Fallout: Equestria - No God Below

by RoMS

Rating: mature
Tags: Adventure, Dark, Alternate Universe
Length: 21770

The lightbringer sacrificed herself to open the gate to a radiant future. It is now up to the new generation to do better. And sometimes, the adventure continues abroad.

Ten years have passed since the day the sky was opened again, the NCR now needs pre-war tech and help from the outside world to ensure its stability for the years to come. One objective is set: Saddle Arabia, an old ally of Equestria that turned against the Diarchy at the start of the Great War.
On board of the HMS Canterlot, an old frigate patched up by the NCR, the volunteers will find themselves in the city-state of Bahrneigh, a place where the war never ended.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2014-11-10 00:00:42 UTC

Introduction

α₹҉₸₫ µ₢₰₣₮ћꜚ ⱴ ћ Ω₸῁ ὦ ћꜚ₮ ћ‽ꜗ₮₫₸῁ ћ β₮₹ꜚ ћ‽₢₫ µ₣₮ ᶋ

“Hatred is universal. Not because it is a necessary evil but because we deserved to suffer its wrath. We opened the door of our home to anger and destruction. In doing so it destroyed everything we had. Even drowning despair, we never kicked it out of our rubbles. We just let it conduct our lives.

The Wasteland has been home to hatred for far too long. We need to build our home again, that very home we have always dreamt of every Luna’s beautiful nights. We thrive for that home once called Equestria. Only the future will unravel if we do deserve a second chance. For us to catch that opportunity, we must do better.

I only have one word. Rebuild. We need ponies to go, wander, and spread the NCR’s and the Followers’ common voice. We need to find new allies, whether they are builders, savants, leaders, ponies or other races that will gladly join us and share our project: A project of hope. If we show kindness, maybe they will be ready to join us.

To bring back the home we all wish for, I just need volunteers. What I’m offering you is a purpose without hatred, without fear, without shackles. And in the end, it will forever be your personal accomplishment.”

It had all started like this: an offer that tasted like redemption, a hope for a better future… an opportunity to fly away at least for a few months from the harsh reality the Equestrian Wasteland still was.  Many times I had heard about the mythical Gardens of Equestria. But the hope had grown weary for the elements of harmony were still awaited ten years after the sky had been cleared.

The buttery yellow Pegasus’s pink and grey curly mane swung as she spoke with a silk-like voice. In the pouring light from many spotlights with the promiscuous feeling oozing from a theatre bathing in the heat of its own stacked-in crowd, trickles of sweat rolled down her brow. Standing in that overcrowded theatre, Fluttershy’s mane and fur reflected that light. She was our beacon, piercing through the darkness in our hearts and our minds, obliterating our doubts. She stood forth in front of her microphone.

“We found an old warship, the HMS Canterlot. We patched it up and gave him a mission: a mission that won’t be fulfilled without its future crew. That mission, my friends, is to find survivors abroad. Survivors that desire to join the NCR and make the travel back to Equestria. If they want it of course. I- I wouldn’t mind if they refuse. It’s because of u… me that this mess happened.”

My throat tightened in a knot. I was new in the NCR and, at the time, I was very young. But like everypony, I had heard tales about Fluttershy. We all knew how old she was, and, of course, what she had done. It was hard to believe to be honest but I once talked to her. She had told me the truth. I remember I cried at her hooves. I had cried out of rage, disgust, pity, shame, and maybe compassion.

The Minister of Peace hung her head low and rubbed one forehoof over the other. At that point, Velvet Remedy made an entrance and walked slowly towards her friend. The charcoal Unicorn said words we never heard then hugged the Pegasus. They both smiled and let out a shared and long breath. With a radiant smile that made our fears and stress vanish, Fluttershy swept the sweat off her cheek. I wasn’t the only pony to see her hooves shake. She inhaled and drew a long breath while a tear rolled down her cheek. Her voice broke the silence that had eerily took hold of the audience without us noticing.

“The first mission of the HMS Canterlot will be to reach the Saddle. For those who don’t know, Saddle Arabia is… was a small nation that once sided with Equestria. The Saddle has… had a common border with the Zebra Empire. For that reason among many others, Roam was close to the border, Saddle Arabia preferred joining the Zebras despite our treaties with them. They chose a security that in the end defaulted everybody,” she said without second thoughts.

