trouble if I eat the evidence.”

“You don’t… I… that’s actually not a terrible idea,” Tangerine muttered in bafflement and exasperation. “I’m not even going to argue with that…”

“Crime tastes like forks and sugar.” I satisfactorily nodded. “I’m smart.”

Tangerine pointedly looked away from me as I kept cleaning myself up, moving onto the next talon. “Here’s the plan—there’s a Talon Company crate in the back that I took the liberty of emptying. Made a mess and everything, so all we need to do is walk out like we own the place and make sure the guards don’t decide that coming in is a great idea.”

I looked around at the stocked shelves and hummed thoughtfully to myself while I gnawed at a particularly thick patch of chewy blood. “Can we empty the place out?” I asked, genuinely curious whether I could carry everything I wanted out of this place.

“Can’t. They’ll notice that everything’s missing. We could probably get away with restocking some ammo and a reasonable amount of food.”

“How about his caps? He’s not using them,” I thoughtfully replied as I continued to lap up the evidence.

“Don’t even think about it. They might know what’s up.”

“Uugh. Fine.”

The whole time, Tangerine hadn’t stopped staring at me and my licking. “Okay, that’s actually starting to bother me a lot. Here’s a rag—just wipe off the rest of it.” A questionably clean shirt followed that remark into my face.

“But it’s delicious!”

“It’s unhygienic. And disturbing.” And then, while she turned away, I managed to hear her very quietly mutter to herself: “To think I wanted to kiss that mouth.”

Hold the homoerotic fun train! “What was thaaaat?” I singsonged at her.

The mare froze, and I could almost see the little hamster wheel whirr to life. “NOTHING!” A red-faced Tangerine hastily trotted off, complaining, “Why is my thinking voice louder than my whisper voice?!”

As the very embarrassed scribe trotted away, Gala Frosty appeared at my side and whispered, “Hey, I just realized something.”

“Yeah?”

“Does Tangerine know that we’re not, uh, open to her advances?”

Wasn’t I making it obvious? Hadn’t I made it obvious? “…I think so?” I hesitantly answered.

“You’re thinking of Broken Parts.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

Uh oh. “Shit, does she know?”

We shared the same panicked look. “She might?”

“It’s not like I’ve been hitting on Sparkle or anything, so she souldn’t have gotten the idea,” I muttered.

Gala thoughtfully tapped her cheek. “Well, Enclave standard policy dictates that all relationships are fair game. And to be fair, most pegasi tend to ‘play for both teams’ as it were, and because of it, she probably thinks you’re open to it.”

Out of nowhere, Toasty settled on my back and blurted, “That’s racist.”

Gala looked taken aback. “How? It’s stereotyping at the worst.”

“You’re a stereotyping.”

“…What?”

To drive us back to the point, I blurted, “I still think it’s cute how she’s smitten about us.”

“You’re shitty at relationships. I’m shitty at relationships.” She threw her hooves in the air. “Who’s even driving this ship?”

Before either I, I, or I managed to answer that question, Tangerine calmly returned tugging a small wooden box behind her. “Okay, I took the liberty of getting a reasonable amount of supplies. Can you move the body a little?”

“But he’s in the perfect position!”

We both stared at the dead body, still doing its best furious humping impression. “No. Seriously. You can’t do that.”

“Fine.” No sense of humor on that mare. “How about…” Since I wasn’t allowed to have any fun, I decided to trot over and push the body off so it was on its back. “That?”

“It’ll do, I suppose.” A heavy-bladed knife floated out of the box by its handle and rocketed into the corpse’s gaping neck. “That’s probably as good as it gets.”

The gleaming Talon Company logo stood out on the knife’s hilt. “Did you get that out of the box? It’s a really high-quality knife.” I didn’t actually know—I just wanted one because it looked really cool to have.

“Just the one. Contain your excitement until we’re out of here—I think you’d like what was in that box.” Tangerine winked at me, giving the box a hefty shake. “Here, carry it.”

Grudgingly, I lowered myself so that she could shove the box onto my back. “Gah! My spine!” I mockingly cried out.

Unfortunately for me, Tangerine had gotten used to my sarcasm. “It’s not that heavy. When we walk out of here, just let me do the talking. Please.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine.”

~~~~~

Somehow, maybe with the help from a lunar miracle, Tangerine managed to bluff us past the guards outside the shop and get our guns back from their lockup. They were none the wiser, and we were halfway to the library where Violet was still undoubtedly reading when I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“Pfft… Hahaha! They’re going to have the biggest surprise when they walk back in there. Can you imagine the looks on their stupid faces? It’s gonna be good. Can we hang out and wait for the reaction?” Since I hadn’t had to do anything but stand there with a box earlier, I was having a great time.

On the other hoof, Tangerine was a nervous wreck. “I thought they wouldn’t buy it. Thank the powers that they didn’t look inside. My heart is literally in my ears right now. This is not okay. I. Hate. You.” Those last words sounded like they could kill.

“You don’t mean that. I’m too adorable to hate.”

The only reply I got was a shaky, angry glare.

For some reason, I couldn’t understand why. “What?”

With a fire I wasn’t expecting from the little scribe, she cried, “I’m still not over the fact that you tried to kill me earlier!” Oh. Right. That’d been a thing.

Maybe it was my outstanding record for heart failure or maybe it was guilt, but a pang of something shot through my chest. It immediately faded however as I snarled, “Oh, and I’m not allowed to be upset about being called a dog?” Then sarcastically, I continued, “But I’m a pet now, and everypony knows that animals don’t have feelings.”

“I—”

“Or am I property? Because this—” I yanked the dumb collar. “—doesn’t make me a pony, now does it?”

A weaker tug on the back of my collar made me stop short and whirl around. “You made her cry, meanie-butt.” Filly jabbed my nose in response and tugged my ears until I was facing Tangerine. She was trying to remain stoic, but she looked away as a small tear rolled down her face.

I decided that shutting up for the moment was a good idea.

As we began to navigate the multitudes of shelves in the library once more, Gala Frosty piped up once again. “In all seriousness, maybe an apology is in order.”

“Why? I didn’t do anything.”

“You killed a stallion in cold blood.”

“To be fair, it was self-defense. Slightly premature self-defense, admittedly, but still. I murdered him in warm blood.”

“Warm blood?”

“I don’t know. I mean, it’s not really cold blood because there was a reason, right? Or that we’re all warm-blooded? Pretend I’m making sense.”

Gala rolled her eyes. “Just apologize—It’ll at least make her feel better. Look, she’s a mess.”

“Do I have to?”

“You’d be less of a monster if you did.” It was difficult to ignore the disapproving glare coming from her, so I arbitrarily took interest in the surprising number of intact books lining the shelves, then the sudden lack thereof as we wandered into the section where we had left Violet in.

With a disgusted and frustrated sigh, Tangerine trotted the last few feet and collapsed onto the floor beside a neatly stacked pile of books. “I’m going to pull a Frosty and take a nap because of how stressed I am right now.” Seeing as we were in the right place, I leaned over and slid the box of stuff off my back and onto a table-looking thing.

The top of the closest stack of books to me floated away to reveal Violet giving the two of us a bored, utterly nonplussed stare. “Took you two long enough.”

“Frosty killed somepony again.”

Violet simply blinked. “Hardly surprising, really. It was bound to happen.” Without another thought, she levitated another book to her and threw it open to a bookmarked page. “Oh, also I finished research on—” In one smooth motion, she rolled her eyes and sarcastically flourished her hooves in the air. “—the thing.”

“Did you? Omigosh! Tell me, tell me, tell me!” Suddenly, Tangerine didn’t seem so tired anymore.

Once again, Violet slowly blinked, probably contemplating a decision. “This is the most difficult and most impractical spell that I have studied. I don’t see why you couldn’t just ask the pony yourself.” Several ink-stained scrolls levitated into view, dropping into Tangerine’s eagerly waiting hooves. “You know what, I’m going to bill you for this. Yeah, I’ll figure out a going rate.”

“What?!” she cried, distraught and with scrolls in hooves.

“What’s the average pay scale? Frosty?”

It was my turn to blink. “I don’t know. Do ponies still get paid? I mean, Riverbed makes money from her ‘services’”—I made air quotes to push the emphasis—“but I don’t think she mentioned anything about getting paid. Though, I wasn’t really paying attention when she was talking. No idea.”

Violet facehoofed. “I don’t even know why I bothered asking.”

Which reminded me! “Oh, by the way, Tangerine…” I turned to face the mare in question, somewhat reluctantly. “Look, I’m sorry about causing all that trouble earlier.”

“Tangent much?” Violet sighed and returned the small stack of books to where it had been before, blocking her from our line of sight. “I’ll send you the bill. Continue.”

“Uh. Anyway, yeah. Also sorry about giving you that guy’s throat. Probably shouldn’t have done that.” Weakly chuckling, I scratched the back of my foreleg and awaited the inevitable reply. “Sorry?”

A few expressions crossed Tangerine’s face—anger, compassion, frustration. “You need to consider other ponies. It’s just really infuriating when you impulsively just… do things.”

“I can’t. Hubris is a pegasus thing.” An angry glare from Tangerine and an equally questionable look from Violet’s eyes peeking through a gap in the book stacks made me immediately respond, “What?”

“Frosty, you nearly got us both killed when you attacked that merchant. No, actually, let’s go a bit farther back to when you tried to kill me.”

The disembodied voice of Violet added, “What do you have to say about that, anyhow?”

Why was I the bad guy now? “Well, I wasn’t really trying to—hey, she started it with the bucking dog jokes!” I pointed an accusing talon at Tangerine. “It was justified. Considering what’s happened to me recently, no.” Daring Tangerine to try something else, I gently shook my red collar, making the little bell on it jingle. “I think not de-throaterizing her was already letting her off easy.”

For a second, Tangerine looked frightened, then regained her furious look. “You killed a merchant for no reason!”

“He was going to kill me!” I roared.

“This isn’t like you, Frosty.”

“Oh yeah? You think you know me better than me?” I challenged, closing the distance between us until I was nearly close enough to lick her eyeballs.

“Yeah, because you don’t even know yourself!” Tangerine snapped, which actually made me take a step back. “You argue with yourself more than you used to, and you just keep getting… weirder. And more violent.”

“I...“ What could I even say? “You don’t…” It hadn’t gotten that bad, right? Wasn’t it just my imagination?

Gala appeared beside me and gently stroked the side of my wing. “You’re in denial.”

“No, I’m not!”

Triumphantly, Tangerine pointed and declared, “There, there you go again! Frosty, do you hear yourself?”

So she wanted a fight? Two could play that game. “Do I hear myself? Yeah, I bucking hear myself all the time. In fact, I can’t stop hearing myself.”

“I—”

“Do you know what it’s like to have your own running commentary on all the time? Conscience is one thing, but the voice that says ‘kill your friends’ also happens to enjoy the idea of it.” I clutched the side of my face with my claw. “Every time I make a bucking choice, consider options, or even just think of something, one of them is there to throw in their own opinion.”

“You can ask us for help, you know,” Tangerine quietly replied. “Instant’s good at mental health things, and the rest of us are still your friends.”

Ha, what a joke. “Rumcake. Friend. Ha, don’t make laugh.”

“Frosty, he’s trying to help you, but you’re not letting him.”

“Yeah, the bondage isn’t helping.” I violently shook my head and made the little bell dingle again. “And that’s super annoying.”

“Frosty, you tried to kill me earlier. What would have happened if you had a gun? What if it was Sparkle or Violet? Or Rumcake?” Tangerine asked concernedly. “What then?”

“I don’t… I… I’m sorry?” I lamely whimpered.

With one last exasperated sigh, Tangerine buried her face into her hooves. “I’ll take what I can get. Let’s just calmly sit here and learn, maybe reflect on our mistakes.” As she began to unroll the first of Violet’s three scrolls, she paused and pondered out loud, “I wonder what’s taking Rumcake so long?”

X~~~X

Rounding a corner, I punched a hole in the bottom of the first storage shed’s gate and yanked it up and open. “Move it, Junior Paladin! Get in here!”

Wild-eyed and shaking, Sparkle tumbled past me and collided with the far wall. The second her tail cleared the threshold, I threw the gate shut and hit the emergency stop on Decrusty. Even though it didn’t do anything, I held my breath as the radwasps swept past us.

As the buzzing died down to an uncomfortable hum in the distance, I sighed in relief and took a step back to check on Sparkle. It was unfortunate that she had been forced to ditch her helmet, but at least now her face wouldn’t melt off. Her left eye was still shut from the gash dripping blood into it and part of her mane had been singed off, but we’d been lucky not to have taken much more than that.

“Am… am I…” Sparkle sat up and touched her forehead and weakly chuckled, “Am I missing an eyebrow?”

Good to know she was fine. I allowed her to patch herself up so that I could tend to myself. A few patches on my armor had been splashed by acid, but most of it had been auto-repaired. Since we’d been running from the bugs rather than fighting them, I still had plenty of ammo for Decrusty. I switched to the special incendiary ammunition I had been saving for a special occasion, which this had suddenly qualified for.

“Wow, you really weren’t joking about these wasps. Good thing I was wearing a helmet.” Little did Sparkle know, she was going to be in deep trouble once we got back to base for losing that helmet. “Aww, and all the mods on it! Why, Celestia? WHYYY?” Sparkle leaned backward, shaking a hoof at the ceiling.

“Keep it down!” I urgently hissed. “Those things are still around.”

“Sorry…”

On the topic of helmets, I realized, “I should be making Frosty wear her helmet.” If Frosty didn’t want to wear hers, I could make Sparkle wear it instead.

It seemed like Sparkle was ready to move again, at least. She had patched herself up and donned a pair of well-worn and unnecessarily pink sport goggles to cover her lack of helmet. Amusingly enough, she had also decided to tie up her vibrantly purple mane into a ponytail using a zip-tie. Unfortunately for her, she’d missed a bit.

“You’ve got a little, uh…” I gestured at the top of my helmet for reference to the errant spike of mane gracefully arching forward on her head. “You’ve got a little antennae going on,” I snickered.

Sparkle gave me this weird look that screamed “I don’t believe you”, but she passed her hoof over her head and found it. “Whatever. I think it’s cool.”

Now that she had said that, I desperately channeled my inner Frosty for a witty response. “It gets all the channels, right?”

“Huh?”

“Antenna. Channels.” Giving up, I sighed. “I tried.”

“Gold star, Rumcake. Gold star.” Sparkle stamped her hooves and stretched her forelegs with an audible groan. “Alright, so what’s the new plan? We rushin’ bums now?” Immediately losing interest without a snappy reply, she began to dig through the crumbling cardboard boxes packed against the walls and floor.

Getting caught had almost melted Sparkle’s face off, but as long as the bugs didn’t spot us we’d be okay. Normally, if it were a few of them, fighting them head-on was the best method. Unfortunately, we were dealing with a nest full of these things with unconfirmed numbers and there were only two of us with very limited ammunition. I glanced at her again and grimaced, realizing that the only chance we had was to hopscotch from shed to shed until we found the hive.

Sparkle interrupted me by blurting, “Ooh, I found a box of bobbleheads. Is Frosty still collecting these?” Gingerly gathering several of them in her hooves, she presented the largest of the group to me.

The only one that I found interest in was of the leader of ponykind herself, Princess Luna. Once again manufactured by Schtable-Tec, the younger princess had barely been able to escape ridicule by bobblehead. From the neck down, she looked exactly how pre-war documentation had described—elegant, stunning, vibrant, even. But for some reason, Her royal regalia had been replaced with gaudy red sneakers and a clock on a chain. An upended three-tier cake had replaced her crown, but she still seemed to be having a laugh about it anyway.

Maybe bringing this one back for Frosty would cut me some slack. Using some of the packing material inside its original box, I stowed Princess Luna (or, as the base proclaimed, “Princess Moonbutt”) into my armored storage boxes and patted myself on the back. “This’ll get me out of the weeds. Thanks, Sparkle.”

Apparently Sparkle wasn’t even listening because she was busy packing away the rest of them—presumably for herself. I did note that Frosty already had a few of them and the box held several duplicates anyway, so I didn’t bother trying to get any more. Curiously, there was a Ministry Mare Rainbow Dash bobblehead that sported a pitch-black coat instead of her familiar bright blue, but I didn’t snag it. Frosty probably didn’t want a miscolored one anyway.

Finally finished packing her loot, Sparkle clanged her hooves together and stated, “Okay, let’s not get melted and we’ll be in the clear.”

The plan was as followed: I’d peek outside since I was the only one with a helmet, give the all-clear, then one of us would break into one of the sheds to hide when the bugs showed up to investigate the noise. After nearly an hour of this pulse-pounding nonsense, we’d managed to locate the radwasp hive nestled in a junction, spilling out of one of the storage sheds. Two heavy-duty demolition charges later, under the assurance that a bug house wasn’t as strong as a casino, we cleared the area and added a brand-new crater to the Wasteland.

We parked ourselves in a burned down ruin so that we could rest and re-gear. While Sparkle desperately tried to fix her acid-shortened mane, I elected to lie flat on my back and stare at the clouds, praying to never see another radwasp again.

It was even becoming somewhat peaceful, just having a moment mostly to myself to relax, when I saw a pony fly by overhead. I blinked in surprise and willed myself to see farther. They began to make lazy circles in the sky, seemingly uncaring of who was watching. What was another pegasus doing out here?

I squinted at it. It had a familiar white tail and an even more familiar single whitish foreleg. Immediately realizing who it was, I yelled at her, “Damn it, Frosty, was it too much to ask you sit still for once?!” Not only did she dare defy me again, she wasn’t even wearing her armor anymore either! “Get down here right now and explain yourself!”

“What? Frosty’s here?”

Pointing at the sky for Sparkle’s benefit, I continued to yell at my defiant pegasus. “You’re going to have to land sometime, and once you do I’m going to kick your butt!”

Beside me, Sparkle had pulled her goggles down around her neck and was squinting as well. “Do you even know how far up she is? I don’t think she can hear you.” With a groan, she rubbed her eyes. “Some of that stuff might have melted through my goggles. Can’t see shit.”

Frosty abruptly stopped circling and began to hover, only to glide away. “She’s headed back to town, seems like. I’m going to clip her wings when I catch up to her, and you’re not going to stop me. I should have done it weeks ago.” I looked over at Sparkle. “Cut the gawking and double time it. Looks like Frosty thinks she’s hot shit, and that’s exactly what she’s gotten into.”

X~~~X

For the third time in the last ten minutes, I groaned. “This is boring.” Lounging on my back with my limbs haphazardly splayed was getting uncomfortable, especially since power armor wasn’t designed for extended periods of lying down. To entertain myself, I had been keeping one of my discarded feathers aloft by blowing at it when it got too low.

My time could have been better spent on armor maintenance or cleaning my guns, but I just didn’t feeeel like it. The collar around my neck was tight enough to be a nuisance, which only reminded me about being a slave to the Rangers again. Now it wasn’t too different, just lighter and with less boom.

I’d made myself sad, and I couldn’t pull myself out of that rut. At least I hadn’t broken down into tears yet. That was always embarrassing. Stupid emotions.

What I needed was another distraction. Lazily, I clapped my hooves together and caught the feather. “Puppy needs walkies,” I bluntly announced. If I was going to wear a collar from now on, I was going to passive-aggressive the crap out of everypony. Spreading the guilt around would slowly make me feel better.

From somewhere behind Skyscraper Bookfort, a particularly heavy tome slammed shut and was immediately followed with an exasperated sigh. “Tangerine, would you please entertain the pegasus? I’m trying to do your work.” Several books inched their way out of the gargantuan stack and neatly arranged themselves on Tangerine’s head by color.

“I’m not doing damage control if anything happens,” Tangerine flatly responded. “Why don’t you go get some fresh air with Frosty? Goddesses know you need it.”

Using the most droll voice I could muster, I groaned, “I’d go take a walk myself but we all know I need a hitching post.” Now that I needed to be chaperoned everywhere, I was also going to start making myself the biggest inconvenience possible as revenge.

“Ha. Fresh air. What a joke.” The giant stack of books shifted, allowing Violet to crawl out of the nest she’d made for herself. “Fine. Don’t blame me if you turn yourself into a turnip.”

“What?!” Tangerine exclaimed, halfway through one of the scrolls that Violet had made for her.

Lightly brushing out her mane, Violet replied, “Everything works in theory, but I didn’t bother testing.”

The two unicorns were silent, then I noticed that they were both looking at me. “We could test it on Frosty.” Tangerine brightly suggested.

Test subject? Nope. “Nuh-uh. I hate turnips.”

Turning back to Violet, she whined, “How are you sure it works then?”

Mockingly, Violet tilted her head and tapped her chin. “Oh, I don’t know. Math. Logic proofs. Research. More math. You know, just things that you’ve made me do that you could’ve easily done yourself.”

“Hey!”

“And the aether manipulation conservation formula hasn’t failed me yet. In theory.”

“Wait, will this spell really turn me into a turnip?”

“Only if you mess it up. I also can’t guarantee if you’ll be able to change back even if it works.” The stack of books shifted again and a thick leatherbound book launched itself at Tangerine’s face. She barely managed to snag it in her own magical field a mere inch from her face. “That one has reversals and counter-spells in it. You’re looking for something around chapter nine, but ignore section five.”

“Why?”

“Hexes.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Violet turned to me and humorlessly told me, “If you’re on your best behavior, I’ll take you to the birdbath.” Before I could come up with a witty response, she smirked and flipped her hood up. “If you behave yourself, I’ll even buy you some cotton candy.”

“Cotton candy? That’s not even possible here.” I was actually more bothered that Violet had emotions that weren’t disdain.

As Violet trotted away from me and my lackluster reply, she teasingly shot back, “Not with that attitude.”

I rolled my eyes and galloped after her. “That attitude my ass.”

Unfortunately for me, there was neither birdbath nor cotton candy anywhere in the, what, “main square” area. Actually, for the middle of a town, it wasn’t as busy as it had been earlier. With Violet lazily following me around, I opted to hover over and around the ponies in my way. Every now and then I would perform a carefree loop, just because I was bored.

After deciding that the bandage situation on my wings were outdated and useless, I quickly landed to shed them before hovering again. I’d forgotten how calming it was to just fly when nopony was shooting at us. I pulled short of another loop and hovered so I could think. Somewhere in the trashed pits of my mind, a list of combat maneuvers floated to the surface—one of which I wasn’t sure that I could perform anymore. It involved a lot of exploiting natural pegasus agility and abusing the way physics didn’t apply to pegasi.

Once I made sure I had enough room to dash back and forth, I limbered up and practiced swishing my wings back and forth rapidly. In mid-neck roll, I noticed Violet curiously staring at me. This time, I wasn’t going to let her make me look like an idiot. “Have you heard of the Ground Blitz?”

Slowly, Violet levitated her book open and flipped it open to a page bookmarked with a little blue triangle. “With a ‘the’? No.” Her Frosty-feather quill floated out of the inside of her robes, followed by an inkwell. “Elaborate.”

“It’s a mobility maneuver that scouts and recon personnel are expected to learn for close quarters.” To demonstrate my point, I half-opened my wings and planted my hooves like I was about to take off. “This is about as far as I’d be able to safely spread my wings in a tunnel or hallway. The idea is a strong half-beat with a launch, and as you’re in the air, punch downward to stop momentum and do it all over again. It looks dumb, but it covers distance.”

Even after I’d finished explaining, Violet was still violently scribbling, even bringing extra sheafs of paper form somewhere in her robe. “I don’t believe you because that’s not how momentum works.” Apparently, I was going to be the one to make me look like an idiot.

I fixed her with a determined glare and snapped, “Look, it works in practice.”

Smugly, Violet allowed her book to close and she neatly stacked her writing supplies on top of it. “Prove it.”

“Okay, I will!” Without taking my eyes off of the doubtful unicorn, I pawed at the ground and smirked. “Easy peasy.”

With the practiced ease of a million takeoffs, I launched myself forward into the air. I rapidly pumped my wings twice, opening them just barely. Now the fun part—this trick depended on weight and momentum, but I was more used to using my now nonexistent left foreleg for the drop. All I knew was that my claw was “light”, but it didn’t feel the same.

My wondering was going to have to wait, because I collided face-first with another pony.

With my face full of surprisingly well-toned flank, I tried to regain my bearings through the haze of dizziness clouding my brain. Violet trotted up to us and asked, “Are you okay?” I was about to reply, but then Violet completely ignored me and went to assist the pony I’d collided with instead.

At least Gala Frosty appeared to help me up, holding out her hoof. “Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” Ignoring Violet, I took Gala’s hoof and let her pull me to my hooves.

Upon observing the other pony, I almost thought that I had knocked all the color out of him. All that was left was two varying shades of gray on the earth pony and bored-looking red eyes. There wasn’t really anything about him that stood out, besides his saddlebags and lack of any sort of armor whatsoever. And what kind of cutie mark was a security camera, anyway?

“At first curiosity, he’s probably a local, but…” Gala trailed off, looking at the pony intently. “I just have the most peculiar feeling about him, I suppose.”

“Hm.” I kept her words in mind, mostly because she usually wasn’t wrong about much.

“Sorry about my friend. She’s not that bright,” Violet apologized to the stallion, even politely helping him up.

After brushing himself off and making sure that his saddlebags were still secured, the stallion simply responded, “No, no, I wasn’t paying attention. It’s my fault.” He furtively glanced around and cleared his throat. “I have somewhere to be. See you around, Frosty.”

Still slightly peeved about Violet, I was more busy hovering and practicing the last portion of my move rather than paying attention to the conversation. “See ya,” I distractedly replied, only hearing my name.

While I was trying to reverse the Ground Dash so that I could use my right hoof instead of my much lighter claw for momentum-canceling exploitation, Violet was making confused-sounding noises. I wasn’t really sure what she said, but at least I came to the conclusion that I currently lacked the technique to Dash until I figured out how to righty it.

As I was rotating myself to tell this to Violet, a familiar helmet beside a slightly less familiar-looking mare in the distance caught my eye. “Rumcake!” I hovered higher and waved at him.

The second he saw me as well, he tossed his helmet to the curiously un-helmeted and goggled Sparkle, and cried, “Frosty!” He began to gallop toward me, basically bulldozing anypony in his way.

He seemed happy to see me, which was a nice change in demeanor. “Rumcake!” Maybe he’d come to and wanted to apologize? Nevertheless, I glided to meet him.

“Frosty!”

What I’d thought was elation seemed to give way to incandescent rage. “Rumcake?” I slightly less enthusiastically called back, hesitantly flapping my wings to slow down.

With renewed rage, Rumcake bellowed, “FROSTY!” Somehow, he managed to speed up and stampede faster, determined to catch me and do… unspeakable things, presumably.

Fire burned from his eyes, and in that second I knew I’d done something horribly wrong. No doubt about it, that was definitely rage. With a fillyish scream that could shatter windows, I stopped all forward momentum with a flare of my wings and launched myself in the opposite direction.

I frantically beat my wings to build up raw speed, but right as I thought I’d made my escape, the collar around my neck heated nearly searing hot. “Ow! What th—” In the three seconds it took for me to realize that it hurt, the collar stopped right where it was. Physics demanded that I abide to its rules for once and the rest of me kept moving forward.

It was a damn good thing I hadn’t managed to make escape velocity while I was still freaking out, otherwise I would have snapped my neck from being stopped by the stupid magic collar. Confusion kept me aloft for a little longer until my wings gave out and I dropped to the ground.

Either getting suddenly stopped by my neck or hitting the ground flat on my back had knocked the air out of my lungs, leaving me gasping and confused. Sometimes getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. At least the burning sensation from the collar began to subside as I tried to catch my breath.

A dark shadow loomed over me and blocked the meager light coming through the cloud cover. I attempted to choke out something witty like “You’re in my light”, but the only thing that came out of my mouth was pained wheezing. Weakly fluttering my wings, I somehow rolled myself over.

“FROSTY. YOU HAD ONE JOB.”

For some reason, Rumcake sounded really pissed. “Did I?” I coughed, hammering my chest to cough up the lung causing all my air problems.

“I TOLD YOU TO STAY PUT. WAS THAT SO HARD FOR YOU?”

“All I did was go sho—”

The backside of Rumcake’s hoof smashing into my jaw sent me reeling, landing me flat on my back again. When I tried to open my mouth to say something—retort, anger, indignation—pain lanced through the right side of my face. All I could muster was a shocked, frightened look.

What was happening? Did I do something wrong again?

A tongue ran up the side of my face and tickled the edge of my mouth. “You did sort of kill a guy earlier,” Toasty huskily whispered into my ear.

There wasn’t any way he’d already heard about it. What had I done?

Rumcake seized my collar and effortlessly lifted me up with one hoof, bringing me nose-to-nose to him. “At every single twist and turn, you ignore everything I tell you to do. Is this just another one of your harebrained excuses to do whatever you want?!” he viciously snarled into my face.

Still confused and frightened, I did the first thing that came to mind.

I gave his nose a quick smooch then innocently looked on, hiding a grimace behind my worried stare.

For a brief moment, all hints of anger vanished from his face. Brief being the key word, since he immediately regained his enraged gaze. “You think that makes everything better?” From my forced vantage point, I caught sight of Sparkle worriedly muttering something into a small hoofheld radio.

Without any idea what I’d done wrong, I desperately tried to defuse the situation at hoof. “We can talk about this, right?” Attempting to squirm away resulted in failure. How did he hold on so tightly with just his hoof?

“Who took off the collar? Huh? Did you threaten Violet to do it?”

What was going on? “W-what?”

“Drop the pegasus and nopony gets hurt.” I managed to twist my head to look and immediately confused myself. My savior, or rather, “savior”, was a slightly scrawny-looking black and whitish griffon with little to no armor, a sniper rifle strapped to his back, and some kind of cross-themed jewelry strung around his neck beside a tattoo of an “R”. Combat scars danced across the right side of his face, nearly obscuring an amber eye. An odd bird, especially with that black beak of his. Huh.

“This has nothing to do with you. Back off.”

“If you’re going to interrogate an Enclave agent, you should have done it in private.” I tried not to laugh as the griffon attempted to strike a stoic pose. “This is neutral ground, and I am obliged to take action.”

“Do you have a death wish, you dumb bird?” Rumcake finally dropped me to confront the griffon, which gave me ample time to regain my footing and retreat to Sparkle’s beckoning hooves.

She squeezed me into a sympathetic hug and patted the back of my head before letting me go. “I would have helped, but… you know, rank and stuff. You okay?”

“Uh. I’m actually just more angry and confused rather than upset. What’s the sitrep?” What was going on?

Both of us were distracted by a sudden outburst from the griffin. “Me an’ what army? Me and what army? Me and this army, bitch!” He snapped his talons and victoriously cried, “Say hello to the Ravenflight, asshole!”

Not much happened, thus ruining the built-up drama.

The griffin looked around and yelled, “I said, me and this army!”

A scattered squadron of griffins halfheartedly emerged from seemingly nowhere, a few even gliding in. They were all frighteningly armed to their beaks, one of the many trademarks of the Talon Mercenaries. Yet another griffin leisurely meandered up to the first griffin, sipping on the rubber tubing connected to the beer cans taped to his combat helmet.

“Duuude, you can’t like, assemble the Revengers every time it’s like, cool, man.”

“What happened to my ‘this army’, Blondie?”

“Chiiill, man. I, like, I don’t—” Blondie woozily chuckled. “—I just don’t even know, man.”

“I’ll… I’ll deal with you later.” The pale griffin groaned at his lackey, then pointed an accusing talon at Rumcake again. “Leave the mare alone or else your little Ranger friend back there is going to have to bring you back to your cave in a soup can.” With a fancy talon-twirl, he beckoned, “Maestro, if you would.”

Once again, nothing particularly impressive happened.

“Come on! Guyyys, you’re making me look like a scrub,” he whined at the rest of the decidedly bored griffins, most of which weren’t paying much attention anyway. “Is this what happens when Dad’s on vacation? All of you suck.”

“You suck!” one of the griffins crowed, which caused the rest of them to cackle and guffaw with laughter. “Nobody likes you, square.”

“My name is Rhombus! A rhombus is not a square!” Ignoring it, the birdcat—Rhombus—raised himself on his hindlegs and threateningly unslung the rifle across his back. Unfortunately, he didn’t come off as imposing because of how much scrawnier he looked next to Rumcake. “Back off the mare and you’ll be free to go, if you’re lucky.”

Rumcake simply chuckled. “Do you really think that you can intimidate me? A commander that cannot be respected cannot be feared.” Taking advantage of the griffon’s hesitation and confusion, he continued, “And what I do with my Rangers is my business. We have no quarrel with the Talon Company or their subsidiaries, and I would rather you not ruin that relationship.”

“Is that a threat?”

“You tell me, pentagon.” The sound of shit-eating grin positively ooozed out of his helmet. “Is it?”

Muttering mostly to myself, I wondered, “Is it just me, or is Rumcake a lot dumber than I thought he was when I met him? The shape he’s looking for is a trapezoid, not a stupid pentagon.”

“Not a trapezoid,” Violet off-hoofedly chimed in.

“He’s a little slow sometimes, but he’s not stupid,” Sparkle remarked. While I processed and pondered that statement, she hopped on her hindlegs, trying to get a better look at the argument. She flashed a worried glance in my direction. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

I grumpily replied, “I told you already—I’m just confused and angry.”

Sparkle suddenly grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me away to examine my glum expression. “What you need is fun and energy.”

I arched an eyebrow at her.

“What we need is Dash.”

Using the opportunity given by Sparkle’s disturbingly ecstatic expression, I finally managed to break away from her and irritably flap my wings. “What I need is answers. What’s going on? What happened? Did Tangerine tell him about the guy I blew up?”

“You blew someone up?”

“Well, not literally.” Not technically a lie. “What’s gotten Rumcake so cheesed?”

“He saw you flying in our airspace earlier.”

What? “But I’ve been here the whole time.” To make my point I tugged the collar around my neck and grimaced. “Not like I’m allowed to go anywhere else.”

Sparkle tilted her head at me, then stared off after Rumcake. I followed suit, only because his argument with the griffon seemed to be escalating rapidly. They were arguing about the nuances of shapes and domestic violence when the huffing and puffing of a very fruitlike and out-of-shape scribe trotted up to us.

“Whew… okay… Sorry, I got… a little… lost,” Tangerine panted, pulling up the edge of her hood from around her shoulder to wipe her face. “I heard what… whew, what happened. Is Frosty okay?”

“I’m right here, you know. What am I, invisible?” Throwing my head back in disgust, I groaned, “Ugh. Thanks, guys. I feel so appreciated.”

At least Tangerine knew I was being overly dramatic, since she playfully tried to shove me. “Hey, we care. I care, at least. Woah, what happened to your face?”

A wave of déjà vu washed over me and I nearly forgot about firing back a witty remark. “Wow, your face is funny-looking too, thanks,” I hastily snapped back.

Surreptitiously, Sparkle leaned over and loudly whispered, “That’s why I didn’t point it out, Tangie.”

Completely ignoring the remark, Tangerine levitated a tiny bag-looking thing out of her saddlebags and bashed it once against Sparkle’s armor. “You’ve got a shiner of a bruise forming on your face. Here, at least let me put some ice on it.” The little bag slowly floated up to the side of my face and forced me to realize exactly how hard Rumcake had hit me. The cold from it stung as it gently rubbed against my face, which was only making me more angry.

I snatched the cold pack from Tangerine’s aura and mashed it against my face for maximum pain relief. “Thanks, I guess,” I muttered, wincing.

“What happened to you? I literally left you alone with Violet for ten minutes.” Sparkle, Tangerine, and I all glanced at the mare in question, who had sat down and had been preoccupying herself with whatever she normally did with her book. “Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised.”

Even I wasn’t exactly sure exactly what had happened. “Rumcake discovered the wonders of having an abusive relationship.” I lazily flapped my wings to shrug since I was still holding onto the cold pack. “If he thinks he’s going to be able to sweet-talk me away from that, that’s gonna be a paddling.” The side of my face had gone slightly damp and numb, which only contributed to the slightly soggy anger building inside me.

“Seriously though, what happened?”

“Uh… long story short, Rumcake saw Frosty flying around our area of operations when she shouldn’t have been, so he whacked Frosty,” Sparkle quickly summarized. “And now here we are.”

“But Frosty’s been with me all afternoon.”

“Apparently not.”

“No, she was being a pain in the ass all afternoon. There wasn’t time for her to slip out at all in that time window.” Tangerine angrily glared at me, which I answered with a bashful grin. Returning to Sparkle, she asked, “Wait, did you see her?”

“Sort of. I think I got some acid in my eyes or something back there, because everything’s blurry as shit.” Pushing up her goggles and rubbing her eyes, Sparkle groaned. “My face hurts.”

Two black-armored griffons shoved Sparkle and Tangerine away from me, disregarding their cries of complaint. “Take a step back, Steel Rangers,” one of them growled, brandishing his assault rifle. The other weilded some sort of rocket launcher, which probably wasn’t a good idea considering the distance.

Rumcake and the dumb shape-themed griffon stomped up to me, both with looks of displeasure plastered on their respective faces. “Well? Are you with them?” Rhombus demanded, who obviously didn’t believe it.

I could capitalize on this for my own amusement. Maybe even get a little revenge while I was at it, if I played my cards right. Right on cue, Filly Frosty eagerly scooted into my mind and took over, all while thinking mischievous thoughts. Using the best frightened little puppy face she could muster, I looked the griffon right in the eyes and whimpered, “P-please don’t m-make me go back with him, m-mister.”

That was all it took to win Rhombus over, his gaze softening and the hints of a wry little grin forming on his beak. On the other hoof, Rumcake was going ballistic. “What kind of new bullshit is this? Frosty, cut that out right now! You’re a Ranger, damn it!”

Whether it was Filly’s foalish charm or being a damsel in distress, Rhombus sprung to my aid. “That’s all I needed to hear. Get these Steel Retards out of here, on the double!”

“You’re going to believe her?!”

I let my hold on the cold pack falter, showing off the shiny new bruise on my face to both parties.

Rhombus grinned. “Yep, I am. Scram, ‘tards. Unfortunately, seeing as you haven’t done much more than abuse this unfortunate pegasus, I don’t have enough reason to force you to leave Stronghold.”

“Just because she’s a mare doesn’t mean she’s not lying!”

“And I should trust you? You?” Rhombus doubtfully responded. “Yeah, right.” Looking over his shoulder, he shouted to the remaining griffons, “Make sure these idiots clear out.”

Taking the opportunity to rub it in, I victoriously sneered at Rumcake. Served him right. The victim card always won. Goody four-horseshoes “heroes” loved saving mares in distress, even if they weren’t as innocent as they appeared. So, as Square the Talon Merc gently ushered me away muttering reassurances, Rumcake, Sparkle, and Tangerine were being shoved in the opposite direction by the rest of the heavily armed griffons.

And of course, Violet hadn’t budged. Because she wasn’t paying attention. Great.

“Boss! Bossbossbossboss!” A griffin that looked decidedly different from the others raced to catch back up with us. Some sort of huge boxy radio-looking thing was strapped to his back, and all manner of devices and wires were haphazardly secured all over him. A pair of headphones sat on top of his reversed hoofball cap (Go, Oceania Otters!) and he didn’t even have a single weapon on him.

How’d I miss this guy?

“Dude, you’re making me look small-time here,” Rhombus groaned. “What could you possibly need this time?”

Completely ignoring him, this new griffin blurted, “Remember that Raptor that Delta team spotted?”

“Soundwave, I already told Hamshank that we’re not stealing it.”

“Shit’s goin’ down, yo! Pon-3’s on it, yo—here, listen!” The griffin—Soundwave—yanked off his headphones and presented them to us. He fiddled with a few knobs and dials on a nearly PipBuck-esque thing strapped to his arm and moved a few plugs. Eventually, a radio broadcast began to blare from the impromptu speakers.

“—ight and roll of thunder that a lot of you reported from the vicinity of Splendid Valley just over forty hours ago? The one a lot of you said was like a megaspell going off? Turns out it was a megaspell going off. Right in the heart of Splendid Valley.

“Now I don’t have a lot of details. But I can confirm that a whole mess of alicorns fled the valley less than half an hour before the detonation. And I can now confirm reports that our Wasteland Heroine was on the Ponyville side of Splendid Valley earlier that day. Now I don’t know yet if there’s any connection, but if I was a betting pony, I’d say our Bringer of Light had her hoof in what happened out there.

“Not really the light I was talkin’ about, Stable Dweller. Our prayers go out to you. I hope you’re okay. If you… or anypony has any further information… please let me know. Right away."

“Shit’s goin’ down!” Soundwave squealed.

Rhombus smacked him over the head. “Shh!” We all leaned in closer to hear better.

“As for reports of odd behavior from the alicorns in the wake of this occurrence, or claims of seeing odd black ponies flying through the sky, I can only…”

BZZZzzzzzzzzzzckht!

The broadcast abruptly cut out, and Soundwave muttered, “What the shit? Hold on, I can fix it. It’s probably just th—”

“Greetings, citizens of the Equestrian Wasteland. This is the Grand Pegasus Enclave. We have commandeered this broadcast to deliver an important message to all ponies:

“Do not be afraid. We are here to save you!”

Silence.

First thing that came to my mind was, “Oh shit.”

“Aw sheeit!” Soundwave was taking the news slightly more in stride. “We’re gonna have so much fun! Think of all the free shit and stuff…”

Rhombus ran his talons through his head-feather-things. “Uh—okay, okay. Uh. Soundwave, get Thundercane on the line. No, round everybird up, then contact her.”

The radio birdcat toggled a switch on one of the boxes strapped to his chest. “Roger that, beacon’s on.”

“She’ll want to know what’s happening and why she might not be getting her sapper team back.” After receiving an affirmative nod from the other griffon, he nodded to himself and added, “Oh, and call my dad.”

In mid-adjust, Soundwave gave him a weird look and cautiously asked, “Are you sure? I mean, the old bird did sa—”

Clearing his throat, Rhombus recited, “And I quote, ‘I don’t want to be bothered unless the sky itself falls or a balefire bomb blows up Tenpony.’ I think this qualifies as a little of column A and a little of column B.”

Why were the Enclave coming down? Hadn’t the permanent plan been “sit around and ignore everything” or something? With my security clearance, all I could remember was the periodic Wasteland Check to make sure nopony was trying to get into the Enclave with a rocket or something. A change of power, maybe? Had the goody four-horseshoe right-wingers finally decided that enough was enough?

While I had been panicking, Gala had been thoughtfully looking up at the sky. “Hadn’t desertion rates been steadily increasing? Maybe they’re trying to get all the rebels and Dashites back? Or do you think they’re here for something else?”

“Like what?” I tried to come up with anything worthy of coming down for, but all I could think of was a supply run on a galactic scale. None of this made sense!

“Wait.” That outburst made me meet Gala’s suddenly terrified gaze. “What if they’re here for us?”

What? “Why?”

A memory flooded to the surface, unbidden.

—

“So… like, you want me to shoot her, guy?” Riverbed ventured.

“Uh.” I paused. Weeks ago, that could have been me. Heck, as far as I knew this exact scenario could have happened to me. Empathy kicked in. “I think we should let her go.”

They looked appalled. “What? What if she gives away our position?” Riverbed objected. “Or even better, what if she grabs reinforcements, guy?”

I’d make sure that didn’t happen. I confidently strode up to number five and yanked her visor open. “What’s your name?”

She stayed silent, regarding me with angry, teary eyes. I didn’t blame her. Three insane maniacs had just destroyed her squad and their commanding officer in under three minutes. Months of psychiatric help wouldn’t even dent what she’d witnessed today.

“Alright, fine. I get it. But I’ve got my own plans, and you just happened to be in completely the wrong place at completely the wrong time.” I sighed. “I don’t expect an apology, but I do expect this: tell the Council what happened here today. Take your commanding officer’s recorder or whatever as proof.”

Tangerine levitated Major’s gauntlet to the pegasus. “The data should still be intact.”

—

"Oh, shit. They’re here for us.”

“Relax, relax. There isn’t a reason to send the whole military after us, is there?” Gala rapidly blurted. “I mean, it’s not like the Enclave to use such excessive force. Maybe they’re just here about the megaspell? I mean, they might think there’s more.”

Or maybe it was a way to flush me out. Panic, do something stupid, and fly right into a trap. That’s what they wanted, right? “So what, do we ignore it? Hide?

Toasty materialized on my back and snarled into my ear, “The backup finally arrived. You should have killed that bitch when you had the chance! This is why empathy is dumb, assface.”

Damn you, hubris. Now there was an army descending on the Wasteland, and it was probably all my fault. I’d gotten sentimentally cocky and let that mare go with all the evidence she needed to crucify the shit out of me, and she’d brought back all the fire and brimstone in the world.

And just when I thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse today, somepony I hadn’t expected to ever hear from again trotted up behind me and brightened it back up a little.

“Haven’t seen you around for a while, guy! Like, small world, right?”

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Intimidation (Level 3) – There isn’t a problem that can’t be solved with violence. New speech options to certain characters have been unlocked. You gain a damage bonus against NPCs that are terrified of you.
Current Sub-perk: Foal at Heart – Growing up is overrated. You gain additional dialogue options with foals.

Author's Note

Didja enjoy Rhombus? (Kimbley's silly birb.) Check him out over here!

Chapter 23: What’s your rate?

Chapter 23: What’s your rate?

“Grab a new partner; here we go!”

“Well, if it isn’t Riverbed Ransom, speech impediment extraordinaire!”

Riverbed grinned widely, sitting on her haunches. “Frosty! How’s things?”

Since the last time we’d met, she’d had a decent upgrade in equipment. The plasma rifle that she’d stolen was now mounted on the left side of her brand-new battle saddle, and some sort of belt-fed shotgun took up the right side of it. Her miniature Talon Merc armor had been slightly refurbished, but it could have been a new set. A helmet with a raised blast visor rode on her head, heavily dented and blackened.

I plopped onto my own haunches and neutrally grunted, “Bleh.”

“Bleh?” She tilted her head at me.

Considering the day I was having, it seemed to be a reasonable summary. “Bleh.”

After a second, Riverbed cautiously responded with, “Yay?”

“What the buck does that even mean?”

“Like, what’s with the…” She gestured at the red band around my neck. “Y’know, the bonda—”

I’d had just enough of this dumb collar, and everypony bringing it up was getting on my nerves. “Don’t. Even. Start.” With a glare that could melt steel, I threatened her to continue. Why was this thing so warm, anyway?

Thankfully, Riverbed understood and defensively raised her hooves. “Okay, okay. Touchy, guy. Sheesh.”

More importantly, I asked, “What are you even doing here? I thought you went home or whatever.”

She shrugged. “I got thrown onto shovel duty, guy. Been digging holes for, like, days.”

“For what?”

“Mines.”

“You’ve been digging a mine?” What were the Talons going to do with a mine, especially out here?

A spectacularly exasperated look appeared on Riverbed’s face. “The kind that go boom, guy.”

“Oh.” Suddenly, I remembered Rhombus saying something about a sapper team and everything made sense. “Oh, I heard ‘mine’, singular.”

Riverbed plodded up to me and patted my head. “It’s okay, guy. We’ve all had some long days.” Feeling like some sort of pet, I jerked away immediately.

“Shit needs doing, and it’s sure as shit not gonna do itself!” Rhombus yelled, presumably at Riverbed. “Battle planning, let’s go!”

Riverbed rolled her eyes and groaned. “Uuugh, I hate this guy.” After shooting me an unsure look, she turned and trotted to the now much larger gathering of Talons. Was this place a Talon merc hangout? Where’d they even come from?

At least the burning around my neck had begun to fade. Huh, so Riverbed was back. Maybe I had enough caps to hire her, simply so I had somepony I didn’t hate or had tried to kill to talk to. Judging by the increase in confused squawking from the gathered griffons, she might not have time.

I heard somepony trot up beside me. “What did I miss?” Violet asked lazily, not actually looking at me while she did so. “Anything important?”

Glancing at the confused pile of birdcats, I off-hoofedly replied, “Something blew up. Enclave is on their way down. Deciding whether to hire a merc.”

Either Violet was distracted, or she didn’t care. “Your sarcasm needs work.”

“I wasn’t being sarcastic.”

Violet examined my expression anyway, eventually deciding on: “…Huh.”

The fact that the Enclave was coming was quickly throwing the Talons into disarray. Unfortunately for Rhombus, he didn’t seem to have the clout to keep the rest of the griffons in line. Several griffons had already decided that they’d had enough and buzzed off, while a few others had returned to milling about aimlessly. The two mercs that had pushed Sparkle and the other Rangers away were still keeping an eye on them.

Out of the Talons that ditched the scene, one of them happened to be Riverbed. She came trotting back, a displeased grin on her face. “Yeah, he has no idea what he’s doing.” With a sigh, she shifted her armor and plopped herself back onto her rump.

I wasn’t really sure what I was doing next, so I asked, “So… what are you up to now, then? Need a party?”

“Iunno. Like, I’m probably not going anywhere until whats-his-face gets here. Gonna wait around and see if I get any orders or something,” Riverbed replied, then she happily stamped her hooves on the ground. “But hey, guy! If you’ve got the caps, I’ve got the guns.”

“What’s your rate?”

“Half-cap an inch.”

I weakly chuckled. “Are we still on that joke?”

Instantly, Riverbed’s face lit up. “You remembered!”

“No, but seriously—how much do you charge?” Having her company back would make me feel a lot better. “I might need to buy some new friends.”

“Five hundred caps for the week sounds fair, guy. Caps are caps, and I’m just about done as dicks with dicks.”

Now was a bad time not to know exactly what the going rate was, and whether or not Talons were even unionized. Did unions exist down here? I pretended to know what I was doing, so I thoughtfully tapped my chin and made thinking noises. After spending what seemed like a reasonable time deliberating, I finally decided on, “I’ll think about it.” It seemed like a lot of caps, though.

Note to self: figure out whether Riverbed is a shark.

“She’s not a shark, dum-dum,” Filly Frosty helpfully squeaked.

I groaned, “Not that kind of of shark.” Riverbed opened her mouth to predictably ask what was going on, but I was ready. “Not talking to you.”

She blinked, then shrugged. “Alright.”

Since I was still bored and Violet wasn’t contributing to our little discussion, I awkwardly coughed and asked, “Hey, you never did answer why you were here.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Your exact words were, ‘I got thrown onto shovel duty’. Try again,” Violet disinterestedly chimed in, before returning to whatever writing she was doing into a scroll.

Riverbed looked confused. “How did you, like… I mean, even I don’t remember what I said five minutes ago.”

“I pay attention,” Violet replied, pointedly looking like she wasn’t paying attention.

“How?”

“By using my brain, which you two appear to not be using.”

Thanks, Violet.

I nervously chuckled and gently slid Violet over a little. “O-kay! Just ignore her.”

Still glaring daggers at Violet, Riverbed remarked, “She’s kinda a schlong, guy.”

Once again, Violet’s two-grit abrasiveness was coming into play. “Let’s just get back on topic. So, uh, why’d you guys come out here?”

With one last dirty glare at Violet, Riverbed turned her attention back to me. “So, like, I got back, Bitch Bird got pissed and threw me onto the next flight out to be their bitch, guy. So yeah, I’ve been digging holes.” Obviously, Riverbed didn’t sound too happy about it.

Oh right, she’d been with us to deliver a message that didn’t need delivering in the end.

Riverbed groaned and rubbed her eyes. “I gotta figure out what’s going on, guy. We’ve got camp set up, like, right outside the south exit, in the apartment building-looking thing. I’ll probably go, like, find the sarge and see what our orders are. I’ll get back to you on it. See ya ‘round?”

As much as I would have liked to make her stay and chat with me, she had priorities too. “Yeah, see ya.” Before she left, I at least managed to get a last-second hoofbump off her.

Now I was alone, bored, and back to worrying about my continued existence. Now that the Enclave was coming down, I needed a plan forward. Ditching the armor could be step one—it made me identifiable as Enclave, and the second they found out I wasn’t one of theirs I would be as good as dead. Lay low for a while, see what was up, and pray to Luna that I wasn’t the one being hunted.

Hopefully the Talons wouldn’t care if the Enclave issued a wanted poster on me. From experience, they usually didn’t care much about completing Enclave bounties. Who knew whether they wanted to change that now? Did they want to be on the winner’s team?

Gala politely coughed, “If it’s not too much trouble, could I have a word?”

Hm? “You now own the rights to ‘bucket’.” I self-satisfactorily grinned. Who was a witty pony? I was a witty pony.

With a roll of her eyes, I realized she wasn’t looking for a cheap joke. “Seriously, please.”

“Yeah, yeah. Go ahead.” Did nopony appreciate my humor anymore?

Gala shuffled her hooves for a bit, then alternated to uncomfortably glancing at me. “Can I have a name?”

I blinked. “…What?”

“I mean, Toasty has her own name, and I was wondering, well…”

Hold the name train! “Where is this even coming from?”

Gala turned a bright shade of red and she bashfully blurted, “I’m a little bit jealous, okay? I was first and it’s only fair.”

“Did… did you have anything in mind?” I hesitantly asked, almost fearing the response.

“I was hoping for Happy.” I gave her a disgusted look, and she immediately responded with, “What? It is the most parallel with our existing names.”

“That’s dumb.”

“You’re dumb.”

I sighed and admitted, “I am dumb.”

“Well, do you have anything better?” Gala crossed her forelegs and stared at me expectantly.

Now that I thought of it, there weren’t many other names that followed the same pattern as Frosty and Toasty. Windy? “Yeah, how about Windy? That has a nice ring to it.”

“Windy Winds? I think the Department of Redundancy Department wouldn’t allow it.”

“Woah, who said anything about sharing last names?”

“What? I’d like to sound aesthetically pleasing, since looking it is a bit lost on you.” She thoughtfully tapped her cheek, staring off into the distance. “What about Gale? It’s already close to what we’ve been calling me.”

“Gale?”

“Strong winds and the like. Windy.”

It did sound nice, even if it didn’t match up quite so well. “So you want me to call you Gale now?” Gale. Gale, Gale, Gale. I stared at her and mulled it over, and decided that it fit. Gale. I could get used to it. It wasn’t too much of a difference.

At some point during my own little existential crisis, Violet had been giving me a judgmentally baleful stare. “What’s the plan, miss indecisive?” How long had she been watching? More to the point, how much had she heard?

And I still hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. “Uh…”

“Wait, did Tangerine dash over here without the box of stuff she took from Famine?” Gala—er, Gale quickly piped up, “Maybe we could go see if there’s anything good in it.”

That was as good of a plan as any. In the event that Tangerine had looted the stolen goods first, I’d have to wing something. It wouldn’t be a huge loss, but it would annoy me greatly. Hopefully Riverbed wouldn’t notice that I had stolen Talon property.

“Hey Violet, want to go on a field trip?” I hopefully suggested to her.

The mare regarded me, then replied, “It’s not like you can go anywhere without me with that collar of yours, and I’m not done with my research paper on you. Don’t get us lost.”

Close enough! Now that I had convinced Violet to follow me back to the library to retrieve the box, I checked to make sure that Sparkle and the other Rangers were still tied up by the angry birdcats. From the looks of it, a few additional mercenaries were doing their best to control the situation. I broke into a brisk trot, nearly dragging Violet behind me to get back to where we had been camped out.

Sure enough, the crate of goods we’d stolen was still on the desk I’d slid it onto. A cursory examination revealed that nopony appeared to have tampered with it, so I dragged it off the table onto the ground so I could dig through its contents.

Ammunition, snacks, rations, water, and “water”. Apart from the small bundle of books, nothing immediately stood out to me until I got to the folded canvas underneath them. I scooped everything else out and piled it over to the side so I could get a better look at it.

After unfolding the cloth, I finally realized what Tangerine meant by there was something I would have liked in the Talons’ crate. One of them must have a penchant for collecting vintage weaponry, because nopony else in the Wasteland would even consider using a weapon like this—in good condition, too.

It was an old-model charge laser, part of the initial technological weapon rush in the early months of the war. The receiver of some kind of griffon markspony (marksbird?) rifle had been modified to hold all the workings of a rudimentary laser, as did the carry handle. The base of the carry handle had a hole at either end for a sight. Heat vents pointing upward and away from the user were built into the either side of the weapon above the magazine port and a charge indicator poked out of the middle of the body on the left.

Of course it would be on the left side—where I couldn’t see it if I were using it. “Come with me, my little friend,” I chuckled to myself, lifting it out of its cloth covering. I could probably repurpose the rear sight on my anti-machine rifle to use on this, but I needed to find out exactly why there was already some sort of device mounted on top of the carry handle.

So now the task at hoof was to somehow dump enough random junk so that I could shove this brand-new laser rifle into my bags. There was already a lot I shouldn’t be carrying, but I couldn’t come up with reasons to drop much else I was lugging around. I briefly considered throwing out my submachine gun since I barely used it anyway, but having options just in case was always a good idea.

After throwing out a few other miscellaneous bits of junk that I hadn’t been given opportunity to sell, I was still far too laden down. “Screw it, out with the helmet.” Like I was going to ever wear it—Dad’s hat was too important to me. The Enclave Power Armor helmet thumped onto the table, followed by a curiously sparse suit of power armor. It seemed like I still had one last one spare for parts, so there was at least that.

My gaze finally fell on my anti-machine rifle and hesitated. Maybe it was time for a change in scenery. This trusty gun had helped me through the past few… weeks? It was beginning to show its age—dings and scrapes covered the surface, a bit of blood still stuck to the grip—but that gave it character.

But it reminded me of the Rangers. It reminded me of Rumcake, and he didn’t have a very good track record at the moment.

I needed a change of pace.

More importantly, I needed to make sure that nopony would steal this stuff. “Hey, Violet? Can you do a magic thing so nopony else can do stuff to this box?” I asked, only to be answered by a very disinterested mare nose-deep in a book (Coffee and You – Brewing for Morons!). I wasn’t sure whether she’d heard me or what, so I repeated myself. “Vi-vi, anything you can do to hide the box?”

Violet only spared me a momentary glance. “Don’t call me that.”

“C’mon. Please?” I begged.

“Please what?”

I groaned. “Violet, do you know any spells that you can use on the box?”

Without bothering to stop reading, Violet dryly replied, “I know many spells that can be used on the box.”

Maybe I should have strangled her instead. “Violet, can you make the box invisible to everypony except Tangerine?”

Finally, Violet put down her book and actually looked at me. “Well… it depends. How much credit are we giving her?”

“Uh… enough?” I hesitantly replied.

“That’s more confidence than I have in her, so no.” Violet stared off into space, then added, “I really hope she doesn’t turn herself into a turnip.”

The number of times they’d brought up “turnip” was making me think it could actually be a serious issue. “Is there a way to hide this box though?” Motioning at the array of things I had piled up on the table, I suggested, “Maybe like, invisibility?”

“Oh yes, I could make the box invisible, easy.”

Okay, that was solved. Now, as I was angsti—

“Except that making the box invisible makes everything in it visible.”

“What.” How did magic even work?

Smartly nodding, Violet levitated her normal book back out. “That’s how it is. Area spells usually require regular maintenance, but a simple enchant will last long enough. Something like this, maybe a few days. Maybe a week, if I feel like it.”

Then how was I—

Picking up the crate in her magic aura, Violet dropped it into the pile of books against the wall. Several of the books floated away and stacked themselves on top. “See how easy that was? I’ll write up a scroll to make sure the fruit finds it.” She shot me a smug grin and let it sink in.

At this point, I was pretty sure that Violet was intentionally trying to annoy me. “Just… just go do your dumb things. I’ll finish up here.” I didn’t want her to get away with making fun of me, but I was having a slightly more serious problem at hoof.

Having two rifles on my body wasn’t particularly useful. AMR, high power, good penetration, cumbersome, uncommon ammunition. Laser rifle, plentiful microspark ammunition, normal fire rate, lower damage and high maintenance. I weighed the pros and cons and my choice soon became apparent.

It was time to ditch my old anti-machine rifle and pick up an energy weapon. A new change of pace. Maybe Rumcake would want it back, seeing as I’d basically stolen it for myself all that time ago.

My decision made, I dismantled my anti-machine rifle for the last time and tucked the parts into the crate, along with the rest of my ammunition for it. The only things that didn’t join it were the enchanted rear sight and the carrying strap, which I held onto so I could attach them to my brand-new laser rifle later. For now, I opted to tuck the rifle under the flap of my saddlebag and secure it there with some extra tape.

I needed to leave before Rumcake got back. Maybe leaving a note would be enough explanation on my part.

Theatrically clearing my throat, I called out, “Violet, take a letter.”

“Go buck yourself.”

Aww. Slightly demotivated, I asked, “…Can I at least get some stuff to write with?” I shouldn’t have asked, because Violet yanked out one of my feathers and presented it to me, along with a tiny pot of ink and a sheaf of parchment. “Ow! Really? I need those!”

~~~~~

By the time I got out of the library, new gun and Violet in tow, the Rangers were nowhere to be seen. Getting out of here was my first priority, but I needed to grab Riverbed. Money couldn’t buy happiness, but it sure as hell could buy me a friend.

Sure enough, Riverbed’s directions hadn’t been wrong. The Talons had sloppily fortified the front of a building right past the south gate and posted several identical guards outside of it. Before I could trot up the squat concrete stairs, one of the black-armored griffons stopped us.

“Hold it, Talons only. Are you looking to hire services or just inquiring?” His full-face helmet hid his face, but he still managed to sound bored enough for me to picture the dead look under it.

Looking to spare this poor catbird as much stress as possible, I simply replied, “I’m looking to hire. I’ve got somepony specific in mind.”

The guard tilted his head and motioned at the metal door behind him. “Head in and talk to the sergeant. Don’t go anywhere else or we will shoot on sight.”

“Thanks.” Motioning for Violet to follow me closely, I shouldered through the door and found myself staring down a strange-looking griffon with patchy feathers across a coffee table she was using as an impromptu desk. I was about to wonder who I was supposed to be looking for until I caught a glimpse of a sergeant’s emblem sticking out from under her crumpled jacket.

Curiously, she didn’t have any visible body armor—simply the old ratty gray-green jacket she was wearing, a pair of empty gun holsters, and combat boots on her rear legs. Most of her feathers were a mottled brownish-white, with the common white-chest pattern that nearly every griffon seemed to have.

The griffoness arched an eyebrow and stared at me expectantly. “I’m looking to hire Riverbed Ransom,” I told her uncertainly. “Sergeant…?”

“I am Sylvia, but you can call me Nana if you wish.” She had a surprisingly gentle voice for having such a menacing visage, all things considered. “Is he the pony one from the other division?”

“She is the pony from Thundercane, yeah. She around?” Either Sylvia hadn’t cared enough to learn faces and names, or she was subtly reminding me that griffons also had the capacity to be racist pricks. Hard to tell.

Sylvia made a beckoning motion with her talons over her shoulder. “I can check in a bit. Make yourself comfortable,” she told me and Violet as Soundwave the radio griffon trodded in, huffing and puffing. The two of them exchanged words, and I made out one of them mentioning Riverbed.

Giving the the griffons a suspicious look, I tried to make myself comfortable by the weakly crackling fire pit dug into the floorboards. There were a pair of matching couches pushed near it, but I wasn’t going to destroy them by trying to sit in them with power armor. It took an additional moment for Violet to realize that I wasn’t in front of her anymore, so she slammed her book shut and trotted over to me and opened it back to the same page.

Waiting was boring. I didn’t want to ask Sylvia how long it would take for Riverbed to come back to us, so I told myself that she was probably out on assignment. Sighing, I sat down and stretched out my wings. Violet had finally noticed the couches and slithered onto one to comfortably lounge while reading.

Now was a good time as any to secure my old rifle strap to my new rifle, so I did exactly that. The hooks on either end of the strap were slightly too large for the little ring built beside the stock, and the other mounting point appeared to require a different ring for attaching to the base of the barrel. Hmm.

While I struggled with that, I asked out of boredom, “Violet, how do I do more magic?” It would be useful in the future, if I could figure any of it out.

To my amazement, Violet actually stopped and had to think about it. She even flipped her book open and began to skim through pages, periodically pausing to read. “Uh… I really don’t know. The Dispersed Magicka Proof really didn’t intend to put anything into practice; it was merely meant to prove a point.”

Did Violet not know something? “What does that mean?”

Thoughtfully, Violet flipped through a few more pages and tapped a page. “Here is is. Old magic technique involves what essentially boils down to ‘magic batteries’ for the caster to draw power from, which would prove to be redundant after the Thaumic Revolution.”

Seeing a moment for comedy, I added, “There are only three important revolutions—Equestrian, industrial, and dance dance.”

Unfortunately, I’d forgotten who I was talking to. Violet continued explaining without missing a beat, not bothering to acknowledge me at all. “After that, the practice died out. Little documentation exists after this point.” She began to flip through more pages and paused.

Groaning, I interrupted, “Come on, laugh. That was funny.”

“No.” Pointing at another section of her book, she continued, “Okay, here’s another one, but you’re not going to like it.”

“Why?”

“Zebras.”

“No thank you, next.”

“It seems to be the most viable choice if you really want to perform magic.” Violet turned her book toward me and showed me a page—a mess of lines with more lines and bars connecting to something that looked like a necklace. “Zebras are one of the most skilled practitioners of magic. There’s a reason for that, you know.”

“Nope. Next way.”

“Talismans are basically prepared spells ready to cast, and that might just be what you’re looking for. Unfortunately, we might need to find an actual zebra to make one.” Violet sighed, turning the book back to herself. “I have diagrams and theories here, but the theory does not in actuality make.”

The thought of having to cooperate with a zebra kind of frightened me. “Forget I asked.”

“I mean, whatever they do with their art is astounding. They don’t have horns, which makes their magical conductors the totems and glyphs. It’ll be something to look into, surely.”

“Can we please stop with the zebra crap? Zebras are dumb.”

“Fine, we could try imprinting a circle onto a necklace or bracelet for you, but the problem still remains: besides your natural pegasus abilities, you have almost no magical power. Even if you have it, you still won’t be able to use it properly. A zebra glyph, however… there might be potential there.”

“Buck zebras. Just stop. Please. I don’t want to think about it.” I irritably flapped my wings and looked around. “Where’s Riverbed? I’m getting bored.”

Glancing back at the page she was on, Violet replied, “You’re going to have to get over it eventually. War’s over, Frosty. Everypony lost.”

“That’s not it,” I murmured.

Apparently Violet wasn’t paying attention to me. “I’ve got the basics of what seems to be some sort of summon glyph copied down, so I’ll test it and get back to you on whether I can find something like ‘summon competency’ for you.”

Hooves clopped down the stairs behind me. “Doctor Shot, Doctor Rim Shot to the burn ward.” I looked around, and, of course, Riverbed was standing at the foot of the stairs with the largest shit-eating grin on her face. “Hey there, guy. Got some caps for me?”

Finally, a friendly face. “What took you so long?”

Happily, Riverbed responded, “I had to take a shit of planetary proportions.”

Oh. “TMI.”

“Planetary, guy. Planetary.”

I faceclawed and groaned, “Yes, thank you.”

Still looking quite pleased with herself, Riverbed trotted over to the couch and slouched onto it, completely ignoring Violet’s hindlegs. “So like, what’s the job and where are your caps, guy?” Shit, I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. I scooped out cap pouches as I tried to come up with exactly where I wanted to go.

“Here, five hundred, give or take a few.” Riverbed groaned and dumped out the pouches of caps I’d passed her to count. “And no, I have no idea where we’re going. Anywhere but here, I guess.”

With a neutral shrug, Riverbed distractedly said, “Eh, works for me, guy. Like, as long as I get paid.” She was in the middle of her twelfth stack of ten when she looked at the pile and groaned, “Screw it, that probably looks close enough.” She dropped her saddlebags and scooped my caps into it.

Maybe having a travel plan wasn’t a terrible idea. “Any requests on destination? I just want to get out of here,” I asked my new friends.

Riverbed shrugged. “You’re in charge, guy. I’ll follow.”

“Violet?” I somewhat anxiously pleaded, hoping she had an idea.

Flipping to a different page, she unfolded a taped-in pamphlet. “There’s an old research institute a few dozen blocks away. I think that could be the solution to your magic-related problem. Otherwise, I really don’t care.”

I didn’t have a better idea, so I decided that the research institute—whatever that was—would be our next stop. Besides, the idea of being able to use magic sounded cool. With a little begrudging assistance from Violet, she helped me mark the location on my PipBuck. While she was doing that, Riverbed went off to talk to Sylvia. From the bits that I’d overheard, it sounded like clerical stuff.

Searching through my bags again, I belatedly realized that my vintage laser rifle only came with five microspark cells, and I still didn’t know how much charge each shot used. “Okay, so like, Syl says I can goof off with you guys since Pogo already bucked off without me,” Riverbed happily relayed to me. “To adventure!”

I pumped my claw in the air and exuberantly agreed, “Adventure!”

The two of us giddily stared at Violet. “What?” she snapped, noticing our combined looks. “Ugh, fine.” She halfheartedly raised her hoof and sighed, “Adventure. Woo.”

With things taken care of, the three of us promptly set off. The surrounding city blocks seemed to have been stripped of all useful materials, which also meant they’d probably been thoroughly looted. We trotted past hollowed-out husks of buildings in relative silence. It was a bit surreal not seeing signs advertising shops, bars on windows, or anything of the like.

The three of us traveled in a line formation—I took the lead, Violet absentmindedly followed me, and Riverbed took up the rear. As much as I wanted to fly around, I decided to walk so that my sore wings could recover a bit more. It was also partly because getting choked by the collar wasn’t very fun, and flying would remind me of it.

Keeping one eye on the path ahead of us, I called over my shoulder to Violet, “So what makes you think there’s something there?”

“From what the brochure said, it was a research lab for the local college. The MAS appropriated it for the war effort under the excuse ‘Know thy enemy, for then you shall know no fear’ or something self-righteous like that.” Once again, Violet checked the fold-out pamphlet tucked into her book. “It’s likely that they’ll have papers on zebra magic, under that logic.”

Now I immediately regretted bringing up the question. “Okay, never mind.”

“I just want to see if zebra magic works with non-zebras, especially now that we’ve found out that you can actually conduct magicka.” Violet carefully closed her book again and actually stopped talking.

“Hey guy, can I ask you a question?”

“No.”

“Like, where’s th—wait, what d’ya mean, ‘no’?”

“I’m just joking.”

“Guy, you’re supposed to say yes! What kind of monster would, like, ever answer no?”

“I said I was joking.”

It made me chuckle when I heard the annoyed growl of frustration from Riverbed. “As I was saying, guy—what happened to, uh, Tangerine?” she asked, once she had regained her composure.

“We had to go our separate ways,” I emotionlessly responded over my shoulder.

“Aw, and I liked her too." Pausing, Riverbed must have turned her attention to the one other pony with us and remarked, "Oh, like, I didn’t introduce myself to you, did I?”

“We’ve briefly met. Don’t talk to me,” Violet said emotionlessly.

“Riverbed Ransom, gun for hire.” The glee in her voice was apparent, and it sounded like she’d paused to hold out a hoof out to bump.

With a defeated sigh, Violet responded, “Violet Dusk. Stop talking to me.”

“Well, aren’t you just a bundle of joy, guy.”

I let myself grin. It was a little strained, but that was okay. Little moments like this were exactly why I’d decided to hire Riverbed. There wasn’t any romance, any cold analytics, or any clingy adoration attached to her—she was simply fun. I liked having her around, and she was the closest pony I could call a normal friend. Although if I was paying her to be with me, did it make her a prostitute? Should I have paid her in half-caps?

“Hello? I said, when are we stopping?” Violet nagged, even going as far as to throw a rock at the back of my head. “My hooves hurt.”

Riverbed double-timed it to my side and chuckled. “We haven’t even, like, walked that far. Vi just needs exercise, guy.”

Picking up her pace, Violet galloped up beside her and snapped, “I get enough exercise, thank you very much.” Sparing a glance, I couldn’t tell if she did—her patchy robe covered her enough and I hadn’t actually ever seen her out of it.

“You need some muscle. What you need is some meat.”

“Sorry if I can’t stomach eating a dead creature’s flesh on a frequent basis.”

Riverbed stopped, and the rest of us followed suit to watch what she was doing. It took a bit longer than anticipated, but she finally dug out a leather pouch and tugged it open. “That’s because you need protein.” The two of us peered inside and realized it was full of dried meat.

“You can’t be serious.” Violet gagged a little after getting a whiff of the frighteningly delicious-smelling meat.

Grinning, Riverbed brightly responded, “No, I’m Riverbed. Hi.” She popped a small piece into her mouth and made a show of chewing it.

“You’re intolerable.”

“I’m still Riverbed.”

“Girls, let’s just keep moving. We’re going to get ambushed out here in the middle of the street.” I furtively glanced around, turning my ears at the sounds bouncing off the buildings around us. “Violet, just let Riverbed cram meat in her mouth. Riverbed, just cram meat in your mouth. Let’s go.”

Still slightly dribbling meat crumbs from her face, Riverbed casually asked, “What’s the rush, guy?”

Something in me snapped, and I exploded in her face, “I don’t want to get spotted by an Enclave patrol so that they can turn me into a motherbucking crater.”

More importantly, where were the patrols? Where was the inevitable takedown team? If the Enclave really had come down, they had to have set up a forward operating base somewhere. Maybe if I found it, I could get some answers. I still had the major’s pins, so that could be my ticket in. And why did I get the feeling we weren’t alone?

Behind me, Riverbed muttered, “What’s your beef, guy?”

“I’d say menopause but I know otherwise,” Violet thoughtfully responded.

I grimaced and pretended not to hear them. So much for having friends.

“Wuh?” Thanks, Riverbed. I didn’t know what that meant either.

“Never mind.” As an afterthought, Violet added, “Don’t talk to me.”

Whether or not they were actually my friends, I still needed them around for meat shield reasons. Just ahead we had to make a right, so I steered us to the sidewalk for safety. I was hearing echoes and things, but it could just be the creepy deserted buildings being creepy.

Or I was crazy.

I allowed myself a weak chuckle. It was probably just the sound of other ponies around, since I totally wasn’t crazy.

“Hold on, you are aware that contacts are approaching, right?” If I had been any more on edge, I would have punched Gale out right then and there. “We should find some cover.”

Sure enough, a collection of blue and yellow bars were having a great time to the leftmost side of my E.F.S. bar. I turned around and gave the other two the “get down” motion with my claw. All three of us flattened ourselves against the wall to our right, Violet only because I had to shove her there. The sound of Riverbed’s weapon safeties being disengaged reminded me that I should also bring out my weapon as well.

In a hushed whispered, I asked Riverbed, “Do you have a radio?”

“Like, ‘course I do, guy.” She tapped the side of her helmet and smirked. “Never leave home without it.”

I rolled the shoulder with my radio on it. “Good. Can you tune me into your frequency?” The only reason I didn’t do it myself was because I didn’t know how, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

Riverbed quickly trotted behind me and bodily mounted me. Before I could fire off a snappy, angry, and/or confused remark, she tweaked a few things on my radio, then clambered off and responded, “Done.”

Allowing myself an extra three seconds to snap out of how violated I was feeling, I finally came up with, “That was unnecessary.”

Nodding, Violet agreed, “Seconded.”

“Yet somehow arousing,” Riverbed happily whispered to me.

Was… was I actually the only straight mare in the Wasteland? “Not really, no. Sort of awkward and weird, guy.”

“You liked it.”

“I’m not half-capping you. Not interested.” Back to business.

Eyeing the bar on the top of my vision and echoes of sound coming from around the corner, I fiddled with the sling on my new laser rifle so that I could hold it in my claw single-hoofedly. That way, I could still use my other three legs to stand on. Aiming it was going to be a different problem that I’d solve later.

The building next to us had a second floor that looked like it had been forcibly de-roofed at some point, which also made it a great vantage point. “Violet, I’m going to hop into the second floor of this place. I don’t want to implode, so stick to the wall.” Thankfully she did as I asked without question.

All I managed was a half-assed flap upward so that I could grab the ledge without applying too much extra stress to my wings. I pulled myself up and crept to the corner wall, keeping in mind to find something to stabilize my rifle with. Maybe I should have also stolen the bipod off of the anti-machine rifle.

A short end table would have to do for stability. Rearing up on my hind legs, I made sure that the muzzle of my rifle didn’t protrude over the edge of the building while I took aim. I leaned forward to set up a comfortable firing position and placed my other foreleg underneath my rifle to observe the approaching group of Wastelanders.

They weren’t traveling in any sort of formation and they didn’t have any equipment that made them seem like a caravan group. The scattered four ponies seemed to be arguing with each other, but only in hushed whispers. There were a surprisingly diverse little group—a pegasus, an earth pony, a unicorn, and a walking corpse.

The pegasus in the front was wearing some very familiar-looking combat fatigues usually issued to the Enclave reserve forces, as indication by the “R” overlaid on a winged shield. She had a dusty gray coat that almost shined in the low light, and her light blue mane and tail looked equally taken care of. Both were even neatly braided, surprisingly enough. She had a sort of wrapped bag slung over her back, but I didn’t pay it much mind. She had a PipBuck as well, but I couldn’t tell which variety it was.

Right next to the pegasus, the unicorn mare arguing with her was a sort of orangey-red shade, with bits of light gray mane sticking out beneath her hoofball cap. Unlike the pegasus, she actually had patched-up shoddy combat armor with some faded and crossed out logo on the chestplate. A trio of canteens dangled from her left side with her saddlebags, since the other side was occupied by a massive double-barreled pump shotgun.

Lingering near the back, a spry earth pony was idly surveying the rest of the surrounding buildings. He had a purple coat and a brown mane tied into a ponytail, along with a scraggly goatee and a purple bandanna was tied around his neck. His bulging saddlebags nearly covered up his battle saddle—another shotgun and some sort of rifle. A fire axe was secured on top of everything.

For whatever reason, the last member of their was a ghoul. This one looked like it was in the same shape as Sleazy—more rotting corpse than pony. It didn’t have much more armor than a ratty-looking pair of coveralls and a much newer-looking ballistic vest. A saddlebag on his right side trailed a belt of shells that fed into an automatic shotgun strapped to his other side.

“Looks like four contacts, mostly shotguns. Earthie, Birdie, Cornie, and a ghoul. They still haven’t seen us yet.” On a gut feeling, I glanced skyward and hastily added, “Five. They’ve got a pegasus on recon—really?”

This one seemed to be one of those wannabe dark and broody rookies that would periodically join Recon and Scouting Teams. I’d bet any caps I had that his gray mane was probably dyed because of how patchy it looked, and he’d run out of dye to paint his white coat coat similarly. As for his armament, it appeared he only had a shotgun, knife, and some light Enclave armored barding. He even had a muzzle-covering gas mask, which made me snort. Probably one of those colts that believed all the propaganda.

Through my earbloom, I barely made out Riverbed asking, “Think they’re hostile?” I pressed it a little farther into my ear and hoped that would fix it.

By the way the ones on the ground wouldn’t stop arguing with each other, I wasn’t sure. “I don’t know. Those pegasi worry me, though. If they report back to command, I’m toast.”

“Guy, they’re not even Enclave. Probably like, adventurers looking for a quick score.” Ah, problem fixed. I could hear her fine now.

With mister dark and broody up there, I had the feeling that the others were being paid to follow him. “Or they’re hunting for me.”

While I kept my eyes on the group of hunters and their Enclave handler, Violet lazily asked, “So… what’s the plan?”

If any of them got away, I’d be in trouble. If they somehow managed to take me alive, there was no telling what they would do to me.

“We could brutally murder them! Better than that shit you pulled last time,” Toasty enthusiastically suggested.

I leaned out of scope and gave me a sidelong glance. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Remember the first time the Enclave wanted to say hi?” Sarcastically tilting her head, Toasty snarked, “Oooh, I caught the feeeels. I’m sooo sorry. I’m so sorry I killed you and all your bird horse friends. Here, I’ll let you go so you can tell everypony that I committed treason.” With a snide chuckle, she added, “Wimp.”

Examining the several ponies very slowly bearing down on us, I asked, “What does that have to do with this?”

“You want a repeat of that shit?” Toasty glared at me expectantly, an evil glint in her eyes.

Damn it.

Damn it, damn it, damn it! She made a good point.

“We have to kill them.”

“Really, guy?” I heard Riverbed’s face shield come down as she sighed. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”

Scoffing, Violet responded, “Leave me out of it. I’ll be here if you need me.” Unfortunately, that meant I was stuck in the rough neighborhood of right here. I could work with that.

For whatever reason, they still hadn’t spotted Riverbed or me. The pegasus with the PipBuck hadn’t seen me either, so maybe we were still out of range. “Okay, we need to eliminate their air superiority. I’ll take out the flying one, you take care of the one on the ground.” Being tethered to Violet would keep me grounded, so I wouldn’t be able to engage anyway.

“On three.”

“Ow! Shit, ow.” I stopped observing the group to glance downward at Riverbed, who was doing her best to climb up the side of a dumpster and onto the opposite building. “Hold on, guy. Like, let me get in position.”

As I waited for her, I tried to adjust to my new rifle. Not only was it lighter than my previous one, but I had to keep reminding myself that I didn’t have to lead targets nearly as far anymore. Losing vertical peripheral vision was also a little weird, since I still didn’t know what the little box on the top actually did. It wasn’t another sight, that was for sure.

Gasping, Riverbed finally responded, “Ready, guy.”

The one with the PipBuck was looking around now, so that probably meant I was showing up on it. “On my mark.”

“One.” I took a deep breath and focused in on the pegasus.

“Two.” There was a moment of doubt, but I brutally threw it aside. He was here to capture me, kill me, whatever.

Taking aim slightly ahead of the flying pony’s nose, I breathed, “Boom.” The energy bolt left the gun almost a whole half-second after I released the trigger. As expected, it burned through a layer of foreleg armor and into the pony wearing it. However, it didn’t seem to do much more than leave a nasty third degree burn.

I leaned out of scope and looked with my own eyes. “What.”

A firm claw closing around the back of my collar accompanied Toasty’s outraged cry of, “What?!”

At least nopony was more surprised than the one I’d shot. “W-what? Where did that come from?” He listed to one side and smashed into a wall as a result.

It was at this point when I’d realized my error—this was a vintage laser rifle, probably the end of the second era by my guess. In all the excitement, I’d forgotten that laser pre-igniters hadn’t been invented yet. That meant I’d just fired a low-powered shot that had the bare minimum charge instead of a deadly leg-melting laser that I’d tried to use.

Whoops.

On a related topic, how was I supposed to charge this thing? Why hadn’t the griffon who wanted this thing steal the instruction manual as well? Why did the other pegasus have a scythe? I’d be damned if my next thought was going to be “Why are my intestines over there?”

All hell broke loose, almost as if somepony had shot a pegasus and done no damage. The ponies on the ground dove for cover or dashed to help the one that I’d shot. Riverbed hadn’t fired for some reason, and I snarled, “How come you didn’t shoot the other one?”

“You didn’t bucking say three, guy!” Belatedly, Riverbed let a few half-assed shots loose at a pile of rubble.

“I said three!”

“Like, you said boom.”

Uh. “That was implied to be three!”

“How was I supposed to know, guy?”

Was this not common knowledge? “Just do what I mean and not what I say.” Speaking of shooting ponies, the ghoul seemed like a great candidate for free laser surgery.

It looked like nopony knew how to track the heat trail from a laser, so I had an extra shot of opportunity. The group of hunters had gone to ground, currently hiding in one of the alleys and behind a collapsed section of building on my side of the road. The giant double-barreled shotgun hovered out of cover by the alley, which only meant its user was right around the corner.

While I tried to come up with a reason why anypony would even consider using a scythe for actual combat, I lined up my sights with the floating shotgun. I waited for an additional beat for somepony to peek before attempting to vaporize the shotgun. Once again, the shot was delayed and on impact it didn’t do much more than burn a hole through the barrel. The gun retreated back to its owner, at least.

A few bolts of plasma splashed against rubble where the other half of the hunting party was hunkered down. “They’re pretty dug in, guy.” She fired off a few more shots then added, “I think they’re actually leaving. You have eyes on the other pegasus?”

Speaking of which, I caught sight of him rocketing back into the air while he swerved and spun. It looked like he had opted out to a pistol, but he was actively searching and dodging. I tried to track the dodging pegasus, but he was simply moving way too much for me to predict for the express reason that he knew there was a sniper around.

I toggled S.A.T.S. in order to take care of him. Cue freeze frame, zoom and enhance— “Wait, what do you mean, thirty-four percent? Come on!” Since the headshot percentage was even lower, I decided to let the spell take the bodyshot instead. Strangely, I was only allowed to queue one attack. Nevertheless, I confirmed it anyway and let it go.

The spell helped me track the pegasus, and I noticed that I was being told to squeeze the trigger and hold it. About two seconds later—an eternity in S.A.T.S.—I finally let the shot fly, and this time it was no disappointment. A blazing red beam bolted from my rifle and impacted against the pegasus’s right foreleg with a satisfying burn and heat bloom.

That time, the shot had the desired effect. The pegasus wailed in pain and crashed to the ground in no-pony’s land between us and them, clutching at his burnt leg. A nice clean hole had been burnt right through bone, armor, and flesh. As I began to line up a shot to finish him off, a bloody talon tugging against my jaw made me stop.

“C’mon… double or nothing. They’ll want to say hi to their little friend eventually.” Toasty throatily whispered into my right ear. “Make it two, three, four kills, easy.”

She had a damn good point. “Okay, let me at least maim him a little more. I think I cauterized him with that hit.”

Toasty chuckled. “I like that shit. Go.”

With the strategy in place, I let one more shot loose right into the downed pegasus’s unarmored wing. It hit a bit off my intended target, but a bolt to the leading edge of his wing would keep him grounded anyway.

Right as I was getting into the zone, a rude interruption jolted me out of it. “Howdy to all ya cooool cats out there! Listen up, a little birdie dropped this little number on Uncle Soundwave—intel, fresh off the presses! Enclave morale boosters haven’t been this exciting since your mom!” Wasn’t that the radio griffon from Stronghold? What the buck? “Incoming crazy shit!”

“Hey Riverbed, can you squelch him?” I tried to land a more lethal shot on the unicorn trying to peek their corner, but the unpredictable fire delay was messing with my aim.

My earbloom beeped, then it continued with Soundwave’s broadcast, but it was a different voice altogether. “Good evening. Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a single daring terrorist act. Earlier today at approximately oh-eight hundred hours, High Councilor Harbinger and his protective detail were taken from us with a balefire bomb—one of the very devices that forced the creation of the haven we have made for ourselves. This act of terror was intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our nation is strong.

“A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. These Wastelanders—these filth—think they can intimidate us with a brutish show of force. Today, our nation saw evil—the very worst of our nature—and we shall respond with the wrath of the Enclave Military. Fear not, citizens. You will be safe. You have my word.”

“Can’t do anything about it. He’s broadcasting to all Talons,” Riverbed shouted over the broadcast and the din of her plasma rifle.

I was forced to scoot backward and seek cover because one of them had finally spotted me and was trying to feed me free birdshot. “And they’ve seen me. Great.” More importantly, what was going on? What kind of press release was this?

“—rch is underway for those who were behind these evil acts. I have directed the full resources of our intelligence and military to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them. We w—”

“I think they’re trying to kill me!” Riverbed screamed, wildly spraying plasma. “Bucking helmeted me! I’m backing off.”

Soundwave returned, accompanied by a burst of static. “Yadda yadda yadda. So if you’ve ever wanted to be part of an underground terrorism syndicate—or if you’re a Steel Ranger listenin’ in, a literal underground terrorism syndicate—today’s your chance! And now for the weather. Off to you, Nobeard.”

A gruff, almost bored voice followed. “Norbert. My name is Norbert.”

“Same thing.”

“I could feed you to the hounds.”

If I wasn’t so busy trying not to die, I would have laughed. Falling back was starting to look like a better and better option.

Soundwave happily answered, “I could shut up, Nob.”

Silence. “As I was saying, tonight’s weather is going to be pigeon filth, followed by cloudy skies. The Freakshow Feathers Talon Branch will be paying thirty caps per Enclave pegasus, fifty if they’re still kickin’. Bring your shit to Stronghold for payment. We’re moving out in three days, so stay tuned.”

“Time to get paid, boys and girls!” Soundwave happily chuckled. “Happy hunting!”

Yeah, buck this place. If this group wanted to take me down, they’d have to fight a little harder for it. I could have politics hour later.

X~~~X

“I’m going to kill her.”

Tangerine sighed, then groaned. “Rumcake, we know. She’s just distressed and angry.”

That still didn’t change anything. “Am I the only one that cares that Frosty lied about knowing us just so she could run off again?” I demanded to my Rangers, to no reply.

The room that the griffon mercs had tossed us in was somepony’s office, but they were only preventing us from leaving until their “leader” gave them the go-ahead to leave. Sparkle was lounging in one corner trying to squeeze in some well-deserved rest, while Tangerine was still trying to decipher the mysteries of the scroll she had been reading for the past several hours.

Why was Frosty doing this to me? This wasn’t the mare that I’d fallen for. I held my head in my hooves and tried to come up with some kind of reason. Did she get a kick out of making me miserable? All I wanted to do was help her. Why couldn’t Frosty just get it?

“Uh… Rumcake? C-can I talk to you?”

Say her name thrice, and she shall appear. I sat up and glowered at the doorway where Frosty was poking her head in.

For once, she looked meek and vulnerable. At a nod, Frosty slunk in, head down and tail tucked, muttering, “I, uh, I’m sorry about how I’ve… how my attitude has been recently. It’s just—” She let out a hiccuping sob and shakily continued, “It’s just so hard to focus when you’re in five pieces, okay? I’m sorry I’m just so… stupid!” She looked like she was on the verge of having a complete breakdown.

My heart simply melted at the sight of Frosty dejectedly sniffling. Seeing her so vulnerable and weak after being used to a more recklessly feisty mare made me realize I was finally seeing a side of her that rarely showed. “It’s okay, Frosty. C’mere. I’m here for you.” I held open my forelegs and motioned for her to come to me.

Frosty let her saddlebag and her rifle drop to the floor. “I’m so sorry,” she whimpered, limping into my embrace. She tightened her forelegs around my neck and leaned in close. “I shouldn’t have done all those stupid things without thinking. I should have listened.”

It was about time that Frosty came to her senses. “Hey, it’s okay. Shh. I did a few stupid things that I shouldn’t have done too.” I was already regretting hitting her earlier, and the bruise on her face still looked tender. “We all make mistakes.” As I comforted her, I also noticed that the collar that I had given her wasn’t belted around her neck anymore. “What happened to your safety collar?”

Frosty pulled herself away and stared at me with those tear-stricken purple eyes. “I… After you hit me, I made Violet take the collar off so I could fly around. Collect my thoughts, I guess.” She sniffled a little and wiped her eyes. “And I sort of told her to go buck herself and she teleported away.”

Damn it, Frosty. “It’s okay. Let’s get you cleaned up and then we’ll go find her,” I sighed.

“I think she teleported back to Perma,” Frosty mumbled.

Even if Violet wasn’t particularly good at anything, having an extra unicorn on hoof was never a bad thing. “You don’t know that. Maybe she’s in the book place.”

“Oh! I left all the stuff in the library!” Tangerine suddenly interjected. “I need to go!”

Frosty tilted her head at the door. “You could totally leave. I already told the catbirds out front to buzz off.” Like a frightened little filly, Tangerine stared at me for direction. Giving her the go-ahead with a nod, she darted out and away.

For now, I just wanted to comfort my broken little pegasus. “Frosty, I’d like to formally apologize right now for slapping you earlier. I was mad and I wasn’t thinking straight.” I allowed her to slouch against me and attempt to pull me into a hug.

“Forgive me?” As she stared me down with those beautiful eyes, I realized I just couldn’t stay mad at her any longer.

“Will you actually listen to me now?”

“Promise.”

With an almost relieved sigh, I replied, “Yeah. All is forgiven.” I looped my foreleg behind her and under her wings, pulling her up against my body. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Something kept tugging at the back of my mind, though. “Hold on, since when have you had purple eyes?”

Frosty briefly showed surprise, then mild annoyance. “You’ve got to be shitting me. You don’t even know what I look like.” She calmly tilted her head up, her intense gaze boring into my skull. "I have always had purple eyes."

I gaped dumbly at her for a moment, before blinking and shaking my head. Of course, of course. What was I thinking? “Sorry, I don’t know what came over me. I guess I was just being stupid.” Where had I even gotten that dumb question from in the first place?

Frosty purred in contentment. "That's okay. Just hold me, please."

If she wasn’t going to hold it against me, I was going to take as much advantage of it as possible. Gently scooping up Frosty in my forelegs, I slouched a little lower so that she would be comfortable with her head tucked under my chin. After she was done settling onto me, I lovingly stroked her mane and held her tight, praising whatever goddesses watching that had brought my Frosty back to me.

Brushing back an errant lock of her mane, I nuzzled Frosty’s ear and muttered into it, “I love you.”

“I know.”

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Money Talks – Mercenaries and free agents are cheaper to hire when you have no other followers or are acting as a follower. Quest-related characters do not count toward using this skill.
Current Sub-perk: Diplomacy – Remember thy Charlamane. You gain +8 to Speech.

Hallowed Ground DLC installed.

Alternate ending now available.*
Six new items have spawned in crates. Some may be locked!
New areas will become accessible upon proper story triggers. Saves in Act Four will require a restart.

Special items from Hallowed Ground acquired (2).

1 × “The Vintage Vaporizer” Laser Rifle
5 × Vintage Rechargable Microspark Cell

*Accessing this ending is not guaranteed and may require multiple playthroughs.

Author's Note

Pic related.

(Sauce)

Several OCs featured belong to their respective owners. TheBobulator is not responsible for death, loss of limbs, injury, spontaneous combustion, and/or prizes. You knew what you were asking for.

Chapter 24: Can I kill him?

Chapter 24: Can I kill him?

“Ah, Pinkie, you have got to stop talking to yourself. Starting… now.”

“It could be worse, guy.”

“Could it?” Panting and my armor still riddled with buckshot, I collapsed onto the floor. “We should have stayed long enough to paste the other pegasus first.”

We’d had to pull back and find somewhere to hide—the second floor of some sort of food establishment called “Future Burger”. The floor we were on was populated with space-themed chairs and tables, periodically punctuated by a trash can or a condiment station. Cute place. Futurey. Burger-ey, too.

It didn’t seem like there would be anything good left to loot around here, because a good portion of the drink and burger menus had been spray-painted with “future pee” and “future poo”. That, and why would I ever expect to find anything in a building abandoned for two hundred years?

Riverbed encouragingly patted my head. “You could be on fire. I could, like, probably not have a face.” She conked her helmet and grinned, showing off the big cracked dent in the side.

“She should be on fire,” Violet queasily gasped, then collapsed by a nearby trash can. “I’m gonna be sick.”

Nodding, Riverbed agreed, “Yeah, I could be on fire. See? Could be worse.”

“I’m going to be dead. They’ll call for their backup and a platoon will be upon us like a dominatrix. I’m toast,” I babbled, mostly to myself. “I’m going to be toast, and they’ll have the butter waiting for me.”

“Like, I almost got my face relocated. Chill, guy.” It took a second of fumbling with the straps, but Riverbed managed to tug off her helmet. “Dayum. This thing was new, too. At least that’s three-fifty to replace instead of six-fifty for armor.”

“Breathe, Frosty. Don’t panic yet,” Gale hurriedly reassured me. “Everything is fine.”

“Everything is not fine,” I snapped. “They’ll know where we are. They’re going to capture me and probe my butt.”

Comfortingly, Gale massaged my neck. It didn’t make me feel any less panicked, but it made me more comfortable. “What could possibly be up your butt that the Enclave will want?”

“I don’t know!” I wailed, throwing myself on the ground face-first. “Isn’t that what they say happens to deserters?”

“I’m just gonna…” I heard Riverbed quietly sidle away, her voice becoming fainter with each scoot. “Just gonna fix my helmet over there, Guy.”

The hoof stroking my head vanished and the firm grasp of a claw replaced it. “Think of the bright side, wimp. If the Enclave bring their friends, that’s more targets to kill. It’s gonna be fun,” Toasty enthusiastically chuckled.

But I didn’t want to kill pegasi that were following orders! A hunting party was one thing, but a clueless squad of grunts was another. “Y-you don’t know that,” I unsteadily stammered.

“Not with that attitude.”

“What?”

There was the tell-tale whap of a wing meeting the back of a head. “You’re scaring her,” Gale chided. “And that doesn’t make sense, so shame on you.”

“Yeah? What’re ya gonna do about it?”

I tried my best to ignore the sounds of an airsick unicorn and failed miserably. “Could you possibly vomit any louder? I can barely hear myself complain.”

“I’m sorry you fly like a maniac. I can see why Tangerine has developed a fear of heights,” Violet shakily shot back. “Although n—” Whatever she was about to say was interrupted by a particularly violent dry heave.

Which also brought up an interesting question: “When did you even find time to eat?”

Violet looked a lot better now, to her credit. “When did you?” she snapped back, clambering off of the trash can and wiping her mouth with a little rag that she’d levitated from her ratty robes.

That was a pretty good question, actually.

“Uh—” I started, but a trio of little red bars that had appeared on my E.F.S. stole my attention instead. “Shh! We’ve been followed.”

“You’re dodging the question,” Violet muttered, but I didn’t have time to deal with her.

Thankfully, Riverbed was already done patching up her helmet. “Riverbed! Rivvie!” I hissed, waving her over. She squeezed her helmet back onto her head and trotted over, a slightly perturbed grin on her face. “Quiet. Lock and load.”

“Are the fuzz here?”

I slowly turned my head and muttered, “…What?”

An embarrassed blush lit up Riverbed’s face. “Uh, forgot who I was talking to, guy.”

There were a few windows that overlooked the street, so I pressed myself against the wall beside one of them to keep a lookout on the red dots. As I readied my laser rifle, I caught sight of the charge indicator light and reminded myself to keep an eye on it. After my little experience with S.A.T.S. with the rifle, I had a shadow of an idea how it worked. Just in case, I ejected the old microspark cell and replaced it with a new one. Whether or not they had charge was anypony’s guess, since there was no indicator on the outside.

It was also a good thing that Riverbed took her own initiative and set up shop at the top of the stairs, using one of the condiment stands as cover. She even had her shotgun pointed down the stairway for good measure. This was as secure as we could get, considering Violet really couldn’t do much in the combat department.

Speaking of which, Violet had collected a few of the tables and built a little bunker to hide in. Too bad all she was using it for was to read in relative safety. “Psst! Violet!” I hissed. “Do you have a sidearm?” Violet looked up and arched an eyebrow at me. She slowly levitated her book into view, gently shook it, then lowered it out of view to continue reading.

With a reply like that, I wasn’t going to share. My neglected submachine gun was going to be staying that way.

“It’s your funeral,” I muttered under my breath.

The shuffling of hooves and badly-muffled fluttering of wings made me begin paying attention to our surroundings again. It sounded like the two pegasi were around somewhere, but the other part of the group might have managed to get into the first floor while I was distracted.

“We’re not alone out here, guy,” Riverbed whispered at me through the radio.

I rolled my eyes. “Really? I didn’t realize,” I dryly responded.

Crunch.

Clack.

“Ow!” A female voice, slightly annoyed.

“Shh!” Angry rough male voice, sounded like the ghoul.

Scraape.

Shooting a glance at Riverbed, I realized that the window was less of a problem than what was downstairs. “What’s your stock on tac nades?” I lowly hissed.

“Smoke. Red smoke. Flares. Lucky HE nade.”

“Flashes?”

“Go fish.”

I blinked. “What.”

“Got any threes?”

“Now is not the time!” There were what, five of them? Only four of them were combat-effective, so at least we had that. They still had the advantage with their three shotguns in a close combat scenario. I had a shitty markspony laser and Riverbed had her own sawn-off and a plasma rifle. The second that the one with the PipBuck tracked down where us little red bars were hiding, we were dead.

If everything went to plan, dropping a smoke grenade to block the stairway might give us enough time to jump out of the window and cover our escape. “Stay quiet and wait for my go. Prep smoke.”

Riverbed stared right at me, shotgun in mouth and plasma rifle pointed down the stairs. “Me and what hooves, guy?”

“Just sit down and use them!“ If this upcoming kerfuffle didn’t kill her, I probably would out of sheer frustration.

Glancing down, she noticed the same thing. “Oh. Right.” She began to fumble with her gear, somehow managing to both keep watching and fail to locate her grenade.

I peeled myself away from the window and hovered to the opposite side of the stairs, allowing me to look directly at to the foot of the stairs—a blind spot that would go unnoticed because of Riverbed’s attention-attracting barricade.

The soft ping of a pin being removed meant Riverbed was prepared. “Ready, guy.”

“Pop smoke on my mark. Engage if you have a solution.” I alighted on the railing and aimed my rifle at the foot of the stairs. “One…”

Hesitantly, I pulled back the trigger on my rifle and felt the whole gun tremble as the capacitors charged up. Quickly glancing at the indicator light, I noticed that it actually switched from red to orange. “Two…”

Movement out of the corner of my eye made me whirl around, putting me nose-to-scythe with the unmaimed gray pegasus from earlier. There was something in her pale blue eyes that looked a lot like recognition. “Winds?” she breathed, frozen.

Without breaking eye contact, I shouted, “Wait!”

Right on cue, the pegasus was knocked out of the air by a violent projection of pre-war bits from Riverbed’s shotgun. Out of surprise and fright, I unloaded a laser bolt into the ceiling.

Note to self: figure out how to uncharge a shot.

Turning on Riverbed, I hissed, “I said wait!”

Riverbed let her shotgun fall from her mouth and dangle from its strap. “Oh, so now it doesn’t imply three,” she snarked.

That pegasus had recognized me, and there must have been a reason that she hadn’t killed me when I wasn’t paying attention. “No! I mean yes? You know what I mean!” I fluttered to her side and looked her over. Thankfully she had been sensible enough to have some kind of body armor, and the makeshift shotgun ammunition hadn’t penetrated it.

Angry stomping hoovsies from down below reminded me that her friends were probably not too happy. “Like, make up your mind.” Riverbed casually flicked the spoon off the smoke grenade in her open hoof and let it roll down the stairs. “To three or not to three, guy. It’s a number. Can you not, like, count to it?”

“Ceasefire! Ceasefire!” I shouted. Throwing all grace aside, I slapped the dusty gray pegasus across the face to try and snap her out of the impressively shocked state she was in. “Hey, call your buddies off. I want answers!” How did she know me? Why didn’t she take me down when she had the chance?

“Arc! Brass! I’m fine,” the gray pegasus coughed. She didn’t seem too badly hurt, but I still helped her to her hooves. “It’s okay.”

“You want plasma burns? This is how you get plasma burns,” Riverbed taunted—presumably at the ponies down below.

“No! No plasma burns! Riverbed, stop it.”

“Are we damn friendsies, then? Yeah? Let us up these damn stairs and we can talk.” It was the female voice again, but I couldn’t place any distinguishing accent. “Or did you mean ‘talk’, as in how you talked to Shroud?”

“He was asking for it!” I defensively shot back.

It was silent, and for a frightening moment I realized I shouldn’t have said that. “Okay, I can sort of see your damn point. He’s got a sort of slappable face,” the voice jovially replied.

Oh good, she had a sense of humor. I firmly stated to Riverbed, “No disintegrations. Let ‘em up, but be prepared for anything.” Letting them up would at least give us the upper hoof if it came time to turn them into paste. Their numbers should count for naught in the stairwell.

Riverbed stared down the stairs, then shot me a questioning look. “Whatever you say, guy.” She took a few steps back and sardonically waved her hoof forward, inviting the other ponies up. “Ast thou pleases, lady and hog jerky. Thy employer awaits.”

The mare with the broken shotgun appeared, aforementioned weapon strapped to her back. For a nearly safety-orange unicorn, I wasn’t really sure how I managed to miss her. It did bother me that her double-barreled shotgun was actually two shotguns glued together and their pumps merged into one super-pump. Or something.

And then there was the walking pile of meat also known as a ghoul. Again, armed with a shotgun and just as ill-mannered as the mare he was following.

“She tastes like bacon / There’s no mistakin’,” Riverbed began to sing. “From the lovin’ to the oven / Yeah you know what I’m ba—” She abruptly stopped head-bobbing when she finally noticed the murderous look the ghoul was giving her. “What? Too soon?”

“That’s insensitive,” it growled.

Riverbed rolled her eyes. “At least I didn’t use the word ‘crispy’, guy. Touchy.”

On the other hoof, the mare was a lot more worried about the gray pegasus on the floor. “Name’s Brass. Bodyguard, all-around the damned best gun toting badass,” she snapped at me. “And gun for hire, but I’m on contract right now.”

“I like her,” Riverbed giddily whispered to me. “Like, reminds me of me.”

The gray pegasus weakly raised a wing and flapped it. “Blue Jay. Fastest clay duck in the Wasteland. Ow.” The wing flopped back to the floor and Brass rushed to her side.

“I’m Arclight Spanner. Back in my day, you reckless mares would have been flogged for reckless endangerment.” The gravelly grating of the ghoul finally made me take a better look at him. At the time, I’d dismissed him as an earth pony ghoul, but now I noticed the meaty chunks on his back—wings!

So this group had three pegasi, did it? That was no coincidence. “What’s the bounty on me then? Still paying in bits or is it caps now?”

“What in the damn blazes are you talking about?” Brass demanded.

It was a good thing that Riverbed had her guns ready, since Brass didn’t dare risk taking another step. “Don’t try to hide it. The Enclave loves to make Wastelanders do their cleanup work. It’s all about payback, isn’t it?”

“Enclave? Buck the damn Enclave. No, what we’d like is some damn payback for what you damn mercs did to Shade. There’s a damn hole through his damn leg!” Brass continued yelling about revengeance or whatever, but something about what she’d said caught my attention instead.

“We were just passing through, Winds,” Blue Jay coughed.

Buck the Enclave? But…

Pushing the more pressing issue aside, I asked, “Wait, did you just use ‘damn’ several times in one sentence?”

“What’s the damn problem?”

My hooves flew to my mouth. “Luna’s grace, you also have a speech impediment. That’s adorable.” It was more likely she simply liked to curse and swear, but I liked my interpretation better. Out of excitement, I tapped Riverbed and squealed, “I found your soulmate.”

“Guy. I’m touched,” Riverbed breathed, a tear glinting in her eye. “We could, like, totally be besties.”

I heard the ghoul to my left let out a groan of exasperation and shout, “Why are we even talking about this?” By the time I had turned to address him, he was already halfway to me in mid-lunge. “You’re going to pay for what you did to Shade!”

Meat Stallion body checked me and tackled me to the ground before my brain caught up to what was happening. I tried to get up, throw a punch, kick, do anything to fight back but I was thoroughly pinned underneath an undead body. I snapped and struggled as the ghoul rotated his body and pointed his auto-shotgun at my face.

I watched the belt feed of shells advance and I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the end.

It didn’t come.

At least Rumcake would have one less thing to worry about if my face got redecorated.

X~~~X

So far, everything was going exactly as planned. Sodapony hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary yet—besides her offhoof comment of “You’re looking a lot better”—and Frosty’s little coltfriend was neatly tied around my hoof. Hopefully that was me being the suave little changeling I was and not me breaking Frosty’s character.

Speaking of which, the paladin himself trotted alongside of the bedroll I was lounging on. “Hey, quick question: where did you go with Sparkle last night?”

To my annoyance, in the time that I had replaced Frosty we still hadn’t left Stronghold except for a quick jaunt to the most defended whorsehouse in the Wasteland. “I’m honestly not sure. I let Sparkle carry me around because I got too drunk to fly.” In truth, I used that excuse to try and reforge a new friendship with her. Crazy was possible for me to pull off, but not Frosty-grade insanity. “Why?”

Rumcake popped off his helmet and dropped it next to me, sighing, “Sparkle caught balefire crotch.” I winced and shuddered just thinking about it. “She can’t stop scratching, and last I checked she was basically humping everything for relief.”

“Ew.” A fate worse than death, perhaps.

Similarly, the stallion by me shifted on his butt. “Yeah. Her bits glow a little, which is sort of funny.”

Suddenly, I developed an irrational fear for my own privates. “Wait. Do you have balefire crotch?” Getting balefire crotch would be doubly shitty for me and both of my genitals, morphed away or not.

Taken aback, Rumcake instantly denied it with a resounding, “No! Of course not!” We stared at each other in stunned silence until he asked, “D-do you?”

Pumping a little bit of mesmer into my gaze, I snapped, “No, and don’t ask stupid questions.”

“I—I’m sorry. I was just checking?” For a split second, Rumcake’s eyes flashed green, a sign that he had accepted the suggestion. “Just, uh—making sure that Sparkle didn’t hump you as well. Yeah.”

And then on the off topic of sex, “Real talk. What kind of pony goes ‘yep’ during sex? I mean, come on!” It had been nearly impossible for me to siphon his love earlier just because it was so distracting, but suffering through it had left me so happily stuffed with love that I couldn’t move. And, heh, stuffed with something else.

“Habit.”

“Well, stop it.” With a lot more force in my mesmer, I insisted, “I’m sure you can get over it.” I didn’t want to risk burning him out too quickly, but I really couldn’t handle his yep’ing every time I wanted to do it.

This time, Rumcake actually shuddered and blinked. “Uh, yeah. I could get over it.”

“Excellent.” I reached out and stroked his chin. “Now come here and cuddle.”

X~~~X

“HELLO.”

My eyes snapped open. Time around me had frozen—Riverbed was in mid-lunge, Brass and Blue were stuck shouting, Violet was… well, being Violet. “Am I dead?”

“YOU’RE HAVING A NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE.” Mort the skele-pony sort of glided to the ghoul’s side and tugged the shotgun’s belt feed backward just a bit. “Also, I’m dropping by to give you a convenience call. Time’s running out.”

Even if time wasn’t moving, that didn’t mean I could comically pick up the ghoul on top of me and leave. “I don’t know what to do, guy.” Catching myself, I groaned, “Aaugh, I’m turning into Riverbed.”

“YOU’VE NEARLY RUINED EVERYTHING I HAD PLANNED BECAUSE YOU’RE JUST SO SLOOOOW.” Comically, his intoning, echoing voice raised to a whining pitch. “YOU’RE NOT EVEN GOING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION ANYMORE BECAUSE YOU SPLIT OFF WITH YOUR OTHER GROUP.”

Fixing my gaze on the skelepony, I growled, “I’m working on it.”

The little motes of light in Mort’s skull slowly drifted toward me. “Are you sure? I mean—”

“I’ve got it under control,” I firmly snapped.

Mort glided backward and sagely nodded. “If you say so.”

Then I noticed that he wasn’t wearing his dumb green suit anymore. “Hey, whatever happened with your jury duty or whatever it was, anyhow?”

“What? When did I…?” The lights in his eyes suddenly shrank in realization and he quickly snapped, “SAY NO MORE. THE FUTURE IS NOT TO BE MEDDLED WITH.”

“Huh? But I thought—”

“I AM NOT BOUND BY YOUR PERCEPTIONS OF TIME. I mean, ponies die every minute. How else do you think I do my job?”

I dumbly laid on the ground and cautiously answered, “Uh… quickly?”

“No, not—well, okay I’ll give you that one. Do you want the long version or the short version?”

“Short.”

“I am a time traveling skeleton in a cloak. And I sometimes collect souls.”

I blinked. “You know what, I can live with that explanation. So, the last conversation I had with you… hasn’t happened yet?”

“THAT, OR IT HAPPENED SO LONG AGO I NO LONGER REMEMBER IT.” A tiny pocket watch on a gold chain appeared in midair, urgently ticking at Mort. “I HAVE TIME AT MY WHIMS BUT I CANNOT DELAY MEETING WITH THE IN-LAWS. The clock is ticking, friend. Good-day, Frostivus Kay Winds.”

“Wait!” I reached out toward the edge of his departing cloak. “Before you go, can you raise your hooves in the air and cry, ‘nyaah’?”

“…why?”

With the assistance of Filly Frosty, I channeled the most adorable face I could muster. “Pweeease?”

Mort heaved an airy sigh. “Frosty, I have things to do. Maybe another time.” He promptly vanished from sight without another word.

Of course, that meant time caught up to me. Ghouley’s shotgun instantly jammed, and Riverbed knocked him off of me before he had a chance to fix it. The other two ponies screamed something or other—I didn’t catch much of it. Hysteria broke out a breath later when Riverbed slammed herself down on top of the ghoul’s chest and started to whale into it. Brass dashed in to break up the fight, but Blue decided to limp over to me instead.

“Winds, you’ve got a weird idea of company.”

The free-for-all brawl across from us had escalated enough so that Violet abandoned her bunker and joined us in spectating. “How do you know my name?” I asked her, adding a doubtful glance in her direction.

“Don’t you remember?

“No. My brain isn’t as good as it used to daisy sandwich.”

Blue tilted her head. “I was an assistant for a one Captain—ah, it’s old news. I know it was a while ago and we didn’t really talk so much as interact, but—”

<~~~>

Ugh, not again.

I found myself standing in a semi-circular conference room in front of five other pegasi. Four of them were seated at the nicely polished wood table in the center of the room, while the fifth stood slightly behind one on the left. The insignia on their collars were very high-ranking, which began to worry me.

The standing pony was none other than Blue Jay, sporting a uniform about a size too small and looking nervously uncomfortable. Her light blue mane did actually look a lot better in a bun rather than the giant braid she had it in earlier. Why was she here?

There was a sigh from my left. “Thankfully, the surgery has not appeared to have left any lasting effects. Nopony will notice the scar once her mane grows back in a slight bit more.” I couldn’t see the pony speaking because he was standing next to me, and I couldn’t turn to look for whatever reason. Out of the corner of my eye I could tell he had a pale orange coat from the shade of his nose. “However, we’ve run into a… slight… snag.”

“Stars above, you better not have burned through your funding already.” One on the left—a second lieutenant—snapped, leaned forward and slammed his hoof on the table. For some strange reason, I couldn’t make out anything about him. Focusing on him only created a fog that obscured him further. “Again.”

“No, it’s… we haven’t been able to work flexibility into the initiative. She’s good at following orders, but figures of speech will go right over her head,” the pony to my left answered.

Taking that cue, I glanced upward. One of them chuckled in response.

“That, or she might try to do it literally,” the decidedly sciencey pony to my left sighed.

A captain who was sitting on the right side of the table calmly drawled, “How does this affect the initiative moving forward?” Just like last time, trying to make out anything about him only made him blur more. Leaning back, he slapped the pony standing behind him. “Staff Sergeant Jay, make a note to grab expenditure sheets.” She nodded and did exactly that, fishing a small notepad out from somewhere.

“Uh…” Lefty pony nervously clopped his hooves together. “Out of our current pool of subjects, Ms. Winds is the first who hasn’t lost cognitive functions post-operation. We’re working on re-imprinting her again, which has set us back by several weeks. We know the program works so it shouldn’t be much of a problem.”

Secondey pulled a small stack of papers toward himself and leafed through one specific file. “What’s keeping us from using the Batch Three list? I mean, some of these recruits are pretty good. This Dust Devil looks like a good contender.” Tossing that aside, he picked up another one and glanced at it. “Even this Tailwind pony looks great.”

“We haven’t even started on psych evals yet, not to mention clearance or issues of red tape,” Lefty insisted.

“Is it safe to discuss in front of her? I mean, this is much higher than her pay grade will ever be,” the captain interrupted.

“For all she knows, she’s asleep in the janitor’s closet. We conditioned her to associate a song to sleep.” I felt a tap on my nose, courtesy of Lefty. “See?”

“Is she working right now?” a first lieutenant cautiously asked from the left side of the table. “As in, er, you know…”

“She should. She hasn’t said a peep, and that’s a sure sign she’s still receptive,” Lefty replied.

Reclining backward, the captain ordered, “I want a demonstration.”

Lefty gently tapped the back of my head. “Well, first we’ll have to make sure she knows that she can take orders from you.” On cue, I turned my head and blankly stared at Lefty. He was the shining example of what every science nerd strove to be—thick-framed glasses, unkempt coarse red hair, and eyes that didn’t entirely know what the definition of teamwork was. “Frosty, you are to take orders from Captain Silver Lining.”

I looked at the captain again and was strangely reminded of bananas. Odd. “Negative,” I emotionlessly droned.

Lefty sighed. “Hang on, I can do this. Frosty, Captain Lining is cleared to issue orders to you. Because he’s a captain. And he outranks you.”

All I apparently managed was an even more blank stare. I could feel the dead fish look starting to seep in.

Firstie scooted a little closer. “Is something wrong with her?”

“Think of Frosty like a cat. She obviously understands what she’s told, but sometimes she doesn’t know what to do about it.” Lefty pulled a little flashlight out of the front of his lab coat and shined it in one eye, then the other. “Or she’s lazy.” He frustratedly grabbed me by my collar and mashed his face into my chest. “Why do you do this to me? Why, why, why?”

I heard Captain Lining hum to himself, then dictate, “Airpony Winds, this is Staff Sergeant Blue Jay. I am ordering you to obey her commands. Do you understand?”

Immediately, I turned myself to face him and saluted. “Yes sir.”

At my side, Lefty sounded like he was having an aneurysm. “Go on.” The captain slapped Blue’s flank and gestured at me.

Still looking a bit flustered, Blue trotted around the table and firmly planted herself in front of me. “Okay, Airpony Winds. We’re going to run parade drills.” She cleared her throat, then yelled, “Atten-shun!”

I planted all four hooves on the ground and clicked them together.

“Left face!”

Dutifully, I took a step with my right hooves and pivoted, putting me facing left.

“Right face!”

I reversed the steps and complied. More orders trickled in and I followed them to the dot.

“Left face! Left face! About face! Right face! About face!”

Captain chuckled and clapped. “That’s good, that’s good. Make it harder!”

Blue coughed and took a breath. “By the numbers. Left face.”

Following the rules, I didn’t do anything. I simply stood there and waited for the numbers to come in.

“One.”

I took the first step with my hoof and kept it there, waiting.

“Two.”

I pivoted on the spot.

“Three.”

And then I clicked my hooves together again.

“At ease, Winds.”

“As you were, sir!” I shouted back.

This time, Secondey muttered, “That usually gets the recruits.”

Seemingly having recovered, Lefty added, “Frosty should do everything by the book. Unfortunately, that also limits operational flexibility.”

“I am entertained.” Captain chuckled. “I’ve seen enough. If it’s funds you need, by all means you’ll have them.”

Taking the cue, Blue said, “Cancel by the numbers. At ease, Winds.” Then she quietly added, “Okay, how do you make her stop?”

“Uh… cancel parade drills?” Lefty suggested. “I’d dismiss Frosty, but that might actually make her return to whatever she was doing before.”

Firsty called out, “Sudo follow me.”

I fixed my dead fish gaze on him and took one step forward. “Yes sir. Take the lead.”

Bolting upright, Firsty exclaimed, “Oh shit, that worked.”

“What?” Lefty gaped at him.

“Took a programming class in Penguin for credits back in academy.” Firsty scooted out of his chair and trotted toward the door, which I desperately tried to follow but the table kept getting in my way.

“…Why does that work? What did you do?” Lefty trotted to the table and shoved papers everywhere. “I could have sworn… uh, I’ll uh, I’ll work on it.”

“Come along, Airpony Winds. Let’s march thirty laps into the electric fence.”

“Yes sir.”

<~~~>

I came out of the memory with a lurching gasp, and a wave of nausea washed over me. My head hurt, and it was more from disorientation rather than how confused I was by what I had seen. “That was way too many revelations in a very short amount of time. I-I need a minute to think.” I unsteadily tottered to one of the chairs and sat down in it, throwing my head into my hooves.

Hooves clopped closer and stopped. “Uh, what now, guy? You okay?”

“I need time to think,” I groaned into the table. “Leave me alone.” Curiously enough, the fight had died down and its contenders were recovering.

Somewhere farther away, I think I heard Blue ask, “Not to ruin this beautiful moment you’re having, but why does the bathroom door have ‘THE FUTURE’ sprayed on it?”

~~~~~

Somehow, Riverbed had managed to defuse the situation and managed to convince the other group to depart without much more than a few caps and healing potions to make it up to their injured friend. The memory from earlier was still bothering me, and it wouldn’t stop nagging at the back of my mind. It bothered me more that they weren’t even after the Enclave bounty, if it existed anyway. Riverbed insisted nothing was wrong, but I had a nagging feeling that I hadn’t seen the last of them.

“I’m still mad you beat the ghoul up with his own jaw bone.”

Riverbed guffawed and snorted. “Aw, guy—you should have seen his friend! She was like, ‘that’s not physically possible’, guy, as I was beating him off with his own jaw.”

The sound of pages flipping abruptly stopped and Violet asked, “Beating him up, you mean?”

“Sure, sure.”

Changing the subject, I grumbled, “Does anypony actually know where we’re going?”

Before I had even finished saying that, Violet answered, “Check your map.”

The only way I managed to accomplish that was randomly cycling through functions until I stumbled onto it. “Yeah, I don’t know what I’m doing in here.” All I managed to do was zoom the map all the way into the far right corner and get stuck there.

Riverbed gave me a nudge. “Guy, don’t you read? We’re here.” To prove it, Riverbed pointed at the worn sign I was standing right next to, then at the small fenced complex behind it.

The cracked stone stairs led up into a squat two-story building overrun with dead shrubbery all over the walls. “Wait, where’s Violet?” I slowly realized, since there was suddenly only two of us out here.

“Oh, she went inside while you were playing with your PipBuck,” Riverbed smartly replied, almost happily so.

Great. Just great. Now I had to go find her and figure out why we were here in the first place. With Riverbed—predictably—at my rear, I made sure my claw-shotgun was still loaded and then tromped into the dark, frightening, cold dark darkness full of dark. And debris.

A shrill wail from inside cut into my heart, a guttural moaning echoed through the deserted halls, and my blood froze solid.

…And full of scary monsters.

If I wasn’t the badass mare I was, I would’ve peed myself a little. “Nope. Nope. Abort field trip. Nope. Nuh-uh,” Riverbed blurted, her hooves clopping on the weathered hardwood. “I will murder for fifty bits and a can of corn. I’ll do your dirty work for one hundred and an ice cream bar. But no way in fifty thousand shades of hay am I going to fight creepy deaky ghosty things. Nuh uh.”

Thanks to Riverbed, I was getting a little unnerved as well. “It’s… uh… the wind. Yeah, it’s probably just the wind or something.”

This time, a series of echoing sobs and cries made the two of us throw all sanity out the window and cling to each other. “Okay, maybe you have a point,” I whimpered. “Screw this place.” The feel of a pair of hooves sliding down my back then shoved me back to reality. “And stop feeling me up!” I regained my senses and pushed her away; she wouldn’t stop trying to grope my butt through my armor.

Gale strolled into view and chuckled. “Like it or not, you still have to go find Violet.”

“What do you mean by, like, you, guy?” Riverbed demanded. “You’re coming with me, like it or not.”

Creepy abandoned building? Crying noises? If we had an evil-banishing camera, then we’d have the winning combination for a horror game. Or movie. More importantly, why had Riverbed even answered Gale in the first place? That was directed at me, wasn’t it? “I’ll wait right here and cry in a corner, thank you very much.” Then pointing at Gale, I added, “And you shut your trap! You know how scared I am!”

“Guy, there’s nopo—oh, right.” Catching herself, Riverbed nervously pranced in place and peered into the darkness “C’mon, guy. We can do it, right?”

I groaned. The last weird creepy building that I had been in was a surreal enough experience for me, especially with the epic mass hallucinations. “Okay, if you start seeing freaky things then we’re leaving. Violet can probably take care of herself,” I responded while trying my best to gather my courage.

While I was doing that, Riverbed asked, “What about you, guy?”

A few calming breaths later, and I was ready to take the plunge into a dark and probably haunted research facility. “I think we both know that my mental health is invalid. For all I know you’re a figment of my imagination and this is actually some sort of post-apocalyptic alternate universe that I’ve made for myself.”

“If it is, then this is a shitty AU. It, like, doesn’t even have smut,” Riverbed nervously chuckled, readying her own weapons.

There was a certain possibility that I could use my submachine gun, but I couldn’t be bothered with finding it. “Let’s sweep from room to room. Violet couldn’t have gotten far.” That was the best I could come up with, since my E.F.S. wasn’t going to tell me anything useful. My collar told me otherwise, because it was nearly searing hot.

Riverbed began to say something in response, but I didn’t catch it. The sensation of something violently pulling on my burning collar made me scream in fright. My stomach twisted, my vision flashed white, my breath caught in my throat, and then I met the floor at a particularly high speed.

“Oh, so you finally made it.” Scratching noises from somewhere to my left gave me an idea of who was responsible. “Took you long enough.”

“Thank you, Violet,” I barely managed to choke out, hopefully in the direction her voice was coming from.

As I stumbled to my hooves, desperately trying not to vomit from the forced teleportation, the crying echo came back again. That got my head back in the game in an instant, and I blinked away the stars in my eyes. I had been forcibly relocated into the doorway of some kind of dark, dank, musty old storage room. Violet seemed to be more absorbed in rifling through one of the many bins of notebooks and paper in the room.

Without even turning around to reply, she mentioned, “Don’t worry about that, he’s mostly harmless. Just help me find Professor Double Check’s notes.” Either she had known what I was going to ask, or she was just being obnoxious as usual.

Hold on a second! “What do you mean by he’s harmless?”

“Yeah, there’s a colt stuck in a bear trap.”

“What?”

“Mhm.”

“Is he okay?”

“He’s stuck in a bear trap.”

“That literally answers nothing.”

Violet let out an exasperated sigh. “It’s only his leg, and you’ve demonstrated that meat limbs are not only optional but fashionably outdated.” She gestured at the far end of the room. “Could you check over there? I’m getting the feeling that this place is organized by department rather than alphabetical or decimal.”

That sounded like a lot of work, but there was only one way to escape from all this paperwork. “I’ll go help what’s-his-face then. Where’s lucky mister bear trap?”

This time, gesturing with a floating box lid, Violet dryly responded, “Out, around the corner, past the stairs; you’ll know when you see him.”

So I did exactly that, sidestepping rubble and only losing my way once, because “around the corner” was a vague expression when it came to a three-way junction. I finally stumbled upon the navy-blue unicorn face-first on the floor, his right hind leg firmly clamped in a heavy-looking bear trap. It looked like it had been covered up with something to act as a trap, because there was a dead ghoul leaning against the end of the hall with a quite shiny curved knife thing tantalizingly buried in it.

The stallion began whimpering again, and I realized that all the noise had been coming from him. “Oh good, this one can’t get away,” Toasty snickered. Apparently she had snickered just loud enough, because Trappy the unicorn sat up and sort of spun around to face us. Although for the record, he looked perfectly average for a stallion and not actually like a trap.

“Are you gonna help me out of this thing or are you gonna continue staring like a twat?”

Toasty trotted around the stallion, examining him. “Mmm. You smell like my new best friend,” she purred, nudging his black cowpony’s hat to sniff his ear.

Curiously enough, all Trappy was wearing was some sort of ballistic vest-looking thing tucked full of smaller razor-sharp knife things. “I can give you something else to smell if you don’t shut your trap and help me out here.”

Whatever. “Well, with an attitude like that, I don’t think I want to help you.” It didn’t seem like there were any other traps around, so I got closer so that I could pop open his saddlebags. “And especially with your dumb purple mane. You look like a disaster. It doesn’t go with your hat or your eyes.”

Besides his hat and his knives, he wasn’t wearing anything else, so his sun and moon cutie mark was showing. What kind of cutie mark was that, anyway? Gale appeared next to me and examined the stallion’s butt. “Maybe it’s a tattoo?” And it was attached to a very nice butt, as well.

“Hey! What are you doing back there?” I wasn’t going to bother wondering why this unicorn didn’t just free himself, but free loot was free loot.

“Seein’ if you’ve got anything good in here.” The answer to that question was a resounding no. “What are you even going to do with this many bladed implements? Is that a fire axe or are you happy to see me?” I began to pull weapon after weapon out of his saddlebags, getting more and more confused with each item. Combat knives, little retractable knives, even a few of the cute little flippy knives that griffons had sometimes. “Dude, why do you even need all of these?” I extracted a particularly long serrated one and gasped, “Oooh, I like this one.”

“That’s a bread knife!”

I continued to hold it, then I cocked my head at it. “Seriously? That’s a pretty serious weapon to carve up some baked wheat.”

“Who said it was for carving baked wheat?”

I blankly stared at him. “Uh, you did.”

Suddenly, Toasty returned to my side and begged, “Hey, can he be our new best friend? Please?”

Just like me, Gale gaped at Toasty. “Wait, you were serious?” Gale asked.

Toasty excitedly nodded. “Yuh.”

“Uh.” I looked at the stallion, then her again. “I mean, we could always use more ponies on our team.”

“Who are you talking to?” Trappy nervously asked as he twisted his head back and forth, trying to get a better look at me.

“Aw, he’s cute,” Gale cooed. “He’s like an injured little puppy.”

Oh, I needed a name from him. “What’s your name?”

“Midnight.”

Seriously? Of all the stallions to run into in the entire Wasteland, it was one with a strangely edgy name? “Okay, that’s dumb. You’re gonna stay being Trappy,” I insisted.

“You mean I’m gonna stay trapped or are you naming me Trappy?”

Keeping him trapped wasn’t a terrible idea, and it seemed like he had enough random junk on him to sell for caps. “Well, let’s go for a bit of column A and a little of column B.” I mused, staring at his hat. “Depends. How attached are you to that cowpony’s hat of yours?”

“What?”

“You’re right. How about you owe your life to me and call it even? That hat’s barely worth anything anyway.”

“What? No!” A few weak sparks burst from Trappy’s horn and he winced.

“Okay, whatever then. Have fun in your trap if you think you’re fine on your own.” I shrugged and continued to dig through his saddlebags regardless. “Just be careful when you free yourself or else you’ll bleed out when the teeth come out. Oh, and don’t forget to set your leg afterward—that’s definitely at least fractured.”

Trappy dejectedly glanced at his stuck leg and then at me. “Can you please help me?”

“No, because you have a stupid name!” I burst out, gesturing with some kind of bayonet-looking thing I had found tucked away with three others, each painted in a different camouflage pattern. “I mean, what sort of parent names their foal ‘Midnight’? It’s like somepony naming their foal ‘Tangerine’, or ‘Rumcake’, or ‘Violet Dusk’. Do you dirt-munchers actually just have a thing about dumb names?”

“What?”

A grin crept onto my muzzle. “Say what, one more time.”

I heard Gale facehoof. “Don’t you say it,” she warned.

“W-why?” Trappy stammered again.

I loudly sighed and groaned, “You’re supposed to say 'what' again.”

“Why?”

All I wanted to do was make a dumb joke and he’d ruined it beyond salvaging. “Can I kill him?”

“No. Stop.” Gale gently sandwiched my head between her hooves.“Stop trying to kill everypony we meet. You’re making a bad impression. How about I’ll help him out of the trap and you can angst with all his dark and edgy knives.”

Begrudgingly, I agreed and let Gale take over. She warmly smiled at Trappy and approached the bear trap clamped to his leg. “Okay Trappy, I’m going to try opening the trap. If it hurts too much we can stop if you’d like.” She placed our claw on the inner edge of one side and wedged our armored hoof into the remaining space. “I’ll start on three. Ready?”

Trappy hesitantly stared at us, then at the hunk of metal around his leg. “How about you not call me that? Just because I don’t have any magic left in me right now doesn’t mean I can’t shiv you.”

“Seeing as Frosty refuses to call you Midnight, I think we can compromise with ‘Middy’.” Gale shifted her stance and took a deep breath. “I’m going to open the trap now. Don’t move to suddenly—can you do that?”

“Mhm,” Tra—er, Middy whimpered and grit his teeth.

Gale grimaced. “Three.” She began to pry the jaws of the trap apart, and she was desperately trying not to stare at the blood and flesh sticking to the metal.

Of course, Middy screamed bloody murder and begged Gale to stop. It was a lot of incoherent pain noises, but I did catch my personal favorite a second before it started—“I mean really w…ho the buck starts at threeaaaaauuugh!” Gale didn’t stop pulling until the trap was nearly all the way open.

“Carefully move your leg—and use both of your hooves, quickly!” Gale commanded. It wasn’t hard to keep the trap open thanks to the power armor, but the two of us were getting a little annoyed by the mewling whimpering coming from Middy. When he didn’t budge, Gale rolled our eyes, sighed, and sarcastically despaired, “Oh no, I’m losing my grip.”

That got him moving, and he hastily—and much faster than he should have—heaved his leg out of the way with a pained scream. The bear trap snap shut and we plopped down on our haunches. “Whew, thanks for the help. What was your name?” He hissed in pain and clutched at his oozing leg.

“My name is Gale. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Midnight.” Gale flashed him a wry grin and continued, “Actually, I shouldn’t have introduced myself like that. Frosty would have preferred ‘My name is Frosty. Winds, Frosty,’ then realize she’d quoted it wrong again.”

If she wasn’t actually right, I would have snapped at her about it.

Middy gave me a weird pained look. “You wouldn’t happen to have a healing potion or a whisky or whatever, would you?”

Gale glanced at the stallion’s oozing, slightly crooked leg. “Perhaps we should set that first.” Why was she even being so nice to him? I mentally prodded her to stop immediately. “Hmph, Frosty doesn’t like me talking to you. Good luck with her, but I shall be a moment’s away if you need me.”

I was unceremoniously dumped back into control of my body and I nearly face-planted into the stallion’s exposed crotch. “Okay, fine. Since Gale likes you so much, let’s settle it at ‘you owe me your life’ and now you get to be my new butt slave forever.”

“…Butt slave? ‘Splain.”

“Well, our group is currently made of three mares. Adding you not only brings balance back to the force but also gender equality,” I smartly replied. “That, and I need a new stallion to call my own anyway.”

“I’m not going to be a slave!” A long-bladed, heavy knife appeared in Middy’s mouth, drawn from the sheath strapped to one of his forelegs. It had a forward bend at the halfway point, and the front of the blade had a huge leaf-shaped head to it. I nonchalantly slapped it away with my claw before the swing connected. Still, he defiantly yelled, “What makes you think I’ll listen to you anyway?”

Rolling my eyes, I grunted, “Fine, I’ll at least fix your leg. Can’t see why you can’t just walk it off. That enough for you?”

“Eat a dick sandwich,” Middy spat.

I brushed it off with a huff. “That’s not even your line.”

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Unquestioning Loyalty – Orders given to you by a party leader grant you a bonus to combat skills.
Current Sub-perk: Diplomacy – Remember thy Charlamane. You gain +8 to Speech.

Author's Note

This chapter was almost literally a nightmare to put together, write, rewrite, fix, then rewrite again. Sorry about not making the publish date as usual, but you can blame Unknownlight for that. Also if you noticed this chapter was shorter than normal, you can thank him for that too.

Chapter 25: Did we just jump the shark?

Chapter 25: Did we just jump the shark?

“I did everything I could think of to change the future. But it didn't work.”

Whether he liked it or not, Middy was coming with me. Hauling him back to the supply closet that Violet was playing in was a challenge in of itself, but I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Like most movement-impaired ponies, he didn’t try to scamper away while I dragged him along behind me. He hadn’t even thanked me for making a splint for his leg!

I finally made it back to my favorite unicorn and propped my brand new friend up against the wall by the door. While doing so, I noticed the little placard barely hanging onto the wall that read “013 Records Room”. If dirt-themed universities were anything like higher education complexes in cloudland, that meant we were in the basement.

Oh yeah, and we needed to find Riverbed again.

Hopefully she was okay.

As I pondered, Gale appeared next to Middy and examined his leg. “Riverbed’s a grown mare,” she replied. “I’m sure she can handle herself.”

“She’s in it for the money. Is she even going to bother waiting for us? I already paid her, too.”

A cardboard box skidded out of the room past me. It was quickly followed by a second, a third, then a fourth. Violet trotted out, a sort of amused grin on her face. She was still nose-deep in her book, and several others hovered nearby while open to specific pages. She hadn’t taken notice of me yet.

“Hey, Vi-vi! Can we keep him?” I called out cheerfully to the unicorn. The only reply I got back was a tug on my wing, then a much stronger tug that dislodged a feather. “Ow!” I flinched back. “What is your problem?! How do you go through these so quickly?” The stolen feather floated by in Violet’s magic and into her robes.

“Follow me. I found a citable source for my research, and I need you to make sure he’s not rabid.”

“What about Middy?” I wasn’t going to let him just roam around on his own, seeing as he was now indebted to me forever. He didn’t even look anywhere close to being grateful that I’d saved him. Currently, he was scowling at me. “C’mon, butt slave, don’t give me that look,” I groaned.

Middy’s horn sparked once or twice, and he winced. “Stop calling me that.”

“Do we give him the bondage treatment or what?” I eyed him up and considered what I had to tie him up with.

“I don’t care. As long as one of you wants to tag along, it doesn’t matter.” Violet began to trot down the hall, boxes sliding along behind her like a line of ducklings and the books similar to a descending mob of angry bloatflies.

Fixing Middy with a suspicious glare, I asked, “What are your thoughts on nylon rope? Out of ten.” There was an off chance that I had some form of binding material somewhere, but I was going to be courteous since Gale seemed to like him.

“Ten being the most irritating?”

Wasn’t that a given? “Yeah, of course.”

“Eight point six seven,” Middy instantly replied.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “And you know that because…?”

“Uh.”

With an answer like that, I didn’t want to hear any more. “Well, stay close or I’ll have to chop your other legs off,” I remarked nonchalantly. No rope meant no bondage, so I pushed Middy onto his hooves and followed after Violet.

Down and down we went, down dark stairwells, down deserted halls, until we reached a steel-reinforced door with big sliding bolts locking it shut. A wall-mounted terminal was attached to its right, along with a small card reader.

The three of us stopped and silently stared at the door. Violet began to flip through her book for something. Middy trotted to the door and kicked it once. “Looks like it’s locked. Now what?”

A dumb idea came to mind. “Open pistachio!” I declared at the door, obviously with no result. When I turned my head to glance at Violet, I caught the disapproving glare coming from Middy. “What? I read it in a book. Vi-vi, back me up here.”

“It’s ‘open sesame’, Frosty,” Violet sighed. She apparently found what she was looking for in her book and approached to terminal to activate it. A little shiny thing fluttered out of her book and magically affixed to my nose. “Gold star for trying.”

Peeling the thing away with a talon, I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was. It was indeed a small shiny golden star that had been stuck to my nose. “I was close. It was some kind of nut, so I guessed.” Carefully, I took the sticker and affixed it next to the moon on Middy’s butt. Perfect.

Just as the sticker adhered, Middy edged away and whirled on me. I did my best to withdraw my claw and pretend to innocently examine it. He seemingly didn’t notice, but he still told me, “Sesame is a type of seed. You should know that because you’re half bird.”

I gasped and theatrically clutched my heart. “Ouch. And everypony thinks I’m the racist barn here. The nerve. My feelings are so hurt that I’m going to make me feel better by eating away my problems.” Still maintaining my dramatic tone, I announced, “Come to me, my unhealthy carrot-shaped chips.”

Once again, Violet and her infinite wisdom knew better than I did. “Stable-Tec brand preserved foods actually retain up to ninety five percent of their nutrients, as per the industry standard. It may be surprising to you, but even after balefire radiation they shouldn’t lose much more than ten percent through the power of preservatives as well.”

At least now I knew that meant binge-eating carrot chips was counterproductive. “What about my cherry snack cakes?”

Several pages flipped and I got an answer quite promptly. “You’re getting about five thousand percent of your daily sugar intake and about four percent of your fruit group. And something like twelve percent of grains as well. Let’s not mention the preservatives actually in the cakes as well. Zero point one—rather, zero point zero six grams of asbestos, which is slightly amusing,” Violet smugly responded.

That was more like it. “And that’s in one box?”

Violet’s reply was delayed since she was busy mashing the buttons on the wall terminal. “One serving. There are six servings in a box. Have fun with those tumors.”

“Oh.” So… assuming I ate about six a day, times four weeks, minus I’m not a snack cake… I attempted to do the math, but without knowing the finer points of advanced calculus I’d probably never know the answer. “I think I should be getting a number that isn’t very good.”

WIth a tortured screech, the rusted bolts on the door ponderously cranked open. Middy and I stared at the dark hallway behind it, hesitant to take the first step. Violet solved that problem for us by nudging us out of the way and stepping forward with a faint beam of light streaming from her horn.

It reminded me of an old song, which I began to hum the opening bars of until I got to the bit that I actually knew. Lowly, I began to sing, “—with your horn so bright, won’t you guide my sl—” The searing brightness of Violet’s face laser in my eyes forced me to stop singing, cover my eyes, and whine, “What? Riverbed’s missing, so somepony has to do it. And ow, seriously. Bright.”

At least Violet had the common courtesy to mutter a half-assed “Sorry” before turning her focus back to the darkness in front of us. She continued to trot along, so I shoved Middy in after so I could take up the rear. Not only did it give me the opportunity to sprint the other way at the first sign of trouble, but it also kept Middy from sneaking away.

Who was a clever pony? I was a clever pony.

A second beam of light emerging out of a side hall ahead of us brought our little train to a standstill. The sound of a delightful little three-note tune preceded the appearance of a Stable-Tec robot. It was basically a little floating metal ball with six little extenders coming off of it. The three on the top looked like its “eyes”, and the three on the bottom had a myriad of weapons attached to them. Standard stuff, really.

“HALT. PRESENT IDENTIFICATION. CLASS GRAY IDENTIFICATION IS REQUIRED FOR THIS ZONE.”

Without missing a beat, Violet flashed a badge at the robot.

Its middle eye-stalk-thing peered at it and seemed to be okay with it. “YOUR COOPERATION IS APPRECIATED. ENJOY THE REST OF YOUR DAY.” Satisfied, it hovered away past us.

Somehow—actually, no, never mind. This was Violet. She had managed to find all the answers to life, the universe, and whatever “Class Gray” security clearance was. We eventually arrived in a cramped little room with a large window on one wall and a bank of defunct technological nonsense on the other.

The other side of the window showed a dirty padded room, devoid of any other furnishings, save a toilet and cot. It only held one occupant, and hardly. An old, scraggly, balding thing sat in the middle of the room, complacently humming to itself. It didn’t look like it could see properly anymore because of its clouded eyes, but I couldn’t help but think it was staring at us.

As if it couldn’t get any worse, it decided to open its dumb wrinkly striped face. “Greetings. I am the all-seeing mystical Hachu.”

The combined odor of musty books and rotting flesh forced a sneeze out of me.

“Gesundheit,” Middy distractedly muttered. He seemed more fixated on the wispiest thing sitting in the room next to us.

I scooped up part of his tail and wiped my nose on it. “You’re excused.” Maybe I was allergic to zebras. Or maybe stupidity.

The tail flew out of my grasp before I could finish wiping. “Ew! Keep your boogers to yourself.”

Its stripey ears perked up and it looked around. “Nobody sneezes at the mighty Hachu! Show yourself so you may receive your punishment.”

Violet ignored us and instead pressed a button on the console behind us. She cleared her throat and spoke, “Okay, Hachi. Your cooperation has been greatly appreciated and your continued assistance has been recorded for your exoneration. We need a few more things from you.”

“What am I, a used map peddler? Hachu, Hachu. If you can’t remember that, write it down again!” The horrid, slightly shedding old zebra gurgled in laughter. “I’ve been in here so long that I’ve already obtained inner peace and have nearly transcended mortal bounds.”

“Indulge us. I have a few personal questions for you regarding talismans.”

The zebra shook its head. “The four of you have no patience. Younglings.”

Four? Either the number was too high, or not high enough.

“You mean three,” Violet corrected.

The scraggly thing in the padded box chuckled. “A mind as large as an ocean, but with the depth of a puddle. If only you knew the the wonders of an open mind, little pony. Friends work in, heh, mysterious ways.”

…WAIT. Was he counting Ice Storm?

Ice coalesced beside me and made a disapproving face at the zebra, who almost seemed to be leering back at him. Giving my piggybacking ghostly thing a nudge, I shot him a confused look that that usually preceded an explanation.

While Violet began asking him various questions, cold began to nip at the nape of my neck. “Seriously, buck shamans.” Changing to a more mocking tone, Ice muttered, “Ooh, let’s meddle with the affairs of the unliving because it’s fun and shit.” His voice shifted back into a more serious tone. “Okay, this is going to be a little weird and a little uncomfortable.” That was all the warning I got when he jumped into my body.

Something in my gut seized and I tried not to double over in pain. It almost felt like my blood had suddenly been replaced with freezing water. I bit back a grimace as my armor suddenly felt a size too small as it began to pinch in places it hadn’t a moment ago. In an instant, the twisting feeling passed and I felt the need to shiver and cough. Moving my leg to cover my mouth was nearly impossible because of how tight my armor was feeling.

The other two ponies gave me a weird look, more so by Violet. “Frosty, that didn’t sound too good. And you’re looking a lot more pale than you usually do,” she whispered, her hoof over the microphone. “Do you think you want to step outside?”

“And leave you with this clown?” I coughed and wheezed. “As if.”

Casting a disappointed glare at Middy, Violet scoffed and casually remarked, “He has magic burnout and he hasn't even noticed I planted a burning hex on him yet.”

“What?” Middy frantically began to pat himself down.

“It’s triggered by movement, you know,” Violet added. Middy immediately stopped any sort of movement and even ceased breathing. “Ah, peace and quiet at last.”

I tried my best, but I inevitably ended up launching into another series of wracking coughs. The dumb look forming on Violet’s face told it all and I hastily gasped, “S-sorry. I’ll be r-right outside.” One of my lungs tried to escape my chest, which made me choke out, “Holyshit. Ow.”

Once out of the room and with the door shut, all my discomfort abruptly vanished in a literal puff of smoke—one which congealed back into Ice Storm. The cough vanished, as did the tightness in my armor. For once, even Ice looked a bit disheveled. His trenchcoat was crumpled and his fedora looked like it had been flattened by an ice sheet.

“What happened to you?” While Ice muttered to himself and tried to straighten his coat, I changed my mind and instead demanded, “Actually, no. What happened to me?”

Ice defensively raised his hooves as I fixed him with the angriest glare I could scrounge up. “Okay, there was not a lot of space in there. My bad, I forgot armor doesn’t really work that way.”

There was no way in all of Tartarus that I was going to let him poof away without another word. “Explain yourself. In as few words as possible,” I insisted, slamming my claw into the wall next to him when he tried to take a step back. “Now.”

Ice hesitated, then rolled his eyes and settled himself. “There are three states a phantom like myself can take. Haunt, Possess, and Manifest. The first is simple and self-explanatory—sit in something. Specifically something, and not someone. Possession is what I’m doing to you—hanging out with a living thing. Manifest is a weird one. It draws on local ether to form and meld a solid shape, with varying results to the target being inhabited.”

“So you…” I slowly started to put the puzzle pieces together. “Manifested in me?”

Ice opened his mouth, tapped his chin, then replied, “With you. And yes, I needed to do that because shamans are dumb. Just don’t worry about it.”

“Then I’ll worry about it,” Gale insisted.

Ice glared at Gale. “…That’s not fair. Fine, it’s because I don’t want to get exorcised or some garbage like that, okay? Do you want to be a frog? I don’t want to be a frog.”

As weird as it had been, I couldn’t argue with that logic. “Uh… so does that by going in me mean you gave me ghost cooties? Ghost STDs? Ghost STD cooties?” Nothing could cure cooties. By association, ghostly cooties were even worse.

Gale appeared beside me and demanded, “Hang on, hang on, hang on, more importantly you didn’t have any permission at all to do that to us.” Once she mentioned it, that did sound like a very reasonable train of thought. A strange stallion that I only vaguely knew had forced himself into me without precedence? Yup, sounded exactly like something that went onto an allegation.

“Um.” The look on Ice’s face quickly switched from thoughtful to suspiciously blank. “We are both consenting adults. Everything is fine.”

The side of Ice’s trenchcoat abruptly bulged and Toasty gleefully popped out of it. “Did somepony suggest rape?” The three of us glared at her. “Wow, tough crowd. Go buck yourselves.” She tucked herself back into the coat and vanished. Ice even lifted his coat and thoughtfully hummed to himself at the nothing in it.

The door behind me burst open and I found myself face-to-face with Middy’s head. “Your friend says you’d better take a look at this.” I exchanged a confused glance with Gale.

Fixing me with the same serious emotionless stare, Ice stated, “Do not look at it. Everything is fine.”

For a second, Gale regarded him. “Drama queen,” she scoffed. “Let’s go see what Midnight needs, hm?”

“What Violet needs,” I reminded her, turning back around and putting my hoof on the door. Strangely enough, Ice didn’t budge and opted out to sort out his outfit.

Gale snorted. “What could she possibly need?”

~~~~~

Mister claw met mister face for their long-awaited reunion. “I can’t believe she opened up the security feeds for the entire building with a paper clip,” I groaned.

In the time that I had been outside, Violet had reactivated the defunct equipment against the wall. The multitude of screens showed various locations in the rest of the complex, but the other two were both affixed on the one showing a very frantic Riverbed.

“I’m more impressed that your friend is trying to break down a locked security door with a broken chair.” Middy leaned forward at the screen and squinted at it. “Why does she think that wood beats metal?”

It looked a lot like Riverbed was yelling at the door as well, but without an audio feed we would probably never know what it was. I was a lot more concerned with whether she’d actually go nuts without us. The next problem was, of course, whether she’d simply leave since I had been forcibly teleported away.

After a momentary silence, I cautiously muttered, “So… is that it?” I had been expecting something on a more catastrophic level.

Violet gave me one of her patented “are you a moron?” faces. “Well, one of us needs to go find Riverbed and bring her back here. Since you’re the one with the combat experience, I was hoping it would be you. That, and I’m working on something far more interesting.” She nodded at the zebra in the room behind us. “Don’t think for a second that I’m not going to take advantage of somepony with a seriously powerful placation hex on them.”

I didn’t know what most of that meant, so I decided to ignore it and groan instead. “Fine, I’ll go find Riverbed.” I began to take a step away, then I paused. “Uh, will you be okay with Middy?” I didn’t want to find out what happened if Violet died and the collar got confused. Once again, Violet began to show that look and I realized how stupid my question was. “Okay, you’ll be fine. But can you spring this dumb collar at least? It’ll make finding Riverbed a lot easier if I don’t have a range restriction.”

“Do you promise to be safe?”

“Yes.” I eagerly nodded. A simple promise was nothing compared to what I would actually do just to be rid of this dumb collar in the first place.

Leveling an eye at me, Violet flatly stated, “I don’t believe you. Take Midnight with you.”

“But he’s dumb! And his name is dumb! And he looks dumb!” I incessantly whined, much to Middy’s discontent.

Middy raised his hoof and objected, “Do I even get a say in—”

“No,” I snapped.

Simultaneously, Violet also replied, “Of course not.”

“So… what about the collar?” I hopefully asked. “It would cause less trouble for you.”

Sighing, Violet raised her book and flipped back and forth through it. In the event that she was actually going to get it off of me, I stood around and hopefully waited for it to happen. She eyed me again, then at something in her book. Her horn glowed brilliantly, then I felt the strap around my neck loosen and drop off. I was free!

Seizing my newfound freedom by its metaphorical balls, I seized Middy and pulled him behind me by the convenient carry-handle on the back of his vest. “Come along, butt slave. We’re going on a rescue mission!” I cheerily sang, hovering down the hallway. If Middy had actually been walking as opposed to whining on the ground, I could have even saved the trouble of having to fly by making him carry me along.

“Be back in time for dinner. Don’t get in trouble. Play nice.” Hearing Violet say that without a single drop of sarcasm in her voice was a bit surreal.

“Okay, mom,” I snarked back.

~~~~~

Ten minutes later, I realized I didn’t really know where I was really going. There weren’t any maps on any walls and all of the doors to the left and right of the hall looked exactly the same as the other. Most of the numbers and labels were either missing or unreadable, so I had been ambling along with Middy in front of me. Having him around was pretty useful—he’d step on bear traps before I did.

How was it possible that a building had a basement that couldn’t be accessed from the first floor? Some of these bits of debris on the floor were even starting to look familiar. “If I had some explosives we could have made our own stairwell,” I grumbled.

Middy’s butt asked, “Wouldn’t that blow up the building as well?” He had his eyes affixed on the ground more rather than our surroundings, probably because of bear trap reasons. On the topic, his limp looked like it was getting worse. However, the splint that I had tied onto his leg looked like it was still holding up so I chalked it up to him being a massive wuss and let him clear the way with his face.

“Well, just enough to blow up a small hole.” We continued to trot, until I passed Toasty plastered to a door and lazily gnawing the handle. I stopped and asked her, thoroughly confused, “What the buck are you doing?”

Middy stopped and turned around to face me. “What?”

Ignoring him, I offhoofedly snapped, “Shut up, butt slave. I wasn’t talking to you.” What was Toasty doing?

“You passed this door twice already. It’s a stairwell,” Toasty mumbled around a mouthful of stainless steel. “And I’m bored.”

I doubtfully glanced at the door in question. “I don’t believe you.”

Toasty let go of the handle and flopped onto her back. “After you, dumbass.” I couldn’t help but notice that she was trying to be cute—she had her forelegs tucked under her chin and her hindlegs up in the air, wings splayed, almost showing off her stomach.

Of course, that made me cautiously ask, “What are you even doing?”

“Stormy told me I wasn’t bucking likable, so I’m working on it,” Toasty growled.

Why would Ice Storm even— “Wait, wait, wait. Why would you even need to be likable, anyway? I do all the talking. Or Gale.” A part of my mind pointed at how quiet Middy was being, but I was still bothered by Toasty trying to be appealing.

The same part of my mind told me to just shut up and see if Toasty was actually right or whether she just wanted attention. “It really wouldn’t hurt to check,” Gale admitted.

I rolled my eyes and reluctantly agreed. A cursory examination of the door revealed it wasn’t trapped, so I took a step toward it and shoved it open. The back of my neck suddenly tickled for a moment, and I definitely heard something whiff through the air. Somewhere, metal clattered on metal. Interesting.

Paranoia dictated that check it out, so I backed up and glanced down the flickering hallway. “Huh. Must have been my imagination.” I was about to trot into the room when I noticed Middy face-first on the floor with one of his larger bladed objects clutched in his mouth. Heh.

“I like your enthusiasm, but your approach needs work,” I chuckled.

The only reply I got was a very frustrated whine.

Shrugging it off, I stepped over the stallion on the floor and peered into the room beyond. It wasn’t very big, considering it was mostly taken up by stairs. “Don’t. Say. Anything,” I slowly growled, anticipating Toasty’s shit-eating grin.

“Oh, don’t mind me. It’s not like I’m staring or anything,” Toasty smugly responded.

I got the feeling she was trying to be funny, but I didn’t get it. Very slowly, I cocked my head at her. The look on her face melted away when she realized I hadn’t understood it. It only took an additional three seconds for realization to sink in. “Shit, that sounded great before I said it.”

“Yeah…” I stared up the stairwell and I could barely see the outline of a door at the top. “And that door better work.”

Wings flapped and shifted as Toasty tried to right herself. “Stare. Stair. C’mon, it was going to be good. Thinking is hard.” She groaned in defeat.

“I think you need to step it up,” I quipped.

Toasty seized the back of my head and yanked me back. “Did you just—”

“No need to escalate?”

That hopeful addition made Toasty let go of me. She stared nearly crossed-eyed at the floor, intensely concentrating. “Uh… we’re taking steps in the right direction? We’re going to sell all of our… income stairs?”

I looked blankly at Toasty for a moment, then faceclawed. “That was horrible. Like, the worst pun I’ve ever heard. Did we just jump the shark?”

“What?”

“It’s an expression.”

We glared at each other, waiting for the other to make a move. Moments passed, then Toasty sighed in defeat, “Don’t forget mister meatsack.”

In all the excitement, I’d nearly forgotten about him. Looking behind me, I found that Middy was still dejectedly whining into the floor. “Come on, butt slave. I’ve got a friend to find.” I tried to coax him up to his hooves, but I decided that dragging him along was just easier than waiting for him to catch up. Once again, I seized him by his carry handle and began to cumbersomely fly up the stairs.

Something kept thumpity-thump-thumping on the stairs, but I wasn’t willing to put in any more effort into lifting Middy. “Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Okay, I’ll walk! Ow!” Middy abruptly cried and began to struggle. With that, I did what he asked and let go of him. “What is wrong with you?” he whimpered, rolling on the stairs and clutching his head.

“A lot of things.” I patiently hovered at the top of the stairs by the door and crossed my forelegs. “C’mon, double time. There’s less than twenty steps here so you’d better not be tired already.”

“Well, somepony dragged my head up ten of them.”

“I wonder whose fault that is.”

“Gee, I wonder.”

I cocked my head at the door. “Just open it and tell me if it’s safe.”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

There was a simple answer for that question. “Because I don’t want to be the one stepping in a bear trap. I’m already one leg short as it is,” I impatiently snapped back. “Through the door.”

Middy stopped short of the door and huffed, “Why should I do that?” He was glaring at me with a good deal of defiance, so I was going to put a stop to that.

I drew my laser rifle and pointed it at him.

“You make a compelling argument,” Middy admitted. At gunpoint, he nudged open the door and peeked out of it. When nothing happened, he shrugged and took a few steps out into the hall. “It’s safe. See? Sheesh.”

Click.

This was irony at its best. “It’s okay, I think you just stepped on a mine. Not really my problem, so thanks for solving that for me.” It took a bit of crafty positioning and flight, but I managed to squeeze through the doorway and around Middy without touching him. “Just don’t move. Don’t breathe.”

Mines were tricky—some were pressure sensitive, some were timed, weight was a popular one, and some were counter-intuitive. Since it hadn’t blown up yet, I decided to take a look at it. I gently landed in front of Middy and leaned down to the ground. “Tell me it’s just a spider,” he whimpered.

To my uneducated eye, it looked like an ordinary, low-tech antipersonnel mine. “It’s an exploding spider, if that really does make you feel better.” Now that I knew I was safe, provided that Middy didn’t go anywhere. I stood back up and stretched out my wings as Middy continued to hyperventilate.

“What do we do?”

“Well, you stay there and do your best statue impression.” Which one of these hallways could Riverbed be down, anyway? All three basically either ended in darkness or a turn, so any of the three were fair choices. A quick game of eeny meeny miney moe told me that I’d take the right path and make a loop around the building if it was possible. “I’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere.”

“Oh, ha ha. Very funny.” Middy began to sarcastically chuckle, which slowly turned to panic when I actually began to trot away. “Wait, come back! I don’t know how to disarm a mine!”

Wow, it was pretty dark in here. “You’ll be fine,” I shouted back. Now that I could focus on the problem at hoof, finding Riverbed would be that much easier. Unfortunately, I really didn’t know where to start and I could barely see as it was. It would also have helped greatly if Middy wasn’t screaming like he was standing on a landmine.

“Is the mine even live?” Gale pondered out loud. Hearing her voice behind me made me jump a little bit since I hadn’t been expecting it.

I shot an annoyed look at her before responding, “Buck if I know. I was under the impression that all mines were live and pushing the big button on the top just makes it turn off. Even if that one doesn’t have a button probably doesn’t mean it’s safe to throw.”

Gale shrugged, then lifted a hoof to her chin in thought. “Hold on, isn’t your radio tuned into Riverbed’s frequency?”

That was a good question. “...Is it?” I wondered, slowly maneuvering around to face her.

“It should be. Why don’t we try radioing her?”

Avoiding the question, I countered with, “Wouldn’t she have tried that first?”

“What if your radio is out of batteries?”

“Of course it has batteries,” I confidently scoffed. Rational thought caught up a minute later and I added, “Wait, this thing runs on batteries?”

Gale blankly stared at me. “What else would it run on? Here, let me see it.” She reached over my shoulder and plucked the little radio off its mount. I didn’t even question whether she knew what she was doing since I wouldn’t know the first thing to do anyway. “I’m sure it’s just out of power.”

The throat mic and the earbloom were still connected to it, which were in turn still connected to me when she yanked it to examine. “Ow! Watch the wires.”

“Sorry.” Gale scooted a bit closer so that the wires weren’t strangling me anymore.

“I was under the impression it ran on whatever this PipBuck runs on.” To prove my point, I cranked up the backlight and flashed it at Gale. “I haven’t had to recharge this thing yet.”

The whole point of the motion was ruined since Gale simply did not care about it. She was having a much harder time trying to figure out how to open the battery case. “Point…” Gale mumbled. “Oh. Ha, I found the problem.”

“Hm?” I peered at the radio in her hoof at where she was holding it.

Apparently the answer was as simple as plugging the earbloom back in. “There we go. Problem solved.” Gale tapped the “call” button on the side and chimed, “Hello, testing. Testing.”

A burst of static blew out my eardrum. “Who the buck is on my freq? Hey, this channel is restricted!”

Since I couldn’t resist being a smartass, I snarked, “Is this Future Burger? I’d like a number three combo.”

There was a frustrated sigh from the other end of the radio. “Shit, guy. I, like, didn’t recognize your voice for a second there.” Riverbed’s relief quickly turned into frantic blabbering before I could respond with anything else. “Guy, where are you? I saw you buckin’ explode right in front of me! Are you stuck in a painting? Do I need to come rescue you? Are you in a well?”

At least somepony cared. “Nah, I’m fine. Hey, so I’m lost and stuff and Violet told me to come find you. Where are you?”

“If I knew I’d tell you, guy,” Riverbed brightly replied. “I think I’m in some sort of, like, hazardous material storage closet. Wow, now that I say that out loud I should probably just go buck on off out of here.”

“Why are you in a… whatever?”

“I thought it was a security room or something. Guy, I built a pry bar out of some nails and a table leg. Too angry about it to care now, guy.”

Great. Both of us were hopelessly lost. I trotted around myself in a circle and debated my options. Either I could stay where I was and have Riverbed find me, or vice versa.

“Oh, I know! How about a rousing game of Water Polo, guy?” Riverbed suggested.

A what? “I’m not really sure what you mean by that.”

“Did you, like, never play Water Polo? Guy, like, how?”

I shared a confused look with Gale, who shrugged back at me. “I don’t know. Probably not part of approved training exercises, probably,” I answered.

Gale nudged me and whispered, “There was an extra ‘probably’ in there.”

“Doubly unsure,” I snapped. Maybe there was a map somewhere to look at?

“Here’s how it works, guy—I say ‘water’ and you go ‘polo’. Easy peasy, guy.”

“Okay, but… what’s the purpose?” I began to trot down the hall. There had to be a map around here somewhere! What sort of building wouldn’t have a convenient map taped to a wall?

“It’s something like listening for everypony else’s voice and finding them, guy. Water!”

“Polo?” I paused in mid-step and thought about it. “Riverbed, we’re doing this over the radio. How is this going to help us find each other?”

Silence.

“I just might not know how this game works.” In the distance, I heard a frustrated scream and something hard hitting something probably wall-shaped several times. “Ow. Okay, uh, how about if—”

For once, my brain caught up to what was going on. “Hold on, was that you?”

“Did it sound something like this?” The same frustrated scream rang out, followed by more hammering.

Oh. Problem solved. I had a good idea of where that had come from, assuming I could follow this hallway that far. “Okay, uh, I think I know where you are. I’ll try to come and find you.” I tried to continue in the direction that I’d heard Riverbed as best I could.

“Just follow the soothing sounds of my voice!” Riverbed sharply screeched somewhere ahead and to the right of me in the distance.

It took much longer than I’d expected to find her because of how this building was basically a maze. I had finally found her frantically pacing back and forth right outside the metal door that I had seen on the monitor. A peek inside confirmed that there were, in fact, bottles upon bottles full of toxic-looking contents.

“Guy! You’re alive!” Riverbed flung herself at me, hysterically bawling.

Caught off guard, I hastily sidestepped and watched her face-plant. I was more curious about the dangerous and potentially hazardous chemicals in the closet behind her. Were any of these still useful? More to the point, were any of these worth anything? As I examined the bottles, I started to notice a trend of large groupings of consonants and not a lot of actual words in them.

The first bottle I picked up seemed harmless enough—a small brown stoppered bottle, its label unreadable and its contents seemingly clear. On the reverse side, there was a printed label that simply read XXX. In smaller font, there was a word that I wasn’t even going to begin how to pronounce. “Ah yes, the finest in liquid pornography,” I dryly observed. “What the butts is all this stuff, anyway?”

“Guy! Didn’t you miss me? Weren’t you worried about me?” Riverbed dramatically cried from the floor. “I could have died!”

There were a myriad of responses I could have picked, but I decided on, “You were going to be fine.” I was more interested in how much of this stuff I could take with me without rusting or exploding.

A much more dejected Riverbed plodded in behind me. “I was worried, guy,” she quietly added.

Hearing that coming from her was strange, but I was a lot more confused about the contents of all these bottles. “What’s silver hexa-whatever?” I asked aloud, squinting at another bottle.

Riverbed peeked at it over my shoulder. “Is it worth anything?”

I stared at it. “I don’t really know. Do we know anypony really smart?” That reminded me that I was here for a reason. “On that topic, I’m supposed to grab you so we can regroup with Violet.”

“Like, let’s go then.” Riverbed chirped. We’d taken two steps before Riverbed decided to enlighten me with this little tidbit: “Oh, watch your step. I planted some old-school mines around the place.”

Like the one Middy was standing on? “Why?” I asked, stopping to face her.

“I was scared, okay? Shit, you blew up. Wasn’t going to get out of here without some free shit while I was at it, okay?” Riverbed spewed at me. “Guy.”

“And I don’t really blame you. Let’s just get back to Violet and Middy.” Unheard, I muttered to myself, “Touchy.”

“Middy?” Riverbed looked confused for some reason.

Oh right, she hadn’t been around for that. Wow, I was quickly losing track of who was with me at all times.

“I made a new friend. He’s standing on one of your mines.” Which also reminded me that Middy was probably getting tired from standing on a live land mine. “Wait, are your mines live?”

Sounding slightly hurt, Riverbed instead whimpered, “You replaced me?”

Was he a replacement? Hard to tell, seeing as all he did was complain. “I’m paying you to follow me around. He doesn’t really have much of a choice. Don’t sweat it. You can yell at him for a bit if it’ll make you feel better—he answers to ‘butt slave’. Let’s just go find him and get him off that land mine.”

~~~~~

“Guy, I don’t know whether I even want to disarm the mine anymore.”

“Oh my goddesses what is wrong with you,” an exhausted Middy groaned.

Even though that hadn’t been directed at me, I was still tempted to answer it anyway. “A lot of things.” A strange feeling of déjà vu prodded my mind and I thoughtfully added, “Haven’t we had this conversation? Wait, shit, did I already use that response on you?”

Any further thought was wrecked by Riverbed. “Frosty, you can’t just like, let random ponies join you! Heck, you shouldn’t be allowed to force ponies to join you! I don’t like this guy, guy.”

“But he owes me for saving him.”

“I don’t care! He’s a liability and he’s useless. Am I just not enough for you?”

“So what do you want me to do about it? I mean, we could go find the bear trap and put him back in it.”

“Or we could let him go home?” Middy suggested.

“By Luna, Middy—shut up!” I angrily snapped.

Too bad that wasn’t enough to get Riverbed to shut up too.“Yeah, and what kind of name is ‘Middy’, anyway?”

“It’s short for Midnight. I think it’s dumb so I’m calling him Middy,” I admitted.

Both of us stared at the stallion in question, who seemed to be on the verge of falling over. “Eh, I think we can both agree on that,” Riverbed conceded.

Sidling up to Riverbed, I whispered, “Look, I only picked up Middy because we can use him as a meat shield. He means nothing to me, I swear!” Out of desperation, I pointed at the unicorn. “I mean, look! I’m using him to clear mines.”

Middy’s ears perked up at the mention of his name. “What was that?”

Just because Middy seemed like he really wanted to be part of the conversation, I sidled up to him as well and repeated, “I mean, I was using him to clear mines.”

“You’re an asshole,” Middy belatedly observed.

Feigning hurt, I gestured at myself and said, “But I’m also a lot of other things. Tail. Sexy flank. Crazy. Three legs. You know, all the normal stuff.”

“Fine. Fine! He can stay, but you owe me big, guy,” Riverbed finally decided.

“For what?”

Riverbed shuffled to Middy and carefully dropped to the ground. With a surprising amount of finesse for an earth pony, she produced a small pin-like object out of her mane and stabbed it into the side of the mine in one fluid movement. “This.” She slowly rose to her hooves and stepped back to a reasonably safe distance. “There. Assuming I’m not a moron, I should have made the mine safe.”

To his credit, Middy didn’t stop pretending to be a statue yet. In fact, it seemed like he actually stiffened up again. “A-are you sure?” Hesitation gave his voice a little tremble, which a specific Gale-shaped part of me seemed to find cute. Riverbed nodded and took a cautionary step back, so I followed suit just in case. Middy took a deep breath to collect himself, then dove off of the mine with a terrified shriek.

Nothing happened, besides Middy floundering on the ground in delight. “I’m alive! I’m alive! Praise Celestia!”

Rolling her eyes, Riverbed grumbled, “Yeah, yeah. Let’s go, Solitaire. You can praise all you want later, but for now we need to regroup, guy.” A smile slowly crept onto her face and she added, “We can, like, get you some orange juice later.”

That dumb grin could only mean one thing. “Shit, I know I’m missing something funny,” I groaned. “I don’t like missing out on funny.”

Riverbed smirked at me. “I bet you don’t even praise the sun, guy.”

~~~~~

The hallway outside the weird zebra room was covered in messy chalk diagrams and sheafs of paper with similar ink markings. There was a small pouch of something lying on its side beside a small collection of strange-looking tools on top of Violet’s book in the middle of the hall. An eviscerated sewing kit was right beside it for some reason as well. Several candles had been set up around little circle-looking thingies drawn on the floor.

Who else but Violet to be sitting in the middle of it, smudged in chalk dust and also looking slightly singed. “You three took your time. Quick, I need Middy the unicorn over here,” Violet demanded. Without further ado and not bothering with my own questions, I basically chucked butt slave at her. Hold on, was that a grin on her face?

For once, Violet actually looked happy. Ecstatic, even. There was a new light in her eyes and a big, dumb, Frosty-sized smile on her face.

I felt a nudge at my side and I looked over, which nearly put my face into Riverbed’s. The two of us jumped back slightly and awkwardly pretended that it didn’t happen. An embarrassed cough later, Riverbed whispered, “Do you know what’s going on, guy?”

It looked a lot like Middy really wanted to stop hearing things. His ears were plastered to his head and he was desperately trying to gallop away, but Violet was holding him in place with her magic. “Not. Entirely. Sure.” Bits of magic dust periodically sparked off of his horn as Violet excitedly rambled off more stuff at him, periodically pointing at things on the walls and floor. Since I didn’t understand any of what she was saying, I mentally tuned her out. Riverbed mumbled something about being tired and wandered off somewhere.

I was content to watch the two unicorns have a lengthy one-sided conversation about magic stuff. Not because I was interested in the subject, but because it was vastly more interesting to watch Violet unstoppably gush at somepony that wasn’t me. Heck, I was still trying to get over the fact that Violet—Violet—had other emotions. She seemed to have a different personality entirely, in fact.

Something gently brushed at my mane, and I somehow knew it was Gale. “Maybe we’re not alone?” she hopefully suggested.

“Eh… as fun as that would be, I don’t think so,” I admitted. “My gut tells me it’s something along the lines of learning. Or indigestion.” While I was looking around, partly out of boredom and partly because I wasn’t sure if it was even safe for us to be here, I found where Riverbed had gone.

She’d fallen asleep on the floor, her back to the wall and cuddling one of Violet’s boxes of papers and drooling all over the one her head was resting on. It was also nice to know I wasn’t the only one that had a plumbing problem in my mouth.

“Aww. Look, she tuckered herself out.” Gale endearingly chuckled.

“I’m going to draw on her face.” If I found a marker in all the random stuff I was carrying around in my gear, of course.

Gale whapped the back of my head with her wing. “No, you’re not.”

“Frosty. Frosty! I need your help,” Violet bossily demanded. “Get over here!”

Before I could find out what was going on, I was being dragged over in Violet’s magical aura. On the way across the floor, I slid past Middy clutching his head and suffering what seemed to be the world’s biggest migraine. He would probably be okay. I was actually worried more for my own health and well-being instead.

I finally skidded to a stop in front of a sort of hexagon-looking chalk and grease pile of squiggles on the floor, surrounding a weird twine-bone-scrap-thing. To the best of my ability, it looked a lot like a carved-up animal bone (whatever the weird long one with the smaller one attached to it was) with what seemed to be the innards of a lightbulb and components from a microspark pack tied into the space between the bones. It was also slightly smoking, which was greatly alarming.

Even after putting in the effort to bodily drag me over, Violet wasn’t paying attention to me. “So… on a scale of one to ten, how dead will this make me?” I asked, skeptically watching her redrawing some of the design on the floor.

Violet paused to look at me and, after taking a moment to think, she responded, “If you consider ten to be catastrophic dismemberment, I’d say something around a two.” She finished putting the final touches on a particularly complex squiggle and proudly tossed the chalk over her shoulder. Wiping her brow, she added, “Even if your new friend isn’t strong enough to charge the spell, I’m sure you should have just enough to get it lit.”

Uh… “But he’s a unicorn.”

“So?”

“Isn’t he better at magic?”

Violet giggled, snorted, then choked on her sense of humor. “Ha! No, he’s burned out. I just knew it would be funny to see him try.”

Violet was seriously starting to creep me out. “What makes you think I can do this?”

“Oh, I’ve already provided the bas—” A hopeful glint suddenly appeared in Violet’s eyes. “Ooh, do you want to know how it works? It took a lot of research and interrogation, but I managed to make the sigil charm compatible with non-zebras. Such a thing is unprecedented in the magical community! Imagine th—”

Since there was no stopping Violet, I sighed and prepared to meet my doom. “Okay, fine. But explain it to me like I’m five.”

To be fair, Violet did use simple words and helpful pictures while she was excitedly trying to enlighten me on her discovery. Unfortunately for her, I simply didn’t care enough to pay attention. I was practicing my dead fish look while Gale looked on with fascination. Through the power of osmosis, I was forced to learn that zebras used a different type of magic for all their dumb zebra garbage and how Violet had made a connection for conventional pony magic.

Halfway through an explanation about the history of magic, I’d finally had enough. “I don’t understand anything you’re saying because I just don’t caaaare,” I whined.

“I expected as much.” Violet gave me a tired roll of her eyes. “Honestly, I don’t know why I try with you. Do you at least remember channeling?”

“What?”

An exasperated sigh came from Violet. “The thingy we did with the circley thing.”

Oh, I remembered that. “Yeah! Duh.”

“Okay, put one hoof here—” Violet grabbed my hoof and pushed it to one corner of the scribbles. “And the other hoof—” She grabbed my claw and paused. “Oh. I wonder if—well, we’ll follow through with the steps.”

“Are you sure? Did you say the thing didn’t work when we played with the circle test last time?” I asked, cocking my head. “Or does it not matter?”

“It shouldn’t. This modified spell is more of a matter of input rather than feedback.” Violet levitated a handful of papers to her and showed me one of them. “I altered the formula for the spell to contain as little feedback as possible. It’s a safe way to deal with foreign magic, in my opinion. All you need to do is pump your magic into it.” Seeing my blank expression, she sighed, “Think of it as me bringing a cake and you putting the cherry on top.”

“I… don’t have a lot of magic. You know,” I spread my wings a bit and wiggled them. “Pegasus.”

“No, no, no, that’s fine. That’s why I have that spell circle over there for me. You’re going to do the conjuring, but I’ll provide the initial charge.”

“What’s the point?”

“Proof of concept,” Violet innocently replied.

At this point, I could have cared less if it turned me into a turnip. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”

In an instant, Violet was standing a bit farther away inside a spell circle thing. “Okay, I’ll get the process started. Once I’m done, I’ll give you the ready signal so that you can finish it off.” Her horn began to glow and the lines below her began to shift to a more hazel shine. I closed my eyes and focused on my hoof, keeping in mind what Violet had told me the last time. Flowing, or some shit like that.

I hadn’t been expecting a hurricane to blow through my focus.

The sudden shock made me want to pull away, but I was rooted to the spot. Panic began to set in and desperately tried to escape, but I felt like I was being sucked in. This was all happening too fast! A weary ache began to develop inside me somewhere. I just… needed… a little…

I stopped struggling entirely and allowed myself to be embraced by the darkness.

X~~~X

“Our partnership is in this squad is strictly platonic. I-it’s not sexual or anything.”

“Even though we spend every waking hour together?” The purple stallion smiled at the other, all the while drawing closer to his partner with bated breath.

“Sometimes… when we’re on duty… I can’t stop staring at you.” The couple locked eyes, and absentmindedly leaned more towards each other, hot breath radiating from each other’s open mouths.

“I see you in the locker room taking a shower after our long, hard shift and—”

“I just want you to know that… if anything happens to you… I love you, man.”

The two stallions were barely a hair apart, their lips idly brushed against each other’s. “Yeah. Sometimes I touch you wh—I mean, I love you too.”

Before the stallion could close the gap to get the kiss he wanted, his partner’s words registered in mind and he abruptly pulled away. “Wait, hold on. What?”

Gentle orchestral music suddenly began to play. “Hey, Tangie? I just noticed something,” Sparkle Cola thought aloud.

Since my immersion was already being ruined, maybe it was time to stop for now. “What?” I demanded, putting down my novel and rolling over on the bed to properly address Sparkle.

I immediately regretted it because I got a good eyeful of Sparkle with her leg in the air, idly scratching at her unfortunate affliction of balefire crotch. “Wasn’t Frosty a squeaker?” she wondered. Out of discomfort and respect, I flipped myself back over to stare at the wall.

I’d been doing my best to tune out the dull thumping and muted gasps of pleasure coming from the room next to us, but the sudden image of Frosty making those sounds while I— I violently shook my head to clear out those thoughts as all the blood in my body rushed to my face. No! Naughty, naughty Tangerine!

“S-so what?” I stammered. Out of all the Steel Ranger bunkers in the Wasteland, we wandered into the one without soundproofing.

“It’s just one of those things that shouldn’t change with a pony, you know?”

But Frosty being Frosty, consistency didn’t seem to be a relevant factor for her. “Her other personalities could be different. Maybe it’s Angry?” Angry Frosty had left an impression on me the last time we met, and my throat twinged at the thought.

“Nah. I bet it’s Smarty. Smart mares are moaners; everypony knows that.”

“Where did you even pull that statistic?”

“Well, you.” Sparkle’s voice dropped lower to a more teasing tone. “Are those the sounds you make when you think about Frosty?”

I seized my pillow and slammed it over my head. “S-stop it!”

“I’m Frosty. I’m irresistable. I’m daring!” It still bothered me that Sparkle could make an uncanny mimicry of Frosty’s voice, but what bothered me more was what usually came with the voice. Since there was no avoiding it, I rolled back over to end up nose-to-nose with an adorable little version of my little neurotic fixation. “I’m Frosty bucking Winds and I’m the only straight mare in the Enclave.”

The little model of Frosty gave me chills every time I saw it. Her pose, her dumb grin, the way her talons were curled into a fist. It was almost uncanny how much work Sparkle put into making these as realistic as possible. It even smelled like Frosty. And mint, but that was Sparkle’s itch cream.

I groaned into my pillow and rolled back to face the wall. “Sparkle, I’m going to sleep.”

As I attempted to tune out the sounds of true love, Sparkle groaned, “But who will suffer with me now? It itches! And it’s noisy!” After a minute, I heard sheets shuffle and a mat being punched. The muted noise of music stopping meant that she had given up and decided to hit the hay as well.

~~~~~

Sleep didn’t come easy. I drifted in and out of consciousness as I usually did, but right before I felt myself float off to sleep, clinking and shuffling noises roused me right out of it. As I pulled myself up to a sitting position, I mentally prepared some angry remarks for waking me up. The first things that came to mind were “What the buck are you doing”, followed by “Sparkle, stop eating the itch cream.”

My eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. There was a vaguely pony-shaped blob crouched next to the pile of saddlebags, searching for something. The rumbling of an idling engine also meant that Sparkle was still asleep, so I groggily mumbled, “Who’s that?”

The blob stiffened, then a pair of wings popped out of it. What was Frosty doing in here? As my sleep-addled mind caught up to what was going on, I realized that something was seriously wrong. She was wearing dark clothing, tight-fit and subtly armored underneath, her favorite hat nowhere to be seen. Several bulging saddlebags filled to the brim with folded power armor and weapons were stacked right by the door.

And she had her hooves on Sparkle’s suit of armor as well.

Suddenly, I wasn’t so sleepy anymore. “Frosty? What are you doing?” I quietly asked, fully alert. Did I have to wake Sparkle?

“Did I wake you up?” Frosty asked, her eyes full of concern. In a way, yes. But my voice caught in my throat because of how those deep emerald eyes stared at me. Transfixed. Yeah, that was the word I was looking for.

Quick, Tangerine! Say something! “I—eah—n—” I managed to stammer.

“I’m just here to talk. Not too loudly, or we’ll wake princess snugglebutt over there.” Frosty quietly chuckled.

“W-what are you up to?” Great recovery!

Frosty chuckled. “Not much. I was planning on having a chat with my best friend, but maybe I’m in the mood for a…” She licked her lips and eyed me up. “…snack.”

What was with that look? “Oh, is that it? The Rangers here might not be the nicest bunch, but they managed to scrounge up a fully-stocked pantry. You could probably sneak a snack cake or two.”

“No. I was thinking more like, mmm… Tangerines.” She flashed a predatory grin at me.

My eyes widened and I sat up straighter as I finally comprehended what was going on. Wait, what was going on? Frosty wasn’t… was she pranking me? She must be. This couldn’t really be happening.

Frosty dropped the things she was carrying and slunk to my cot, plopping herself down on it. She seemed to briefly lose her confidence for a moment, but she pulled herself together and stared calmly into my eyes. “I know this is all kind of sudden, but… listen, Tangerine. I know I’ve teased you a lot of liking me, and I’ve probably annoyed you enough with my antics that I really shouldn’t even hope that you’ll give me a chance… but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately.”

It was happening. I could already feel a machine gun starting to hammer away in my chest. This was the moment I had fantasized about, but now that it was happening I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do.

Frosty, on the other hoof, didn’t have the same problem. She made herself comfortable and leaned on my shoulder, which only got me flustered even more. “I do like Rumcake. At least, I thought I did. I’ve been trying to fool myself into thinking everything was fine and normal, but I don’t think things can go back to the way they were. Rumcake put a collar on me, and he attacked me for something I didn’t even do, yeah, but… the problem is he doesn’t really understand me, and he doesn’t accept me for who I am. Like with the collar—he didn’t like the way I was, so he tried to force me to be something I’m not. I’m just a toy to him.”

She took a deep breath. “But you… I know you get annoyed with me a lot, but it’s not the same. You do understand me, and all you’ve ever done is try to help me. That… thanks for putting up with me for so long.”

Was this really happening? Was this just a dream? I jabbed my hoof into my other leg to be sure. It wasn’t, and my heart raced faster.

Frosty looked up at me, eyes wide and hopeful. “And… I’m thinking maybe we”—she gently poked my chest—“can maybe be a thing?”

The dream was real.

“So, uh…” Frosty reached around to my other shoulder and pulled us closer together. “What do you say?”

“I… I…” Deep breaths, Tangerine! “…I like the sound of that,” I eventually agreed, leaning into her hug. “I mean, I wasn’t ever really expecting anything like this, but I’ve always thought you were—” I suddenly felt a weight settle itself on my horn, and I realized too late that there was something wrong.

The cold hard edge of a knife touched my throat and my eyes shot open wide. Gone was Frosty’s loving stare, those shining eyes. Instead, there was a dark sneer on her face. My first impulse was to scream, until the blade pressed harder. I tried to use my magic to push it away, but something was blocking it completely.

“Tangie, Tangie, Tangie. Always such a romantic. I mean, really. Why would Frosty even consider going out with you?” There was something wrong with Frosty’s voice—it was hers, but it didn’t sound like her, and not in the Frosty’s-losing-it way. “You’re pathetic. ‘Oh, Frosty! How can you be so flippant yet so desirable?’ Pfft, please.”

I nearly choked. That had been my voice coming out of her! The beginnings of a shout were cut short by the knife at my throat cutting into me. I needed to get help! I needed to wake Sparkle!

Frosty frowned and thoughtfully stared at the door. I was too frightened to make any noise, but I took the opportunity to slowly reach to the edge of the bed in the hopes that knocking something over would wake Sparkle. “You know what? This works. I wasn’t originally planning on it, but this works for me. In fact, think of it as—” A hoof slammed down onto my reaching leg and the knife cut deeper. “—the cherry on top.”

This definitely wasn’t Frosty.

My throat was starting to burn and I was desperately trying to come up with a way out, even as I felt the blood trickle down my neck. Maybe if I—

“As much as I’d like to stay and monologue, I really have to go. Revenge is so much sweeter with friends, after all.” She chuckled. “Goodbye, Tangerine.”

Before I even had time to think, “Frosty” slashed her hoof across my neck and immediately my throat flared up with unbearable pain. She sliced my throat! Holy buck, holy buck! I frantically clutched at my neck to try to stop the bleeding. No, this couldn’t be happening! “Frosty” leisurely climbed off of me and began to collect her stolen goods without a care in the world.

The only sound that I managed to make was a choking gurgle. Couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe! Why wouldn’t my magic work? The weight! I grasped and clutched at my head in desperation. My hoof brushed against something—a magic inhibitor! I needed to get it off, get if off! With a choking gasp, I realized I couldn’t hold out any longer without help. It was getting cold and I couldn’t breathe!

With the rest of my strength, still holding my throat, I managed to slide off my cot and crawl to Sparkle’s. “H… h-help.” I managed to jab her with enough force to make her wake up on the first try, thank Celestia.

“Mnhph. What?” Sparkle shifted and groaned. While she tried to untangle herself from the sheets, her hoof came down in the blood that I was pooling on her cot. “Eew. Did you spill on yourself again?”

I didn’t have the strength left. They needed to know. “Frosty…” I gasped, feeling like red-hot spikes were being jammed into my throat.

No more sound would come out of my mouth. Cold. Dark. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. I didn’t want to die!

“Tangie? Tangie, stay with me. Medic! We need a medic in here!” I was dimly aware of Sparkle cradling me in her hooves, but even that seemed far away. “Hold on, uh—shit, shit, shit!”

With the last of my strength, I managed to choke out, “Find… Frosty…”

It was right around here when I realized that I hadn’t managed to give them any context.

And then there was nothing.

~~~~~

“SOMETIMES I REALLY HATE MY JOB.”

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Slave Driver – Companions are more “motivated” to follow you, whether they want to or not. Certain speech checks can be circumvented with a strength check.
Perk Earned: Sleeper Agent – You’ve been unconscious so often that your body has adapted to work around it. Sleep Deprivation is decreased as if you had slept for an equal period of time. You also will always feel Well Rested upon regaining consciousness.
Current Sub-perk: Confused – I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of how crazy I am. You gain no stat bonuses.

Achievement Unlocked: Narcoleptics Anonymous – Earn the ‘Sleeper Agent’ perk without using a level perk.

Chapter 26: How long have I been out?

Chapter 26: How long have I been out?

“Aren't you milking this a bit?”

“Paladin Commander, I want to know how one of your ‘trusted assets’ went rogue and murdered two of my paladins on the way out.” Head Paladin Kohlrabi Slaw didn’t take his steely amber gaze off of Rumcake. He didn’t look it with his cream coat and his garishly pastel greenish mane, but the Head Paladin was well-known in the region for his unshakable resolve and it was working against us at the moment.

“I’d like to remind you that she killed my scribe,” Rumcake sourly added. “You’re not the only one with losses. And…” At this, his voice faltered. “…I thought I had her under control.”

“My losses matter, Paladin Commander. Unlike your contingent, two-thirds of my force up and deserted to join the enemy. I don’t have very many paladins left to fill gaps in my rosters.”

“I will make this right, I swear to Celestia.”

“And I don’t give a shit. Consider my hospitality revoked from this point forward. I expect the two of you to be out of our bunker by daybreak, or you will be shot on sight. If you survive, I will shoot you again myself.” The Head Paladin ended the conversation right there by turning his attention back to the terminal on his desk.

“Understood. I’ll gather my troops and—” Once again, Rumcake stopped short and I could tell he was slowly processing that I was the only one left from our original party. “We’ll be out of your mane by the end of today,” he weakly finished. Lowering his head in shame, he saluted and trudged out.

Following suit, I did the same. I still couldn’t believe that Tangerine was gone. It just… didn’t seem real. Why would Frosty ever hurt Tangie? Everypony liked Tangie. Even if she had deserved the throttling for the dog comments, that couldn’t possibly have been enough to push Frosty over the edge to…

…To kill her.

It didn’t seem real.

Besides, that didn’t make much sense anyway, since the contrary seemed to be true. Ever since Frosty had come back to us, it seemed like her marbles were almost all back in place. She hadn’t been muttering to herself as much and she’d even gotten a lot more normal.

Which was definitely not normal because this was coming from Frosty. “Hey, Rumcake?” I glanced over to him, speaking quietly. “Do you think Frosty was acting a little bit… suspicious? She really wasn’t acting like herself and that’s got me thinking.” The last thing that Tangie had told me weighed on me like a niggling injury.

“She killed Tangerine. That’s not like her at all.” Rumcake glumly stared at his hooves and choked back sobs. “I th-thought I’d gotten through to her finally. I thought I was helping.” Out of my regard and politeness for him, I took an interest in the wall until the sniffling stopped. “I’m going to bring Frosty back. If she won’t listen to my reasoning, then she will answer for her crimes.”

Alternatively, what if she’d gotten so crazy that there wasn’t anything left? “Um… what if the Frosty that killed Tangie isn’t, well, your Frosty anymore?” I was about to call Frosty a few cherries short of a pie, but decided against it.

“No. No, no, no,” Rumcake insisted. “I talked to her. Spent time with her. That was still my Frosty, and she knew full well what she did.”

There was a fragment of doubt that he was definitely delusional, but I felt like saying anything more would be out of line. That, and I wasn’t the one that spent every waking hour with Frosty for the last few days, so maybe she really had changed—for better or for worse. Definitely worse. “Um… if you’re sure.” And I still couldn't believe Tangie was gone. She was such a cute little mare with the littlest problems, and now she was gone. “I need to, er, take care of something.” Remembering that Rumcake and I weren’t welcome anymore, I added, “And get packed.”

“Be quick about it. I want to get on her trail as soon as possible or we’ll lose her.”

I was more worried what was going to happen once we caught up. I knew I wouldn’t have the guts to paste Frosty if the time came. “Yeah,” I simply responded.

Going back to the room that we—er, I’d been assigned, I began stowing away my kit and the few personal effects that I’d taken out of my armored bags. My hooves lingered on the battered lunch box that held all of my painstakingly-crafted miniatures. I gave into the urge and popped it open. Inside, among the sea of plastic, hair, and vinyl, I retrieved the mini of Tangerine and the mini of Frosty.

Even though some of these ponies weren’t with us anymore, I kept them on the basis of preserving their memories. Frosty, though… “What the shit am I going to do with you?” I asked the Frosty.

And then I looked at mini Tangerine. I’d given her a happy grin and a plain ol’ standing pose, but all it did was draw my gaze to her neck. It unnerved me to look at it, especially since I couldn’t get the sight of the gaping hole in Tangerine’s throat out of my mind. That was all it took for me to quickly tear off a corner of bedding from the cot and tie it around mini-Tangerine’s neck, giving it a little marking with a grease pencil so it looked like a bandage.

“Yeah, that’ll do.” I threw the two back into their carrying case and begrudgingly turned my attention into looting the belongings of the late Junior Scribe Tangerine.

X~~~X

As I crawled out of the imaginary fluffy cloud bed in my mind, I made a mental note to myself to punch out Violet when I woke up. This was all somehow her fault. That being an issue for the future, I moseyed on over into the living room of the cloudhouse only to come nose-to-nose with a very annoyed Ice Storm.

“We need to go deeper, and you’re coming with me,” he demanded.

There were all sorts of things wrong with that phrasing, so I assumed he was talking about digging a hole. “I don’t have a shovel.” Since this was my imagination after all, I took the initiative to think long, hard, and shovel. Presto change-o, there it was—one imaginary shovel the size of my hoof.

Obviously, that hadn’t been the answer that he had been looking for. “What are you going on about?”

I shrugged and trotted past him. “I need context.” Since Drunky was taking up the couch, I tugged her one protruding wing and rolled her off so I could lie down on it instead. She made a little noise of queasy protest on the way down, but that really didn’t matter.

Ice groaned and mashed his fedora into his face. “Earlier, you recalled something you definitely should not have. We need to find out more. Much, much more.”

The memory still bothered me. Seeing myself being so easily ordered around and mindlessly complying was frightening, but it did answer a few questions. Unfortunately, that only prompted even more questions—ones that I wasn’t sure I wanted answers to anymore. “It scares me. I don’t want to,” I halfheartedly grumbled.

Even with my lackluster response, Ice didn’t seem to be deterred. “For your own good, we should get to the bottom of this. If we figure out who messed with your brain, then maybe you can get some peace of mind.”

“I dunno…”

With an exasperated groan, he added, “And get the buck up already. I’ve leached enough mana as-is off of our dearly beloved Midnight, so you should have just enough strength to get around. I’m still trying to get all my barriers and shortcuts working again thanks to that little stunt of yours.”

By the logic of sight lines, I rolled myself over and buried my face into the squashed cushions of the couch to make myself invisible to Ice. “I don’t wanna.”

“Too bad.” And then something collided with the back of my head.

~~~~~

And just like that, I was awake. It was good to know I wasn’t dead, but I was more confused why my body felt like it had gone through a whirlwind. I was face-down in something slightly smelly but soft. As feeling returned to my extremities, it seemed like my companions had been nice enough to cover me as well. I could hear some kind of noise in the background, so that meant I wasn’t alone. It was that or I was crazy, which couldn’t have possibly been an option.

“Mlephtph.” The announcement of my waking was not met with fanfare or remarks of relief, so that meant I needed to physically announce my glorious resurrection to the world myself. Getting my hooves under me was becoming a much harder task than I’d expected, so I instead just cracked my eyes open. “Okay, legs. I don’t like you and you guys don’t like me, but work with me here,” I groaned to myself.

Pushing my butt off the ground wasn’t hard, nor was tossing the blanket off with my wings. When it came to getting my front steady, I just couldn’t get my balance. After three tries, I finally decided to take a look at what was wrong.

There were suspicions forming in my mind, so I couldn’t have said I was surprised. “Did lefty go on strike?” I asked my stump. My roboleg was nowhere to be seen, which mildly worried me. Peering at my underside, I also had to wonder why the fur on my belly was mussed and tangled. “And why are my ears wet?” I thought out loud, touching my damp and cold ears.

It also worried me that I didn’t recognize anything around me. Why did this always happen to me? I crawled out of the box—yes, a little cardboard box with my name poorly written on it—that I had been crammed in before and stretched. Joints popped, muscles creaked, but I felt fine, to an extension of the word. Looking around, it seemed like we were holed up in yet another bombed-out house, which meant we’d left magic university or whatever behind.

This must have been a living room or common area at one point, judging by the perforated couches up against one wall and collapsed coffee table in front of it. The only window in the room had been boarded up at some point. Maybe it was for the best, since I was about to stumble my way to the far end of the room and to the rest of the house when Riverbed strolled in.

There was an awkward air of silence in the room. Riverbed’s face seemed to be stuck between a dumb, almost satisfied-looking grin and surprise. It was probably either because she was carrying my missing leg on her back, or the fact that she was halfway through a snack cake. It was only after several seconds I realized I was drooling. And that I was hungry.

And it was cherry.

“Luna forbid that if you do not take that out of your face hole and put it in my face hole right now, I will take my leg off you and shove it where it doesn’t belong,” I threatened.

“But… it has my drool on it,” Riverbed weakly protested.

I narrowed my eyes at her and pointed at my mouth. “I don’t care. Snack cake. Face hole. Now.” The only reason I hadn’t already tackled her to the ground and eaten the damn cake right out of her mouth was because I could barely keep my balance as it was.

Begrudgingly, she plodded to me with the half-cake in her mouth and dropped it into her hoof. “You have a problem. You know that, right, guy?” That wasn’t going to stop me from eating that snack cake right out of her hoof.

“Yeah, my problem is that I’m hungry,” I returned, crumbs still dribbling from my mouth. “Now give me the rest of them.”

Riverbed gestured to herself, then at my unattached leg on her back. “Does it look like I came in here with anything else, guy?” She turned around and shouted over her shoulder, “Hey, Violet! She’s not a turnip!”

“I don’t believe you. I think you’re just trying to justify inappropriately touching your friend,” came the reply.

I collapsed onto my rump and gaped at Riverbed. My hoof went to my damp ears, then to my stomach. Then a little farther down, just in case. Thankfully nothing was out of place there. “You letch.”

“I’m sorry, guy! I couldn’t help it! You just look so adorable when you’re sleeping. So like, what if I rubbed your little tummy, nibbled your earsies, and batted your little hoovsies while you were out cold? Guy, I saw the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I took it,” Riverbed matter-of-factly insisted. “What are you gonna do about it? Guy.”

“Well first, I’ll be having my leg back.” Without waiting for Riverbed to even try to give it to me, I snatched it off of her. “And now I’m going to slap you because you deserve it,” I growled. Riverbed shied away and leaned away from me, which is why I kicked in both of her shins instead. Well, I tried to anyway. Having one foreleg to stand on was making it difficult.

“Ow! Guy! That’s mean, guy! And that’s not slapping!”

Saying I was only a little disturbed about this whole affair was definitely an understatement. “Riverbed, I paid you to follow me, not to molest me.” While she was cringing in pain, I did my best to hobble away to a safe, un-molestable distance. .

“I had a moment of weakness, guy.” Riverbed caught the look I was giving her and admitted, “Okay, like, a lot of moments of weakness. Will a bowl of pegakibble make you feel any better?”

I paused in the middle of trying to put my leg back on with my remaining foreleg to be confused. “What?”

“Or are you a wet food sort of pegapet?”

“What? Okay, that’s it. Riverbed, what the butts is pegakibble?”

“Isn’t… isn’t that what you guys get fed? Like, standard issue birdhorse rations? What else would they put in your feedbags, guy?”

I looked at her like she was crazy. Guess that made two of us. “We get fed a manufactured type of… edible construct that includes the nutrition that the body needs. Three times a day, if we’re lucky.” Sure it was like eating a bowl of rocks sometimes, but every now and then they were flakes instead of little cubes. “Officers get normal pony food. Who told you that, anyway?”

“The griffins!”

“And you believed them.” I arched an eyebrow at her.

“Yeah, guy. Duh.”

“Just… what?”

Without taking her eyes off of me, Riverbed tilted her head slightly and shouted over her shoulder, “…Violet? She’s doing the thinking thing again.”

“With all of that rubbing you did, I’m more surprised she didn’t catch fire first.” I should have been a bit more annoyed at how bored Violet sounded, but me being the victim for once was both surreal and distracting.

Note to self: murder Riverbed. I wasn’t going to let this one go for a while. “Live every day like it’s your last, because I’m going to kill you. I’m just not very good with scheduling.” I threateningly glared at her and then motioned to my roboleg. “Now help me get my leg back on.”

Thankfully I was spared from any more dry commentary. She decided to shut up and hold my claw leg steady so I could properly connect my stump to it. After two or three clumsy attempts at reconnecting it, due to my lack of stump-eye coordination, I finally got attached. This time, the sensation of nerves interfacing with the things in my stump hurt a lot more than it usually did.

I barely held back a scream of pain by biting down on my lower lip. “Agh… Okay, that’s a lot better.” Forcing a grin onto my face, I tested my claw and found it to be in serviceable order. It tasted like I was bleeding a bit but that was fine by me—I was getting thirsty anyhow. “I’m going to take a five-minute nap, get some answers, and eventually the rest of those snack cakes,” I resolutely stated, then returned to the comfort of my box.

~~~~~

Back into dreamland I went. This time, however, Ice didn’t even bother letting me properly tumble out of bed before dragging me out the door. “Hey! What gives?” I demanded at him as I was pulled across the floor on my back. My next outburst was cut short when I collided with Drunky. Ice didn’t care—he tugged a little harder to dislodge me and kept pulling me along like a handicapped duck-on-a-string all the way out of the cloudhouse.

Once outside, I felt the magical tug around my shoulders vanish. That was my cue to roll onto my hooves and demand, “What’s the rush?

“I can’t find Officer. That puts us on a time cr—”

“Skip.”

“But I’m not—”

“Skip.”

“Your last memory could be the gateway to so—”

“Skip, skip, skip.”

“Don’t you want to find out what happened to you? What the Enclave did to you? Don’t you care about all the secrets buried in your memories?”

Why was he so fixated on digging this up now? “No, no I don’t.” In that moment, my rage and confusion boiled over. “I was perfectly okay not knowing that I was being used as a puppet, thank you very much. All of this shady shit just keeps happening and I just want to live out my tortured little existence for however long I have left because I don’t know what’s going on anymore, okay?!” With that off of my chest, I actually felt a teensy bit better. Huh.

My sudden outburst stunned Ice into silence. After a decent pause, he somewhat lamely replied, “Well, too bad. I need your help.”

So the boot was on the other hoof now, was it? “No.” I crossed my forelegs and put my back facing him. To sell the look, I turned up my nose with a huff as well.

“Would you do it for a snack cake?”

I paused in mid-angst and frowned. “You did not just try to bribe me with a snack cake. An imaginary snack cake, at that.”

The shifty eyes on Ice couldn’t have been more obvious if I wasn’t looking at him. “Well, I wouldn’t necessarily call it a bribe. More of an incentive, really.” That wasn’t enough to make me budge, so scoffed in his general direction and kept angsting to myself. “Okay, okay. Real talk. When the end comes and time runs out on you—and it will—I give you my word that I will do everything in my power to make sure you and your legacy will live on, with or without me. All I want from you is just a little glimpse into your past. That’s it.”

Seriously? That’s what he was going with? “And why should I care? I’ll be dead. Toast. Literally toast.”

Ice’s mouth opened, closed, then he seemed to die a little on the inside. With an exasperated sigh, he facehoofed and firmly stated, “Listen, Frosty. I have plans for us. You will either become an insignificant speck lost in the sands of time, or you will be worshipped as though you were a god. That may sound overly-dramatic, but it is the truth. I will make this happen, so long as you help me out here.”

Well, that sure upped the stakes. “What are these plans of yours, anyway?”

“...Don’t worry about it.”

“You piece of shit.” Even still, those were words to consider. The foreboding doom of my imminent demise couldn’t be ignored forever. At some point I’d have to face the light and deal with it, and Ice was giving me another way out. There wasn’t really any way to know whether he was even telling the truth, but…

It was an option. I didn’t really have much to lose, and even if he decided to double-cross me I couldn't possibly be more inconvenienced than dead anyway. With a decision this important, I felt that a dramatic slow turn was in order. “Your word?”

Ice solemnly nodded. “My undying word.”

Fat lot of good that would be, but anything was better than nothing. “Fine. Whatever. If you can save me or whatever nonsense you’re spouting, then I guess I don’t really care anymore.” Defeated, I de-angstified and instead fixated Ice with the most disapproving frown in my arsenal. “If you turn me into a zombie I will haunt you forever.”

“You can only have one or the other, but points for trying.” Matters settled, Ice patted my head. “C’mon, rocks-for-brains, let’s go on an adventure.”

A swirly, gaping pit oozing with bluish-green smoke appeared between us. Even though I had no idea what it was, primitive instinct told me to stay away from it and find a responsible adult. Unfortunately for me, I was the only responsible adult. Ice didn’t count since he wasn’t really my definition of responsible.

Heck, I wasn’t even the definition of responsible. Being me, I asked, “What do you want me to do with this?” Using my claw, I reached out and cautiously prodded it. It did exactly what smoke-spewing holes did—nothing. Good, just like how I liked my smoke-spewing holes.

Ice scooted over to its edge and began to swirl around the smoke. “Dream-link. It’s a little hasty and messy, but since you drained us of my stored magic this is all I managed to get thrown together for now. I’ve pre-surveyed the area but I need you to activate the dream sequence.” Without another word, he tucked his fedora into his coat and leapt right in.

“Oh, and leave me hanging?” I rolled my eyes again. “Not like I needed any more context or anything.” So I took a deep breath, squeezed my eyes shut, and jumped into the hole.

It wasn’t as bad as I thought—my hooves hit solid ground a second later. I opened my eyes and was completely nonplussed by the sight I was met with. We’d dropped into a dark, drab, dusty office packed to the ceiling with boxes and paper. Everywhere I looked—paper. Folders. Box. Half of a donut. Dust, too.

“There’s one in here somewhere. Just gotta find it.” A few of the boxes floated around, suspended by Ice’s magic. “Take a look.”

I shrugged and did just that, since I had nothing better to do while I was stuck here anyway. It didn’t take long—out of the piles of seemingly useless paper and stationery, I single pale yellow folder caught my eye. It had an official-looking picture of me paperclipped to the top, so that was probably it. I pushed everything else aside and flipped it open.

<~~~>

“Well, let’s see here. Miss Winds… exemplary marks in ballistics and energy weapons, scouting training, passing marks in tactics, completed basic, average psych evaluation…” The stallion violently huffed at the file in his hooves, then glanced at me. “And two substandard recommendations from enlisted officers.”

The folder snapped shut and I jumped in my seat. I could barely hold my hooves in place because of the uncontrollable nervous shaking running through my body. It really didn’t help that I hadn’t stopped sweating since the interview started either.

“All of this right here screams sub-par.” The stallion threw my painstakingly compiled folder into the wastebasket next to his desk, which only made me wince. “Of course, these are also simply words on a page. Tell me why you deserve a spot in our operations roster.”

“I-I mean, I w-wrote everything down already. Um, I’m a hard worker, I’m good at doing what I’m told, uh, I mean I don’t really know what else to say.” Out of desperation, I began grasping at anything I could come up with. “I’m your markspony if you need one, I’ll be a spotter if you need one, you know, I’ll—”

“Hmm.” The gray stallion teased his short goatee thoughtfully. “I can put you on our reserves roster—” He caught my hopeful grin and added, “But it’s all temporary until I pass along the details of our interview to my supervisor.”

“Really?” I sat up straighter.

Glancing at me once again, the stallion sighed. “I wouldn’t count on it. Our roster is pretty full at the moment, all things considered.” He paused to regard me and my dejected slouch for a moment. “Say, how badly do you want a position with us?”

“Badly.”

“How bad?”

“I will literally kill somepony for it.” Realizing who I was talking to, I hastily backtracked. “I-I mean, n-not, er, not literally literally. I will metaphorically kill somepony for it. Yes, that’s my final answer.”

His hoof trailed across his desk and tapped a button on the phone perched there. “Sorry to interrupt, sir. Are openings available in, uh, the list? I know you picked six operators for it already, but…” He paused to glare at me and motioned with his eyes at my file in the trash. “I mean, she’s nondescript enough. Not great, mind you, but at least we won’t be raising any flags for poaching this time.”

The darting look he was giving me and the frantic gesturing at the wastebasket probably meant he wanted my folder. I darted to the trash and snapped the whole folder up in my hooves, basically throwing it at my interviewer in my nervous fright.

A deep, slightly nasally stallion’s voice coughed out of the machine. “Elaborate.”

“Let me see…” It seemed like my interviewer knew exactly what he was looking for, and he began to read things off of it. “No actual combat experience, excellent marks in ranged and midrange combat. Clean psych evaluation, and…” He flipped through a few more pages to what looked like my application sheet. “Her platoon leader from basic says some very, uh, encouraging things about her.”

“What about her record?”

Flipping back a page, the stallion before me answered, “As clean as it gets, really. Missed a few inspections here and there, but nothing worth a formal investigation. Easy on the eyes, too.”

“Am I on speaker?”

My interviewer nervously coughed. “Uh… yes, sir.”

There was a extended frustrated sigh from the box. “Again?”

“Yessir.”

From the other side of the phone, the mystery stallion heavily sighed. “Missy? You listenin’?”

“Yes s-sir,” I barely squeaked out.

“Out of the goodness of my heart, I’ll give you a chance. Seeker, send her in. I’m starin’ at a mighty interesting communique, and this just might be her lucky day.”

“Of course, sir.” My interviewer got out of his chair and motioned me at the door.

I took the cue and stood at attention, saluted, then awkwardly and very shakily made it to the door. The idea of having a chance, a shot at being part of something better made me absolutely giddy. Then the realization struck me. I was going to see this guy’s boss, and I needed to be presentable! Again! The best I could do while I was ushered out of one office and to the door to the next was wipe the cold sweat from my face and re-tie my mane with the rubber band I was using.

It was polite of Seeker to at least let me finish freaking out before ushering me inside. The nicely polished wooden door swung open for me and I immediately scanned the room for anything that I could use to my advantage. Medals, potential likes or dislikes, anything that could help. Unfortunately for me, the entirety of this guy’s office was dark. There were a few indistinguishable pictures mounted on walls, which didn’t tell me anything. Beside the doorway, there was a novelty potted tornado quietly whooshing away on its cloud and a lonely gray umbrella.

At the back of the room, cloaked in darkness, was the vague outline of a desk. The only reason I knew there was a pony seated at it was because there was a pair of hooves casting a shadow from the solitary lamp on the table. One day, I wanted to be cool enough to sit in the dark and address everypony that wanted to talk to me.

“So, you think you have what it takes.”

“I know I have what it takes.” Unsure exactly who I was supposed to be talking to, I added, “Uh, sir.”

A chuckle. “Really now? Do you have the guts? The will? Can you look a pony in the eye as you pull the trigger?”

I gulped. “Only if you say so, sir.” Was that the right response?

Once again, the stallion in the dark chuckled. “I like her. Nice catch, Seeker. I’m sure we can free up some space at the bottom of the list. One more subject wouldn’t strain the project any further than it already is.”

With news sounding like that, I allowed myself a relieved breath.

“Miss? What’s your name?”

Immediately, I snapped to attention and saluted. “Recruit Frostivus Winds, sir!” A little quietly, I added, “But I go by Frosty.”

Hooves clopped on hardwood. “Well, Miss Winds. It seems like the, heh, winds of fate are with you today. I’m sure you’re aware of the power struggles underneath the surface of Enclave politics? Disgusting shit.”

“Um. Not really, sir, no.”

“One of our operatives intercepted a hustled order earlier this evening. Since burying it isn’t possible at this time, our only solution is to alter the terms of engagement to our favor.” Mister In-the-Dark explained. “An assassination attempt is scheduled to take place tomorrow evening. The target is one Ardent Vortex.”

Seeker, still standing just behind me, loudly coughed into the back of my head. “Isn’t he with—” There was a foreboding pause. “—him?”

“He has been informed. We’re intervening on his request, and this is a request that I cannot possibly refuse.”

The pronoun game always bothered me. I impatiently scrunched my muzzle and silently hoped that something would make sense soon. Of course, It didn’t help that the pronoun here seemed to be extremely important. And classified.

Darky’s hooves on the table might have crossed because the shadows on the desk moved. “Miss Winds, this is your chance to prove yourself to us. This will almost certainly become a trial by fire, and you will be expected to carry out orders from me or my subordinates unquestioningly. Can we—no, can I count on you to do this?”

“Y-yes, sir!”

“Good. I’ll send for Twelve Gauge to get you up to speed. You’ll be taking orders from him, Airpony Winds.”

With a little more determination in my voice, I answered, “Yes sir!”

“Consider yourself part of Deuces Wild. This is a strictly on-call position, so you will still be expected to enlist somewhere else until further notice. I’m adding you to our experimental squad, which may mean some different protocol in the near future. We’ll take care of the paperwork.”

Seeker weakly chuckled. “And by we, he means me.”

“Thank you, sir! You won’t regret it.”

“I’d better not. Dismissed.” I crisply saluted again, perfectly pivoted on my hooves, and marched to the door. “Oh, and Seeker? Get maintenance in here. I’m sick and tired of this goddamn light burning out. I haven’t been able to see my desk in days.”

The second the door clicked closed, I collapsed against the wall and allowed myself to hyperventilate. I’d done it. That had been the tensest moment of my life thus far, but I’d finally done it. I was about to drag myself out for a congratulatory drink when I inadvertently heard the two stallions in the room begin conversing again.

“Are you sure about this? I mean, she’s really green. Really, really, really green,” Seeker flatly stated. “I could put her in a salad and she’d blend right in.”

“When have I not been sure? If she’s as good as she thinks she is, there won’t be anything to worry about.” More paper shuffled. “Speaking of blending in, her cutie mark is a snow cloud. Her special talent is moving clouds. She's literally as average and nondescript as a pony can get, which is exactly what the project needs. Not like General Silverbolt’s kid—have you seen the wings on him? More red than a landing beacon, too.”

There was an annoyed sigh from Seeker. “I’ll go get Hallow on task just in case. Goddesses know how much flak we’ll get if we botch this.”

“If you want.”

“You really trust her?”

“Trust her? What do you think I’m playing at here? What I see is a desperate little filly seeking validation and ready to do whatever we tell her. She already conditioned to follow orders. Have you seen her psych evaluation? Under the ‘aptitudes and additional comments’ section—duty. It doesn’t matter if she’s experienced or not, we just need somepony that doesn’t insist on being a maverick wild card hero-type.”

Paper rustled, then Seeker chuckled. “It is mildly amusing that there’s a lot of lines left for additional comments. All it says there is ‘did well’. Did well on what?” There was a slight pause, but then he continued, “What if the experimental group is too much for her? She has no combat experience, and even if psych cleared—”

“Once we get into that little brain of hers, she’ll bend just fine when we put her through conditioning. Besides, if her evaluation is good enough for them it’s good enough for us.”

“I’ll go send a notice to have Miss Winds’ records sent to our squints. They’ll figure it out if she gets to that stage. First things first, though. It’s still not too late to send for one of our other operatives.”

“Send Winds. Besides, she’s a burnable asset as-is. Adding her to the roster gives us a control for testing. We throw her results at the lab colts and move on to phase two when advanced training is complete. She’s also a polite little mare that wouldn’t dare eavesdrop, would she?”

That was my cue to exit stage right hastily and silently.

<~~~>

Right as I thought I was onto discovering what I had been up to, a violent tug on my mane shocked me out of the memory. I was a little disorientated by the sudden change of scenery, so I wasn’t exactly sure what was happening until somepony conveniently explained everything for me.

“You’re not cleared to know that!” Officer bellowed into my right ear.

The hold vanished a moment later when I heard Officer let out a very unladylike grunt and collapse to the floor. Clutching the back of my head, I staggered backward onto my butt to the sight of Ice wrestling with evil me. At the moment, he was doing a pretty good job keeping Officer’s hindlegs pinned to her face, which almost looked like he was trying to fold her in half. Trying was a pretty good word, since Officer didn’t appear to understand what playing fair was. She was busy throwing awkward punch after awkward punch into Ice’s crotch.

And it showed. “I might not ha-gah! Have a physical form, but—ow! Seriously, what is your problem, bitch?” Ice painfully groaned between hits. “Concede, damn y-ow!” He struggled to move into a different stance while still maintaining his hold, but it seemed nearly impossible with her tail also slapping him in the face.

Officer kept thrashing in place, still swinging with her one free hoof. “Get your face out of my snatch!”

“You keep putting it there!” Ice weakly groaned through his teeth. “Grab the file! Get back into the thing, quick!”

“Don’t you dare!”

It took a second to realize that he was talking to me. “Oh. Right.” I quickly located the folder and dove onto it.

<~~~>

When I regained control, I was coming up to a nondescript cloud park. Several ponies were milling about, but I couldn’t make out head or tail of them. This time, I had casualwear on—a nice loose little dusty charcoal jacket, a dark gray visor cap, and a messenger bag draped over my back. The bag didn’t feel that heavy, but the sloshing noises coming from it probably meant there was at least one water bottle in it.

A standard-issue dark bluish pegasus was waiting for me as I approached. He had the same standard no-nonsense look about him as every experienced field officer did, the same default crewcut (in the brass flavor, for a change) that each one came with, and the identical slightly dead look in his eyes. “Hey, kid. I’m Twelve Gauge. Walk and talk.” He looked me over and observed, “Good, you read your mail. Are you ready for today?”

Satisfaction from his praise sent warm fuzzies to my cheeks. “As good as it gets, sir,” I proudly replied.

Twelve lightly chuckled. “Don’t bother ‘sir’-ing me. At the end of the day, I’m just a personal assistant.” He passed me a little wireless earpiece and a radio, which I quickly shoved into my ear and into one of my pockets, respectively. A moment later, I heard his voice echo, “Okay, we’re headed to the briefing and I’ve patched in Winds.”

“Copy that. We’re moving into position. Ten minutes to the roost.” That wasn’t a voice I recognized, but I assumed that this stallion was on our side.

“Going dark. Once I’ve got her in, I’ll be back to coordinate.” Beside me, Twelve Gauge switched off his radio and motioned for me to do the same. “Okay, Winds. Here’s the insertion plan—we’re going in as Enclave Intelligence. I’m your handler and you’re my field operative. Play by the book, and keep your comms open as often as possible. If things get hot, do not bug out. Proceed by the book until either I or one of our field operatives reclaim you. Got it?”

I had the tingling feeling in my ears that I was in above my head. Even so, I nervously answered, “Understood. But uh, sir, what if they ask for clearance? I don’t think I can—”

Twelve silenced me with a wave of his hoof. “Don’t worry about it. Boss pony has that covered for us, so they shouldn’t need to ask. Lacking that, just give your name and rank. Red Tape is good at his job, so your files should be inaccessible if they try. You’ll fit right into Intel at first glance.”

Nerves were getting to me. I felt my heart kick into third gear as I hesitantly answered, “I-I don’t know if I can do this, sir. Maybe I was wrong, maybe I shou—”

Once again, Twelve shut me up. “Now isn’t the time for doubt, Winds.” Ah, but doubt definitely had enough time for me.

We entered an official-looking building and were immediately waved past security by one of the guards—presumably working with us. My ears were twitching, and I only managed to wrangle them under control my pressing them against my head. “Are you, er, we even sanctioned? I mean, if we’re going to stop an assassination then why don’t we get the MPs? Maybe con—”

We were halfway up a flight of stairs when he stopped short and grabbed my face with his hooves. “Do you want the truth, or do you want to hear what you need to?”

Were both options the same, even if I picked one? For all I knew, the paper pushers in HomeSec had filed my papers in the wrong stack and this special operations group was up to no good. That reality was starting to seem more likely with every step. “Uh.” On the flipside, this group was actually going to give me a chance, so… “Tell me what I need to hear.”

“The pony we are protecting is the first of many steps for change in the Enclave. There is a will, there is a way, and there most certainly is a future for us. Happy? You want an inspirational speech, too?”

There wasn’t much I wanted to say against that. “Yes sir. And uh, yeah, that would make me feel better.”

Twelve Gauge looked up at the ceiling and groaned. “Uhhh… how about… Do not pray for an easier life, my friends. Pray to be a stronger pony.”

That did actually make me feel better. Nerves shaken, we quickly scaled the rest of the stairs and proceeded to our destination. Eventually, we stopped in front of a nondescript door to one of the many briefing rooms on this floor. Twelve Gauge placed his hoof and the door and paused. “One last thing,” he added, turning to glare at me.

“Sir?”

“Don’t call me sir. You’re making me feel old.”

I nodded, nerves soothed and confidence restored. “Of course, ma’am.”

Twelve let his head thump against the door. “…Okay, fine. You can call me sir.”

<~~~>

Just as it was getting good—again—the memory abruptly ended via Officer’s tampering once again. I found myself sprawled across the floor on my back, and the folder holding the memory leapt out of my hooves before I had a chance to react. “I’ve had it with your little friend’s interference. You’re done.” Looking a lot worse for wear, Officer held out her hoof and let the file fall into it.

I tried to roll to my hooves and snatch my memory back. “Tried” being the key word, since it vanished into a puff of nothingness before I managed to even cross half the distance. “That’s mine. Give it back!” I stuck out my tongue at her, out of lack of anything more witty coming to mind.

“You’re acting like a foal. Now get out!” Officer snapped.

It was pretty impressive how hard she could hit with those hooves from a standstill.

~~~~~

My first instinct upon waking up was to uselessly clutch at my face. “That uptight bitch hits like a truck. What the buck is up with that?” I groaned to myself. Since I was awake anyway, I rolled out of my box and propped myself onto my legs. Time to find some food and food accessories. For some odd reason, my claw wasn’t being nearly as responsive as it normally was and I gave it a solid shake. “C’mon, leg. Transform and roll out.” At my insistence, it clunked into working order.

Into the next room I went, and what used to be a dining room and kitchen combination had been repurposed into what appeared to be Violet’s temporary evil magic laboratory. The mare herself was in the middle of absent mindedly copying walls of text into an empty page slotted into her book when I politely sneezed at her. “Good afternoon, Frosty,” Violet remarked. Even as I approached, she didn’t bother taking her eyes off the manuscript she was copying.

In an effort to strike up conversation, I told Violet, “I retract my previous thought. I, in fact, do care about being a turnip.” I was actually more interested in where the rest of the snack cakes had gone, but I felt like grand theft lunch warranted at least five minutes of socialization.

“You know, Riverbed has really been a bit clingy recently. Don’t quote me here, but I think she’s in lesbians with you.”

…Was that a slip-up coming out of Violet? A dumb little grin began to form on my face. “I’m going to let that sink in.” I smugly sat there and waited for the golden moment to happen.

Slowly but surely, a crimson tint washed over Violet’s face. “I was thinking one thing and saying another and they just both—” she hastily blurted. After taking a moment to compose herself, she stated with an undertone of steel: “You are not allowed to quote me on that. This conversation never happened.”

See, now I was curious. “What were you getting at, though?”

The scratching of Violet’s quill stopped. “Let’s try to have an analytical discussion. Sexual preference. Riverbed. Go.” She expectantly stared at me and waited for a response.

I immediately voiced the first thing that came to my mind. “Octopus.”

It was always interesting to see somepony’s expectations turn into a smouldering crater of disappointment. “I didn’t expect anything less from you, Frosty,” Violet groaned.“Is there a serious answer? Because I’m going to assume bisexual. Pansexual, even. Either Riverbed has developed an attraction for you, or she has an uncontrollable lust for pans.”

“I mean, she did sort of offer her ‘services’ to griffins for a while. Who says Riverbed isn’t her own mare and don’t need no stallion-slash-mare-slash-octopus? Also she’s a creepy molester but that’s besides the point.”

“But it is the point. She stayed beside you for five hours just yesterday and all she did was gently rub your stomach and cuddle. It was kind of cute, actually. That is surely a sign of affection, isn’t it? The only reason she stopped was because something tripped a mine outside.”

The look on Violet’s face probably meant she wasn’t joking about it. “Can we agree that her sexual preference is ‘yes’?”

After giving it a bit more thought, Violet decided, “Fine.” With her concession still lingering in the air, she picked the quill back up in her magic and continued transcribing without another worry.

Victory! I’d beaten Violet at something, and that only raised my spirits. Using the newfound pep in my step, I trotted to the small pile of everypony’s saddlebags on the collapsed round wooden table and rooted around in them for anything edible. I was about to dig into the first box of snack cakes I found in Riverbed’s stuff (ew, banana custard) when a thought occurred to me.

“Vi-vi?”

That prompted an annoyed sigh from the mare. “You’re not going to stop trying to call me that, are you?”

Oh yeah, I forgot she didn’t like it. “…No?” I hesitantly replied. With information like that I could bug her all I wanted to. Saved to clipboard and backed up for future use.

The back of a wing flicked across my right ear. “Or she’ll turn you into a turnip if you do,” Gale urgently reminded me. “Cut it out.”

I rolled my eyes and confidently droned back, “She’s not going to turn me into a turnip. Chill.”

There was another, much more annoyed exasperated groan from Violet. “Frosty, do you have a question for me and not for yourself?”

Right, I was getting distracted. “Yeah—by ‘just yesterday’, what did you mean?”

“I meant ‘just yesterday’, Frosty. As in, the generally accepted definition of the last solar cycle or the previous twenty-four hours,” Violet matter-of-factly stated, nose-deep in her book again.

“That’s not—” I weakly protested, barely resisting the need to faceclaw. “You know what I mean, Violet. How long have I been out?”

At that, Violet actually put down her book and devoted her full attention to me. “Frosty, I know this might come as a shock, so you might want to find your favorite fainting couch.”

“Nothing can shock me anymore. I’m a sad little handicapped husk of a pony.” I matter of factly nodded to reinforce my statement.

After taking a deep breath, Violet slowly stated, “You’ve been out for four days, Frosty. You’re lucky Riverbed volunteered to take care of you.” And then she waited for my reaction.

The thought sort of rolled around in my head. Four days? Numbers… math… carry the nine… That was what, eighty hours give or take? That put a huge dent in my schedule. Maybe it was a good thing, since I hadn’t really had the opportunity for a nice long rest anyhow.

Still, though… I touched my ears and grimaced. “I dunno about that. I would have preferred the tender, loving, if not reluctant ministrations of Nurse Violet. Serial Molester Riverbed has poor bedside manner.”

Being the emotional iceberg she was, Violet didn’t even bother with coming up with a response. Instead, she went back to copying, writing, or whatever colors did with books. I took the opportunity to raid the rest of Riverbed’s storage of snack cakes as retribution for several days of bodily distress I’d been unknowingly put through. For nutrition’s sake, I also chugged down her last two cans of carrot juice and a can of mashed “potatoes”.

“While you were out, I managed to perfect the pony-safe summon totem fetish. No thanks to you, of course.” Violet strutted over to me and showed me the bone-and-twine abomination-on-a-string which had the new addition of a pair of shiny blue gems crudely duct taped to what was probably its backside. Or its front.

“Yes, let’s talk about that. I’m going to have to shut you down.”

“Excuse me?”

“I almost got turnip-ized for your ‘proof of concept’, for crying out loud! My union will hear about this.”

“Frosty, you can’t have a union with just one pony. That, and unions haven’t existed for well over three hundred years. Celestia made sure of that one.”

Feigning offense, I crossed my forelegs and huffed, “For all intents and purposes I count as multiple ponies.”

“That’s… not how it works. Besides, you can’t even find me liable in any event. You failed to follow directions and nearly blew out your own brains with the mystical power of stupidity. On the bright side, it’s going to be entertaining observing the effects of burnout on a pegasus.”

“What now?”

“Magic burnout. The spell circle sucked all the magic right out of you when you didn’t listen and tried to charge the entire spell on your own. I told you to start channelling once I gave you the ready signal—you started immediately.”

“What.”

“That was exactly my reaction as well. You’re lucky I managed to dispel all the charge safely without turning us all into mush.” Violet shuddered. “Or worse, turnips.”

“I’m still not over the fact that I could have been a turnip.”

“No, that was your—ugh, I can’t believe you can possibly be this stupid,”

I smirked and proudly held up my head. “Don’t underestimate me.”

Violet gave me a look somewhere between disgust and annoyance. “We should find a trading outpost soon. We’re running low on supplies, and having a useless unicorn around isn’t helping.” Violet motioned behind her at Butt Slave, who I hadn’t actually noticed until now. He was doing a surprisingly good job at being a clothesline for the laundry that Violet had somehow found time to do. Now that I looked at him, he wasn’t moving at all.

Curiosity overcame common sense, so I bit the bullet and asked Violet, “Hey, what’s with Butt Slave?”

Instead of an answer, I got a dismissive wave from Violet. “In a second. This is more important. Riverbed? Did you find somewhere yet?” she shouted.

Right on cue, Riverbed arrived with a solution. “Guy, there’s a trading junction not too far away. Value Town, I think? Maybe it’s on the map,” she called from the other room.

“Really now? First time I’ve heard of it.” At first, Violet seemed to consult her book but then she glanced at me. Her horn lit up, and before I knew it I was being dragged face-first by my PipBuck. Something thick and slimy clung to my face from the carpet, so I dared not open my mouth until I could wipe whatever it was off. I limited myself to shallow breaths out of the corner of my mouth until she was done with my PipBuck. “How’s it spelled?”

“Value as in value, and town as in town,” came the reply.

I didn’t even need be able to see in order to know that Violet was most definitely rolling her eyes. “Thank you, I didn’t know that,” Violet dryly responded. “I must have stupidity poisoning.” She paused, then continued, “Oh, there it is. it’s not even that far off.”

Beeping and booping came out of my PipBuck, and then Violet let out a victorious self-satisfied grunt. Suddenly, the force holding my foreleg up vanished and I ended up punching myself in the ear. Oh good, at least now I could get my face out of whatever was plastered all over it.

Out of habit, I violently exhaled through my nose to clear my sinuses in the event that something had actually made it up there. Unfortunately that also caused me to slightly inhale in the process, which I immediately regretted. It had a noxious, inherently wet and toxic smell that made me gag.

Once I had wiped off a good amount of the gunk, I cautiously cracked open my eyes and gagged at the sight of the orangey-green slime that was now all over my hooves. “What the buck is this stuff?” I caught sight of the furrow in the carpet that my face had left and exclaimed, “That is totally not okay. Ew, ew, ew. This floor is disgusting.”

Violet glanced downward and gently pawed at the patch of carpet she was sitting next to. “Oh, this isn’t carpet. This is actually just an impressively dense layer of mold.” In a fraction of a second, my bland distaste for interior decorating transformed into full-blown horror.

I blindly reached for Riverbed’s pack and rooted around in it for anything I could wipe myself down with. My hoof touched something soft and I immediately yanked it out. I gave it a cautionary sniff—smelled like gun oil, so probably clean enough. WIth that in mind, I vigorously scooped the stuff off my face until I could properly see and I only slightly smelled of rot.

Now that I could see, I realized Violet was smirking at me. “You know, I could have cleaned that off for you.”

“Then why didn’t you?” I impatiently groaned. “Come on!”

“You didn’t ask.”

I opened my mouth, closed it again, opened it one more time, then realized I didn’t really have a witty answer for that. Several thoughts blitzed through my mind—all along the lines of “Damn it, Violet”. If she wasn’t so right all the time I would have knocked her block into next week already. Heck, at this point I was going to hit myself for being a moron.

So now we needed a plan. Going to this Value Town place seemed to be the perfectly safe linear path. I wasn’t really sure where else to go at this point, but I was still on a clock. Where was I even supposed to go? It wasn’t as if Death had given me a convenient arrow to follow, otherwise I wouldn’t have been sitting around being confused. Maybe I’d eventually stumble onto a hint.

Yeah, that sounded like a cute plan.

I clanked my hooves together and made up my mind on the spot. “Okay, here’s the dealio. Let’s grab the molester, the slave, and our butts and get to the Station thing. If things go as planned, we can restock there and plan our next course of action then.”

A good a plan as any, but there was always a snag. Violet spared me a glance, then Middy. “Um. I don’t know if we can really do that.”

Of course it would be Violet. “Why?” I dragged out the word, just to display my supreme annoyance.

“I sort of petrified Midnight.”

“What do you mean 'sort of'?”

“Notice how he isn’t moving?”

Thanks, Violet. “Oh goddesses, if you hadn’t pointed it out I wouldn’t have even guessed,” I dryly snarked back.

“There was a math error because I wasn’t aware of a unit conversion. He should be able to scratch his nose in a few days, I think.”

A few days? I didn’t have a few days. “Screw it, you get to carry him then. If we run into anypony, we can use him as a distraction.” Boom, problem solved. “Pack your mumbo jumbo, let’s get out of this popsicle stand. I’ll get the molester.” I turned my attention to the other room where I assumed Riverbed was still at. “Hey! Pack your shit; it’s time to go!”

~~~~~

So we went back to the dangerous place called the “outside”. Riverbed took point since she knew where we were going, Violet followed in the center, and Middy sort of half-floated along the ground behind her. Being the responsible pegasus I was, I had attempted to fly along above the group. Attempted, being the key word here. Less than an hour out, I suddenly lost all lift and tumbled to the ground with a startled squeak.

“Hey, what gives?!” I angrily demanded to basically nopony. Giving my wings an annoyed flap, I snapped, “C’mon wings. Get it together.”

“You’re probably still overloaded. I was going to tell you to take it easy, but I didn’t really bother once you took off.” Trotting past me, Violet tugged my right wing with her magic and explained, “It turns out a pony isn’t as aerodynamic as we once thought, and it’s just latent pegasus magic that allows flight. Since you burned yourself out, your passive mana regeneration has been slowly restoring your reserves.”

The only words I cared to understand in that entire schpiel were “pony” and “pegasus”. “Okay, I’m just going to wait for the simple explanation because thinking is hard work.” I tugged my wing back from her and gave it another test flap.

As expected, Violet shot me a disapproving glance and sighed. “Never mind. You’ll figure it out. You’re a smart little vegetable, after all.”

After a bit of trial and error, I decided that walking was my next calling in life. I was annoyed that I couldn’t fly because of what Violet made me do, so I decided to take out my petty rage on Butt Slave, who appeared to still be mostly petrified. He had the ability to move his head now, but that was about it. At least he couldn’t talk back yet.

“If I’m going to trot, so are you. Come on, pick up those hooves!” I yelled at Butt Slave.

“Leave Middy alone, Frosty. I can only hover him along so quickly.” Violet sighed again. If she kept that up, she’d run out of air and pass out at this rate. She then tilted her head, looking thoughtful. “Actually…” On cue, Butt Slave began to bob back and forth in a very crude facsimile of what could be considered ‘walking’. “Better?”

Satisfied, I nodded. “Better.”

A while later, me having lost track of time because of how sore my everything was getting even in power armor, Riverbed finally stopped and enjoyed a short victory screech. “Ha! It’s still here! Welcome to Value Town, guy. Population buck-all and starring us.” She glanced over her shoulder at us and chuckled, “Nah, just kidding. Let’s go find a place to crash.”

So we’d been led to some sort of communal meeting ground for several dozen ponies and their pony stuff. A few of them were visibly part of a caravan—merchant, four bodyguards, cow-thing, and all of their delicious, delicious loot. The rest of them were a smattering of generic Wastelanders and apparently reformed raiders, which was mildly interesting. Other than that, Value Town didn’t have so much of a town as much of a small gathering. Besides the several stalls peddling goods at anypony that would listen, I couldn’t really figure out why this was a even called a town to begin with.

We trotted past one of the vendors (Radroach curry! Get it while it’s squirming!) and I distinctly heard Riverbed mutter, “Huh. This place got shittier.”

As we tried to make our way to wherever Riverbed was leading us, I caught sight of several heavy strongboxes bearing the Enclave’s stamp. A smaller logo—a two of diamonds overlaid over a two of clubs to create a cross was printed under the carry handles. Familiar, but I just couldn’t place it for some reason. Most Enclave storage had been siphoned out for standard-issue cloudboxes, so these were definitely peculiar. However, the old boxes probably had to go somewhere and somepony was probably making a pretty bit getting rid of them.

“Sir! Wait up, sir! We’ve hit a snag regarding the forward operating base you wanted our engineers to start working on. Did you ha—” The random yelling pony stopped in mid-panic and realized, “Hang on, you’re new. Sorry, all of you look the same from the back.”

Oh, he had been addressing me. “Uh…” I uneasily stammered, turning myself around as slowly as possible so I could come up with a response.

Whatever I was about to say screamed in fright and crawled back down my throat. This guy was big—as in, he must have been raised on nothing but meat and Rage. In fact, he looked a lot like a big yellow brick wall wearing glasses. What little hair he had was hidden under a robe-shaped tarp the size of a house. I didn’t even want to dare snap back something demeaning on the off chance that he’d bend me in half.

A hoof tugged on my collar. “Hold up, shrimp. I’ll take care of this,” came my voice, but not from who I was expecting. Officer Frosty stepped forward and confidently stared down the pony that had addressed us. Before I could squeeze in a confused statement of discontent, I had been shoved into my brain’s passenger seat.

“Who in the sam hell are you? How dare you address somepony of my stature in that manner? Explain yourself, now,” Officer angrily demanded. The sheer assertion in her voice was slamming any sort of rebuke coming from the other pony out of the air. “I was told to come down to this shithole to observe, but it looks like I’m gonna have to take charge. Who’s in charge? It better not be you.”

“I—euh-eh—” The pony’s eyes darted back and forth.

“Eh I eh euueh eh,” Officer sarcastically mimicked the pony’s confused noises and once again took advantage of the hesitation to push another offensive. “You’re a mess, dirt-muncher. I can stick a fork in you and bam—you’re done.”

“Ma’am, I wasn’t made aware of—”

Nearly shouting, Officer snapped, “Do I look like a ma’am to you?”

“Uh—y-yes? No? …Oh, sir! No sir!”

“That’s more like it. Take me to the command post. I know you’ve got one set up—there’s Enclave crates with our stamp on it.”

“All the other command elements are occupied elsewhere, sir. I don’t know who I can—”

“And I don’t care,” Officer insisted, then she gestured with a wing at my traveling companions. “And make sure these two find lodging. They were surprisingly useful in getting me here.” When the pony didn’t budge, Officer rolled her eyes and snapped, “Now. Chop chop.”

As I was allowed to regain control of myself, the pony had already darted off to do what Officer had told him to do. Riverbed was tagging along with him for the sole reason of finding somewhere to take a nap or somepony sleeping to molest. Once I had some privacy, I needed to figure out exactly how and why Officer decided to take the lead.

I wasn’t getting any more answers from Officer. She trotted out of my vision, smugly replying, “Foal’s play. I’ll be back later, so don’t worry your pretty little head about me.”

Just because it wasn’t confusing for me enough, a swirl of fog pulled out of the ground and coalesced into Ice Storm. He lowly whistled and chuckled, “Ooh, catty. I think she gets that from you.”

In the time it took for me to dredge up a witty response out of my rapidly dwindling supply of witticisms, the weird pony that Officer had yelled at came galloping back. He stopped just before me to catch his breath for a moment before gasping, “I’m so sorry, ma’a—er, sir. If you’ll follow me, we can find out what to do. I’ll take you to the command tent.”

Oh good, so Officer was good for something after all. Now that my cover had been assured, I waved off Riverbed and gave her the motion to stay put with Butt Slave. She gave me a silent look of worry and a frown, but that didn’t really mean anything. Besides, I was going to be fine, especially with Violet adamantly tagging along, so I let her. What could possibly go wrong between here and a tent?

And speaking of which, there it was. A standard-issue Enclave field tent, complete with a redundant decontamination bay that was propped in the open position. I was expecting a treasure trove of all sorts of goodies including but not limited to: gear, weapons, actual food, and information. At the silent, somewhat frightened polite urging of Stammer Pony, I went in first.

What I hadn’t been expecting was a pegasus mare, lazily reclining in an old, beat-up sofa. A long safety-orange leash attached to a thoroughly trussed-up pegasus was wrapped around her robo-talons, and her other hoof was holding some kind of wood cup-like object—presumably full of liquid. Evil gloating liquid. Set to monologue, no less. I knew that evil look, those ridiculous mane stripes, that dumb face.

So, who was this jerk? She didn’t look as crazy as Toasty, but she was clearly another one of my evil sides. Joy. “Yo, get out of that chair. You don’t exist so you don’t deserve to sit.” As I got a little more annoyed, I demanded, “And where did you even get a leash?”

A mixture of shock and annoyance crossed my face. And by my face, I meant my new chair-stealing personality’s face. “You have a knack for showing up in the right place at the wrong time,” she scowled.

“I don’t care. Get out of my chair.”

Chair-thief Frosty rolled her eyes. “We meet for the first time—again—and this is how you greet me? For shame, Frosty. To think you had manners.”

Why did this one want to be such a smartass about it? “Manners? You mean ‘wash behind your ears, say please and thank you, and hail Tirek’? Yeah, I have those.”

The other Frosty shook her head in amusement. “Ah, you haven’t changed at all.”

I felt a tap on my shoulder. “You do realize that you actually are sitting over there too, right?” Violet dryly commented.

…Oh. Oooooh. “Well, that’s still my chair, and I’m going to sit in it.”

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Dissonance – The “Confused” sub-perk now boosts a select S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute by 1 when active. New speech options are available to a specific character.
Current Sub-perk: Confused – You gain +1 to Perception.

Chapter 27: Where did the light go?

Chapter 27: Where did the light go?

“You're me, but I'm me too. How can there be two ‘me’s? It's not scientifically possible. You are not scientifically possible!”

So. It was Violet, myself, and I all sort of staring at each other in a rotary fashion. Also there was a placeholder pegasus off to the side that I didn’t care about. Myself and I were having a pretty intense staring contest and I couldn’t help but get a little confused about why Myself had purple eyes. It was disconcerting to be staring at my own face which was mine but not technically mine, so I rolled my eyes and pretended to lose interest.

The most obvious course of action was to completely ignore Myself’s pointless blabber and instead focus on my own. “I don’t care if you’re a one-eyed one-horned flying purple pony eater. I. Want. The. Chair,” I slowly demanded. It wasn’t because I wanted to sit in it, it was more because Myself was being a party pooper. If that meant stealing a chair, I was damn sure going to put my big fat butt in that dumb little chair.

“Frosty, Frosty, Frosty. This is about more than just a chair. This is about us, our beautiful hate–hate relationship. Granted, you have no idea who I am, but regardless…” Evil Frosty gestured her claw-leg at her right hind leg and sneered at me. “Let’s just say we still have some unfinished business.” The leash clutched in it dropped to the ground with the motion.

The leashed pegasus, on observation, looked like she had zero idea where she was. She was in serious dead fish mode—mouth slightly agape, glassy eyes, and somewhere between lucid and asleep. Probably just another crazed fanfilly or something. Heck, I’d go nuts for me if I were her.

A match struck in my peripheral vision, the blue flame touching the end of Ice’s cigarette. He took a puff from it and purposefully paced toward the not-me. The letters “BRB” formed out of the smoke he exhaled, then it and Ice vanished into smoke. Huh.

While I had been distracted by my short attention span, Violet leaned in closer to me and whispered, “Well, I didn’t know you had a good twin. There’s a surprise twist I wasn’t expecting.”

I put the glowering look I was giving myself on hold to lean back over to Violet and shoot her a sidelong glance. “Good?” I asked.

“Yes. Implying that you are the evil twin,” Violet matter-of-factly stated.

Rude. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Violet,” I dryly replied. I quickly turned my attention back to Myself and mockingly bowed. “Excuse me, I need to discipline my book horse.” Using one of my wings, I corralled her over to one side where we could talk in somewhat reasonable privacy.

“Come on. You’re embarrassing me in front of me,” I whined.

Violet eyed me—as in, the chair thief Frosty. She lowered her voice and mentioned to me, “On a more serious note, something isn’t quite right here. I can faintly detect magic coming off of her, but I don’t know what it is yet. It’s something I haven’t encountered before, and the only other time I’ve had this problem was with you and your strange magic signature.” The look on her face spelled confusion and doubt, which was a rare sight. “Maybe if you can keep her talking, I can figure out who that really is.”

A swirl of snowy dust accompanied Ice’s appearance. “I’m back. It’s a very advanced illusion spell. It’s cute.”

“Illusion spell?” I asked. “What?”

“What?” Ice shrugged. “They’re not very hard to see through—for me, anyway.”

Violet turned to me. “What?”

“Wat?”

“No, what did you say?”

Just a teensy bit louder, I repeated, “Wat.”

“Before that.”

“Also wat.”

From the other end of the room, still lounging lazily on my chair, not-me loudly cleared her throat. “Are you quite done with that, Frosty?” she impatiently demanded in a somewhat impatient manner.

The argument with Violet could be put on the backburner for the time being. “I don’t know. Am I?” I replied to myself.

Not-me’s response was interrupted by the placeholder pegasus I’d been ignoring suddenly getting wobbly on her hooves and collapsing to the ground. Rather than attempt to stand up, the pegasus starting rolling around and kicking out her legs at random. “Glory to the trains,” she gurgled, face smushed against the floor. “Blessed be the steam.”

I wasn’t sure what was weirder—the pegasus’s actions, or the fact that an obsession with trains seemed to ring a bell in my memory. “What’s up with her?” I asked at myself.

Fake Frosty glanced at the crazy pegasus—not me, I meant the other one—and flashed an evil grin. “Don’t you find it a little odd, Frosty, that everypony in this town gets along even though some of them literally eat shit for a living?” She gestured out there and I had an idea of what she meant—Wastelanders, raiders, ponies like that. “It’s amazing what you can find when you keep an ear to the ground. I’ll soon have an army at my hooftips, and your Enclave buddies already did all the hard work for me. Killing them was relatively easy, and enslaving this other one was trivial after she got too close to the transmitter.”

Not-me then snapped her head to the side and scowled. “But how in the everloving shit did you find me? You’re dumber than a rock and you’re still managing to interrupt my plans again. Was the first time just not enough? Now I have to figure out an excuse for why there’s a double of me running around. Even the pegasi that were controlling this project couldn’t believe that you—as in, I managed to find this place.” She shook her head. “But no matter. I’m going to find out how to properly control these ponies, and once I do I’ll be unstoppable!”

…I really couldn’t tell if she had answered my question at any point during that mini-tirade. “For the record I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I half-lied. Okay, so unicorns, earth ponies, zebras, griffons, and raiders were all working together peacefully due to their common interest in worshiping trains. And the Enclave was involved somehow. And Officer Frosty knew about it, which meant it probably had something to do with my missing memories.

As much as it often seemed, I wasn't stupid. I could see the giant, glowing neon arrow pointing down saying “This is important!” Maybe if another generic hero-type were in this situation they'd try to put all these mysterious puzzle pieces together, but I really couldn't care less. Whatever was going on was definitely just more trouble than it was worth.

“Hmm. A collective, captive audience? Suggestible and unified? Intriguing,” I heard Ice sort of mumble to nopony in particular.

A burst of static interrupted our tirade. “Ma’am. A patrol of Unbroken Steel Rangers is headed this way. Crossing Guards in the northeast sector tried to persuade them to turn around, but they would not be deterred.”

“Hold on, I gotta take this,” not-me snapped. She politely turned her head away and tapped the earbloom in her ear. “How many, and are they being pursued?”

“Just two, ma’am. No sign of Heretics just yet. I’ll have my guards keep you posted.”

“Don’t bother. I’m on my way.” Evil Frosty sort of regarded us, then snapped, “Don’t go anywhere.” She began to stomp out of the tent, muttering under her breath, “Good help is so bucking hard to find nowadays. Guards! Make sure nopony leaves.”

The moment not-me angsted out of view, two heavily armed ponies in full combat armor trotted up to the tent, stopping just short of the entrance and plonking themselves down on the spot, facing us. Hmm. The assault rifles that they had mounted on their battle saddles wouldn’t so much be a problem rather than just an inconvenience. I could probably deal with one, but the other was going to be an issue.

Since they weren’t going anywhere, I decided to ignore them for now and turn my attention back to the rest of the conundrum at hoof. If memory served, most of these command tents had a full-sized radio and a terminal stashed around somewhere. All I needed to do was find it, but either the previous owners hadn’t set it up or the other me didn’t know how to use it and had done away with it.

In the time that not-me had given us, I had managed to discover the neatly-packed radio still in its box and quickly unpacked it. I extended the little antennae and then sort of sat there. What was I doing with this? Radio stuff wasn’t really my thing, since everypony else seemed to always program my radios for me. There were so many little buttons and dials on this thing, and the displays were just jumbles of lines and numbers!

…And just in time to save the day, here was Officer Frosty! “Hang on, moron. I got this.” Without missing a beat, she flicked a few switches and twiddled a few knobs while rhythmically pumping the hoof-driven generator built into the side of it. She seemed delighted at the sound of static bursting forth.

As it stood, all I heard was static and garbled nonsense. So did Violent—er, Violet, since she chimed, “It’s difficult to work out math and magic with all of that noise over there.”

Whatever Officer was looking for, she wasn’t finding it. She even plugged in the headset and pressed it to her ear. Little knobs were tweaked, switches were flipped in all sorts of directions, and one of the displays lit up periodically with squiggly lines. After a bit of trial and error, a voice could be faintly heard coming in and out of focus. With a few nudges of a tiny knob, the voice became as clear as it was going to get.

“…eats. This is a test of the emergency alert capabilities. In the event of a credible threat to Enclave operations, this channel must be kept clear and online. This is a test of the emergency alert capabilities. Indigo-level operatives must transmit on the channel Bullseye with the response to ‘Marshal’. This message repeats.”

One of those sentences did not match the others. We listened to it loop another time, just in case. I was in the middle of being confused, as per usual, when I was interrupted. “No matter how cool you think you sound, playing radio mare is not going to make me any less angry about all of the static,” Violet angrily snapped. “Knock it off.”

Mean noises coming from Violet was really par for the course, so I dutifully ignored her and let Officer get back to fiddling with knobs. The channel that Officer stopped on wasn’t like the others—it wasn’t dead air or garbled nonsense. A slow regular beeping tone was the only thing on this channel.

I was about to ask what the point of this was when Officer tapped the mic and slowly enunciated, “This is Coal, broadcasting from Waste Relay Oh-Four. Challenge is Marshal, response is Outlaw.” There wasn’t an immediate response. The two of us stared at the radio for a solid ten seconds, then she tried it again.

Even if Violet was still shooting us mean and/or confused looks, Officer kept it up. Every minute or so she’d repeat her statement and tap the mic between the pauses. There was still the looming threat of Eviller Frosty coming back before Officer was done doing whatever this was. In the event that bad got worse, I’d probably just go stab Myself out of sheer convenience. It was either that, or she’d stab me in my face for my own convenience. Her convenience.

“And what about Violet?” Gale rather abruptly commented.

Yeah, I could also stab Violet in the confusion.

Just for thinking that, the mare herself perked up again and asked, “What did you say about me?”

Officer shushed everyone by angrily demanding, “Quiet! I’m working.”

Right on cue, the noise on the frequency was replaced with what sounded like someone liberally rubbing a microphone all over a tumbleweed. After a brief moment, somepony coughed and a decidedly gender-indistinguishable radio voice answered, “Holy shit, okay. Okay, okay, hang on. I’ve got the follow-up. The thing says something about a Full House and then a bunch of other stuff. Hand, River, Flop? Oh, I need the proper response to those. Yeah.”

How new was this guy? It seemed like I wasn’t the only one with that thought—Officer groaned in exasperation. “The proper responses are Pocket, Flush, and King.”

There was silence on the airwaves as this guy probably went fact-checking. While he did that, I remained blissfully ignorant about what exactly was happening. Either Officer was getting us out of this mess, or about to cause a bigger mess.

Radiohead finally returned. “You’re uh, confirmed to be you. Hang on, I gotta pass you along.”

And there he went, only to be replaced with a different indistinguishable voice. “It’s really you, Coal? So Snowmare is still alive? What’s the status on the ground team there?”

We glanced at the collared and leashed pegasus on the floor who was now happily rolling in the dirt. “Indisposed is a good word for it, sir. One pony accounted for. The rest are nowhere to be found, sir,” Officer reported.

“Right, we’ll be dispatching a recovery team for you. New orders—hold tight and we’ll have home ASAP. If your location becomes compromised, contact us on this channel and Dipstick will let us know. Whatever you do, do not engage existing Enclave forces. Go to ground.”

I pantomimed saluting and immediately barked, “Roger, roger.”

“Be safe, Winds. It’s dangerous out there, and friendly patrols will not recognize you as an allied operator. Heck, nopony thought you were still out and about after that tip-off. I, for once, apologize for not trusting how well you’d turn out. Help is on the way. Over and out.” The signal once again resumed its periodic beeping and Officer seemed satisfied, for the moment.

I was actually just more concerned whether the help that the Enclave were promising me had air quotes around it or not. Regardless, it would still be a nice change of scenery. My musing was put to an end when I came back just in time to interrupt myself.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing? Where did you get that?” Evil Frosty snarled. “Why, why, why must you be so difficult? Is it literally impossible for you to follow simple directions? Sit down, shut up, and stop interfering with things.”

I crossed my legs and sneered back, “Yeah? And what’re you going to do if I don’t?”

~~~~~

There was yet another annoyed sigh, and I pointedly didn’t make eye contact with the exhalee. Instead, I tried to distract her by mumbling, “I can’t believe there are stockades here.” Three of them, in fact—all arranged in a half-circleish display mode on top of an elevated little concrete platform for the convenience of spectators, presumably. It was also mildly cruel and unusual that the market that we’d passed earlier was just within sight. Comforting to note, however, the radroach curry was still squirming. Joy.

Shifting my weight back and forth was the only way to get comfortable while locked up in this dumb stockade—a squat little wood and iron structure, just a bit higher than head level with both my forelegs and my neck locked in it. Not-me had been smart and confiscated my power armor first.

Problem was, being locked in this thing left my rear half in a position that nearly begged for sexual assault. I didn’t have the comfort of my power armor anymore, so it was just a matter of mister peripheral vision and kicksies to keep me safe.

And of course there was Violet, who was still making deflating noises at me—I was just going to pretend she didn’t exist—but I wasn’t really sure how much help she’d be anyway. She had simply teleported out of her chains when nopony was paying attention. Thankfully, Violet had casually stolen back my gear and was currently carting around my stuff. If I needed somepony to tell me I wasn’t being smart, I had Gale for that. Then again, Violet wasn’t the one in a stockade. On a technicality, Gale wasn’t either.

“Frosty, I’m seriously considering leaving you here so that you’ll learn from your mistakes. On the other hoof, both of us know otherwise.”

“So that means you’ll save me?” I hopefully asked.

Violet faltered, then decided to pat my head. “Sure, let’s pretend that’s what I meant.” she flashed me a wry grin.

On the topic of rescue, I remembered that Riverbed was still wandering around somewhere. “No, but seriously. Can you go grab Riverbed? I have no idea what me is up to, and if the Enclave rescue team comes for me and not me, I’m going to be very inconvenienced and they’ll be really bucking surprised when it happens and stuff. So will I, but that’s her problem.”

“Any more ‘and’s’, or are you done?”

I tapped my chin. Rather, I tried to tap my chin and got annoyed that I couldn’t. “I think that’s really it. Can you find out where the other Frosty went? Assuming all goes well, Riverbed and I’ll figure out how to get out of here before I find out about it.” As I pondered, I realized that I could talk my way out of anything since “Frosty”—and by extension, I—seemed to be in command here.

“Okay. I’ll go see exactly what your doppelganger is made of—quite literally, mind you—and the explosions and screaming will tell me where you are later,” Violet agreed. “And now just one last thing to check.”

I was about to ask what she meant when everything suddenly went dark and slightly hay-scented. “What’s going on? Where did the light go?” Instinct began to take over and I felt my eyes begin to droop. “It’s really dark and—” I widely yawned. “I guess I’ll take a nap. No time like… the present.”

“I… wasn’t expecting that to work.” There was a pat on my head. “Um. Good birdie. Now think about what you’ve done.”

X~~~X

“Guuuuuuy, where are we going?” I whined.

“We’re going to talk to the Cargo Master so that you and your friends have a place to stay,” the shaved bear leading me through town grumbled. At some point in our narcolepsy-fueled adventure, Frosty must have had grown a pair of gigantic balls to have yelled at this pony earlier. The guy was huge! And all he wanted to do was apparently love me, care for me, and cherish me. Wishful thinking perhaps, but it made me giggle on the inside.

“Eh… you can prob’ly find your own way, though,” the pony continued. “I still have to, euh, make sure boss lady isn’t gonna flog somepony.” And with that, Cuddle Monster pranced away without even giving me a proper hug goodbye. Rude. As I took collection of my surroundings, I also realized the guy was completely wrong—I had no idea who I was looking for or where I was supposed to be going.

The last time I’d been here was ages ago. Whoever this new group was had renovated the heck out of Value Town. King was nowhere to be found and neither was Value Belcher’s Value Flophouse for the economically impaired. That also meant that they’d probably kicked out Doctor Balanced as well, which would be unfortunate. The dingy little run-down buildings had somehow gotten even worse off between the exchange of ownership as well.

So I did what I did best—wander about until I got bored. I’d eventually stumble across whoever Cargo Master was, so a bit of sightseeing was probably fine. We weren’t in a rush anyway. Still, finding somewhere for us to temporarily crash was still priority. If I got it done quickly enough, I wishfully hoped of spending the evening gently rubbing the birdie’s tummy. Of course Frosty didn’t like it, but she’d learn. Everypony did at some point.

Except Violet, because apparently somepony had rubbed all the fun right out of her.

Back on topic, I still found it a bit odd that the ponies here were so… diverse. Wastelanders, raiders, scribes—literally anypony from any faction in the Wasteland was represented around here, sans birdies. I wasn’t going to be one to judge, but it did strike me as odd. But hey, I wasn’t going to complain about the wide array of eye candy.

Speaking of eye candy, a neat and orderly line of ponies were making their way past, so I paused on ogling bystanders in favor of the party train slowly scooting past. I politely took a step back to observe. Besides the weird fact that they all wore similarly patterned scarves accompanying their mismatched outfits, they were also chanting “Chugga, chugga, chugga” with every shuffled step.

Weeeeeird.

Once the creep train had passed through and everypony went back to their business, I returned to my intent observing. Like that one—he had a raideresque sort of rugged charm about him. He also had an adorably dark and potentially edgy color scheme to swoon over—dark red on pink. Earth ponies always looked good in dark colors, especially in red. Whatever wasn’t red was marked up with black and dark gray war paint. His mane was styled the only way raiders knew how—spikes and pointy shapes. On a whim, I mentally named him Studmuffins and began to search the meager crowds for a suitable mate for him. A cursory examination of the crowd would help me locate a suitable match.

In an instant, I found her. There was something about the little pink unicorn mare that I immediately tagged as “waifu material”. Her white mane was tied up in a professional little bun, perfect for the Wasteland mechanic on-the-go. The brownish-red smock and barding combination she was wearing was just a size too big on her on her, but it even complimented her unknowing fiancé. The two of them would make an adorable couple. That, and I was somewhat interested what the combination of lightish red and dark red coats would result in.

They’d have pretty-lookin’ foals regardless.

My fantasies of aesthetics and complimentary colors were politely placed aside so that Violet the fun-killer could have my full attention. “You need to go save Frosty,” she flatly told me with her usual bored look. A small cloud of Frosty’s stuff was lazily orbiting her butt, which was hella distracting.

And take time out of non-consensual matchmaking? “Why me, guy?” Heck, the word "sensual" even pops up somewhere in there! How was I expected to work if my little pegapet kept getting herself into trouble all the time? What she needed was a birdcage and a cuttlebone to gnaw on to keep her out of trouble.

Once again, Violet sighed. “Because you have guns and I’m busy with deciphering the many oddities of Frosty Winds, Frosty Winds, and her nonsensical ramblings.”

I cocked my head at her and pointed out, “You repe—” My voice stopped making noise, so I defaulted to energetically pretending to scream bloody murder. Magic was a load of cheaty nonsense that I had no control over.

The sparkles coming off of Violet’s horn stopped once I stopped trying to keep talking. “It will make sense once you see it. Our Frosty is tied up in the stocks. Get her out while I do a bit of my own research.” She unceremoniously dumped the pile of Frosty-loot in front of me and trotted away in search of more fun to consume. Fun for the fun god. Streamers for the throne.

Somehow I managed to sling Frosty’s deceptively heavy saddlebag plus armor onto my back with a bit of rope and creative rigging. With a tired groan, I hefted all the gear on my body and rose to my hooves again. I wasn’t going to be winning any pegapet-chasing competitions, but at least I could still go save my pegapet.

Thanks to the convenient nature of Violet being vague, I relied on my keen sense of direction to point me to my favorite pegasus. However, as I slogged along the street, I noticed everypony slowly congregating away from where I was going. There was an air of caution and murmurs of haste in the gathered hodgepodge of ponies.

The whole situation I was in simply screamed weird, because they definitely got along with each other. Raiders, Fiends, Wastelanders, and several other diminutive factions I didn’t recognize all paid no heed of their allegiances. Nearly all of them were wearing some sort of matching stripey scarf or scarf-like object. Their murmurs of “trains” and “blessed be the steam god” and “I have to pee” were nearly identical in neutral tone. Before I could think of how weird this actually was, I caught sight of a pair of armored Steel Rangers stomping around, generally causing trouble like they usually did.

It was actually a lot of one of them bellowing “Where is she?” at everypony he came across and the other tagging along and pushing the traumatized ponies out of the way. Briefly, I considered turning tail and joining the wave of ponies limply lethargically escaping from them until I accidentally made eye contact with the Ranger’s blank helmet-face. He got the idea that I needed a yelling at and he began to wade through the crowd at me.

My first instinct was to blend in. Steel Rangers liked getting what they wanted, and anypony that thought otherwise would usu— Wait, was that a suppressed minigun? Each of the brown barrels were capped off with a fat transparent-ish purple suppressor instead of a covering shroud for the entire assembly. Coooooool. Now I really wanted one.

Getting distracted by shiny guns gave the Ranger just enough time to bellow into my face. “Where is she?” he demanded again, this time nearly blowing out my ears. It really didn’t help I didn’t know who he was looking for.

I took the safe path and cautiously answered, “The last place you look?”

“Don’t give me that lip service. Tell me!”

“I’ll give you lip service, guy!” I automatically threatened. The helmet remained silent for once. The beginnings of a gloat died in my throat when my brain finally caught up to what I said. “I mean, uh, that’s not what I meant. Like, you know what I—er…” Blushing, I nervously chuckled, “Offer still stands, guy?”

The helmet kept impassively staring at me, which was making me nervous. Ponies around me were surreptitiously backing away as well, which was making me even more nervous. So I did the one thing that every mare should have in their arsenal—point and scream in pure unadulterated fright. And damn, did it do the trick. Both Steelios, plus a good number of the crowd all looked at all of the nothing I was pointing at. With the heavily-armed tanks distracted, I made my escape by gracefully galloping away at top speed.

I wasn’t sure where I was going, but “in the opposite direction” was a good start. Several ponies loudly protested when I blitzed past them at top speed with Frosty’s stuff wildly swinging behind me. Maybe some of them got hit, but I didn’t stop to check. Once I was around a corner and out of sight, I stopped to catch my breath in what used to be the town square.

Convenient, too. I spied my favorite little dusty cyan butt pointed in my general direction. The rest of Frosty was stuck in a public bondage device, giving me perfect access to her back half. Ooh, I could just barely make out her cute li’l belly button if I ducked my head low enough! For whatever reason, she was also wearing a canvas bag on her head as well. That was my cue to go see if she was okay by checking for a pulse.

You know, around her hoofsies. And her soft wingsies. Ears too, just in case. Maybe even squeeze in a quick belly rub for her comfort. However, resolve trumped greed this time. “No, not in public. Like, just check for a pulse and see if she’s okay. Control yourself, guy,” I muttered to myself. “No touching means no getting shot at.”

In Frosty’s case, not getting choked to death. Or kicked to death. As I casually trotted toward the little pegasus, I couldn’t help but stare longingly at the adorable tummy just begging to be gently massaged. Still, caps were caps and she was the one paying me. It was just unfortunate circumstance that I couldn’t grope my boss while her life was probably in danger.

Again.

Anyway, I sort of stood in front of the stockade and waited patiently for Frosty to acknowledge my existence. A minute passed before I noticed the spreading puddle of drool growing on the ground under Frosty’s head. It was also then I realized she was fast asleep, gently snoring away underneath the bag on her head. Her ears and her protruding hoof periodically twitched at every sound.

It was really, really, really difficult to resist the urge to do anything I wanted. Frosty was generally a heavy sleeper to my experience, and with that information I knew I could get away with it. Difficult didn’t mean impossible, though. I summoned up the emergency reserves of my will and kept my hooves to myself. Saving Frosty came first, then I’d collect on my well-deserved victory cuddles.

The obvious first move was to remove the bag on her head. The face of true beauty awaited me: somewhat like a dead fish, still slowly leaking drool everywhere. I winced, recoiled a bit, and paused.

I put the bag back on her head. Maybe posture had something to do with Frosty’s sleeping face. When she had been in the box, there had been a cuter little sleepy face. Hmmm.

Either I woke her up or I refrained from inappropriate touchings. Doing both was really pushing it. With a prayer to the deer gods, I yanked the bag back off and immediately gave in to batting at Frosty’s ears. It only took another minute of being entertained by Frosty’s flicking ears before the mare herself woke up with a snort.

“Wha? Is it morning already?” Frosty blearily blinked and looked around. I let her stew in confusion for a reasonably entertaining amount of time while she tried to remember where she was. After four or five tugs, Frosty stopped trying to pull her head back through the hole in the public bondage device she was still locked in and groaned. “Oh yeah, this is a thing,” she muttered bitterly, shifting her hind legs and giving those fluffy wings a flutter.

Since this was a twice-in-a-lifetime chance, I continued to fondle Frosty’s little earsies even as she tried to squirm away. “Aww, such a fussy birdie,” I cooed.

To my disappointment, birdie didn’t think that my ministrations were helping. “Stop! Get me out of here!” When I tried to continue the pettings, Frosty began trying to bite at my hoof.

I gave up in favor of keeping my hoof exactly how it was. “Okay, okay.” In mid-thought, I remembered I shouldn’t be messing around nearly this much. “It’s probably for the best since I think those Stink Raiders are probably coming this way, guy.”

Frosty tilted her head at me and flopped one of her ears. “What?”

“Yeah, Steam Radigators,” I smartly responded.

“What?”

Usually ponies understood it by now, and I wasn’t expecting to have to come up with another on the spot. “You know, the Smudge Razors.” After those words left my mouth I realized that wasn’t some of my best material.

Suddenly, Frosty’s eyes did the thing again and then it wasn’t her anymore. “She means the Steel Rangers, Frosty.” Whichever one it was, she was sort of looking off into nowhere to the right.

“Oh. Oooooh. Steel Rangers, I get it now.” Frosty-eyes returned and she thoughtfully hummed to herself. “Sheesh, how many of those do you have?”

There was a list I had compiled in the little notebook in my vest pocket. It was very complete collection of adorable little nicknames, but there were just too many to know off the top of my head. “Um. Soot Rainers?”

I really wasn’t sure which Frosty or Frosties were speaking, so I gave up on trying to figure out which was which. “There is a possibility that one of these detachments is under Rumcake’s command. That, or word will reach him one way or another.”

“And where are you going with that, exactly?”

“All I am merely suggesting is that we could link up with him again. Luna knows we could use some help.”

“Wait, what about Middy? His petrification should’ve worn off by now, right?”

“Just him and Riverbed? That wouldn’t work. Where did Middy even disappear to, anyway? I thought Violet was supposed to be carting him around.”

“Well, we could get still these Rangers to help me out, yeah!”

“Well, I was actually—”

“Riverbed! There should be a set of holotags in my bag somewhere. Show it to the Rangers and get them to help me out of this.”

My ears perked up as Frosty finally addressed me. “Or I could just break you out myself.” I eyed the flimsy little metal brace holding the whole contraption together and figured it wouldn’t take much to snap it.

“Of course, or that. Then f—”

“No, what we—”

“Frosty.”

“Stop interrupting me.”

“Frosty.”

“If we just—”

“Frosty!”

“What?!”

“We cannot talk at the same time!” Frosty yelled at herself. After waiting an extra moment, she calmly spoke, “Thank you. As I was saying, why don’t we have Riverbed here unlock these stocks so that we can go find the pony posing as us.”

“But I run this place, and I’m pretty sure that I told everypony else to flip their shit if I managed to escape. Riverbed is still just Riverbed. Who’s gonna buck with ten Steel Rangers?”

I thought back on the yelling match I’d spotted earlier. “Think fewer.”

“Seven?”

“Less.”

“Five? Five is a nice round number.”

“Two.”

Frosty’s face scrunched up in concentration, which was adorable in its own right. “…Hey, haven’t I heard this one before?”

“Have you?’

“Have I?”

“Well I dunno, have you?”

“I’m almost sure this already happened.”

“Hm.”

The other Frosty ended up ruining our fun. “We can figure this out later. Rescue, remember?”

With her mind back on track, normal Frosty demanded, “Oh yeah, Rivvie—go get the Rangers!”

“Or I could—” I began to suggest.

“I was implying that Riv—”

Listening to Frosty argue with herself was starting to get on my nerves, especially since she literally could not make up her mind about what she wanted. “Screw it, whatever. I’ll go see if the Sandwich Rippers will help you.” As I began to trot away, I could still hear my birdie chasing her tail in the background. Silly birdie.

Even though I had technically volunteered for the job, I really didn’t feel like searching for the Syrup Raisins after my first meeting with them. Those ponies were famous for holding grudges. Hmm.

Hidden underneath one of these sewer grates was a ladder to an underground bar that was open to all sorts of scum and villainy like me. If these new guys hadn’t changed too much, that meant Ass Burgers’ place should still be open. He was an angry little guy that didn’t take shit from anypony. If anypony from the old Value Town was still here, it was probably him. That, and I really wanted more of his microbrewed cider.

In an instant, I made up my mind. Cider today. The world could wait until tomorrow. Besides, Frosty would be fine. On the off chance that Ass Burgers had been evicted, I’d have to go save my pegapet.

Of course, talking about the Smarm Reactors this much would inevitably summon them into existence. I nearly walked into the big angry one’s butt and managed to avert terrible disaster only by veering into a wall instead. Problem was, doing that only grabbed the attention of the less angry one. Chain reaction brought in big angry one as well.

The two of them turned on me, their guns still on full display. Huge, angry, and ambiguously ugly shouted, “Hey! You’re that mare from earlier.” Uh oh.

I immediately averted my gaze and blurted, “No I’m not, guy.” As momma always said, they can’t see you if you don’t make eye contact. Sure, she was usually wrong, but it definitely made me feel better about it. Smart Racoons weren’t usually that dumb, but what they lacked in intelligence they made up for in firepower. If I answered wrong, I’d probably be toast right here.

On the other hoof, Shaft Rammers weren’t really the helpful kind either. I didn’t even know where Frosty had gotten holotags from. If these two were the “shoot the messenger” kind, I’d definitely be toast. One hundred percent toast. Ultra burnt toast. With cheese.

Frosty actually wanted me to make conversation with them. I was contractually obligated to at least attempt it, even if I really didn’t want to. “Uh, actually. Hang on, guy. Like, I’ve got a thing for you or somethin’.” Under the watchful glare of the two armored ponies, I awkwardly shuffled through Frosty’s stuff for several minutes searching for these holotags. “Heh, hang on. They’re somewhere.”

“What do you want?” came the angry noise.

Between scraping flattened snack cakes off of the bottom layer of Frosty’s pack, I paused and tapped my chin. “Well, I want a lot of things.” A low-pitched whirr generally associated with a minigun made me quickly formulate a proper response. “Friend of mine is in a pickle and specifically requested for your help,” I hastily spewed.

That seemed to at least distract them from deciding to shoot me. That gave me time to continue searching through Frosty’s stuff for these holotags she had been talking about. Several things bothered me about the past hour or so of my life—what had happened to Value Town? What was wrong with Frosty? And what was with all of these mismatched train fanatics? More importantly, why were these two on their own? Where was the rest of their squad?

But I’d have to not get blown up by these two first. “So, the morons that run this place decided to publicly shame her. As much as I’d like to break her out myself, she thinks I don’t have the firepower to take care of the inevitable retaliation from the residents,” I slowly explained. Wow, there was a lot of random junk in Frosty’s bag. “I’m a mercenary she hired and—”

Angry Fatty tapped the Talons logo stenciled on my armor and huffed, “Talons are griffins, not ponies. You’re not fooling anypony.”

“Long story.” The truth, but that usually didn’t work. Most ponies didn’t actually listen, and I nearly never got the benefit of the doubt. I decided to fall back on my backup explanation instead. “Well, it’s mostly to discourage anypony stupid enough to believe it,” I calmly lied in practiced fashion.

Small Fatty—the other one—stepped into the conversation. “Rumcake, we might as well. We’ll need caps to keep going and we still have no idea where she is. If we leave a good impression on this community maybe they’ll help us.”

After taking a second to consider those words, Big Fatty asked, “What will you give us for saving your friend?”

“My everlasting gratitude?” I suggested to him. When the helmet stare didn’t budge, I rolled my eyes and huffed, “Wow, guy. Fine, lemme see what I’ve got.” Setting aside Frosty’s pile of stuff, I searched my various pockets and pouches for any spare tidbits that Snack Ravagers liked to hoard. On the topic of tidbits, all I had was caps—lots of them. I had nearly enough to buy up the mushroom farm/winery/thing now, thanks to Frosty. “Okay, guy. I can give you one hundred fifty caps. The dumb unicorn following us around might have other stuff we can probably spare.” It was a good amount of money, but it wasn’t more than I could feasibly scrounge for or that I could literally suck out of somepony.

Big Angry was probably still scowling at me under that helmet. At a nudge from Small Angry, he seemed to give in. “Fine. We’ll do it. Anything else?”

Yay, problem solved. “Oh, right.” I went back to digging through Frosty’s stuff and conveniently found the holotags she had been talking about. “She told me to give you these, guy.” The shiny surface caught the light as I hoofed it over and I barely made out the name “Frostivus Kay Winds” stamped on it.

Curious. Birdie hadn’t told me she had a silly name. Also curious was the little blue shiny bit—what the butts was it for?

What I hadn’t been expecting was a nuclear meltdown. “Where did you get this?” Big Angry somehow got even angrier, and he began to bellow at me. “Where? Where did you get this?!”

I was caught off guard by the sudden outburst and immediately shrunk, ears pinned and heart racing. Where the balls did that come from? I was under the impression that we’d gotten past that part and straight to the quest-giving section. Courage, Rivvie! You’ve faced down bigger and hornier.

With determination seeping back into my veins, I took a stand for myself and shouted back, “She gave it to me, ya big lug!”

“Do you realize how long I’ve been looking for her? She killed my friend!”

I angrily exhaled through my nose and snapped, “What of it, guy? I’ve killed her friends. Whatever, guy.” Well, at least I thought I did. Those Enclave pegasi that I’d shot-gunned back when they tried to take Frosty away were probably her friends. Or something.

“We have unsettled business,” he firmly stated. “Tell me where she is before I crush your bones to paste. Last. Chance.”

“That’s not going to bring Tangie back, Rumcake. If you antagonize mercenaries, Talons or not, you’ll just make it worse for the rest of us.” Little Angry tapped Big Angry—Rumcake—placed her hoof on his back and made a motion to pull him back. “Look, there are still other ponies to ask. The train cultists have been amicable enough whenever we’ve dealt with them. We know she’s in the area.”

Hold on, did I hear that right? “Wait, wait, wait. Tangie—Tangie the Tangerine is dead?” I hastily interjected. “What happened? I’ve been traveling with Frosty for a while. Last time I checked, Tangie was alive when I left with Frosty.”

Dirt began to go airborne as Angry Butt stomped the ground impatiently. “Frosty killed her! She needs to answer for her crimes or face justice as I see fit. Last chance, mercenary. Where is she?” he sternly demanded.

Whatever Frosty had gotten herself in, hopefully I didn’t have to rescue her from her about-to-be rescuers. “Yeaaaaah. Whatever, guy. Dunno when Frosty got the time to shoot up Tangie, so like I think you’re really just looking for a scapegoat. ”

Even though I didn’t show it, I was frantically plowing through—heh, plowing—the new information that these two had dropped on me. Was that why we’d left Fruity in the dust? Had she snuck off and executed Tangie while I’d been busy with Talons business? With my news delivered, I decided to wander off in search of beverages for thinking over.

“Hey, I’m not done with you.”

Turning, I automatically answered, “Like, I should go.” When that didn’t provide me a way to get away, I pointed past him and innocently asked, “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” While Angry Fatty slowly stomped around to look, I hightailed it out of there at mach one.

Just out of earshot, I heard him roar, “Shit, not again! I’m gonna bucking paste her the next time I see her.”

X~~~X

“So… how’s it hanging?”

Once again, I groaned. “Stop.”

“Sorry.” Gale stifled a giggle. “You look like you’re a little tied up at the moment.”

I tilted my head as I worked that stretched little pun out to the miniscule limits it had achieved. “Eeeeh. I dunno. Not feeling it,” I decided.

“Maybe it’s because your sense of humor is a bit locked up,” Gale immediately retorted.

Pointedly staring at the very not-stuck-in-a-stockade Gale standing to my right, I flatly responded, “No you’re not. Although I am now wishing you were.”

“You don’t know that.”

I arched an eyebrow at her. “I think I do. Also, that’s my line.”

“And by extension, mine as well.” She stuck her tongue out at me in a very un-ladylike manner. “So there.”

If I could cross my legs and pout, I would have. “I don’t like your logic.” All I could manage was a half-wiggle of my hooves.

This time I was stuck by the full force of the least amused glare in the world. “I’m very well aware.”

I was saved from any more passive aggression by Violet loudly appearing out of nowhere, slightly out of breath and wide-eyed. Me being me, I politely waited for Gale to come up with something suitably snarky first since she seemed to already be on a roll. She took notice and gave me a curt little nod, which I took as a sign that it was now my initiative. It was that, or she was looking for my go-ahead for something tremendously facehoof-worthy.

The sight of a tuckered-out Violet was too hard to resist, so I braced myself for the inevitable retaliation as I chuckled, “Riverbed was right. This is why you need protein.” Right on cue, my mouth stopped making noise thanks to Violet’s dumb mute button for my face.

Even as I continued to make angry mouth-gestures at Violet, she snapped, “Says the pony whose main source of food is snack cakes. Three square meals a day does not literally mean that the meal needs to be a square.” There was a moment where I was afraid that she would continue to deflate like she always did these days, but she instead settled with an exasperated groan. “Just listen—whatever is posing as you isn’t a pony. Not only that, but the ponies here seem like they are under the inf—”

“Skip,” I interjected. Catching the annoyed glare, I shut up and wiggled my claws before I got muted again. “Continue.”

Violet waited to make sure that I was actually done before continuing her former line of thought. “As I was saying… there’s something definitely unnatural about the ponies in this town. Tangerine told me about Rumcake and Sparkle’s encounter with the Cult of the Train, and these seem to be the same ponies. Except that doesn’t make any sense because this is an isolated community far from where the Rangers were, and a cult with ideas this stupid shouldn’t be able to spread so quickly.” She paused and chuckled. “We should leave before they decide to assimilate us into the Blorg.”

“The what?” I blankly stared at her.

“…How can you, of all ponies, not understand that reference?” In a brief moment, Violet had just gone from moderately exhausted to simply upset.

I tried to shrug. “Well, I don’t really expect you to be funny. That, and I have this weird feeling that whatever you just threw at me is one-hundred percent more nerdy than I’m willing to put up with.”

The face of complete and utter disappointment was a lot more adorable-looking than it should have been. “You have no taste.”

“You have no sense of humor.” For a moment, we passively-aggressively glared at each other. Part of me—standing to my right, excitedly bouncing in place and waving a giant foam mallet in the air—really wanted to continue for the sake of entertainment. Unfortunately, I was losing feeling in my one not-robot hoof. “Now get me out of here before I die from boredom.”

Glancing at the meager gathering of ponies nearby, Violet asked, “What if they get angry? That thing that put you in here is still in charge. There’s no way it’s going to let you just waltz away.”

The group of ponies that Violet was looking at was yet again a confusing mishmash of random ponies of varying factions, but all of them seemed to be carrying small arms or nothing at all. “There’s like what—two guards? I can beat ‘em up,” I confidently responded. That was also assuming that they were the same guards that I had seen earlier.

“What if more show up?”

I pretended to look hurt and insulted by that remark. “Are you implying I can’t beat off a whole bunch of guys?”

Violet smirked. “I won’t believe it until I see it.”

“You have no idea what you’ve just put yourself in the middle of.” I’d show her, then we’d see who was laughing.

With a slight chuckle, Violet said, “I think you’re the one in the middle.”

“What?”

There was yet another pause from Violet. “Wow, what’s wrong with you?” Suddenly, she looked a lot more concerned than amused. Bemused. Mused. Substitute as necessary. “Normally you’re on top of stupidity and innuendo.”

I sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m a little out of it right now.” I violently rattled the stockade I was still clamped in and yelled, “Or maybe I’m still stuck in it!”

Violet furtively looked left and right, then a pale hazel glow surrounded her horn. “Okay, fine. Let’s get you out of there and I’ll let them shoot you first.” Something plinked, then the pressure around my neck and hoof vanished. I backed out of the wood device and firmly planted all my hooves to the ground. Breathing a sigh of relief, I shook myself hard to stretch out my muscles. One last cat-like stretch popped the rest of the kinks out of my system.

“Cool.” Sighing in relief, I bounced on my hooves and prepared myself for combat. Now for the fun part. A wild grin inched onto my face and I yelled, “Come at me!” As my expectant gaze darted back and forth between the several remaining ponies, I slowly realized that none of them really cared. I might have wilted a little out of disappointment. “Wow. Okay, we might have overblown the situation.” If only the gunfire and panicked screaming in the distance were a little closer, we’d have some fun.

Violet similarly glanced at our surroundings. “Just a mite,” she balefully observed. “On the topic of mites, speak of the devil.”

The not-Frosty came barreling at us at breakneck speed. Her coat was dirty and pockmarked with debris and weird green stuff oozing out of her wounds. She had a strange-looking little suppressed submachine gun clamped in her jaws and a murderous look in those stupid purple eyes of hers. That look also probably meant she figured out that I wasn’t locked up anymore.

“Hooves in the air,” the other me demanded at me, still brandishing the suppressed submachine gun in my general direction.

I briefly considered my options. Either get shot, or… eh. Maybe if I had a larger selection of reasonable options in my life I’d stop making such dumb decisions all the time. “No,” I decided.

Dumber Frosty somehow couldn’t grasp the definition of ‘no’. “What?” She even nearly dropped the gun she was holding out of surprise.

Crossing my forelegs, I smirked and replied, “I said no.”

She looked down at the gun then back at me, puzzled. “Why not?’

There were a variety of reasons, but I liked where this was going. “I don’t want to.”

Purple eyes darted to the submachine gun and back. “But I’ve got a gun,” she weakly protested.

In a mock exhausted manner, I groaned, “I don’t care.”

“But…” she sputtered. “That doesn’t make any sense!”

I smugly sat there and grinned. “Too bad.”

“But I—you—th—” Anti-Frosty threw the useless weapon to the ground and screamed a very un-ponylike scream into the air. “You ruined my life—no, everything that I had been working for ever since I met you. Since then, I have been following you for weeks. I have spent precious hours of my miserable life becoming you. And of all the ponies in the Wasteland, you are the only one that has prevented me from achieving what deserves to be mine!” She took a few breaths, then cried, “How can somepony as stupid as you manage to ruin this—this perfect day!?”

The irony, of course, was that I still didn’t entirely know who this guy was. “You really need a chill pill.” Unbidden, thoughts of Sparkle suggesting Dash came to mind.

“This! This is what thwarts me,” Angsty shouted. She picked up the submachine gun again. “I am going to end this farce right here, right now.”

Uh oh. This time, she actually looked like she was going to kill me. In panic, I was about to ask Violet what to do when I noticed the conspicuous absence of Book Horse in my immediate vicinity. The only plan I had was to take her by surprise and maybe steal the gun once she dropped it. So I did the only thing that made sense and turned my back on her.

“No you’re not,” I insisted.

The barrel of the gun pressed against the back of my head. “I beg to differ.”

Now that the two of us were nearly touching, I had an opportunity like no other to pull off the one close-quarters move I knew best. As quickly as I could, I snapped my claw-leg backward and hooked it around her neck, squeezing tight. Ignoring her yelp of surprise, I then leapt and swung my body forward, torquing my leg into an overhead throw. Just as I’d expected, I went flying forward and landed on my back while my unfortunate cargo had her head mashed into the ground.

The result? One horribly distressed copycat clutching her bleeding face and several hundred hours of watching action movies finally paying off. Just pulling off the move made the back pain worthwhile. Being the victor, I leapt up onto my hind legs and shouted, “Boom! And the crowd goes wild!” Victory also meant that I deserved an obligatory hoof pump and wing display.

Just to ruin the atmosphere of course, nopony went wild. It was a lot of shock, awe, maybe a bit of offended gasp. Not even a limp air horn could save me from the deafening lack of enthusiasm from the spectators to our fight. In fact, it seemed like it had gotten even quieter than when the fight had started to begin with. More to the point, the spectators seemed to have thinned out more since our argument started.

“Sheesh. Tough crowd,” I muttered. Lowering myself onto all fours once more, I looked over the state of not-me and decided that she’d look a lot better with a black eye. Obviously, I fixed that little problem.

Vigorously.

At that very moment, the cries of pain and impending doom reached a sudden crescendo. Several armored guards came stumbling out of a side street, with what remained of their armor riddled with bullet holes and impact dents. One of them—the squad leader, by the looks of it—caught sight of me and yelled in panic, “An enemy has broken through the line! Get to saf—hgrukwhyamionfireghrkh.” Whatever else he was about to say was interrupted by a stream of flaming lead.

And there he was. Rumcake “Domestic Abuse” Rum. Once again, wading through all sorts of his problems by liberally applying force to it. Before the two surviving guards could make up their minds on whether they wanted to run or fight, they were both gunned down like their unfortunate ranking officer. Rumcake violently stomped across the corpses and turned his spinning minigun on me.

A crackle of static burst from his helmet. “Stop sending your hirelings and face the consequences of your actions!” Rumcake’s helmet boomed.

I blinked at him. If there was anything a mare hated, it was definitely clingy stallions. However, the first bit definitely wasn’t me so I bent down and whispered to not-me, “I think he’s talking to you.” Doing that also brought Rumcake’s attention to the fact that there were two of me—one battered, bruised, and bleeding while the other looking quite pleased with herself.

The comforting sound of Gale materializing by my side broke the air of indignant confusion. “Hey… why is he angry? Like, ‘murder an orphanage’ angry? I’d put our caps on something to do with our doppel… oh gods—” She came to a sudden realization and gasped, just as I did as well.

“We could start a dating service called Doppelbangers!”

“What? No! Frosty, what if this doppelganger was taking our place while we were out traipsing with Violet and Riverbed? Damn it, why weren’t you paying attention while she was monologuing?”

“I was expecting you to!” I whined. “Listening to exposition is boooooring.”

“Uuuugh.” Gale buried her face into her wings and groaned. “Why do I have to be your figment of imagination?”

“H-help… Honey, help me…” the not-Frosty pleaded at Rumcake. She even did the whole dramatic reach thing with a bit of tremble for effect. “Please. Save me.”

I blankly stared at the overly dramatic doppelganger on the ground and disapprovingly sighed at her. “Really? Come on, nopony actually does that in real life. That’s for trashy romance and weird slash fiction.” Looking back at Rumcake, I chuckled and gave her another kick. “Nopony is that stupid.”

My grin began to falter when I realized his minigun hadn’t stopped pointing at us. Or spinning. “Why are there two of you?” Rumcake asked slowly, deliberately.

“She imprisoned me!” Other Frosty suddenly shouted, her face still bloodied and bruised. “I’m real! She’s the fake! She took my place back in Strongbox. Please, help me!”

What? “Hey, cut that out!” I exclaimed, slamming her face down back into the dirt. I then noticed that Rumcake had shifted his gun so that it was now pointed only at me, and immediately realized that my reaction was a pretty terrible one if I was trying to convince Rumcake that I was the good guy.

“So you did it…” Rumcake whispered, wide-eyed, before his features settled on an enraged scowl.

“I didn’t do anything!” I hastily retorted. “And what do you even mean by it?”

“Don’t act dumb, imposter.”

With the fullest extent of sincerity in my voice, I replied, “I’m not acting. I’ve been told by many ponies that I am legitimately this stupid.” Which really wasn’t very nice of them. “Also, I’m the real Frosty; she’s the evil imposter!” I shouted, pointing down at the whimpering copy of me lying beaten and bloody in the dirt.

“I’m s-sorry… please help me,” Other Frosty continued to beg.

Drama queen. Sheesh.

“You will pay for your crimes!” Rumcake bellowed at me, tears forming in the corner of his eyes. His minigun began to spin up again. “Death to the pretender!”

Oh shit. “WAIT! No no no! Stop stop stop!” I shrieked, flailing my forelegs uselessly as I looked down the barrel of his gun as he started to pull the trigger…

Then time froze and helpfully reminded me I had a ninety-eight percent chance to punch Rumcake in the face.

“That was literally the worst place to choke.”

I gasped and choked on my breath for a moment before replying, “…That’s rude.”

Ice Storm casually trotted past me and stopped between my face and the minigun pointed at it. “Is that a way to talk to the stallion that just saved you?” he almost jokingly chided at me.

As such for S.A.T.S, I expected to be immobile and restricted to selecting targets for the spell. This was not the case as it seemed. I retained full mobility and rude-gesturing functionality, which I immediately began to implement once confusion wore off.

But first, Ice Storm. Somewhat angrily, I prodded his nose and flatly stated, “Yes.” The puzzled reaction was priceless, so I did it again for my amusement.

“You… you have zero idea what is happening, don’t you?”

“Yes.” I paused and thought about the wording. Yes, I did have no idea? No, I didn’t have any idea. Yes? No? “No? Yeah, let’s go with no.” I frowned. “I know that stupid Rumcake thinks that I’m the imposter-Frosty and was just about to murder me, if that’s all you mean.”

Ice Storm let out a weary groan. “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. Your face is going to be paste unless I save you.” He took a step to the right and cocked his head at the minigun barrels behind him to make his point. “And I can save you, but laws of magic demand that I get your permission first.”

Gee, that sounded ominous. For the sake of argument, I crossed my forelegs and and pouted. “What if I don’t want to?”

“Then I’m going to be very upset and disappointed with you. Also, you’ll die.” Even so, Ice was still sporting a dumb grin the entire time he’d said that.

Seeing as one option was going to kill me and the other might potentially kill me, I decided that the chance of being not dead was probably the smarter of the two. You’d think it would be an easy decision, but the way Ice Storm was grinning was making me doubt myself. “Okay, fine. You can be my hero.” With my decision made, I dramatically threw myself at him and draped myself over his shoulder. “Kiss away the pain.”

With me still dramatically clinging to him, a thoroughly perplexed Ice stammered, “What?”

“...Stand by me forever?” I tried.

There was a moment of incomprehensible silence that we shared until Ice carefully peeled me off of him and flatly stated to my face, “If these are song lyrics I’d like to point out that I have no idea what’s going on.”

Something seized me by the back of the neck and threw me to the ground before I could remember any more lyrics. “Get to the fun part already, dork!” Toasty snarled at Icy.

“Wow all sorts of impatient today okay then let’s get started shall we?” Ice Storm quickly blurted.

“Save me, hero!” I continued to pursue my new interest in theatre, embellishing my cry with a dramatic swoon. However, Ice was busy doing something else with Toasty and I ended up face-planting into the dirt. “You were supposed to catch me, hero.”

“Okay, Toasty’s ready. Here, this is for you.” I looked up only for a cigarette to be shoved into my mouth. Ice was already puffing away on his, the blue flame glowing with each breath. Just a bit behind him, Toasty was sort of half-smoking and half-gnawing her own, and I could have sworn her mane was ever so slightly beginning to ignite from the embers floating from it.

“Sorry, I don’t smoke.” I regarded the cigarette in my mouth and reiterated, “I only smoke when I’m on fire.” Then for clarification on the matter, I added, “Rather, when fire is on me.”

The familiar little silver lighter that Ice always carried around hovered by my face, its little blue flame dancing beside my unlit cigarette. “Welp, today is a pretty good day to start.” And then without waiting to see whether I was okay with it, he lit me up.

When I took a breath to fling an annoyed remark, I accidentally took a puff from the cigarette. The smoke rushed straight to my lungs and made me shut up as something in it began to work through my body. A sense of ease and relief washed over me. Why not just take another puff? This felt fine for now.

“Alright. Toasty, you’re up.”

I found myself standing up on my hind legs in an instant. “Let’s rock and roll!” Toasty crowed, punching my claw and hoof together.

Then I noticed that Ice was nowhere to be seen either. “This is going to hurt a lot, then a little more. But this hurts you a lot more than it hurts me, so sucks to be you.” A cold creeping sensation began to crawl over my back and up my wings. Pinpricks of pain followed, which were washed away by an almost relieving pulling sensation. “On my mark. We’re going to need the frost nova once I drop S.A.T.S. Just like we practiced, okay?”

“Yap yap yap. Let’s roll!”

“Resonate!” the two of them shouted at the same time. An electrical tingle bolted up my spine and metaphorically fried my brain. All of a sudden, it felt like a raging hurricane was building in my head. Time began to proceed again in slow motion as S.A.T.S. wore off.

An inky, murky, deep bluish darkness burst forth from the base of my hooves and enveloped them, inching up my body and sinking into my fur. I felt myself growing stronger and even gaining a bit of height as more and more of of my body was covered with the dark tendrils. My mane began to dangle into my vision and I watched it in bewildered wonderment as it became wispy and dotted with cute little sparkles. The last of the changes happened to my claw—

Then one moment it was the three of us—minus the other hitchhiker Frosties—and then it was just us.

A burst of deadly ice shards radiated out of… me, I suppose. Any surface they struck immediately began forming dense clusters of ice crystals and frost, which immobilized Rumcake’s minigun before it made it up to full speed. The shock of the blast stunned him and even made him take a few terror-induced steps backward. As we drew up to our full height, we roared, “Paladin! Does the light forsake you?” A decisive claw gesture caused the growing shards of ice to crack and shatter into nothingness, except for the ones disabling the minigun. Theatrics aside, maintaining the spell freezing things was catastrophically draining our reserves and it was already starting to strain our body.

“W-whwahwhat are you?” The fright in his voice was apparent. No doubt he’d ever seen such a grand display of raw power incarnate. He stomped his hooves and seemed to buck up his courage again. “You will die for your transgressions so that Tangerine’s spirit may rest!”

“And why must I die? I’ll just kill you instead,” we condescendingly sneered.

Lunging, Rumcake wailed, “You killed her!” Dodging the power-armored hooves was easy, but knowing that a single touch would severely impair us was reason enough to remain wary. On the third swing, he overextended and left himself open. “You killed Tangerine and you’ve hurt Frosty! You made me hate her!”

We paused in mid-swing, maybe out of surprise. Instead, we straightened up and began to chuckle. “Mortal minds... so easily manipulated.” The culprit was crawling away from our little scuffle, but we easily caught it in our grasp. It squirmed and futilely tried to bite us, but we simply ignored its attempts at injury and brandished it at Rumcake. “This creature perpetrated these acts, not I.”

Turning our attention to the doppelganger Frosty in our grasp, we began to squeeze a bit tighter on its throat until it was gasping and choking on its own incompetence. Little by little, his struggling began to slow down. We reached out with our dwindling reserves of power and latched onto its own. A relieved grin appeared on our face as magical energy began to surge back into us and out of the rapidly less Frosty-looking thing in our grasp. In moments, its disguise had been completely stripped away through all the magic that we had stolen from it, leaving behind a dazed and injured bug-looking thing.

Rumcake looked at me, then to the bug-thing, then back to me. It looked like a lost puppy, completely confused as to what was going on. “Who are you and what did you do to Frosty?” he demanded, back to brandishing his minigun again.

“Who are you to question the power of night incarnate?” We paused for a moment, then quizzically looked back at the bug in our grasp. “Wait, this doesn’t bother you? Seriously? Huh, okay. Uh. This is a bit… uh… let me just set this aside.” Hefting the bug-thing, we judged it to be at least five meters’ worth of entertainment and pitched it at a nearby wall.

The satisfying crunch-splat noise of impact was enough for a chuckle out of us, so we turned our attention back to matters at hoof. “I am Paladin Commander Rumcake Rum and I will not be fooled again! Release Frosty or I will be forced to end you myself.”

We planted our hooves in the ground so that we could charge forward and body check him. He was thrown off balance and knocked onto his back, which presented an opportunity for us to leap onto his stomach. ”Your parents didn’t love you enough and that’s why they gave you that stupid name.” To add insult to injury, we punched his helmet until it popped off.

“My parents are bread! It’s—”

“And now you will become toast!” Unfortunately for us, choreographing a finishing blow was the wrong call because Rumcake panicked and knocked us off of him with a hasty painful jab at my ovaries. Kidneys. Sensitive body part. Point being, we tumbled backward and heckled, “Laugh, damn you. That was funny.”

A little voice inside us pleaded for us to stop, to face reason. Another vocally encouraged us to vigorously pulpify the bug-thing. A third cheerfully pointed out that it was, in fact, getting away quite quickly. We took our eyes off of Rumcake to track the bug, only to get body-checked by the power-armored stallion himself. If it weren’t for the fortified body that we had created, we would have been a nightmare-shaped pancake on the ground. Even with a body bolstered with raw magicka, it still hurt and was rapidly draining whatever magicka we had left that was keeping us three-dimensional.

It took our last reserves of strength to wrestle ourself out from under the Ranger and knock him onto his back. We leapt on top of him and wrapped my talons around his muzzle so that he would be forced to both look at me and shut up. “You’ve been fooled. Tricked. Been had.” We sighed. “We are not your enemy today, Paladin Commander. Your dear Frosty is very much alive in us, and perhaps she has the capacity for forgiveness.” A dull pulsing ache in our head and limbs was becoming more strain than we could bear. “But my power fades and you’ve consumed far too much of my time. Today there will be a truce, but tomorrow… well, tomorrow we may not be so forgiving.”

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Mysterious Power (Level 2) – In addition to the previous tier’s bonuses, this skill now significantly boosts damage resistance and imparts a temporary shield regardless of character race. There is now a cooldown period where this skill cannot be used.
Current Sub-perk: Confused – You gain +1 to Perception.
New Status: Waking Nightmare – Meddling with powers beyond your comprehension will have consequences. For now, you gain +5 to Speech when wearing a hat.

Author's Note

Wow, okay. Sorry for the long wait. Been busy with side projects and classwork. Expect a new story at some point in the future.

Chapter 28: You won’t take me alive?

Chapter 28: You won’t take me alive?

“Is he friend, or is he foe, the pony wonders…”

My eyes cracked open.

I immediately regretted that decision and shut them again. Light hurt, and my precious retinas needed their rest. An accidental erotic groan made its way out of my mouth as I tried to stretch and roll over. Hopefully nopony had heard that. I sort of mulled over the curious observation that I was in, yet again, another bed and thanked Luna for the boundless plenty of comfortable nesting in this desolate wasteland.

So while I was warm and cuddled up in threadbare blanket over plush mattress, I desperately tried to recall how I’d gotten here. Little bits of enlightenment would float to the surface, like redeeming myself from the not-Frosty, throwing something, and then Ice’s ultimatum. A vague memory of slumping forward and face-planting yet again seemed to be the last thing that went through my mind.

“You do that a lot,” Gale quietly sighed.

If it wasn’t so darned bright, I would have lazily swatted at her. “Mph. Your face does that a lot.” My best efforts to drown her out were useless.

“Hey.”

A weary groan came out of my mouth. Whatever Ice wanted, I really didn’t want to bother with it at the moment. “I don’t want what you’re selling.”

“Just take it easy for a while. You burned through all the magicka I had stored up. I’ll see what I can scrounge up, but don’t count on any significant help anytime soon.”

Even though I’d heard what he said, it didn’t really process in my mind because I was still too infatuated with the fresh almost-clean scent of the pillow my face was buried in. “I don’t care,” I happily moaned. For once in a very long time, I was happy, comfy, and completely safe. Nothing could ruin this moment.

The reply from Ice was indignant. “You are intolerable.”

In the midst of my delightfully plush conversation with myself, the sound of loud hooves and clinking gear made me aware that somepony was here. Seeing as I had basically no urge to find out who it was, I continued to blithely relax in comfort. Maybe if I stayed still and pretended to be asleep they’d leave me alone. Yeah, that was a good plan.

“Hey, guy. Just tellin’ you that I’m probably gonna call it a week and go buck myself. Don’t get me wrong, guy—I’ve had an amazing time hangin’ out with you but I’m really not being paid enough to put my life into any more risk.”

What? What?! I shot bolt upright, all pretense of sleep cast aside. “What? But I can pay you more!” I desperately argued. Losing Riverbed as a travelling companion—as a friend, even—was a reality that I hoped to avoid.

The usually jovial Riverbed had a slight frown on her face and a quieter tone to her voice. “I’ve finally hoarded enough caps to retire. Your contract paid out the last batch of caps I needed for the deed. It only takes like, fifteen contracts, guy. I’m done, Frosty. I’m gonna head back and buy that mushroom farm I’ve always wanted and sell hooch for the rest of my life. Settle down, y’know? Get a suitor, make some pretty little foals, build a giant statue of a mondo-sized schlong for the front yard—you know, normal life things. Dying isn’t really on the docket.”

“B-but…” I didn’t want to lose the only traveling buddy that I actually liked! More importantly, she was also on a very short list of ponies that I hadn’t tried to kill or that hadn’t tried to kill me. As I came to terms with Violet the meanie being the only pony left in my group, I started to get a little misty-eyed.

Riverbed endearingly patted my head and lazily kneaded my ears. “Relax, guy. There’ll always be room for a little pegapet at my new place like you while I’m around.” Without even waiting for me to get annoyed, she stopped of her own accord and tried to cheerfully chirp, “Drop by sometime, huh?” She reached over with her forelegs spread, begging for a hug.

Tears blurred my vision and I dove into Riverbed’s embrace. I didn’t want her to leave. All I wanted was her to be around to crack jokes, back me up, and periodically molest me if needed. Everypony else I knew was ultra-serious and/or trying to kill me.

A pat on my back and the following gentle wing caress reminded me that Riverbed cared too. “Okay, guy. Getting damp.” I reluctantly released my hold and limply flopped back onto the bed. I guess this was it.

“See ya, space cowmare.” She grinned and waved from the doorway.

I didn’t want to say it. “Goodbye, Rivvie.” It was all just happening too fast for me to properly process.

With those last parting words, Riverbed Ransom trotted out of my life.

…What had even happened to me these past few days? I could barely remember, but whatever it was apparently freaked out Riverbed enough that she bailed at her first opportunity, only having the courtesy to wait for me to wake up before saying goodbye.

With a sinking feeling, I realized that her mind had been made up and nothing would convince her otherwise. Even if I ran out to catch her, nothing I could say or do would be able to bring her back to me. I despaired into the plush comfort of my pillow. This moment really needed a fade to black and then spacing of about a week so I could properly compose myself for whatever life had next for me.

For now, watering this pillow was a pretty good plan. I was crushed, but I somehow couldn’t reach the point of a full-blown breakdown. A dejected sniffle and a slow drip of tears was the most I managed. Where was I going to find a nice, agreeable, polite pony that I both wouldn’t want to murder and didn’t continuously question my judgement? More accurately, I really just needed a friend. Somepony that would put up with my nonsense.

I must have dozed off in mid-angst, because I didn’t hear anypony come in. However, somepony was having their way with my ears and I wasn’t going to take it lying down. Okay, I was—only because I was still comfortably in bed and because I was starting to like having my ears rubbed. It was a bittersweet experience, knowing that it wasn’t Riverbed once again nibbling on my ears but that she’d helpfully told someone to take her place.

A happy little sniffle popped out of my face as I allowed the pettings to happen. I twisted and adjusted myself into a more comfortable position so that I could get one eye on the pony keeping me company this time. Curiously enough, it was Sparkle sitting by my side, confused about whether or not I still wanted pettings. For a split second, I actually hadn’t recognized Sparkle. Instead of her usual armor getup that she was always in, she was wearing a loose-fitting jacket over somepony’s repurposed utility barding. “Were you crying?” she hesitantly asked.

The answer was yes, but she didn’t know that. “I was yawning profusely,” I instantly lied.

Sparkle hummed to herself. Whether or not that was a good thing I didn’t really care about. More importantly, my ears wouldn’t tend to themselves and I made sure to flick my ears in her direction. She caught the hint and continued to slowly stroke my right ear. There was a worried look on her face that even made me nervous. Doubt flashed in her eyes but she still stated, “Frosty, I have some bad news for you.” With news of that magnitude, I picked up my pillow and squashed it on top of my head.

Now I was prepared for the worst. “It’s okay, I’m already lying down and ready to faint on command.” Sparkle’s hoof retreated, which gave me just enough wiggle room to squish my hooves on top as well.

Even with my makeshift soundproofing, I could still make out the worried noises that Sparkle was making. “Mare to mare. Frosty, I’d want to know if I were in your position,” she muffled at me.

Curiosity overcame me and I retreated out of the safety of my pillow bunker. “Know what?”

“Well…” Sparkle hesitated, almost as if she hadn’t thought out the news yet. “Uh, Rumcake’s been boinking you.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and lightly chuckled. “Sparkle, I have schizophrenia, not dementia. Calm down. I remember very vividly, and if I recall properly he wouldn’t let me live it down either.” Now that sleep was completely out of the question, I sat up in bed and faced her directly. “I think you need to get with the times.”

Sparkle winced and looked like she was dying on the inside. She seemed to deliberate her words very carefully, only to give up. “No, I mean, while you were doing your thing.” When I didn’t visibly react in the way she had expected, she sighed. “When the changeling—”

I raised my hoof and blurted, “The what?”

“Changeling.”

“What-ling?”

“Changeling, yeah.”

“Is that what we’re calling it?”

Sparkle shrugged. “Dunno. That’s what Violet says.”

Silly Vi-vi giving things names. What kind of self-respecting giant pony-shaped bug wanted to be called a changeling, anyway? “Okay, sure. Let’s pretend that’s what that’s called. Continue.” I made a little go-ahead motion with a talon. An arbitrary thought brought me to the conclusion that “roachzilla” was a better and cooler name than “changeling”.

Tapping her hooves together, Sparkle nervously continued, “While the changeling was being you, he was going to town on it.”

The mental imagery only made me hot, bothered, and even more upset than I already was. It also didn’t help that coming up with an indignant outburst was being overridden by how viable a service Doppelbangers could be. Agh! I mentally gave myself a bap on the head for those thoughts. “And you didn’t stop him?!” I spat, any other rage simply unavailable.

My abject burst of displaced rage was stopped by Sparkle shouting back, “I didn’t know, okay?” Once she was sure that I wasn’t going to interrupt, she sort of stared off into the distance and muttered, “I had my doubts, of course, but I wasn’t just going to bust in there and yell ‘yank your dick out of that it’s bad for you’.” A little chuckle escaped her as well.

However, I didn’t find it nearly as funny. What remained of my patience died with that little laugh. “What tipped you off? The purple eyes?” I leaned forward and seized Sparkle’s jacket, pulling her close to stare her in the eye. Even if I didn’t pay attention to most ponies, I still noticed differences like that. “Look at my eyeballs. Get. It. Together.”

Sparkle scooted backward, nearly pulling me off the bed. She held up her hooves defensively. “We thought it was just another one of your alter-egos. We didn’t really think anything of it.”

Oh. “Uh.” I scooted myself back into the lumpy pillows, lost for words and my rage exhausted.

“Sorry. We just didn’t know.” She shamefully cast her gaze downward.

“Eyes?” I weakly protested.

“I don’t know. Really, I believed they were purple for that whole time.” The way she spoke, especially in the whole mutter-into-the-floor way, compelled me to realize that she was telling the truth. “Violet says that the changeling must have messed with my mind or something.” Sparkle suddenly perked up when the door opened behind her. “Oh, cool. Your turn,” she told him.

Rumcake nodded sheepishly at the tray he was carrying on his back. “I brought breakfast. Brunch, really.” Like Sparkle, he was also out of his armor. However unlike the more sensibly dressed mare, he was wearing nothing but a dinky little black bow tie and the accompanying collar. I completely ignored the first question of “why” in favor of ogling the party platter that was about to be married with my face. Orange liquid, teapot, sugary pastries of the cherry variety, “eggs” and “bacon”, wheat product, and some pile of shredded green stuff that I decided that I was allergic to.

Now knowing what Sparkle knew, the nervous look on her face made a lot of sense. “I’ll let you two play house. You’re welcome, Frosty.” With those last words of encouragement, she quickly made herself scarce. That left me and my bug-humping savior in a very small room together, where the only weapon I could possibly kill him that would cause the most pain with was the little teacup perched on the tray. Well, or the “bacon”. I couldn’t tell how crispy it was from here.

I somehow managed to remain impassive while I formulated an appropriately scathing beatdown on the stallion that had tried to murder me. Silently, I watched him carefully slide the tray onto the end of the bed. It was extremely tempting to just toss everything right at him as revenge, but I was really hungry. Unfortunately, the “bacon” was more on the floppy side, so death by pork product was also out of the question.

In the middle of his food-themed pandering, I had a random thought that all of this was probably how he’d treated the not-me as well, which only rekindled my anger. Was it just because he wanted some tail? Why did I even care? Jealousy? Envy? One of the two. Point was, I was angry again because Rumcake was dumber than a brick and couldn’t tell me apart from Roachzilla.

Toasty spawned in to my left and declared, “Give him a taste of the pimp hoof!”

While I deliberated on the ethical dilemma of whether or not abusing the abuser was the morally correct choice, I intently watched as Gale wrapped one leg around Toasty’s neck and gently covered the protesting mare’s mouth with a cute little monogrammed handkerchief. The struggling died down and the two mares vanished under the bed. As good of an idea that taking out all my stress on Rumcake had sounded, the mare in dress decided to shut down the fight club. “Don’t hit him. Please don’t,” she sighed from behind Toasty. “Don’t even think about it.”

“I don’t want to get punched out so early in the day,” Rumcake agreed as he poured out some leaf juice from the teapot into a little metal tin. Where had he gotten tea from, anyway? To think I could just be bribed by food.

In the end, being the smart one in our relationship was probably a better idea than exchanging blows. “You should have known it wasn’t me,” I still lowly groused.

Rumcake spared an additional moment to make sure the tray wasn’t going anywhere before snapping, “And how was I supposed to know that? I thought it was you the whole time.”

I raised an eyebrow and pointed at myself with a talon. “I don’t have purple eyes, asshat.”

“You looked normal to me!”

Normal? Normal? Hadn’t the whole problem with me been that I wasn’t normal? “You didn’t question the fact that I suddenly wasn’t a nutcase—how me not being weird would be incredibly weird?” How dense could he possibly be?

“I didn’t think of it—”

“And that’s the problem!”

“Hey! You don’t think when you make decisions either.”

“Yeah, that’s because I’m brash and suicidal, not mentally deficient.”

“That’s the kettle calling the pot black.”

All the momentum in the argument for both sides was suddenly lost due to lack of comprehension. Undignified silence stretched between us. “...What?” I quietly squeaked.

Surprising to all of us, Rumcake actually began to explain. “It’s an expression for when somepony is being ironically against something that they actually are. Or something like that.”

I heard myself clear my throat. “The proper phrase is ‘the pot calling the kettle black’, and the proper meaning of the idiom is ‘something that you say which means somepony should not criticize another pony for a fault that they have themselves’.” Gale self-satisfactorily hummed to herself, basking in the shocked silence. I, on the other hoof, still had no idea what was going on. Sensing that thought, she clarified, “He’s also calling us stupid.”

Nopony called me stupid and got away with it. Well, nopony but Violet. And me. And maybe Riverbed. Okay, so maybe some ponies could get away with it, but not this time. “Hey, we are not stupid. You are stupid. We have problems,” I retorted at myself and Rumcake.

Out of nowhere, Violet interjected, “As an observer, I can safely conclude that both of you are incredibly stupid.” Wait, when had she come in? I would have seen her standing in the doorway if I wasn’t so busy being angry. Yet another thing Rumcake had ruined.

Still, Violet had a valid point. I sighed and admitted, “Okay, I might be a little stupid.”

Violet rolled her eyes. “Frosty, I’ve caught stupidity just by being near you. ‘A little’ is a gross understatement.” Being on the offensive, Violent—er, Violet turned her wrath on Rumcake as well. Jabbing her hoof into his nose, she angrily snapped, “But you—I even explained exactly what happened to you. You were supposed to understand the situation and give the breakdown to Frosty without hurting her brain. Obviously I have misplaced my trust in you.”

Rumcake pointed at me. “She started it!”

I opened my mouth to defend myself with an eloquent “nuh-uh” when instead Violet stole center stage from me. “What are you, five? Goddesses’ sake, you’re supposed to be the leader of a contingent of Steel Rangers. You should know better. Get out of here and think about what you’ve done before Frosty flips her shit again and finally loses her mind for good.” She glared at Rumcake, not a single hint of humor or sarcasm evident on her face. “Now.”

Rumcake sulked instead of snapping at her. He gave me one last longing, maybe confused look before trudging back out. Violet watched him exit and made sure he wasn’t simply right outside the door as well. At least that left me with the brunch tray to pig out on afterward. Score one for me! But… what was the orange stuff?

With physical abuse out of sight and out of mind, I thought it pertinent to ask, “So… is anything broken? Am I on a bucket full of painkillers?” The follow-up would need to be can I be on a bucket of painkillers, but the answer would inevitably be no.

“No, and thank goddesses no. You had a little internal bleeding but that’s really about it.”

All things considered, not bad. “Oh, that’s good.”

“What?”

“Isn’t that where all the blood goes anyway?” I sighed in relief and squished myself into a more comfortable position to attack the munchie tray. Why was Violet giving me a weird look? Weirder than usual, anyway.

It was one of those glares that meant I was in for a pounding, so I gave up on snacking and settled myself into the bed again, bracing for the worst. More than likely it would be things I already knew and/or yelling that I could easily tune out. I was still much more entertained that she actually got Rumcake to submit to her demands. A stallion as big and abusive as he was wasn’t one I took to be cowed by a yelling little mare. Maybe there was something to be learned from Violet after all.

After an indeterminate and uncomfortable game of don’t blink, Violet finally stated, “You and I need to talk.”

“Well, here I am.” I spread my forelegs apart and calmly grinned. “We’re talking.”

“Not quite.” Unnervingly enough, Violet kept intently staring right into the depths of my soul. “Tell me about your invisible friend.”

My heart skipped a beat. “What?”

Violet drew even closer, close enough to—uh, I don’t know—lick my eyeballs? She was ignoring any semblance of personal space, okay? I was getting creeped out. “I know she exists. There are several distinct versions of you, but only one of her. Out of all your various split personalities, she is the only one that has no voice. Enlighten me.” My mind raced for an explanation, which must have shown on my face because Violet smirked. “Smart Frosty has a voice. Mean Frosty has a voice. But with what happened earlier—which we will be covering next, by the way—involved somepony that wasn’t you.” She prodded my chin and the glare intensified.

“Uh.” Out of all the situations I’d expected to be in, I hadn’t anticipated this. I panicked and licked her nose. It had the desired effect at least—Violet backed off and angrily scrunched her muzzle at me. She opened her mouth, hesitated, sneezed, then decided to instead huff something under her breath. It didn’t take long for her to regain her composure, though.

Mister hot topic appeared in a poof of blue smoke. “Wow, she is definitely too smart for her own good.” Ice whistled from right behind Violet. “I’d marry her. Or, you know, kill her. Whatever you’re more comfortable with.”

“Yeah…” I wasn’t sure how to proceed, and vocally asking Ice seemed like a terrible idea. “I’d like to ask the audience?” The angry Vi-vi glare intensified to a burning inferno. Nervously chuckling, I suggested, “...How about I radio a friend? No?” Out of desperation, I leaned a bit to my left and hissed, “What do I tell her?”

“I vote we play a game of red pill blue pill.”

Without taking my eyes off of Violet, I whispered, “And I’ll pretend to know what that means.”

The very rude little nosey mare indignantly snapped, “I’m right here, you know.”

“No you’re not,” I hastily shot back. “That’s just what you think.”

“Blue pill it is. I’ll take care of this.” Ice pulled his fedora off his head and placed it beside the breakfast platter. Next thing I knew, I was being possessed again. This time was more of the gut-twisting variety instead of the size-shifting darkening and edgening from last chapter. I wasn’t okay with it by any extent of the imagination, but if it meant that I wouldn’t have to deal with Violet then that was for the better anyway.

The weird feeling of me-not-being-me washed over me again. Last time it was horrible because I was still in my armor, but now it was much more manageable without the feeling of being squeezed to death. Maybe I looked like I’d eaten a camera or two and I sure felt like it, but hopefully Violet wouldn’t be none the wiser. Being a host to whatever the buck Ice was was becoming more inconvenient by the second.

A cocky, familiar smirk creeped onto my face. “Howdy,” my voice smoothly drawled. Not my words, of course.

“And you are?”

“Just another mind,” Ice innocently lied.

“I don’t believe you.”

“You sure?”

“Mental distress does not cause spontaneous transformation.”

“I” sighed and shook my head, weakly chuckling. “If only more were like you. You’ve seen who I have to work with. A nightmare of a situation, really.”

“Answer the question.”

“I seem to be a run-of-the-mill mana wraith,” Ice calmly lied. “When somepony promises you immortality, don’t do it. Also, if you plan on escaping mortality—don’t. This is what happens. WIthout anything better to do with all the time I have, riding along with Frosty has been quite the experience.”

“And the transformation?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be very sporting of me if I let my new friend get turned into a pancake. I had to do something.”

That seemed to be enough for Violet at the moment. Her suspicious glare slowly morphed into one of curiosity. “How does it work? Where does the extra mass come from? Does Frosty know?”

“Ah, ah, ah. A lady doesn’t give away her all secrets,” Ice chided. Such the fancy lady he was, of course.

The question-inclined mare opened up her trusty book and recorded a few things into it while in thought. “Hmm.”

Without letting Violet continue her thought, we interjected, “All this talk has made me weary. Another time? Perhaps once Frosty is more cooperative? She’s quite upset as it is.”

Violet looked deep in thought. It was a look bordering between disbelief and intrigue, and I really didn’t like the idea of either. More importantly, I wasn’t sure how long Ice and I could keep up the charade now that she knew what was happening. There wasn’t too much that I could do if Violet got curious and these lies began to fall apart.

“Do you swear it?” she ventured.

We rolled our eyes. “Of course.” In a much lower voice, I heard myself mutter, “Do not react. She can’t hear me anymore. What I’ve told her is mostly nonsense, but just enough of the truth to get her off our backs. All things hoping, she won’t make the connections until it’s too late. Just act natural.”

I felt myself shrink a little, which left behind the uncomfortable sensation of regret, deodorant, and emptiness. Good thing that Violet was too busy being nose-deep in her book to notice my relieved sigh. That was that taken care of for the time being, which meant I needed to get back to business.

Obviously, that meant doing something angry and brash to keep Violet from thinking too long about our conversation. “I’m going after Roachzilla,” I declared loudly enough to rouse the mare out of her pursuit of deeper thought.

“What?’

I rolled my eyes and bemoaned the lack of proper labeling. “The changeling. The impostor Frosty.” Imposty, if you will. Heh.

“Oh.” Violet got this nonplussed look about her and she sighed, “That’s a terrible idea. The changeling is probably gone by now and you need your rest. You’re in no condition to fight. We’ll just ignore your impending mental breakdown for the sake of my sanity.”

After giving it a few seconds of thought, I decided to retort, “You don’t know that. Maybe I let him win.”

“You angst more often than you fight as of late.”

Glowering, I snapped, “One day you’ll regret saying that.”

“But not today.” Violet paid no mind to me, levitating a few scraps of paper out of her robes and looked over what she’d gotten done in the meantime. “I have some things to take care of regarding the nature of the locals. If we can find out what you—rather, what you’re insisting on calling ‘Roachzilla’ was up to here then maybe we can fix them.”

Social justice be damned, I really didn’t care. “I’m going to go for some walksies. Try and stop me.” Hauling myself out of bed and away from potential paper cuts, I noticed my saddlebag propped up against the wall and a small pile of not my clothing next to it. My stolen power armor was nowhere to be seen however, which did raise the question, “Hey, where’s my super pants?”

Violet lazily looked up from her book and the list she was probably flipping through. “I took the liberty of selling off your miscellaneous objects and assorted junk you’ve picked up. You’ll find you have more ammunition and less clutter.”

I gaped. Most of the stuff I had was useless, sure, but it was my useless stuff! “I don’t believe y—oh hey I can actually pick this up now.” My initial fury became sheepish curiosity as I lifted the whole bag and gave it a few test swings. “Wow. Is this what a normal carry capacity feels like?”

“Your power armor is being repaired,” Violet added, “I paid off a mechanic to refurbish the rifle you’ve decided to use and the submachine gun you’re not using. The other guns paid for the repairs. We can pick them up on the way over if you’d like.”

Opening my newly re-organized pack, I marveled and despaired at its contents. Ammunition neatly stacked and sorted, a few boxes of snack cakes and provisions, my dumb bobbleheads, and literally everything else that Violet failed to sell—including the mines that I’d picked up. I didn’t really have time to double check exactly what had survived the purge. All things considered, it could have been worse. It did bother me that she’d gone through my stuff, but I wasn’t really using anything else at the moment anyway. Oh well. “Wait, whose pants are these?” I demanded at the dirty wastelander clothing.

A shifty look was really all I needed. “The last owner isn’t using it anymore.”

I eyeballed the many-pocketed pants and then the grease-stained tank top. “Dead?” At least I didn’t need to cut wing holes into that.

Shrug. “Maaaaybe.”

I was having the worst time trying to fit into these pants. “This guy has a huge waistline. Had.” Note to self, kill somepony for a belt.

“Just like you,” Violet sang.

~~~~~

I was more shocked that Violet had even let me leave on my own rather than insisting to come along. All she’d really told me before wandering off was, and I quote, “Be safe, don’t get lost, and for Celestia’s sake don’t eat anything you find on the ground.” She’d then said something about reading up on stuff to make me all better, but at that point I had already stopped listening. I was already trotting away in search of a suitable perch to angst on.

To be fair, I didn’t really need to angst. I’m not even sure of what I would angst about. I just needed alone time so that I could think. Extended periods of additional angst was optional. If angst lasts for more than four hours, consult a physician. Instead of going down that path, I resolved to find somewhere quiet and/or populated with beverages. Riverbed had said something about a bar somewhere here, right?

As I aimlessly walked, the reaction of the train ponies wasn’t exactly what I had been expecting. They didn’t really acknowledge me; they didn’t really seem to be bothered that I was one of the two ponies responsible for ruining their humiliation grounds, or even be the least bit bothered about all the wreckage. For the most part, they merrily chugged away at whatever they did.

I’d tried to talk to one. Honest, I really did. I really regretted it. Toasty wanted to gouge out my brain, and Gale wholeheartedly agreed that it was for the best.

The new pressing matter was to desperately find anypony who would sell me alcohol. There were things in my mind that I couldn’t un-think, and it was getting on our nerves. The bizarre-looking thing on the way into Value Town came to mind, and I made haste to get there before I had the sudden urge to hump a diesel engine.

For better or for worse, the “curry” vendor was still there. The stuff in the grimy plastic bowls was definitely still moving as advertised. The vendor himself, a tawny cream-coated stallion with a roughly trimmed brown mane, stared at me expectantly as if I would actually eat what he was selling. To avoid making any farther eye contact, I accidentally ended up getting an even closer look at the radroach “curry”. To be fair, it smelled nice—savory, a little bit gamey, and with a faint hint of strange spices woven throughout the veggie cubes and “meat”. I was considering even eating it until I saw a roach leg. A moving leg.

Ew. Ew ew ew. “Who sells alcohol?” I instead demanded at the vendor. Roach Chef was taken aback by the outburst. Obviously, I repeated myself louder and with a bit more crazy-eyes snarl in it. “I’m an angry mare with no limits. Vodka. Whiskey. Anything twenty percent plus.”

The chef shakily pointed over in an arbitrary direction and stammered, “F-f-f-Flagon sells beverages.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, glaring, pretending to think about whether to gnaw his nose off. “Be glad you live another day.” As I turned and began to dramatically storm off, the realization that I still had no idea who I was looking for dawned on me. Quickly turning back, I whispered, “What am I looking for?”

Thank all things holy that Roach Chef was still so shaken out of his gourd that he didn’t hesitate to immediately give up an answer. “I-it’s the drink cart that says refreshments,” he whimpered. “Can’t miss it.”

Ah. Of course, there it was—between a mechanic’s table and another food vendor offering fried confections. I curtly nodded at him as a form of thanks and quickly trotted away. Problem solved, onto the next. How wasted did I want to get? Falling-down drunk was always an option. Happily tipsy was a nice level to start, but that was for wimps. Something anywhere between would do until I felt the need to black out.

As I approached Flagon’s refreshments cart, the stallion himself was already launching into some sort of song and dance that I presumed was his selling point. After he attempted to rhyme “iced tea” and “whiskey”, enough was enough. Somepony had to put him out of his misery, and it might as well be me. Halfway through the second stanza of his song, I reached over with my claw and snapped his muzzle shut.

The vendor’s brief struggling stopped when I stated, “I will pay you to shut up and give me alcohol.” When it seemed like he wasn’t going to launch back into song and dance, I released him.

I didn’t care much for the vendor himself, especially by how intolerable he was. All I cared was that he’d sold me a good portion of his stock at a fairly low price. With my saddlebag a-clinking from the multitude of bottles in it, I made for the tallest, most secluded rooftop in Value Town—the top of an old iron mill. For a purely celebratory reason I decided to crack the top on a particularly large bottle of some kind of vintage cider so that I could chug it on the way.

Of course, that had been the plan until a certain somepony decided to ruin everything. Again. His name? Princess Rumcake, the trophy princess of domestic violence. I’d caught him out of the corner of my eye as I held the upended bottle in my teeth. He seemed like he was in quite a hurry, but not in the sort of “I’m going to murder you to death” sort of way. I gave pause and took another swig before deciding to face him.

The majestic princess himself was chasing after me at a brisk trot, which gave me just enough time to consider the multitude of one-liners in my stash. “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us.” Too silly. “Kept you waiting, huh?” Nah. Hmmm. Now that I thought of it, I didn’t really have any confrontational one-liners so much as conversation starters. Note to self, spend research points for level 26 blue quality one-liners.

“There you are! I heard you got cleared, but—is that alcohol? Should you be drinking with all that medication?”

With all the grace of a mare scorned, I accusingly brandished the bottle in his direction. “I’m a big grown mare that doesn’t need any of your shit anymore.” To get my point across, I haughtily finished the rest of the cider and pitched the empty bottle into orbit. “I do what I want.”

Rumcake visibly wilted. “Don’t be like that, Frosty.” He sort of looked like a kicked puppy, which was fine by me.

“What, am I not enough like your chitinous mistress?” I sneered in disgust.

Taken aback, Rumcake hastily waved his hooves defensively. “No, I—wow, I didn’t know you knew words that big.”

Rude. I seriously considered whether it was worth the effort of digging out another bottle to hit him with. Wait—was he trying to change the subject? “Stop dodging the question!” I shouted. I paused. “Uh, wait, what was the question again?”

“Look, I’m sorry! I didn’t know it wasn’t you. How was I supposed to tell?” Rumcake broke down and dropped to his haunches, pleading, “All I knew was that you left to do whatever you usually do, then you came back without Violet. When you suddenly started to get better, I didn’t have a reason to doubt anything. You were almost back to normal. I had hope! Then you showed up and beat her up and… I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t have any reason to doubt her.”

That gave me pause. He was mostly right, as much as I hated it. “You think a quick apology and sob story is going to make me feel better about it? You tried to kill me. Weirdly enough, ‘sorry’ doesn’t really cover it.”

“I didn’t know!” he insisted. My steely-eyed gaze was only stopped by an empty bottle bouncing off of the back of my head. I glanced upward and grimaced at the sky for a split second. Stupid gravity.

“Oh, and that makes it all better.” In a mocking tone, I sneered, “Since you apologized, I should be morally obligated to overlook the fact that you tried to kill me.”

Rumcake took a few steps toward me and whispered, “Frosty, don’t do this. Please.”

Being the angry mare I was, I slapped away his reaching hoof. “I’m trying to see this from your point of view, but I can’t physically shove my head that far up my own ass.” I snorted, chuckled, and mentally high-fived myself. “We’re lucky that we survived! If not for some weird voodoo juju we would have been turned to paste.”

The little kicked puppy look intensified, tears threatening to enter the fray. “I mean—”

An overwhelming sensation of bristling hatred broke free from deep inside me. “Stop. We will not have this kind of insolence coming from you!” Surprising myself with that violent outburst, I barely had time to process what I was shouting before I found myself lashing out again. “We shall go get merrily inebriated, and if we see you again before we are sober we will not hesitate to end your pitiful existence on the spot.”

For some odd reason, Rumcake thought that being concerned was going to earn him some pity points. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay? You’re getting sort of—”

“You tried to kill me. It’s only fair if we return the favor.” Drawing closer, we snarled, “And we won’t fail as you did. Begone, fiend.”

Rumcake took two steps back, ears splayed and head down. “I’m here for you, Frosty. I’m always here for you. And I’m sorry.” He kept giving me that hopeful look that I was pointedly ignoring. Once he realized I wasn’t going to respond, he sighed and slowly moseyed off into self-loathing town. Population one. No bathrooms for eight miles.

I waited for a suitably dramatic amount of time before allowing the facade to drop. He was out of sight and nowhere to be seen in the marketplace, at least. Just to be sure, I asked myself, “Is he gone?”

Right on cue, Toasty and Gale appeared at my sides. “Gone as can be. Do you think we were a little harsh?” Gale sort of did the uncertainty dance in place.

“Screw that. Mister Murderpants deserves it.” Toasty snorted and cackled, “Ice, Ice baby for most valuable pony. You know it.”

Out of nowhere, my good buddy and savior Icybutt popped into existence, facing off tothe side. “Thank you, thank you.” A cobalt statuette of a strangely helmeted alicorn on a glossy black pedestal popped into existence in Ice’s waiting hoof. “I’d like to thank me, myself, and my gracious co-host Toasty.” Upon mention of her name, Toasty bowed to what I guess was where an audience should be.

Still, a tiny grin formed on my face at their antics. “I’d offer you champagne if I bought any.” The addition of cute little flute glasses for it would have also been great, but Flagon wasn’t selling those either. Ice had saved my life, and I still owed it to him. The least I could give him was this theatrical moment.

He hoofed off the trophy-thing to Toasty, who graciously took it from him. “Aaaand… Curtain.”

The moment of dramatic closure stretched out for another several seconds before I cautiously asked, “So… what are we waiting for?”

Toasty shrugged, as did Gale. “No idea,” either of them chirped.

Ice looked around at our surroundings, “Usually something happens right about now. Huh.”

~~~~~

I’d gotten on the roof of the mill quite easily, since the whole being-able-to-fly thing let me scoot around all the debris and bear traps. The little area I’d cleared out for myself and my impromptu liquor tasting was right by the edge of the roof where I could watch all the happy little train ponies merrily mill about their train business.

To start off my self-prescribed grief counseling, I unpacked all the alcohol that I’d bought to take stock of exactly how much I had. After making sure that I hadn’t missed any bottles, I found I had exactly six bottles of various liquor and wines, two beers, and several little mason jars of what was allegedly a fruit wine concoction.

As I eyeballed what I should chug first, I realized that order was also somewhat important. Now what was the song? “Clear before liquor, never been sicker?” If so, that meant that this bottle of rum was going to be the first victim. I gnawed the top off of the bottle and cautiously sipped on it. Mmmm, wood flavor. My favorite. Since I didn’t find the spice-laden burn completely disgusting, I decided to simply guzzle down half of the bottle in one fell swoop.

There was a loud pop from behind me, followed by Gale intoning, “You are now addicted to rum.”

“What?” I hadn’t even finished the bottle! “I don’t believe you.” Just to prove a point, I downed another shot’s worth of rum and stuck my tongue out at her. “Myah.”

She rolled her eyes and smirked at me. “You’re not proving anything.”

“You don’t know that.” The bottle was halfway to my face before I caught on. “Fine, what else do we have?” At random, I selected a bottle—a wine-shaped one—and asked to myself, “What the buck is a Moscato and is it any good?”

“Wine made from a specific griffonian region. Sweet, low in alcohol content, and usually paired with fruits or dessert.” Gale plucked the bottle out of my hooves and regarded it like the classy lady I wasn’t. “Ah, a good year.”

Somehow I was pretty sure she still had no idea what she was talking about. I snatched the bottle out of her hooves and demanded, “How do you and-or I know this?” As far as I knew, I didn’t.

“Trivia card from a box of popcorn.” A little trading card spun around her her outstretched hoof, then vanished. Cooooool.

“Huh.” Easily enough, I gnawed the wax seal off of it and unexpectedly encountered a cork. Most things were bottlecaps or a pseudo-cork that could be pulled off with teeth. “How the…” Chewing at it didn’t really make it any easier, but mister claw had something to say about it. I stabbed it with the tip of one of my talons and sort of tried to hook it in so I could tug it out, but all that did was shred the soft wood. Tries two and three did the same to the point where my talon wouldn’t fit in the bottle anymore and I’d only forced what remained the cork down farther.

What kind of pony even carried a bottle opener? Ponies didn’t have multi-tools because they couldn’t be operated with hooves. The only multi-tool I’d ever seen a pony use was the ‘Super All-Purpose KP Tool” that deserving recruits were stuck with. Cheese grater, whisk, spatula, and an entire axe all in convenient one pony-sized package. Stupid griffins and their stupid bottling techniques.

My frustration was about to boil over until a familiar—and unwanted—voice spoke up behind me all the way from the roof access stairwell. “Hey hon… can we talk?” A wicked grin spread across my muzzle. I’d warned him. I’d given him a chance to walk away. Now was my chance. He’d failed me for the last time.

Again.

For this particular instance, I was going to be a mare of my word. Now that we were at the “murder your loved one” stage of a relationship, taking the initiative here was the obvious choice. Forgiveness be damned. You can’t un-kill somepony, anyway. What if Ice Storm hadn’t come in to save me?

I temporarily placed the unopenable bottle on its side by the others and adopted a more neutral to sad look to make sure Rumcake wouldn’t suspect anything. “Wha’dya want?” I demanded into the air, then dramatically glared over my shoulder for effect. That had apparently been taken as a summons to him, seeing as he began to slowly trot toward me.

Like the dumb bold stallion he was, Rumcake either failed to recognize my death glare or decided to continue coming toward me anyway. “Look, I know I’ve made a few mistakes recently—”

A sarcastic snort from my face hole just couldn’t be stopped. “Mistake being a gross understatement.” Just like how one could accidentally eat somepony else’s sandwich, Rumcake could simply accidentally try to murder me. Thick with sarcasm, I admitted, “I feel so much better now.”

“Hon, come on. Don’t be like that.” He began to take another step—nearly into reach—before he finally took the hint and hesitantly stopped. “I love you, Frosty. Please.”

I pretended to consider his words. What he didn’t see was me surreptitiously checking if my shotgun-leg was still loaded—which it was. “I know.” Clambering to my hooves, I lazily stretched and took one step into perfect firing range. “And that’s why this hurts you more than it hurts me.”

The look of absolute confusion on his face would stay with me forever. Maybe he was about to scream, maybe he was about to interject that my quote was backward. We’d never know because I sucker-punched him in the neck and sent his… uh—the thingy with the tube—

Larynx. The word you’re looking for is larynx.

Right, sent his larynx into orbit. The hole wetly sprayed flecks of things that were definitely not exactly blood and meat all over me, but I wasn’t really interested in that. A giddy grin was still on my face as Rumcake stumbled backward and collapsed on the ground, choking, coughing, dying, et cetera. I was about to launch into a tirade along the lines “This is what you deserve”, or “I told you I wouldn’t miss”, or more likely, “I forgot what I told you but I warned you anyway” when he burst into flames.

Like, fire. Actual fire. Fire that singed my nose. “What the buck?!” I yelped and immediately retreated to a safe distance. There was a maniacal giggle from beside me, and Toasty darted to the flaming pony, marshmallows stuck on talons for roasting. I was still too shocked to say anything. Why would there be fire?

Rumcake limply writhed in agony, barely managing to croak, “Why am I on fire? Why would you do… why?” With a final, shud— “AAAAaaauuuuuugh… agh.” I frowned at him for ruining my mental commentary. Rude. The fire abruptly flashed green and his body vanished, only to be replaced with a black, unidentifiable mass.

Just as quickly as the fire started, it died out. I cautiously scooted closer to get a good look. Now, I wasn’t the best at anatomy, but I recognized a half-squashed and melted bugpony when I saw it. The skin was all cracked and melty where it wasn’t covered in green stuff and what was left of its squishy bits was oozing out of holes or burnt to a crisp. Goddamn Roachzilla. The little happy feeling ebbed a little as a result. I’d really been hoping it was Rumcake as well. He needed a lesson in humility.

I eyed the jagged horn on bug-pony’s head and came to a bright conclusion. Quickly retrieving the bottle from where I’d left it, I carefully pushed it over the spiraling protrusion and began to twist. The bottle managed to get all the way down to the horn’s base and refused to budge, so I firmly planted one hoof against its head-thing and clutched the bottle tightly in my claw. The first cautious tug didn’t do much, so I yanked as hard as I could. I fell backward, accompanied by a frightening crack.

So now I had Roachzilla’s horn stuck in a cork. Specifically, only the horn. I stared at it for a minute before deciding that I’d just have to deal with it. “Dangit.” I dug my teeth into it and yanked again, and squeaked in surprise when the bottle finally popped open. “Woo! Violence does solve everything.” I allowed myself a nice big swallow of the wine and had to stop once my brain registered how unexpectedly sweet it was.

Not terrible, but it wasn’t great either. “Eugh. Not worth the effort.” I tossed the whole ensemble aside and instead decided to check what I’d exactly loaded into my shotgun-leg. It had been a while since I’d unloaded the thing and I almost ended up taking off my face, but I managed to eject the other solitary shell and examine it. I stared at the custom-packed shell in all its stripey orange glory momentarily. Ah, right—War’s fire ammo. After slotting it back in my leg, I happily overlooked the carnage that I’d created in about three minutes and sighed.

Mystery solved, back to the rum it was.

With my new choice of beverage in claw, I scooted back toward the edge of the roof for a better view of the Wasteland. It was such a nice view. Things in the distance burned, ponies still milled about, and nopony was trying to kill me. Finally, I could have a moment of peace and quiet to myself. Gale shot me a withering look, to which I mentally corrected the statement. Some peace and quiet with me, myself, and I. And et cetera.

“Nothing can ruin—” I immediately squashed that statement. No. No, no, no. Thoughts like that always ruined everything. The universe had already proved that it was listening to everything I was doing. Giving it an opportunity was basically icing on the cake. Wait, I’d already thought it! Did it still count? What if I—

BOOM!

I felt my teeth chatter in my skull as a massive explosion rocked the landscape. Ears ringing, I whipped my head around, looking for the cause of the blast. Was somepony attacking me? Sparkle! She might have seen me kill the thing that looked like Rumcake and was after me with her grenade launcher! What was going on? I had to escape, fly away! I flared my wings and pointed my body upward—

—And saw a view that tore my breath away.

Blinding rings of ever-expanding multicolored light tore their way through the stratosphere. They ripped through the air, sonic booms following in their wake. Destroying the Enclave cloud cover. Unveiling the sun, letting it shine down on the Wasteland for the first time in centuries.

Rainbooms.

Almost robotically, I tried looking for where the rainbooms originated from. Peering into the multicolored blitz, the light from the closest rainboom revealed a shining SPP tower in the distance. Evidently, the Sustainable Pegasus Project had been compromised somehow, and was being used to destroy the cloud cover that us pegasi had built our society on.

This was very, very not-good.

Watching with a transfixed gaze, Toasty muttered, “Cool.”

“Oh no.” Gale mirrored the same concern that I had.

“Uh nuuh.” Filly plopped down beside us and pointed, “Trubbah.”

I waited for a reply from Drunky or Ice Storm, but didn’t get it. They didn’t seem like the kind for excessive drama, anyway. Since mini-me was the last one to echo my sentiments exactly, I gently patted her head and whispered, “Yep. Trouble.”

Time stopped.

“OH YES.” The little dots of light in Mort’s skull swept across us expectantly. Seeing our confused expressions, he asked, “DID I MISS THE MOMENT? Oh darn, I overshot it.”

The fur on my neck stood on end. “What are you doing here?” Was this another one of his courtesy visits?

Mort examined the grouping of me staring at him. An empty silence hung in the air as he appeared to ponder his next words. His skull tilted a few times as if he was about to start, then he’d hesitate and look away again. “Um… I’m not really sure how to break this to you,” he finally grumbled.

I rolled my eyes. “Well? Get to the point.” Today was already more theatrics than I was willing to handle in one sitting.

The skeleton pony continued to fidget. “Time’s up, Frosty. You’re done,” he finally blurted. “I’m sorry.”

What? “Give me like, five minutes. I’ll get it done, I promise.”

“You’re out of time.”

“No I’m not,” I insisted.

The fire in his eyes intensified. “YOU ARE. If you had continued your journey from there, you would have gotten the time extension that I negotiated for you.”

“It’s not like you really gave me an idea of what I was supposed to be doing if the first place. All I got from you at the time was ‘go here and maybe I’ll tell you later’.”

Mort averted his gaze. “Well, I never really wanted you to properly complete the contract.”

What? “That’s not fair!” I exclaimed.

He decided to completely ignore my cry for justice and instead switched onto exposition mode. “A veritable plague of necromancers has emerged in the Wasteland in recent times. Fueled by wicked and forbidden magicks, they have escaped death for far too long. This was the reason why I brought you back, Frosty. Their twisted enchantments keep me from directly ending their existence. I would be able to give you endless extensions as long as you completed the missions I set out for you. You were going to be the one to end their twisted schemes; you were to be an undead assassin, and the bringer of justice you’d always wanted to be.”

If he wasn’t going to dignify himself with a proper response, I could do the same. “I never asked for this,” I grunted with as much gravel as I could muster.

“But… I’m sorry, Frosty. I chose poorly, and we shall both pay the price. I had such high hopes for you. You were doing so well up until you split off from your group and wandered off—but it was never really meant to be. You're not the type of pony I thought you were. I'm sorry, but your story ends here.”

My mind went blank as the severity of my situation finally sank in. “W-what?”

While I began to go into a complete breakdown, Mort began to pace back and forth. “What, indeed.” He stopped in front of me, his skull just barely touching my nose. “But you’ve squandered your chance by doing… whatever it is you’ve been distracting yourself with. Now it’s time for me to collect.”

I leapt backward and assumed a fighting stance. No way was a sack of bones going to tell me what to do. “Not if I have anything to say about it!” I bared my teeth and snarled.

Mort walked to me and gently placed a bony hoof on my head. “No more speech checks, Frosty. This is it.” A creeping numbness spread through my body and I lost control of my muscles, collapsing to the ground. “I’m sorry. I had high hopes for you and I’ve done all I could. Your time is up.”

As I laid on the ground, I weakly declared, “You won’t take me alive?”

Silence. Mort stood over me, his head cocked to one side. “I believe that is the point.”

Swiftly recovering, I blurted, “But on a day like today?” I tried to gesture at the vast expanse of cloudless sky above us and shouted, “How do these events just so happen to coincidentally line up?” Smugly, I grinned to myself. No way he was going to just conveniently sweep that past me.

However he did it, Mort somehow coughed. “I, uh, might have taken some liberties. It’s more poetically fitting, you know.” The little eye-lights winked to pink for a split second as well. “An extra day or two on top of the two months I gave you isn’t much.”

That only brought more questions to mind. What if I’d had more time? What if he was just being lazy? Why hadn’t I been keeping track of time? “That’s not fair,” I whined. Other questions that sat on the backburner—the Enclave without cloud cover, the status of the perpetual war. Was Elvis Parsely really dead or did he go home?

Mort snorted—again, somehow—and groused, “You’re telling me. I have to explain why you deserve more extra time as opposed to literally any other pony in existence.”

Suddenly, I was feeling a little bit less indignant. “Oh.”

Mort only nodded. “YES. ‘Oh’ is a good summary.” Once again, silence followed.

I squirmed on the ground. “So… what now?”

“Now? You pass on and I get back to my unlife.”

The sound of a little bell rang out all around me, then everything was gone.

Footnote: You have died.

Hallowed Ground DLC detected. Continue?

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Don’t fuck it up this time.

Chapter 29: Kept you waiting, huh?

Chapter 29: Kept you waiting, huh?

“Well, you're good at a lot of things... Just not nest making, ice skating, animal waking, snow clearing...”

Emptiness stretched out in all directions. There wasn’t a sign of any landmarks or any features that would imply any sort of terrain as far as the eye could see. The flat, bleak whiteness of the landscape was jarring, to say the least. Interestingly enough, I couldn’t locate the sun or any other similar light source—which begged the question of why the shit was it so bright? I pawed at the ground, finding it curiously lacking in any sort of texture other than “hard”, and groaned.

All I needed was a little lie down to think. I simply laid down where I was, rubbed my eyes, and muttered, “Okay, guys, any ideas?” It didn’t help that the ground under me was perturbingly temperature neutral and it didn’t really help me think. It just didn’t make any sense. There was no immediate response so I let them have a few minutes to take it all in. Out of boredom, I did my best goat impression and experimentally held all my legs in the air. No wind, either. Huh.

On the topic of unnerving, there was an odd amount of silence from myself. Usually one of me would have piped up with some input by now. “Gale?” I hesitantly called out. “Toasty?” If this was some sort of practical joke, it wasn’t funny. At this moment in time I was legitimately disconcerted. “Filly?” With each lack of response, I grew increasingly panicked. “Guys? Anyone?” At this point, I’d even take Officer to give me a thrashing.

Then it all sank in. I was well and truly alone.

Alone.

All alone. Just me. Hold the myself and I. The idea of being on my own was so impossible that I couldn’t even begin to comprehend how to deal with it. Who was I supposed to ask for advice? For idle chatter? Overwhelmed by grief, I slumped to the ground and held my head in both of my hooves. Goddesses forbid I’d have to actually have to care about somepony else’s opinion. I felt something soft on my head. Wait—did Dad’s hat really make it in here with me? I yanked it off and stared at it to make sure that it was really here with me.

Wait. I looked farther down and glared at my left foreleg, which was decidedly not a robot claw-leg anymore. I’d appeared to have regained my old foreleg from before I misplaced it. While interesting, it wasn’t nearly as interesting as the presence of Dad’s hat. Curiously enough, it wasn’t all dirty and crumpled like I expected it to be—it looked nearly brand new and undamaged. Having it made me feel more at ease either way. I replaced it on my head and tried to survey the area properly.

In all of my panic, I somehow hadn’t noticed the wait a minute that sign hadn’t been there before. I cautiously approached it to investigate. The print on the oaken signage was curly and had this “ye olde Equestriane” look to it. It was strangely out of place, given the bleak whiteness and nothingness of my surroundings. Just looking at the brown-and-black made my head hurt. I squeezed my eyes shut so I could focus, then began to read the wording out loud. In my own words, of course. Ye olde grammare was literally the worst.

“Fear for thine soul, ye damned and blah blah doom and gloom…” I skipped that part and cut to the more interesting bits. “This is Limbo, land of souls lost and forsaken. Pray to your elder gods for salvation… blah blah blah more doom and gloom.” I scanned the rest of the sign for anything useful. “Oh, here it is. Only the worthy shall find salvation and pass unto Purgatory”

Oh good. So far all I figured was this was a shitty place for somepony as self-entitled as me with an exit I would probably never find. Worst case scenario, I was going to spend the rest of eternity licking this place like a salt lick. Maybe the next pony that waltzed through would have a better idea—or even just a religion that would maybe get me a free pass to the next area. As I turned and spun around to see if there was a conveniently placed exit behind me, my tail must have brushed the sign. I heard a loud thump from behind me and by the time I pranced back around, it was gone.

I stared at the blank ground where the sign used to be. Well, shit.

My mind desperately craved for something else to interact with, something to break up the monotony of the sea of white. Anything. Anything that could give me a point of reference. No PipBuck meant no compass and no map. No directions meant I could very easily get turned around where there wasn’t even the common courtesy to provide me with a damned horizon. Anything! Even a rock would make me feel better!

On that extended and wildly hopeful thought, I demanded into the nothingness, “Hey universe! Gimme a rock.”

Lo and behold, the universe didn’t give a shit.

An idea floated to the surface—considering all the ironic events in my life, the universe had shown it probably was listening, but it didn’t like helping me out. For all I knew, I was still somewhere in its jurisdiction. “This is such a perfect view I have. Nothing could possibly ruin it.” I braced for what was coming in unrestrained glee. Let there be rocks. Let there be rocks. Roooocks.

Nothing happened, so I tried it again. “Let there be rocks!” Still nothing. “Damn you, universe! Damn you and your selective hearing.” I waited for a few more seconds, hoping that one would suddenly appear. Still nothing. With that half-baked plan down the drain, I began to entertain the idea of simply walking off in a direction and seeing what happened.

I waited for Gale’s inevitable interjection, just in case.

I waited a little more.

My heart wrenched when I remembered she didn’t exist. When I remembered that she probably never existed in the first place. Trying not to panic, I asked myself what would Gale actually tell me. “It’s a stupid idea” maybe? Maybe it was more like her to tell me that I should take the initiative. I stared off into the nonexistent sunset, lost in thought. Strange as it was to say, I really missed being insane. At least I had somepony to talk to all the time. How was I supposed to get anything done now?

Guidance lost, I decided that the best method of approach was to simply pick a direction and start walking. Anything that happened next was going to be future Frosty’s problem. I resolutely decided on “forward” and took the first steps to nowhere. The endless expanse of nothing stretched seemingly forever and each step failed to give any indication of progress. Still, with nothing left to do an nopony to talk to, I forced myself to keep walking.

The endless monotony of my surroundings left nothing to observe or snark at as I mechanically dragged myself along. How much time had passed? If this was the afterlife, it really sucked. Maybe it’s what I deserved for being a terrible little pony. Granted, I hadn’t been the worst, but I knew deep down inside that I didn’t deserve heavenly light and something about loads of honey. Surely I deserved a sunset. Sunrise? A sun, at least?

In the midst of my self-loathing and universe baiting, I hadn’t noticed that the “ground” beneath my hooves had transitioned into a soft, almost sandy consistency until I plowed face-first into the colorless equivalent of a sand dune. I stood there, confused and somewhat bothered by this sudden change. On the bright side, I wasn’t drowning in sand. Very interesting.

To my surprise, a drab-blue earth pony was sitting on top of the sand dune I had been eating. He looked incredibly unassuming with his plain black mane and tail, and as far as I could tell his cutie mark looked like a bunch of crossing lines, almost like knitting or sewing or something along those lines. “Yeah, I’ll admit that’s fun for about f’kin ten seconds.” I dug myself out of the sand, shaking little grains out of my mane.

What a rude little pony. One of us needed to be the sensible one, so I decided to ask the sensible question. “Who are you?”

“What’s it f’kin mean to you?” Mister Rudey McStutter spat.

Rude.

Mystery stallion continued to glare at me in disgust, so: “I’m about to call you ‘Speech Impediment 2’ if you aren’t going to cooperate. And let’s be honest—we’re not going anywhere and I am extremely blueballed on snark.”

“F’kn…” Speech Impediment 2 hummed, mostly to himself. “Name’s Sewn Britches.”

“Frosty.”

“You got a f’kin last name?”

“Nah,” I lied, for no particular reason.

“What’re you in for?”

“Bad decisions. Laziness. You?” Not technically a lie this time, really.

“Some ice cube psycho tortured me over the course of an hour, blew me up, and shot my face off. You know, typical Wasteland justice.” Seeing the pained cringey look I was giving him, he snapped, “Don’t gimme that f’kin look. I got over it.”

“Rough.” We shared an awkward silence moment. “Did you deserve it?”

“All I’ve f’kin got is time to think.” Eventually, he did quietly sigh. “Yeah, a little. You?”

I shrugged. “Dunno. Still getting over a few things. Dead being one of them.” There was also the little problem that the four or five of the ponies that I talked to the most just didn’t exist anymore, but I was really trying to not let it bother me. To distract myself I asked him, “How long have you been here?”

“Doesn’t f’kin matter. Shit’s all the same. This is it. This is where assholes like us go to when we die. Absolutely f’kin nothin’.”

“You sure? it was all flat and stuff a bit back uh… that way?” I gestured in a general direction of where I thought I had come from. The initial grand plains of absolute nothing that I had started out in was seemingly gone. Instead, the view was just more of the implied general sandiness that I was already sitting in. Weird.

“Yeah, an’ a few hundred f’kin kilos that way—” Britches pointed in the exact opposite direction. “That’s ice ‘n’ stuff. Past that’s some f’kin grass.”

“I like the sound of grass.”

“F’kin calm down. It’s pale just like everything else.”

“Aww.”

Silence fell upon us. Mister Speech Impediment seemed to be out of dialogue options for the most part. All he really did was lounge in the sand and occasionally pick at his nose. Seeing as it was a good time to take my leave, I stood and instinctively shook myself because of the sand. I gave him a little nod and made the decision to keep walking. Maybe there would be something, somewhere, eventually down the line that would be worth it.

So I left Sewn Britches in the literal dust in favor of brighter and/or bleaker lands. I began my trek once again, only stopping periodically to check whether I’d actually made any progress. Without any landmarks to reference, it wasn’t really possible to know. The terrain hadn’t changed for a long while. I didn’t know how long I walked, only that there wasn’t much else I could be doing.

I’m not sure what I expected the afterlife to be like, but I don’t think I’d ever thought it’d be so listless and sad.

Out of nowhere, a little section of ground vanished with an adorable little popping noise. A tan horn emerged from it, followed by the rest of the unicorn—complete with funny glasses and messy mane. He looked oddly familiar, but I just couldn’t really place it. He rotated in place, took notice of his surroundings, and spoke back down into his hole, “Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. We are definitely not in Equestria anymore. Wolfie, I think we might be lost.” Before I could go bother him too, he disappeared back down his hole and the missing bit of ground replaced itself behind his disappearing head.

Weeeird. I galloped to where the spot roughly was and found nothing. The sand refused to part beneath my hooves, even if somepony had been under it to begin with. A few angry thoughts began to form, but I realized halfway that I really just didn’t care enough. Besides, some things were better left unanswered. I found myself waiting for a response from myself again on the tail of that thought and angrily bap’d myself again. Bad thoughts, Frosty!

So I continued to walk. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was a remnant of the Wasteland-adventurer in me, never sticking in one town for more than a few days at a time.

I suppose there really was a little explorer in me, eager to discover new things and reach the next horizon.

Now it was all just white. I kicked up some pale sand, nearly invisible against the white sky,

I kept walking.

~~~~~

Beyond any of my expectations, I managed to run across a door. All things considered it was a nice door. Solid oak, plain other-wood trim, little window-shaped indent thingies, and a cute little brass knocker in the middle. Curiously enough, there wasn’t a handle for the door.

Common sense said knock but my nonexistent gut told me to be a smartass about it. I heaved the brass ring on the door and let it drop twice. “Pizza delivery for a last name ‘Pony’.” The lack of response from the door wasn’t exactly unexpected, but for something that was this out of the ordinary—considering the absolute complete lack of color—I had been hoping for something amazing. Undeterred however, I knocked again. “Candygram.”

Before I had time to ask myself whether the third time was the charm, the door swung inward and revealed to me its shiny, incandescent, retina-searing interior. I might have also been screeching at the time as my eyeballs metaphorically melted out of their sockets. The only reason I stopped was because the afterimage of the door faded, revealing Mort simply standing in the center of what looked like the interior of a marble-themed elevator, gold trim and all. I closed my mouth and scooted myself in next to him without another screech.

The silent look of disbelief or whatever it was on Mort’s skull as he watched me enter gave me the inexplicable need to politely shut the door behind me. A gentle chime from the ceiling followed and the elevator car distinctly began to whirr in place. I stood beside Skele-Pon, mimicking his stoic blank expression and asked, “...So what now? Isn’t my life supposed to flash before my eyes?”

A pause. “That was it,” Mort simply stated at the door.

I broke act and huffed, stomping the floor. How come every answer I’d ever gotten from Mort was cryptic? “What do you mean by ‘that’?” Even as Mort tried to keep impassively staring at nothing, he couldn’t ignore the seething glare I was currently burning into his hood.

He gave me a sidelong glance. From what I could tell, it seemed like he was giving me one of those ‘do I have to explain this to you’ looks. “That bit just then. Before you got here. Well, before you got to Limbo.” Gesturing at the door, he twirled his hoof around in circles as if it would help me understand.

Outraged, I threw my hooves in the air and demanded, “Where’s the rest of it then?”

Mort simply shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’m honestly not sure how it works.”

The likelihood that he actually didn’t know were remote at best, especially considering that this was part of his job. “How? You’re literally Death. How can you not know?” Alternatively, he could easily be lying to me and I wouldn’t know any better.

As if he’d heard me thinking about it, Mort slowly pivoted his skull to glare down at me. “Just because I lead souls to the afterlife doesn’t mean I know what you’re all hallucinating about.” An air of fear washed over me as I was stared down by the fiery motes of light in the skull. It was only for a moment, but it was still just enough to make me shut my pie hole of witty remarks.

Logic was never one of my strong suits, but I felt like I also shouldn’t just take those lies sitting down. On the train of that thought, I stood up as well, accusing him with a jabbing hoof. “Are you implying this is a figment of my imagination?”

Mort didn’t even hesitate with his own counter. “I’m implying that there are implications.”

I felt the need to one-up him. “What if I implying that your implied implications are uh… implied?”

“That’s a logic loop. You should stop.” Satisfied, Mort returned to staring at the closed doors.

With a heavy sigh, I admitted defeat. “You’re right. That’s enough nonsense. Can I mosey on off to the afterlife now? I’m just tired of all this.”

“Oh, but there’s more,” Mort conveniently added.

I rolled my eyes and yet again threw my hooves in the air. “Of course there is.”

“Now, your life will flash before everyone else’s eyes.”

I wasn’t having any of this metaphysical bullshit. “I don’t know what that means, so skip.”

The feeling of Mort’s burning orbs on me made me keep my eyes on the floor by my hoofsies. “But it will give you insight to your own char—”

“SKIP,” I insisted.

A frustrated growl came from the hooded skull. “Don’t be a child.”

There didn’t seem to be any escape, so I tried changing the topic. “Wait, how come your voice isn’t all BIG AND ANGRY and all that stuff?”

“This is my inside voice. Hey! You’re changing the—”

Ooops. “Skip, skip, skip.”

Growling, Mort stamped one of his bony hooves. “Everypony has to experience it before they leave Limbo.”

“I’m not denying that I have to experience it. I am exercising my right as the lazy piece of shit I am to not have to pay attention to it. And maybe not have to participate in it either.” As the little motes of light in Mort’s skull grew increasingly red and fireball-like, I smirked. This was my moment to literally piss off Death, and by everything divine I was going to exploit this opportunity. With an even more cocky grin, I shrugged, “It’s too late. You gave me entitlement, the strongest power in the universe.”

To my slight alarm, smoke began trailing out of Mort’s hood. “That’s not how enti—”

I maintained the stupid cocky look as I stared Death in the face. “Skip.”

“Consider this a warning.”

“S—

<~~~>

“Sir… I’d like out. I understand what you are trying to do for the Enclave, but this isn’t what I expected from ‘protect and serve’. All of the cloak and dagger, all of the lies and deceit—I can’t keep my story straight. There are ponies asking questions, sir. I don’t know if I can keep doing this without becoming a liability.” On the other side of the table sat darkness and silence. “I’m sorry? Sir.” I held my breath and prayed to the Deer gods that the commander would be okay with it.

The victim of poor lighting thoughtfully hummed to himself. “I see.” His hooves slammed against the table so hard that the miniature cloud-on-a-stick bobbled and tipped over onto its side. “Unlike the rest of this room, I want the electrician vivisected so I can mount his tiny little brain in a microscope!” In response to his bellowing, I kept quiet out of respect and terror. The mini-cloud, unaccustomed to such abuse, began to wildly poop out BB-sized hailstones at an alarming rate.

Several wayward bits of ice bounced off my left foreleg as I arbitrarily decided to tap the edge of the desk. My ears were still slightly ringing from the unexpectedly violent outburst. “So… um. I guess that’s it, sir.” Uneasily, I shifted in my seat and shooed away the miniature hailstones spilling off my side of the desk as an excuse not to make eye contact.

“You’re scared. I get it. Fresh out of flight school and you’re working for us.” More ice was starting to pile up into small mounds and I couldn’t stop staring at it. “Lucky for you, the science boys have been working on something for the nerves. What with all the new recruits looking for a home, there just hasn’t been a replacement for good ol’ fashioned liquid courage until now. You interested? Squelch your doubts right quick.”

Out of courtesy I glanced at the stallion in the dark, but I was still horribly fixated on the tinkle of hailstones threatening to engulf the surface of the desk. “Is it safe?” Only after I’d said that did I notice that I could also be referring to the microbiome forming right before my eyes. Oh well.

“I’d be lying if I said yes.” Oh good, unnecessary risk! Just what the doctor ordered. He caught the worried look on my face and hastily added, “It’s mostly safe, don’t you worry. It’s more of a ‘it’ll either work or not’ scenario.” Hearing that did make me feel better, but I was actually now just more alarmed by the mountain of ice populating a majority of the table surface.

I tried to casually not bring attention to it and the hailstones encroaching on my floor space. “Worth a try.” As I came to terms with the new arrangement, I did wonder whether he legitimately couldn’t see the malfunctioning cloud because of his lack of lighting or if he was actually just going to let all this ice pile up.

Oblivious chuckling came from the dark. “Excellent. I’ll have the boys get ready for you.”

///

The scene abruptly changed. I was on the ground, lying on my back with blood and carnage everywhere. Bodies—armored pegasus bodies—lay around me. Two ponies stood over me, one wearing some familiar-looking combat armor and the other was… was me. Wild eyed and slightly foaming at the mouth, I suddenly began to realize why ponies were so scared of me.

Wait. This was starting to look a lot more familiar. The mare in the combat armor was Riverbed!

Oh no. That meant…

Against my will, fully knowing what was about to happen, my body began to move. I clambered onto my hooves and took several determined strides to stop in front of another downed pegasus. The stallion that I was watching from gasped, “If you’re going to hurt her, you’re going to have to go through me.”

I watched myself—the Frosty—get a nefarious look on her face, an evil glint in her bloodshot eyes. She and Riverbed turned and nodded at each other, then looked back at me. Riverbed smirked and simply responded, “I think I can live with that, guy.” She raised her shotgun.

///

Now I was crouched, my blue foreleg trapped in a—wait am I Butt Slave?

Then, I heard me speak. “I’m going to open the trap now. Don’t move too suddenly—can you do that?” The sound of myself’s voice wasn’t what I expected. It was almost melodious the way she spoke. Middy only fearfully grunted in response. “Three.” Gale began to pry the jaws of the trap apart, slowly but surely.

In the midst of hearing Middy scream, I heard him interject somewhere in there, “I mean really w…ho the buck starts at threeaaaaauuugh!” Gale didn’t stop pulling until the trap was nearly all the way open.

“Carefully move your leg—and use both of your hooves, quickly!” Middy didn’t seem to be paying much attention. In fact, he was more caught up with screaming more until Gale remarked in a dry tone, “Oh no, I’m losing my grip.”

Middy took one huge deep breath, then hastily heaved his leg out of the way with a pained scream. The bear trap snapped shut behind it, just a hair too late. “Whew, thanks for the help. What was your name?”

I watched me, warm gaze and sickeningly sweet smile in effect, hold out my claw. “My name is Gale. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Midnight.”

///

I was in a chokehold; a very familiar cybernetic claw had latched itself around my neck. I was in an underground train station, and before me was a very angry pegasus in a hoodie.

“You think you’re so clever, don’t you?” Hoodie yelled, the sarcasm incredibly obvious in his voice. “You think you’ve got everything thought out.”

“I do,” the Frosty choking me in her grip retorted, spittle flying from her mouth with each word. “I don’t want to deal with you, so this is where we part ways.”

I remembered this! This was where Tangerine and I met that group lead by the half-zerba.

Oh shit. I was the half-zebra. Also, ew.

Hoodie chuckled. “You know what? I’m not shocked at all that you’re going to run,” he scoffed. “You’re nothing but a coward and a traitor.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?!”

Hoodie irritably flapped his wings, displacing his cloak. “It’s like you’re a little sheep without a dog to keep you in line.”

“You’re in no bucking position to say anything, zebra-hugger,” Frosty shot back. “You’re a traitor to the Enclave, and your friend is a traitor to Equestria! Whatever grand ideals you think you have mean jack shit when all you do is become yet another freeloading mercenary going about the Wasteland!”

Before I knew exactly what was happening, Frosty was squeezing my throat so tightly it was difficult to breathe. I was could barely make out somepony preaching about trains and other garbage before I heard my voice sigh in exasperation. “Look, I have places to be and better things to do than stand here and listen to you. Let’s make this brief.”

I squealed as I felt Frosty press the barrel of a shotgun against my head. There was a violent flash of light…

///

A heavy-hoofed blow to the top of my head rattled me out of focus. It left me dizzy and disoriented, trapped in a headlock that the Frosty was undoubtedly keeping me in. The unicorn I had possessed kept struggling. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Frosty bellowed. “Wouldn’t it be a shame if I have to make this little piggy squeal?”

The unicorn’s eyes darted back and forth, searching for something. Then, an assault rifle appeared from around a wall. I felt the unicorn groan. The pony behind it, one that I recognized as Pestilence, scooted out. “Don’t hurt him!” This scene was all too familiar to me—the first of the wonder triplets. That meant that this was War’s perspective.

“It’s a little late for that,” Frosty darkly chuckled. “Put down your guns, and your little buddy here might live to see another day.” My axe blade pressed harder into War’s throat.

“Don’t do it!” War boldly choked out. Already, I could feel tendrils of magic reaching out for the grenades that would inevitably be the cause of our demise.

“Drop ‘em!” I heard myself demand, unaware of the looming danger.

“Little cuz…” War coughed. Plink. “Just remember…” Plink. “I love you, an’ I’ll be with you forever.” Pestilence started to back up, solemnly nodding. Plink. “Even after I TAKE THIS BITCH ON THE HIGHWAY TO HELL!” Plink.

Frosty reacted like anypony would react when unwillingly strapped with grenades. “Let me go, freak!” she screamed in panic.

“Sayonara, bitch!” Then the first grenade blew.

///

Next thing I knew, Frosty was lunging at me over a counter. I felt myself hesitate, too fixated on those rage-filled bloodshot eyes and bared teeth. The razor-sharp talons seemed to reach impossibly far, closing around Famine’s—my—throat. Bits, bobs, and all assorted items went flying everywhere. His one unrestrained hoof feebly attempted to throw her off, to no avail.

Slowly, color began to fade from my vision. “Wow, you’re taking a long time to asphyxiate.”

“Frosty, what the buck are you doing?”

“Self defense. He asked for it.”

“Cut it out!”

“You know, that’s a very poor choice of words.”

///

“You know, one day your mouth is going to get you into trouble,” I heard me snarl. From what I could gather, we were inside a building—specifically a run-down library. Oh shit. Oh shit I was Tangerine. No, no, no! Wasn’t this the part where I strangled her?

Just like that, Tangie turned her head right into a clawful of stained and chipped talons to the jugular. As she was lifted into the air, I got a good look at myself. Dirty, unkempt hair and equally disgusting fur framed the face of a maniac. A giddy scowling sneer was plastered on my face, no sign of remorse visible. Tangie struggled to inhale and her vision began to visibly dim.

“You’re lucky that I need you to get around, or I might have been a lot more enthusiastic otherwise. I’ve had a shitty few hours and poking fun at me isn’t bucking helping. I’m being treated like a damn animal—again—and you think it’s funny?” Frosty snarled.

Tangerine choked in response.

<~~~>

It took me a few moments to realize I was back in my own body. “Wh… what was that?” I shuddered. “Did I do that? That was me?”

“Yes. Your life, as spectated by those you’ve wronged.” Mort impassively returned to facing the closed doors, stating, “Since I know you have absolutely zero attention span, I’ve given you some of the more important parts. At least those will leave a lasting impression.”

The events I’d witnessed replayed themselves in my mind over and over. “Oh. I’m actually just an asshole. Wow.” I ended up falling onto my butt. “Wow. Okay.” It hadn’t ever really occurred to me before. My actions were usually a result of literally everypony else either being a jerk, vaguely attempting to murder me, or a combination thereof. The thought that I was the monster had never really occurred to me, despite having joked about it. Now, in retrospect, I was horrified by my actions. So much unnecessary violence. No! No, that had all been Toasty’s fault. That hadn’t been me. Right?

The dinky little bell chimed again, and this time the doors creaked open. As I stepped out of the “elevator” after Mort, I observed that this place looked suspiciously like a dentist’s waiting room. A multitude of chairs, ponies, and furniture resembling all sorts of styles reminiscent of days gone by populated the entirely too-large right side of the room. To my left, several doors—all marked with “Wait your turn” and an assortment of motivational posters (Hang in there, cat!)—lined the wall along with an open receptionist’s window staffed by an extremely transparent pony.

Shaking off the lingering dread of my past sins crawling on my back, I played along like the confused little pony I was and thoughtlessly tagged along with Mort to the window in the wall. The ghostly receptionist pony smiled at us and launched into conversation with Mort. I stopped listening about fifteen seconds into the pleasantries and nonsense that hadn’t been explained to me. Instead, I couldn’t help but be annoyed at how effortlessly ghosty-pony’s luxuriously long mane managed to flow in the air. Did she use ghost shampoo or just normal shampoo? I’d literally murder somepony to get my mane shimmery and smooth like that.

Wait, no, I would not literally murder somepony for that. That was not me.

With that sort of mane envy on the brain, I didn’t hear Miss ‘my mane is to die for’ trying to get my attention. To be fair I didn’t really notice it at first because of the see-through hoof phasing back and forth through my nose. Only after the receptionist mare threatened to stick her whole head into mine did I finally figure out I was being talked to.

I jerked myself backward out of face-merging range. Receptionist mare looked a little peeved, probably repeating herself again for the eighth time. “You’re not religious, are you?” Her voice had a funny lilt to it—something rough, like Scoltish. She did sound an awful lot like the star of Bravehurt after all. I began to idly fantasize about her screaming inspirational lines into a flock of sheep.

Oh right, I’d been asked a question. “Nah. It’s just easier to take the Royal Sisters’ names in vain,” I honestly replied.

“That’s all. Take a seat and come back to me when you’re ready. If you can’t make up your mind, don’t worry about it too much. Judgement isn’t to be taken lightly.” Receptionmare gave me a little sideways smile as she shuffled away a pile of paper with my name on it. I shrugged, trotting away to the nearest vacant chair.

Mort followed me. I settled myself into the uncomfortably hard foal-sized chair to think. As my eyes wandered, I took notice of the rest of the waiting room’s population. A huge majority of the ponies and other non-pony beings around me were blurry outlines and fuzzy shapes. “Hey, what gives?” I asked, referring to the massive coffee-colored dust bunny to my left. Weird.

“Not everyone here is technically ‘here’. Time is more of a suggestion in this place. It’s the same reason why I’m not bound to a specific point in time. What you’re seeing are imprints of their presence.”

Overlooking the room again, I observed, “That’s awfully convenient. I bet it’s because there isn’t enough processing power to render this many actors at once.”

“...What?”

A perfectly crisp, clearly visible pony stood out to the rest. “Oh, hey! I can see that guy. I’m off to talk to him. See you later, Morty.”

Mort wearily sighed as I tromped away. “Fates be with you, Frosty.” When I turned back around to throw some more witticism at Skelepon, he was gone. Rude.

Back to the—hello, sexy. Tall, dark, and handsome over there looked to be another pegasus, just like me. He kept his mane in the classic mohawk style, longer than regulation, and with the yellow and drab greenish stripes neatly in order. Dark gray fur and those funny mane colors somehow seemed familiar to me, yet I couldn’t quite put my talon on it. Hoof. Whatever.

It seemed like TDaH (Tall, Dark, and Handsome. Pay attention.) could see me too because he caught my eye and waved me over. “Oh hey, I remember you from the bar—that night before things went to shit. You buy it during Cauterize? Seems to be a lot of us ending up here."

Cauterize? Cauterize happened? Things must have gone worse than I expected for the Enclave. “Oh, I totally missed it. I died from procrastinating too hard apparently.” He gave me the universal ‘what the buck’ look-and-gesture combo. “Long story, bad decisions, and yes it’s true,” I interrupted. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you anyway.”

The stallion crossed his forelegs. “Try me.”

It was simpler to give him the short version since I probably had enough stupid material for a book at this point. “I was given an impressively long amount of time to get something done or die and I somehow just didn’t really get around to it because I was just too distracted by side-questing adventures that I ended up running into.” Finished, I happily clapped my hooves together. “Then I died.”

The little hamster wheel in the dark gray pegasus’s head might have needed a little grease, but he eventually figured it out. “Because you waited too long?”

I nodded. “Yep.”

He nodded with me, perhaps sympathetically. “That sucks.”

Recalling what Mort had said to me, I asked, “Who are you again? My memory isn’t as good as it used to ham sandwich.” I also reminded myself to come up with another equally witty phrase for my terrible memory.

The stallion held out a hoof. “Nosedive. Last I remember, you were talking my ears off.” He stared at me in thought, hoof still outstretched and presumably awaiting something in return. “Frosty, right?” I tilted my head and tried to recall it, his face, the event—anything. Nada.

My face lit up. Yay, somepony that I hadn’t tried to murder yet that knew my name! “Hey, yeah.” If only I was as good at remembering trivial things like names as he was. “So, uh. How’d you eat it?”

Something akin to a content sigh came from Nosedive. “You should have seen it. Went down like a hero from one of the vids.” He scooted over in his seat and invited me to sit down next to him. ”Bit of a story though, if you care to listen.” Since I wasn’t really in a rush or anything, I was game for story time. I sat down in the offered seat and pointedly ignored his intentional disregard for my personal space. “So we get shot down in the middle of bucking nowhere, right? Had to lock my armor, holding my squad leader to keep her from getting thrown as we went down. Our other squadmate wasn’t so lucky—got herself captured while we were still coming to. Figures, right? So then blah blah blah…”

At some point I think I fell asleep out of boredom. Or maybe I died for a second. Again.

Thankfully, he was so caught up in posturing and vigorous motions that he didn’t seem to have noticed. “Anyways, we managed to rescue her, but my wing got pretty mauled in the process. That was right when… I guess we’re calling them ‘alicorns’ now… right when one of them showed up, along with a whole horde of ponies, and a wing of griffons besides. Real long odds, especially with Tailwind injured and my wing shot. Snap couldn’t bring herself to make the call, so I did it for her. I opted to stay, buy them some time to get away. It was hard, yeah, but… damn, if I won’t remember that look in her eyes.”

He shook his head, as if trying to get himself back on track. “Wasn’t any sort of epic stand, but I managed to blow some of those buckers away before they got me.” He broke into a grim smile as he continued, “Took a hit to my cannon’s cooling array, and that was pretty much that. Before it went, though, I took enough of ‘em with me that I guess they figured it wasn’t worth the effort to keep looking. Thought the storm would finish off the rest of my team.

“I… I never got to tell her how I felt. Snap, I mean—my team leader. My biggest regret is that I just didn’t tell her sooner, you know? The opportunity was always there. I just never took the first step. As strongly as I felt...” He gave a heavy sigh, hanging his head. I obligatorily placed a comforting hoof on his shoulder.

The sight of such a tough guy down in the dumps about this prompted me to speak from experience. My hoof still on his shoulder, I placatingly told him, “Don’t sweat it, cool guy. Love isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Trust me.” He looked up, blinking away some of the funk that seemed to have fallen over him, curiosity taking its place. “I had a love-at-first-sight moment. It turned out to be awful. He’s an abusive control freak and I never acted on it until it was too late. Love makes you stupid. You probably don’t need it anyway.”

With a coarse laugh, he replied, “Maybe you’re right. At any rate, they don’t need me—those two are strong, especially together.”

I voiced the first thing that came to my mind. “Gaaaaaaaaaaaay.” Like any sensible pony which I was not, Nosedive glared at me for ruining the mood. I immediately changed the subject. “Hey, you're a dude. Riddle me this—what’s with you guys being all selfish and demanding and shit? Is it just a stallion thing or is it just Rumcake being an asshole?”

Confused, Nosedive asked, “Who?”

Right. Context. “Former love interest. Keep up,” I clarified.

Nosedive stayed silent, possibly regarding his options. “Have you considered you might be wrong?”

In mock indignation, I spat, “I'm a mare. I'm never wrong.” Well, usually I wasn’t wrong. “Unless when I am,” I quietly added.

I could have sworn that Nosedive slouched back in his seat and adopted the classic psychiatrist pose. “Let’s hear it.”

Now was a time as any while we were on a heart-to-heart discussion. “Well. Uh. There was the time where he tried to kill me. And there was that other time where he decided that exploding public bondage was a good relationship goal to reach.”

“…Huh. From the sounds of it, maybe it wasn't meant to be? He sounds like a real piece of work. I’d beat him to a pulp for you if I wasn’t dead. No proper stallion would dare treat a mare like that.” Nosedive tilted his head sideways. “Wait. Wait, wait, waaaait a tic. Have you ever been in love before? Proper, good old-fashioned love. Not this abuse bullshit.”

Confusion dawned on me as I trawled through my past experiences. “I don’t remember. Memories got stolen; wasn’t motivated enough to get them back I guess,” I admitted. “There’s bits and pieces left over.”

“Love is… well, it’s a state of mind. It’s sort of like having somepony you can’t live without. Somepony—or someone, I won’t judge—that changes your life. That’s a huge generalization of course.”

Ponies who dodged questions were terrible ponies, and I wasn’t going to be one of them this time. “But… I don’t know. It wasn’t covered in basic. I didn’t really have time back then, and from what I remember from my wasteland adventure…” I began to actually go through the ponies I knew and had interacted with, just to be sure. A small scoff came out of me when I realized I’d been stupidly naive to believe in Rumcake loving me. “The only pony who I really did care about like what you’re saying is this crazy mare named Riverbed.” I slightly frowned to myself, remembering some of the things we did. “She was always there for me, you know. Out of all the ponies I knew, she’s the only one that I didn’t try to murder or want to mur—”

Yet more realization struck me. Not only was this much revelation bad for my soul, but Riverbed was filling out a dangerous number of categories. “—der… And I like her. And I’d begged for her to come back,” I quietly whispered to myself. There were always stories of things like this happening. Nopony was ever expected to believe it, and I’d dismissed it as a joke every time. Why did these things happen to me? “Holy crap. Rumcake made me gay,” I breathed in horrified—guess what—realization.

The thoughts in my mind vanished in an instant. I slumped in my half-seat and really took a step—metaphorically—back to really process that thought. “I think he scared me into being gay.” Being the helpful stallion he appeared to be, Nosedive began to uncontrollably laugh.

“It’s not funny!” I slapped the giggling stallion for all I was worth.

Taking several gasping breaths, Nosedive wheezed, "You do realize that you can be friends with someone and care about them without that leading to a romantic relationship, right?" The little hamster wheel in my mind creaked to life, processing this new revelation.

Great. And now I felt silly. "Oh. Is that how it works? In books it always seemed like sex was the end result of friendship." I tried to hide my face in my wings so he couldn’t see me turn pink, but it was too late—it only caused him to laugh even harder. Any more insistence from me was met with yet more laughter. Nosedive was a lost cause to my own misfortune so I plodded off to find something else to do.

I found myself trapped in thought instead. After the turning point, the part where Rumcake tried to kill me out of kindness—had that caused me to turn to Riverbed for companionship? Impossible. Firmly shaking my head, I reminded myself that I was somehow the one straight mare in the entire wasteland and it needed to stay that way. It was probably just coincidence, right? All this excess thinking was only causing problems. Time to face the music. I returned to the window where the ghostly receptionist was busy playing tic-tac-toe with herself and slammed my hooves against the counter with all the confidence of a mare tormented by whining. I declared, “I’m ready, assholes. Bring it.”

Nonplussed, “Take a number, darling. We’ll call you when a representative is free.”

“Oh.” I plucked the slightly transparent ticket from its dispenser and returned to waiting.

~~~~~

Going into it, I didn’t know what to expect. The receptionist ghost didn’t tell me more than “you’ll do fine”. I was just barely holding my nerves together as I walked down a featureless and dark hall, anticipating the worst. A pair of heavy-looking doors waited for me at the end, pale orange light bleeding through the cracks.

I placed my hoof on the door, ready to push it open, then hesitated. There were voices. A lot of voices. Some of them sounded angry, some bored, and many more indiscernible. “Okay, Frosty. Let’s get this over with.” Taking one more deep breath, I shoved the door open and emerged into the light.

What greeted me on the other side was like I’d walked right into an old holotape. Before me lay the interior of a lavish old-old-old-old-world courthouse, wrought of wood and iron. The high-vaulted ceiling was held up by six square pillars of solid dark wood, textured with intricate carvings. I kept absentmindedly walking forward, right into a short little pedestal where I assumed I was supposed to be standing.

Before I got to checking out anything else, a griffon’s skeleton in a Mort-like outfit appeared behind the even taller raised judge’s box. It surveyed the room, spotted me, then nodded. “All are present. Rise for the Adjudicators.” Three identically cloaked shapes floated out of a side door at the end of the hall. The one in the lead was a cat skeleton carrying its own adorable scythe with its bony tail. Whatever was following it had a skeleton far too small to see, but it had its own miniature floating scythe and hood. The last one made me pause and stare in confusion—it was a gigantic set of jaws filled with too many teeth. Yes, in a hood. No, I had no idea what it was.

“Will the jury please refer to docket nine hundred twenty three in today’s schedule. The tribunal for The Death of Ponies, subject Frostivus Kay Winds will now begin.” To the left—my left—was a sort of fancy holding pen packed with various animated skeletons in equally diverse attire. I was about to dismiss the whole lot as unimportant distractions until my gaze was drawn to a pony-shaped skeleton wearing an ill-fitting lime suit. I tilted my head, mildly surprised. Mort? What was he doing here?

Wait. Cue rewind.

—

In my fearful haste, I hadn’t noticed what he was wearing. “Are you… are you wearing a suit?”

The incarnation of death was wearing a gaudy pastel green, ill-fitting three piece suit with his standard hood tucked into the collar. The legs were obviously too loose, the chest was too tight, and his equally green tie was too long. He also looked just as uncomfortable as his suit, which I got a chuckle out of.

“I HAVE JURY DUTY TODAY.” Mort pulled an ornate golden pocket watch out of his suit jacket. “IT DOESN’T START FOR ANOTHER TEN MINUTES.”

—

Jury duty. This is what he’d meant.

“It seems like our esteemed colleague has yet again found himself with a severe case of having a conscience. Misappropriating a reaped Soul and unsanctioned actions to the Fates is a serious infraction, as you all know.” Griffon Death tapped the gavel in his talons against the bones in his opposite claw. “Mort. You know the drill. Explain yourself this time. Make it interesting, will you? I’m sure the others would appreciate a new story.”

“I met Frosty the second time during her final moments, as you’d expect.” Mort sounded unsure of himself, almost hesitant. “She… did the things that everypony does. Cried. Asked questions. Begged.” After hesitating again, he continued, “Unlike others, she finished her crying. I answered all her questions. All she wanted was a chance to make it all right, swearing vengeance and all that fluff. I saw fit to grant her a provision, considering—”

Griffon Death slammed the gavel, cutting Mort off. “Just because you are purveyor of their death does not grant you the right to alter their existence. This is not the first infraction, Mort. Why must you meddle in their affairs?”

Back in the pit of spectators, Mort was steadily growing a moat as the other Deaths scooted away from him. “It is within my jurisdiction to contract lost souls to do things that I cannot, whether the Accord or other complications arise. There were complications, and I contracted Frosty’s soul before it turned into an onryō. I’m sure the Gatherers would appreciate it. They’ve been far too busy as of late.”

“That’s none of your concern,” Griffonbones snapped.

Not to be a spectator to my own life, I asked, “I’d like it to be my concern.” Multiple dirty looks from everypony—including everybody without eyes. Eye holes. Et cetera. Um. Never mind.

Mort’s gaze drifted to the floor, the motes of light in his eye-holes dimming. “You hadn’t seen what her life had become. She deserved solace after all she’d been through.” The use of past tense both confused and alarmed me. Didn’t he mean me—as in, now me and not past me?

Throughout this whole interchange, I had my eye on one of the three Adjudicators. It didn’t seem like they were paying attention, what with being very obviously asleep. I raised my hoof and interjected, “Objection. Cat Death is sleeping.” Literally everything in the room dropped what they were doing to glare at me. Very quietly and respectfully, I squeaked, “I’ll stop now.”

The griffin skeleton shot me an extra-firey glare before returning to his duty of savagely decimating Mort’s reputation. “You’re out of line, Mort.”

“I didn’t complain about the ‘demigod bird-cat of legend’ disaster, as you may or may not recall. There’s a comic, did you know? Crawgnak the Bird-barian!” Murmurs of agreement rippled through the room. “Besides, the pure concentrated angst Frosty was harboring because of her sudden but inevitable betrayal would have created a vengeful spirit large enough to create physical impact.”

In lieu of an indignant outburst, I forced myself to settle with an upset muzzle scrunch. The last thing I needed was to piss off every...thing in this room. I’d show them angst, grumble grumble.

“If you insist on questioning judgement, let’s look at yours.” Griffon McChucklebones fixated a steely glare on Mort. To my surprise, he turned his attention to me next. “We’ve reviewed the incredible circumstances of your fate. Would you like to know how you came to be here? You’d be impressed at how far you’ve been diverted from your true calling.”

“I don’t—” Mort began, but was instantly cut off by a thunderous clap of wood on wood.

“This. Is. My. Court! Speak again. I dare you.” Everything in the room dared not make a noise. With the walls still ever-so-slightly vibrating, Griffon Death stared down Mort and waited. Mort visibly wilted in his suit as a result and respectfully lowered his head. “That’s what I thought. Why don’t we tell Frosty what you’ve been doing to her?”

Mort didn’t respond. All he did was stare at the floor. “Yes, why don’t we tell Frosty what you’ve blah blah—what he said,” I snapped at the two of them.

This time, Griffy wasn’t even upset at my interjection. “Which half would you like to know about—which ending, per se? The good ending, the one where you have a fulfilling and somewhat limp existence?”

“Spoiler warning. Rude.” I crossed my forelegs, indignant glare in full effect. However, the idea of knowing what could have been itched at my mind. With hesitant curiosity in mind, I asked, “What changed? How did all this bullshit happen?”

“Unlike a certain someone here, I respect your choices.” He pointedly glared at Mort. “The split begins at the moment where rookie Pony Death decides that he’d show up early to a reaping. He thinks to himself, ‘it’s only a few seconds anyway, what’s the harm?’ What he doesn’t know is that the pegasus that is about to have a catastrophic stroke is paper-pushing some very sensitive files. He flops on the ground, dead, moments later. In that action, he makes a mess—one that a lazy intern is forced to clean up instead.

“If that pegasus had died and his soul harvested at the proper time, he would have had enough time to put the goddamn box down and think to himself ‘by golly I’m having a stroke’. Instead, we have ended up with you shuffled into a stack of potential candidates destined for an experimental initiative that your Enclave was unknowingly putting together.”

Confused was a good word for my emotions and thoughts right now, but I had questions that needed answering. I politely raised my hoof and waited for permission to speak this time. Why couldn’t he just go back and fix it if time didn’t apply to these guys?

Either these guys had mind reading powers or I was predictable, because McNuggets pointed a bony talon at me and spoke, “No, he can’t go back and fix it because he’s already been there. Please save your questions for the end.”

I slowly lowered my hoof.

“That’s where it starts. From there, Pony Death tries to fix this—you and the smattering of other lives that are wrenched from their fates, as you were. But the dominoes begin to fall. The only way to stop the chain is to remove a link.” Gesturing with his gavel again, Death McBirdcat continued his victory lap. “That became you, the most convenient of the fates. You were of the first to meet an early grave, but the only one with the determination to carry on.

“You are blind, Frosty Winds. Blind to the game you are a part of. All because of HIM.”

“You dare blame this on me?” Mort demanded. “Unlike you, I have been doing my duty. We were sworn by oath to—”

Yet another gavel slam, this time sending me airborne for nearly a whole second. “An oath that you have disregarded time and time again! You manipulated her Remembrance for your own means! Don’t think that just because you’ve a scythe and a cowl gives you the right to treat a Soul like a plaything.”

Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Remembrance, as in remembering? As in memories? I arbitrarily drew the lines, connected the red yarn, and screeched at Mort, “You took them! Why couldn’t you just tell me? Everything could have been so much easier. For you, for me, for everypony.”

“I took away the memories that would corrupt your soul in order for you to serve my purposes,” Mort bellowed back. “It was only the end bit. Your betrayal. The hate, the anger, the desire for revenge. Those bits. I have no idea why the rest of your memories are missing.”

“But!” The realization that literally everypony I knew had betrayed my trust at some point angered me to no end. The fact that my memories were missing and Mort had decided, on his own, that it had been better that I had even fewer of my memories—of my identity—to work with. Anticipating the impending response, I exhaled hard and simply agreed, “Fine. Sure. Whatever. I don’t care anymore.” Mimicking some choice lyrics, I threw my hooves in the air.

“Your indignation is understandable. I’m… I apologize for my actions, but it was all in good intentions. It was for your—”

Those were the magic words. I bucking exploded. “What? For my own good? Everypony thinks they know what’s best for me. You think you know what’s best for me?” Thoughts of Rumcake came to mind and were immediately eviscerated.

“Well, yes.” Lamely, he added, “I was going to give them back, by the way.”

“Oooh, I see how it is,” I thickly sarcasm’d at him.

“There will be silence in my court!” Griffon Death suddenly swung his gavel to point at me. “The sins on your Soul are insurmountable. Whether you defend your actions or admit the wrongs of your way will de—”

Already knowing my answer, I crossed my forelegs defiantly. “Nuh-uh. I’m not taking any of it back.” After seeing the things I’d done and knowing exactly what else I’d done, I resigned myself to fate. I was an asshole, and boy howdy I was going to go for gold. One sin or a million, I was probably going to the same place anyway. Might as well go for a high score.

Silence. One of the spectators dropped something on the floor. “What.”

“I made my choices,” I began. “Well, okay. To be fair, part of the murder spree is because somepony wanted somepony dead and that wasn’t really any of my business arguing a counterpoint. That’s on the Enclave and maybe my weakness for compensation. That, and I have a very low tolerance for bullshit.”

Seeing Bonergriffon look lost for words made me wish for a camera or an artist’s rendering. “I… I see,” he finally stammered.

I sighed, nodding. “So yeah, I probably deserve whatever I’ve got coming.”

Still a bit rattled—get it, rattled? Bones? I’ll stop—Griffin Death tapped his gavel and intoned, “The choice you have made, while admitting to guilt, will be considered in the final judging. Your Fate will be determined by a unanimous vote from the Adjudicators.” He paused to overlook the crowd, me, Mort, the two-and-a-half other judges, then spoke again. “Due to the delicate nature of this decision, I call a vote to move this tribunal to recess.”

They did. Well, two out of three did. No prizes for guessing who didn’t vote.

“While the Adjudicators make their decision, this tribunal is dismissed.”

SLAM.

~~~~~

The doors to the courthouse opened, releasing everyone inside to the absolute nothingness beyond it. Still, the various Deaths wandered off in their own directions, while other souls like me and the smattering of other sentient creatures aimlessly milled around on the ornate stone steps. Boredom was about to overtake me when a familiar voice from behind me made me drop everything and turn around to face her.

I never thought I’d ever see her again.

Tangerine hadn’t changed much since she’d… died. Yeah. Even though I’d allegedly been the one to kill her, she still stared at me in that same slightly-terrified-but-in-awe sort of look. “Frosty… Is it really you?” she asked, stars in her eyes.

“No, I’m just an immaterial manifestation of what could totally just be a figment of my imagination shaped like me.” But that look of wonderment and joy made me actually think for once. Maybe she deserved a less stupid answer. “Yeah. Hi.”

A blur of ecstatic orange fur tackle-hugged me hard enough to kill me if I were alive. “It’s good to see you again, Frosty. I didn’t think I’d—” She let out a choked sob into my chest. “I’d ever see you again. You, you. Although I guess given where we are I’d prefer if I didn’t.” Terrible as I was, I breathed a sigh of relief. At least she knew it wasn’t me that killed her.

I uneasily laughed. “Yeah. This place blows.” What remained of my dignity and common sense—whatever Gale had left behind when she’d moved out—reminded me that I should probably be a lot less snarky considering that Tangie was vigorously watering me. “So uh…” I started. I wasn’t exactly sure how to change the subject. “How’s things?”

“Good, I guess. Well, good enough. I’ve had time to think.” It was more like ‘time to take in all these revelations and ignore them’, but that was future dead me’s problem. Present dead me had to deal with Deadgerine. Ponies having time to think in this place was starting to seem like a pretty popular trend I should probably be getting into. Later.

“Apparently I haven’t passed on because I need closure. That’s why I’m stuck here. I think it’s because I’m waiting for you.”

“Kept you waiting, huh?” The temptation to strike a pose was almost too much to resist, but I kept it together. No posing—this looked like serious talk.

Tangerine fixed me with a steely unmoving gaze, something I’d never seen her do before. Ever. “I need to tell you something. Something important.” Uh oh.

Mentally, I was already responding with snark. Instead, I forced myself to simply default to a simple, “I’m listening.”

“And I need you to please, for once in your life, take it seriously.” As per her wishes, I stayed quiet and dusted off mister angry eyes for one last showing for Tangie. To my great relief, she took notice and even smiled a little. “Thanks.” She took a deep breath, visibly preparing herself to break some news. “I love you, Frosty. At first I didn’t like you, of course. But once I got to know you and see you in action, I…well, fell for you.”

And then there was the part that I tried to murder her that she was conveniently leaving out. Goddesses… I was the asshole in this relationship. I literally Rumcake’d Tangie. Great. “I don’t see what’s to like about me. Everything you knew about me wasn’t even me—just psychosis and angst. I’d also like to remind you that I tried to kill you once.” Even though it did make her ears droop, I forced myself to not directly look at her and instead dramatically turn away to stare off at the ceiling. “I’m a bad little pony and I’m sorry that I won’t ever live up to your expectations. If it makes you feel any better, I found out how much an asshole I was not that long ago.” I finished with the ‘tragic stare into the floor’ move to complete a suitably angsty mood. Nailed it.

Just as planned, I received a pity pat on the wing. “You’re not really a bad pony, Frosty. It’s just… you’re just misunderstood. You don’t even understand yourself,” Tangerine murmured.

A tear came to my eye. “Aww, don’t say that. You’re making my privilege blush.” Too late did I realize I broke my no-posing rule. Welp, too late.

Tangerine angrily bopped my nose. “Knock it off, I’m trying to be serious! I love you, Frosty. I need you to know that.” I stopped acting and scrunched my muzzle at her, which only earned me another bop.

More love, love, love. Whatever Rumcake and I had was definitely not love, yet I had absolutely no idea if what Tangie and I had was love. It was a lot of one-sided loving, really. “Are you sure it’s love and not delusion?” The same thought applied to me as well—was it love, or was I just fooling myself into thinking that Rumcake actually cared about me? “And, uh, are you absolutely sure you’re gay? No offense or anything, but this is kind of important in this context.”

Tangerine actually laughed. More of an amused giggle, really. “I’m sure, Frosty. It’s not like the flamboyance flamingo shows up and tells you you’re gay. I kissed a filly and I liked it. Ta-daah. Super. Gay. For, uh, you.”

Hang on. Haaaaang on. I felt a song coming on. “What about the taste of her cherry lipstick?” I chirped, about ninety percent sure those were the right lines.

Confusion crossed Tangie’s face. She squinted and tilted her head at me in thought, then hesitantly added, “Wait, didn’t it go ‘the taste of her cherry Trotstick?”

“You’re the lesbian.”

“Thanks, Frosty,” Tangerine replied, deadpan.

“I’m here all week.” I grinned. Those happy feelings faded in an instant, leaving me to question, “But I have to ask… why me? I’m being serious. I legitimately don’t get it at all.”

She smirked. “Even if I couldn’t bear you at the time and sometimes I’d rather deepthroat a cactus, there’s something about your dashing looks and… I don’t know, coolness, awesomeness, whatever—there’s just something that’s distinctly you that I’m inexorably attracted to. To me, you’re wild, mysterious, exotic, and just a little bit broken that I can’t help but love. Even despite all your terrible qualities, it's just really... fun to be around you. I don't think you realize just how soul-crushingly bleak life is usually like. Wasteland life sucks, Frosty. I've spent most of my life feeling miserable and scared and helpless—all the Steel Rangers have, trying to fight this desolate world of ours that's never, ever going to get better.”

“I… I don’t…” A choking noise came out of my mouth instead of any of my usual confused remarks as my brain struggled to come up with a good response. “You have to understand, Tangie. It’s not that I don’t like you or that I don’t appreciate the sentiment.” I took a deep breath and internally braced myself to utterly crush all of Tangie’s last hopes and dreams. “It’s just that I can’t really say the same. I mean, I like you like you, but I don’t know if I can love another mare. It’s just weird to me.”

“And I know that!” Tangie protested. “I was going to learn how to turn into a stallion, just for you! I could be both! I want—wanted to be with you. What about then? Could you have loved me then?”

I firmly planted my hoof over her muzzle. “Nope. Nope, nope, nope.” Philosophy or whatever this counted as wasn’t one of my strong suits, and I really didn’t want to argue it. I saw the hurt beginning to form in Tangie’s eyes and I realized exactly what I’d said in context. “Wait! That’s not what I meant. Back the gender express up.”

Wording here was so diabolically sensitive that I hesitated to explain myself. “I’m not going to even start arguing the existentialism of gender and all that crap. I don’t care. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn’t. All I know is that I really, really, really like dicks, so also by extension also the thing attached to it as well. I haven’t bothered putting in any thought on the contrary, what with all the angst and disappointment. All I can really say is that maybe I’d be okay with Guygerine, but I’m not entirely sure it’d be the same. Does that work for you?” No need to bring up the fact that Rumcake might have scared me sideways to Tangie after all.

With that hastily-planned speech out of my mind, I let out a relieved sigh. To my great surprise, Tangie wasn’t bawling or trying to kill me. Honestly, she didn’t seem that upset at all. “I know. I just needed to say it.” Wiping away an—imaginary?—tear, she weakly chuckled and said, “You know what the other scribes called me when they were getting to know me?”

Her actual name? “Tangerine?” I automatically guessed. I was already too busy trying to come up with a joke that involved gender and the changing of the gender fluid, a la headlight fluid.

Tangie mirthlessly huffed at me. “Coffee. Now that I think about it, it all makes sense.”

“Yes, because coffee is orange and adorable. I see it now,” I dryly observed.

The barest hints of a sad wry grin appeared on Tangie’s face. “They call me Coffee because I’m really bitter and most ponies don’t like me without changing some aspect of what I am.”

Ouch. Right in my cold, dead heart. “That makes me feel like an asshole, thanks.” The little hole where Gale used to be reminded me that I probably deserved it.

“Sorry, it’s just how I am.” If the look she was giving the floor was any indication, she was already sulking.

“If it’s any consolation…” I exhaled exasperatedly. There was really only one way to stop all this mopey nonsense, even if it literally metaphorically tore me apart on the inside. I jabbed her on the nose. “This does not leave this plane of existence. Ever.” No time like the present and now was a good time before I got regrets.

“Wh—” was all that made it out of her mouth before I headbutted her in it. With my mouth. Violently. With tongue. Both of us were equally surprised by the force I was putting in it.

Hey, give us a minute. Perv.

~~~~~

Tangie was still gushing over the kiss. Every time I tried to get up and wander away from divorce court, she would grab my closest body part and launch into more detailed descriptions that were causing me to turn increasingly red. At least I knew I wasn’t a terrible kisser. In my mind it made up for everything I’d done to her throughout our adventures. And it probably served as a ‘sorry I tried to murder you’ as well.

The adorable lovestruck unicorn continued to cling to my left foreleg. “So… are you super gay now?” she cooed. That better not have been hope in her voice.

Although thinking about it, I hadn’t really cared that much. Either I was in denial and ‘this is for Tangie’ drowning out my true feelings or I simply just still didn’t like it. “Not feelin’ it. Definitely more weird than hot,” I admitted. “Dunno, though. I’ll swap the ol’ gender fluid and take it around for another thousand miles.” Who was a witty pony? I was a witty pony.

Tangie frowned, but at least she wasn’t all upset and whiny about it. “That’s, uh. I mean—” She ended up staring right into my eyes and that somehow got her all flustered. Stammering, she blurted, “There’s a McHayburger’s down here. Wanna catch up over some shakes?”

Wat.

X~~~X

Since I was the only one left that Rumcake had to do his dirty work, it came down to me to somehow wrest Frosty back into his good graces. “Sparkle, get me more ammo. Sparkle, dig a new latrine. Sparkle, tell me I’m pretty,” I outwardly bemoaned. “Sparkle, Sparkle, Sparkle. Sheesh. He’s taking the breakup hard.” The worst part was, each Ranger he’d lost made Rumcake that much more self-loathing. Losing Tangie had been a tremendous blow to him—and me. Frosty had been the last straw.

So it was up to me, the great and overworked Sparkle to save the dragon, slay the princess, and do the laundry all before I returned to Rumcake. Several residents had helpfully pointed me in the direction of where Frosty had gone, thereby saving me a whole load of effort. Too bad nopony was willing to help me move rubble to climb stairs. As I neared the top, I heard Frosty talking to herself again. There was a better chance of a favorable outcome if I waited for an opening where I could interject without interrupting, so I decided to wait.

“...can do it. It’s been ages since I did this on my own.”

“Then let me!”

“How did Frosty even get around like this? This leg doesn’t even have sensory feedback.”

“I can work it. C’mon! Let me drive. Gimme, gimme, gimme!”

“I cannot have you murdering everything that moves now that you have no conscience.”

“You’re no fuuuuun.”

After listening to all that, I resolutely decided that negotiating with a crazy mare could wait until later. Laundry however, waited for nopony.

Footnote: Frosty provided solace.
New Perk: Desperate Measures – You’ve failed once. You won’t let it happen again. Taking fatal damage instead sets you at a single health point, increasing all your SPECIAL stats by 2 for a short period of time.

Author's Note

This chapter was a huge disaster to put together. Fallout 4, life, vacation, communication. Glad it's finally done. As a reminder, opinions in this fictitious piece of literature involving small talking nuclear horses do not necessarily reflect upon me or my editors.

Featuring special guests Sewn Britches- from Adder1's The Last Sentinel, and Nosedive- from guest writer Relentless's Frozen Skies.

Also welcome new editor LeprechaunPoni!

Chapter 30: Something something magic, I guess?

Chapter 30: Something something magic, I guess?

“Because of you, Snowfall Frost. Now the future is a cold Nightmare…”

So, to recap, I was dead, and I was now taking my lesbian “pseudo-girlfriend” out for burgers and shakes at a joint located in the afterlife. At this stage of my life—unlife, if you will—I couldn’t even be surprised anymore by this sudden turn of events. Just another day in the unlife of Frosty Winds.

“Uh. I don’t have any money,” I whispered to my aggressively gay fruit. “Can you cover for me?”

Aforementioned fruit-themed pony glanced at me and quipped, “Oh, you don’t need it. Just get what you want. This place is here for fulfillment, whatever that means.”

Holy mother of all things deep-fried and delicious. I could order anything.

Anything. Without consequence. I didn’t have to worry about my health—I was already dead!

If I could physically drool, I would have been coating my hooves already. Freeeee foooood.

“Uh oh.” Repeated hoof-jabs into my side went unanswered. “Oh no. I really shouldn’t have said that. I don’t like that look. Frosty, can you hear me? Hello?”

I reached over the counter, failed to snare the unfortunate employee due to my unfamiliar lack of talons, then transitioned into an awkward prodding motion. “You listen to me and you listen to me good pal, cuz I haven’t had a good burger in literally forever. I want what I want. Got it?” The absolutely unfazed cashier glanced downward and wordlessly pressed a button. “I want a cheeseburger with two patties, extra haycon, and all the toppings you’ve got—no skimping!” I temporarily paused to let the poor worker do his job and maybe consider how much more monstrous I wanted this thing to get.

The grey, impossibly unremarkable cashier pony casually pressed a different button. “Any sauces?” He lazily eyeballed me with one of his grey eyes.

Out of all the choices on the nonexistent blank menu, I really didn’t know what to choose from. Maybe it was best to go with the staples. “Mayo. Mustard. Hot sauce.” An idea came to mind. One that could probably murder a living pony. Living, being the key word. That meant I was fair game. “While we’re at it, I want you to switch the buns for grilled cheese.” For the first time since I’d gotten in here, a giant stupid grin appeared on my face.

The ghost-pony taking my order scoffed. “Calm down, miss. Toast for buns isn’t the strangest thing we’ve served.” He—well, maybe it, I wasn’t going to start judging—pressed another series of buttons on the register.

I leaned forward, putting myself snout-to-snout to the cashier. Once again I grinned. “No. I want a grilled cheese sandwich for each bun. Oh, and wedge some fries in there too. Waffle fries, yeah.” This was definitely an obscene amount of food for one pony, but if there was anypony stupid enough to eat all of this it was me.

Cashier-ghost rolled its eyes. “Sure, whatever. Anything else?” Still nonplussed, it pressed another button.

I thought about what I’d already done and admitted it may have been a tad overkill. “No, that’s as evil as I want a burger to be.” Before it finished tapping in my order, I remembered that Tangie wanted a shake. “You guys make hoof-spun shakes?” I asked.

Ghosty-boy bobbled his head. “I guess.”

Eying up Tangie, I decided on the spot that she should try something new. “My amorous companion would like a vanilla shake, mix in double the amount of cherries and add a bit of chocolate syrup. And that’s it.”

“No I don’t.” Tangie objected. Too late. A little paper receipt whizzed out of the machine and floated into my waiting hoof. Order completed, we stepped aside to wait. “I wanted something different,” muttered the disappointed little pony.

I didn’t want to make my little fruit ghost sad. I reassuringly rubbed her head and said, “You’ll love it, trust me. If it’s anything like the Malt Bar’s shakes, of course.” From what my incredibly spotty memory could tell me, I’d liked the shakes at that place.

“I get ignored so much I might as well be named Terms and Conditions.”

What was this, ‘guilt-trip Frosty’ day? “At least you’ll get accepted no matter what.” I reassured her. The receipt in my hoof suddenly chirped and winked out of existence. “What in the even—” Before I could finish that outburst, a tray laden with the king of all burgers and its royal entourage burst into existence. I barely managed to catch the excessive amount of food I’d ordered with the combined effort of my wings and hooves. “And if you think you can trick me into another make-out session, think again,” I teased her.

At least Tangie actually chuckled at that instead of slipping into yet more self-loathing. “Thanks for trying.”

Then I noticed our surroundings again. It wasn’t the atmosphere that was bothering me—it was the fact that everypony around me was black (or very, very dark grey). Like, they were walking, chattering silhouettes going about their own business. They’d periodically phase through each other as well. I even tried to get one’s attention with a tactical prod, only for my hoof to pass through it. Huh. Looking back at Tangie, I opened my mouth to ask her about it. I wasn’t exactly sure what to ask and I hesitated.

Damn, Tangie was good at the guilt game. Her eyes had a disappointed look in them that I dared not add to. She snapped out of it, probably catching sight of the dead fish look I was giving her. “Are you okay?” she asked, tilting her head at me. “Your mouth is still open.” Hearing this, I immediately closed it.

I decided against bothering her for now. “Nah. Never mind. I don’t care enough.” I carefully re-balanced our tray of food on my back.

Over the whining, complaining, other ponies, and atmosphere, I caught sight of a terrifying no-nonsense manecut that unconsciously reminded me of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Thoughts of terror followed the ingrained reminder of unspoken decorum to steer clear of high-ranked officers as to not attract attention.

Tangie noticed he hesitate. “What’s wrong?”

It must have looked like I was having a panic attack, because I was losing my goddesses-damned mind. I found myself blurting the first thing that came to mind. “I just remembered I, uh, left the oven on.”

Tangie traced my bird-in-headlights look to the mint chocolate chip pegasus. “What, you know her?”

I grabbed Tangie by the shoulders, fixed her with a determined stare, and firmly stated, “I should go.” At least I still had some semblance of self-control left in me or else I would have shaken the poor mare as well. Doing that would have sent lunch out of existence.

Tangie brushed me off and laughed. “Cool. I’ve never met a pegasus with a brain before. Introduce me, would you? She’s cute.”

I opened my mouth in preparation to squelch that unpleasant idea altogether, but before I could I found myself experiencing a familiar, light-headed feeling.

Jeez, I was dead and I was still falling into flashbacks. Was it ever going to end?

<~~~>

The advanced testing course for scout and recon teams was a make-or-break point in an airpony’s career. This season’s variation, “Under Fire”, included an array of lasers and non-lethal fire in the middle of the maneuverability course, segments clouded in dense smoke, mines in the smoke, and (in case all of that was too simple) we were expected to carry Busted the de-winged Sandpony—plus gear—through the whole thing.

Just reading the map made me nervous. On one hoof, this was a solo run to measure individual competence apart from the rest of the squad. That also meant that any mistakes I made would inevitably end my run. The scoreboard that I’d seen on the way in put the average completion time at just over three minutes. I’d never had to complete a course carrying all of my gear, plus another pony heavier than I was, plus his gear as well.

Easy peasy.

Easy, easy, easy. I tried not to hyperventilate. I really did. It really didn’t help that I was going first and the rest of my squad was going to be watching. “WIIIIIINDS!” I jumped, nearly throwing my incomplete rifle into the ceiling. “ONE MINUTE!” The drill sergeant on duty had taken an immediate disliking to me for some odd reason, and apparently relished every opportunity to rattle my cage.

I scrambled to get my weapon back together. “Y-yes, yes sir!” I squeaked in response. In the scant time I had left, I scrambled to shove things into my scout barding’s pockets. Two magazines for my rifle, ammo for my sidearm, knife, a flash grenade, a paint bomb (a “grenade”, for practical purposes), and literally all my other useless junk went into pockets or into my small pack. After scanning the table for anything I’d missed, I decided I was as ready as I was going to get. “To the killing fields with me,” I sighed.

I pushed through the double doors of the locker room and emerged into the arena-like testing area. A force field circled around the outer boundary of the whole course which kept me sealed inside and kept everyone observing safe outside. At the moment, sections of the field had been darkened so that I couldn’t see anypony on the other side but they would be able to watch me fail spectacularly. A platform cloud floated above me near the roof where the drill sergeant and was currently glaring at me from.

The knowledge that I was being observed only added to the immense stress I was already under. On the topic of stress, the drill sergeant coarsely shouted down to me, “In the event you are ready, feel free to start at any time.” In that case, I seriously considered taking a seat and crying on the spot instead of running the course. At least everypony watching were the ponies that already had zero respect for me or ponies that had no idea who I was.

“Officer present!” On reflex, I rose to my full seated height and saluted at nothing.

A charcoal-grey mare in officer’s uniform swooped down and alighted just in front of me. I recognized her. Colonel Astral. She had mint-green hair cut short in a no-nonsense yet stylish swept forward manecut. “At ease. Airpony, I need a moment with the sergeant. Take five.” Those silvery-grey eyes seemed to bore into my very soul, almost daring me to make a misstep.

Oh boy. I dropped my saluting hoof and continued to respectfully stare off into nothing while playing failure scenarios through my mind. Being the auditorily-blessed nosey pony I was, I couldn’t help but listen to the interchange happening just above me.

"Sergeant, I hope you realize how fortunate you are to have earned a chunk of my time," Astral said. "I've got quite a bit of work piling up, not the least of which is the tiresome responsibility of dealing with my stupid brother's disciplinary action. A whole squadron of troops hospitalized! Do you have any idea how much paperwork is involved when someone spikes the mess's coffeepot with powerful psychedelic drugs? Because I sure didn't. My mouth was already cramping up by the time you came to whisk me away from my office for—" Astral balked. "...Why is it we're here, exactly?"

The drill sergeant neutrally grunted an affirmative. “Sounds like some strong-ass coffee, ma’am.”

"It's all rather 'groovy,' I'm told," Astral said, using her wingtips to form air quotes. "I believe at one point my own bodyguard told me he could taste purple. You'd think my big brother would be a little more concerned about flushing his career down the toilet but he's always so remarkably nonchalant about these things. He keeps telling me it's so boring above the clouds that we should make our own fun. I'm not laughing though, Sergeant, and neither are the rest of the high brass. One of these days he's going to push too far." A distant look washed over Astral's features. "I worry about that day. About him."

“If it would make you feel any better, ma’am, I can make Winds run the course with live rounds. There’s nothing funnier than watching rookies catch fire on the course.”

The color drained out of my face. Knowing the sergeant’s background and hatred for all things living, he’d do it too. All the lasers on the course were by default set to “almost kill” but everypony was sure that the sergeant was just looking for an excuse to cut down rosters for his own twisted amusement. According to the long-lost training documents that he kept citing, laser burns were supposed to build character. I did not want to catch fire. Or die. Especially not in front of brass.

“I’m sure she would appreciate not spending her weekend recovering from third degree burns. Thank you for the option, however.” Thank the goddesses. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that I wouldn’t be on fire today. “Winds? My office. We have some sensitive matters to discuss regarding allegations of espionage.”

Oh, joy.

~~~~~

The ranking officer in the room sat down behind her desk, whereas I comfortably stood just in front of it frozen at attention. “Winds.” She curtly nodded at me. “At ease.”

“Ma’am.” Now that I had permission, I plopped myself onto my butt and quietly waited for whatever came next. Either I’d get an aneurysm first or she’d throw a promotion my way for exemplary performance. Worse, there wasn’t even anything in this goddamn office to distract myself with. I’d already found the filing cabinet boring and the overwatered plastic plant in the corner looked like it was begging to be put out of its misery.

Silence filled the room while Astral shuffled through folders on her desk. “I’ve only just gotten my hooves on the debriefs for Operation: Overcast. According to the reports, my oft-insufferable oaf of a brother botched the assassination of a pony whom we believe to be a high value target.” When I looked up, a mountain of folders and assorted paperwork had appeared in front of me. A select few files, one with Vortex’s smug face on it landed right at my hooves. “This has been widely regarded as a mistake. Of the career-ending variety.”

According to standard subordinate self-preservation protocol, I simply smiled and nodded. “I’d agree, ma’am.”

Astral reached into the pile in front of us, seemingly at random, and threw a trio of extremely blurry photos into my face. “Oh? Well according to him, Cyclonus PD, and innumerable eyewitness testimonies, you were also present at the time.” I collected them back up and stared at the first one. The picture was greyscale, probably taken from somepony’s security feed. It showed two vaguely pegasus-shaped blobs going quite fast, one ahead of the other.

My eyes darted back and forth—basically everywhere that wasn’t Astral. “No I wasn’t, ma’am.” Technically, they could be anyone. I heard the other mare slide out of her seat and begin to pace around her office.

“Yes. Yes you were,” she affirmed from somewhere behind me.

I coughed. After quickly consulting my hooves, I suggested, “You don’t know that. Ma’am.”

“I do.” The sound of quiet pacing stopped. Suddenly, firm yet tiny hooves spun me around and forced me face-to-face with Astral again. “And I’d like you to tell me what happened.”

Considering the excessively clandestine operation I was embroiled in, saying nothing was probably the best move I could do. I didn’t want to be that pony in those spy shows that got murdered in the bathtub with an egg beater. “I don’t think I’m allowed to disclose that information, ma’am,” I smartly responded.

There was a frustrated sigh from the ranking pegasus. Astral circled all the way back around, swishing her wings in annoyance, then returned to sitting behind her desk. “Winds.” She did that thing that every parent did when their foal does something dumb—hooves into face, frustrated groan, then back to angry glaring. “You’re a smart mare. You know what this little phoenix badge on my lapel represents?”

I stared at the badge of importance with immense scrutiny. Even though I already knew the answer, I hesitated to respond on the off chance that this was a trick question. “Your rank?”

“Very good. Could you tell me exactly what rank it represents?”

“...Colonel, ma’am?” Not a question! Not a question! “Ma’am.”

Colonel Astral leaned forward “And surely you understand the concept of the chain of command. So why can’t you tell me?”

“I am ninety percent sure that my superior’s superior’s superior would not want me to disclose the reasons of my presence on the operation.” This was the point where my prior allegiance to Mister ‘my lights don’t work’ McShady made the idea of betraying his trust a more terrifying prospect than a court-martial for insubordination. “To be honest, ma’am—I am ranked lower than the worms in the dirt. I’m not allowed to make my own decisions.” I didn’t let myself waver, especially when Astral’s charcoal grey began to glow a burning coal. As such, I quickly revised my previous statement and blurted, “Uh… I’ll go contact my superior.”

Suddenly, Astral snapped to her full unimposing height and bellowed at me, “As long as you're stationed here I have a right to that information! This is MY base. MY command. I had to fight tooth and hoof to get to be where I am today, and I didn't work my tail off so I could be stymied by an insubordinate little—" With each spat word, I’d been shrinking into the floor. Seeing this, the colonel cut herself short and leaned back into her chair. She took several deep long breaths while rubbing her temples, then more calmly grumbled, "Fine. That's fine. If you won't tell me what I want to know, I'll just go over your head. You're dismissed, Winds. Get out of my sight before I make you regret ever setting hoof in here.”

<~~~>

While I had been making the sounds of a frightened teapot on boil, Tangerine had taken the initiative to slowly steer us toward ex-Major Astral. As we drew nearer around other booths, the absolutely gargantuan pile of daisies and hay fries piled up in front of the fearsome officer came into view. It was then when I realized that I didn’t have much to fear.

She looked like an emotional wreck, to put it lightly. Between fits of sobbing and uncontrollable hiccupping, she’d shovel a hoofful of fries or daisies into her face and repeat the whole cycle over again. I had to remind myself that it was highly unlikely that everypony reacted to being dead like I did and this was her way of coping. An errant thought floated by and helpfully jogged my rusty hamster wheel—didn’t she have a brother? Maybe that’s what she was torn up about.

A more threatening thought floated in right after, brandishing deadly intent. I’d met her father once. General Silverbolt, scourge of the Enclave. I didn’t actually know what that word meant, but it was a cool-sounding word that made my jimmies scream. I’d met him once, and I think I passed out from fright that time.

Tangie threw me into the seat opposite of the mint chocolate pegasus without even waiting or politely asking if we were even allowed to sit there. Just to be annoying, she scooted in right after, blocking me into the booth. I was still slightly terrified and on the verge of having a breakdown. Right beside me, Tangie was nearly vibrating in place. The prospect of yet another pegasus was more of a fixation for her, it appeared. I threw her a mocking snarl since she wasn’t looking at me anyway.

Giddily smiling, Tangie did a gentle little wave with the hoof not currently holding a milkshake. “Hi there!” The other pegasus paused in her hysterics, glanced at the two of us, then opted to instead block her by shifting the tray of daisies. Understandably, the giddy look Tangie had faltered slightly. “Er… My name’s Tangerine, and my friend here—”

All of a sudden, the water works on the other side of all the junk halted. A grey eye peered scooted into view and glared in my direction. It regarded me for a tense moment. “Winds,” its voice muttered. “I know you.”

I gulped. “Frosty Winds, ma’am.”

“I’m uh… going to get another drink. One that isn’t just sugar in a cup. You two should catch up.” Tangie quickly made herself scarce. The other pegasus immediately broke down into a sobbing mess again.

“Ma’am? Colonel Astral?” There wasn’t an obvious reply from her. “Are… are you—” Well, clearly she was the farthest from the most remote definition of ‘okay’, but it was socially expected of me to ask. She did outrank me by a landslide, after all. Any points I could get with her would help. “—okay?” I lamely ended up asking.

The once-imposing Enclave officer I remembered was nothing like this wreck of a mare drowning in food. Poor thing. Slightly protruding from the mountain of daisies and potato was a bent, slightly creased photograph of a stallion. No wonder she hadn't moved on past limbo. Whoever this guy is, he seems to have seriously wronged her in life. I angled my head to get a better look at the—

Wait. The pony in the picture didn’t even have wings. As far as I could tell, it was a plain-looking off-white earth pony. There wasn’t much about him that stood out, either. His brown mane was done up like one big fluffy tuft similar to what Rumcake’s had been like. He had a confused sort of idiotic look on his face as well, his hazel eyes looking at something out of frame. Who was this guy?

I decided to press a little harder. “Cap for your thoughts, ma’am?”

Astral took a hiccuping breath and gave me a passing glance. "Why doesn't daddy love meeeee?!" she bawled, already halfway through a clump of mint leaves.

Oh. Well. "Uh, that's an earth pony. How is that even possible?" I asked, pointing out the obvious.

Still in hysterics, Astral continued to sputter, “He got rid of me! He replaced me! And now I don’t exi—hic—iiiist.” And her face went right back into the pity platter.

“Um. Deep breaths, ma’am.” I threw caution to the wind and reached across the table to very gently pat her on whatever I could reach.

Now back under the hyperventilation threshold, Astral cryptically mumbled, “I guess I wasn’t good enough so he put some black and white bimbo in my place.”

Over the next several minutes I kept trying to get her attention for more answers. With each response I asked fewer and fewer of the answers I desired. “How did you get here?” became “Who’s the stallion in the picture?”. Even that turned into “What do you mean?”, which eventually came down to simply “What.” A token phrase came to mind for this situation—”this character is busy right now”. It seemed like she was a lost cause at this point. At least she’d stopped wailing and had resigned to a glum silence.

Tangie returned with a juice box. As she sat down, I glanced at the side of the box. “Orange juice? Isn’t that like, fratricide?” I observed in mid-gorge.

Like the adorable little fruit she was, she stared at the box, back to me, then back to it again. “I’m a tangerine. This is orange juice. If you really want to be that way, this is really more barbaric than anything.” She popped the straw off the box and gave the carton a gentle shake. The massive capital letters on the side of the carton, overlaying its slightly creepy laughing bowl of fruit, read “MAXIMUM PULP”.

For several seconds, I had to stop and think about exactly what quantity of pulp warranted the label “maximum pulp”. That, and watching Tangerine perform what could only be described as aggressive sexual actions on the open carton was something that left me speechless. Cue slow motion, exaggerated lighting, and cheesy music.

The juice box of sensuality finally met its demise when Tangie, frustrated by whatever it was, slammed it against the table and viciously tore into the box. She stared at the contents inside. “This juice box is full of orange slices.”

I peered into the box. “It did say that it’s full of pulp. That’s literally as much pulp as you can get out of orange juice.”

Tangie stared into the box. “I wanted juice.” After a lengthy pause, she quietly admitted, “But I really do like pulp.” Without another word, she planted her muzzle into the open carton and began to quietly munch on the oranges.

The afterlife was a weird place. Couldn’t complain about the burgers though.

A remark from Astral startled me just enough that a pickle escaped the confines of my burger and out of existence. “What kind of monster wants solids in their juice? That’s just not right.” Just as abruptly, she returned to wallowing. I still shot her an indignant glare.

I raised my burger a little and declared, “I’m a monster, therefore I also really love pulp.” Then I glanced at Tangie, who wasn’t even attempting to make any conversation with Astral. We could totally be sitting somewhere else. Somewhere not populated by muffled hysterics.

I felt Tangie squeeze in closer to me. Turning, I was about to ask her what was up— maybe she wanted a cuddle or something—then I caught a glimpse of a shimmering black hood just past her beside our table. Pushing Tangie’s face out of the way and into the mountain of fries, I demanded, “What do you want—” and hesitated. Whatever I was looking at, it appeared to be yet another Death. It was a hooded sack of disembodied bones that couldn’t have been taller than my barrel. What kind of skeleton was I talking to? “What even are you?”

The little bone bag seemed offended, it's little green eye lights darkening. “That is no way to speak to—”

Being the rude and incredibly disinterested pony I was, I interrupted it. “I seriously could care less. Couldn’t care less. Whatever.” With my burger hoof, I grandly gestured into its face—splattering sauce all over its robe—and spat, “There’s a lot less caring where that came from.”

With a complete look of disgust, the skeleton held out an official-looking envelope, complete with wax seal and string. “Mail for you.”

The least amount of effort I could apply to this conversation was an eye-roll. “What is it?”

“It’s a sealed envelope that usually contains words, but that’s not important right now.”

I glared at it. It, as in the creature. Nobody else was allowed to make stupid jokes unless that somepony was me. “You know what I asked.” Just to annoy it a bit more, I simply stared at it while chewing for a good ten seconds before I grudgingly took the letter.

Very quietly, I overheard Tangie gasp, “Oh my gosh. It’s a raccoon skeleton. You’re a trash panda.” She began to quietly squeal and squeal and squeal in all directions, periodically pointing and generally losing her goddesses-damned mind about it. I paid no mind—I had a burger to finish demolishing.

I opened the stamped envelope, carelessly shearing away the wax seal and liberally spreading sauce and grease all over the crisp paper. There were words, big words, and some complicated words I didn’t really understand, all in a flowing stylized font I could barely make out my own name in. Like I always did with things I didn’t quite comprehend, I pretended to anyway. “I have no frame of reference about how severe this is.” Nodding and frowning, feigning competence, I sighed and passed it back to the bag of animal bones.

“From what I heard, you’re getting ten thousand years of eternal torment.”

Upon hearing this news, I pulled my letter-laden hoof back and quickly scanned the whole greasy document again for any mention of ten thousand in word or number form. No results found. In fact, the whole subpoena was written in a language I didn’t even understand. “No. Stop it. That’s a weirdly round number and I don’t believe you.” That, or my brain had crawled out the back of my head at some point. It would explain why I couldn’t read.

We had a staredown—I in abject disbelief, and it in distaste. A tense moment passed, only punctuated by periodic munching by either me or Astral. “Okay, it’s more like nine thousand five hundred seventy something, but ten thousand is so much more ominous sounding.”

It did have a point. Ten thousand or any large multiples of ten always sounded cooler, especially when a statistic was being made up on the spot. “I still want to see the numbers.”

“We are not allowed to disclose that information, nor are we given statistics.”

Eyeballing a fry on my tray, I glanced at the Death and made an impulse decision. By only taking a quick second to judge distance and weight, I masterfully pitched a fry right down one of racoon death’s eye-holes. “I think it’s because you’re stupid,” I pointed out with a smirk.

At this point, the motes of light in the Death’s skull had turned to an alarming shade of crimson. “I hate you,” It growled.

Meh. The last fry went into my gullet. “I get that a lot.” My moment of victory wavered slightly as I looked around for a victory beverage. “Oh, hey—can you get me a soda? Large cherry Dr. Spice, no ice.”

~~~~~

Whether or not the food existed, I had a sense of fulfillment in my soul. I felt well and truly happy. Content, even. After all the drama and incomprehensible nonsense I’d been through already—including being alive, by the way—I’d hoped that I could finally stop and relax.

And then bucking Mort had to come and ruin it.

“Heya, girls.”

Before Death himself made an even larger fool of himself, I stopped him right there. Facehoofing, I groaned, “Don’t. Don’t even say that. Coming from you, that’s not okay.” I continued, “You definitely aren’t Valley Mares material, so please just… no.”

If skulls could look hurt, Mort’s definitely did. “Oh, come on.”

“No, I agree. It doesn’t suit you.” Good, at least Tangie was taking my side.

“Thank you.” I flourished an exaggerated bow at my loyal fruity companion, who returned it with a stifled chuckle. Then I switched gears and whirled on Mort with a snap, “Now what in the name of here do you want?”

“Frosty. I was informed that you have been summoned to the court once again.”

“Yeah.” I showed him the greasy bit of parchment. “I can’t read it.”

“It’s probably in Angelic.” Mort began mumbling incoherent words under his breath. I made out something along the lines of inferiority complex in there. “Traditions be damned.”

“Any idea what it says?”

The motes of light in Mort’s skull darted back and forth across the parchment. “Oh, I can read it. I just don’t like it. Your court date was moved up.”

I half-raised my hooves in the air and waved them like I somewhat didn’t care. “...Yay?”

“There is to be a special session regarding our current predicament.” After giving it one last once-over, Mort passed the subpoena back to me. I just sort of stared at it like it was a live explosive. “This document is proof of your sins, so do not lose it. Once the session concludes, your—and my—situation will be resolved in some form or another. You will not be returning to Limbo."

Just as I took the letter back, carefully tucking it into the crook of my wing, Tangie wistfully sighed at me. “So… is that it, then? It is, isn’t it? Will I ever see you again?” She gave me this look—wistful and sort of angry. Sad, yet mad. Smad…yes. “If you are, promise me you’ll do good. Not for you, but for me. Please.”

“Duh, Tangie.” Whew, crisis averted.

“Duh, Tangie?” In an instant, my adorable little Tangie became a seething pomegranate of concentrated antioxidant rage. Like, her face turned red and everything. Scary. She stood, advancing on me with purposeful fury. “Come on, the least you can do is pretend to care. This was supposed to be a heartfelt parting of lovers separated by fate!” she shouted, causing me to shrink and pin my ears back. “I’ve always wanted to be in this moment.” Then she seemed to lose steam, gradually deflating into a sad little fruit.

Now that she mentioned it, she did deserve better than that. Perhaps I wasn’t the pony that could give it to her, but she did deserve more than me. With the universe being as petty as it was being to me—and by extension, Tangie—I would have to do. “Wait, how many romance novels do you read?” I was about to bring up something about this not being some sort of trashy love opera, but morals won out and I decided to not be more of an asshole about it. Not having another me to tell me what I was doing wrong was seriously gimping my conversational skills. “Sorry, I’m just… gosh, I’m just really upset that there’s still somehow more garbage the universe thinks I need to do.”

The rage of the Tangerine truly came to an end once she realized I was sincerely apologetic. She lowered herself back onto her haunches and tapped her hooves together. After a moment, she remarked, “It could be worse?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I could be alive.”

Tangie was silent for a beat, then responded, “Wow. Is this what it feels like to be an asshole?”

“Feels good, doesn’t it?”

“No. Goddesses, no! Why would you ever say that?”

I frowned to myself. “I don’t know. Seemed funny in the moment.”

“I think I deserve an apology.” The next thing I knew, Tangie’s face was right up in mine. I took a half-step back in surprise, leaning back slightly. She continued to violate my personal space by moving in closer, nuzzling my neck with hers. “One last kiss?”

Nerves struck. I backed myself right out of romance-ville in an instant. Why wouldn’t Tangie just get the hint already? Not every self-centered Wasteland heroine like myself had a compulsive need to bang every creature that moved. “You know I’m not comfortable with this,” I reminded her.

Of course now was the moment Tangie broke out the big sad fruit eyes. “Please? Just one more time?” Don’t look at her. Don’t look at her. I pointedly made an effort to look somewhere other than Tangie. Don’t look at her.

While staring at the ground and still not making eye contact with Tangie, I sternly pointed out to her yet again, “I respect your choice to mack with all the hot single pegasus mares. Please respect my choice to gargle humongous dicks.”

“Oh.” She sounded crestfallen, not that I really blamed her. “Well now you put it that way—”

I couldn’t live with myself if the last thing I did to Tangie was shrug her off like all the other ponies that I’d met along my travels. She deserved more. “At the very least, we can be best friends forever because we’re too lazy to make new friends.” The best I could do was wrap her up in the loviest, doviest, huggiest—insert other words that rhyme—bear hug a miserable excuse for a pony like me could give. “But you’re my asshole, and I’m—nevermind this is a dumb sentence,” I lamely groaned. “Forget it. I tried.”

~~~~~

Mort saved me from the embarrassment of having to come up with a different one-liner. He’d brought me along on a long drawn-out journey that I’d found so utterly boring that I got to the point of contemplating what happened if I somehow managed to die here. Eventually I was taken into yet another inexplicable portal, which led into a dark cave. Said cave—which looked like it had been carved into a nonexistent mountain, by the way—wound down into yet another suspiciously arena-shaped cavern. Right in the center, occupying a good ninety percent of the cavern was a pit that seemed to have no bottom. “So what am I looking at here? Did the instance not load in?” I asked.

My question echoed back across to me from the other side of the cave half a second later and I heard how dumb I sounded. Is that what it’s like for everyone else who has to listen to me?

Of course, Mort seemed unamused and unsurprised by my attempts at clever wit. One day I’d have to find somepony who understood all my jokes. With all of eternity to work with, I’d eventually find some unfortunate victim. That could wait until later—I was getting sidetracked. The two of us paused at the edge of the bottomless hole to nowhere. “We are here for guidance,” Mort cryptically explained. “From one old friend to another.”

In the event that gravity still applied in this universe, I made sure to stay safely behind the oddly-conveniently-just-enough-space-for-a-whole-pony ledge and instead craned my head to peer into the depths of the void. “You’re friends with a hole?” A hole that, to my observations, didn’t have a bottom from this angle either. I backed away a step and then noticed the huddled cloaked shapes on the opposite side of the pit. More Deaths? From here, I could make out the head honcho—the Death of Griffons.

Mort continued, lost in what sounded like some fond reminiscing. “His name is Chip. I’ve known him ever since I got here.”

Snarky commentary was about to pour out of my face—something about holes, probably—then a huge rush of flowing black fabric emerging from the hole took the words out of my mouth. My gaze kept creeping higher, and higher, and higher, all the way up to the smouldering pale orbs of purest light that illuminated the largest skull I’d ever laid eyes on. A massive set of curved talons bigger than my entire not-body emerged over the edge and came to a rest just short of us. In a voice befitting such a large beast, a deep baritone that reverberated around the circular pit emerged from that gaping maw.

“Eeeeey. Wha’z good, man?” boomed Dragon Death.

No words came to mind. No wit, no snark, just—this was not the voice I had been expecting from a huge undead dragon. Where was the theatrical rumble? The voice made of raw gravel? The speech, for crying out loud! He sounded more like an easygoing grill jockey on a Friday night than the lord of terror. “...Hi?” I squeaked.

The colossal skull swiveled to stare down into my soul. I took note of the purple-ish motes of flame the size of my entire body hovering in its eye holes and decided to not do anything to piss this thing off. “Wassup, Frostizzle? I hope my crew’ve been treatin’ you nice.”

I sort of gaped, dumbfounded. That—that was decidedly not the voice or speech pattern I expected to come out of a dragon. “I’m… good?” My mind. Please.

It nodded, bobbing its skull in various directions. “Coo, coo.”

Still dumbstruck, I reflexively blurted the first thing to pop into my mind. “Hello, I’m Chip and and my voice doesn’t match my face.” Only after I’d said it did I internally scream in fear at exactly who and what I’d given a free pass to the burn ward. I still mentally hoofbumped myself anyway.

The entire room rumbled. Dragon skeleton clapped its pony-sized claw bones together, throwing its skull around the room until it came to face Mort. “Dang! Tweety’s got claws. You sure know how to pick ‘em.”

“The Grand Council calls for your final judgement on this soul’s fate.” Mort waved a bony hoof at me. “Frosty, you’ve already insulted Chip. Chip, Frosty. Or, as she likes to call herself: Frosty, Winds Frosty.”

The grin on Mort’s face was apparent, even if he physically couldn’t. Giving the skelepony a shove, I whined, “It’s not my fault that catchphrase is confusing!” Sounding cool and being cool were two obviously different things, and it actually did pain me a bit that I never got to properly introduce myself like that while I had been alive. Peering around the dragon’s cloak, I eyeballed the so-called collection of other robed skeletons patiently waiting across the way. Good to note—no giant teeth. For the most part, many of them appeared to be quadrupedal like me. I tried not to look at the one that was an empty, floating, pony-sized robe.

The massive flaming eye-motes of the dragon’s skull shifted to a dull red. “Yo, can’t we get a ‘hey wassup’ in here ‘fore we begin?” Voicey McVoiceface caused the room to shake, even making Mort cower in fright for a moment.

“Apologies.” Mort took a deep breath and bellowed, “Wasaaaap!”

Satisfied, the dragon’s eyes faded back to their neutral purple color. “W’sup, foo.”

Not one to be left out, I raised my right hoof in greeting and chirped, “Sup!”

The frat lord of terror happily nodded to himself. “Coolio. Now’s we know each other, what’s on today?” Those pony-sized claws swung over us and clapped together, causing the room to gently rock.

“Emergency court session. Frosty’s Fate is in peril.”

“Dang.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“When’s it happening?”

“Now.”

“Say whaat?” Chip swiveled around in his hole and acknowledged the collection of eight other Deaths with a flourished nod. “Gentlemen. Lady. Amorphous being.”

Mort sighed. “Do you never read the scrolls they send you?”

“Hang on, hang on. Gotta get in the zone.” We waited in silence as we watched the pile of draconic bone shift and glow an eerie pale green. Not quite evil green, but a sort of off-shade lime pie green. When the dragon’s eyes returned, they illuminated the entire room to match:

“Frosty Winds, your destiny follows a murky path with an unexpected destination. Many dead ends await you, but there shall always be a way forward should you be willing to search for it. The answers to everything lie within your memories.”

The complete shift of tone actually got my attention more than the news he was giving me. Apparently, with great wisdom came a recognizable speech pattern. “Uh, well duh. I knew that already. My missing memories are the whole reason I’m in this stupid situation in the first place. That and Mort.” Although it had really been my fault that I’d squandered my second-and-a-half chance by running away from my problems.

A nudge from Mort got my attention. “All of your memories, Frosty, not just your missing ones.”

An emotion similar to dread crept into my soul. How was I supposed to recall everything that I’d ever seen and done on demand? I could barely remember how I got into this whole mess to begin with. “You would not believe how bad my memory is.”

The colossal dragon’s skull slowly tilted to the side. Mort raised a hoof and helpfully backed me up by saying, “I’ve seen it in action. You wouldn’t.”

I was incredibly offended by that. Crossing my forelegs, I turned up my head and scoffed, “My memory is fine, thank you very much. At least the parts that I still have, that is.”

Out of nowhere, Mort questioned, “What’s the name of the slave mare you saved from the Rad Lads?”

My head whipped around so fast I should have given myself whiplash. “Wat,” I croaked.

“Answer the question.”

“You can’t expect me to remember that! What even is a ‘Rad Lad’?”

“I’ll give you ten seconds.”

“I’d like to ask the audience.”

“No.” When I failed to come up with an answer, Mort snorted. “Case. In. Point.”

“Dang! Yo’ ass just got de-stroooyed.”

“Why would I need to remember a dumb name?” I whined. Rad Lads. Rad Lads. Was that the name of the slaver group that attacked the town I started in? “I knew them for less than ten days, tops. At the time, I didn’t even know what I was supposed to be doing. The only reason I hung around the place was because I hadn’t been told to arbitrarily go murder a guy at the time, I think. Heck, this whole adventure of mine basically happened for absolutely no damn reason.”

“Everything happens for a reason,” Mort said, staring into the distance. “Sometimes that reason is because you’re stupid and make bad choices.”

“Gettin’ her back out is gon’ be hard, if that’s what you’re thinkin’,” Chip rumbled quietly. “Her vessel’s got a Shard of Night crashin’ on the sofa and jackin’ the place up. There ain’t no place to go, tweety.”

Those were definitely words, but not ones I understood. I leaned over to Mort and whispered, “I didn’t understand any of that.” Then aloud, I realized, “Wait, Can’t you at least pardon me out of the contract? I mean, it’s nice here and all but I’d really enjoy not being damned for all of eternity.”

Chip stared at me blankly. Well, as blank as fireballs got. “The contract?”

“You know, the one that goes blah blah kill this guy blah blah,” I replied, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Dragon Bones cocked his bones. “The void one?”

“What,” I squawked at this sudden change of events. I—I didn’t understand. I’d done everything asked of me. Unless it was the second bit that I’d completely ignored because I had been an angsty child about it. Panic set in and I briefly considered trying to murder the dragon for his unique loot and make my escape. Briefly.

The return of Griffon Death’s booming voice almost came as a relief. Finally, the peanut gallery in the back became relevant. “Yes, we would like to discuss that topic next. Mort, Death of Ponies, you have wronged this soul and as such will be punished for violating the Accords.”

Chip brought his skull all the way down to our level, his eyes becoming tiny pinpricks of searing light. “Have you been stringing her along this whole time?”

Hang on. Stringing me along?

The lights in Mort’s skull shrank. He uneasily chuckled, maneuvering himself so that he wasn’t near any of us. “Well uh, funny story,” he told the cavern wall.

“Funny, is it? Violating the Accords is funny now?” The dragon was visibly fuming at this point, smoke beginning to curl from his empty eye sockets.

“Uh.” Mort glanced at me, caught the betrayed look I was giving him, then back to Chip. “It is more of how I got to that point, to be honest.”

Chip’s eyes flared up and became a pair of miniature red suns. His talons scraped across the rocky floor, leaving behind gouged trails in their wake. Softly, he told Mort, “Ey. I'll give you a hint. It ain’t funny.” Suddenly, one of Chip’s claws slammed into the wall above us and he bellowed at Mort, “TELL HER.”

“But it falls within the grey area!” the boney-pony continued to whine.

“Enough!” the griffon squawked. He took several steps forward which put his just at the the edge. “You contracted Frosty to hunt down this Harbinger character in anticipation of ending conflict in her realm?”

As I looked on with confusion, Mort fiddled with his hooves. He glanced at me again, then to the claw embedded in the wall, then to the dragon it was attached to. “Well, yes.” The wall crumbled a bit more, causing him to flinch.

With a terrifying rumble, those colossal talons pulled from the wall and returned to gripping the edge of Chip’s pit. “And you conveniently neglected to mention that he got blown up before Frosty could get to him?” he growled, shaking the rest of the cavern as well.

In that one uttered remark, everything came together. The megaspell detonation. Where I’d been in the moment—firing down on some scavengers, when the message from the radio came.

—

My earbloom beeped, then it continued with Soundwave’s broadcast, but it was a different voice altogether. “Good evening. Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a single daring terrorist act. Earlier today at approximately oh-eight hundred hours, High Councilor Harbinger and his protective detail were taken from us with a balefire bomb—one of the very devices that forced the creation of the haven we have made for ourselves.”

—

The pony I had been meant to kill was Harbinger. But Harbinger had died in that moment. Mort, lord and all-knowing of all the edgy bullshit in the universe had coerced me into killing somepony that was going to get blown up anyway. And then I died because I had “failed to kill him”.

This wasn’t a fair deal. There hadn’t been a fair deal from the start. I had been expected to fail from the very beginning. Righteous fury boiled in my veins. Or something. I don’t know—I was pissed. He’d given me the illusion of choice just so that I’d shut the hell up and do what I was told like the good little soldier pony I was. All my struggles to this point had all been part of a masterfully executed plan, up until the point I’d given up on myself and hadn’t bothered to chase after the “extensions” he had offered. Doing that had caused this current chain of events, where Mort was facing the flames for a plan that had fallen apart at the seams. Needless to say I was justifiably enraged.

Mort didn’t seem to care as much. “Again, it falls within the grey area,” he insisted.

Chip brought his skull right down to our level, actually pushing Mort back with it. “Dude, you can’t keep doing this!”

Even under all this scrutiny, Mort didn’t even flinch. “That doesn’t matter right now,” he casually pointed out while scooting his way around Chip’s skull. “We have to deal with the new problem.”

The suave, deep-voiced inner narrator in me began to roll into a proper dramatic spiel. ‘In a world plagued by oddly convenient problems that revolve around one mare…’ However, my outer narrator attached to my face interjected to the point, “You mean the problem you created?”

“Not completely my fault,” Mort hastily pointed out. “Evil has returned, and we’re the only ones who can stop it.”

“Nah. You just want to save your own cloak.”

“Irrelevant.” Mort clopped his bony hooves together with a resounding clap. He even had the gall to ignore the death glares coming from both me and Chip.

Out of frustration, I exploded, “Buck me with the mare in the moon, does your ass get jealous of the shit that comes out of your mouth?” As I listened to my voice reverberate around the room, I heard gasps of shock ripple through the gathered skeletal crowd. Too bad that venting my frustrations didn’t actually make me feel any better or help my situation at all. “And now you’ve made me waste a perfectly good one-liner for someone who actually has an ass. Doesn’t that make you feel special.”

I didn’t even give him a moment to interject. “You’ve been doing this shit to me only because you’ve been in it for yourself this whole time.” By this point, Mort futilely tried to interject with something about friendship or some bullshit but I raised my voice over his. “I’m not a very smart cookie, but I finally know just enough about this little plan of yours. I wasn’t ever going to kill Harbinger, no matter what I tried. By the time I would have gotten anywhere close to him, either I die or he blows up. You knew this!”

Stammering, Mort attempted to recover his position. “To be fair, I—”

I faced Mort down with a steely-eyed glare. After all I’d been through and all he’d put me through, the fact that he had the nerve to continue demanding things from me only enraged me further. “You got me in this mess. I didn’t ask to be conscripted into your ad hoc death squad. I never wanted all your shady deals, your transparent lies, your…” I sputtered, failing to come up with any more bullshit off the top of my head. “Dumb stuff!”

Mort’s eyes extinguished to pinpricks of light. “My stuff is dumb? Really?” Crossing his forelegs, he sarcastically drawled, “Really.”

“Shaddap!” I screeched, not losing a beat. Even after all the shit he’d put me through, he still thought he could just throw me around like a puppet? “None of this was supposed to happen to me! I was supposed to live a peaceful life at home above the clouds. You killed me once because of your stupid mistakes, and then you brought me back to life and made me agree to some contract bullshit so that you could kill me again to try and cover up your original mistake! I should not be dead right now! Thanks to you I will never find out the limit to how much living I can live with my life! This should never have happened!”

“Silence!” Magnified several times by magic, Griffon Death’s voice caused the cavern to reverberate. I shut up immediately. Once the residual echoes died down, the pinpricks of light in his skull focused on me. “This council has seen fit to grant the wayward Soul of Frosty Winds a single boon as reparations for such selfish conduct of one of our own.”

“You can’t do that!” Mort screamed.

A stunned silence hung in the air. Chip broke it, only after his eyes flickered back to purple. “Dey jus’ did.” The dragon gazed at me, almost intending to smile. He didn’t, of course. Bones didn’t do that. Or were already doing it. Whatever.

Not to be one left out of the loop, I leaned forward and whispered to the room, “What’s a boon?”

Literally every single Death in the room rolled their eyes. Eye-flames. Griffon Death widely gestured with his claws and said, “Make a wish, Miss Winds. Don’t waste it.”

The first thing that popped into mind was whether or not these guys had terms and conditions I could ignore. “Can I—”

Sensing my intentions, one of the larger skeletons—some kind of dog-thing— stated, “No wishing for more wishes, pony.” My ears drooped. Aw. Back to the drawing board then.

I wasn’t especially surprised when Mort let out a short bark of a laugh. “That’s rich. What do you want? Immortality?” As I lounged on my haunches in thought, Mort suddenly grabbed me around the shoulders and laughed, “What grand boon does a mare of Frosty Winds’s caliber ask for?”

Dangerous words for sure, especially aimed at a petty mare with zero common sense and nothing left to lose. I shrugged off the clingy skeleton and impulsively blurted at Chip, “Can I wish for him to choke on a billion dicks?” There was this dumb happy look on my face I couldn’t stop while I pointed at Mort.

Mort crossed his bony legs at me. “Rude.” Chip, on the other hoof, sort of gaped at me. Whether it was shock or complete offense was anypony’s guess. I was already too busy bouncing in place to care.

I jabbed my pointing hoof into Mort’s robe. “Shut it, dick-mouth. That's my line.”

An amorphous robed blob wiggled one of its garment’s arms and interjected from the peanut gallery, “We would suggest putting some more thought into this opportunity.”

Ugh. They were right, of course—which meant I’d need to put more than ten seconds of thought into my choice. What did I even want? Most of the things I was doing nowadays tended to be things everypony else wanted me to do out of laziness and/or convenience. No matter what excuses I crafted, the universe would always find a way to mess with me. Bearing the burden of being the savior of the world now would inevitably save me a lot of grief later. Taking charge of my own fate now would presumably throw off whatever surprises the universe had in store for me as well, if wishful thinking could influence how anything worked.

“I want to go back,” I decided. “I’ll settle this on my own terms.”

Deathly silence engulfed the entire cavern. It was only after an even more uncomfortable silence that Griffon Death said, "Unfortunately, that's impossible."

I had half a mind to fly right over there and rip those wish-ruining butts another butt. "WHAT?! But you just said I could have any wish I wanted,” I bellowed.

Yet another Death piped up, but I seriously was past caring what kind of creature they were. "Any wish within our powers. Usually we'd be able to do this, but your vessel is currently being occupied by a Shard of Night and we aren't able to put you in one while it's in use.”

What did that even mean? “Okay, I’ll bite. What the hell is a ‘Shard of Night’?”

An excitable Platypus Death near the back of the group eagerly pounced on the opportunity to be helpful. “Ah, ah, ah! They’re the last remaining remnants of the ancient Windigos, which were dangerous creatures that gained power by feeding on conflict and negative energy. A few thousand years ago they tried and failed to freeze over the planet. Then they made another attempt by corrupting Princess Luna and encouraging her to never again raise the sun—which would eventually freeze Equestria—but once more they were defeated and shattered into fragments by the Elements of Harmony. A few remaining shards still exist; the one that now occupies your vessel calls itself ‘Ice Storm’.”

Thanks, little platypus. My brain was totally ready for a history lesson right now. Though, all of the information that had been helpfully dumped all over me did explain a few things. Things like Ice Storm’s unnecessary habit of using the word ‘Nightmare’, for instance. “Great, so I’ve been helping the ultimate ye olde evil this entire time. Just great.” Then it occurred to me that I didn’t really know what these guys meant by ‘vessel’ either. “What constitutes a vessel, anyway?”

“Your body. The thing that contains your soul. It has to be something your soul recognizes as your self-image, that incorporates your own living material, and that has a magical bond with your soul due to your own or others’ empathetic connections. It’s gotta be you in body and spirit, material or immaterial. It’s possible to force a soul into a vessel that doesn’t meet those requirements, but that shatters the soul and creates what your world calls soul jars—semi-sentient containers that house a living soul.”

Believe it or not, I actually paid attention to that whole spiel. I mulled over those details and factored them into the plan I was formulating. This was an incredibly specific set of circumstances that needed to be fulfilled, after all. “So… whatever you’re going to funnel my sparkly bits into needs to be made of me,” I slowly stated in summary.

“Yes. Unless you conveniently happen to have a spare clone lying around, the original body is the only container that fulfills those requirements,” Griffon Death confirmed for me. “Our deepest apologies. We are merely a reasonable level of overpowered, not ridiculously so. If you have another request that you would like us to grant, I’m sure it could be arranged.”

Face met hooves once more, but this time I also rolled myself onto the floor as well. Going over what I now knew as well, I thought out loud, “So we need a weirdly specific combination of bits of me combined with something that is—what, pony shaped?” After receiving approving nods from enough of the gathered skulls, I continued, “And then what—something something magic, I guess?”

A member of the council of supreme edginess spoke up. “That is an gross understatement of what needs to be done, but yes. Yes, that is just about it.”

Something was nagging me at the base of my skull. I was forgetting something. I knew I was forgetting something. Like the barest ember of a flame that needed careful blowing to catch fire to the kindling, I could feel the barest spark of a memory trying to catch my attention but being smothered by all the rest of the shit that weighed down my brain.

This was a dead end. This was exactly the type of dead end Chip prophesied about like five minutes ago. ”Many dead ends await you, but there shall always be a way forward should you be willing to search for it.” There were no other options. I was literally dead. There was nothing else I could do but push forward, and this right here was my only chance.

”The answers to everything lie within your memories.”

Come on, brain! I admit we haven’t had a good relationship—we’ve had our arguments and we’ve said some nasty things to each other—but if you’re ever going to come through for me now’s the time!

Slowly, painfully, the small ember of a memory clawed its way through the mud and jelly in my skull, sparking neuron after neuron as it passed, forcing upon me half-visions of unrelated recollections as it built and built until it had caught hold and transformed into a roaring fire that towered over any other thought…

—

Mentioning that made Tangerine grimace. “Uh, well… it’s weird.”

“I’m weird,” I flatly replied. “Whatever it’s for can’t be weirder than me.”

Begrudgingly, Tangerine launched into an explanation. “Sparkle makes little figurines of ponies she knows. They fit in your hoof and they’re stupidly detailed.” I opened my mouth. “Yes, she made one of you.” I closed my mouth and politely continued to listen. “It’s her little hobby when she’s not making noise. Oh, that also explains why there’s a little corner on your tail that’s a lot shorter than the rest.”

I resisted the urge to spin around and check, only because I couldn’t actually see it anyway. “What.”

Tangerine nodded. “Same goes with the weird short bit on the back of your mane. She tends to make her figures as, uh, authentic as possible.”

—

And I suddenly knew the answer.

Sitting up, I jabbed my hoof into the air. “Wait. Sparkle has little figures. They’ve got real hair for their manes and tails like any creepy haunted doll does, but would they work? She made one of me a long time ago. As far as I know, she still has it. I guess it fills the requirements pretty okay.” In hindsight, that seemed really, really weirdly convenient. Maybe the universe was finally throwing me a bone. Maybe all the crap I’d been put through all this time led up to this one incredible chance for redemption.

After a pregnant pause, Chip drawled, “Dat’s creepy.”

I sat bolt upright and threw both hooves in Chip’s direction. “Right? Thank you.” With that amazing realization, I demanded at the other Deaths, “Put me back in that thing! It is literally everything I need to live in.” Sparkly bits, check. Frosty-shaped? Check. “Empathetic connection”? Well, Sparkle made it with love. That’s gonna have to be close enough.

Griffin Death was the first to speak. “That sounds like a very bad idea.”

“Can you do it?” I snapped, only realizing afterward how aggressively impolite it sounded.

The incompetence committee turned away from me and began to converse with each other. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but it seemed to be a heated exchange. Sides were taken, profane gestures were made, something’s bone fell off during the confusion, but eventually they came to a conclusion. “Well, I… suppose. It’s rather unorthodox.” Griffin Death exchanged glances with the other Death sitting beside him.

Whatever it was—I guessed bear—continued to explain, “Erm, but you wouldn’t be able to do anything. From what it sounds like, it’s a static object. Are you sure this is what you want?” Another one of the Deaths interrupted, whispering something to the speaker. Hushed exchanges were had and a miniature debate broke out amongst them again. After several bewildering moments, the speaker addressed me again. “It seems there is something that we can do after all. We will attach your soul to this doll that you describe with a tether, so that you retain a limited amount of freedom to interact with your world. However, that doll will be the only thing that keeps your soul in that world. Do you understand?”

I’d lost interest a few paragraphs ago, but I understood the gist of it. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t break the toy and I’ll be fine. Easy.”

Griffin Death slammed his gavel—wait, where the buck did he get that from? Before I could contemplate where his entire podium had appeared from, he intoned, “Then we have agreed upon the terms. The Soul of Frosty Winds is to be banished from this realm for the foreseeable future, or until she decides to return of her own volition. Deathlord Chip, read her last rites.”

On cue, Dragon Death rose to his full height. His eye-flames glowed an ominous green once again. “Frostivus Kay Winds. By the power granted to me by my station, I hereby take charge of your ultimate fate. An eternity of punishment beyond the High Gates is far too lenient given the nature of your existence. A sentence to eternal rest would be too kind. No, Frostivus. You shall be cast to a realm where you shall suffer loss, pain, joy, rage—a tortuous path with no end for your undying soul.” The environment began to glow a sickly shade of lime—pie, not evil—and it seemed to be emanating from the dragon’s bones themselves. Light coming from Chip’s eye-lights shifted into a deep orange, slowly becoming red. “I, Lord Chip—” The sound of that made me snigger, thus instantly ruining the atmosphere. “—sentence you to Life. You will live, and you shall not return until your debts have been paid in full.”

There was a pull on my wings, a tug on my tail. I was close to demanding for Mort to stop being frisky. When I turned to snap at him, I noticed that I was floating off of the floor and up into a pillar of gradually building light. It glowed. It was a nice, warm glow. Oh goddesses, was this dying? Reverse death? Living? By this point, I was so far up that even Chip looked pony-sized to me. He was even waving at me. This was also probably what being abducted by space aliens was like, I belatedly realized.

As I floated away to the land of the living, I heard Griffin Death call out, “Memories don’t always do you a whole lot of good. Remembering things, though. That’s what’s important.”

Putting a pause on my floaty flailing, I admitted, “I have no idea what you're getting at but I'll keep that in mind.” Rotating myself around to face the blinding holy light, I extended my limbs to their fullest and declared at it, “Tell the world I’m coming home!”

Very faintly, I heard a very confused, very Chip-like, “What?”

And here I was, thinking that my life was still a movie. “I’ve, uh, always wanted to shout that.” The staring from pairs of eyes felt like they were burning into me, which only embarrassed me further. “Abort! Cut to black, cut to black!”

X~~~X

Strongbox wasn’t a terrible place to live, in all honesty. The community wasn’t completely composed of murderous savages and the steady flow of merchants kept the stock of goods available interesting. I’d even picked up a new pair of fancy sporty-looking sunglasses from them so I could go outside more often without having to squint all the time. In the wake of Frosty’s disappearance and the subsequent disaster that followed, we’d done some good around here to make it that much more bearable. The community had even welcomed us to take up residence, what with our technical know-how and skill set.

Looking back on it, I counted myself lucky for being picked to travel with Rumcake. Only recently did I find out that we’d somehow missed a whole goddesses-damned war for the Wasteland. That, combined with Frosty’s inherent nature to wander and be easily distracted had unintentionally kept all of us safe somehow. From the horror stories that merchants and other adventurers were telling, we’d dodged some serious bullets. Especially the one with the guy that had to gnaw off his own leg. Eugh. On the bright side, I got this really cute sundress that I’d taken to wearing every now and then.

But that was enough of that. I hauled out my dented extra-large storage lunchbox from under my bed—oh yeah, we had actual beds now—and dragged out its partner toolbox as well. These two cases always went everywhere with me. Nearly everypony I got to know well had their own miniature model of themselves custom-made by me. It was a weird hobby to some ponies, but it’s what kept me sane all this time. Every now and then I liked to take them all out and touch them up. It gave me time to think.

Once everypony was lined up on my brand-new scavenged work table, I retrieved a teensy tiny manebrush and a repurposed dental pick from the toolbox. Thus begun the brushie, brushie, brushies. First in line was Instant Noodles—she needed a good dusting. With a sigh, I also realized how much I missed her. There was something about how she doted on all of us that made the base homey. Damn, I missed being home. My gaze ended up wandering to Tangie’s figure, and I almost lost it.

It saddened me that not everypony could enjoy this with us. Tangie was… in a better place and Violet had wandered off somewhere and we hadn’t seen her for a few days. That left me with Rumcake and Frosty. He’d given up in entirety, what with our original mission all but a failure. He gave up his mantle and imposed exile upon himself because he had apparently dishonored the Rangers and his station. I wondered to myself why I hadn’t gone back by myself. At this point the excuse I kept telling myself that I couldn’t return without the Paladin Commander that I had departed with.

I shook those depressing thoughts out of my head. This was time for brushies, and I wasn’t about to start crying in front of my best friends. I took a deep and relaxing sigh, leaning back onto my haunches to stretch out my back as well. That was when I noticed a shadow being cast onto the ceiling by my solitary work lamp. I jumped, spun, and shrieked. “Gah! How-how-how long have you been sitting there?” At some point, Frosty had come into my room and simply waited instead of getting my attention like a regular pony. Damned pegasi and their lack of movement noise!

Frosty snorted at my reaction. Rolling her eyes, she responded, “Not long enough to see you playing with your dolls. And relax. I’m not here to hurt you.” She paused and thought about something for several seconds. “I could, but that’s not why I’m here.”

Still bristling and slightly upset, I countered, “They’re statuettes, thank you very much. I worked very hard on them and I like to maintain them every now and then.” I reached back to my workbench and tilted the Frosty one back upright. “They love getting their brushies. Wait. What do you want?”

“Yes, of course. Where are the traveling supplies?”

Suspicion colored my voice as I asked, “...Why?”

“I’m going on a trip,” Frosty vaguely elaborated in that irritating way she liked to recently.

“Does Rumcake know?”

“He’s about to.”

Something about the way she asked bothered me. Maybe it was how strangely normal—as in, not-Frosty normal but normal normal she had become as of late. It seemed like I was the only one that cared anymore. Sometimes I found myself wishing for the ponies that I’d traveled with. Riverbed, Violet even—anypony that wasn’t Rumcake at this point.

More information wouldn’t hurt. Off the top of my head we didn’t have adequate supplies for a long distance trip, but a short field trip could probably be arranged with a little creative budgeting. “But where are you going?” I also remembered I hadn’t oiled up my armor for several days now, since I wasn’t using it as often anymore.

“To finish what I started. To follow my destiny.” Frosty then did that thing that I’d seen in a minotaur-themed holovid once—dramatic point, turn claw over, make fist then flex. Weird.

“If you’d like help, I’m sure I can convince Rumcake to come with.” Well, that was an incredible stretch of the imagination. “Now that he’s being—well, you know—”

“I have to do this on my own.”

Okay, there was definitely something up with Frosty. This was outside the bounds of ‘normal’ and ‘creepy’, especially by the Frosty definitions of either word. “What are you, Edgelord Protagonist? Don’t be like that. Besides, even that broody huge-haired kid from the old Foalish Fantasy games had backup. There’s uh… that one girl and the idiot comedy relief.” It was hard to remember their actual names, seeing as my cartridge had been so shoddily translated that I could barely make sense of their poor excuse for a story anyway. “I think that makes me what, popstar Celestia? That means Rumcake gets to be hoofball-for-brains.”

“I’ll be fine on my own. Sheesh!” Frosty threw her hooves in the air, and in doing so knocked a half-emptied can of forgotten soup off the table. The tomatoey sludge began to crawl toward the room’s exposed power coil. Dammit! I knew I should have cleaned up last week.

I quickly returned my attention to my workbench, searching for a rag to mop up the spill. Where was—aha! The all-purpose stained towel I always used was still tucked underneath the last night’s dinner cans. I yanked it out, scattering the cans everywhere, and only stopped to push Frosty’s model back toward the center of the workbench with the rest of them. “Are you sure it’s safe for you to travel on your own?” I asked, giving a sidelong glance.

“Yeeees,” Frosty frustratedly groaned.

Doubts were beginning to collect in my mind—first, Frosty’s strange behavior and now her insistence on absolutely going out into the Wasteland on her own. Things hadn’t calmed down after the cloud cover had vanished either, so I wasn’t entirely sure if she legitimately thought she’d be safe out there. “Are you sure?” I asked,

“YES. What are you, my mother?” she snapped back, voice thick with sarcasm.

I sighed and admitted defeat. Maybe I was just overthinking it. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry.” Maybe this new, slightly broody Frosty was the Frosty we deserved after all. As the angsty mare considered leaving my room, I called out to her. “Hey. If you ever find yourself in over your head, we’re here for you.” I hesitated, reconsidering. “Okay, I’m here for you. Can’t promise that Rumcake will.”

Frosty disinterestedly nodded from the doorway. “Good to know.” She turned tail and seemed to amble out of my room.

“Yep,” I sighed after her. For a minute, I found myself aimlessly staring at the open doorway in thought. Why did I still have this weird feeling something was wrong? Meh. Chalking my conflicting feelings up to something I’d eaten today, I shrugged and pushed them aside. I scooted myself back over to my workbench and picked up the tiny brush again, intent on returning to the task at hoof. I nudged the mini-scale Frosty back into line again and picked up mini Instant Noodles for her daily brushing. Brushie, brushie, brushie.

Out of nowhere, Frosty rudely demanded, “So… how about those supplies?”

I almost threw my brush into the ceiling. I thought she left already! “Oh! Yeah.” I stammered. “I’ve got them in this big green trunk in the living room. Help yourself.” As I gestured to out and to the left a bit, I added, “Within reason. I know what you’re like.”

“You have no idea.” A low giggle emerged from the edges of my hearing, which built into a mad cackle. I glanced at the source of the maniacal cawing and saw her clutching at nothing with her claw-hoof and glaring at the ceiling. And it could have been just me, but I could have sworn my work lamp dimmed at the same time.

“Please don’t do that again,” I firmly stated.

This time, looking me in the eye, Frosty did that creepy evil laugh again because I didn’t ask politely enough. I slapped her.

Frosty’s face froze in mid-cackle. Slowly, her expression turned to a scowl. “You’ll regret that,” she snarled, holding her rapidly reddening cheek.

Through this entire interchange, all I wanted to do was to get back to my routine. With an impatient groan, I told her, “I really don’t care, Frosty. I regret every hour of every day wasted because of everything you’ve caused. I just want some peace and quiet for ninety minutes a day.” I gestured at the open door. “Just take what you need and get out of here.”

The angst-fueled pegasus reared up on her hind legs and pointed at the ceiling with her not-robot-leg. She used the actual robot leg to point at me, declaring in a weirdly echoey way, “I shall return!” With a heavy flap of her wings that caused everything in the room to shake, she lowered herself back onto all fours.

Too bad I’d already returned to my workbench. “You’d better,” I mumbled. I absentmindedly prodded my figures, noting that Frosty’s had fallen over again. What was with her newfound need for drama? At least once she’d taken the supplies she needed then I’d have some proper peace and quiet. I settled myself down and propped up the mini of Frosty in front of me, teensy brush in my other hoof. Oh, Frosty. What were you up to now?

I seriously contemplated taking out my frustrations on her by throwing her vinyl-cast replica across the room. The little figurine shook in alarm, perhaps sensing my thoughts.

Wait.

WAIT.

“What?!” I leapt back from the workbench like it was possessed—like the goddamn self-aware bouncing figurine. “Woah.” That hadn’t been my imagination. It had moved on its own. Or! Or, or, or I’d moved it with my mind. “Wooooah.” I turned my thoughts back to excessive violence toward the mini-Frosty, wherein it feebly bounced again. “Holy crap I can move things with my mind.” One more time, just to be sure.

The Frosty figure rocked on her base, then fell over onto her face.

“Siiiiiiick.”

END OF ACT THREE

Footnote: Level up!
New Status: Immaterial – Any other perks you have do not apply while you are in this state. Possessing a body will allow you to physically interact with objects.

Note: Several perks you have taken may no longer apply to your character as a result of completing the introduction of Hallowed Ground. If you wish to continue the game as the story does not intend it to, your perks may be restored from the Options menu under the Hallowed Ground game settings.

Perk Locked: Split Personalities
Perk Locked: Mysterious Stranger
Perk Locked: Mysterious Power

You’ve returned to the Wasteland. Things may not be as you left them, but there is much more to discover.

Author's Note

Special mention to Tofu's Astral, whose minty visage will be missed.

Intermission: Intermission in progress…

Intermission: Intermission in progress…

“Uh, remember when I said I wouldn’t do anything stupid?”

About a month ago…

I was abruptly released and forcibly shoved at Warboss Gork. A small pile of rubble and steel that I tripped over caused me to lose my balance and I collided with his armored ass. I stumbled backward and ended up sitting down right on the spot. The more scary part was, the bucking ground shook when he started turning around. “Oi, wha’z dis git doin’ ’ere?”

“You’re the leader here?” I asked, looking around for somepony less menacing.

“Dat’s me, and I call’z da shots.”

I was also expecting somepony more intelligent, for some reason. Oh well, it wouldn’t matter in a second. “And you are the leader, right?” I asked one more time, just making sure.

“Wot’s you not understandin’? I’s the boss.”

“Excellent.” I lunged forward and swung my claw at the Warboss as hard as I could. When the hit connected, the shotgun built into my metal leg went off, blasting bits of his head all over the far wall. Everypony in the room stared in shocked horror as I cooly strolled away from the headless corpse and ejected the spent shell from my ballistic claw. “Okay, now take me to your second in command.”

Several song-filled weeks later…

“Oi. Squeaky Fart to Mini Boss. We’s gots the uh—whatsit. Yeah, the whatsit’s comin’ to the front gate.”

“I hear you. And your callsign cannot be ‘Squeaky Fart’. We have standards.”

“Eeeuh… uhhh… Exploding Rectum copies.”

“You can’t—whatever. Whatever! Fine. Keep it up, Exploding Rectum.”

For all the grief that these idiots had caused me, it gave me a sense of pride that I, Selfie Stick, had finally left my goddamn mark on this shithole of a wasteland. In retrospect it hadn’t really been all worth it—my friends, my youth, an eye—but there was still a gram of accomplishment that shone underneath all that weight. With Warboss Gork dead and Warboss ’Urt’oof off having her own adventure, I’d taken it upon myself to rebuild the ’Ard ’Eads into the trained force it was now. I'd gotten out of the habit of calling them boys. This was my warband now, so I ended up calling them dudes instead. Maybe it was some subliminally symbolic meaning involving a sort of maturing of the leadership. It actually rolled off the tongue better in my opinion and didn’t sound moronic.

The last second-in-command had suggested the new handle “Hard Corps”, a testament to our past and our bright future. I sighed at the memory. I really missed that old bastard. My new second—I turned my eye to the firing range—she just really hated all the dudes. That probably came with being a scrawny pegasus needing something to prove with her fancy-dandy advanced Enclave military training. At least she wasn’t all talk like some other pegasi I knew. We’d come a long way from blowing up sleeping Rangers in the middle of the night.

I’ve done it. This is my shitty legacy in all its heavily fortified glory.

And right on cue, today’s shipment strolled right through the front gates. For the sake of my convenience—and not because I didn’t know their names—the ones I called Fat Bastard and Horny Bastard had finally returned from their most recent abduction run. This week we were the “Collaborative Relocation Association for Pegasi” and we needed “eager, important community leaders” to “survey” the “lodgings”. Technically I wasn’t lying, but that came with “learning” how to “speak” with air quotes. How? “Practice”.

I surveyed them from where I was. If everything had gone to plan we’d be sitting on a pretty pile of caps in a few hours.

The more portly grimy one—Fat Bastard—he was the charismatic one of the two. Something about his rotund figure made ponies assume that he was the jolly type. He was in the middle of telling the pegasus following them about the so-called settlement we were allegedly building. “Calm ya tits, love. Allllmost there,” he gently convinced her.

Today’s catch looked like a lemon wearing a dust mop on her head. From here, I couldn’t exactly tell why they’d chosen her specifically, considering both sides of her butt had a chalkboard. Huh. Maybe it was an Enclave thing.

“I don’t want to sound inconsiderate,” she commented delicately, “but there is a distinct lack of pegasi in this so-called collective. Maybe I’ll just head back and tell the others that we’ll look somewhere else. It’s not that I don’t want to take your word for it, but we desperately need more living space for our refugees.”

Fat Bastard stopped in his steps, which led to the pegasus walking right into his rear end. He ponderously maneuvered himself around to face the little birdie. As the pegasus shook herself out of her stupor, Fatty gently smooshed her face between his hooves. “Oi. We lied. Catch on, wouldja?” The expression on the poor pegasus’s face gradually shifted from confused to worried and finally into panic.

“W-wait, what?” The frenzied pegasus attempted to flap away, only to be taken down by a flying tackle by the other bastard. Oof. That was probably going to hurt in the morning. “No! Let me go!” she cried onto deaf ears.

The other bastard—Horny Bastard—didn’t get his name from being friendly. “It’s okay, birdie. You’re with us now! We’s gonna take goooood care of you.”

“Please! I’m just a teacher—I don’t know anything!”

A faint thought of irony slid through my brain. I mentally replayed those words. “I’m just a teacher, I don’t know anything.” That could clearly be worded a lot better.

“Oh no, she’s getting away!” Horny Bastard playfully cried out. He had already grabbed the unfortunate pegasus by the wings and was mock-flapping them for her. Clearly, the pegasus under him didn’t find it as funny.

Knowing what these guys were like now, I had to step in right now. If I left those two idiots to their own devices I’d have a dress-up doll instead of a hostage. Enough was enough. They’d had enough fun for today. “Oi! Leave Chicken Nuggets alone,” I shouted.

Both bastards stopped what they were doing at once. Horny Bastard climbed off the pegasus—who attempted to squirm away to relative safety—and complained at me, “Ey, cut us a bit of slack! You’re givin’ me blue balls, boss. Just, eh, five minutes! Promise!”

I remained annoyed and unamused by his antics. “You’re about to have no balls if you touch the bird one more time.”

Horny Bastard snarled at me. He wasn’t bold enough to directly threaten me, but he went as far as rearing up at me. “You’d better oil up ’cuz these balls are—”

Suddenly out of the clear blue sky a bolt of teal lightning arced from over the horizon and crashed into the nearby parade ground with a tumultuous rolling boom! Dust and trash flew in a whirl, obstructing our vision. A ruckus burst from the dudes trying to collectively manage the prisoner. I, on the other hoof, was balanced on the edge of enraged and terrified. Why hadn’t the Stealf’boyz pulled the alarm? They were supposed to be watching the perimeter, damn it. “If they’re having another bucking orgy again, I swear I’m going to mix wonderglue into their grease,” I growled to myself.

Pointing to the first dude that had my attention, I ordered, “You! Get the bird into my office and tie her down.” At my command, he shook himself out of his stupor and galloped to the chucklenuts losing their goddesses-damned minds around the prisoner. A few bashed heads later and some harsh words got them moving again.

Now I had to figure out exactly what the hell was going on out there. A dense cloud of dust still clung to the air. Several dudes crept out of their hiding places, guns at the ready. The nearest dude—a Big Boy, the dudes still insisted on calling them—gave me a questioning glance.

“Whoever this is, it’s fast. Get Fat Fryer up on the roof with the heatseeker. Find the Trapboys—I want net guns in case whoever this is happens to be worth money,” I quietly ordered. “Circle up and tell the rest of your boys to watch their fire.” Whoever—or whatever this was, my eye-hole was itching up a storm. I frowned. Not good.

“Wotcher that, boss.” The Big Boy smartly nodded. The nearest dude to him was immediately assaulted by a slew of profanity and shouted orders. “Oi, move ya fat fat sausage asses! You! Oi, oi, git back here!”

The dust finally settled. Striding confidently out came a teal pegasus mare with deadly eyes and too many weapons strapped to her body. I recognized her as the pony who had given me this position to begin with. Warboss ’Urt’oof, the dudes called her. As I was told, she called herself Frosty Winds.

The last time I’d seen the Warboss, she’d been more of a meek soft little thing hiding a wickedly sharp dagger in her wings. This was decidedly not the same pony, as much as it seemed. This mare had the look of a plan in mind for the world, hidden behind a thin facade. No hero, for sure. Hero-types only wanted to ruin plans anyway.

Warboss ’Urt’oof was coming in my direction and I had absolutely zero idea about what she wanted. I hastily dismissed the loitering dudes and adjusted the kepi on my head. My missing eye was starting to itch, too. The Itch hadn’t been wrong about danger so far.

Danger and Itch aside, I erred on the side of caution by making a diplomacy check. I bowed, being sure to doff my hat on the way down. When I stood up straight again, she was right up in my face. “Welcome back, Warboss. Did you miss us?” I greeted her after taking a cautionary step back.

The Warboss—Frosty looked around us. She surveyed my works, the incredible advances I’d made since she’d left me in charge. After an extended pause, she demanded, “What the buck happened to you guys? You’re supposed to be killing machines. The meanest assholes in the Wasteland. What’s going on?” As if she hadn’t looked disappointed in me before, a cluster of the newer recruits stampeded past carrying various grooming supplies—yes, for the prisoner. I cringed on the inside. Every day I regretted making those compromises.

As to appear unfazed by my subordinates, I shrugged. “Eh. Money’s a big motivator, really. Sex too.” It was more like they were the only motivators now, since I’d made it abundantly clear that an attitude adjustment was in order for the new ’Ard Corps. “I’m just the new management. Didn’t think you’d ever come back for us, to be honest.”

“What about the pillaging? The brutal murder?” Screaming that was gradually getting louder came from the far side of the base. The pegasus from earlier suddenly darted past, soaked and trailing suds. Several of the same dudes from earlier were giving chase with rope and soap. The Warboss gestured at the ad-hoc mob and demanded, “Regular murder, even?”

“See, we—we bein’ I—figured that turnover was too high. Cuts into productivity, see? Gotta find new blood when dudes get wiped, train ‘em, get ‘em fighting. Takes too long, so I got us moving along into the modern age. Run racketeering and kidnapping, then get the violent dudes to run protection.”

Frosty seemed to have been formulating a proper indignant response, then had that whole train of thought derail and cause a global thermonuclear war. “What.”

My gut asked me why I was spilling the inner workings of my organization to the mare who’d bailed on me in the first place. I reminded myself that it was full of shit and carried on anyway. “Yeah, it works great—when Bishy and Bashy wanna do some bishy bashy, we extort the guys we’re protecting so the dudes don’t break the merch, y’follow?”

By now Frosty was sitting on her haunches, clearly mystified and disgusted by what she was hearing. “I am clearly not following. Continue, please.” She gestured with her talons in a general go-ahead motion.

From what I recalled of the pegasus, this was at least what I expected. “It’s fine. All you need to know is that ’Ard Corps are among the forefront of current-day mercenary companies. We’re an enterprise, I think. Limited liability, for sure. I dunno.”

“This is a problem.”

I tapped my chin in thought, only partially listening to what the Warboss was saying. “I think the problem is not that I'm not getting value out of our operation—the problem is that I don't know how to read.”

Frosty groaned, “I can’t believe this what I have to work with.” Both her hoov—eh, forelimbs?—went straight to her face. “Why can’t any of my plans ever go smoothly?”

“I have one eyeball and two hundred horny buckers at my beck and call. I’m illiterate, not useless. And hey, I turned this slop-fest into a proper organization.” I spread my forelegs apart and made a sweeping motion to my compound. “Give me some credit.”

Warboss Crybaby snarled. “The ‘slop-fest’ was more my style.”

Once again I gestured at everything around us—the firing range, the slovenly merchandise bunker, the barracks, everything. All of this was my life’s work and she didn’t even seem to care at all. What a bitch. “It’s a whole new world, Warboss. Today’s a beautiful day. The birds are singing, flowers are blooming. On days like these—”

“Idiots like you should be burning in the pits of Tartarus,” she snarled, not quite looking in my direction. The ground cracked under her metal limb as her talons contracted.

Ponies didn’t usually interrupt me in mid-speech. In an exponentially offended manner I asked, “Excuse me?”

The increasingly rude mare before me jabbed my nose with her claw-hoof. “You heard me. You’ve gone soft. I don’t have time for this bullshit.”

Up until now, I’d been giving uppity miss bitchface the benefit of the doubt and the respect she deserved. That was the last straw. No more mister nice eyeball. “Time’s a-changin. You up and vanished for over a month!” I roared in my scary voice that was reserved for only the douchiest of bags. Every single dude in earshot scuttled away to a safe distance to cower from my impending wrath. “You left me in charge, of all ponies in the world. Didn’t you find it weird that me, of all the ponies in the warband, actually used his goddesses-damned brain? I’ve been waiting for this moment for years and I’m not about to have some two-bit slut take all of my work away from me!”

With the sound of my voice still reverberating off nearby walls, Frosty began to laugh. It was one of those low, creepy, definitely evil laughs that built up into a roar. “Heh. It’s nothing I can’t fix.” Cold steel constricted around my neck faster than I could blink. Little by little, I found myself being lifted up by the throat. At first I wasn’t concerned for my safety—there were dozens of guns, bladed implements, and two net guns pointed at us. I tried to hold onto that thought as I was forced to stand on my hindlegs. In that same low evil voice, she intoned, “Tell me. Are you afraid of the dark?”

The wind began to howl like no tomorrow, then as suddenly as it had begun it abruptly stopped. Nothing happened. I stared into her eyes just long enough for it to become awkward. I was the first to break eye contact with a hesitant choking cough.

I found myself thrown onto my back in the next moment. As I gasped for breath, the Warboss seemed out of focus. She paced back and forth, muttering to herself. “What the… Hang on, let me try this again. First time doing it from this side, so give me a moment to figure this out.”

The Big Boy from earlier grabbed my attention with an urgent wave. He clearly motioned “Should I shoot her?” in which I responded by mouthing back, “Hang on I think she might actually be really stupid.”

Again I was hoisted into the air within a split second. Pawing at the steely claws around my throat had no effect. She drew in closer, actually pressing her nose against mine. “Are you afraid of the dark?” This time, beyond the murky depths of those emerald eyes lay an endless void of black demise, terror beyond comprehension.

I don’t remember much after that.

Footnote: Personal army acquired.

Chapter 1: What were we doing?

Chapter 1: What were we doing?

“Are you loco in the coco?”

I was sitting in a small dark corner office with my Commanding Officer, or C.O. I’d never actually met the stallion; the only thing I really knew was fact that he was the meanest officer that ever left Neighvarro, and that really made me worried because of how much trouble I was in. I think he just wanted to yell at the new recruits like me and watch us squirm. He glared at me again and I fluttered my wings nervously.

I’d just returned from a particularly disastrous run in the wasteland which had resulted in massive amounts of collateral damage, contamination, intelligence, and questionable decisions. Apparently the debriefing was for the sake of protocol, but there was one major difference. Somepony named Interrogation Officer Thundering Storm was listening in remotely through my C.O.’s terminal. Somepony wanted to know what I’d done in the wasteland and would stop at nothing to find out.

“Wait, so you want me to just dive in? From the beginning, huh? What about—”

“Just tell us what you know,” the voice from the speaker drawled.

“Okay, fine. Well, for the record, this is going to be the worst debriefing ever. Of all time.”

“Please get on with it.”

“FINE, fine.” I looked to my C.O., who nodded and motioned with a wing that I was permitted to take a seat. I settled into the stiff uncomfortable chair and began to tell my tale.

“We had just finished our second wasteland scouting mission to gather intel on those irritating, self-righteous Steel Rangers. I was ordered to bring back anything that was useful—movement patterns, bases, patrols, that kind of thing. I went with my wingmates…” I stopped. I thought hard and tried to retrace what happened that day. I had a vague feeling that I had been with them for a while, but couldn’t remember their names. Heck, I couldn’t even remember the colors of their coats!

“Something wrong, airpony?”

Must be my nerves again. “I… can’t remember their names.”

“That’s fine. Continue.”

“Uh… Well, anyway we were on our way to…” I drew another blank, stared at the ceiling and tried to remember, shaking my head in irritation. “Wait, I think we were also with some science officers, too. Maybe. There were buildings, and we were there to set up some kind of thing… that did… uh… stuff?”

My C.O. leaned over and harshly whispered to me, “Come on, I know you hate these guys more than I do, but they are in INTERROGATION for a reason! We need you to remember, girlie! Are you withholding information? Is that it?” He reached over his desk and tapped a hoof against my forehead. “We need you to remember, because some shady shit has been happening that the higher-ups just aren’t telling us about!”

“Anything I need to know about?”

“Yes, you do!” I yelled at the terminal. “I don’t remember what happened, or what I was doing! It’s like they’re missing from my memories! All I know was that we were ambushed, separated, and I have no idea where everypony else is! I remember walking through the wasteland with an injured wing and—” I stopped. I still remembered this part, though vaguely. I’d stumbled around aimlessly, then collapsed from… blood loss? Concussion? Something serious, but… what was happening? Why couldn’t I remember?

“Anything you can tell us?”

“NO! I. DON’T. REMEMBER.” I was incredibly pissed off. Were all officers this stupid? What part of it didn’t they understand? At that point, I could reliably say I was with a science team, setting up some kind of station that controlled… something, and then something happened, and now I was here! And then it struck me. How had I gotten here? I collapsed in the wasteland, and then I suddenly woke up perfectly fine with no memory of being in a hospital, not to mention arriving in this office.

I decided to look around the room, and suddenly things started to fall into place. Now that I was aware of it, the walls looked strange, the tiny window in the corner of the room was so bright that I couldn’t even see anything out of it, and the desk’s dimensions just looked… wrong. I was starting to get a gut feeling that this wasn’t real life. “What’s going on here? What is this? Is this a sim? Is this the best you could come up with?”

“Damn, she’s figured it out. Sir?”

Voices argued in the background. Aha! So I was RIGHT! Before I could figure out anything else, a different voice faintly came over the terminal.

“Pull her out. We’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

Everything popped out of existence and the first thing I felt was cold. Mind numbing cold. So, so cold. I blinked and watched as lines appeared, bit by bit until I was staring at what seemed to be the inside of a stasis pod. The pod doors slid open and I looked around the bleak darkness of the new room I was stuck in. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, and looked around again. There was a small blast door on the side of the room opposite to the pod, and behind my pod was a small bank of computers, presumably running the simulation that I’d just been in. The blast door opened with a whirr and a particularly loud thunk, and a large, armored Steel Ranger walked into the room with a wheelchair in tow. “Get in the wheelchair, Enclave scum. Don’t try anything tricky.”

“Even if I can’t fly in this room, I can still walk, you huge bucking ugly—” My insult was cut short as I suddenly fell on my face when I tried to lunge at the Ranger. I sat up, and noticed something I should have noticed first—my left foreleg was gone halfway up where my elbow should have been! I gave myself a quick once-over and noticed a few other things missing that I probably should not be missing. There was a massive boxy contraption clamped around my remaining foreleg, I had healing bandages in various spots all over my body, and small scars only barely visible because the surrounding teal fur was missing.

The largest problem for me, however, was half of the feathers on my left wing were missing. The thought of not being able to fly or walk for a long time nearly brought tears to my eyes. At least the wing itself wasn’t missing, I told myself. Worst part is, I’d managed to lose my Enclave Scout Armor. How would I pay for it when, or if, I got back? Crushed, I slowly hobbled my way over to the Steel Ranger and fell into the wheelchair. Well, at least they didn’t expect me to walk, so that gave me time to think about my current predicament in slight comfort.

After about three minutes of walking (okay, him walking and me wallowing in whatever ponies wallowed in), my hyperactive mind couldn’t take the silence anymore. “Can you at least tell me your name? Or something? I’m so booooooooooored…” I leaned back in the wheelchair and stared at the underside of his helmet, expecting an answer. “Or how about you take this thing off? It’s heavy, uncomfortable, and it chafes!” I pouted and proceeded to wave my remaining box-laden foreleg in front in front of his visor.

“None of your business, prisoner, and I’m not equipped to take that off anyway,” he gruffly replied. “We’re nearly there.” He swatted my hoof out of his face. After a few more minutes of silence, he decided to give me a little solace. “I am Paladin Commander Rumcake Rum, and I am currently acting as your jailer.” Was that malice coming from underneath his helmet? “As for the thing on your leg, it’s a PipBuck 2000 Plus, just because we decided you were worth interrogating on the grounds that your hat deemed you important. Don’t get too comfortable with it though, we only needed it to interface with the simulator. After digging around your brain, we—”

I stopped him there with an outburst of rage. “You bucked with my brain!? No wonder you idiots couldn’t get anything out of me, you STOLE THEM before asking!” I seethed with rage as I mulled this over. The inability to remember anything or anypony, plus the imprisonment by Steel Rangers, plus aforementioned brain-poking, all equals missing memory. “What were you expecting then? What else did you take? TELL ME.”

Rumcake stopped and looked down at me. “Hey, according to Senior Scribe Instant, we didn’t do anything! It was all you not knowing anything. Not us.” I gave him a blank stare, and he elaborated. “Instant Noodles is our most reliable scribe. She specializes in memory capture and retrieval. That’s the kind of things unicorns are good at, after all.” He looked up and continued to push me along to yet another tiny room that looked exactly like the other rooms we’d passed along the way. “We’re here, prisoner. Sit tight and wait for Inquisitor Soufflé to arrive, you Enclave whore.”

“Thanks for that, tankass.” I sunk lower into my wheelchair and just prayed that the mandatory interrogation training for all Enclave personnel would actually help. I stared at the door opposite from me, and took only a few minutes to become immensely bored. I craned my neck over the back of the wheelchair and stared at Rumcake upside-down. I winked at him, and the only reaction I got was an annoyed grunt. I heard a door thud open and I snapped my head back forward to see a gaunt unicorn wearing a tall, fancy greatcoat and a great big pointy officer’s cap, both of which had the gears-sword-wing logo of the Rangers on it. He spoke in the drawling tones of the voice on the speaker from the simulation.

“My name is Inquisitor Soufflé, and you will tell me everything, you stubborn, pathetic Enclave pidgeon.”

I barely suppressed a snort. Soufflé? Really? At first I thought Rumcake was joking, but Soufflé? A buck named Soufflé was going to interrogate me. Moment of hilarity aside, training kicked in. Name, rank, serial. Nothing more, nothing less. And maybe a taunt or two, just for personal enjoyment.

“My name is Frosty Winds, Scout Second Class, Serial 405937-5712. And you” – I pointed a hoof at him – “have the funniest name ever.” I burst out laughing.

“Listen bitch, you’re not telling us the truth. Heck, you haven’t told us ANYTHING remotely useful! You’re not even a scout, your field officer’s cap proves it!” He then proceeded to toss a cap onto the table and glare at me menacingly. The desired effect was lost however, because I was still too busy laughing my flank off. He slammed his hooves on the table and I immediately stopped and paid attention to him. “You. Are going to tell. Me. Everything.” He growled at me. “And I want nothing but the truth!”

“My name is Frosty Winds, Scout Second Class, Serial 405937-5712.” I shifted in my wheelchair as I tried to remember where I’d gotten the cap from. If there was a science team at the area of operations, then logically there was some kind of experiment. An experiment in a hostile area of operations, which meant that there was at least one combat team on site for defense. Although I wondered how we had managed to be completely massacred by hellhounds, given our probable heavy weaponry.

…Wait a minute. What? “Hellhounds?” I muttered to myself. “What were we doing?” I now pointedly ignored Soufflé as he became angrier and I tuned out his yelling so that I could think and try to remember.

Unfortunately, my train of thought was interrupted by a hoof smashing into my jaw. “Dammit, bitch, if you aren’t going to help us voluntarily, then we’ll just have to move on to more drastic measures.” He tapped his ear and yelled, “Go wake up Paladin Fruit Punch! I don’t care if she’s on break, just tell her to get prepped to handle a prisoner.” He looked back up to me. “Last chance, Enclave bitch. Help us, or maybe the Paladin breaks off your other wing.”

I looked back at my wings. The feathers would grow back soon, but I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if I was stuck on the ground for the rest of my life. I turned back to him and told him, “Look, you already stole everything out of my brain! You already know everything that happened and took it away from me! I don’t know anything else.” His expression of gleeful rage turned to puzzlement. “What, your little machine ponies didn’t tell you about that?”

He cocked his head, indicating more puzzlement, then countered, “There was barely anything in your head to begin with; our scribes managed to read bits and pieces of your memories, but without far more intrusive methods, we had nothing to go on. All useless in the end since you couldn’t tell us anything useful either.” Someone had stolen my memories, made sure I couldn’t remember and tell anyone what had happened. “Now,” he continued in a gentler tone, “try to tell us what you remember, and maybe we can help you.”

“Oh, I’m not falling for that good pony, bad pony thing, and you’re doing it wrong. You need another pony to be the good pony.” The Inquisitor gave me a dirty look. “Anyway, I couldn’t tell you anything else if I wanted to. Interrogations only go so far, you know.”

I glared at him and tried to cross my forelegs, but it didn’t have the desired effect because I still hadn’t gotten used to my stump just yet. I was just about to tell him to go buck himself when he suddenly turned and started to leave the room.

He sighed. “Paladin Commander, take the prisoner back to her cell. There isn’t anything we can get out of her.” He turned around to face me. “As a sign of good faith, I’m going to inform the engineers to expect you. No need to waste a perfectly good commander carting around a crippled Enclave rat.” He sneered at me then left without another word.

Well, that had gone better than expected, and I even got some information from that whole thing too! I leaned back and addressed Rumcake. “Take me back to my room, nurse!” He sighed and carted me out of the room. When we took a turn toward a more brightly lit hallway, I looked up at the bottom of his helmet and poked it with my hoof. “Hey, where are we going?”

He looked down at me and replied, “We’re going to go see—”

I interjected, “Let me guess, Banana Pie? Raspberry Tart?” These food based names! Why would you name your foal after food?

He paused and stammered, “Uh… well… you’re half right. Banana Pudding is our Head Knight. We’re going to get you a leg so I don’t have to push your lazy flank around.” He looked at me again, and I must have been giving him a you-totally-cannot-be-serious face because he said, “No, really! It’s Banana Pudding and Knight Baked Potato.” He continued to push me along the hallway in silence.

When we got to there, a short brown buck with a short yellow mane and tail was completely asleep and snoring on his workbench. He must have been asleep for a while, because there was a puddle of drool collecting around the left side of his muzzle. He muttered something unintelligible and shifted in his sleep.

“How am I not surprised?” Rumcake muttered, then moved closer to the sleeping buck as quietly as a pony sized tank could. He cleared his throat and then fiddled with a switch on the side of his helmet before taking a deep breath. “WAKE UP YOU WORTHLESS SACK OF HORSEAPPLES YOU AREN’T ON BREAK JUST YET!”

I wasn’t expecting him to have a built-in megaphone in his helmet and my heart nearly stopped in fright. But the brown buck’s reaction was priceless, granted. Right after ‘wake up’ he jumped and turned in mid air to grab onto the light fixture hanging from the ceiling, so gracefully that if I ignored the lack of wings he could have easily gotten away with being a pegasus. I started laughing so hard that I nearly fell out of my wheelchair.

“WORKS EVERY—” He paused and fiddled with the same switch, presumably to turn it off. “—single time. Never gets old.” He looked up at the light fixture with the buck hanging off of it in sheer fright. “You can come down now, Baked.”

“Ach, that ain’t funny anymore lad! The four’f time was enough!” He glared at the both of us. “And you lassie, you en’t in any position to laugh. I reckon yer here for something a wee bit more important.” He let go of the light fixture and landed on the floor, all hooves down. I swear, potential pegasus material. “So, whatcha need girlie?” I looked at him with confusion. I was still trying to figure out what he was saying after the word “funny”. He stared flatly at me and explained, “This is how I speak, do ye have a proooblem?”

“Uh… no?” I stammered. Wow, hard to understand and a temper. Just great. “I need a leg.” I waved my stump at him. “And is it possible to be a bit more understandable?” He had no reply, he glared at me and went into the maze of shelves and parts in the back of the room to presumably look for a leg for me. I turned to look at Rumcake and broke into an embarrassing fangirlish squee. “That was SO. AWESOME!” I blushed and covered my muzzle with a hoof. “How did you do that?” I said in a more normal tone.

I knew under that helmet he was grinning like a madpony, but he said in a normal tone, “I got a Canterlot Voice mod for my helmet. Best two hundred caps I’ve ever spent.” There was a crash from the back room, followed by a storm of very colorful swearing and more crashing. “I’ll go help Potato, you sit tight and don’t go… oh wait, you can’t go anywhere.” He laughed as he walked into the back of the room.

“Why put this thing on me at all?” I asked, staring at the metal socket at the end of my stump.

“We recovered a mostly working cyber-suite a few weeks back and the Inquisitor’s been waiting for an excuse to see whether it works without sawing apart one of my Paladins.” Rumcake simply replied. “You just happen to be the perfect test subject. Once we’ve got all the kinks worked out, we’ll put you under the knife to find out.”

“I’m flattered,” I sarcastically replied.

“Don’t be. Senior Scribe Brussel Sprout could have accidentally killed you.”

What a nice thought.

Later, after I had been issued with a temporary prosthetic leg that was strapped onto my stump and secured to my shoulder, I was taken back to what I assumed was my cell. It was a small room with just enough space to stand up and turn around in with a bunk on one side and a toilet in the corner. The only other furnishings consisted of a grimy cracked mirror on the wall across from the bunk and a small table under it.

Rumcake stood in the doorway as I attempted to make my way from the wheelchair to the bunk. I stumbled into the bunk and lay on my side. This prosthetic leg was tiring me out and it wasn’t very easy to use, let alone get used to. I got myself comfortable on the bunk as I asked him, “So what happens now? I stay here forever and get interrogated endlessly?” If this was how I’d spend the rest of my life, I’d rather just kill myself to spare myself the boredom.

“Frankly, I have no idea. Best case scenario, we chain you up to a post and milk you for information. Worst case, Soufflé kills you.” He turned around. “I’ll be down the hall if you need me. Baked gets to take over my guard duty later since I caught him napping again, so…yeah.” And then he left me in my cold, dark, tiny room with nothing to do. I huffed in annoyance; he could have at least given me a magazine to read or something!

I punched the wall next to me, and noticed one of the tiles near the bunk’s mattress rattled. I reached down and opened the box, revealing a small alcove with a few bobby pins, a screwdriver, eight caps, a well-chewed pencil, half a box of Fancy Buck snack cakes, and two shotgun shells. Underneath them was a small and well-folded note that listed the following: “Step 8: Open hooflocker underneath bunk. / Step 9: Hope it’s a shotgun. / Step 10: Acquire barding. / Step 11: ??? / Step 12: Profit.” Above it was a mass of crossed out words and scribbles that more or less summed up to a to-do list that led to some kind of breakout. I noticed one major flaw in this plan, however. The last occupant of the cell neglected to plan for how to defeat several fully armored Steel Rangers, but they did plan for a breakout during a full scale invasion of the base.

I checked the little nook to see if there was anything else buried in it, and finding nothing I tried sleeping for a bit. After a while, I realized that I probably spent too much time being unconscious to be tired anymore. I whapped my PipBuck against the wall when it suddenly burst into sickly green light. I stared at it, transfixed, until I read the text on the screen that said, “View new user tutorial? Y/N”

I shrugged and poked the ‘Y’ button with my nose. The text was quickly replaced with, “Factory settings detected. Check for updates? Y/N”

I couldn’t see the harm in it, my cloud terminal usually required software updates from time to time. I poked the "Y” button again and the text was replaced by the image of a happy generic colt with the words Stable-Tec behind him. A little progress bar and text box told me it had found an update, and was in the process of downloading it when it gave me another text box. “Errors in registry! This should not affect your Stable-Tec device, but some information may be corrupted or incorrect. Reinstalling the update should fix this problem. Reinstall? Y/N”

I poked the ‘N’ button. There was no way I was going to sit around for the same update again when it probably wouldn’t fix anything, anyway. I was then re-routed back to a slightly updated “New user detected, run tutorial? Y/N” page, complete with a rudimentary animation of the little Stable-Tec colt using the device.

I pushed the ‘Y’ button and watched as a little musical interlude complete with animations scrolled across the screen. “Welcome to the PipBuck 2000! If you are watching this tutorial at work or in a public location, please use the earbloom attached to the side of the PipBuck to privately listen to this. A large arrow pointed at a location on the screen. “Tap the button to continue.” I poked the button with my prosthetic hoof and listened on. “Now, onto E.F.S. and S.A.T.S. tutorial! Please find an open space where you can efficiently become accustomed to both of these functions.”

There was a knock at the door. I poked the pause button on the tutorial. The door clanked and dropped open, revealing a Steel Ranger with a small tray with a paltry assortment of boxes and a Sparkle-Cola on it. “I brought you some dinner,” the familiar voice of Rumcake said. He lowered the tray onto the small table in the room. I looked over the assortment of boxes with slight displeasure. Hay chips, mashed potatoes, and single cherry snack cake. I grabbed the Sparkle-Cola bottle in my mouth and downed a third of the bottle. Mmm… carroty goodness. I didn’t really know how hungry I was until I finished inhaling the crushed box of equally crushed hay chips. Rumcake watched me wordlessly as I continued to shamelessly stuff my face with preserved food. “The food here can’t be better than the fancy crap back where you’re from.”

I looked at him and wiped some crumbs off my muzzle. “We can survive just fine, it’s just that it doesn’t taste like much because we have nothing to flavor them with. I prefer hundred-year-old preservatives and artificial flavorings more than bland field rations, really.” I then ignored his questioning look as I enjoyed the cherry filling in the snack cake. Through a mouthful of deliciously sticky fruit-flavored gunk, I asked Rumcake, “Something tells me I have some special treatment here.” I took another drink from the Sparkle-Cola. “Care to fill me in?”

“Haha, I’d like to fi—” he started, but I gave him a death glare and he changed his comment. “You’re the only prisoner at the moment, so nopony really cares about a bottle of cola. The only reason you get two boxes is because you’ve been out for a while.” He sat down in the doorway and continued, “You’re also the first prisoner to not try to kill me yet, so think of this as a thank you, and hopefully…” He trailed off there, apparently at a loss as to how to complete his sentence. I quirked an eyebrow at him in amusement.

He eventually stood up and said waveringly, “Uh, I have a report for the Head Paladin so you can keep the boxes but I have to take the tray back.” I finished off the Sparkle-Cola. “Don’t freeze to death. Heating in here hasn’t worked in ever.” And with that he departed and shut the door behind him, leaving me in the dim light of the room again, alone.

Out of curiosity, I got up and pressed the button for the door. Unsurprisingly, nothing happened. I decided to continue with the tutorial because I had nothing better to do. I located the continue button on the PipBuck’s screen and listed to it repeat, “Now, onto E.F.S. and S.A.T.S. tutorial! Please find an open space where you can efficiently become accustomed to both of these functions.” Yep, this room was definitely a large open space, I thought sarcastically. “This will be a live demonstration. Place an item such as a cardboard box on a flat surface, and pick up a rock or ball.”

I took the crushed hay chips carton and propped it up on the small table. I took the bottle cap from the Sparkle-Cola bottle and tossed it in my hoof. “Activate S.A.T.S. and target your object. Some weapons will be more effective on a pony-to-pony basis. In the bottom right corner of your vision displays your Action Points bar. Again, some ponies will have more AP than others.” I squinted and felt everything slow down. The box was surrounded with a green outline with a little bar that read 95% next to it. I targeted it once and felt the spell deactivate, and I threw the cap at the carton so hard the cap went through the first layer of cardboard and bounced around inside the box. I was definitely impressed.

A little bar appeared at the top of my vision, and I immediately attempted to swat it on instinct. The PipBuck informed me, “This is the Eyes-Forward Sparkle detection spell. Enemies will appear as red markers.” A red dot appeared for a second then disappeared. “Friendlies will appear as blue dots” A blue dot appeared then disappeared as well. The icons and letters on the bar spun around a bit then settled. “This concludes the tutorial. Thank you for using Stable-Tec technology. Have a nice day!”

With the PipBuck now fully booted up, I could actually use it as something other than a bludgeoning device. I then noticed that there was an outline around the tile I had moved earlier. I moved the tile and it revealed the same nook that I had found before. It also assigned values to all the items in it, including the pencil for some odd reason. Wait, if it detected containers, then…

I rolled off the bunk and heavily fell onto the ground. I looked under the bunk and moved the large hooflocker under it closer to me. Sure enough, there was a well-bucked padlock attached to the hooflocker. I clambered back up to the bunk and collected the bobby pins and the screwdriver in my hoof. I left two of the bobby pins in front of me and hid the other four in my tail. I then picked up the bobby pin in my teeth and, with great difficulty, held the screwdriver in my hooves and began to pick the lock.

After nearly an hour and a half of failed attempts and the loss of two bobby pins, I finally felt the padlock click and drop. I pulled it off with my teeth and used my nose to open it. I reveled in my victory over the stubborn padlock and beheld my spoils. One old, worn copy of Batmare, a half-consumed pack of gum, a broken-down anti-machine rifle, and a saddlebag to carry it in. I’d only heard of them in intelligence reports, but this was the first I’d actually seen one. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to assemble one. Oh the irony, I knew how to reassemble a high-tech plasma weapon, but I had no idea how to reassemble a simple ballistic weapon.

I placed the parts for the rifle into their respective slots in the saddlebag and hoped that I would find someone that could put this together. With the proper ammunition and fully maintained, the bullets from this rifle could probably punch through just about anything. After packing the rest of the goods in the pack (after reading the Batmare comic book twice out of sheer boredom; yay Batmare!) along with the remaining boxes of my dinner, I placed the loaded saddlebag back into the the locker and closed it.

There was a knock at my door and I nearly had a heart attack. Couldn’t a mare get a little privacy? Or, according to the PipBuck, a little freakin’ sleep?

A voice with a thick accent came from the other side of the door. “Ach, girlie! Ye presentable in there?” Yep. Definitely Baked Potato. I got up and opened the door. Or actually, I got up, tripped then hit the door with my face. I rubbed my nose as the door opened with a clank and a thump and the familiar, not sleeping Baked Potato walked in with a package on his back. He grabbed it in his teeth and dropped it on my bed. “Well, if ye feel like gettin’ dressed anytime soon, Rumcake said ye’d probably like this back.”

I opened the plastic wrapping of the package and pulled out my light scout barding, slightly worn and torn. It had been cleaned and fixed in a few spots, but most disturbingly there was a straight, clean cut stained with blood where the left sleeve used to be. I looked at my stump where there was now just a metal replacement and looked at the uniform again.

“If it’s any consolation prize, ye did manage to hurt whatever gotcha a mite badly. Most o’ the blood we cleaned off wasn’t pony blood.” He nodded at the sliced sleeve. “That was a bit harder to clean out. Ye nearly bled out on us lass, and the last thing we needed was a dead prisoner.” I must have looked appalled, and he attempted to change the subject. “M’boy don’t show it, but me lad Rummy’s mighty sweet on ye. Maybe return the favor, lass? I gotta get back to pretending to work. Oh yea, this is apparently yours.” He dug in one of his side compartments and tossed a squashed Enclave Officer’s cap on the bed as he walked out. The door slammed shut after he left.

I examined my uniform one more time. Still in okay shape, only a little damaged, except of course the missing sleeve. I took a closer look at the bloodstained left sleeve. The cut was perfect, no fraying or tearing—just a slight singe. It was like whatever weapon it was cut through my foreleg and the light armor like it wasn’t ever there. I assumed that I had been attacked by something large and armed with some kind of bladed energy weapon.

I put away my uniform and turned my attention to the Officer’s Cap. This wasn’t mine, so I obviously got it from someone. I looked on the inside of the cap and found nothing but a tag that read “Dry clean only, do not wash”. Disconcertingly enough, there were still some bloodstains on the inside brim of the cap, and I wasn’t sure whether it was my blood or the previous owner’s.

I ran a hoof through my mane and stopped. I twitched my ear, then felt it with a hoof. Nononono please still be there, please be my imagination! I looked into the grimy mirror and moved my head closer to it. On my right ear, there used to be a small green earring that I’d received from… somepony. Somepony important? I couldn’t remember. It was starting to get really annoying not knowing anypony I’d met, anypony I’d talked to, and all for no discernible reason! I moved my uniform and my cap into the arms locker under my bunk. These questions could be answered another day. For now, I wanted some actual sleep because unconsciousness probably wasn’t the same.

~~~~~

I was rudely awakened by a hammering on my door in the dark and early hours of… 11:00 a.m., according to my PipBuck. It was Friday! I didn’t have a work shift until—

I looked up and glanced around the room.

Right, prisoner, Steel Ranger base. Not the barracks back at… where? Gah! Why can I only remember all the really useless stuff?

The door opened and Rumcake walked into the room. “Rise and shine, prisoner! I bring you breakfast and the morning news.” He brought in a tray with two more cherry snack cakes and a RadAway. “Senior Scribe Instant Noodles insisted that you get your share of radiation meds so that you don’t accidentally die on us.”

I groaned and groggily slid my way off the bed, starting with my rear legs then when I got completely out of bed and took a step, I fell flat on my face again. I looked wistfully at my mostly-missing leg and held back tears. I sat up and leaned against the wall as I made my way to the table.

“Still not used to it, huh?” Rumcake asked, a bit more gently than I expected. I shook my head. I looked back at my wings and took solace in the fact that the feathers were starting to grow back correctly. I quietly munched a cherry filled snack cake. Oh cherry filling, why are you so delicious? Rumcake continued, “You’re scheduled for another interrogation today.”

I rested my head on the table and munched the other snack cake. “I don’t know. What am I supposed to do? I had so much going for me at home, and then I get captured. I don’t even know if the Enclave is going to let me back in!” I looked at him, tears in my eyes. “I… I just don’t want to die here… alone.” I felt a tear roll down my cheek. Great… I was getting sappy in front of the enemy.

“Suck it up, pegasus. That’s what happens to deserters and traitors,” Rumcake curtly shot at me.

That was uncalled for, to say the least. I continued to heartbrokenly sob into the crook of my remaining leg. This was it, and there was nothing I could do about it. I heard the door crank open and shut, but I didn’t pay it much mind. Would there even be a rescue team? Probably not, considering the lack of Wonderbolt infiltration in this Steel Ranger base.

“Pull yourself together, Frosty. Maybe there’s still a chance.” I admonished myself, then scoffed and adopted a more sarcastic tone. “And maybe they left the door unlocked.”

I threw the empty Sparkle-Cola bottle at the door activation button and nearly fell off my bunk when the door actually opened. Escape? Not one to tempt fate more than a few times a week, I poked my head out of the door.

There was no alarm, no yelling Rangers, no shooting, just me in a dim, but slightly brighter, hallway with a penchant for drab architecture. The hallway gave me more space than my tiny room did. After I was somewhat sure I was alone, I retrieved the bag and its interesting contents.

I yawned and stretched my stiff, sore muscles. I really needed to move around because I used to fly and run on a daily basis quite a lot. After getting injured, losing my leg and then even losing my ability to fly, I’d pretty much stopped moving around. I stretched out my legs and experimentally flapped my wings. Even after pulling the damaged feathers, my left wing still felt too light and airy to be stable. I double-checked the straps on my metal leg and once I was sure it wouldn’t come off while I was moving about. I leaned back to loosen up my forelegs when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“You’re not earning any points with your cute little display.” Rumcake called out. I stopped in my tracks and cursed my lack of foresight. Why couldn’t I have just taken off when I had the chance? “Turn around, very slowly.”

Obviously, I complied. He had his helmet off for once and dear sweet Celestia was he cute! His coat was a dark, rich coffee brown, and his lovely (albeit funny) mane was the most adorable shade of pink. Wait, I didn’t just say that, did I? “What’s in the bag?” he asked.

I attempted to compose myself and managed to blurt, “Blanket. Basic supplies. Towel.” Smooth, Frosty. Rumcake was not amused by this, but I continued anyway. “Changing topics, aren’t you going to tell me to go back into my cell? I’m new to the whole prisoner thing, but it’s kinda what we do in the Enclave.”

Rumcake grunted and walked over to me. “New orders, courtesy of the Inquisitor.” I pouted at this statement, but he ignored my expression and continued “I’ve been informed that you are free to walk around the base as long as you have an escort to keep you in check. Oh, and this.” He quickly slapped a heavy black collar around my neck and locked it in place.

“The hell is this?” I yelped, flapping backward a bit too late.

The collar lightly beeped. “Bomb collar. If you try anything funny, I have clearance to detonate it. It’s got a built in tracker so we’ll know where you are at all times. Can you fly yet?” Rumcake pointedly asked.

“I was hoping to stretch my wings, but I don’t think it’ll be possible yet.” I frowned and flapped my wings to emphasize my point. “So if you will, I’m going to walk around for a bit.” He nodded, giving me the go-ahead.

“For your information, in the event we are forced to exit the base, you are not allowed to fly at all. If you do, you will have five seconds before I am authorized to detonate your collar. Furthermore, if you leave the transmission range of the detonator, the collar will explode. I control the safety range that you are allowed to roam in. If your collar starts to beep, turn around,” Rumcake dictated. “Now, follow me.”

I obediently followed him to a set of familiar doors and we stepped through them. A few scribes milled around doing whatever scribe-ly things they were assigned. One of them was doing his best at repairing a heavily weathered assault rifle, another was doing his best impression of a ballerina while trying to replace the light above his workstation, and a few more were simply doing generic boring things that I quickly lost interest in.

Instead of sleeping on the workbench, Baked Potato was using some kind of power tool on a set of armor that had gashes along one side. Next to Baked, a larger yellow stallion with a graying mane was fiddling with several disassembled weapons. Both stallions wore protective eyewear and earplugs. Rumcake strode up to the old stallion and yelled into his ear, “Officer present!”

The old buck jumped and tossed gun parts all over the room in fright. The lightbulb scribe completely flipped out and fell off his workbench. All the way in the back corner of the room, a cute little orange number that obviously hadn’t been paying any attention at all literally threw whatever she was working on in the air and barely managed to catch it before it hit the ground. One of the parts that the yellow stallion had hit Baked and he stopped to look up. I tried my best, but I started laughing so hard I could barely stand.

“Good to know you’re still up to your shenanigans, Rummy,” he grumbled. “Baked Potato! Put that down and help me find that firing pin I just threw across the room.” He started searching the immediate area around him for parts that had rolled on the floor. “And I assume you’re the little Enclave birdie we picked up a few days ago. I’m Head Knight Banana Pudding, and that unintelligible pony over there is Knight Baked Potato. Seems you’re feeling better already.”

“The little Enclave lass and I ‘r already acquainted, thanks t’ Rummy over here.” He walked around the room, and from under a different workbench, “Aha! Found a cylinder for a .32, Banana!” He stood up with the cylinder in his teeth and dropped it on his workbench. “Somethin’ tells me yer not here to play, eh girlie?”

I gave him a withering look. “I’m here on account of not being allowed to do anything,” I sarcastically replied, carefully twisting and tugging at the explosive choker strapped around my neck to squeeze as much comfort as I could out of it. “Not like I really have a choice anymore.”

Rumcake began to sift through the mess that the Rangers probably called a workshop. “How’s the maintenance order coming along?” he very loudly questioned to the two other Steel Rangers in the room, who both glared at each other.

“Not very well, thanks to a certain somepony that keeps drinking the butane.” Banana Pudding raised his voice at the end of that sentence.

Tools clattered from the other side of the room. “Ye stored th’ blasted stuff in a drinkin’ bottle! Not me fault,” Baked shot back.

“Shut it, you two. Bakey, I need you to relieve the prisoner of our PipBuck.”

The Ranger saluted and retrieved a small crowbar from a small drawer. “No prob’.” He gently lifted up my leg—which I very cautiously consented to—and performed some interesting maneuvers with the metal bar. A few moments later the blocky device clamped around my leg snapped open and dropped to the table. “All done, lass.”

I quickly lost interest when their back-and-forth bickering started up again and I instead began to lazily peruse the parts of machinery littering the nearby table. There were bits and bobs of guns, pistol rounds, an energy coil, and what I was very sure was half of a balefire egg launcher. Maybe now would be a good time to ask how this gun in this bag worked.

“Question,” I suddenly piped up. “Any idea what this is?.” I nonchalantly hefted my saddlebag and let it hit the table with a resounding thump. I grinned as I took out the anti-machine rifle parts.

“Celestia’s rump, lass!” Baked exclaimed. He examined the parts carefully. “These ‘r in very good shape… maybe a bit o’ grease and it’ll be fully functional. Of course, there is the eensy-weensy problem that you don’t have any bullets…” He stuck his head inside my bag and searched for something. From inside the bag, he said, “or a magazine… or a scope.” He pulled himself out of my saddlebag and concluded, “Congratulations lass, you’re the proud new owner of a well-maintained club. The magazine and the bullets ‘r the most important, but the lasa’ scope is the funny part—this rifle has been custom fitted with iron sights. There was neva’ a mounting rail for a scope on this rifle. It does come with a bipod, so this was never meant to be battle-saddle mounted either.”

“Wait, why are we giving a prisoner a GUN?” Banana Pudding protested. “We should have the guns, not her!” He fumed and paced around the workbench to face me. “What’s your plan, eh?”

“Oi, Puddin’ lay off o’ her! Nopony on the base has ammo or magazines for that rifle, anyway. Unless she wants to hit us with with it, which she can’t cuz’ of her bum leg, let ‘er try!” Baked Potato yelled.

“Since you two can’t make up your minds, I’m going to repossess this weapon for the Rangers. It’s a powerful weapon and I’m positive that somepony will recover ammunition for it eventually.” Rumcake slammed his hoof on the table and pulled the weapon toward him. I felt a pang of jealous rage as he began to thoroughly examine my weapon.

“Um… can I add something here?” I asked timidly, mustering my voice. “I’ve always believed the Steel Rangers were diabolically evil death machines that stole technology from the other wastelanders. Considering a lot of things, I’m even starting to think Autumn Leaf wasn’t exaggerating at all.” I froze. Who? Everypony else in the room stopped and stared as well. “Why does that name sound so familiar? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Excellent, we’re going to have to report this. Knight Baked Potato will take your things back to your room.” Banana motioned to Baked Potato to pick up my saddlebag. “Rumcake, you better take her to Soufflé. He’ll hear one way or another.”

“Here we go again. Never a dull moment,” Rumcake whispered to me as we both left the engineers’ room and proceeded to take me back to interrogation. Who was Autumn Leaf, and what had just happened? “Just… don’t do anything stupid. Please.” He opened the door and ushered me in. Then the door slammed shut behind me and I was alone in this room, again.

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Enclave Training – Despite your memory loss, your training as an Enclave soldier has stayed with you. Good thing you paid attention in class! You gain +5 to your Science and Medicine skills.

End of Chapter 1! -

Author's Note

Welcome to the ride!

So before you continue any farther, please keep in mind that this story is not intended to be taken super seriously as with other FoE stories. Sit back and have a laugh!

Chapter 3: Why does everypony have to pick me up?

Chapter 3: Why does everypony have to pick me up?

“Ultra Pony Roller Derby! Go!”

I gradually became aware of my surroundings as the dreamscape melted away. There was an antiseptic tang in the air, straps biting into my limbs and torso, and, worst of all, my head was a pounding mess of pain. I could feel the chill of the cold metal medical table spreading through my back. I didn’t even want to open my eyes because of the brightness in the room. I heard voices and faint hoofsteps, but couldn’t move to check where.

I tried to scratch my nose with my claw, but I only succeeded in hitting myself in the head with my stump. I managed to crack an eye open just enough to observe that my claw had been detached. I groaned and tried to open my other eye, only to shut it again after receiving an eye-searing amount of light that aggravated my poor brain. My neck itched too, on the side I couldn’t reach because of the straps. “Can someone turn the bucking light off?” I managed to groan.

The voices outside abruptly stopped and I heard somepony walk into the room. They turned on more lights in the room and walked over to me. I whined in protest and tried to get off the medical table, but the straps held me in place. “Rise n’ shine lass!” Baked Potato yelled. “Ye’ve got a lot of explainin’ to do!” I groaned again and slowly opened my eyes. I was greeted by Baked’s overenthusiastic face inches away from my own. “Ye feelin’ better yet?” he asked, somewhat quieter.

“I hate you. So much. Right now,” I whispered. I was wide awake now, and all the lights were making my brain hurt like crazy. Have I mentioned how much I hate bright lights? “How bad am I hurt? Am I missing anything else?” I didn’t feel like I was missing anything, but it never hurt to get a second opinion.

“Nah, but Rummy took yer claw away. Safety reasons, he said.” Baked looked skeptical. “I think he’s still a wee bit upset about that stunt ye pulled yesterday.” Yesterday? Why do I keep losing track of time? “Don’t look surprised lass, ye’re the heaviest sleeper I’ve ever seen!” I glared at him. “Ye passed out through another explosion, thrown about on Rummy, and ye’ve been out since we patched ye up as well. I’m surprised ye woke up at all!” he said with a grin.

“So what’s with the straps? And how beat up did I get?” I asked when I noticed all the bandages. Seriously, every time I woke up I was more injured than before!

“Let’s say most o’ the Rangers didn’t think it was funny when ye somehow happened to acquire one anti-Ranger bullet for your enormous anti-Ranger rifle.” He began to loosen the straps with his teeth. “And some of ‘em didn’t think it was safe to let a prisoner out at all, not that I can blame ‘em.” He loosened the last strap, allowing me to sit up onto my haunches. I stretched my foreleg and shook my wings hard. I wobbled unsteadily because of my missing claw and was about to ask Baked if I could have it back, when he continued, “As for yer fancy dandy claw, I took the liberty of makin’ it a bit more sturdy and fancy!”

I smiled at him. My Little Mechanic, what would I do without you? “Thanks! But… can I have it back?” He frowned at this. Not good.

“Bah, Rummy’s in a sour sort of mood, and since he’s yer jailer…” Baked trailed off. I knew what he meant. Rumcake probably didn’t appreciate me having the ability to kill a Steel Ranger if I had bullets, and taking my claw was a fitting way to prevent that for the moment.

“I know,” I mumbled. “So what happens now?”

“I have some good news!” Baked exclaimed. “I, uh, repossessed” – he made air quotes with his hooves – “yer claw and did some upgrades.” I squee’d. “Bad news though…” He sounded sullen with this statement. “I can’t give it back to ye unless Rummy clears it.”

I nodded. “It’s fine. I might have deserved that, I suppose.” I figured I’d get it back soon enough. After all, Rumcake couldn’t in good conscience keep my own leg away from me for long. More importantly, if I didn’t get it back soon, how was I going to get around?

“And some better news!” Baked added. My ears perked up. Better news? I love better news! “It’s time again for yer psych eval!” He grinned wider. I only had patience to glare angrily at him when Instant Noodles walked into the room. “I’ll leave ye ladies to it.” As he left the room, I barely heard him singing something along the lines of “Here I come, mess hall!”

I lay down and asked Instant, “So, how messed up is my brain?” She giggled at this. Aww, she was adorable. “And since Baked managed to forget to answer my original question, what happened to me this time?”

Instant Noodles stood next to the table and pulled out a clipboard and pencil. “I’ve decided to diagnose you with a recurring addiction to masochism.” I gaped at her. What. She ignored my stunned expression and continued, “You have demonstrated repeated attempts to grievously harm yourself, and each time has ended in disaster.” I couldn’t believe my ears! I was about to ask her whether or not I should be worried when she started laughing. “Oh Celestia, the look on your face was priceless!” She wiped a tear from her eye with a hoof. “I didn’t think you would fall for it that easily!” I attempted to faceclaw, but I forgot my claw had been taken away from me. Of course. Taunt the handicapped pegasus, because there was nothing better to do.

“No, but seriously, what happened?” I asked, once Instant had stopped laughing and regained her composure. “Once second we were under attack, the next I’m tied down in the medical bay!” I was starting to get a little depressed about my current situation.

Instant’s expression became serious. “Letting you run loose through the base was a lapse of judgement on my part. From now on, I’m keeping you on a tighter leash.”

Ha, leash. Collar. Bomb collar. Ha, she’d made a funny. What had I been doing though? I had been lying down in the hallway with the rifle… one bullet… I looked up and asked urgently, “Is Soufflé okay?” Conflicting emotions were running through my head.

Instant was actually surprised by my question. “He’s still out but he’ll live. Why?” I breathed a sigh of relief. “As for you, something cut your neck and it nicked an artery. You’re lucky you didn’t bleed out.” Instant must have noticed something, because she asked, “Why did you want to know about Soufflé?” She raised an eyebrow and waited.

I buried my face in my hoof. Can’t hide anything from a therapist, can you? “I… I considered killing Soufflé in that hallway…” I mumbled into the table. I looked up and nearly shouted at Instant, “This isn’t what I’ve been told all my life! Nothing’s gone right, you’re not supposed to be this nice, and I’ve lost so much. I’m supposed to fight Rangers and I ended up saving a Celestia-damned cake. I just don’t know what to believe anymore.” I broke down and cried into my hoof.

Instant put down her clipboard and wrapped her hooves around my neck. “I know it must be hard to be going through all of this, but persevere. If it makes you feel better, everything that the Grand Pegasus Enclave tells you is all propaganda. Of course, that also assumes our intel is correct.” She hugged me tighter as I cried into her shoulder. “What made you change your mind?”

I sniffled and looked up into her orange eyes. “My father told m-me I needed to be a better pony. It was… the l-last thing he…” I started crying again. I hadn’t cried this hard since I was a little filly. I was under a lot of pressure, so many things happening at once that just weren’t going my way, and simply because I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

“Your father must have been a good pony… Smoky Winds, was it?” Instant asked. I nodded. My crying had devolved into quiet sobs. “What was he like, you know, when he wasn’t your leader?”

I answered forlornly, “I don’t remember.” Instant looked at me questioningly. “Yes, really. I don’t really remember anything about him.” I racked my poor damaged brain for answers. C’mon brain! Anything?

Shut up, Frosty. I have no idea.

Well, thanks for helping, brain. “It’s like all the important things about my Enclave life is gone… That can’t be coincidence.” Instant wrote this down while still holding me in her hooves. I was feeling much better now. She held me for a few minutes as my sobs turned into little hiccups.

Our quiet moment was interrupted when an armored head poked into the room. “Ma’am? Inquisitor Soufflé is up. He’s asking for you.” He looked directly at me and added, “And bring the prisoner too.” Having delivered his message, the Ranger turned and left.

Instant pulled away and put down her clipboard and pencil. “We better go before he gets angry.” She turned to leave, when she noticed me waving my stump at her. She looked around and sighed. “Since there’s no wheelchair, you can lean on me. It’s only three rooms away.” She walked back to the table and helped me down.

I leaned against her right side and we slowly hobbled our way out. I noticed a sign on the wall and I asked, “Is it okay if I stopped by the little fillies’ room? I need to empty my bladder and should probably get cleaned up.” I probably looked terrible right now. Last thing I needed was for Soufflé to ridicule me about me crying my eyes out. “I’ll be right back,” I said as I turned to trot into the bathroom, only to fall flat on my face. Damn you, brain. Missing leg, remember?

Shut up, Frosty.

“Help. I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

~~~~~

After I’d finished my business, with a bit of difficulty, we managed to make our way to Soufflé’s room. He was lying down in a big poofy medical bed reading something in his hooves. How come he gets a real bed? No fair!

“We need to talk,” he said without looking up.

Instant and I looked at each other. She nudged me, indicating that he was probably talking to me. “Uh… okay? What do you want to talk about?” I was very nervous about this meeting. Did he know? Was that why?

“I’d like to thank you,” Soufflé began. So he didn’t know yet. For the better, I guess. “You saved my life back there… Frosty.” Wait, Frosty? Not Enclave rat? Not prisoner? He’d actually used my name! We were really getting somewhere now! “I understand you had an attack of opportunity back there.” I flattened my ears against my head. Yep, he knew. He looked up at me in genuine surprise. “Why didn’t you just shoot me then and there?”

I pawed at the ground nervously. “Well, to tell you the truth…” I sighed. Let’s get this over with, I guess. “I really was going to kill you for a while there. I tried. Then I decided that killing you wouldn’t solve anything.” I sat down and continued. “I like to think that I’m a good pony, and letting you live was the right thing to do, whether I liked it or not.” Soufflé smiled. He actually smiled!

“Hm. I… I see.” Soufflé paused, seemingly unsure about himself. “Uh, status update, Instant Noodles?”

“Sir, we have three Rangers still recovering from the last assault and Panini is still in surgery,” Instant reported. Soufflé nodded. “As for Frosty, she needs time to recover after losing all that blood.”

The Inquisitor nodded. “I see. The two of you are dismissed. I have… repairs to oversee.”

“C’mon! Let’s go.” And then Instant picked me up in her yellow magical field and strolled out of the room with me in tow.

“Hey! Put me down!” I protested. I did not like being picked up at all, especially against my will! Instant complied, and put me down on the ground again, only for me to take a step and fall onto my face. Again. Brain, why must you fail me? “Ow. Pick me up please.” I was wrapped in a magical field again and lifted up. “Don’t. Say. Anything,” I growled at Instant. She was smirking at me and obviously trying to not to laugh.

I spent the next few minutes floating in silence. Instant spent the time snickering and trying not to laugh too hard. She finally stopped giggling long enough to ask, “What about your family?” I stopped fuming long enough to actually stop and think.

“What about ‘em? Dad’s dead and I really don’t know if I’ve got anypony else really waiting on me,” I glumly told her. “The Enclave has a policy… simply, anypony stranded on the surface has been ‘contaminated’ and will be removed from the population list. For all they care, my entire squad has been marked down as KIA and that’ll be that. A few someponies lucky up there probably received a certificate to have a foal. I might not have a place up there anymore, soldier or not.”

We got back to my room and Instant dropped me gently onto my bunk. I noticed my saddlebag had been placed onto my table along with a box of snack cakes, a slightly crushed carton of apple chips, and a poorly written note. Instant reminded me, “Get some rest, seriously. You lost a lot of blood and we frankly weren’t sure if any of our blood packs would work on pegasi.” I nodded. “Also, Baked said he had something else for you when you’re feeling better. Most likely he’ll stop by later or tomorrow.” After that she left, leaving me in my room with my thoughts.

I flopped closer to the table and examined the note. It read “Got ya sum dinner. Herd u like the chery ones. Also clean the rifle. The blood messd up the internls.” It was signed by Baked, followed by what I hoped was a coffee stain. Yay, cherry snack cakes! I hooked the strap on the saddlebag with my hoof and pulled it toward me. I opened it up, and inside I found the rifle neatly broken down and the parts tucked into their respective pockets. Along with the rest of the things I had hoarded before, there was a pamphlet labeled “Rifle Assembly and You! A Dummy’s Guide to Firearms!” along with a bottle of what I assumed was gun oil. There was an oily rag next to it with a tiny little note that said, “clean harder!”

I sighed and started cleaning. After studying the manual and comparing the instructions to my rifle, I got a grasp on what parts go where and how they were put together. I gripped the rag in my teeth and started cleaning the dirt and grime from the body of the rifle. When I got to the main assembly, I cringed. The blood that had covered the bullet dripped into the little cracks in the assembly, presumably while I was lining up the shot that saved Soufflé. I shuddered and started wiping the dried blood off of the mechanism parts. There was blood stuck to everything! Blood all over the breech, blood in the gas system, blood spattered all over the inside of the gun! As I cleaned, I thought back to the encounter that had saved Soufflé. I’d lined up the shot. I was ready to fire. Soufflé was too busy trying to reach his pistol to even attempt to try to run. I’d had an opportunity. I’d had a single bullet that could kill him. Why didn’t I do it?

“If you keep cleaning that breech, you’ll shine a hole through it.” I looked up to see Rumcake walk in through the doorway with a weak smile on his face. He didn’t have his armor on for once, but he still managed to look menacing without it. And, of course, his incredibly menacing pink mane. I smiled back with an exhausted expression on my face. I thought he’d never talk to me again. “I heard what happened, and I might have overreacted a little. When Soufflé wasn’t moving I assumed the worst. I never really thought you would be lucky enough to find a single anti-machine bullet. You and Soufflé don’t particularly like each other, and it only made sense to kill him when the opportunity arose.” He sat down in the doorway. “Only later did I realize that you’d saved Soufflé. Why?”

I exhaled in exhaustion. Why did everypony want to know? “I’m a good pony,” I explained again. “I’m better than just petty revenge.” I looked up from my cleaning. “Sometimes, sacrifices must be made for the good of the future.” I proceeded to start putting the body of the rifle together. I’d cleaned out all the blood I could and the mechanism was feeling a lot smoother. “You also owe me one anti-machine bullet.”

“What? Why?” Rumcake asked. “I don’t owe you anything!”

I feigned surprise. “Oh really? You don’t owe me anything for saving your boss?” Rumcake grimaced and folded his ears back. I made a sad face and scooted closer to him. “Not even a kiss?”

“What.” Rumcake was frozen in a combination of surprise and shock. I wouldn’t blame him for his word choice either. He managed to recover and stammer, “Why would I kiss you, anyway?”

I kept it up. This was comedy gold! “Not even a widdle smoochy woochy?” I cooed at him. I couldn’t stop, this was amazing!

He facehoofed. “If I give you a kiss, will you let me leave with my dignity?” His face was slowly matching his mane. He leaned closer. “Nobody. Hears. About. This. Ever.” I grinned and scooted closer. I closed my eyes and scooted closer. I could feel his breath on my cheek, the scent of gun oil an—

My little romantic train of thought was abruptly derailed as he suddenly shoved a snack cake into my mouth. “Thathsh not faaahr!” I yelled around a mouthful of snack cake. This wasn’t supposed to have happened! I was supposed to make fun of— Oooh, cherry filling! He laughed hysterically as I munched on the snack cake in an odd state between anger and bliss.

“Didn’t see that coming, did you!” he exclaimed. “Oh Celestia, that was perfect!” I glared at him as he continued to laugh. “You should have seen yourself!” He laughed harder. Before I could throw back a clever response, he leaned in and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “That’s all you get, Frosty,” he whispered. Then he got up and left, leaving me alone. I could only sit on my bed, blushing and in slight shock. He’d kissed me!

Well, that went better than expected.

Shut up, brain. I put everything away while in a slight haze of happiness and then went to sleep, happy and content for once.

~~~~~

I woke up to the sound of clanking machinery and hammering. I groggily hauled myself into a sitting position. Why did it have to be so noisy? I squinted at the doorway. What was going on? I scooted my rear end out of bed and then swung my front legs off the bed… only to faceplant onto the floor. Brain, why must you fail me so often?

Shut up Frosty, I’m not awake yet.

The door crunched open and Baked Potato poked his head into the room. “Rise and shine, girlie!” he called out. I managed a groan. It was too early. He looked down at me in what I assumed was surprise. “You sleep down there all night?” he asked. I growled at him. Not funny. “Well, get yer pretty flank in gear! I gotta show ye something!” I could only shift around on the floor. Still tired. I was thinking about getting comfortable on the floor, until I was bodily picked up and thrown onto Baked’s back. I meeped in surprise. Why wasn’t I allowed to sleep anymore?

“Hey! Come on! Why does everypony have to pick me up? Put me down!” I cried. I immediately realized my mistake just as Baked was leaning over to drop me face-first into the floor. “WAIT WAIT WAIT!” I used my one hoof to try to grab onto his armored back. “Don’t put me down! Don’t put me down!” I could swear he was trying his hardest not to laugh. “Can you at least tell me where we’re going?”

Baked continued carrying me as if he'd never heard the question.

My impromptu taxi eventually stopped in a medium-sized living quarters area. “Well, ‘ere’s my room! There isn’t much, but make yerself comfortable!” he said as he dropped me onto the messy bed in the corner of the room. I surveyed the rest of the room with slight interest. The room itself appeared to be some kind of small machinist’s room. There was a workbench crammed in one corner between two other cots and a large metal table next to it covered with bits of machinery, tools, and miscellaneous metal parts. There was a metal storage locker and a small locker in the farther corner of the room. Baked trotted over to the other side of the room and dug around in the storage locker.

Imagine my glee when he returned with my new and upgraded claw! Yay! No more face planting! “Woah! That looks amazing!” I exclaimed. When he’d said he made it more fancy, that was a total understatement! “You even painted it! White with blue highlights, just like my mane!”

“Yep. Glad ye like it, girl!” He brought it over and plopped it down on the bed. “I’ve strengthened the joints in the claws, I wrapped it in a shell so at least the blood and dirt won’t get in the pistons, and it’s got a built-in compartment to store caps in!” he gushed. He was obviously very proud in his handiwork. “Now, I’mma plug it in so I don’t have to carry you anymore.” I nodded. I didn’t need anymore ponies dropping me on my face, that’s for sure. “I’m going to plug it in on three,” he said. I closed my eyes and braced myself. “Three!” he shouted.

Wait, wha—? “AAUUGHHH! LUNA’S FROSTY FLANK YOU’RE SUCH A CUNT!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. I felt my nerves connect to the signals in my claw. The connection point felt like it burned underneath my skin and all I felt was excruciating pain, and the raging feeling of I’m-going-to-kill-Baked boiling in my mind. A good ten minutes later when the pain had faded to a slight blur of rage, I opened my eyes and blinked the tears away as I glared at Baked. “That wasn’t fair. I wasn’t ready.” I mean, really! Who starts a count at three?

Baked grinned at me as he said, “I told ye I’d put it in at three!” I pouted at him. I was really tempted to attack him with my brand new claw.

Relax, Frosty. We’ll get back at him.

Thanks brain, that’s all you.

“Did ye remember to clean out that rifle?” I nodded solemnly. “Remember next time: bloody bullets will mess up rifles.” I nodded again.

We were both stopped by a purple and red mare sticking her head into the room. “So I heard you’re a cunt, ‘Tater! What’s new?” I stared blankly as she waltzed into the room and pointedly looked me over. “So you’re the experiment. Nice to meet you! I’m Fruit Punch!”

She raised a hoof. I hesitated. Why did she sound so familiar?

“What? I’m not going to punch you.”

Oh… right. This was the alleged “rip my wings off” mare. She looked at me funny. “Let me guess… Soufflé?”

I nodded. “Tell me the truth… are you really as evil as Soufflé claims you are?” I asked. She gave me a funny look. “He’d say you’d rip my wings off.” I flapped my wings to emphasize my point. Wait, I had wings! I’d totally forgotten over the course of this… week? I’d been walking around and passed out so much I’d forgotten to check how my feathers were doing!

Fruit answered my question before I could turn around and check on my feathers. “Oh, he’s just angry that I can out-wrestle him. And probably because I’m a Stampede junkie.” She grinned, and I gave her one of my what-are-you-talking-about faces. She elaborated, “Stampede is a combat drug that Steel Rangers use. Its amazing!”

Baked Potato leaned over and told me, “When the Stampede kicks in, she goes in like a manticore and backhoofs everythin’, guns or no.” I looked to Fruit and she nodded. “This one time this insane lass single hoofedly ran in and punched a raider stronghold apart. Not a single grenade fired. It was amazin’!”

“Well, I gotta run. Maybe see you sometime?” Fruit said nonchalantly. “Make sure Baked doesn’t go too overboard, ‘kay?” I gave her a puzzled look but she just smiled and left. I raised an eyebrow at Baked.

“What? It’s not my fault all I’m ‘llowed to do is fix things! Ya know how borin’ that is? I need somethin’ to dooooo!” He kneeled at my hooves and held my shoulders. “Let me work my magic on ye!”

I contemplated taking a few steps back… he could potentially be serious or he was making fun of me. This couldn’t possibly get more awkward.

As if called to action, Rumcake suddenly decided to walk in. “So, Fruit Punch tells me—” And he stopped in mid sentence when he saw Baked essentially begging in front of me as I stood there in shock. “Uh… am I interrupting something here?”

“This probably isn’t what it looks like!” I blurted. My cheeks burned. Oh dear Celestia, why did these things happen to me all the time? I could feel Gala Frosty facehoofing with me in my mind. Oh Celestia, why?

“Let me guess… he wants to play with your claw thing because he’s bored.” Rumcake guessed. I looked at him in surprise. He saw me and all he had to say was, “What? I know my Potato well.” They shared a brohoof and grinned. “So he gave you your claw thing back. I guess I can live with that,” Rumcake told me. “Think of it as an apology about the whole snack cake thing yesterday.”

Baked looked at us questioningly. “Don’t worry about it,” we both said simultaneously

A voice from the PA system interrupted our increasingly awkward meeting. “Head Knight, Head Paladin, Head Scribe, High Scribes, report to the conference room immediately. Paladin Commander Rumcake, put together a small security detail. Senior Scribe Instant Noodles, bring your pet with you.” Everypony in the room looked at each other. “Also, to the soldier that put explosives in the officer’s latrine, you will be severely reprimanded. That was not funny.”

A voice in the background shouted, “It was hilarious! Woo!”

~~~~~

For a meeting room, this was much less imposing than I was thinking it would be—peeling wallpaper, shoddy carpeting, equally shoddy lights, and a tiny projector on a table. Unfortunately, it was not large enough to fit ten mostly-armored Steel Rangers, five scribes, a pompous armored dessert, and a partly mechanical pegasus. We were all nearly pressed up against each other and the room was slowly heating up due to all the body heat circulating in here. I was getting a few dirty looks and blank helmet stares, and I was getting nervous from being trapped in the middle of my Rumcake–Instant sandwich. I tried to get at the itch right under my bomb collar, but I could barely move my forelegs as it was.

My inner pegasus was screaming at me “GO OUTSIDE I’M GOING INSANE”. I was nervously trying not to lean against either Ranger next to me. I knew they were big, but I hadn’t actually realized they were this big!

Or you’re really tiny.

Shut up, brain.

I tapped Rumcake’s armored shoulder. He leaned down and I whispered to him, “Can I stand on your back?” He raised an eyebrow at me. “I can barely see and I’m not very good with tight spaces,” I squeaked.

“You’re heavy,” he told me.

You astronomical wanker! I’m not that heavy!

He saw my steaming expression and smiled. “Gotcha. Sure, climb on if you want.” He bent down so I could hop onto his back. I was now getting a few strange looks, but Soufflé loudly and obnoxiously cleared his throat and most of the attention was focused in his direction. I managed to stabilize myself and now I could actually see over everypony. I shook out my right wing because it had fallen asleep, then I realized something. I could probably hover around for the first time in ages! I examined my left wing and observed that the feathers had grown back somewhat well, so I decided to attempt hovering.

I nervously flapped my wings, and imagine my surprise when I actually achieved lift! I kicked my legs in glee. I was flying again! Yay! I checked the ceiling height just to make sure I had enough room for my next stunt. I floated higher then quickly turned upside down. It was a bit strange at first, but I gradually got the hang of it again. “Hey, Rumcake! Check me out!” I whispered as I descended into his vision. From the top of his vision. Needless to say, it actually scared him a little and he actually jumped back a little with a clank. I giggled at him as he glared at me. I stuck my tongue out at him and floated up to stand on the ceiling.

“Gentlecolts, you’re probably wondering why you’re here. Don’t worry—so am I.” Soufflé looked around the room. “I have no idea why I’m here. All I was told was to get a meeting. That’s it. Where’s that idiot Star Paladin Cheese Puffs?” There was some muttering around the room. “Not here? Well—”

Everything suddenly stopped when a door opened and a blue and orange buck strolled into the room and announced, “Good evening, gentlecolts.” He calmly walked over to Soufflé and dropped something in front of him. “Here’s a fully intact water talisman I reclaimed from the degenerate rabble from down the way. I reclaimed it a few days ago, single hoofedly.” There was some scattered cheering in the crowd. “Yes! Yes! Thank you.” He then took that moment to look up in pride, only to see the incredibly confused and somewhat bored pegasus standing on the room’s ceiling.

We both stared at each other. I was debating how to explain my current predicament while he was probably trying to figure out how I’d gotten in. “Uh… hi?” I tried. Half of the Rangers in the room stared at me, probably wondering how I’d even gotten onto the ceiling. Who said pegasi didn’t have magic!

“Enclave Assassin! Get down!” he shouted. I was going to tell him to chill, but when the minigun on his saddle spun around to face me, I realized I needed to change plans.

“Woah, woah, WOAH, WOAH, WOAH! Hold on! HOLD THE BUCK ON!” I shouted at him. Obviously, he didn’t want to hear it because he quickly put his helmet on and his minigun whined into action. Rangers dove for cover, especially the scribes in the room.

I braced myself against the ceiling and then launched off of it with as much strength as I could toward the far end of the wall next to Cheese Puffs. Bullets slammed into the metal where I had just been standing as I firmly planted my hooves on the wall. One more burst of speed gave me enough momentum to outpace the Ranger’s minigun. I slammed into his side using my shoulder, half expecting to bounce off of him. However, I actually overcame his excessive mass and lifted him off his hooves, only to crash into the ground several feet away. I pounced on him, still in the spell, and backhoofed him hard enough that I may have dislodged his internal hamster wheel. I elegantly followed through by pressing my claw to his throat and holding down his minigun with my hoof.

“Yo, I need you to STOP!” I yelled at him. “And turn off the bucking minigun!”

Cheese Puffs grudgingly complied. “Any of you imbeciles want to fill me in on why nopony’s helping me?” He looked at me. “Madam, would you like to remove your weapon from my throat?” I slowly backed up, breathing heavily, wings flared. I was still pumped from that major adrenaline rush thanks to my epic takedown. Rumcake muscled past him and effortlessly picked me up, holding me in place. He shakily stood up and turned to Soufflé and motioned to me. “Want to explain?”

Soufflé sighed and facehoofed. “If you waited for somepony to say something, or maybe listened first, you’d know.” He motioned at me. “This is Former Enclave Scout Second Class Frosty Winds, also colloquially known as ‘science project’. I’ll personally debrief you on recent events, since you’ve been in the field for a while.” He then motioned at Cheese Puffs. “Science project, this is Star Paladin Cheese Puffs. Shoots first, ignores questions. Now shake hooves and get along or I kill both of you.”

Cheese Puffs snorted and held out a hoof in my general direction. I bared my teeth and growled at him. I wanted to kill him so hard right now, why can’t I just kill him?

Because that’s stupid, Frosty.

Thanks, brain.

Instant Noodles walked over and plucked me up in her golden magical field out of Rumcake’s grip, much to our displeasure. “Alrighty, you two might have gotten off on the wrong hoof—but we can get along, right?” We both glared at each other.

~~~~~

Once I’d been dragged back to my room and been placated with a few snack cakes, I was feeling much less angry and much more tired. “That guy is an ass.” I panted. “I think I hate him more than Soufflé.” For no particularly good reason, Baked Potato also meandered into my room, presumably to bug me and Instant.

“He’s actually a fine exam—” Instant Noodles began, then caught my withering glare. “Oh. Sorry. In other news, what’s wrong with your wings?” I gave her one of my patented what-are-you-talking-about looks. “You haven’t folded your wings.”

I looked down at my wings. Oh, that’s what she meant. My wings were still flared up behind me in combat stance. “Adrenaline circulating. Wings pumped. Gotta go fast.” I waggled my stiff wings to emphasize my point. “It’s a pegasus thing.” Everypony gave me funny looks. “What? It happens!”

“I actually wanna know where ye pulled those moves from!” Baked exclaimed. He made whooshing sounds and waved his hooves in the air. “That was amazin’! And the way ye took down that damned Cheese! I’ve always wanted to do that!”

I blushed and beamed with pride. “I… I really don’t know. I just kinda did my thing, ya know?” Baked raised an eyebrow at me. “It was the first thing that came to mind. Why?”

“Air combat in a small enclosed room? That takes a lot of skill, I assume.” Instant Noodles marveled.

Somepony stuck their head into the room. “Ah do like m’ mares with skill.” We all turned to impart our varying levels of glares at him. “What? I was passin’ by, and ah overheard your conversation.”

I asked him, “Who are you?”

He introduced himself. “Ah’m Knight Cabbage Stew. Ah fix walls.” I shot a deadpan look his way. “Okay, ah fix things. Ah’m in charge of fixing the breach in sector where’s’it. Watch your step over there, darn cement’s still dryin’. See ya!” As he walked down the hallway, a thought came to my mind.

“Hey, how’d the slavers get in here anyway? I thought you idiots fortified this place,” I asked. Really, super secure Steel Rangers base filled with super powerful Steel Rangers. How did they mess this up?

“There are a few places in this base where it leads to a tunnel system. It’s like this place was built inside a tunnel system, and the places where it leads into the tunnels are like the original tunnels,” Rumcake explained. We all gave him a blank stare. “Pretend I’m making sense, okay?”

Everypony stood around in uncomfortable silence. "I think we should get ba—" Instant began, but she was interrupted by a rumbling sound coming from within the base, followed by klaxons going off. An explosion! Wait, why didn’t the alarms go off last time? “It’s another breach! Boys, get geared up!” She looked at me. “And get Frosty a gun so she can actually fight!”

Distantly down the hall, we all heard the faint cry of, “Aw burnin’ hell and tarnation!”

~~~~~

I followed Baked with my saddlebag haphazardly around my neck as he urgently ran to the workshop. “So, whatcha know how to use, lass?” I paused. Uh… what? They were really going to give me weapons? “C’mon, lass! Quit yer gapin and decide!” He started to pull out weapons from cabinets, lockers, and even a trash can. Eww. “Ye want power or speed? Yer call!”

I stammered, “Uh… do you have a laser? Or a plasma rifle? I’m trained in those.” He gave me a look that basically said “does it look like I have those?”. I laughed nervously and said, “Well, I’m already pretty fast… I could use something that can keep up.”

“Now yer talkin’, lass!” He dug around in a different crate and pulled out a small boxy contraption with a crude flame drawn on the side. “This is a 10mm submachine gun. It’s a little worse fer wear, but it works fine fer now. Now, here” – he pointed at the long stick attached to the bottom – “is the magazine. Drop the mag, put in the new one, pull the slide. There, now don’t go on about nopony tellin’ ye how to reload.” He slid some more SMG mags to me. “There’s a few reloads. Careful, this beauty’ll go through rounds faster than Rummy eatin’ at the mess hall!” He chuckled.

I picked up the SMG and heard the base announcer drawl into the PA system, “We have a security breach, if you haven’t noticed. All Rangers arm up and head to sector D-2… again.” I turned to look at Baked, who had suddenly donned his helmet. “Also, if anypony finds Fruit Punch, make sure she doesn’t have all the base’s Stampede. Go get ‘em, gentlecolts.” I picked up the SMG in my teeth and looked to Baked Potato. He nodded, and together we charged toward sector D-2.

When we got there, the fighting had moved out into the tunnel beyond the breached wall. Rangers were taking cover behind rocks in the tunnel and in the hallway, while the attackers hid behind the crest of the tunnel. The Rangers seemed to be doing fine, when another announcement came over the PA system. “Alert! They’re cutting through the walls in E-4! Rangers not at the D-2 breach need to head over to E-4 right now!”

Baked yelled something at me, but I couldn’t hear it over the din of gunfire. He motioned to follow him and broke into a gallop. I jumped and flew behind him, SMG in my teeth.

When we arrived, the walls were flickering with heat. Sparks and saws were cutting through the concrete, with limited success. Several Rangers were already positioned around the cuts being made in the hallway. I jumped once more to stand on the ceiling above Baked. Rumcake showed up behind us with a mini-gun attached to his armor. “I miss the party yet?” he asked. “Where’s Frosty? Hiding in her room?”

I dropped down from the ceiling onto his grenade launcher. “Well genius, does it look like anything has ha—” And yet again, before I could finish my witty comment, the walls exploded and raiders rushed in. Some of them were instantly fragged, but many of them managed to dodge the splash damage of the flying grenades, minigun fire, and even a missile to engage the Rangers in close combat.

I flew backwards and opened fire with my SMG. I watched several shots hit their targets, but they did little to no damage. Some bullets also hit Rumcake and Baked, but the small caliber bullets just bounced off their armor. “Cover me, I’m reloading!” I instinctively shouted. I pulled the empty magazine and slammed a second one in. I pulled the bolt with my claw and fired a volley of shots at the first raider I saw. He cried out in rage and pain, then stopped moving as I opened up with another spray of gunfire. “Dammit, reloading again!” I called out.

“Is that a freakin’ rocket launcha’?” somepony yelled. “Oh buck it is a rocket launcha! Heads down!”

I mentally cycled through the targets in the room, desperately searching for the raider in question. The last thing I needed to add to my day was an explosive projectile to the face. Shotgun, assault rifle, another assault rifle, pistol, another shotgun. I secured a better vantage point using a tall crate to peer into the tunnel beyond. More pistols, an assault rifle, rocket launcher, pistol, ano—WAIT A SECOND. A huge burly slaver, nearly as large as a fully-armored Steel Ranger, carried a massive rocket launcher attached to the side of his battle saddle planted his hooves and took aim.

I unleashed my small caliber bullets and watched them collide with the raider’s face. With luck not wanting to associate itself with me, I watched in mild surprise as absolutely nothing happened. One of the many bullets managed to crack his faceplate, and all it did was cause him to turn in my direction. “Aw, buck.” I kept firing bullets, even as the rocket left the tube and flew toward me.

I was saved from my moment of stupidity when a lightly armored Ranger knocked me down to the metal tiles. “Get down!” he yelled into my ear. The rocket smashed into the wall where I’d just been floating. I made the mistake of raising my head to look and I was rewarded by a shock wave slamming my head into the floor. It was very shortly followed by a wave of fire and shrapnel. I lay there on the ground underneath the Steel Ranger for a while. There was a ringing in my ears and everything was shaking around. I tried to move, but the Ranger on top of me wasn’t moving.

I couldn’t hear myself or anything else for that matter, but I gently shook the Ranger and mouthed, “Are you okay?” No response. I wiggled out from under him and attempted to stumble to safety. Needless to say, I wasn’t doing too good either. Inhaling felt wrong, I couldn’t really see straight, and something felt wrong with my right hindleg. I peered back behind me, and noticed that there was a piece of concrete lodged in my leg, along with some metal shrapnel.

I slowly dragged myself using my forelegs to get around the corner. I was in a haze of pain and I’m pretty sure I was losing lots of blood, again. I saw my SMG lying on the ground in front of me, and I picked it up. I cried out in pain as I stumbled to my feet. Oh dear Celestia my leg hurt so much. Every breath I took was painful, and I kept coughing up blood every other step. I gasped for breath as I stumbled away from the combat zone.

Imagine my horror when I bumped into a slaver. He stumbled and, forgetting he had a pistol in his mouth for a split second, shouted in surprise. Unfortunately for him, this lead to the sudden swallowing of his pistol’s bit. Tears erupted from his eyes as he struggled to breathe, and he could only glare at me angrily. He choked for about three seconds, then fell over and ignored me as he tried to remove the pistol from his mouth.

I giggled as he struggled to choke up the pistol and moved on. I limped over to a Steel Ranger taking cover and waiting for their grenade launcher to reload. My hearing was starting to return, and I heard the Ranger ask, “What’re you doin’ here?”

I coughed out, “Got painkillers? Or first aid? I feel like crap.” I collapsed next to the Ranger. “Aw man, I’m hurtin’ baaaad…” The Ranger called for a medic, then opened one of her flank plates. “What’s thaaat,” I mumbled. The Ranger was taking out a syringe, loading it with something from her built-in medical box.

“All I’ve got is Stampede,” the Ranger yelled at me. “It’ll keep the pain away for a while, but you need to be careful. Also, prepare to get angry!” Wait… Stampede? Only Stampede?

“Wait… Fruit Punch?” I asked. The Ranger nodded. “Somehow that makes a whole lot of sense.”

Fruit Punch injected the Stampede into me, and immediately I felt better. The pain was washed away and was replaced with an overwhelming feeling of energy and power. I could beat anything! “Yeah, yeah! Thanks Fruit! Woohoo!” I flapped my wings and dashed off toward the fighting again. I felt unstoppable! In the back of my mind, Filly Frosty was reminding me my leg needed healing, but I ignored her for the time being and charged into the first raider I ran into.

He yelled at me and started to pull out a large knife, but I smashed into him at high speed. The collision knocked both of us to the ground, but I recovered first. I unleashed a hail of SMG rounds into his chest and moved on without another thought. My next target was standing on top of a downed Steel Ranger. I sprayed several rounds in his direction and grinned. C’mere, you! The raider looked up and spun to turn me. Oh, of course he had a shotgun where I couldn’t see it! I dived to one side and managed to dodge a majority of the pellets. I felt a few sink into my shoulder and my side, but I didn’t care. I had to kill him!

I rolled to my hooves and pounced on the raider. I screamed at him and slashed at him with my claw. “Nobody. Shoots. Me!” I yelled, punctuating with slashes to his throat. The raider weakly cried out in pain. Blood! Adrenaline! Violence! This was fun! After he’d been reasonably mutilated, I pounced on the next unfortunate slaver that happened to run into my path. He had no chance. I sliced into him with my claw without mercy. “Die! DIE! AHAHAHA!!” I cried gleefully.

After that gruesome scene I charged blindly down the hall and into another slaver. He opened fire with his pistol and two of his shots slammed into my shoulder. I screamed in rage and jammed my claw into his jaw in a deadly uppercut. “Tear the flesh! Ahaha!” I laughed madly. Where had that come from? I turned my attention to the slaver that had just galloped in, frozen in fear at the scene before him.

I knocked him into the ground and prepared to slash him to bits with my claw. I wanted to shoot him in the face, but I’d dropped my SMG at some time. “AHAHA! Die!” I screamed. The gray slaver covered his face with his forelegs. I lay into him, slashing over and over again. I laughed maniacally and took a short break when one of my ribs released a wave of pain.

Suddenly, I noticed the slaver was different from the ones from the last invasion. There was just… something about him that didn’t blatantly scream slaver. He lacked the somewhat trademark slaver barding and he lacked the angry-looking scars that most slavers usually sported.

“No… Oh no…” I whispered. “What have I done?” I got off the pony I’d been slashing. His forelegs were bloody and gouged from where I’d attacked him. Blood dripped from my claw as I sat there, comprehending what I’d just done. “I’m so sorry,” I told him. He was very confused by what was happening right now. These ponies weren’t raiders! They were wastelanders, just trying to get by. Cheese Puffs had said something about a water talisman… “You’re here for the talisman, aren’t you?” The wastelander nodded slowly.

My bones were killing me. My muscles were burning. I was getting lightheaded, probably because of the massive amount of blood loss over the course of the last few minutes. I climbed off him. “I’m… sorry,” I muttered before I leaned against the cool metal of the walls. So tired… the Stampede was wearing off and I was really starting to feel the full weight of the pain I was in…

~~~~~

Poke. Poke. Another poke. “Meehhhh… Whaaa?” I slowly opened my eyes, and was greeted by a disheveled-looking teal pegasus in an equally disheveled Enclave formal dress uniform. “Who are—” I started, then I noticed my surroundings. I was back in picturesque Cloudsdale, in the cloudhouse I’d entered last time. “Let me guess… you’re drunk.”

Drunk Frosty giggled. “Of cooooooourse, silly!” She stumbled around. “You look like me!” she exclaimed. I rolled my eyes. “Terrible!” Okay, that deserved a laugh. “Heeeeeeeeeey other me, me’s here and me’s really hurt!” I heard hoofsteps from somewhere.

Gala Frosty staggered out from a side room, several emergency first-aid kits in tow. Her formerly pristine dress was in tatters, her mane in shambles. The snowflakes decorating her mane were gone, save one or two tucked behind her ear. A strip of cloth, presumably from one of the dress’s former sleeves was wrapped around her neck and stained with blood. Many other spots on her dress were also similarly ruined.

“Ngh… I sort of noticed.” Gala Frosty groaned, collapsing onto the carpet by me. “Next time, you’re going to put a little more thought into your method of attack. You almost got us killed—and if you die, I die. Even if I might be imaginary, I don’t want to die.”

The first thing that came out of the first-aid kit was a nice large dose of Med-X. Half of it went right into me, and the other half was self-dosed by Gala Frosty. “Beep beep! Comin’ through!” Filly Frosty squeaked, holding onto the comically large band-aid plastered to her nose.

My miniature ball of fluff and feathers leapt into a first-aid kit and reappeared with a roll of bandages. “Wait, does this make me any better? As in, does this even heal me?” I somewhat choked out as Filly Frosty began to wrap the gauze around my throat a bit too tightly. “Ow! Hey, not too tight.”

“Nurse Fwosty knows what she’s doing.” Filly Frosty giggled, pointing at the little cardboard nurse’s cap she’d presumably dug out from the kit.

I rolled my eyes. “Hey, Drunky!” Drunk Frosty looked over at me, bleary-eyed and a good amount of drool leaking from the corner of her mouth. “Got anymore of that?” She pouted at me and tossed me a half-empty bottle. “Thanks.” She shrugged and careened into a wall. I smiled. Was I really like that when I was drunk? Drunk Frosty got up, shook her head, and crashed into the same wall.

“Well, it won’t really heal you but it’ll damn sure make me feel a lot better. You’ll just have to wait for Rumcake to help us,” Gala Frosty replied, squirming her way out of her ruined dress. “But seriously, you do look terrible. Take a look.” I peered into the mirror with a sense of horror and disgust. I was spattered with blood, everywhere. My claw was covered in blood, my ears had blood trails coming out of them, and the concrete bits in my leg appeared to have fallen out but there was still a lot of blood all over it. So much blood. I shuddered as I realized that most of the blood wasn’t even mine. An inexplicable urge to lick my wounds bubbled to the surface of my consciousness, but I pushed the thought aside.

“I’ve done something really, really bad,” I told the Frostys (Frosties?) in the room. “I think I killed some innocent ponies. I lost control.” They all looked at me questioningly. Except for Drunk Frosty. She was lying upside down on the couch, waving her hooves in the air. “Those weren’t slavers. They were normal ponies!” I cried. “They were trying to survive!” I felt the tears coming. “The Rangers took their water talisman! And they wanted it back!” I was crying now. “And I just killed them because I didn’t—”

Gala Frosty hugged me. “It’s alright. We know, but you’re going to have to get over it. Sometimes, mistakes happen. You didn’t know. But you’re a good pony, and hopefully you’ll figure out something to make this all better.”

Yeah, that was it. Fix everything and stuff. Right. I was a good pony. Good ponies did good things, like help the common folk and not disembowel them. I needed to be better. For me, for Dad, for… for…

I didn’t remember closing my eyes.

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Steel Claw – Not afraid to get personal, eh? You now deal an additional 5 points of Unarmed damage.

-End of Chapter 3!-

Chapter 16: Who are you, and can you fix things?

Chapter 16: Who are you, and can you fix things?

“And just what do you think you're doing?”

“…tasted kind of like deodorant.”

“Hm?” I asked, snapping out of the daze that I had slipped into. Tangerine had elected to explore a bit more while I continued to browse the record store. At some point I’d apparently fallen asleep standing up, and I hadn’t noticed her coming back in. “What? I wasn’t paying attention.”

Tangerine groaned. “I should have known. No wonder you didn’t say anything.”

More importantly… “What does deodorant even taste like?”

“Regret.”

I blinked. “That implies you ate a deodorant at some point.” The thought of Tangerine munching on one made me giggle.

I’d never know because Tangerine raised an eyebrow and asked, “A deodorant?”

“What?” Usually a dive through a cloud usually freshened me up just fine, so I didn’t really care enough about it. That, and I didn’t really know what the proper wording was.

Tangerine decided to drop the subject. “Okay, I’ve taken a quick look around the place and it looks like Rumcake and Sparkle bugged off already. We might be a day or so behind them, so it’s probably best to get on the road before they get any farther.”

If only we had some way to make contact. “Any ideas?”

Instead of unfolding her map, Tangerine magically yanked my PipBuck closer to her, which also dragged me along with it. She tapped a few buttons and dragged her hoof over the thing, all while ignoring the face-planted pegasus attached to it. “If you ever learned how to use your map function, you’d know that there’s not much else around.”

“I vote we go back to the place with the things to rest up, then,” I mumbled into the surprisingly clean tile.

Tangerine used my hoof to tap her chin, which also dragged me across the floor a little farther. “You mean Perma? It’s not a bad idea, granted. We can stock up again, and maybe somepony there knows where I can find a long-range radio to contact base.”

Now we had our next stop. “Can I have my hoof back?” I continued to mumble into the ground.

The glow disappeared from my hoof and I happily retrieved it so I could stand up. “Oh, yeah. Sorry?”

“You’re not sorry,” I grumbled.

“Shh.” Gala Frosty appeared beside me, ears perked in alert status. “Hear that?”

I crouched down low and made sure to keep my claw off the tile to reduce noise, straining my ears to catch any sounds. Thankfully, Tangerine knew the universal “shut up” motion and immediately closed her mouth. Sure enough, multiple hooves clip-clopping on polished tile slowly became louder and louder.

“Sounds like they’re coming from below,” Gala soundlessly whispered.

Using my claw, I signed the motion for “watch this position” as I three-leggedly tiphoofed to the stairs and hazarded a peek. I managed to catch a glimpse of the rear half of a lightly armored pony disappearing past a pillar. It looked a lot like typical mercenary patchwork gear, but looks could be deceiving.

My E.F.S was having trouble tracking the group due to the concrete surrounding us, so I closed my eyes and tried to make out the different hoofsteps that echoed through the station. None of them sounded like power armor, or else the floor would be cracking. Unfortunately, that also meant that it wasn’t Rumcake either. There wasn’t much clanking either, so that meant light armor.

“Three, maybe four contacts,” I guessed, scooting back to Tangerine as quietly as possible. “Light armor, probably no heavy weapons.”

Very quietly, Tangerine coughed. “I’d like to use this time to tell you I don’t really have a lot of offensive spells.”

“Just do your laser pistol thing,” I muttered back. “Follow me, be quiet, and don’t trip on anything. We’re going to try and get behind them.”

“What if they’re hostile?” All I had to do was wiggle my talons in her face. “Oh. Duh.”

Like the total badass I was, I ignored taking the stairs and jumped over the railing, using my wings to muffle the sound of my perfect three-point landing. There wasn’t even time for me to have a moment of self-satisfaction when I heard a surprised squeak and a cacophonous thud behind me.

“Ow…” Tangerine coughed.

“I said be quiet!” I hissed at her, my ears picking up faster and louder hoofsteps. “Damn it, I think they heard us.”

From Tangerine’s coughing and choking noises, she probably had the wind knocked out of her. “But you also said to follow you.”

Unfortunately, I did. “Do what I mean, not what I say,” I groaned, faceclawing.

But now we had new problems. Without knowing if the little yellow dots on my E.F.S. were aggressive, I couldn’t decide whether to attempt talking or not. Maybe it was smarter to just leave, see how they acted, then figure out a plan from there.

Or we use the scribe as bait! Delicious, delicious bait.

Well…

Just do it! It’ll be funny!

“What if she gets hurt?” I half-whispered to myself.

“Don’t do it.” I felt Gala’s smouldering glare on the back of my head.

There wasn’t much more time—hoofsteps were right around the corner. I leapt into the air and firmly planted my armored hooves on the ceiling, being sure I was being hidden by the pillar holding up the balcony-ish bit that I’d just jumped off of. This was also the same pillar that I’d seen a butt go behind, so I made sure I was ready to pounce.

“What are you doing here?” Angry voice shouted at the still-gasping mare on the floor.

Slowly, Tangerine staggered to her hooves. “What?” She looked left and right, and not seeing me anywhere, groaned, “Where did—what the buck?” It also occurred to me then that non-pegasi never really looked up.

The three—yes, definitely three—ponies slowly closed in. They weren’t close enough to drop on; the only one I could see clearly was their pointpony. Well, something less than a pony—a damn zebra. Spiky mohawk, stripes, the whole package. Its armor consisted of nothing more than a light ballistic vest and a bundle of rags that barely passed as a sort of cloak. As I studied it, I noticed the pair of short-ish swords sheathed on its belt, also noting the zebra only had half the package. The black stripes stopped halfway down its body, fading out to a sort of shimmery gray.

Oh good, a half-breed. That only left me twice as annoyed as before.

“Hooves up,” the twiggy, probably female creature snapped. Also the owner of angry voice, as I realized.

Tangerine immediately sat down on her haunches and threw her hooves in the air, almost as if she just didn’t care. In doing so, she rolled her eyes and saw me crouched on the ceiling. I grinned and held a talon to my lips, throwing on a wink just in case.

The group cautiously moved closer, and I noticed that they all had matching scarves. However, I was more curious about their third member. He was tall, almost taller than Rumcake, but something seemed off about the earth pony. Maybe it was his lanky limbs, or his strangely misshapen yellow-orange moustache, or maybe it was just because I could see the top of his yellow-orange head. Bald ponies bothered me a lot, especially if they had facial hair. Did their mane just decide to migrate to the front of their faces?

Get back on topic.

Right. Weirdly enough, this one had decided to armor up a ratty old pre-war suit. I still couldn’t put my hoof on what made me feel uneasy about him, so I decided to stop trying to figure it out and focus my attention on the last pony.

These collection of ponies had an unhealthy obsession with cloaks, as the third pony was also covered with one as well. I could barely make out the profile of a laser rifle bulging under the fabric, so I mentally noted to steal it later if things got aggressive. The pony’s hood obscured his face, so I couldn’t see anything else. I mentally assigned them names—Thing, Scrawny, and Hoodie—in order of introduction so I wouldn’t get confused looking at tops of heads.

Thing took two steps forward and eyed Tangerine. “You’d better have a good reason for being here.” It looked her up and down, probably trying to sense fear, regret, or some other zebra weirdery.

Tangerine glared at me while still addressing the half-breed monstrosity. “I’m just passing through. With my friend,” she flatly suggested, narrowing her eyes at me.

Hm. This situation was starting to give me déjà vu.

“H-hey, Senior Steward Oleander? Maybe we should leave her alone. My heebies are getting jeebies and we both know that’s not good,” Hoodie nervously piped up. “And we’re going to miss snack time…”

And then Scrawny opened his mouth and blurbled something unintelligible. It sounded something like “I like snack time”, but it really confused me that I couldn’t actually make out the separate words.

“Orion, I swear to all things Hydraulic, I will buckin’ end you if you complain about snack time again. You too, Bubbles,” Thing snapped, pointing at the two ponies behind it with one of its short swords.

Scrawny pranced in place. “But they’re going to be out of chiiiiiips…”

“Yo, just shut it about the chips. I want some buckin’ chips too, but nooo. Somepony opened their big fat mouth and now we gotta come back here and recover shit that those Talons didn’t already take,” Thing shot back, putting an end to the lack of chips.

Just slightly confused, Tangerine decided to cough and ask, “So, since you three are a little bit busy with more important matters, I’ll just go on my way now.” She began to stand up and dust herself off when the zebra’s sword appeared against her jaw.

“I don’t think so.” Thing looked pretty silly with its outstretched leg with the stupid zebra sword stuck on the end. “Explain why you’re here.”

Step in. Now.

Fiiiiiiiiine.

I pushed off the ceiling and silently landed behind the half-breed, pulling it into a chokehold. “If you so much as touch a hair on her chinny-chin-chin, I’ll gut you like the freak you are.” For emphasis, I squeezed my talons against its neck hard enough to draw blood.

Like every inconvenience in the Wasteland, somepony decided they needed to be a hero. “Uh, let the Senior Steward go!” Hoodie squealed, just barely drowning out the whine of his laser charging up.

I roughly yanked my meat shield around to face him and faltered. The sides of Hoodie’s cloak floated in the air, suspended by what could only be wings. He was a pegasus, and I really wasn’t expecting a pegasus. Why would he be working with a half-breed zebra? It didn’t make sense!

“Why would you willingly work with a zebra?” I snarled at him, giving the zebra a good shake for emphasis. Wait. The way he’d said “Senior Steward” reminded me of how every good little pegasus addressed a higher ranked officer. “Hold on, is this half-breed your superior?”

“Yeah, w-what’s it to you?” Hoodie stammered back.

Unthinkable! Of course, that kind of thinking meant one thing… “You’re one of those Dashites, aren’t you?” I groaned.

Thing was restless in my grip, clearly in distress but unwilling to struggle with the claw of a crazy pegasus around its neck. “What’s your problem with zebras?” Thing choked out.

If there was a stupid question for this meat shield, this was probably it. “What’s my problem? What’s yours? Your kind ruined Equestria and turned it into this death pit I’m currently holding you hostage in,” I quipped into its ear. “I mean, in context, you created this situation for yourself.”

“You’re crazy!” Thing cried out.

I continued, unfazed. “I know I am, but what are you? Because the only thing worse than a zebra is half a zebra, which means somepony did the frick frack with a zebra, which makes you twice as traitorous as a normal one.”

"You're a bucking hypocrite,” Hoodie cried out, eyes suddenly burning with defiance. "You're a Dashite, like me. The only 'traitors' in this room are us two."

"I'm nothing like you! There’s two kinds of Dashites: political, and your kind.” My eye might have twitched. “Don’t group me up with you social justice haytards."

“My type? You’re the ones that refuse to change anything,” Hoodie replied angrily. “And look where that’s gotten you. Down in this shithole with the rest of us.”

So we were going to have a fight about ethics here, huh? “The Enclave keeps our society alive. The things they do for us keep us alive. If you’re about to harp on about saving the Wasteland like all the others, save it. Saving the Wasteland just isn’t feasible—have you even thought of the immense amount of resources it would take to accomplish it?

“The Enclave could try!”

That one made me laugh. “The infrastructure we have barely holds up as it is. Risking our entire existence for a sliver of a chance just isn’t worth it.” The freak in my clutches began to whimper and choke, but I didn’t really care nearly enough.

“Risking our existence? What are you talking about? The Enclave doesn't need to throw everything away, it just needs to provide support. And we can trade with settlements for scrap metal and other stuff we need. It's a process, not something that happens all at once. But instead, all the Enclave does is squirrel away in hiding, refusing to take the steps that would help everypony in the long run."

"Are you kidding me? You really think that starving Wastelanders would actually trade with us, considering our reputation? Heck, do you really think the Council will open up some kind of trading arrangement with your everyday Wastelander?”

“Uh, Frosty? I don’t want to be that mare, but… why are you defending the Enclave?” Tangerine hesitantly piped up. “They did sort of try to kill you a little bit ago. And, you know, they’re also the reason why you’re, uh… a few apples short of a pie.”

Thanks to Tangerine, Hoodie had new flak for me. “See? See what I mean? They don’t actually care about our well-being as long as the status quo never changes. It’s all just a game to the Council as they keep their mindless followers from thinking too hard.”

I didn’t have a snappy response. Nothing came to mind, and I couldn’t think of anything that necessarily refuted it. All I could do was growl and silently stew.

“You think you’re so clever, don’t you?” Hoodie continued, the sarcasm incredibly obvious in his voice. “You think you’ve got everything thought out.”

“I do.” I was getting angry, and I didn’t want to drag this along any longer than I needed to. “I don’t want to deal with you, so this is where we part ways.”

Strangely enough, Hoodie chuckled. “You know what? I’m not shocked at all that you’re going to run,” he scoffed. “You’re nothing but a coward and a traitor.”

Said the coward and traitor, in true irony. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

Hoodie irritably flapped his wings, which comically displaced his cloak. “It’s like you’re a little sheep without a dog to keep you in line.”

“You’re in no bucking position to say anything, zebra-hugger,” I shot back. “You’re a traitor to the Enclave, and your friend is a traitor to Equestria! Whatever grand ideals you think you have mean jack shit when all you do is become yet another freeloading mercenary going about the Wasteland!”

“I’m not a mercenary! I serve the exalted Train Gods, who…” He might have begun to preach, but I stopped listening to cuff the half-breed shield who wouldn’t stop squirming.

I’d had enough of these two. “Look, I have places to be and better things to do than stand here and listen to you,” I interrupted. “Let’s make this brief.”

Without warning, I brought my claw away from Thing’s neck and unloaded a shotgun shell into it, which made a surprisingly satisfying meaty splat. I ignored the liberal spattering of blood on my face and shoved the dead half-breed at the very stunned Hoodie. On a whim, just because I was angry and feeling smug, I threw a hoof-full of caps after it.

“Here. Buy yourself another one,” I snidely added.

I felt a catch in my throat when I saw the look of complete and utter devastation on Hoodie’s face, but I couldn’t doubt myself now. Victory required conviction, and dealing with the zebra had put a sloppy full stop on the whole mess.

“C’mon, we’re leaving.” When Tangerine didn’t follow because she was too busy hyperventilating, I threw her onto my back and angrily stomped up the stairs.

…Wait, hadn’t there been three of them?

Screw it.

~~~~~

Even though tears were just barely starting to blur my vision, I managed a smooth takeoff from the street, even in the sudden downpour. I just needed to leave this place. Hoodie’s words had really rattled me more than I thought. Just about everything he’d said was getting to me, especially the traitor part. There was no way I’d be allowed to go back. Not now.

My brash movements must have betrayed my mood somehow. “Are you okay?” Tangerine carefully poked the back of my head. “Do you… uh… wanna talk about it?”

“No. Keep quiet, and keep your mouth shut,” I snapped. Tiny raindrops started to leak from the clouds, slamming into my face like little pellets. Clouds I wouldn’t walk on again. Maybe it was just nerves, or maybe it was the rain. I let out a choked sob and the tears started to run. The only solace I had was the fact that I still had Rumcake somewhere in this forsaken wasteland. I pumped my wings, pushing myself to go faster. Maybe if I flew fast enough, I could leave all my problems behind.

A hoof gently poked at the back of my neck. “I hate to interrupt…”

“Didn’t I tell you to shut the buck up?” I yelled, jerking to an abrupt stop. “I’ve been a good sport for a long time, and I think I deserve angst hour.” We hovered in midair, staring at each other. Tangerine shrank from my angry glare. “Well?”

“We’re going to Perma, right?” she finally answered in the tiniest voice possible.

Damned if I knew. “Sure.” Now that I’d stopped, I finally realized that I was tired. My wings ached and my fur stuck to the inside of my armor in some places from all the sweat.

“Uh… we passed it.”

I stayed silent for a moment. Had I really gone that far? How long had I been flying, exactly? “How far?” I asked her over my shoulder. Tangerine thought about it, then consulted her map. She looked around, then decided to consult my map as well. “Ahem. May I help you?” I growled, now somewhat annoyed by the intrusion of personal space.

Tangerine squeaked. “Sorry! It’s that way.” She pointed behind us. “About ten minutes at previous speed, I think.” As I turned around, I caught a glimpse of her downcast expression. Maybe I’d been too harsh on her.

War isn’t the only thing there’s fallout from.

“Shut up.” Anticipating the response from Tangerine, I immediately added, “Not you.”

After several minutes of unsteady silence in the rain, I sighed and realized I’d been getting mad at Tangerine for no reason. She’d done nothing wrong. Hopefully stress was to blame, but I couldn’t be sure. My nerves were stretched and shot to hell. Luckily, I looked down just in time to make out Perma’s big dim sign. “Oh look. We’re here.” I circled down to a somewhat choppy landing. Damn power armor.

Right on cue, Sergeant Airhead pointed his obnoxious laser right into my eyes from his very comfortable spot between the ‘M’ and ‘a’ in Perma’s sign. “Oh. Y’all back already? Lemme open up the barn fer ya.” He turned off his laser and presumably gave the signal to let us in.

I touched down, rapidly blinking my burning eyes. “Thank you, Airhead. Now get the buck out of my way. I don’t have time for your games,” I shouted at his prone white form. Tangerine slid herself off my back and followed me into the city-building. “Anypony home?” I called out. When I reached the store, I was surprised to find it empty. All its wares were unguarded and clearly displayed on the shelves behind and in the glass cases. Resist… urge… to… steal…

“I hope you aren’t thinking what I think you’re thinking,” Boss growled from behind me.

I immediately tried to make myself look as innocent as possible. “Nope! Not at all.” I performed an about-face and saluted. “Got beds for rent?” He stared at me impassively. “Uh, sir!” I added.

“I might. You leave your weapons with Tracks, and don’t cause any trouble.” He climbed up the side of a shelf and yelled, “Corporal Tracks, your presence is required at the commissary. Double time!” Heavy stomping accompanied an affirmative response from somewhere out of sight. “Hey, good work with the job, by the way. Heard you sent ’em out with a bang.”

Even if I didn’t know what he was talking about, I went with it anyway. “Yeah, no problem,” I smoothly replied, still confused.

Boss chuckled. “I knew you were the mare for the job.” Oh right, the extortion thing that he was dealing with. I’d take the credit for it if it meant being allowed into Perma.

The armored stallion from the shop skidded to a stop in front of Boss. “I’m back, sir. Thanks for watchin’ my post.”

“Told ya those beans were bad,” Boss chided.

“Shaddup. Sir.”

Tracks retook his spot behind the glass display cases. “What did you want from me, sir?” He performed a hasty inventory check, probably glaring at me as well. I was too busy trying to wrap my mind around the events of the past few days. Betrayal, horror, and the nagging feeling that Ice was probably up to something wouldn’t stop bothering me.

“Weapons, now.” Tracks held out his hoof. “Today, missy.”

Against my better judgement or will, I hoofed over my anti-machine rifle, submachine gun, and Philomena’s Touch. “There. How about now?”

Boss shook his head. “That too. We just discussed this.” He prodded my armor’s chest plate. “I can’t risk having that that bucking tail knife in there too.” Part of me felt naked and completely exposed without any of my weapons. I had to remind that part of myself that I still had my ballistic claw still attached to my leg. With a bit of Tangerine’s assistance again, we managed to remove the armor from my body and deposit it next to my weapons.

“Anything else?” I huffed, shaking out the unfamiliar dull sensation out of my limbs. Not soreness, but just a strange feeling in all my limbs, minus my metal leg. Noses around me sniffed the air and immediately wrinkled. Boss eyed me with slight disapproval. There was no delaying it, huh? “Yes. I am completely aware I need a long, warm bath.” I sighed, adding a note of exasperation to my voice.

Boss sighed. “Against my better judgement, I think there might just be a place for you. Follow me.” He sauntered over to a steel door and carefully pushed it open. “Stay behind me, just in case. We normally don’t use the residential zone entrance.” Behind the door, there was a short corridor ending with another door. “Pardon the security, but there’s a very good reason for it.” He looked at me, then Tangerine, and mumbled, “A lot of Rangers passin’ through here today…”

A wet splorch noise behind me made me jump. “Hey, dickwad, it’s raining mighty hard outside. Ah’m not bein’ paid enough to sit out there in th’ rain.” I turned around and did my best to not laugh. Airhead had come down from his rooftop perch sopping wet and looking like a pile of soaked toilet paper. Tangerine, on the other hoof, couldn’t help herself. “Gal, why don’tcha go eat a dick sandwich,” Sergeant Airhead spat.

The door at the other end of the hallway finally opened up. “Language, asswipe. Ladies are present,” Boss growled to Airhead.

“Ah apologize that yer fragile little ears cain’t handle real stallions’ talk,” Airhead sarcastically apologized. “Outta the way. Ah need to get this dried off.” He pushed past us and advanced into the large warehouse-sized room beyond. He somehow managed to flap his way to the top of a heavy duty storage rack where a bunk was located. A weapon rack and a large hooflocker were neatly arranged next to it. Note to self, bug him later.

It was plainly obvious that Boss didn’t approve of Airhead. “I swear, all you pegasi are all the same. Too arrogant for your own good.” Must. Not. Punch. “But at least you’re good at what you do,” he admitted.

“Damn straight.” I grinned, following Boss into the warehouse. “Better than the rest.” The warehouse’s interior was cavernously large, to say the least. Hundreds of old wooden pallets, broken crates, scrap, and the occasional trash heap were piled up along the walls. Arranged around the rectangular room were dozens of industrial sized storage racks, each four floors high. All the racks had been reinforced at one point or another, and ladders connected each floor to the next. Each individual floor of the racks seemed to have its own living space built onto it. Against the lower floors, some ponies had set up little stores in an attempt to peddle their wares.

Huh. The inside of this place was nothing like the outside made it seem like.

Boss pointed past the center of the room where several workbenches had been set up, instead gesturing to a small curtained off area. “There are the showers. Latrines are on the right side over there.”

I wasn’t really paying attention to him. My attention was fixed on a Steel Ranger’s ass. Not the ass itself, per se, but the pony it was attached to. Her helmet and greaves were lying on the table beside her, next to some miscellaneous parts and tools. Her purple coat showed severe burns and recently bandaged wounds. “Why does she look so familiar?” I mumbled to myself. “You would think…”

“What the buck are they doing here?” Tangerine said in surprise. “Hey, Sparkles!” she shouted across the room. Wait. Sparkles? Oh wait, Sparkle Cola! That’s where I knew her from.

The Ranger in question whipped around, nearly scorching herself with the arc welder clamped in her muzzle. She dropped it onto the table and yanked the welding goggles off her face. “Domo! Sup, Grapefruit!” Sparkle Cola replied.

Tangerine groaned. “Not this again.” We cantered up to Sparkle. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

“A whole lot, Kumquat.” Sparkle grinned, then nodded at me. “Sup, Frosty. What brings you to the neighborhood?”

I cocked my head at Tangerine, who was absolutely fuming. “Escort mission. Sort of,” I replied.

“I’d like to know where you guys came from. I mean, we lost contact with you two days ago! What gives?” Tangerine burst out.

“Calm down, Fruitbutt. We got here, like, a few hours ago.” Before Sparkle added anything else, she turned around and made sure that the welder was safely off.

Tangerine gasped. “Your back!” Indeed, most of Sparkle’s back was covered with healing bandage that was soaked through with dried blood. It didn’t look good, but I couldn’t tell if she was fine now or if she was toughing it out. Most likely the latter.

Sparkle turned back to face us. “Yeah, I’m back. Hi again.”

“No, I mean what happened to your back?”

The little medical experience I had told me that she’d probably be fine, but it was still worrying. “Yeah, what happened?” I also asked.

“Grazed by a laser,” Sparkle casually replied. “But again, why are you two here?”

I opened my mouth to answer that, but Tangerine once again felt the need to say it herself. “Your trackers went down, so Frosty here decided to come after Rumcake because she was so paranoid.”

“Speaking of which, where is he?” I looked around the room, searching for another Steel Ranger in the room.

Sparkle’s shoulders clanked as she shrugged. “No idea. He’s somewhere around here, that’s for sure.” She peered into her helmet to check the time. “He should be back in an hour or so.” Thunder boomed overhead. “Sheesh, you’re really knocking out a storm, huh Frosty?”

“Ha ha. Very funny,” I grumbled.

“How’ve you been? You look and smell like total cr—”

“Yes, I know,” I flatly stated. “And I intend to fix that real fast. Watch my stuff?”

Sparkle lit the arc welder’s pilot light again with a little striker on the edge of the table. “Sure. Not like I’m going anywhere for a while.” She promptly took my saddlebags and placed them at the foot of the table. “See ya later, then.”

First things first, I needed a shower. After looking back to double check that Sparkle and Tangerine hadn’t stolen my belongings, I proceeded to the communal showers. A small box on a stand next to the curtain opening had an equally small sign that simply read “Showers. Twenty caps a run”. There wasn’t anypony enforcing the exact payment, so I tossed in a small pouch of what felt like maybe seven caps. Nopony would notice, right?

Ah, how I missed the barracks back in the sky. Cloud showers were nothing like what… this… was. The floors were grimy and damp, covered in the accumulated filth of hundreds of showers. At least somepony had attempted to clean them off, as evidenced by the trashed sponge in the corner. There were eight showerheads all mounted along the left side by exposed piping, divided by random bits of scrap welded into partitions. The two showers on the end were occupied, so I picked one of the middle ones. And that better be dried shampoo on that wall.

Either it was my good luck, or maybe it was just the rain, but the water wasn’t made of mud. I gripped the cracks in the partition on my left with my claw. With a little more difficulty, I managed to disengage the safety clamps on my arm using some very creative gnawing, and then simply sidestepped to unplug it. Standing on three legs was unfamiliar to me, but I managed to make do by leaning against the opposite partition. I hobbled my way under the showerhead and allowed the water wash everything away.

Funny story, I used to absolutely despise washing up at seven in the morning after flying millions of laps around the base. It would usually be cold in the morning, but then I’d warm up during the flight from all the exercise. Then after all of that, we’d have to finish off with an ice-cold rush shower that left everypony frozen to the bone. But after a month without a nice refreshing shower, even this freezing downpour felt amazing. For the first time in a long time, I felt clean. I turned my head to rinse out my ear when I caught sight of somepony I wasn’t expecting.

“Uh. Need some body soap?”

My heart nearly froze, but I managed to remember to cover myself up with my tail as I prepared to confront the intruder. I whipped around so quickly that part of my wet mane flopped into the right side of my face. Even with my vision somewhat obscured, I recognized him, even without his armor.

Blood rushed to my cheeks as Rumcake continued to stare at me, slack-jawed. I mentally composed myself, cleared my throat, then calmly and quietly replied, “I would love some soap.”

Rumcake continued to stare, reminding me that I was still very wet and very naked. His normally poofy pink mane was plastered to his head. I wasn’t sure what annoyed me more—the fact that I was being ogled, or the fact that his mane was actually longer than mine by a few inches.

I cleared my throat again. “Soap?” I reminded him.

Finally, Rumcake closed his mouth. After searching for words for a good minute, he finally decided on, “You look so hot right now.”

That comment made me even more annoyed than before, especially because it reminded me of that stupid griffon. I carefully lifted my right hindleg and held it in a threatening bucking stance. “You may want to think carefully about your next few words, because they might be your last.”

Rumcake eyed my raised hoof, and did exactly that. “Right. Soap.” He placed the soda bottle sized soap bottle on the floor next to me.

When I lowered my leg and reached out to for the soap, I realized a major problem. A major, major problem. “Uh…”

“What? What did I do?”

So… embarrassing. “I need you to, uh, wash me,” I shamefully mumbled.

Rumcake was taken aback. “I thought I was intruding.”

“You are,” I flatly replied.

“…Then…”

I groaned. “I have tasted the ground on many occasions, and in many places, but this floor is not something I’d like to taste.” I explained, idly waving my stump at him. “Washing up suddenly got much more difficult with only one foreleg.”

Rumcake glanced at the bottle, then back to me. “Oh. Well, this is going to be super awkward.”

Thank you, mister subtlety. I hadn’t actually noticed.

He squeezed a small amount of pinkish soap into his hoof and gently rubbed it onto my back. “Uh, like that?”

I shivered a little at the touch. Oh no, was I enjoying this? Part of me thought so. “Yeah. Careful with the wings, though. I’ll have to preen them later.” I sighed, enjoying his strong touch along the base of my neck. Since the right side of my body was pinned to the partition by my body, I could only stretch out my left wing to allow him to wash under it.

“Preen?” He continued to pleasantly massage my body, periodically adding more soap. Oh, why did he have to be so good at this? “The heck is that?”

Silly, silly earth ponies. “I’m going to lick my wings until my feathers are straight. Get it?” I impatiently groaned. “That, and they’re partially erogenous zones, so there’s the explanation for any random erotic moans that come out of my mouth in the next few minutes.” Just shut up and bathe me, already.

“Oh.” Rumcake continued to lather me up in silence. “I need you to, uh, move or something. I can’t wash your right side if you keep leaning against that wall.”

If I even tried to stand normally, I’d immediately tilt left and fall over. There was only one remaining option. “Then I need to lean on you. I have terrible balance when I’m disarmed. Get it? Disarmed? Okay, that was bad.” That still got Rumcake to chuckle, at least. With a little difficulty, Rumcake and I managed to rinse the left side of my body.

“Here. Lean on me.” Rumcake grinned. I intended to carefully hobble to him, but I lost my balance and ended up heavily colliding with his big, broad chest. “Oof.”

“Sorry.” I apologetically mumbled.

“You aren’t anything I can’t handle.” Rumcake chuckled. He was so lucky that I couldn’t punch him out right now. “Stop squirming, already.”

Needless to say, the rest of my—our shower was unnecessarily boring. Yeah, let’s go with that. Nothing else needed to be explained. At all. Absolutely nothing interesting happened. Nothing at all. Nada. Except some very vibrant language when I had to re-connect my claw, of course.

All parties involved were equally surprised when Rumcake and I stepped out of the showers together. “Hey, Rumcake! Nice to see you found your marefriend,” Sparkle called out. “Still no luck on the launcher, though.”

Tangerine looked up from the grenade launcher she was trying to repair. “Whatever you idiots did, this launcher is trashed. Good work.” She threw back her hood in exasperation. “And I don’t even know how you managed to dent every possible spot on the casing.”

Sparkle quickly pointed at Rumcake. “He did it.”

Just as Tangerine was about to fix Rumcake with an angry glare, he quickly changed the subject by asking me, “Didn’t I tell you to stay home?” Oh yeah. I’d forgotten about that. “What happened to that?”

“Instant Noodles sent us to come find you two because of something or other,” I told him. “Apparently there’s something wrong with your armor, I think.” What was it, exactly? I didn’t remember. “And that’s why I brought Tangerine.”

An exasperated sigh from the mare in question got everypony’s attention. “Gaaah! How the heck did you two manage to short out half of the spell matrix? Tracking’s down, repair’s down, targeting is barely working.” She levitated out a small device and a screwdriver. “I’ll reset your helmets first, then do the armor right after. I don’t think I’ll be able to fix the repair spell without an entire fabrication suite. Sheesh, you two are the worst.”

Rumcake pulled his armor out of the very large duffel bag he’d brought with him from the showers. “For the record, I have no idea what happened.” He dropped parts of his armor onto the workbench next to Sparkle’s armor pieces. “I didn’t think it was that bad.”

He sure had a strange idea of “not bad”. Aside from all the various dents, scratches, and scorch marks, the damage looked quite bad. The metal was torn and gouged in several places, and bullet holes riddled the surface.

“You look like hammered shit,” I teased.

The two Rangers simultaneously glared at me with looks that practically screamed “No shit, Frosty”. As tempting as it was to add something else, Sparkle replied, “Could’ve been worse. We’ve had a shitty time out and about. Some crazy cult didn’t like the mercs we sicced on them.”

“At least you didn’t have to deal with her. I’ve got nightmare fuel for months,” Tangerine whined. “And damn it, I’m not qualified to do repairs of this magnitude. I can reboot the tracker and reload your E.F.S. As for the auto-repair talisman, I can’t do much with just this.” She waved her little device at both of the Rangers. “We need somepony with more experience.”

I looked around the room for somepony that looked like they could help. There weren’t this many workbenches here for no reason. Nopony in the immediate vicinity appeared to have any kind of mechanical or magical know-how. Wait. Somewhere behind the storage racks, right next to the outer wall, a pony wearing a very familiar set of robes was hastily searching for something. “How about that scribe over there?” I suggested.

All three Rangers craned their necks and scrutinized the pony that I’d pointed out. A rounded brown muzzle poked out of the front of the hood, along with a few locks of dull violet mane. “What the buck is a lone scribe doing out here?” Rumcake asked. Upon closer inspection, the robes had definitely seen better days. It was partly held together by patchwork repairs and partly by sheer will alone.

“Beats me,” Sparkle nonchalantly muttered.

“Hey, she looks a little like you.”

“You callin’ me a killjoy?”

“I’m just saying that you look similar. Look at that silly purple hair!”

Wrong move, Rumcake. “So the only basis to this is that we both have the same mane color?”

Both Rumcake and Sparkle sat there and continued to argue with each other while Tangerine decided to ignore the both of them. “They’ll be at it for the next few minutes, so if you’re really that curious about what she’s doing here, go ask the mare yourself. Otherwise you get to go find some bunks or whatever for us.” She put away her tools and stuff. “I’m tired, dirty, hungry, and nauseous, so I’m ready to pass out in a bed. The last thing I want to deal with is cross-company diplomacy crap.”

The mystery scribe intrigued me far more than the idea of finding somewhere to sleep at the moment. “Can you go figure out where to get a room or something?” I shyly grinned. “Buying stuff isn’t really my thing.”

Rumcake kept insisting that Sparkle looked a lot like the mystery mare, which Sparkle kept denying. Both of us shook our heads in disappointment. Tangerine hefted her small bag and looked around the room, letting out an exhausted sigh. “I’ll get right on it.” She headed toward one of the stalls, groaning, “Scribe. Needs. Food.”

I cautiously approached the robed mare who was still furiously tossing aside bits of scrap and junk looking for something. “Lose something?” I asked.

“Yes! What’s it to you?” the robed mare shot back. She was a unicorn, I realized, taking note of her horn. “Actually, hold this for me.” She raised a large wooden pallet and glared at me expectantly. Out of curiosity of her identity, I shouldered my way underneath the pallet in the hopes that it would help me gain her trust. She tossed aside more bits of junk and things. “Grrah! It’s not here either.” She stormed off, leaving me partly trapped under the pallet.

I let it fall with a crash. “So. What are you looking for?” I followed her up a ladder to the second floor of one of the racks, presumably her living space. For future reference, she didn’t have anything really special. Just a mattress, some candles, a desk, lots of old books and various writing implements. I hovered beside her as she kept searching. She looked a bit younger than me, so maybe middle-to-late teens.

“None of your business,” she flatly replied.

Being the nosy mare I was, I firmly replied, “I’m making it my business.”

“Fine. I’m looking for a book.” I soundlessly pointed at the piles of books. “Not those books. A special book! It’s mostly purple and it has my name on it.” She slammed her hoof against the ground. “It’s more important than whatever you’re bothering me for.”

Great. Just great. I didn’t really have the patience to put up with her, so I cut to the chase. “Who are you, and can you fix things?” I asked in exasperation.

She glared at me angrily with her orange eyes. “Violet Dusk, and yes I can. Why? What’s it to you?”

Thank the goddesses! Somepony useful! “Yes, yes you can!” I happily clapped my claw and hoof together. “As a Steel Rangers scribe, you are obligated to assist a Ranger in need.” At least I thought so. I actually had no idea how their pecking order went.

Violet took one look at me and snorted. “You’re a pegasus. Nice try, idiot.” Urge to kill… rising. “And anyway, I’m not a bucking scribe, so why would I want to help you? Oooh, hey. There’s that old color changing spell I was looking for.” She yanked a loose page out of a seemingly random book and set it aside. “Even if I cared, I wouldn’t be able to help without my book.”

My right eye might have twitched. “What.”

“All my spells are in my book. Find my book, and I might decide to help you.” Violet continued to look for that damned spellbook that she was so desperate to find.

“But you’re a unicorn,” I mentioned matter-of-factly like it was an obvious solution.

“Yeah. And?”

“Why do you need a dumb book if you know all your spells?”

Another note to self: don’t make Violet Dusk angry. She grabbed me out of the air with her hazel-tinted magic in the blink of an eye. “Books. Aren’t. Dumb.” I struggled to escape her ridiculously strong telekinesis. Flames burned in her eyes as she shook me violently. Up. Down. Up. Down. Gonna hurl. Up. Down.

“I’m sorry! Sorry! Please stop the shaking!” I cried. It felt like my brain was going to fly out of my head if this continued any longer.

A very irritated Airhead from another rack higher up shouted, “Y’all ‘r makin’ too much ruckus down there!”

Without letting me go, Violet yelled back, “Oi! Airhead!”

“What?!” Airhead bellowed. He swung his rifle to bear down on her, its laser flashing into existence.

I flapped my wings as hard as I could in an attempt to escape, with no luck. “Shut up, ya butt!” Violet responded.

Airhead roared in frustration. “Tha’s it. Ah don’t care anymore. Ah’m goin’ to make you a new pie hole, bitch!”

Ka-clack. I knew the sound of a bullet being chambered anywhere. My struggling intensified as I tried to escape, lest I became a pony-shaped shield.

Wait, what’s that? What is that?

What’s what? My heart rate suddenly spiked, and I felt Raider Frosty eagerly pushing and fighting for my body. There wasn’t even time for me to shout a warning to the others around me before I lost control.

But for once, Raider wasn’t after blood, violence, or senseless murder. Her predatory gaze instead locked onto the little red dot wavering on the floor. “Get off me!” Raider snarled, giving Violet a sharp jab to the ribs.

“Ow, shit!” Violet wasn’t expecting such a strong hit and released us immediately, which allowed Raider break free and slam my claw over the dot.

“I have you now!” Raider triumphantly exclaimed, which quickly turned to confusion when the dot wasn’t where it should have been. “Wha—?”

It had moved a bit over to the right, which made Raider slam our hoof over it. “Gotcha!”

Of course, it wasn’t that simple. Undaunted, the dot darted left and right in front of us. “I’m going to rip your little red pelt off and feed it to you!” Raider waited for the dot to slow down before clamping both claw and hoof over it. “Ha!” Which was quickly followed by, “Shit!”

Why was this happening now? Why hadn’t she done this sooner? Buck!

Time and time again, the dot kept evading us and refused to be caught. I wasn’t surprised, but obviously Raider Frosty was. I was more concerned with how stupid I probably looked to everypony else. My tail kept whipping back and forth, and every time I was about to pounce, Raider would shift our weight from hindleg to hindleg. Before Raider could humiliate me any further, somepony thankfully stopped us.

“What in the name of the goddesses is going on here?” Boss yelled, drawing the attention of the entire room. “Are we fighting again?” he sighed, rubbing his eyes. “Who started it this time?”

Everypony in the room pointed at either Airhead or Violet.

“You know the drill, you two. It’s almost after hours, and some of us need our sleep.” Boss groaned. “I don’t care who started it, just don’t kill each other.”

“Ah hear ya.” Airhead turned off his sniper rifle’s laser and disappeared out of sight.

“He started it,” Violet mumbled. I managed to wrangle control of myself back from Raider and I righted myself on Violet’s mattress. Before I could slink away, she seized my claw and hissed, “What the buck was that?”

“What was what?” I nervously shot back.

Violet rolled her eyes. “Your exceedingly feline-like actions back there, that’s what.”

Uh. Quick, leave the scene of the crime! “Well, I guess I’ll just take my leave then… and if I find your book, I’ll be sure to tell you.” Before she could protest or reply, I strolled off the edge of her living space and glided to a gentle stop next to Rumcake. “You see a funny looking book around?”

Rumcake gave me a blank stare. “Huh?”

Yay for collective confusion. “Yeah. It’s a long story that I’d rather not explain at the moment, but basically we’re looking for a weird purple book that has ‘Violet Dusk’ written on it. She isn’t helping until she gets that book.”

Tangerine returned with two big tags attached to a loop around her neck. “I got our room things, guys.” She tossed one of the tags to me, and the other to Sparkle. “We’ll be on flat four-three. You two lovebirds—” Referring to Rumcake and me, of course. “—are on four-two. Feel free to catch up on anything you didn’t already do so in the shower.” She slyly grinned at me.

I must have turned bright red, judging by the heat accumulating in my face. “Uh, thanks.” Everypony gathered their things and followed Tangerine up to the storage rack numbered “4”. She and Sparkle clambered up to the second level. Flat four… three. Ah, Fourth rack, third floor. Logic dictated that I was on the floor below that.

Our flat was as simple as it got: one mattress in the center of the room, a really short table to one side, and most of a candle. Rumcake dropped his bags on the floor next to the table with a sigh. “Ugh. I’m tired.” My saddlebag joined his on the floor. “So, ready for round two?” he quietly whispered into my ear.

I gently pushed him away. “It’s been a long day, and I’m ready to pass out.” Rumcake attempted to use my patented big sad eyes against me. “No, really. I think I’ve had enough today.” He whimpered and continued to stare sadly at me. “Don’t look at me like that.” Quick, change the subject! “So, what was your adventure like?”

Tangerine’s head appeared from around the edge of our ceiling. “I’d like to know too, come to think of it.”

“You might as well get comfortable. This is going to take a while.” Rumcake laid down across the mattress in such a way that he managed to take up all the space available on it. “It all started in a galaxy far, far away…”

I shoved him off the mattress and reasonably occupied what I felt like was my half of it. “That can’t be how it starts.” I snorted, making myself comfortable. “Start over.”

Rumcake looked hurt. Emotionally hurt, of course. Falling four inches off a mattress probably wouldn’t hurt. I settled into the slightly lumpy mattress and prepared for a wonderful adventure filled with action and suspense. “Fine, fine. So, we start our story with Sparkle not being able to shut up…”

~~~~~

“Wake up, you lazy waste of space,” my own voice coldly commanded me. “I’m ashamed to be using your image in the first place.” I cautiously opened my right eye a crack, and immediately regretted it. Yet another Frosty glared down at me in a disappointed manner from underneath her fancy officer’s cap. Her uniform was not standard Enclave-issue formal dress, but custom fitted and actually gilded around the edges. General’s pins were attached to her lapels and epaulettes.

At least I made the imaginary rank of General, I guess. “Uh… Officer Frosty, I presume?”

“You are to address me as General Winds.” So, how far was this rod shoved up my ass? Officer Frosty it was. “And our first order of business is for you to turn yourself in.”

That seemed like a totally bad idea. “How about no?”

“That’s an order.”

“How about you say that to my face, tough guy?”

“I am.”

Smooth, Frosty. Real smooth. “Shut up.”

Gala Frosty cantered to my side. “You know the rules, Officer. Stay out of our territory, and we’ll do our best to do the same.” Hold on… what was going on? “I don’t care that you look like us now, but this needs to stop. Get. Out.”

On total reflex, I stood up and crisply saluted to Officer Frosty on her way out. “So… who was that?” I asked Gala with a sidelong glance. “How crazy have I gotten?”

“Oh, that’s nopony new. You remember that memory-blocking officer-shaped monster from a while back?”

My mind flashed back to the unkillable Enclave Officer that had put up a nightmarish fight against Ice Storm. Wait, what?!

“Yeah.” Gala shrugged. “That’s a new development.”

I thought back to the ambush in front of the cave. With only a few key words, I suddenly had to comply to every one of that Enclave officer’s orders. “So… when I was…” Gala Frosty nodded, knowing exactly what I was thinking. “That bitch.” Both of us wandered into the living room, possibly out of sheer boredom.

The living room was a completely different story. Everything was filled with an air of lazy calm and complacence. A new change was that Drunk Frosty was lounging under the couch, and Filly Frosty was taking a nap on top of it. Ice Storm and Raider Frosty were quietly sitting at the table, absorbed in a very hectic game of chess.

Very curious. Why were those two getting along so well? And since when did I have a chess set in here? I decided to take a better look at the game while Gala attempted to pull Drunk Frosty out from under the couch. At a glance, Ice appeared to be ahead by several pieces. I slowly realized that Raider had sacrificed most of her pieces in order to get better positions on the board. “Question,” I started, looking to Raider. “Why is your king on the other side of the board?”

“Anypony with power knows that excessive force is the only solution,” Raider replied, moving her bishop directly into a knight’s range. Ice Storm immediately took the bishop without a second thought. “It may seem reckless, but it’s the only way.” She picked up her king and placed it two spaces away from Ice’s king. “Your move, bitch.”

Out of options, backed up against the edge of his side of the board, with Raider’s king bearing down on his own from the front and her last rook in the midfield keeping his king’s left path guarded, he had no choice but to retreat into the corner of the board. The pieces that stood a chance of preventing it had overextended too far and were in no position to come back and help.

“Now that’s not fair.” He frowned.

With her king in place, Raider moved her rook all the way to Ice’s edge of the board and grinned. “That’s checkmate.”

“What? I can still move my king forward to… wait…”

Raider chuckled. “No, you can’t, because if you did that you’d place my king in check, and a king can’t check another king. You’re out of moves, buster. Unless you can kill that rook, it’s over.”

Ice Storm frantically looked over his remaining pieces, and found that all of them were still in no position to help. “Buck. Well, crap. You win this time.” He knocked his king over with a swipe of his hoof.

“It’s all about that offensive king,” Raider gloated.

As I looked away from the completed game, I noticed something strange about Raider Frosty’s room. Not only was the door shut, but she’d spray painted “Trespasserz will B violated” onto it. Blood seeped out from underneath the door, staining the clouds red. Talk about new developments.

I shakily pointed at the blood with a talon. “Do I want to know?”

All three of us sat there and watched the blood slowly crawl out from under the door. Raider stared at it for a while, then finally answered, “Probably not.” Oh good. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about it.

~~~~~

I was roused out of sleep by yet another poke to the ribs. “I think she fell asleep.” Why the hell did everypony need to poke me all the time? I yawned and rubbed my eyes. What time was it? According to my PipBuck, it was only eleven in the evening.

“Did you know you drool a lot when you sleep?” Rumcake asked. “That’s kinda adorable. In a sort of messy way.” I self-consciously wiped the drool off my face, blushing the entire time. “So, how much of it did you miss?”

“Uh…” I bashfully stammered. “Most… of… it?”

Rumcake and Tangerine facehoofed. “Really?” Rumcake sighed. “Really?”

Maybe it was just because today’s events were too much to deal with, combined with the fact that I was exhausted from a marathon’s worth of flying. “Sorry.” I rubbed my eyes. “It’s been a long day.”

“Now I have to start over…” Rumcake glumly sighed.

He didn’t have to do that! More importantly, I didn’t want to bore Tangerine with things she’d already heard. I waved my hooves in the universal ‘no, it’s okay’ motion. “Just continue where you left off! You can tell me what happened before that later.”

Apparently Tangerine agreed. “Yeah! It just got interesting, too!”

Rumcake arched his eyebrow at me, then dismissively shrugged. “Well, whatever. Back to the story!”

As entertaining as it was to watch Rumcake speak of his wild wasteland romp without me, I just couldn’t stay awake. The day’s events had finally caught up with me, and I was beginning to nod off the second I closed my eyes. I tried a few times to keep them open, but eventually I gave in and fell asleep.

Rumcake yawned so loudly that it actually jolted me awake. “I’m tired, Frosty’s conked out, and Tangerine’s been writing on the same line for the past five minutes.” Tangerine snapped her eyes open and stared intently at the scroll she’d been writing on. “Let’s just get to sleep. I need rest, you need rest, she needs rest.”

Against my will, I decided to make myself as comfortable as possible. “At least you got to be a hero,” I grunted as I punched a lumpy spot in the mattress.

The mattress bounced as Rumcake sorted out a lump on his side of the mattress. “Hm? What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, a hint of concern in his voice. “You save ponies too.”

“Not enough,” I muttered. Visions of my massacre of the Enclave soldiers rose to the surface of my mind. Oblivious soldiers, not knowing who they were dealing with, had been slaughtered just trying to do their job. Unexpectedly, the zebra-thing flashed into my mind too. Weird.

Realizing the mood had drastically changed and storytime was over, Tangerine silently retired to her shared flat with Sparkle. Rumcake’s strong foreleg pulled me into his warm embrace. “It’s the thought that counts, I suppose. Even if we can’t save them all, well, we just do our best I guess.” He sighed. “And besides, you’ll always be my half-minute hero,” he purred into my ear.

My cheeks burned and blood rushed to my face. “I’m not always like that!” I hissed back.

Rumcake giggled and nibbled at my ear. “That’s ‘cuz I’m that good.” At least he couldn’t see my face from behind me, or else he would have taunted me further. “Mmph. Nighty-night, Frosty.”

“Sweet dreams, Rummy.” I drifted off to sleep, finally at ease for once.

~~~~~

Just because I was at ease apparently meant I still wasn’t allowed to actually sleep. “Aww, come ON!” I complained at the walls of the cloudhouse. “As cool as this is, I think I’d prefer some actual sleep at some point this month.” I hopped out of bed and meandered into the living room once again.

A cork bounced off my nose. “Haaaay~” Drunk Frosty called from the couch. “Got shomethin’ on our mind?” Cue horrific flashback of gruesome mauling of several Enclave soldiers. “Have I gotsh the cure-all fer ya.” She held out a nearly empty bottle of absinthe. “Speshul, just for you.”

I took the bottle from Drunk Frosty and tucked it under my wing. “Thanks. Now stay out from under the couch. It’s bad for you.”

“But the cheese poofie things!” Drunk Frosty protested. I walked away before she could add anything else to the list of things under my imaginary couch. The only other ones in the room were Ice Storm, Gala Frosty, and Raider Frosty. All three of them were sitting at the table playing some sort of board game involving dice, books, lots of paper, and apparently lots of yelling.

Gala happily scribbled things down while looking through one of the books. “Whaddya mean I can’t punch out the manticore?” Raider yelled. “That’s horseapples!” She rifled through the three papers in front of her. “I took the skill for it!”

Whatever they were doing, I didn’t get it at all. “I cast fireball for…” Gala rolled a few pyramidal dice. “Seven damage.”

Ice Storm consulted the book in front of him, then rolled his own pair of dice. “It resists the fire damage. Manticore’s turn.” He picked up the knight piece on the table and advanced it toward the little red plastic unicorn model. “It takes its three melee attacks at WS four.” He rolled several six-sided dice. “Two hits.” He picked up two of those dice and rolled them again. “Totals out to eleven damage. Ouch, that’s unlucky.”

By the way everypony reacted, that had to be bad. “What’s going on?” I asked, still completely confused.

“I may have accidentally killed off Li’l Red here,” Ice sheepishly replied. “Whoops.”

Several sheets of paper flew into the air. “No! Wait! I think I can survive this one,” Gala exclaimed. “I’m allowed to have two spells prepared a day. That means I can have shield and pitfall spells on standby, right?” Ice nodded. “Then I roll an eight-sided die for a bonus to my armor class value.”

Both of them consulted the books for more information. Raider punched my shoulder hard with her claw, leaving behind shallow little cuts. “You’re such an egghead. Games like this? Come on.”

I rubbed my shoulder while I tried to think up a response. Where’d they get these from, anyway? “I don’t remember any of this,” I said. Hmm… “Yo, Icy!”

“Hm?” Ice looked up from the dice he was about to roll.

Assuming I was right… “This stuff yours?” I pointed at all the books and dice on the table. “It isn’t mine.” At least I didn’t think it was. Something about all of those multi-sided dice, though…

Ice rolled the dice he was holding. “Well, you survived the manticore attack.” He mentioned to Gala. Turning back to me, he simply replied, “Oh, all this stuff is totally yours. I did a little negotiation with your little officer problem and nabbed us an opportunity for something potentially useful. And your old ‘Oubliettes & Ogres’ collection, of course.”

My jaw dropped. “Bwuuuuh?” No way. I was a badass markspony that doesn’t afraid of anything! It just wasn’t possible that all this stuff was mine. And dealing with that traitorous backstabber, too? What the heck?

“Yeah. You had an egghead phase, remember?” Nope. “Long nights in the rec room with your friends, gaming the hours away?” Nope nope nope. “That one time you got a critical success on a charisma check and talked your way out of a boss fight and made him off himself?” Okay, that felt familiar enough. “You look like you remember.”

That bit of my memory came rushing back to me. Lunchtime gaming sessions during our breaks, midnight dungeon crawls to pass the time. “Holy crap.” How could I have forgotten hours upon hours of adventure with some of my closest friends? Lightning was there, Shadow was there, even Cloudy and Lurky from Bravo Two. Hell if I could remember who started it, but it had turned into a bi-weekly event at one point. “I’m an egghead.”

~~~~~

I awoke with a start, which also woke up Rumcake since he was holding onto me like I was a pegasus-shaped body cloud. “Gaaah buck me, I’m an egghead!” I wailed despairingly.

“Mmnph. I’d still buck you,” Rumcake sleepily mumbled. He shifted a bit and hugged me tighter. “Go back to sleep.”

“Everything I know is a lie.” I glumly rested my head on Rumcake’s foreleg. “It’s really depressing.”

Rumcake whapped my ear playfully. “Don’t be sad. You’d be cute with glasses.” That was supposed to make me feel better? For that comment, he earned a bruise to the nose. “Ow! Hey, that hurts.”

I tried to get back to sleep with new revelations weighing heavily on my mind. Cute, huh?

Aww. He called you cute.

Yes. Yes he did, Ice Storm.

It’s been a long time since somepony called you that.

Okay, now that’s just insulting.

Do you remember?

What, the time of my life? Of course not.

What?

It’s nod to a cool song. Laugh, damn you.

…Whatever. Well, come on back in and maybe I’ll show you. Raider Frosty got tired of Oubliettes and Ogres.

Rumcake poked the back of my head. “Psst. Can I have my leg back?” he whispered. I shifted in my spot in order to comfortably stare at him blankly. “It fell asleep.”

“No,” I snickered. “It’s mine now.” He attempted to pull his leg back from under my head. “Get your own.”

“But this is my own!” Rumcake hissed back.

“Too bad.”

“But I’m getting the tingles!”

I had a bit of fun by keeping Rumcake from having his foreleg back for a minute or so. He’d resorted to tickling me until I was forced to get off his leg to protect my stomach. What a cheater!

Once I’d gotten my breath back, I settled myself against his big fuzzy body and went back to sleep. Time to find out what Ice Storm wanted me to see.

~~~~~

He was waiting for me. However, instead of appearing inside the cloudhouse like I normally did, I was standing outside in the street next to him. “Wait, what the hay am I doing out here?” I wondered out loud.

Ice Storm tucked his revolver into the folds of his trenchcoat. “I’ve taken care of all the little details so we won’t have to mentally damage you any harder,” he calmly replied. “All we need to do is look for the start point.”

I had a bunch of questions. “Won’t Officer Frosty get really mad?” I asked in puzzlement. “Don’t you remember what happened last time?” The last time we’d attempted to delve into my memories, Officer had gone into severe rage mode afterward. Now he was still using my image as a disguise underneath his uniform, but all of us knew that he was still the mind-controlling Enclave officer. “What makes you think this time will be any different?”

By the smug grin on Ice’s muzzle, he had obviously thought of this beforehoof. “We actually settled this days ago, believe it or not.” Days? Wait. The only time that would have been possible was… I started to put facts together, and suddenly it made a lot more sense. “While Officer Frosty was in control of you, she was forced to show herself and lower her guard.”

“Then Raider took control when an opportunity opened up?” I finished for him, recalling my sudden urge to spout corny combat dialogue before I destroyed that Enclave squad. “And judging by why Officer Frosty is having a bit of R&R time, I assume you and the rest of me opened a giant can of whoop-ass.”

Ice stared at me blankly. “Sure, that’s close enough. As long as we stay out of heavily restricted areas, we should be fine.” He sighed. “That means no mission logs, no debriefings, et cetera and whatever.”

All I heard was more along the lines of “absolutely nothing of actual use at all”. I needed to know about what missions I’d been on before all this had happened instead of… uh… “What are we going to find, exactly?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“A party. Don’t look at me that way—it was literally the only thing I could get him-slash-her-slash-it to agree to. Maybe we can also find something useful there, too.”

…A party. Just great, we were going to visit a party that I may or may not have passed out at, or maybe even done something embarrassing that I didn’t want to relive.

“Lacking that, it might help you keep your mind off of the more, uh, depressing stuff,” Ice explained to me. “A party never hurt anypony.”

Without any previous recollection to use as proof, I reluctantly agreed. “A party only stops when there have been two deaths and everypony is disillusioned with the jazz age as a whole.” When Ice didn’t even blink at my reference to classy literature, I sighed. “Fine. Let’s find this thing.”

~~~~~

I didn’t feel like talking to Ice Storm as we casually strolled around the imaginary streets of Cloudsdale, free from an imaginary angry Enclave officer chasing us. At the edge of the city, our surroundings blurred out and morphed into a military base. Even though it looked familiar, I couldn’t recall what the name of it was or where it was supposed to be. It didn’t help that the ground had been replaced by irregular metal plating instead of the clouds that it was supposed to be.

Both of us looked around. “There’s a good chance we’re looking for something in the barracks or mess hall,” Ice said, breaking the silence. “Where do you want to look?”

Truthfully, I had no idea what I was looking for. “You said something about a party, right?” I asked, trying to come up with something that could help. Logic dictated that large social gatherings would need to take place in the mess hall, but unauthorized ones would need to take place in the barracks. After a moment of consideration, I decided to go to the barracks first. “There’s a good chance we’ll find whatever it is there.” Since I had no ideas where the party was, I just needed to hope that I brought back a souvenir.

So to the barracks we went, quickly realizing that neither of us knew where we were going at all. Identical squat buildings each labeled with miscellaneous numbers, letters, and emblems laid themselves out to our left and right. “So, which one’s yours?”

I stopped. “Wait, you don’t know?”

“I only know as much as you do,” Ice replied. “So I’ve been following you and hoping that you just so happened to remember where your bunk was.”

Uh, what? “But I was following you.”

Silence. “Oh. Well, that’s awkward. So, uh, do you remember yet?”

“No.”

Our surroundings looked frustratingly familiar, however. I was willing to bet that the base’s layout shouldn’t have changed, even if I didn’t remember it at all. Officer Frosty shouldn’t have changed anything about it, sans the floor if I was right. “I’ve got an idea. Maybe if you go through the steps, we’ll get there eventually,” Ice suggested.

Hmm. He had a good idea, even if it was a bit flawed. “Like I can remember what I did on a daily basis instead of where I live.” I rolled my eyes. “We’ll need to come up with something better than that.”

Ice tapped my forehead with his hoof. “It’s all about muscle memory. If you just imagine you’re going to take a nice, long nap after afternoon drills.”

“Not possible. I have cleaning duty at the research labs after dinner.” I absent-mindedly mumbled. “After that I’m free.” Woah. Where’d that come from? More importantly, why was I doing the cleaning?

“Fine, fine. After that, then,” Ice dismissively waved. “Point is, you need to remember the path you would normally take back to your quarters.”

That was going to be much more difficult than Ice made it out to be. “Fine. Got any suggestions?” I had no idea where to start at all. There must have been hundreds of buildings here to search, and that wasn’t counting the rest of the base.

The sound of sandals flopping behind us was accompanied by the clinking of ice cubes in a glass. “You live in ‘B’ Block, first building, Maggot.”

Ice and I turned around and were greeted by the sight of Officer Frosty. Well, there was nopony else it could have been. In lieu of her standard issue uniform, she now sported a bright multicolored floral patterned short sleeved button-down and a pair of massively oversized shades. “Scram, before I decide it was a bad idea to take a break.” She took a sip from the mug of tea in her hoof. When neither of us moved, she added, “Maybe I’m starting to regret it right now…”

I picked my jaw off the floor and took off to my left. Clattering of hooves behind me let me know that Ice was still following me. “I don’t remember owning anything like that!” I blurted to him.

“It’s the other way,” Officer Frosty singsonged. I skidded to a stop and turned the other way, breathlessly mumbling my thanks. “You’re welcome. There you go.”

Just follow the letters, Frosty. Aha! I caught a glimpse of the letter “G” passing by at high speed. Several buildings later, “F” flew by as well. I spread my wings and took to the sky to cover more distance.

When I got to the “B” buildings, Ice Storm was already standing there waiting for me. I was winded and a bit out of breath by the time I skidded to a stop in front of the first building. Okay, maybe I wasn’t in nearly as good shape as I thought I was. “How… the hell,” I gasped. “Did you… get here…” I paused for breath. “…first?”

“You’re out of shape.” Ice surveyed the area. “Did you know this isn’t the normal layout of these buildings?”

What. Well, that probably explains how he’d gotten here before I could fly here.

“This place has been rearranged for one reason or another, but I don’t really care.” He pushed the door open. “After you.”

After casting Ice my best sardonic glare, I poked my head inside the dimly lit room. There were eight bunks inside, two double stacked bunks on each wall. The wall space next to each bunk was covered with the owners’ personal effects. Instinctively I knew that the second bottom bunk was mine, even if it didn’t have my name on it. The other ones had assorted posters and mementos taped to the wall, but mine was simply adorned with a pair of shiny dog tags on their tiny little chain and a short strip of extra ration tickets pinned to the wall with a combat knife.

Upon closer inspection of the tags, I realized they weren’t from anypony in my squad. However, the name stamped on the tags did in fact ring a bell. “This guy,” I growled. “To think I forgot about you.” I closed my eyes and attempted to focus on the hazy memory forming in front of me. “This better be a damn good party.”

<~~~>

Cupcakes pranced through an obnoxiously bright grassy field and the sun happened to be a giant haycake. My mind could not comprehend what I was seeing, but I was starting to think that I might have had too much to drink at the party. I was about to dismiss the entire thing as a drunken haze when a very energetic blueberry muffin bounced up to me. “Psst! Hey! Wake up!” it squeaked.

“But you look so delicious…” I found myself whimpering. Great, I was having a food dream and I just told somepony they looked tasty. Great work, Frosty. “Just one bite?”

The muffin headbutted my leg. Headbutt? Does a muffin have a head to butt me with? “Wake up, silly. How can you sleep when there are so many wonderful things to do?” the muffin squeaked, much louder than before. “C’moooon. I know you can hear me.”

I ignored the muffin, which continued to nudge my leg. I scooped it up in my forelegs and caressed it with my left hoof. An actual left hoof! I’d forgotten how it felt like, even if it was just a dream. “I know, I know. Maybe after a snack then.” I licked a blueberry on the imaginary pastry. “And I think I’ll start here.” I opened my jaws wide and took a huge bite out of the top, expecting a deliciously warm and toasty treat. Of course, that’s what I was expecting. What I actually got was a mouthful of inedible soft plush material.

Confusion didn’t even begin to describe what I was waking up to. Well, I was waking up to a mouthful of standard issue bedding. Lightning Chaser was leaning against my bunk, laughing her ass off. “That w-was—hic—amaaaazing!” She fell on top of me and continued to giggle. Judging by her speech and actions, she was completely smashed off her face and at least four mint-als into the night. I extracted my pillow from my mouth and blearily glared at her, hoping the darkness of the room would cover my reddening face.

“What the hay d’ya want, Lighty?” I demanded, also trying to be as quiet as possible. Other ponies, other normal ponies, were still trying to sleep. I squinted at the clock on the back wall. “It’s three in the morning!” I hissed at her. “We have drills in two hours, then I have target practice, and then—”

Lightning shut me up by replacing my pillow into my mouth. “Aww, don’t be like that. There’s tons of fun to be had! There’s a super duperly awesomely radical party happening in the ballroom right now. Let’s go!”

I removed the pillow once more and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “You do realize it’s shit like this that gets us in trouble, right? Like the fact that none of us got rations today because you decided it was a great idea to add LSD to the mess hall’s water supply. And the potatoes. And the hay fries. And the carrot chips. See a pattern here? Where did you even get that many chems, anyhow?” My stomach growled in agreement.

The only reply I got was more giggling. “Magic.”

“Wait, didn’t you eat the hay fries too? And the potatoes?”

“So?”

Cue double facehoof. “Well, I’m awake now.” I sighed. “Let’s go outside where we won’t wake up anypony else. I’d rather not lose any more rations over anything else silly.” I hopped out of my bunk and rearranged the sheets. After pointing Lightning in the general direction of the door, I grabbed a small satchel off the floor under my bunk and looped it around my neck. “I’d like to be back in bed in an hour.”

“Maybe you’ll find somep-pony else to be in bed with.” Lightning staggered ahead of me, weaving back and forth along the street. “Le’s see…”

We trotted along toward the muffled sounds of music thundering through walls. “I’m just going to go out on a limb and assume we don’t have permission to use the whole ballroom for a party, right?”

Lightning snorted. “It’s actually totally legit! Some scout jock got promoted, and he’s pulled all the stops! Greatest. Party. Ever.” She lurched into an unsteady hover and continued to dangerously swerve above me. “Which is why you”—she poked my head—“need to get around more. Have some fun, little filly!”

“I’m going to point out that I’m still older than you.”

“But my birthday was a few weeks ago!” Lightning whined.

I stared at her blankly. “Numbers are this big mystery to you, aren’t they?” Ah, the things I put up with. “I’m just going to assume you left the party only to get me to come, right?”

“Ab-so-lutely!” Lightning popped another mint. “You gotta see this though—it’s no ordinary party.” As I opened the doors into the ballroom, I was assaulted by waves of impossibly loud music and the cracking of multiple thunderclouds going off all at once. “See?” she shouted at me over all the noise. “Best! Party! Ever!”

I scanned the guests of the party. Surprisingly enough, there were a lot of high-profile guests either hanging out at the bar or tearing up the dance floor. As far as I could tell, there were a few sergeants, a whole battalion’s worth of airponies, lieutenants, and a lone brigadier general, among others. “Well, I’ll admit, this is a really crazy party all right!” I yelled back to Lightning. Priorities first, Frosty. “Where’s the snack bar?”

Lightning hovered over the crowd to perch herself on top of an unoccupied thundercloud and pointed to the tables next to the bar. As I made my way through throngs of dancing ponies, I noticed a blood-red pegasus sitting on a thundercloud at the edge of the room staring at me in a most disturbing manner. Of course, I stared back at him and shot him my best “what-do-you-want” face. I was about to storm over there and find out what that creepy buck wanted when somepony that was smashed off his face stumbled into me. I looked away for a moment to push him off, and when I looked back at the cloud, he was gone.

Whoever was hosting this party really pulled out all the stops! There were hundreds of treats and snacks available to choose from, not even including all the drinks at the bar. As I helped myself to some apple thingies and a strange potato disc thingy, somepony approached me from behind and casually asked, “Have we met? Something about you rings a bell, but I can't quite place it. I feel like I'd remember a face as cute as yours.”

I whipped around, aforementioned apple thingie still in my mouth. “Wuh?” I blurted. Real smooth, Frosty. I mentally facehoofed as I failed to come up with a proper response. The red stallion from before was standing in front of me. “Who the hay are you?” I finally decided, swallowing the snack. “And I can’t really say I have.” The oak leaves on his lapel flashed at me. “Sir.”

“Don't sweat it, I've never been big on rank between friends and family. That goes double for pretty mares,” he smoothly replied, still making himself heard over the deafening music. “Name's Mach. I don't suppose you've heard of me? I'm the guy that assassinated that asshole Ardent Vortex. My, uh… my dad is General Silverbolt, not that I care to repeat that fact to everypony I see.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. “Oh,” I quietly replied. “I didn’t realize, sir.” Icy fear gripped my chest. I’d just spoken out against a vastly superior officer without permission. On the bright side, I couldn’t pee myself in fear since I hadn’t had anything to drink in a while, thanks to Lightning once again. “And may I add that you are definitely looking much more familiar now? Sir.” I added, hoping that he wouldn’t do anything too excessive at such a casual meeting. But I didn’t simply say that out of fear—his name had actually sounded familiar to me.

“C'mon, what's with all the formality? You're wound up like a stars-damned top. Take it easy, would you? The whole reason for this shindig was to get everypony to unwind for a bit. It's a party, lighten up and live a little!” Mach passed me a drink.

I must have stared at that tiny cup of whiskey for the longest time before I threw caution to the wind. Besides, I was already in enough trouble as it was. “You only do live once. I should be more careful. Screw it,” I replied, downing the shot. “I guess everypony really needed something to lighten up. Especially after what’s been going down this week.” Mach. Silverbolt. Where did I know those names from? “Say, where have we met before, sir?”

"You don't remember? Come on, you have to remember!” I continued to stare at him blankly. “You were only responsible for delivering the weapon I treasure more than anything into my hooves. I mean, uh, you didn't do it personally, but you did find it, after all. With a cache of other guns that my father confiscated off of you.” My poor little sleep-deprived brain couldn’t come up with anything. Mach noticed my look of complete and utter confusion and continued, “I tried to give it back to you, but you told me you didn't even want it, that all you cared about was the sniper rifle. When I found out he took a whole pile of guns from you I got pissed and dragged you off to talk to him about it. You weren't all that keen on ruffling the feathers of a general, but I took you with me anyway."

Boom. Sudden realization struck me. That’s where I knew those names! “You! Now I remember!” Visions of hasty excuses and a hazy meeting in an office appeared out of nowhere. “Do you have any idea how much trouble I got into? Heck, do you know how awkward it was to explain to everypony else why I had a meeting with a general and a captain?” I sighed. “Again, I appreciate the gesture, but you really didn’t have to do that. If it makes you feel any better, it would have been more paperwork on my end.” I shoved another apple thingy into my mouth. “Besides, my old man would have made me turn them over, anyway.”

"Look, I don't think you realize just how important that gun is to me. I lost my first one on a mission early on in my career, and I thought I'd never get my hooves on such a fine piece of earth pony engineering again. Let me give you something to pay you back. Here, take these.” Mach yanked off his dog tags and presented them to me. “It's no sniper rifle, but it's all I have to give, really. I mean, uh, besides this bitchin’ party.”

“Uh, wh—” I started. Mach stared at me expectantly, still holding out his tags. “Screw it, sure.” I took the tags from him and examined them in my hoof. Nothing particularly interesting, just all the standard stuff. Once I shifted to the second tag, however, I was surprised by the single addendum stamped on it. “Allergic to acetylcholine, huh?” Words, why must you confuse me? And why didn’t I ever pay attention in chemistry?

“That—uh, I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just say bees and wasps terrify me and leave it at that, alright?” Mach stuttered.

I couldn’t help myself. “Aww, is the big important stallion scared of an itty bitty bee?” I cooed, giggling uncontrollably.

“Yeah yeah, go on and laugh it up. Stars alive, even as a major I get no respect. I swear, years down the road ponies will still be giving me a hard time.” Mach facehoofed.

Lightning stumbled into Mach. “Aww maaaaan, I’m sooo druuunk.” She unceremoniously climbed over him and wrapped her forelegs around my neck. “Teehee.” Even in her drunken state, she still managed to get into my satchel and rummage around for extra mints. “Fwooosty, where you keep my candy?”

I gave Lightning a good slap on the hoof digging through my satchel. “Stop. I don’t carry any of that crap for you, remember? Last time you wanted me to carry your illicit goods, Dad caught me and pretty much tore me a new one.”

Judging by Lightning’s somewhat lacking reaction, she might have expected as much. “Ooh, but who’s this big handsome buck?” She giggled. “Such biiiig wings.” Mach proudly stood there as Lightning stroked his wings.

“I think I’m going to bring my excessively inebriated friend back to her bunk. Thanks for the party, though. And the tags.” I smiled at Mach while I wrestled Lightning off him. “Have a great night. Morning. Or—Lightning, will you let go of him?” I yelled. She was still valiantly holding onto one of Mach’s outstretched wings, much to his chagrin. “Damn it, Lighty!”

<~~~>

The memory faded away like a dream as I opened my eyes. I stared at the dog tags in my hoof and wondered if Mach was still alive somewhere. By the looks of it, Ice Storm had been napping in one of the bunks until I’d come out of the memory. “Have fun?” he asked, quickly hopping onto his hooves.

I thought back to Lightning’s antics and smiled. “You could say that.”

Ice clopped his hooves together. “Excellent. Now go get some rest. You’ve earned it, and you certainly look like you need it.”

Before I could protest or question, I felt a nap attack coming on. I was out before I hit the ground.

~~~~~

The rest of the night must have passed without incident, because I woke up in Rumcake’s comforting embrace. I opened my eyes a crack, only to be greeted by the relative darkness of the building’s interior. Dusty gray light barely made its way in through the grimy windows along the upper edge of the building’s walls. What time was it? I raised my PipBuck to check the time, only to succeed in searing the bright image of its screen into my eyes.

“Ow, ow, ow.” I blindly fumbled for the backlight toggle before hazarding another peek at the screen. “Dah! Wrong way.” Somehow, I’d managed to turn on the flashlight function instead of turning down the backlight. Squinting against the burnt-in light in my eyes, I managed to turn off the flashlight with only marginal difficulty. It was eight in the morning, according to my dim PipBuck. The noise of ponies moving things and the sizzle of food cooking immediately grabbed the attention of my stomach.

Too bad Rumcake was still asleep. And since he was asleep, his forelegs were still wrapped around my body. As much as I would love to have retrieved breakfast, I couldn’t escape his warm loving embrace. His very strong, impossibly tight embrace. In fact, when I attempted to squirm away he only held me tighter.

Good thing that at that exact moment, Tangerine was climbing back up to the flat she shared with Sparkle. Behind her, a small tray of slightly charred assorted edibles floated upwards in her orange magical field. We locked gazes for a moment, then she suppressed a loud snort. She decided on, “You two are adorable.”

I mouthed the words “help me” to her. With a nonchalant flip of her hood, she ignored me and continued up the ladder.

I laid in bed with Rumcake since I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere. Every now and then he’d mutter something or happily rub his face in my mane. “Hey, fatso, wake up.” I prodded and pried at his forelegs, which only caused him to grab me tighter. A pair of heads belonging to Tangerine and Sparkle, respectively, poked down from around the edge of their level. “Aww. They are adorable,” Sparkle cooed. “Look at her struggle.”

“I’d love to actually get out of bed today,” I gasped. “But I’m in a bit of a tight spot.” Even flapping my wings was impossible—my right was against the floor and Rumcake was holding my left down. “How do I wake him up?”

Sparkle retracted her head and reappeared moments later with a very crispy slice of… something. “Eashy,” she replied between bites. “Tickle h—dear Celestia this is disgusting—his ear.”

“And how do you expect me to do that?” I snarked at her, wiggling once more to demonstrate that I was still trapped. “Look at all this space!” At this point, I didn’t even try to be considerate by keeping my voice down. I just wanted to get out of bed for once.

“Can’t you use your tail?” Tangerine pointed out. I flicked my short tail in the direction of Rumcake’s face, then glared at her. “Oh. Sorry.” With that very unhelpful tidbit, she retreated.

On the other hoof, Sparkle had this really stupid grin plastered all over her muzzle. “I’ve got a great idea.” She swung herself onto the ladder and down onto our flat. “Oh, this is going to be so funny.” She calmly trotted to my side and poked Rumcake’s ear. “Wakey, wakey! Eggs ‘n’ somethin’ or other!”

To his credit, that stallion could sleep through the end of the world. “Can we pry his forelegs apart enough so that I can slip out?” I suggested.

That appeared to be the only way I could escape. “Worth a try.” Sparkle shrugged. She managed to wrap her forelegs around one of Rumcake’s. She pulled at his leg with all her might, to no avail. I even added my own power to her efforts in the sheer hope that enough space would be created so I could squirm out. “Stupid… sexy… Rumcake…” she grunted. “Why… are you… so… strong?”

For some reason or another, even with both of us exerting all the force we could muster, we still couldn’t budge Rumcake’s forelegs. I had, however, managed to reorient myself so that I was facing him. Sparkle was lying down on her back a few feet away, completely exhausted from our efforts. Why wouldn’t he just wake the buck up? In my new position, I could poke him in the stomach as much as I wanted to at least.

“Hey,” Sparkle panted. “I got a great idea.”

Not only did I really want some breakfast thanks to the deliciously tortuous smells wafting from below, but now I needed to use the little filly’s room. Any ideas would be great at the moment. “I’m all ears,” I responded, perking up my ears.

Sparkle sat up again. “You cloudwalkers have fairy tales and stuff, right? Or is that stuff banned?” In all fairness, she was only partly right. Anything that was considered ‘too radical’ or the like had been removed some time ago, according to Dad. Huh. Thanks for remembering, brain.

“I would assume I’ve been read the classics,” I cautiously replied. “Why?”

Without Sparkle directly saying it, I was somewhat sure of what she was about to suggest. “You know how the knightly stallion always kisses the damsel at the end?” I attempted to facehoof, forgetting that my right hoof was now stuck. Of course it was exactly what I was thinking. Sparkle gazed at me hopefully. “Maybe it’s time for a strong female lead?”

I sighed. “Really? How long have you been saving that line?”

Like the silly pony Sparkle was, she bounced in place eagerly. “Really long.”

“Better question: if wrestling and talking haven’t worked, then why would a kiss?” It was a valid question, after all.

“It works in the books,” Sparkle simply answered. “So why not?”

I resisted the urge to faceclaw as well. “Fine, since I really don’t have many alternatives.” Using the space available to me, I scooted as close as I could to Rumcake’s warm toasty body and wrapped my forelegs around his neck. I closed my eyes and gently kissed him right on the lips. “G’morning, sweetie,” I whispered.

A loud snore completely shattered the poetic beauty of the moment. Rumcake was still fast asleep.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” I dejectedly muttered, glaring at his sleeping face.

For a moment, Sparkle sat there and stared at us. I had to angle my head back in order to get a good look at her. “Maybe we can try the ear thing again?” she suggested. “Since Knight Charming is a really heavy sleeper.”

For future reference, Rumcake was impossible to wake up once he was asleep. Even though I batted at his ear multiple times, he simply ignored it like it was nothing. Since I wasn’t making any progress, I turned myself back over so that I could comfortably snuggle up against him. “That worked great,” I sarcastically shot back at Sparkle.

Sparkle stared at Rumcake, then back to me. She grinned at me mischievously. “I’ve got an idea.”

“Oh really? What other sort of—ow!” While I was talking, Sparkle had strolled over to me and yanked out one of my primaries with her teeth. “Hey! I need those!” I complained. Hopefully whichever one she took wouldn’t impact my flight too greatly. At least she hadn’t taken any of the really important primaries.

Using my stolen feather, Sparkle tickled Rumcake’s ear. He flicked his ear several times in response, but, just like all our other tries, he didn’t really move at all. “What is he, in a coma?” Sparkle complained. “Wake up, damn you. Don’t make me break out the bass!”

“If he hasn’t woken up by now from all our commotion, what makes you think music will?” I pointed out. “Whatever you’ve got in mind better go to twelve.”

“I don’t think the locals would appreciate a rave at this hour,” Sparkle glumly sighed. “Whatever, you’ll just have to wait until he wakes up.” She spat my feather out of her mouth, where it lazily drifted downward. “But if you’re bored, I’d be willing to sit here and keep you company.” That sounded nice. Otherwise I’d get bored and probably fall back to sleep again.

However, my feather appeared to have a better idea. On its way down, it happened to lightly flit right across Rumcake’s nose. He grumbled and snorted, reaching up to scratch at his nose. Wait, I was free! I launched myself away from him before he could decide to move his leg again. Currently, he was lying on his back, complacently snoring away. “Well, at least I’m not stuck anymore.” My carefree tone masked my rage at the fact that making him move was so much simpler than we had made it.

Now that I wasn’t nestled in Rumcake’s strong embrace, I could finally move again! I arched my back and flapped my wings, pulling at my sore muscles and joints. I hadn’t felt this sore since basic. Maybe Ice Storm was right, maybe I really was out of shape. As I twisted my joints to work out any last kinks, my mind wandered into figuring out what I needed to finish today. Find a book, get my stuff back, get that crazy mare to fix the armor, and get some directions. Not necessarily in that order.

Sparkle winced when another particularly loud pop escaped my right shoulder. “Once you’re done rearranging your entire skeleton, feel like some breakfast?” Hmm. Breakfast sounded like an excellent plan. “I’m still hungry after those terrible donuts.”

My morning stretching completed, I moved onto preening. “You head on down first,” I told her. “I’ll just fly down in a moment.” There were still a few ratty feathers that I had to take care of before I felt I was finally clean. When was the last time I had a nice, long preening? Apparently not anytime soon, based on Sparkle’s continued presence and impatient fidgeting. “If you insist on waiting for me, gimme a second then.” I did a quick once-over on my wings, smoothing feathers back into place and pulling damaged ones.

“Question.”

I smoothed one last feather into place. Close enough. “Go ahead,” I grunted, shaking myself down.

Sparkle pointed at my wings. “If your wings get covered in something, do you lick it off?” Out of all the potential questions she could have asked me, that definitely caught me off guard. I was expecting something more along the lines of why I was taking so long or something.

“I’d wash or wipe it off,” I simply answered. “Why?”

“But what if it doesn’t come off?” Sparkle countered, climbing down the ladder. I floated down beside her. Screw climbing, I can fly. “I mean, what happens then?”

“At that point, I’d rather not think about it,” I replied, ending that conversation right there. Onto a new topic! “So, what do they have for sale at breakfast?” We reached the foot of the ladder and cantered to the food stall with all the ponies clustered around it. Two of the workbenches had a large board placed over it, turning it into some sort of makeshift table setup.

Sparkle shrugged. “Stuff. Just all your standard food stuff. Boxed apple chips, boxed hay chips, boxed potatoes, boxed—no, wait, canned corn, boxed dandelions…”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it.” I sighed. Nothing fresh, then. Apple chips didn’t taste anything like the real thing due to its freeze-dried nature. All the boxed stuff, huh? “Wait… do they have cherry snack cakes?” I scanned the menu of the food stall, ignoring the two ponies working the counter. “Ooh, they do.”

“Oi! We don’ serve their kind here.” The orange-coated earth pony slammed his hooves on the counter. A few spots on his face lacked fur, instead showing dark scar tissue. One of his murky golden eyes was a touch off-center from the other one. His dirty grayish-yellow mane was shorn down to a few inches, which was covered with a manenet.

Everypony stared directly at me. “What?”

Sparkle jumped to defend me. “Yo, you got a problem with cyberponies?” Oh. Of course, the metal leg was probably somewhat disconcerting to most ponies.

The orange pony slammed his hooves on the counter again. “No, the bucking bird!” He pointed at me once more, for emphasis. “I don’t serve ya bloody kind.” My heart skipped a beat. Ouch. Just when I thought the Wasteland was much more tolerant than the Enclave was. “Now scram!”

I wasn’t really sure what to say. I hadn’t been expecting it, and I stood there for a second not knowing how to respond. For once, I didn’t have any witty comebacks, no indignant replies. After this long, I really wasn’t expecting a reply like that.

I shared a doubtful, worried glance with Sparkle. “I’ll just dig something out of my bags,” I sighed, turning back to my flat. “You enjoy your breakfast, then.” Everypony else went back to whatever they were doing before.

My emotions were in complete disarray. Discrimination wasn’t a new thing to me, but being the target of it certainly was. Normally, propaganda told me that non-pegasi were inferior and were to be treated as such. Maybe I’d just gotten lucky all this time and run into the open-minded ponies first. Being from a militaristic background, I was used to being stomped into the clouds, put down, and all-around insulted for being daddy’s little soldier. However, being the inferior, unwanted race was a new one for me.

I felt a little bit like a zebra.

As I trudged away, Sparkle grabbed my tail. I halted in my tracks and looked back at her. Through my blurry vision, I could tell she was giving me her best sympathetic look. “Don’t feel bad. Just find us some seats. Whatcha want?”

“Cherry cake thingies?” I sniffled.

“Right, one—no, two boxes of Fancy Buck Snack Cakes, then.” Sparkle led me to an unoccupied side of workbench-table. “Save me a spot and I’ll bring ‘em back for you.”

I wiped my eyes with the side of my claw leg, realized my error, and wiped them again with my right foreleg. “Th-thanks.”

“Hey, no sweat. That’s what friends are for, li’l sis.” Sparkle patted my head.

Eh? Last time I checked, I wasn’t related to her. Also… “I’m somewhat sure I’m older than you,” was the first thing that came out of my mouth.

“Not the point!” Sparkle brightly exclaimed. “You’re the new Square on the block, and that makes you the littlest sister.”

There was a time and place for witticism, and I wasn’t in the mood for it right now. “I don’t get it,” I grumpily replied.

Sparkle comfortingly patted me on my hat again. “You’re a Steel Ranger now! Blood is thicker than water, syrup is thicker than blood, yadda yadda, blah blah, you’re family now—shut up and enjoy it.”

Gala Frosty decided to butt in before I managed to squeeze out another confused objection. “Actually, the saying ‘blood is thicker than water’ is quite out of context without its full quote. The original context says something along the lines of ‘relationships by choice are more meaningful than those of biology’, making the shortened version completely incorrect.”

Sparkle gave me a look somewhere between confusion and boredom.

After taking a moment to appraise her reaction, Gala sighed. “We read sometimes.”

Once Sparkle had recovered from her stupor, she gave me another comforting pat and went back to the food stall to acquire food for us. I decided to go and grab a table in a dark corner so that I could sulk in peace.

A large, crispy-looking, greasy, lumpy misshapen mess on a platter greeted me a few minutes later. “What. The. Buck. Is. That?” I glumly demanded, scooting into a sitting position. “Sparkle, I never asked for this.” Since it still seemed like food, I gave it a cautious sniff. Oooh. Whatever it was, it definitely smelled heart-stoppingly good.

“That’s no way to talk to the stallion givin’ you free food. Shut your trap and be happy.” Boss plopped himself down to my left.

He wasn’t who I was expecting! “Gah! Sorry sir!” I prodded the mysterious confection in front of me. “But, with all due respect, what the hay is this?” I gave it another cautious sniff. “Is that… cherry scented?”

Boss sighed. “I overheard my minions denying one of my esteemed guests hospitality. Even if I might share their sentiments, well…” He sighed again and waved a hoof in a dismissive gesture. “Just… shut up and eat the bucking fried cake.”

“Fried cake?” Oh. Duh. It was a fried snack cake. Ergo, cherry scented. Fascinating! “What great wide wonder is this?” I gasped. “I need a fork.” There weren’t any nearby. “Buck it, I’ll just eat it the old fashioned way.” With that, I shoved my muzzle right into the fried cake and took a huge bite out of it. Molten cherry-flavored preservatives flowed into my mouth, accompanied by chewy pillowy soft dough in its crunchy outer edge. “Ohhhoho… tha’s sho goood!” I mumbled, mouth full of balefire-like flaming deliciousness. “It hur’s sho good!”

“Glad you like it.” Boss sighed, nodding. “It was a favorite of my…” He was staring off into space, probably reliving happier days. I paused in mid-chew and stared at him. He noticed me staring at him and narrowed his eyes. “Never mind that. Shut up and keep eating.” Boss was not somepony I wanted to mess with, so I intelligently decided to look away and keep chewing.

Actually, if Boss was the leader of this place… “Sir, any idea where I might find somepony’s super magical book of intelligence?” Maybe he knew where Violet would have left that book at.

The moment Boss rolled his eyes, I knew this wasn’t the first time Violet had lost her book. “That mare isn’t really all there.” He sighed. “Tell her to use her magical location finder thing since she probably forgot about it. Celestia help you, she’s a real pain to deal with.”

Sparkle returned and deposited a tray on the table to my right. “Oh. Uh… still need these cherry snack cakes then?” Whether she was joking or not, she slid the two boxes to me anyway. “How’d you get that?”

“You’re welcome, ladies. Now if you’ll excuse me…” Boss stood up and left. I wasn’t exactly sure where exactly he went since I was too busy wallowing in the deliciously orgasmic joy of deep fried sugary confections.

I was only into my third bite and my muzzle was already smeared with cherry filling. “I’s shooo gooood! Oohhhoho I looove cherry cakes.” While I stuffed myself with heart-stopping preservatives, Sparkle tucked into a small bowl of reconstituted mashed potatoes and a small piece of bread. Neither of us said anything as we ate our respective meals.

After a while, once I’d finished off the fried snack cake and Sparkle was idly chewing on the last bit crust from her bread, she casually asked, “So… usually I wouldn’t intrude on another mare’s personal business, but I gotta know. Why Rumcake?”

What was with all the surprise questions today? It caught me off guard—I didn’t really know the answer to that. “You should really mind your own business,” I hastily replied, dodging the question. I hadn’t thought about it, really. Something about him just drew me to him.

Thankfully, if Sparkle was offended, she didn’t care. “Gotcha. Not talking about it.” Instead, she changed the subject again. “So you figure out who that scribe was?” Oh right, she didn’t know yet. “And what contingent does she belong to? Tell me she has repair kits.”

Since it appeared that Rumcake and Sparkle hadn’t even tried to figure out who Violet was, I had to fill in the gaps for them. “Her name is Violet Dusk, and as far as I can figure out, she’s not tied to any of our contingents or organizations or whatever. I don’t really want to figure out how your ridiculous hierarchy works, so don’t even get started.”

Sparkle stared at me blankly. “Did you even read the memo? Everypony gets a memo on day one.”

“Well, what have you been doing?” I shot back. “We’ve been here for a good amount of time by now.”

I stood up and Sparkle followed suit. Both of us deposited our trash in the marked bin, and Sparkle returned the bowl and tray she had been using. “Mostly listening to music and trying to fix things,” Sparkle reluctantly admitted. “And trying to forget the creep factor of those ponies…” She shuddered.

Trying not to remember? “If there’s one bucking thing I’ve learned so far, memories are precious. I’d rather suffer nightmares of past deeds rather than question the things I’ve done, the things I’m not allowed to remember,” I snarled. There were things that I was sure were important to me that Officer Frosty wasn’t allowing me to know. Things that would have made me a different mare. “So shut it and be happy with what you have.”

The normally formidable Steel Ranger in front of me stood stock-still. Without realizing it, I’d gotten right up into Sparkle’s face and backed her against a table. She was frozen in a combination of fear and indignation. I looked down and blanched when I realized I’d fixed my claw around her neck.

With a feeling of slight horror, I dropped my claw to the floor and slowly backed away from Sparkle. “I’m… I’m…” I stammered. She rubbed her throat, fear reflecting in her eyes. “Holy crap. I’m so sorry.” Hurting her hadn’t been my intention at all.

Sparkle held up her hoof. “Given your neurotic history and recent events, I’m willing to overlook that in the name of friendship.” She coughed. “You’re a soldier. You need to keep your emotions under wraps. Just some advice from a friend: talk to somepony. Sort out your issues if you’re not willing to forget them.” Tears welled in my eyes. What was wrong with me? “Aww, don’t cry. C’mere. Hug?”

Without another word, I collapsed into Sparkle’s open forelegs.

“Bleeeh,” Rumcake yawned. I jumped a little in surprise. Where did he come from? “The hay happened here? You okay, sweets?” he asked, clearly concerned about me. “Sparkle, what the hay did you say to her?”

I wiped my eyes dry once more. “It wasn’t her fault. It… it was mine,” I shuddered, remembering my talons wrapped around Sparkle’s throat. “I might have lost control for a moment.” She nodded in agreement. Yes, best not bring it up. “But I think we’re cool now.”

“Good to hear.” Rumcake sighed. He pulled one of two canteens off from around his neck and gave me one. “I’m a bit suspicious of this since I bought if from a pony named Burnt Toast, so…” Hesitantly, I accepted the canteen. “Uh. Have this canteen of nice hot coffee”

After a sip, I noticed several major problems with the coffee. “This is barely warm.”

“This canteen of nice coffee, then,” Rumcake corrected.

Next problem: there was this unpleasant burnt acrid taste floating at the back of my mouth. “I know you mean well, but this is disgusting.”

“Canteen of coffee.”

Was normal coffee supposed to be this thick? I tilted the canteen sideways and watched in horrified awe as the remaining liquid sludge slowly inched to the exit. “Enclave rations might have spoiled me, but I’m still somewhat sure coffee shouldn’t have two layers.” I tapped the side of the canteen and winced as the tip of my talon poked through the reinforced container. “And uh, I don’t think it does that, either.”

“Canteen,” Rumcake deadpanned. “You’re so picky and demanding, you know that?”

Demanding? The same acrid smell began to waft out of the top of the canteen. “I’m not demanding. You need a refund.” With a hiss and a gut-wrenching splorch, the entire right side melted out of the container. What the buck did I just drink, grease and liquid rainbow? I shook what was left of the canteen I was still holding. “And a new canteen.”

“Damn it, and I just bought that.” Rumcake sighed. “Well, at least I still have one more.”

I eyed the other potentially volatile canteen around Rumcake’s neck. “You have more of that stuff? I don’t think that’s safe.” The very thought of more of that stuff made me panic just a touch. “Or healthy,” I added, acidic bile rising in my throat. “Just thinking about it is going to make me sick. Ugh. Somepony find me a sick bag.” And then it was gone. “Nevermind, I think it just corroded my gag reflex.”

All three of us stared intently at the remaining canteen around Rumcake’s neck, just waiting for it to melt and collapse. “You silly fillies, it’s just water,” he grumbled. “What, is the water going to burst into flames?” Hehe. Famous last words.

“I wouldn’t doubt that.” Sparkle eyed the canteen warily. “Better get a refund for that, too. While we’re at it, get a refund on Frosty as well.” I narrowed my eyes and flattened my ears at her. “What?”

In my best quiet menacing voice, I asked her, “Are you calling me defective?”

Sparkle thought about it for a moment. “I’m just hoping you’re still under warranty,” she replied with a snicker. Okay, maybe I deserved that one.

Product cannot be returned since it has been tampered with.

Interesting. Assuming I knew what I was talking about, did that mean somepony really had done something to me, and this wasn't some strange form of PTSD?

“Back to the point,” I interjected, unwilling to pursue this topic further. “The only way Violet is going to help us is if we find her goddesses damned book.”

Rumcake seemed confused. “Who?” Right. I’d forgotten to fill him in.

“Violet’s the scribe from yesterday, remember?” Sparkle explained. “She’s going to fix our armor and stuff.”

I would love to get free repairs, but the deal I’d made with Violet probably wouldn’t apply to me. “All we need to do is find her magic book.” Which, frankly, would be nearly impossible given our current location. “So, what’s the plan?”

Sparkle and I looked to Rumcake expectantly. “Hmm. Frosty, since she’s already familiar with you, see if you can get her to tell you where she left it last. Sparkle and I will ask around, see if there’s anything else we can do for these ponies.” Well, that sounded like a plan. “Meet back here in say… an hour or two?”

“Got it,” I replied.

“Roger that. I’ll start with residential, then?” Sparkle decided.

Rumcake nodded. “I’ll see if the important ponies know anything.”

All three of us split up to complete our respective jobs. I used my magical pegasus ability of flight to circumvent the bother of walking all the way back to Violet’s flat. When I got there, however, there wasn’t anypony there. The entire place was a huge mess—much messier than last time I’d been here. Books had been moved from their piles, and loose paper and quills lay all over the place.

Wait, correction. There was somepony here. If I hadn’t been focused on trying to get around without scattering paper and books everywhere, I would have noticed the huddled-up weeping pony hiding in her bed.

I was about to prod her when I realized that was probably a bad idea. Interrupting her while she was wallowing in whatever ponies wallowed in would probably end in my demise, if what happened last time was any indication of her mood swings. Instead, I settled on politely coughing to get her attention.

The cloth pile shifted slightly. “What do you want?” Violet quietly and glumly demanded from somewhere inside her bed.

“It’s Frosty,” I told her. “I might have found a way for you to find your book.”

Suddenly, Violet burst forth from the safety of her sheets. “Really?” she gasped. “Tell me, tell me, tell me!” The fur around her eyes was matted from recent crying, yet she stared at me with new hope gleaming in her eyes.

“Your book has a tracking spell on it, according to the ponies I’ve talked to,” I reminded her, thinking back to what Boss told me during breakfast. Speaking of which… “Why haven’t you used that yet, exactly? It would have saved both of us a lot of grief and effort.” I cast a baleful gaze at our surroundings. “And a whole lot of cleaning up, too.”

Violet stared at me blankly, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Um.”

“Hmm?” I arched my eyebrow at her.

Whatever she was trying to come up with, she wasn’t succeeding. After several awkward seconds of staring, Violet finally spoke. “Okay, I think I remember the tracking spell.”

I was slightly worried. “Wait, what do you mean by ‘I think’?” I thought unicorns were supposed to be super smart and stuff like that.

Violet sighed. “There’s a reason I need that book. I keep all my spells in my spellbook so I don’t have to memorize every single kind of spell I can cast.” Oh. That made a bit more sense. “And I may have overlooked the small fact that I haven’t really memorized the whole tracking spell. Well, I can still do my best.”

Hopefully Violet’s best would be enough. I watched with slight fascination as her horn charged with hazel-colored magic. Slowly, tendrils of her magic drifted outward, searching for something. Since she was too busy keeping her magic under control or something, she didn’t see her magic extending to my direction. “Wait.” My chin tickled as the first few tendrils wrapped around my muzzle. “I’m not a book.”

“I’m just searching. Relax, you little filly,” Violet calmly replied, deep in concentration. “Shut your face and let me focus.” While she was focusing, the magic tendrils emanating from her horn had encircled my muzzle and was working its way across my face and neck. On the bright side, at least they only tickled instead of something more uncomfortable. “Hmm. That’s interesting. I think I might have found it.”

I glared at her silently as the magic finished doing whatever it was doing. “Mmmph.” Even if the tendrils didn’t hurt, they still managed to keep me from opening my mouth. Great.

Violet exhaled in exasperation. “What are you mumbling about now?” She opened her eyes and paused. “Oh. Huh. That’s interesting.” I narrowed my eyes at her and pointed at my bound muzzle, trying to tell her that I couldn’t say anything. “So I may or may not have forgotten what my location spell is.”

Maybe my expectation of unicorns was too high. Violet dropped the spell she was maintaining, which freed me up to finally talk. “How the hay do you forget that? And if that wasn’t your location spell, then what was it?” I didn’t want to have to experience that again, if possible. It made me feel… violated.

.”If I remember correctly, if that wasn’t my locate spell then it was probably my detect-magic spell,” Violet replied, levitating a book to her. “That makes things much more difficult. But still, very interesting…” She flipped through a few of its pages. “Have you been in the presence of full-body magic spells within the past few days?”

What did that have to do with anything? “Yeah, from you and the scribe I came in with. Maybe some more miscellaneous magic as well. Why?” I replied. “Wait, is this about the spell just now? Are my ovaries safe?” I’ll admit, I was panicking just a bit. Every single time somepony smart had casually mentioned that something was “interesting”, that never bode well.

“Hm. Seems to make sense. Find me a quill, will you?” Violet asked, presumably looking around for some paper. “To answer your previous question, your ability to reproduce should be fine. Probably. Find that quill yet?” I picked out a slightly bent quill that was sandwiched between a book and a stack of notes. “That won’t do.”

“Well, what do you want me to–OW!” I yelped, jumping back. The second I looked away to find a better quill, Violet had quickly padded over and yanked one of the primaries from my right wing. “What was that for?”

Violet gave me a you-are-an-idiot look. “Writing,” she flatly stated. “Duh.” As she quickly refurbished my stolen feather into a quill, I couldn’t help but realize I needed to somehow keep my feathers on my wings without everypony arbitrarily stealing them all the time. Once she finished the Frosty-feather quill, she quickly scribbled things down while glancing at me from time to time.

I did my best to control myself. Sure, murder isn’t the answer but it did make me feel better. Right? “Back to the point, please. If your book isn’t here, then when was the last time you had it?”

We stared at each other for a while. I uncomfortably shifted my hooves on the floor as Violet continued to unerringly gaze into my soul for several minutes. “The old bookstore!” she suddenly exclaimed. “That’s where I left it!”

Oh good. Hopefully the bookstore wasn’t too far away.

“It’s only a few miles down the road,” she continued.

I resisted the urge to groan out loud. Well, a few miles wasn’t too far by wing.

“I was looking for a readable copy of ‘Advanced Teleportation and Pseudo-Locational Theory’. I must have left both of them there when the bloatsprites showed up.”

Eh, I could handle a few bloatsprites.

“Let’s go there.”

Pause. “What do mean by ‘let’s go’? You’re not coming with me,” I said firmly. “You’re a combat liability and the last thing I need is a dead mechanic.”

“Magical genius,” Violet corrected me.

I rolled my eyes. Both ways, she wasn’t going with me. My PipBuck beeped at me, simply reminding me about something being updated. Sure enough, the location marker for “Flambe Frank’s Flammable Fiction” had been added to my ever-so-slightly expanding list of locations on my map. “A live magical genius is more useful than a dead one. Stay here, and I’ll get your book. Afterwards, you help fix my friends’ armor.”

Violet nodded vigorously. “Of course. Find my book, and I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Great! I’ll be back later.” Time to go find my Ranger friends. To adventure!

I departed Violet’s flat and left her to her own devices. I glided down to the ground floor, thoughts of my friends and book-recovery in mind. Speaking of which, there was Sparkle right now! “Hey Sparkle!” I called out from above her.

One of the perks of being a pegasus was definitely the flying part, followed by the amazing ability to drop in on friends unannounced. Sparkle looked around in a very confused manner before probably realizing that I was the one calling her. “Oh. Hey, Frosty! Seein’ you a lot lately. Find anything useful?”

“Yep. I’ve got a lead on where that book might be, since Violet suddenly decided to remember where she left it.” I landed next to her with a flourish. “You find out anything?”

“Nada,” Sparkle glumly replied. “She hasn’t left a terribly good impression on the neighbors, if you know what I mean.” Cue blank stare. “Or not. Anyway, what’s the lead?”

I showed her the location on my PipBuck. It was only an inch or so to the northwest following a barely visible road. “Some bookstore, apparently.”

“Awesome. I’ll get Rumcake, then.” Ranger backup sounded nice.

Wait.

My sad, unarmored Ranger backup. Right.

Sparkle was about to gallop off to find Rumcake but I stopped her before she got very far. Hopefully she would break the news to him so I wouldn’t have to. “Don’t take this personally, but neither are you are coming with me.” Her disappointed and somewhat angry expression led me to believe she didn’t agree with my decision. “No offense, but without your armor, you’re useless.”

Sparkle opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. Then she opened her mouth again, then closed it again. Not as good as my own dying fish impression, but it was close. “You win this time, Frosty,” she finally said. “Next time I’ll have a nice snappy comeback. But isn’t it dangerous to go alone?”

“Don’t worry about it. But seriously, I’ll just go on my own. It’s just a few bloatsprites. Nothing I can’t handle,” I reassured her. “What’s the worst that could happen? Anyway, I’ll be back in a few hours. But if you’re that worried, could you go fetch Tangerine and tell her to meet me at the entrance? I’m going to need some of her help.”

Just like any good little soldier, she ceased asking questions and did what I asked. Once I’d retrieved my saddlebag, I tromped back to the doorway that led to the store out front and calmly waited. While I was at it, how was I doing on ammo and supplies? Without anything better to do, I proceeded to look through all of my stuff.

Moments later, a familiar robed orange unicorn rudely shoved her face into my way as I was rearranging the contents of my bag. “So. I’m here.”

“Oh good! Can you help me get into my armor again?” I hopefully clopped my hoof against the ground. “It’s hard for me to get into it on my own.” I sheepishly grinned.

Tangerine sighed. “Oh. Is that all? Ugh, fine. Want to explain why you’re going out on your own without your bestie Rumcake?” We walked down the hallway and knocked on the door at the end, which Corporal Tracks opened. He took one look at us, then closed the door again.

Wow. What an asshole. “Long story short, I’m finding somepony that’ll fix Rumcake and Sparkle’s armor,” I replied, hammering on the door. “Yo! Is leaving too much to ask?”

“What’s the password?” came the reply from the other side.

Really? A password? “What password?” I yelled, getting somewhat miffed by the whole situation.

“We had a meeting on this ten minutes ago.”

It was Tangerine’s turn to be annoyed. “If the meeting just ended, then everypony out here doesn’t know what the password is!” she yelled.

The door opened again. “Heh, I’m just pullin’ your leg.” Tracks chortled. “I assume you want your shit back if you’re going out.” I nodded. “I’ll get them. Hold on.” We followed him to the front of his store. “So, leaving our hospitality for good?”

I shook my head. “Nah. Running a quick errand.”

Tracks shifted his massive bulk in my way as he unlocked his safe. “Interesting. If it’s for the chefs, don’t bother.” The safe clicked, and he withdrew all my precious weapons and armor. “Those two goofs aren’t worth the trouble.”

Thoughts of the questionably rancid coffee sloshing around in my stomach came to mind. “Who?” I asked him while Tangerine and I strapped on my armor parts.

“Uh… Easy Greasy and Burnt Toast. Contrary to popular belief, Toasty actually knows what he’s doing. At least he didn’t try to deep fry a plasma mine.” Tracks plopped my anti-machine rifle in front of me. “So, what’cha lookin’ for? Radhog butts?” I shrugged. “Bigger?”

Once my armor had been completely reassembled onto my body, I quickly ran through a few simple test movements that I’d seen Powerlevel go through before going into combat. Tail, check. Hooves, mostly check. “Just a few bloatsprites. And a book.”

Tracks stopped in his tracks. “I didn’t notice any fire weapons in your arsenal,” he notified me in a worried tone. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

I hefted Philomena’s Touch. “Fire weapon. And I’m pretty sure I know what I’m doing.”

No you don’t.

Well, thanks.

“Suuuuure.” Tracks shut his safe. “If you get eaten out there, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Tangerine thumped my wing plates. “You’re good to go. Have fun.” She wandered back into the confines of the building, presumably to keep fiddling with both Rangers’ damaged armor.

As I checked the ammo count on all my weapons, claw gun included, Tracks dropped a small red large-barreled pistol next to my claw. Orange tape wrapped the barrel of the gun, giving it the appearance of a candy cane. I nudged it cautiously, confusion showing in my face.

“It’s a flare gun,” Tracks said. “Two shots, free of charge.” Oh cool. I love free stuff! “If those bloatsprites give you trouble, this should hopefully get rid of them. Those things hate anythin’ that burns. Fires self-arming, manual detonation flares. Maybe… three foot blast radius?”

That went into my bag. “Thanks.”

“Don’t die. It’ll be embarrassing for us all.”

I rolled my eyes. “I appreciate your concern.”

“No problem. Now scram. You’ve got things to collect for no good reason.” Tracks nodded and shooed me at the doors.

Thanks to my mechanical leg, I could float away and flash obscene gestures at Tracks. However, the second I left, a very annoying, very strong laser zigzagged across the ground ahead of me and stopped on my nose. Of course, the beam was coming from Airhead, who was nestled on top of the ‘p’ this time. “Hey, dickbag! Where y’all goin’ this time?”

“Doesn’t concern you, vaginaface,” I casually called back over my shoulder.

Zing!

At this point, I decided to ignore the lurking presence of his sniper rifle. There was no way he’d shoot me right in front of town. Right? “I’ll be back later.” Even with that thought, I mentally steeled myself for a bullet to the back of my head.

The red beam disappeared. “Ah’m willin’ to let that one slide on accounts you’s a lady.”

I opened my wings and shot into the sky, looking for a single book in the entire Wasteland buried in a bookstore. Just another day in the life of Frosty.

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Psychological Warfare (Level 2) – All the crazy. You now resist hostile mind intrusion spells. Active memories are now available for exploring without additional outside help. You can use the menu to view compatible memories that you have already seen.
Current Sub-perk: Mysterious Presence – Yeah, he’s still not being useful. You gain +8 to Pointless Conversation.

Author's Note

Featuring Mach from Fallout: Equestria - Outlaw!

Also, the views and opinions of Frosty don't necessarily reflect the opinions of TheBobulator. Sorry guy, you volunteered to be a sacrifice to Nuffle, and I've given you what you so desired.

If you’re reading this text, that means the story has been updated and this is the new and correct version.

Got a question? Ask Frosty!

Chapter 31: Won’t it be so snug with me inside you?

Chapter 31: Won’t it be so snug with me inside you?

“I don't know what we're going to face in there. But whatever it is, I know we need to face it together.”

You know, I had felt so incredibly clever when I came up with this plan.

I’ve always known I wasn’t a smart pony, but for a few glorious minutes I felt like a smart pony. I had been literally dead, yet I managed to kinda outwit Death itself and come back to life! I had come up with an unorthodox solution to a problem that even a council of ancient beings hadn’t been able to solve! I had linked together the various puzzle pieces of my life's experiences and concluded there was a single demand that would solve all my problems: Stuff my soul into a small wooden doll that was shaped like me!

“Holy crap I can move things with my mind,” Sparkle said, grinning like a lunatic as she stared down at the tiny wooden doll that was me.

I wasn’t feeling so smart anymore.

Let's review. My soul was now stuck in the little wooden Frosty figurine Sparkle had made however many weeks or months ago. My body was currently being possessed by Ice Storm, who turned out to be some ancient evil wendigo who wants to destroy the world. Sparkle has no idea that Ice Storm isn't me, so she let him escape and now he's Celestia-knows-where probably screwing everything up. And now Sparkle thinks she's a wizard.

Woo. Go Frosty. You rock.

In light of her incredible revelation that she had spontaneously developed super magic powers, Sparkle was still prancing around the room and generally losing her goddesses-damned mind. Every few steps she would stop, point her face in the general direction of an errant object in her workshop—to which nothing would happen—but cheer anyway. It brought a metaphorical light to the dingy shack, seeing Sparkle so happy. Ignorance was bliss, after all.

On the topic of revelations, I did find out that in my ethereal form I had a good two-pony-lengths of space that I could freely traverse before I was stopped by an angry transparent red barrier. However, I was somehow allowed to push this barrier around which translated into knocking my minifigure in the corresponding direction.

Anyway, back to Sparkle gluing the metaphorical ice cream cone to her head and me yelling at her for trying to one-up me.

“No! Sparkle, you grilled cheese, it’s ME. You’re not magic!” At this point I’d already figured out that she couldn’t hear me. That didn’t keep me from trying, but it did progressively raise my nonexistent blood pressure with each second.

This second chance of mine was going to be a complete trainwreck and Sparkle Cola was the engineer asleep at the brake.

Then she started intently staring at something on the workbench. “What? What are you looking at?” I demanded at the crazy mare. Obviously she didn’t react, but I traced her vision which ended on a stray nail on the table. “You can’t possibly still be trying.” As if she’d heard, she stopped. She balanced the nail up on its head and went back to staring at it.

“Damn it, Sparkle. You can’t—like—uuuuugh,” I groaned. Fine. If Sparkle wanted to be magic, maybe she could be magic for a day. I floated my ghost butt over to the nail and gave it a tap. To my surprise, it didn’t budge in the slightest. I tried again, this time with determined force. Again, nothing. It felt like I was trying to move an immovable object the size of a, well, nail. It took all of my ghostly might pressing against the standing tip of the nail to finally topple it over.

“Siiiiiiiick.” Sparkle marveled at herself for a bit. She strutted around the room while making zapping motions at random things. After a celebratory screech, she dashed out the room.

“Is this what it’s like dealing with me? Aren’t I supposed to be the one dumber than a pigeon in a snowstorm? I can see why Rumcake is so pissy.”

I tried to follow to see where she was going, but ended up slamming face-first into the angry red wall of anti-fun. I couldn’t physically follow her. Right. For now I was forced to listen to Sparkle’s rabid screeching coming from outside. The arbitrary barrier surrounding my little figure clearly wasn’t going to let me pass on through it, but as my gaze swept over Sparkle’s messy work space I found myself staring at my soul doll again.

So my entire existence revolved around this dumb trinket. I was clearly not allowed to move very far from it. My lack of physical form also prevented me from picking up my soul doll and throwing it across the room so I could follow it. As I floated in thought, circling around the limited space I had and listening to the dulcet tones of Sparkle still losing her damn mind, I ended up taking another good look at the barrier again.

Just past the edge of the table, my safety zone went through the back wall and came back into the room by the door. “Hey. You go through a wall, mister invisible wall,” I scolded the red barrier. Then on a whim of a thought, I decided to mush my face through the back wall. The chain of logic went like this: I can only move within the red space, so clearly the other side of the wall is fair game. Thank the goddesses that I was actually right. Or who knows, maybe it wasn’t going to be the end of the world. Point being, my head was now protruding out of a wall.

Huh. Ghost powers were kinda awesome. Awesome in a limited scope, but being able to go through stuff was the coolest thing ever. I could peek into bathrooms. The possibilities! But for now, I was watching Sparkle prance in circles around Rumcake. Hello, fat Rumcake.

This was the first time I’d seen him out of armor in an incredibly long time, so I couldn’t quite remember if he used to be this much of a lardcake. That being said, he was splotched all over with yellow paint—mostly all over his haunches and tail for whatever reason—and he was busy attempting to paint this excuse for a house we were in. He was mostly just standing there, painting one spot over and over again with the brush clamped in his mouth.

Still prancing, still overly joyous by the metaphorical ice cream cone on her head, Sparkle exuberantly shouted, “Hey! Hey, guess what?”

Without even looking away from the wall, Rumcake grumbled, “What?”

Sparkle stopped bouncing. She joyously spun on the tips of her hooves, shrieking to the world, ”I can move things with my brain.”

Fat Rumcake halted in mid-brush. He let out a great exhausted sigh, letting the brush fall to the ground. Once that sentence had processed in his mind, he thudded his head against the wall—yes, the wall with wet paint on it—and groaned, “…It’s two in the afternoon. How drunk are you?” When he raised his head, a portion of his stupid pink mane came back blotched in a fine yellow glop.

“No, really! See?” Watching Sparkle attempt to use nonexistent magic was quite possibly the bright spot of my week. The look on her face was like she was trying to take the meanest shit in the world while trying to finish a crossword puzzle. Simply. Amazing. “Hang on, I’m still sort of trying to figure out how it works.”

Rumcake, clearly not believing any of Sparkle’s bullshit, just stared at the fixated mare and let her give herself a hernia. After watching for an uncomfortably long time, he let out another tired sigh. “Riiiiight.” Suddenly, he didn’t look like the spry abusive stallion I’d met at the start of this adventure. He looked old. Fat. Tired. Fat. I legitimately felt just the teensiest bit bad for him until I remembered how fat he’d gotten. Fat Rumcake pointed at one of the many full buckets of paint and told Sparkle, “Pass me the next bucket of paint with your brain then.”

After only managing to make her face red with nothing to show for it, Sparkle finally gave up. “By the way, I still don’t get why you’re painting our hovel yellow.”

The saying about polishing a turd came to mind. They were literally painting corrugated tinfoil and wood paneling the color of moldy mustard. In theory it tied the whole hovel together, but in practice it just looked like a patchy smeared mess spotted with rust. “It makes it look nice,” Rumcake lied.

“Why not paint it some other color? Like green?” Sparkle pointed out.

Once again, Rumcake began painting the wall with his face. This time with a single thump, he said, “The only colors of paint left in existence are somehow only yellow and blue. I am not going to look at a big blue building when I come home every day. The last thing I want to see is blue.”

“Two things. One, since when we were planning to stay here permanently? Two, you can mix the colors, you know. Yellow and blue make green,” Sparkle once again sensibly pointed out.

Rumcake looked at the section of wooden wall and sheet metal, then back to the buckets of paint. “I am not mixing eight billion liters of paint.” With a heavy sigh, he cautiously stepped off the makeshift scaffolding he’d built. “Besides, I already got one wall finished.” He gestured at the patchy yellow paint scheme that he looked so obviously proud of. “I mean, considering I’ve been mostly using my tail it looks great.”

Oh. So that’s why some of those patches looked suspiciously butt-shaped.

But yeah. That was basically day-to-day action for Fat Rumcake and Sparkle. Rumcake never answered Sparkle’s question about when they were planning to move on from this dive. He’d spend a few hours attempting to paint, Sparkle did literally everything else for this dysfunctional household of two, and I did my best to send a spooky ghost message to either of these two idiots. I wasn’t very successful—Sparkle was still secretly convinced that she had somehow gained magic powers. No matter how much I attempted to guide genius magician Sparkle to any writing implement, she would default to the same excited giggling that came from me making anything move.

I would have already blown out my own brains if I had them. Sparkle literally couldn’t identify a hint if—as in, when—one hit her in the face. On the bright side, it was probably better that Sparkle wasn’t a squeamish spook-terrified crybaby. Most of my efforts in advanced spookology had no effect since I simply had zero idea what I was doing. Possessing small objects allowed me to rattle them. Doing that didn’t seem to affect anything else at the moment, so I largely left them alone.

Anyway, that was life with idiots. Everything was not okay at all.

But hey! Thanks to my innate aura of attracting the strangest of company, I was about to ruin the goddesses-damned shit out of Rumcake and Sparkle’s terrible sitcom. Things had been clearly boring for far too long and the universe decided that it needed to return Violet to the mix.

She just showed up out of the blue one day—and I’d almost missed it! By the time I’d caught on to what was going on outside they had already passed exchanging pleasantries and moved onto basically yelling at each other. I took up my favorite wall spot to shove my face through to watch the rest of the interchange.

In addition to “patchy”, Violet’s robes could now safely add “dusty” to its description list. If I didn’t know better, it was like watching Rumcake yell at a giant Violet-shaped dust bunny.

“It’s nice to see some things never change,” I sighed to myself.

Hearing the commotion, Sparkle came trotting out of their patchy yellow butt-printed hovel. Violet took this opportunity to re-introduce herself. “Greetings, dimwits. I have returned in search of Frosty.” Some things never changed. Violet was still just as friendly as ever!

Speaking of things that hadn’t changed, Rumcake still hadn’t finished painting. Most of what he was doing now was filling in the gaps between all the buttprints all over the walls with his teensy little paintbrush. He carefully set down the brush in his mouth back into a pot of yellow paint and said, “Well you just missed her by about a week. She’s gone.”

The dust bunny indignantly huffed, scattering bits of itself and revealing Violet’s scrunched muzzle underneath. “I have a hunch the Frosty you think I’m speaking of isn’t the Frosty that I am speaking of.” She paused and seemed to change topics. “There’s a thing called ‘studying’ that you two are clearly unfamiliar with. Did you know this town’s forbidden documents wing of the library is surprisingly well-preserved?”

“You’ve been at the library this whole time?” Sparkle remarked.

Violet scoffed, causing a portion of her fluff to floof away. “Don’t patronize me. Just tell me where I can find a Frosty and a calendar. Maybe even both.”

The two Rangers simultaneously blurted, “What?”

“Woah, woah, woah,” I said. “Back the exposition train up. Who jump cuts into the middle of a scene? Start from the beginning because I have no idea what is going on!” Nopony heard me of course, but it helped my own sanity by screaming my frustrations at the deaf world around me.

Violet ignored them, instead stating, “I’m coming in for tea. This can wait until I’ve had something to eat that isn’t paste.” She began to walk toward the far side of the butt-hut and to the door that I couldn’t actually see because of the space I was limited to. Dumb red barriers.

Rumcake hesitated, casting a glance at Violet then to the paint, then to Sparkle, then back to the wall. “We don’t—”

Once again, Violet elected to ignore the voices directed at her. “I’m going inside and eating the first thing I see.” She pushed past Sparkle—who didn’t bother stopping her at all.

The clearly confused Rumcake halfheartedly tried to stop Violet since Sparkle clearly didn’t want to bother with it. “No—”

Before Rumcake could stop her, Violet skirted around the corner and disappeared from sight. A moment later, we all heard a door slam, followed by a faint unamused observation. “I’m eating this alarm clock.”

~~~~~

They never did find a calendar. A thought occurred to me as they were searching—was a PipBuck the only way to accurately tell time in the whole Wasteland? I never even used that function the entire time I had been alive and now I felt cheated. Instead, Violet had opted out to snack on a jar of marmalade that Sparkle had helpfully dug out of storage.

Me being the bored ethereal being I was, I returned to the nearby radio which had become my new source of entertainment over the last few days. It hadn’t taken long for me to figure out how to possess the device. Every few minutes I would force a burp-like squeak out of my new body’s speakers. Too bad nopony seemed to particularly care about what I was doing. Bored once again, I figured it was time for me to get out of here.

I ejected myself out of the radio, the world around me re-materializing as the radio’s interior faded away. As it just so happened, at that exact moment Sparkle was leaning over the radio, presumably trying to figure out why it kept on burb-squeaking. Caught off guard, I accidentally hurled myself right into the side of Sparkle’s giant friggin’ head. The world around me flickered, then faded away again as I fell—into Sparkle?

Unlike the radio, it turned out that plopping into somepony’s head was a bit of a different thing altogether. I found myself disjointedly pulled out of thin air and roughly thrown to the floor somewhere that I didn’t recognize.

For some odd reason, the inside of Sparkle’s head looked a lot like the interior of a well-maintained shed. The wood flooring was scraped and clearly needed a good sanding, but the walls seemed to be in good shape—new coat of paint and everything. If I ignored the fact that there wasn’t a door, everything looked reasonably normal. Tool racks lined the walls, each carefully categorized and arranged by size. Each wall looked to be dedicated to a particular thing; there was a workbench for loading ammo and tinkering with guns, a table scattered with smaller toolboxes for presumably more generic projects, then the last having multiple tiny clamps, magnifying glasses, and all sorts of small-object-manipulation devices all over it. I wisely decided to not touch anything on the off chance that it ended up scrambling Sparkle’s brain.

“What just happened?” I did a few test hops, some cautionary prods, and an aggressive wall bop as well. Gravity was indeed on and so was collision. Good to know. I also belatedly realized I shouldn’t have done that. On the bright side, Sparkle didn’t spontaneously turnip-fy so there was that. Knowing that, I poked around a little bit more. Worst-case scenario at least I had enough space to dramatically pace back and forth in case I got stuck and/or bored in here.

Weirdly enough, the last wall of tools didn’t have anything on them. There were clearly spaces and pins reserved, but nothing occupied them. A small pile of wooden crates and cardboard boxes took up the space where a workbench would be. None of them were labeled.

“Okay, either there’s some weird nightmare demon crabs in that box or I’ve clearly watched too many horror movies,” I snarked to nobody.

Sparkle’s crabs aside, I decided a little poking around wouldn’t be a terrible idea. What was the worst that could happen? Me dying?

…Well, actually the worst thing that could happen would be Sparkle dying, but that was incredibly unlikely. If my brain could handle the ravaging it got, I’m sure Sparkle’s brain would be fine.

While I rummaged and generally made a mess of Sparkle’s make-believe storage, a new thought occurred to me. What would happen if I somehow died again? Would I be more dead? Deader? …Alive? Best not to think about that. Then in the bottom chest, I caught a glimpse of a shiny object buried underneath all the other junk. Trapped below the cobbled-together pistols and bits of paper was a chunk of unidentifiable chromed technological-looking doohickey.

The top part—or what I presumed was the top part—looked like something that belonged on a medallion. Both faces were blank, but shimmered in the nonexistent light source in Sparkle’s head. The bottom looked suspiciously like the bit attached to all of my PipBuck plugins. Clearly all I needed was to plug this bad boy into my PipBuck—

I found myself holding the device over the space of my left leg where my PipBuck used to be. Right. If only I still had one.

…Wait.

Poof. PipBuck.

Poof. UI Overlay.

Poof. Cake.

A girl could get used to this. Especially after a second cake.

Poof.

Once my post-cake revelation cake celebration ended, I turned my skills back to figuring out exactly what I was supposed to do with this PipBuck add-on I was holding. I had already plugged it into the PipBuck I conjured up for myself. Out of the things I could conjure, a solution was not one of them.

The bottomless cake helped.

Poof.

I scrolled through the PipBuck’s list of tabs. Inventory… did “magic PipBuck device” fall under consumables or miscellaneous items? One look at the quest tab made me gag at the length of the list and the number of unchecked boxes there were. I skipped that entire tab without giving it a second look. Back to items. Miscellaneous? It wasn’t under Equipment for whatever reason. Certainly wasn’t a weapon. Aha! Quest items.

Wait. Waitwaitwaitwait.

How the butt licking buck did this thing even know what qualified as a quest item? More importantly, why wasn’t a PipBuck upgrade considered equipment?

“Screw it. What’s the worst that could happen?” I clicked the activation button anyway and whatever this upgrade doohickey was spun to life with a quiet whirr. When nothing happened, I clicked the button over and over again in the hopes that something other than an error noise would happen. Instead, what I managed to do was skip the introductory popup that usually accompanied these things. “This is the absolute definition of complete bullshit.”

A second later, I heard a new voice in my head.

There was something not quite right about Violet showing up out of the blue. Maybe I’m just hungry.

I got a little confused at this stage. The other Frosties hadn’t followed me out of my body. Moreover, I hadn’t heard from them in a long time and this new Frosty sounded suspiciously like Sparkle. Identically similar, even. Several seconds later I realized that those were actually Sparkle’s thoughts floating by.

Also I’m starting to notice my armor is getting a bit tight lately.

“You’re actually just fat,” I absently spoke aloud.

All the errant narrative Sparkle-thoughts suddenly screeched to a halt. “WHO SAID THAT?” The real world Sparkle whirled around in circles, surprised, searching for where I’d said that from.

Wait. She heard that? Rummaging through Sparkle’s garbage could wait. Mischief time.

“Your hips,” Sparkle’s hips replied. Well, rather I replied for her hips. Unfortunately being in her head didn’t give me control of her magical butt powers. Whatever.

Nooooo, not agaaaain. I don’t want to exercise! I can only have so much sex in one day!

Way, way, way too much information. “First of all, I’m not sure you understand what exercise actually is. Second, it’s not your hips. It’s just me.”

“WHO??” Sparkle screeched again.

“Me. Frosty. Hi. Again.” After a momentary pause—mostly Sparkle screaming her head off, really—I politely asked the screaming banshee, “Hey, go get Violet for me? I can’t quite leave this room.”

Out of polite courtesy, I forced myself to not pry into Sparkle’s thoughts. Moreso it was because most of the things Sparkle was thinking had been mundane to the extreme or disconcerting. They weren’t things I wanted to narrate over or listen to for the most part anyway. At the moment though, most of it was screaming. Mental screaming, of course.

And actual screaming. Couldn’t forget that. “Violet! VIIIOLET! I’M HAUNTED!” Sparkle screamed at the top of her lungs.

“No, you’re not,” came the nonplussed report from Violet.

Mental screaming joined the physical screaming, filling my ears with nothing but Sparkle going, “HEEELP! I don’t want to be magic anymore!”

An equally bored Rumcake answered in a way as if things like this had become a commonplace occurrence. “Violet, please go see what Sparkle is stuck in now. You may be the only pony in the Wasteland that can help her.”

“You two are useless without me.” That end bit got louder, meaning Violet was in the same room as us now. Excellent.

Now that I knew what I was doing with my ghostly self, it was time to move onto something more serious. Violet was the intellectual powerhouse of the team after all, so it was time to get her filled in on the action.

I pulled myself out of Sparkle’s head and let the dingy shack load back in. Eventually I was able to differentiate what was reality and what was made up. Sparkle was curled up on the floor, crying and hysterically wailing about not wanting to be magic anymore. Standing over her was Violet, just as nonplussed as ever. Good ol’ Violet. Time to say hi. I spun up my ghostly legs and dived at Violet’s head, the environment of the shack slowly fading away again.

The inside of Vi-vi’s head wasn’t at all like what Sparkle’s had been. There were like, uh—have you seen that part of The Haytrix where the hero dude goes like “hey I need some guns” and just walls of goddamn guns fly out of nowhere? It was exactly like that, but with walls and walls of nothing but books. This was an overwhelming amount of information to process. Where did I even start looking? Between fiction and autobiographies?

Who’s there? I know you’re in here.

“Uuuuuh.” I scrambled for something witty to say. “…No you don’t?”

But now I do.

Eerie red smoke began to flow out from under the shelves and in my direction. Before I had a chance to make another smartass comment, the red smoke started closing in on me, coalescing into distinctly angry dragon-shaped heads full of giant-ass Frosty-shredding teeth. I smartly decided to scoot away to safety. Just as I was getting to the other end of the aisle, one of those dragon heads emerged out of the ground to block the passageway. It turned its wispy head and its eyes flared into life.

Clearly its vision was based on movement. I didn’t move.

It growled at me.

I screamed like the little filly I was.

Threatened by my incredible Sparkle Cola impersonation, it roared back at me. Louder.

I whined at it, “Can we talk about this? C’mon!”

The smoke monster froze right where it was, its glowing red eyes fading to normal. “Oh. It’s just you.”

The formerly menacing dragon-monster imploded in on itself, then with a magical crackle a floating sparkly orb appeared in its place. The form of a crazed, self-centered mare—who wasn’t me, by the way—popped out of the floaty colorful ball.

Violet stamped over to me with this weirdly annoyed look on her stupid face. “Why wouldn’t you introduce yourself first? Knowing you, you could have just opened up with ‘Hello, is it me you’re looking for?’ at least!”

Ah good, she knew exactly what I would do. “Because that would have made sense.” In the theme of Violet’s earlier theatrics, I willed a burst of confetti into the air. “Tadaah! Magic!”

Rainbow confetti rained down upon Magic Mare, antithesis of fun. “I hate you.”

Maybe she just needed a hug. “I love you too,” I agreed, smoothly sliding into Violet’s comfort zone. She didn’t react negatively, so I gave her a tight lovable squeeze.

“Stop touching me,” Violet quietly grated into my ear. Since she sounded seriously annoyed, I politely slid away. It was at this stage Violet took stock of the situation we were in—or rather, the situation she was in. I was just along for the ride. “And get out of my head,” she added.

My first instinct was to make a snarky remark, but Violet looked upset so I decided upon a slightly less snarky one: “Help me, Violet Dusk. You’re my only hope.”

The myriad of bottomless bookshelves vanished into the ether after a wave of Violet’s hoof. A series of couches, chairs, and other comfortable-looking sitting implements emerged out of the ground. There was a squishy bean bag the size of a small space station that had my name on it, then had my face in it after I body-dived right into it. Once I swam to the surface of its beany bagginess, I caught Violet giving me a disparaging look. “Would you like to start with how you’re in two places at once?” she asked. A quill and notepad popped into existence nearby.

Poof. So did a cake.

“There isn’t a simple explanation,” I mumbled through a face-full of generic pastry. “I died, Ice Storm took my body, I went to the afterlife, it sucks, and then I’m back here—and here’s the part that you’re probably gonna like—so I figured that putting my sparkly bits into this creepy doll as some sort of ‘soul jar’ or whatever they called it was a good idea. So now my soul is limited to moving in an area the size of the cone of shame.” Violet arched an eyebrow at me, but continued writing. “You’d be surprised what I can do when I’m paying attention.”

My half-eaten pastry vanished in mid-bite. “Then knock it off with the cake. I want you paying attention.” Just as magically as it had appeared, all the furniture melted back into the floor and left me lying on the ground looking like an idiot. Violet had been prepared and was already standing on her hooves. She chucked the notepad off into the distance and vanished into thin air with a poof of purple dust.

“What.” My vision slowly faded out to white, accompanied by an orchestra of white noise. “Why. What the shit is happening? I don’t like this transition at all!”

The next thing I knew, I had a first-pony view of a table. A half-eaten biscuit and a limp juice box sat dejectedly to the side, more out of necessity because of the huge-ass tome taking up most of the table. I attempted to push it aside, seeing as I understood exactly nothing written on the pages, but found myself unable to move any part of my body.

Instead, a faint jingle burst from the center of my forehead and the pages in front of me began to rapidly flip forward. They finally stopped on an empty page. A tan hoof pushed an ink pot and a quill into view—Violet’s hoof!

It wasn’t hard to put two and two together. I was riding around in Violet’s head before—now I was watching the Violet Dusk channel. I was seeing whatever she was seeing. Whether or not this was safe or if this was what I needed to happen was anypony’s guess. This was also probably somepony’s fetish, but thankfully for Vi-vi it wasn’t mine. Yet.

“There. No more distractions. Now where were we?” Violet still sounded dubious about my attention span but continued anyway. “Somehow I doubt it, but do you remember performing your attunement spell?”

Was that supposed to mean something to me? Well, I guess it must because Violet was asking me about it. Likely I had been confused at the time and therefore cast the memory to the void.

Loudly sighing, Violet clarified, “The thing with the circles, Frosty.”

To my credit, I attempted to bring up the relevant memory. It began to float up to the surface of my mind, but incredible lack of interest put a stop to that. The last thing I wanted to do was learn the same thing again. I was going to save whole pages of my autobiography by not thinking too hard about it.

“Pretend I do.”

Somehow, Violet accepted that. “Okay then. So starting with the concept of magick, we’re going to scoot on over to an older concept that it—”

Using my innate power of incredibly short-term attention span, I zoned out. Even better, Violet couldn’t even see me zone out. She couldn’t even tell I was spending her whole lecture trying to posses what remained of her biscuit. Trying and failing, unfortunately. Logic dictated that I needed a whole biscuit to mind-control. Common sense dictated that this was a stupid idea.

At a point where it sounded like Violet was wrapping up to some sort of conclusion, I paused what I was doing just for the end bit.

Just in case Violet actually expected an intelligent answer, I quickly lied, “Yeah, okay. I didn’t understand most of that. Explain it to me like I’m five.”

Violet let out a trademark Violet sigh. “Fine, look at it this way—you’re a cookie. I’m a different cookie. The idea is to become one singular dessert instead of two separate cookies.”

“I’m an oatmeal raisin cookie,” I brightly suggested.

Violet ignored me, of course. “Sure, whatever. Anyway, your cookie is inside a bag. My cookie is its own bag because of reasons that don’t fit inside this poorly constructed metaphor. The idea here is—”

“I only have one raisin because I am an oatmeal raisin cookie, not an oatmeal raisins cookie,” I clarified.

Violet made this disgusted ‘I can’t believe I expected nothing yet I am still disappointed’ glare at nothing. One of these days, I’d make her laugh. Once she was sure I was done, she simply continued where she left off. “The idea here is to introduce a third party—excessive application of magic ice cream—to turn our separate cookies into a single cookie sandwich before this metaphor falls apart.”

I actually understood it when she put it like that. Wow. “I think I get it. I basically need to be inside you and out of this doll, right?”

“Close enough. Your soul will still be in the doll, but whatever. I know that asking you questions about how any of this works is a pointless endeavour, so to put a long explanation short the two of us need to become a singular magic-powered entity so that I can investigate the link between you and the doll with my own magic.” She dinked the spark-battery-painted-vase contraption. “And you benefit as your active range should be able to be extended to what my magical reach is. For the sake of science, I am willing to let you occupy my body for a few days.”

“I’m not sure this counts as science, but at least it sounds kinky on paper. Won’t it be so snug with me inside you? All. Night. Long.”

Violet actually turned red. “Y-you don’t swing that way, idiot.”

With a huge shit-eating grin on my face, I sang, “Just because I’m not gay doesn’t mean I can’t think lewd thoughts.”

Yet another sigh came from Violet. “I can only be thankful that I cannot see, hear, or experience your thoughts.”

“Yet.”

“Stop it.”

~~~~~

Once we had set some boundaries—as in, Violet aggressively laid down walls and barriers and I politely watched—Violet went to work doing what she did best. We had agreed that I would stay inside the safety box that she had built to put me in and as long as I stayed inside it we could still be the best of friends.

Suitably enough, once the walls had appeared the environment shifted from “arcane library of evil” to “foal-proofed book bunker”. I could still hear Vi-vi and I could still communicate with her, I just wasn’t allowed into the rest of her mind. She even gave me crayons to play with!

Halfway through the yellow crayon Violet got my attention by tapping my metaphorical fishbowl. “I think I have a solution for this roommate situation we have here. Clearly you’re being intrusive and an overall inconvenience to me. I can rig together a resonance totem and we can find out if spiritual resonance makes a sound.”

I stopped eating the crayon. “A what for the what?”

“It’s a magic microphone,” Violet sighed.

Violet dumped out a satchel of random crap all over the floor that she’d apparently hoarded for just this occasion. Using her superior knowledge and 75+ tinkering skill, she cobbled together the aforementioned magic microphone out of a bunch of glowy rocks, stick-like implements, and a tape recorder—all held together with liberal application of duct tape. The finished product reminded me of the other totem she’d made a while back. I didn’t care enough to try to remember what it was, but it was probably some three mana 0/3 garbage ability totem anyway.

Point being, we now had this dinglebopper that neither of us quite knew what to do with. Violet expectantly stared at it, even giving it a motivational prod. “Well? Try it.”

I still had no idea what to do with it. “I don’t know how.”

“Ugh… I bet the Lightbringer didn't have to deal with such interesting companions all the time. Having to do all the intellectual lifting around here is just frustrating,” Violet grumbled to nopony in particular.

Hearing a title, as in a capital-letter-and-followed-by-a-cool-splash-screen title piqued my interest. “Who?”

“The Lightbringer,” Violet clarified. “Apparently she's the lucky mare that saved Equestria. A real hero-type, from what the DJ has been ranting and gushing about non-stop.” Violet made a face. “In fact, I’m pretty sure the DJ desperately wants to have an intimately personal interview with the Lightbringer. I sure hope she has better standards than that. Where were you while all—”

I interrupted her with an indignant huff. “Just because a radio dies doesn't mean it goes to the great big happy outlet in the sky where it gets to graze with the hot plates. I was ultra busy— ”

Violet facehoofed. “Being dead,” she finished for me. “Right, I'm still trying to process that without accidentally delving into specifics.” There was an awkward pause where she didn’t bother saying anything to follow that statement up and I didn’t have anything more witty to say. She hummed and muttered things to herself as she returned to tinkering with the odd bits of junk still arrayed around us.

So at a certain stage of this master plan, I should find a way to bring the Lightbringer into this. She sounded like the real hero-type. Maybe she could help me put a stop to all this Nightmare bullshit.

Note to self, figure out where the hell she went. Is. Will be. Maybe she had a house with a door to knock on. Maybe all I’d have to do was prop up a sign somewhere that said “Heroes Apply Here” with a contact address for Rumcake.

Now that this specific step of “Operation Nuke Ice Storm”—name pending, of course—had been temporarily resolved, there was the new problem of exactly what to do next. My alpha team was a flaming dumpster fire of platitudes. Besides the very obvious fact that Tangerine was still very much dead, goddesses rest her soul, the rest of the Rangers didn’t seem like they even wanted to pick up their guns again. Riverbed was retired, simple as that.

What I needed was a B-team.

But who would it be? I couldn’t quite figure out anypony else that would remotely consider helping me. As I slowly filtered through the ponies I’d met—and not killed—I found the list to be quite short. I had zero idea where the shit I’d left Butt Slave, not that he would help me anyway. There was also, uh… probably the hoof-ful of Rangers still back in Happy Hills that probably liked me.

Hey. That was a solid idea. Thanks, brain.

First things first, I had to figure out how to work this stupid sound totem that Violet had created. “So how does this work?” I asked, floating my ghostly self around it as if that would somehow reveal a solution.

Violet picked up the magical dinglebopper and balanced it in her hoof. “Well it should project sound.” The two of us regarded it expectantly, each hoping the other would make a move. She busied herself with subtly perfecting it with minute tweaks to bits of tape and poking the gems stuck to it.

After extended inaction from both of us, I broke the silence since I still had no idea what to do. “Well I figured that part, but how do I make it work?” I gave it a ghostly prod, to which it failed to react in any way.

“That’s still out of my area of expertise.” Rather indignantly, Vi-vi added, “You haven't been very forthcoming about what it's like to be an ethereal spirit, so I don't have much to work with here. Just possess it and tell me what it feels like, and we'll work something out from there.”

Part of me already knew how to ‘use’ this totem. If at all, it was just like any other everyday object I’d been messing with for the past few days. I was just mildly terrified that my undying soul would get stuck in it forever and I’d have to put up with listening to Violet blab for all eternity. “Fine, fine. Let me try something.” I hovered closer to it, pressing my ghostly hoof to it. “If I die, I’m going to haunt you to death.”

“You’re already haunting me.”

“MORE,” I shrieked just before diving into Violet’s health hazard device and therefore escaping the rest of the conversation.

~~~~~

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I jumped into Violet’s science fair project. My preconceived notion of it would have been something like the radio—mechanical, unimpressive, slightly edgy and clearly a working hazard. This place was… special in its own right. Presumably a horrific amalgamation of household objects that should not all be one singular object would also invariably twist what the uh—inside?—of it looked like.

So picture a room. Like, a nice open circular room. Got it? Good. It’s made of wood. The table in the center of the room was made of wood, and on top of it was a lamp that was made of wood, powered by an electrical cord going into nothing that was also wood, and of course the lightbulb itself was made of thin strips of wood.

If that wasn’t terrifying, then the duct tape holding it together was because there wasn’t anything but empty void past the holes they didn’t cover. Stuck under those bits of tape were fragments of plastic or wiring or whatever the guts of a tape recorder looked like. Every now and then a giant gemstone would appear in the center of the room, flicker, ponder its existence, then decide that life wasn’t actually worth living in this state of limbo and commit sudoku in a glorious shower of colorful dust.

In five words, I summarized what I was looking at. “This is literally the worst.”

The yellow gemstone beside me agreed, then exploded.

Okay. So Vi-vi said this was supposed to do something about sound. Sound. Things that make sound.

Poof.

Hello, mister radio.

Poof. Poof. Poof.

And mister table, chair, and boom mike.

An impulsive need to play make-believe overcame me. I pulled that boom mic right up to my nose, just barely touching the mesh. In my best deep, almost sultry voice, I began my test. “Gooooood afternoon ladies and germs, this is your captain speaking. We’ve reached our cruising altitude of just under believable capacity and you’ll notice I’ve turned off the fasten seatbelts sign. Drink service will begin momentarily once the captain finds her copilot.”

After several failed attempts and several seemingly wasted one-liners, I came to the realization that I probably needed an audio output device to hear Violet. One magical pair of headphones later, Violet’s voice came through. “Hello? Can you hear me in there?”

“Yes! Yes. Yeah, just a bit of user error. You’re coming through loud and clear.”

“What’s it like?” Violet’s tinny voice asked.

I cast my gaze over my brand new office space. “Terrifying. Empty. Made of wood. I made myself comfortable.”

“Does that entail causing my resonance totem to bounce?”

Furrowing my brow, I glanced at the setup that I conjured up. “Did it?” I scooted myself a smidge farther away from the table out of paranoia.

“What did you do?”

“Uh. Remodeling?” I hesitantly responded. “It wasn’t that drastic, I swear.”

“Interesting.” The sound of pages flipping followed by some extremely excited noises dominated the remainder of our conversation.

Since it sounded like Violet was temporarily done with this, I needed something else to keep myself occupied. I tinkered with my magic radio and headset configuration on the off chance that one of the many knobs and switches would somehow make Violet sound less grainy. In the middle of twisting the fine adjustment knob, I realized something profound. Why didn’t I just magically poof in something better?

Poof.

Behold, the magic of television. And magic. With my brand new wall-to-wall TV, I could keep an eye on what Violet was doing on the Vi-vi channel.

Poof.

And why did I need the microphone? Adding a transmitter to my imaginary PipBuck meant that I could use the speakers on Violet’s doodad without actually having to possess it.

Poof.

And some cake. Calorie-free, gluten-free, everything-free cake was probably my favorite part about not having a body by far. MMmmmm. Free cake.

In the middle of my cakefest, Violet interrupted me with a question out of nowhere. “Hey Frosty—when you were properly alive, did you ever experience post-traumatic stress disorder?”

Now that I thought about it—considering all the incredibly violent things I’d done, it came to me as strange that I didn’t. The logical answer would be something along the lines of ‘I was so evil I didn’t care’. The more likely answer was probably ‘I was too stupid to notice’, but the answer I ended up giving was, “I can’t suffer a traumatic event. That’s because I am the traumatic event.”

“That’s… Should I just fill in ‘mental illness’ as your answer then?”

“If that’s what makes you feel better, go ahead. ”

“I… see…” Violet trailed off in thought, already working on a completely different page in her book. “So using the limited information that I have been given, I believe we should be safe to proceed with this arrangement.”

I had absolutely no idea what Violet was on about, but I pretended to anyway. “Is it though?”

With a trademark Vi-vi sigh, she began to explain. “As long as your soul is actually stored in the doll and simultaneously bonded to me, I should carry the doll for both my mental safety and for your convenience. I’ll attach the totem to it as well so that you can talk to everypony without invading their personal space like you are right now.”

Oh, okay. Cool. “Uh, thanks Vi-v, er, Violet.”

“And as much as I would like to kill us both with alcohol, you are the only living and/or unliving thing that has seen the other side and returned.” To a point, I felt insulted. How often did friends come back from the grave? “I would greatly appreciate it if you could delve into more detail at some point.”

Note to self, fill in Violet about being dead. “Yeah, yeah. Sure thing. I’ve been putting together an action plan while I’ve been ignoring you. I’ll fill you in with the nerd herd so I don’t have to explain this twice.”

“I am already extremely concerned.”

~~~~~

So far, my tentative plan was that we go back to the other Rangers, figure out how much of a fighting force they had left, then go find the Lightbringer to see if she could do something about this flaming dumpster fire of evil. Along the way we could try to pick up some straggling Enclave forces that aren't currently interested in trying to murder everything.

Oh yeah, apparently most of the former Enclave forces—seeing as the cloud cover had been vaporized to kingdom come—really didn’t like the idea of touching dirt. I didn’t really have my own opinion, since I’d really gotten used to licking dirt and being dead hadn’t really changed what I thought. However, there were apparently a number of so-called hippies that thought the Wasteland wasn’t that bad.

To be specific, I was the one calling them hippies. I tuned out that part of Violet’s debrief. We needed those ones and not the super duper angry germaphobes to help us.

It was nice to be around friends again. Violet had brought me and myself—as in, the doll with my soul in it and me attached—back to the two Rangers. We congregated around their coffee-dining-countertop in their ‘kitchen’ for an ad-hoc meeting that I made Violet call.

I cleared my intangible throat. “Okay, I know I’ve never been serious once in my life, but you need to please just listen to me for once.”

“Voice! It’s the voice from my head!” Sparkle screamed, evidently still losing her mind.

Violet gestured at the Frosty-doll-radio abomination currently resting on the table. “It’s just Frosty. As in the real Frosty and not the one you two were living with. She’s inside the figurine.” Catching a look from Fatcake, she added, “No, I’m not entirely clear on the details either.”

We needed to save the world! I didn’t have time for explaining right now. They’d have to make do with the short version. “All you need to know is that you’ve actually been socializing with some asshole that isn’t me and using my body since he’s a cunt.” The confused looks on Rumcake and Sparkle’s faces meant I wasn’t doing a good job at all. “Oh my goddesses, now is not the time. There is a lot I need to—”

“Are we not going to…?” Rumcake gestured at my doll, a.k.a. the thing holding my soul to this mortal coil. He paused, glaring at it, then picked it up in his hoof. “You mean Frosty’s in this?”

“I told you it was haunted!” Sparkle scooted ever so slightly closer to Rumcake. “Frosty, how could you?” she whined, also fixing her gaze on the doll as well.

“Guys. You don’t have to talk to the doll. I’m right—what the buck put me down right now,” I abruptly started yelling the second Rumcake decided to toss it up and down in the air. “Put me down! Violet, turnip him before he breaks me!”

Instead of unleashing turnipey retribution onto Rumcake, Violet caught my soul doll in her magic and gently placed it back onto the table. “Please don’t break the potentially volatile soul containment object.” Thankfully, Rumcake listened to Violet’s warning. Sparkle didn’t seem to need it, what with still being wary about her former second favorite doll in the whole wide Wasteland coming alive.

Rumcake still looked a bit overwhelmed, opening his mouth several times without any words coming out. Eventually he settled on: “Frosty is inside the doll. Is this a joke, Violet?”

“Do I joke?” Violet retorted.

That seemed to shut him up quick. “Good point.”

“And I’m not inside the doll!” I jumped in. “That’s just where my voice is coming from because of Violet’s thingy she attached to it. I’m floating right here in the room with you.”

“So…” Rumcake looked around the room, attempting to find somewhere to fix his attention to instead of my doll. He eventually gave up and went back to talking at my doll like a moron. “What’s going on? What’s so serious that you can’t leave me alone?”

I heard the beginnings of an angsty monologue beginning to form and decided to cut to the chase before Edgecake could upstage my incredibly important announcement. “Holy shit fine all you need to know is that the leader-thing of the league of super ultimate evil hijacked my meat sack and is trying to bring back some bullshit about the end of the world.”

“What?” went Rumcake.

Equally as confused, Sparkle voiced the same sentiment. “What?”

Excellent. Now I had their attention. “Oh, so now you want the whole story.”

Seeing the obvious confusion around the room, Violet admitted, “If it makes any of you feel any better, I’m just as lost.”

I sighed, “Look, just work with me here.”

I told them everything I was sure about Ice Storm. It wasn’t a lot, granted, but it was enough. Fragment of Night, ancient wendigos, plans to end the world, whatever—evil whispering, blah blah blah. Things he’d said to me, things he tried to do—I told them all of it. I still had no idea why he was so interested in me in the first place, but given that the first thing he had made me do was try to recover all the missing memories locked within my brain, it probably had something to do with that.

Close to the end of my explanation I also chose to tell them about my alternate personalities and my deteriorating mental condition, moreso to make me feel better about one or two related incidents. Most of it wasn’t useful information, but I really just needed them to believe me first and foremost.

After I’d finished my spiel, the room went silent. The others maybe needed a moment to process the wildly somewhat outlandish story they had just heard.

There were clearly conflicting emotions running through Rumcake’s brain. With what he’d just learned, I hoped that he would realize that at least some of my problems had stemmed from my insanity rather than any malicious intent. He continued to ponder, periodic flickers of confusion and anger crossing his face before finally saying, “You know what? I believe you.”

I metaphorically let out a sigh of relief. “Good, otherwise this plot point would have been pretty pointless if you guys didn’t.”

Instead of suffering some sort of internal struggle about rights and wrongs and whatever my current situation classified itself as, Sparkle went, “What.” We all ignored her.

So now that everypony was filled in, I proceeded to continue with the hodgepodge plan that I came up with. “Anyway, all I know is that we have to stop Ice Storm from ending the world again. Further than that I don’t really have a plan at all besides ‘hit it very hard’.” Correction: I had a plan, but it was more of several fragments of many plans that needed to become one singular plan. “We could use any help we could get.”

“We could go back to HQ,” Rumcake mused. “I don’t think the Inquisitor would be on board with the idea of ‘let’s go on a crusade with Frosty's ghost’, but if you think one of you two can convince him you can try.”

While still looking thoroughly confused, Sparkle still pointed out, “Worst case scenario I think you can pull rank on some of the Paladins and force them to come on our spooky crusade. It’s not like any of them can say no until the Inquisitor says otherwise. As long as we leave before he finds out, of course.”

The exchange was suddenly and rudely halted when Violet leapt up from her seat with a shout. "Wait, wait, wait. You guys actually have a headquarters? With a base, and other Rangers, and a commander?” She glared daggers at the other two living ponies in the room and waited for an explanation.

Rumcake confirmed with a nod. “Of course. I’m technically supposed to be in charge of tactical deployment. If not much has changed we took over the settlement outside our bunker and we should still run the place.”

“I’m part of it too. Membership has its perks,” I added helpfully.

Clearly that wasn’t the response Violet had been hoping for. Vi-vi pointed at my soul doll and screeched, “Frosty is a Steel Ranger? What have you all been doing this whole time then?” With an annoyed huff, she took a second to compose herself then continued, “I thought you guys were just a bunch of wanderers."

“I wonder if they know we’re still alive,” Sparkle pondered out loud.

Poor, poor Vi-vi flopped onto the ground, groaning in exasperation, “I cannot believe you idiots have a headquarters. How have you not made your presence more known?”

Sparkle scooted over to Violet to gently pat her head. “We, uh, aren’t great at getting things done.” In a surprising turn of events, Sparkle attempted to steer the conversation back toward my ingenious plan. “Frosty does have a point, though. We should head back to base first. If you can convince the Inquisitor that evil you is a threat, we’ll have an army to fight back.”

Just as I thought I could get back to attempting to explain my shoddy concept of an action plan, Rumcake decided to derail us yet again. “Can we quickly go back to the ending the world part? How does an immaterial being in possession of the world’s dumbest pegasus end the world?”

I crossed my forelegs—which didn’t visually do anything for the living ponies who couldn’t see me—and snapped at Rumcake, “First off, that’s rude. Second, no idea. But apparently these things tried to destroy the world twice before so I’d bet anything he’s going for a hat trick.”

With a chuckle, Rumcake said, “It’s just Evil Frosty. How hard could it be?”

“If he’s anything like me, he’ll have scrounged up a couch and a TV. By the time we reach him he might finish the first season of Waterfall and we can murder him before he finds out there isn’t a second season.” Too bad things couldn’t actually be that easy. Ice Storm was a crafty asshole, after all. “Unfortunately he’s not me so of he’s like any raid boss, we’ll have to fight through an ocean of tanky minions and the inevitable mid-boss or two before reaching his death arena murderpit of penultimate doom. Luna knows how charismatic he is—I wouldn’t doubt he’d have his own fanatic cult by now. Don’t get me started on intricate puzzle rooms. Or life-size chess.”

“…I’m going to ignore that first part. And that last part,” Rumcake declared.

Even though I had all this figured out, this still clearly wasn’t a plan. There wasn’t enough information just lying around for me to make Violet come up with a better plan. “I assume at some point we find out where Ice Storm constructed his fortress of solitude,” I guessed. “Something as evil as he is has to be incredibly obvious, right?”

Violet delved back into her trusty tome of seemingly infinite knowledge. As it hovered at her side, flipping itself through pages and rearranging bookmarks, she sighed. ”I will see what I can do about finding the Fragment of Night. I have an idea of where to start.”

“Do we know anypony else to bother for help?” Any problem could be solved with liberal application of force, and one this severe meant that any additional help would greatly improve our chances of saving the world. What I really needed was more friends with guns.

Sparkle began to trot out of the room in search of something. As her tail vanished out the doorway, she yelled back, “What about Riverbed Ransom: cuddle monster for hire?”

Oh. There was an idea worth considering. Too bad she had already decided to stop adventuring for a life of relaxation. “All I know is that she retired after taking all of my money,” I reminded them.

“Our money,” Rumcake interjected.

I spoke over him, continuing, “And I’m not sure if she’d be okay with risking her life again to be honest.”

“If we find her we find her.”

Sparkle returned, laden with cans of soda. She passed one to Violet, who thanked her in turn, then chucked the other at Rumcake’s head. Rumcake’s face failed to notice, let alone catch it and it ended up bounced off the wall behind him. After taking a sip of hers, she offhoofedly blurted, “Five caps says we’ll just randomly find her now that you’ve said that.”

Screw it. This was probably as planned as we were going to get, considering how much of a logistical hellhole our team was. “Anyway! So our plan is as follows: Get back to the Rangers, find out where the legion of super evil is, find Riverbed, then save the world. No biggie. And not necessarily in that order.”

I mentally added ‘find the Lightbringer’ to the end of that, but I still wasn’t sure if that would be possible. Real heroes had better things to do than save the world. All the real heroes were too busy with their angst and brooding anyway.

Speaking to the room as a whole, Rumcake suggested, “You should go pay your respects to Tangerine before we leave. It’ll be your last chance to do it.” Solemn words for sure. They probably would have had exponentially more emotional impact had he been saying to to me rather than the doorway.

Now that I thought about it, I’d already done exactly that, hadn’t I? We hung out, we went on a date, we said our goodbyes. “I met Tangerine while we were dead. I already paid my respects or whatever.” As I mentally recalled the events, the whole guilt-trip make-out moment we shared made an appearance. Thankfully, nopony could see me turn bright red. “In fact, I went way above and beyond in paying respects!”

Violet paused in her book-flipping adventure. She stared in my general direction—whether by luck or by intuition was anypony’s guess—and asked in a suspicious tone, "What do you mean by that exactly?"

"Nothing!” I blurted. “Nothing. Just being random."

The book snapped shut. Violet narrowed her eyes at the space over my left wing. “Go pay your respects.” Wow, she looked super angry.

“I already did!” I whined.

“Then I will, and you’re going to come with me whether you want to or not.”

~~~~~

Tangie’s memorial was… I’d rather not get into it. It was simple, memorable, and they’d carved an encouraging poem into the slab of rock, and let’s leave it at that.

Thank the goddesses I’d been able to at least be there for her at the very end.

Ugh.

Uuuuugh.

I just wanted to go back to not regretting every moment of my life. This isn’t supposed to be some dark and gloomy edgefest. Jump cut.

~~~~~

On the bright side, since I didn’t have a body I didn’t have to walk. Unfortunately for these other meatbags, they had to trek and eat and sweat as usual these past three days. It turned out that after I’d gone to the great beyond, the whole “oops we accidentally blew up the entire Enclave but hey look it’s the sun a-aaaa-aa-a” thing radically changed how shit worked in the Wasteland. We had literally not been attacked, burgled, or even heckled the entire time, making for a terribly boring journey.

It was peaceful. Nice, granted—but boring.

And it was about here in the middle of this rather uninteresting plot point did Rumcake open his big fat mouth.

Fatcake clanked to a stop and motioned for the rest of us to do the same. After several seconds, he informed us, “We should be close to the old baron’s manor. Keep an eye out for it.”

Barely holding back laughter, Sparkle managed to stammer, “And this manor… is it opulent? Regal, even? Something something on the moor?” She snorted and burst into wild giggling.

“What? I don’t—look, I don’t even know what a moor is. The apple chips lady said there was something funny about it and that we should check it out on the way,” Rumcake explained. Without waiting up for the rest of us, he continued onward. For some dumb reason we followed.

I temporarily left the safe haven of Violet’s face and floated myself next to Rumcake. I didn’t need to, but I felt it was necessary. “Why did you even accept a fetch quest? The world might end any second.” My voice still came out of my doll several steps behind him and that’s the direction he ended up looking. For my own sanity I floated back a bit so there was some concept of eye contact.

“Please. The world can’t end without me being there. I’m the main character,” Rumcake boasted.

Sparkle scoffed. “You would be the worst main character. What kind of self-respecting gamer would voluntarily spend days and days doing nothing but building furniture and decorating? If anything, Violet is the only pony here proactive enough to be a main character.”

That was a pretty good point. Violet had probably done the most in terms of anything out of the three of us combined. “I wouldn’t doubt it. She has that stoic ‘I don’t care enough about anypony ever’ protagonist attitude,” I agreed. “I still want to say I’m the main character if this is a movie. Like, there are way too many shenanigans I get away with.”

For once, Violet joined in. “You do realize that making me the main character would make you the annoying yelling companion fairy, right?”

“I refuse! I’m too cool for being the tutorial character.”

Pointing to Violet’s robes, Sparkle laughed, “Too late. You’re already a small yelling item attached to the main character.”

“Nooooo!” I paused, conjured up a big red button labeled ‘NO’ and bopped it. “Noooooo!”

“All of you are the pimpliest of nerds, I get it,” Rumcake groaned from the front.

Banter aside, we continued onward toward Rumcake’s stupid fetch quest since it wasn’t too far out of the way. The road we ended up taking had branched off of the main streets a while back and we were somewhere haunch-deep in the middle of desolate hilly nowhere. Perched on one of the taller hills in the area was a sprawling, slightly decrepit mansion surrounded by a cobblestone and wrought-iron fence.

Casting back her hood, Violet regarded the building in the distance. In her mind’s eye, I watched her reconstruct the building’s facade. Boarded windows became shimmering stained glass, pillars rebuilt and intricate designs flowed across several walls. “This must have been a pretty house back in the day,” she noted.

Using the magic of make-believe television, I manually zoomed in on the building in the distance. “You mean the manor on the hill?” As I zoomed closer, I cocked my head at it. A strange rocky outcrop jutting out from the land caught my attention. It looked… A lot like… Oh. “The one with the giant penis on the front lawn?” I asked.

Violet tilted her head as well. “That’s not a—” She paused, narrowed her eyes at what I was also looking at, then came to the same conclusion that I did. “Oh. Oh my.”

“Relax. It’s just a rock formation,” Rumcake grumbled.

With a hint of longing, Sparkle breathed, “It is the longest, girthiest, marbleyist schlong I’ve ever seen.”

On the other end of the spectrum, Violet grimaced.“‘Marbleyist’ isn’t a word. Erect, however, is an unsettlingly accurate word here.”

Wait a minute…

—

The usually jovial Riverbed had a slight frown on her face and a quieter tone to her voice. “I’ve finally hoarded enough caps to retire. I’m done, Frosty. I’m gonna head back and buy that mushroom farm I’ve always wanted and sell hooch for the rest of my life. Settle down, y’know? Get a suitor, make some pretty little foals, build a giant statue of a mondo-sized schlong for the front yard—you know, normal life things. Dying isn’t really on the docket.”

—

With that startling revelation from mister brain, I found myself yelling out, “HOLY CRAP GUYS I KNOW WHO LIVES HERE. Violet! To the gate!”

Huh. Look at that. Universe was finally throwing me a bone.

The mansion’s front gate looked like any evil mansion’s would. They were several meters tall, much taller than any non-pegasus could jump and tipped with massive twisting spikes at the top. Sections of the iron bars were reinforced with sheets of scrounged metal and makeshift barricading as well. The stone pillars beside the gate had a small metal box mounted to it. An intercom, most likely.

“Push the button! Push the button! Ding dong, anypony home?” I chanted, encouraging Violet to do just that.

Rumcake tested the integrity of the gate by bouncing his helmet against it. “The gate’s locked,” he informed us rather unnecessarily.

“Hey, look over there.” Sparkle pointed at somepony off to our left by the far end of the mansion. Indeed there was a pony’s head protruding from around that corner. The poor blue guy looked confused. “Is that somepony? Hey! Over here! Friendly!”

At the sound of the voice, he turned his head, caught sight of us, and vanished out of sight with a flicker of a yellow tail. It didn’t look like he was coming back.

Dryly, Violet grumbled, “Oh good, you scared him off.”

“Not my fault.”

While these two clowns were busy terrifying the local populace, Rumcake apparently still hadn’t let go of trying to force his way in. He gently pushed at the gate again, eyeing the lock built into the center of it. “Hey, Frosty, can’t you just float through the other side and unlock it?” he asked in Violet’s general direction.

I floated myself out of the totem and through the gate to check if there was a latch on the other side I could attempt to flip. No luck. I supposed I could search for longer, but that was a lot more work than I was willing to put in. “Yes, me and my ghost powers can just do anything. Just ask Violet. I can’t do shit.”

Without moving his gaze, he tilted his head at the stubbornly locked gate. “Violet?”

Giving him a dirty, almost insulted look, she snapped, “I’m not breaking into somepony’s potentially heavily armed fortress. Look, let’s just just buzz the intercom and hope somepony nice is on the other end.”

Rumcake took several paces back. He looked the structure up and down, judging it. “We could blow the gate,” he brightly suggested.

Thanks to my bullshit magic connection with Violet, I managed to experience the feeling of a snarky comment coming before she started talking. “If only two of you were in power armor. Walking into it should already enough.” She flatly glared at the two Rangers, both of whom weren’t being helpful at all.

This time Sparkle trotted forward and placed an armored hoof on the gate. She appeared to give it a full-bodied push, causing the aging metal to creak dangerously but refuse to give in. Since it didn’t work on her first attempt, she gave up and plopped onto her butt. “I tried,” she called out. “I don’t know what this thing’s made of but—”

The intercom suddenly burst to life with a crackle of static. The pony on the other side dropped the microphone, hit their head on something, then bellowed a string of curses that I could almost hear even without the intercom. After a short wait, a voice finally said, “Howdy! Thanks for not busting down my gate, guy. Guys. I’m almost out of rocket ammo for the turrets. And uh, I guess blown you guys up too. Anyway, come on in and have a drink!”

Speak of the molester and she shall appear. Convenient.

The wrought iron gates ponderously creaked open like they did in those old horror movies. Just like a horror movie, the three of us and myself shared dubious looks with each other before hesitantly following the broken pathway to the grand entrance. It was probably safe, seeing as it was Riverbed, but the multiple gun barrels still tracking our every step really didn’t make us feel any better. Well, specifically them. I was already dead.

The second we made it inside, a mess of brown fur and blonde hair tripped down the stairs to greet us. “Heya, guys! Nice of ya to drop by.” Riverbed picked herself up off the ground, dusting off her coat of dust. “C’mon in! Sit down and relax. I’ll be there in a second!” She scrabbled a bit on the worn marble tile before vanishing into an adjoining room.

Staring after the wild earth mare, the three other living ponies hesitated to budge from their places. Violet was the first to recover. She loosened her robes, tossed back her hood, and made sure to carefully wipe her hooves on the raggedy carpet in the entry hall before tromping into what looked like a sitting room of some sort. Me being magically attached to her, I slowly ended up floating along with her. The two Rangers, after silently conferring with each other, popped out of their armor, folding them up into their strangely compact piles. They loaded the armor up onto their backs and followed Violet in.

For a slob like Riverbed, the quality of these couches and sofas were impressively high. The same went for the tables, miniature tables, and other miscellaneous furniture. Besides needing a thorough cleaning, everything was as intact as the Wasteland would allow. Where’d she get all this stuff? Violet was already lounging on one couch, leaving Sparkle and Fatcake squished together on the other.

Faintly, Riverbed’s voice echoed across the house. A second later, Riverbed tramped in with a baggie of various drinks and bagged snacks. She dumped them onto the table and flopped herself onto the floor next to them. “Help yourselves, guy. Guys.” She reached into the pile and retrieved a bag of apple chips. “So, where’s Frosty? Why’s she not with you?”

“Oh yeah, this is Frosty.” Violet pulled my statuette from its secure place inside her robes and unceremoniously chucked it onto the table. It bounced once, then fell over onto its side because of the giant sound device I was using strapped to it. “It’s a really long story,” she sighed.

From my end, I forced my soul doll to wobble in place as if to say hello. “It’s really not,” I began to explain, to which Riverbed inhaled the whole bag of chips and began to choke. “The short of it—”

Violet rudely interrupted me before I could get to the point. “It’s a really dumb story.”

I tried to come up with an excuse. I’d been through a lot, after all. All the adventuring, the dying, the un-dying… “All right, you got me there,” I admitted.

Once she recovered, Riverbed’s face lit up. She did a little impatient dance on the spot and sang, “Oh, I guess now that we’re all together, lemme introduce you to the doggies!”

“What?” Rumcake squawked.

Sparkle followed that with an equally puzzled, “Who?”

Riverbed stuck a hooftip into her mouth and loudly whistled. At first, nothing happened. I wasn’t sure what she was doing and neither did anypony else. That is, until we heard the thumping. Then the distinct sound of hooves scuffing against tile. That was all quickly followed by the loud thud of somepony running into a stationary object, then more galloping. One after another, three ponies suddenly burst into the room, tumbling and clambering over each other.

Their momentary excitement died down under Riverbed’s stern glare. They obediently shuffled past her and lined themselves up. Riverbed proudly spun around on her haunches and declared with a hoof flourish, “This is Angel Cake and this is Petunia and this good boy is Dumpling!” She pointed at each pegasus in order, ears perking up and barking when their named was called. Barking. Like, “bark”. Not the sound “bark”, but the word “bark”.

Right. So for some odd reason, Riverbed was now collecting whole ponies for whatever nefarious purpose. The three pegasi didn’t appear to be here against their will—the collars around their necks weren’t the explodey flavor on first glance—and they seemed well-taken care of.

In order, we had Angel Cake—his coat was a dirty shade of white, streaked with mud and dirt from apparently rolling around outside. Every time he tilted his head, his long floppy yellow mane bounced in the opposite direction. His eyes were bright, golden, curious, and intently following Riverbed’s pointing hoof.

In the center, squished between the other two pegasi was the one called Petunia. She clearly wasn’t a happy camper. Her baby-blue coat was the cleanest of the three and her sandy yellow mane had been tied into several haphazard curls with lengths of ribbon.

Loud snuffling brought my attention to this fat idiot on the end, appropriately named Dumpling. He was easily the size of two ponies occupying the space of a single navy blue blob who had recently eaten a freight train and several train cars full of ice cream. That also meant that his wings were purely decorative capacity. An unruly mop of turquoise mane covered his eyes, leaving his muzzle poking out. It seemed like he was fixated on the food in our saddlebags.

We collectively waited for the three to introduce themselves. Riverbed continued to hold her pose, as if we would eventually burst into applause. Nopony did, of course. The two Rangers didn’t react in the slightest. I couldn’t tell if Violet was confused or bored.

After several extensive seconds of nothing but the sound of armor creaking and tails swishing, Sparkle finally asked, “What do you mean by doggies and why don’t they talk?” An excellent point, which prompted all of us to turn our attentions to the sitting pegasi. They didn’t seem to grasp any idea of what was going on. “Are those even their names?” Petunia—the female in the middle—tilted her head adorably at the two Rangers and flicked her ears a few times.

Riverbed tilted her head at the first one in line—Angel Cake. “Guy, just look at their butts.” With a bit of maneuvering, she shifted him so that his cutie mark was visible to us. The five of us intently stared at the butt in question.

As we examined the dome-shaped cake on this random pegasus’s butt, I snarkily pointed out, “Of course that’s what you’d do.”

The only interested pony in the room took it upon herself to investigate. “Could we please get to the real questions? As in, are they actually capable of normal speech?” Violet paced around the sitting pegasi, all of whom in turn regarded her with cautious curiosity. “This seems a bit… inequine. Barbaric, even.”

“Not my fault, guy. They came this way!” Riverbed defensively raised her hooves in protest. One of the pegasi barked in agreement.

At this stage we were all starting to sound like a broken record. “What?”

Now that she was no longer being regarded like some form of psychopath, Riverbed eagerly nodded. She gently pulled Petunia by the chin over to Violet. The clueless pegasus didn’t seem to mind at all. “Yeah. Lights on, but nopony home.” Riverbed explained as she began to pet the pegasus behind the ears. “They seemed so adorable and helpless so I took them in like the good samaritan I am!” Riverbed looked unnecessarily proud of herself.

Several more seconds went by as we all processed her completely insane explanation. Very slowly, as if unsure of what he’d heard, Rumcake asked, “You taught them to bark?”

Yet more proudly, Riverbed added, “And fetch! I just finished with fetch training too, guy.”

Violet flatly restated, “They. Bark.”

While still petting Petunia the domesticated pegasus, Riverbed pouted and whined, “They wouldn’t chirp, guy! They gotta tell momma if they’re hungry or if they wanna go out, so I taught them to bark. And yes, fetch.” All three pegasi began to bark in response to the word ‘out’. After shushing them, she turned to the side and quietly added, “Dumpling is the only one that isn’t quite housebroken yet but I’d say I did pretty buckin’ good.” The fat one barked back.

“As the resident bird I’d like to point out that pegasi can’t chirp. We warble and coo because those don’t require the use of a beak.” I would have made my own noise to demonstrate had I still had a body to work with.

Without taking her eyes off Petunia, Sparkle dumped another bag of chips into her face and asked, “Couldn’t you have just taught them language? Speech, alphabets, whatever we’re doing right now?” The pegasus’s own eyes were intently fixed on the now-empty bag of chips.

Riverbed noticed what Petunia was looking at and gave her a bop on the nose. “Guy. I can barely words on my own, let alone teach.”

Violet hadn’t yet touched any of the stuff that Riverbed brought in. She was busy writing something down into her book. “On one hoof it would have been the right thing to do with the whole ‘rehabilitate the brain-empty pegasi’ thing, but the last thing we want is three other pegasi that sound exactly like Riverbed,” she observed between scribbles.

The thought of that made me laugh. Just imagining it sounded stupid. “Can you imagine it though? Guy! Guy. Guy. Guy.”

Violet looked up. “Guy?”

Then Rumcake joined in. “Guy! Guy!”

“Guy!” cheered Sparkle.

“C’mon, guys. Guys. I get it—it’s funny. You can stop now,” Riverbed whined.

“Guy.”

“Guy?”

“Guuuuy.”

“Guy, guy.”

Over the next minute or so, the ‘guy!’-ing died down to a few weak giggles and gasps for breath.

Once she was sure we were quite done, Riverbed growled, “So what’s up?” She was clearly not happy about the guyfest.

Silence. The Rangers didn’t want to pipe up and Violet was busy writing smut. “We need to save the world,” I told her. Fitting, since it had been my idea.

Riverbed stared at my little soul doll on the table, waiting for the punchline. Then sensing I was actually being serious, she replied, “Dang. That’s cool, guy. I wish I could come, but I’ve got pets to take care of. Also Lovebug gets confused if I don’t validate his existence three times a day.”

Once again pausing, Violet blurted, “What.”

“Yeah! My darling Lovebug doesn’t know the next thing about takin’ care of the pega-pets, so I gotta stay here and do that.” Riverbed looked unnecessarily proud of herself.

“Excuse me, who?” Rumcake asked, as if he hadn’t heard right the first time around.

“Holy shit you actually have a suitor,” I marveled to nopony in particular. “Wow. Look at you with your whole life together. Here I am living a literal metaphorical dumpster fire.”

Without hesitation, Riverbed began to explain, “He’s my hubby-wubby! Came with the place, actually. Turns out the glowshroom caves under this castle-house-thing lead out to a tar pit just over the horizon. I found him lost, wandering, and nibbling on the purple ones the other week. Turns out we have a lot in common! We’re into the same stuff, we’re both basically retired from fighting the Wasteland, and we love to bang! Cute little guy, too!”

Emphasizing every word, Violet asked, “You found a pony. And decided to marry him.”

Out of all of us, Sparkle seemed the least fazed. “It’s been two weeks since we last saw you and you’re already married, have pets, and a house. What—no, how did you do this.”

“If it makes you feel any better, guy, we’re not really married. Hubby is just more adorable-sounding. He’s my suitor!” Oh right. She’d said something about finding a suitor at one point or another. Point to Riverbed, I guess. “He helped with the whole training the pega-pets deal. For a pony named Dead Drop he’s really handy with behavior stuff, fixing stuff, and sex stuff!”

Riverbed happily grinned to herself. The rest of us all shared a sentiment of having learned a little too much about her.

On the topic of sex stuff, I added, “I’m actually just really disappointed that you—out of literally everypony I know—don’t have an evil sex dungeon at this point.”

In a very small voice, Rivs muttered, “I didn’t say I didn’t.”

Violet grimaced. “Everything was perfectly strange right up to that last part. Thank you for that incredibly weird mental imagery I just had.” She returned to writing. I couldn’t be bothered at this point to find out what in case it actually was smut.

“What the buck is wrong with you?” Rumcake snapped. Leave it to Rumcake to ruin anything a mare ever dreamed of.

In the meantime, I floated my ghostly self out and around Casa de Riverbed to see if there was anything else interesting around. Riverbed, Violet, and Sparkle were trapped in an endlessly looping argument over how impossibly responsible Riverbed had gotten. To her credit, the the areas I could explore—thanks to Violet’s extensive magical range—were clutter free, relatively free, and reasonably fortified with boards over windows or automated turrets. Eventually my spooky wanderings led me back to one of the pegasi—Angel Cake, specifically.

The more I stared at this floppy pegasus, the more I realized I was getting bored of not having a body. On the bright side, I got to poke around as a spooky spooky ghost and do ghost things that alive-me wouldn’t have been able to do. For example, I decided to poke my head into his to see what he was thinking of.

Nothing. This guy’s head was literally full of nothing. Blinding whiteness as far as the eye can see. Off in the distance was a fenced off area which seemed to have some sort of interior decorating. Strange, though—this guy’s head was nothing like Violet’s or Sparkle’s. Did I do something wrong this time? As I pondered these probably meaningless questions, I floated my way over to the fence.

The fence was a simple chain-link fence, and it wasn’t even locked. I simply trotted my way in and only became more confused. “Wow. There really isn’t anything in here.” Just a plastic food bowl on the ground, its accompanying water dish, and a collar. I shuddered a little when I looked at it, unbidden reminders coming to mind.

I plopped onto my butt in the center of this pegasus’s deserted playpen. This wasn’t what I had been expecting when I broke in here. There wasn’t any privacy to invade, no personal items to vandalize, nothing. “Huh…” I muttered to myself. Just as I was thinking about leaving this pegasus to terrorize Riverbed’s mind instead, I cut that thought short. Riverbed’s mind was the last place an imaginary pegasus like me should be. Being a creepy ghost might not protect me from whatever the cuddle monster had in mind.

Inspiration suddenly popped into my head. While Ice Storm had been riding shotgun, he spilled a few secrets about ghostly bullshit. C’mon, brain—gimme the quote!

—

Ice Storm hesitated, then rolled his eyes and settled himself. “There are three states a phantom like myself can take. Haunt, Possess, and Manifest. The first is simple and self-explanatory—sit in something. Specifically something, and not someone. Possession is what I’m doing to you—hanging out with a living thing. Manifest is a weird one. It draws on local ether to form and meld a solid shape, with varying results to the target being inhabited.”

—

Now wasn’t a bad time to find out if I could possess somepony as a creepy ghost. Of course I didn’t know the next thing about ghost things, but it really couldn’t be that hard. Ice Storm had made it sound easy as cake, after all.

And I was getting really good at cake.

Poof.

As I mentally searched for focus, I found myself losing sense of the immaterial world. Whatever I was doing, it was working! I held onto that feeling like a rabid hound on a fat kid. A strange feeling tingled in my back, in my wings, the back of my neck.

Then I opened my eyes. I sure felt different.

“Did it work?” I asked out loud, to my surprise at the sound of my voice.

It worked! “Woah. Ew, is that my voice?” I felt… dirty. Not grimy—but that sort of dirty wriggly feeling you got when your heebies got jeebies and tried to escape from your skin. “Wait.” I test-tapped my hooves—all four of them—and to my utter joy, found I had full control. “Woo! Woo. Oh right. Uh, whoever you are I’m just gonna borrow you for a bit,” I apologized out loud.

At the sound of my discovery, Riverbed stopped yapping about her new friends at my old friends. The next thing I knew, I—my new body, rather—was being violently shaken. “What did you do?” Riverbed screeched into my closest ear.

After all the ringing and shaking, my train of thought seemed to have derailed with it. “I, uh, don’t really know. Gimme a second to figure this out.” There was still something strange about having a body that wasn’t mine. It was like barding three sizes too big, and even moving around gave me a weird shuffling feeling in either my ghosty legsies or my real-but-stolen legsies. It also didn’t help that the body I was in was larger than my former meat sack. The weight distribution was off, and my haunches kept brushing something between—

—something between my legs.

With my head still tucked between my legs and my eyes as wide as saucers, I told Riverbed in a tiny voice, “I’ll be right back.”

“Nuh-uh. Bad!”

It was time for experimenting! For science! “You can’t stop me!” I crowed, eager to begin the, heh, ‘science’. A sudden blast of freezing cold water put a damper on my burst of excitement. “Aaaaah! Why do you have that!?”

Clamped firmly in Riverbed’s mouth was a spray bottle full of water. “Because you won’t stop chewing on the furniture!” She gave me another squirt on the end of that statement.

“It’s not me!” I wailed, excitement gone. Both me and the pony I was occupying wanted to be the farthest away from Riverbed as possible.

“It is you!” She continued to pelt me with intermittent blasts of cold water.

I was suddenly jarred out of pega-vision in mid-cower. At first, I thought it was the water spray. Then I heard a voice—not mine and not one I recognized—which made me jump. “This is a restricted zone. No entry.”

It took a moment for me to reorient myself to my surroundings and locate the voice. “Who the—oh, really? There’s one of you in here too?” And here I was thinking that I’d left all this behind me. For lack of a better description, I was currently being ordered around by a mannequin wearing Enclave Officer’s duds. And it thought it could tell me what to do.

Whoever this pegasus was, they had an Officer taking up space in his brain like I had before when I had my body. I temporarily put that weirdness on the backburner to focus on the task at hoof. Officer Frosty had been bad news—nastiness to the extreme and fanatically by-the-book. This… thing?... barely gave off a hint of being menacing. Maybe it was to lull me into a false sense of security?

I put on my evil tough guy face. Whether or not the Officer costume was intimidated I couldn’t say, but it did make me feel better about standing up to it. “Guess what, asshole? I’ve already dealt with your bullshit before.”

“Hostile action will be met with deadly force.” It tilted its head downward and seemingly tried to glower at me, but lacked the facial features to do so.

This guy couldn’t be that tough. Even though Officer Frosty was literally an unstoppable force and I hadn’t even beaten her, this guy was at least ten times less threatening. “Yeah? Bring it. I’m not scared.” I leaned back onto my haunches so I could brandish my hooves at it.

There was blur of motion from the mannequin’s hoof and the next thing I knew, I was out like a light.

All right, no free body for me. Got it.

~~~~~

Now that I was body-less again, I returned to the safety of Violet’s head to sulk. After several explanations and a fluffy towel, I got Riverbed up to speed with my current situation. Rumcake and Sparkle periodically pitched in with their own version of events—which I ignored for the most part. I was busy trying to fix my hastily created plan.

We really needed Riverbed in the party.

Okay, not really. We would probably be fine without her, but the universe was literally dangling her right in front of me. I might as well try to get her help while I was here. One last ditch effort or something dramatic.

I had to drag Violet along too, what with being stuck to her. “Hey. I need to talk to Rivs. Take me over there!” I mentally-telepathically-psychically told her.

“I’m not even going to bother asking why.” Violet grudgingly picked my doll up from where it had been lying and stuffed it into her hood. She trotted over to Riverbed and simply told her, “Hey. Frosty wants a word with you.”

It was worth a try asking, after all. “Hey, can I have a moment?” I asked, somewhat redundantly.

Riverbed eagerly nodded. “Sure.”

“In private,” I added. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to say yet but Violet was probably the least judgmental pony I could trust with my feelings.

Riverbed glanced at the doll, then to Violet, then her face lit up and she nodded harder. Eagerly bouncing, she blurted, “I’ll get my toybox!”

To my amusement, Violet turned an alarming shade of red, either out of incredible rage or embarrassment. “Not that kind of private!” I hastily added.

“Aww. Fine.” Riverbed pouted, then led me to a sort of reading room. Several bookshelves lined with various small trinkets and very few actual books filled a majority of the room. A battered chair and a fleecy rug were the only other objects of note in the room, seeing as the wall-to-wall window was boarded up with sheet metal and a hole for a machine gun turret. She plopped down in the chair, which creaked alarmingly in the act.

Violet levitated my doll out of her hood and dropped it onto the nearby chair. After giving Riverbed a suspicious glance, she chose to sit down on the throw rug as far away as physically possible while still being in the same room. Now that I had Riverbed’s attention, I took a deep metaphorical breath before pleading, “I need your help. Please. The world might end, there’s some huge evil asshole running around in my body, and I don’t know what to do. Help me? Please?”

“Huh.” Riverbed stared at me appraisingly. Well, at the doll. I was floating directly in front of her. Even though we’d already asked for her help, I was really hoping asking again in a more dramatic fashion would change her mind. After hmm’ing and umm’ing for a good long while, she finally sighed, “Eeeeeeh… ‘kay.”

I was in the middle of preparing an ‘all right, it was worth a try’ speech before her words registered. Perking up, I asked, “Really? Just like that? What happened to taking care of the pets?” As I whirled around to yell the good news at Violet, she was clearly less than interested in our conversation and was nose-deep in her book again.

“Eh, as long as Lovebug takes ‘em out for walkies and feeds em, then they’ll probably be fine.” In an instant, her entire demeanor changed to an intensely serious one. She brought her nose right up to the doll. “Guy, for you I’d bang you anytime, anywhere.”

She looked weirdly hyped about that aspect and I wasn’t sure if she was planning on executing that plan before or after I got my body back. “That makes zero sense.” Both ways, I was seriously weirded out but relieved that she was on board.

Riverbed threw her hooves in the air. “Besides, I’m your biggest fan! If evil you is being a butthole, who other than the great Riverbed Ransom to dominate her into submission.”

“That’s not how—” I started, then cut that thought short right there. The universe was finally letting me have my way after all the shit it had thrown at me. “Screw it. I’ll take it. I’ll take it! You have no idea what this means to me.” I remembered just then that Riverbed said she was retired and done with fighting. “Wait, but I thought you were retired,” I asked on the tail of the thought.

Riverbed sighed, almost dramatically. She got that far-off stare that everypony did when they reminisced about stuff so I let her have her monologue. “Ever since I settled down, every day's been the same. Wake up, feed the doggies, poke the mushrooms, have sex, make food, have sex, turn on the distillery, clean up after the doggies, go to bed, then sex again. It's the same routine every day, guy. I mean, I'm pretty cool with the whole ‘no threat of dying’ thing but that's just it—there's something missing in me that’s been bugging me, you know, guy?”

My jaw was still hanging open by the time she looked to me for a response. Violet came to the rescue, and spoke up. “I think you’re missing condoms, honestly,” she answered, equally stunned by Riverbed’s schedule.

“Making booze isn't as fun as the manual said it would be,” Riverbed whined. “There aren't even giant spiders I have to fight down there! It's that spark for adventure, guy! I'm getting bored here.”

Adventure? Adventure!? Look at Riverbed Ransom, total slut for hire. I’d kill the entire population of a small township to live the Ransom life. “You literally bang three times a day. How can you be bored, especially after three whole sex? Per day!” I shouted, mostly out of irritation.

Without missing a beat, Riverbed paced past Violet and to the other side of the room. “I think I need to get out more, guy. I’m game for one more run if that means going on one last romp with you.”

I involuntarily shuddered. “Don’t say romp.”

“Lemme make sure Lovey knows about it.” She trotted away to the doorway and shrieked at the top of her lungs, “Hooooooney? Lovey! I’m going out!”

A voice—male, deep, swoonworthy, and extremely distant called back, “Whyyy?”

“Hang on, I’ll be back,” Riverbed informed me, then went off in search of her suitor, still screaming at the house in general, “I’m going out! For a while! Do you know how to use the microwave?”

~~~~~

It had taken a lot of screwing around and digging through all the stuff Riverbed had stashed in her house, but we were finally ready to roll. Our team—Rumcake, Sparkle, Violet, Riverbed, and the stupid doll that was me—stood outside in the courtyard, peering off into the distance. Ice Storm was out there, and he was using my body to do whatever nefarious things ancient evil ghost spirits do while they plot to destroy all living things. We were the only ones who knew, and so we were the only ones who could stop him.

“Don’t you hate it when you stretch and, like, the most erotic moan comes out of your mouth, and everyone immediately looks at you, and you’re like ‘I can explain’, but it’s just too late,” Sparkle mused.

Time to go save the world.

Footnote: Level up!
Current Sub-perk: Not applicable.

Achievement Unlocked: The Three Mouseketeers (Plus That One Guy) – Collect three or more characters to assist you in completing the final quest.

Achievement Unlocked: Deus Ex Sparkle – Begin the final quest after continuing in NG+ mode with Junior Paladin Sparkle Cola’s help.
Party Perk Acquired: Field Mechanic – Any gear left in Sparkle’s inventory overnight will be slightly less broken.

Achievement Unlocked: I Have, And Will Always Love You – Convince Rumcake Rum to assist you for the final quest after failing his character arc.
Party Perk Acquired: Absolute Command – All other party members under Rumcake’s command cannot suffer the “Panic” status. Rumcake also gains +5 speech for every other living female party member.

Achievement Unlocked: You Idiots Aren’t Half Bad – Convince Violet Dusk to assist you for the final quest.
Party Perk Acquired: Knowledge is Power – Violet gains additional spell attack damage for every intact, readable pre-war book in the party’s inventory.

Achievement Unlocked: Look, But Don’t Touch – Convince Riverbed Ransom to assist you for the final quest.
Party Perk Acquired: Offensive Defense – Mines and Turrets deployed by Riverbed activate 50% quicker. Party fortifications are 25% more sturdy. All party members will always feel slightly violated upon waking up.

Author's Note

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