The crowd became louder. Hooves clattered on the parquet polished by hooves and time and hit-chats grew noisier. Fluttershy softly thumped her hoof on the wooden stage asking ponies to pay heed.

“Past is the past, friends. If they are survivors, we will offer them the trip to Equestria.” Her eyes dropped and she nibbled her lower lip. “But I have not much hope for survivors. The Saddle was already a barren land even before the Balefire struck. Be gentle if you find survivors. You are NCR ambassadors… bringers of hope. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not lie. Please. This mission has another purpose. One as pressing as helping survivors. We must find technology to bring back to Equestria. To help rebuilding. Otherwise… I don’t know.”

Whispers travelled across the crowd and I heard doubts, questions, and fear express themselves openly.

“Awfully sounds like old time rangers, I’m out of that fucked up shit!” A random pony growled as the dim gained momentum.

“Please,” she intoned softly. “Pretty please.”

Some guard ponies made sure some agitated ponies stay in line. Fluttershy took a step back and looked down in defeat. Miss Remedy urged for silence as she tapped on the microphone. A hoof suddenly raised in the air and went high enough that more than a few heads turned and watched.

“I have a question!” a red mare boomed after she pushed her midnight blue mane from her crimson face.

The crowd fell silent and eyes riveted on her.

“What’s the topic of your worries?” Fluttershy mumbled, too far away from the microphone to reverberate her voice.

“Why are you throwing so many ponies, caps, and resources at this mission? To me it seems a bit overkill.”

Ponies agreed and Fluttershy nodded. The question sounded indeed key to me. Fluttershy walked back to the microphone and cleared her voice with a hint of a warm smile drawn on her face.

“Every day we see more and more ponies coming to NCR territories. Security, food, water, help. We have those in quantity.” She paused and sighed. “But it’s not enough. If we do nothing. It will never be enough. To have security, we need stability. Stability comes from equal access to resources. To have that equality we must have a productive agriculture. Food needs water to grow. And water… pure water I mean… We don’t have enough. The tools we have today are not fast enough. If we do nothing, we will never have enough of what we need… and… it will be war on resources all over again.”

The red unicorn slid a lock of her dark blue hair behind her horn and went to say something. Fluttershy raised her hoof with a smile.

“Please.” The red mare pouted in answer but let Fluttershy continue. “I already said that the Saddle was barren even before the war. To prevent droughts, they invented the water purification process with zebra advisors. It’s there that Stable-Tec stole the technology they used for the Stable Project. It is that technology that we use today to provide water to NCR cities and refugees. But we don’t have enough of those… We lack of ponies able to make replacements. If… If we can find a talisman factory in the Saddle and reengineer it or even bring one back to Equestria, it would be one great landmark for the return of our prosperity. The NCR and the followers hope this would insure peace in Equestria. And if there is peace in Equestria, then we can hope we will be able to bring it back our homeland to life. This is why I need volunteers for a dangerous trip to the other side of the world.”

It had all started like this. A simple six-month trip to the Saddle, five to six thousand kilometres from the remains of Manehattan, South of a nation we annihilated two hundred and ten years ago. The red mare’s hoof rose as she volunteered. New hooves followed in mass. Velvet Remedy stepped up and sent her words spread over the heads.

“May Luna’s beautiful night sky guide you to where Celestia’s sight cannot venture, and further beyond.”

I knew so little.

Fallout Equestria: No God Below

Prologue

The sand came and slowly swallowed the City. It stormed the crowded streets and engulfed everything in a fiery, blazing embrace. Like an angry god, it desiccated, blurred, and buried the memories, the shells, and those who’d been given peace at last.

The sand came but, as strong as it might have been, it was still a weak remedy for the world’s insanity. The desert wasn’t strong enough to tame the shadow that has always dwelled in the heart of the living. A lurking monster with one simple name… War.

α₹₮ ћꜚ₮₹₰ ћꜘ₢₸₮ ћ π₮₫₮₹₰₮ ὦ ћ‽ ⱴ₰ ћꜘ₮῁҉₮῁ ћ ⱴ₸ ћ µꜚ₹ β

“I double dare you,” the red unicorn teased me as a white mist rose around her muzzle.

She lifted her long, curly locks of navy blue mane and pushed them back behind her horn and perked up ears. Then, with her wonderful, puppy and purple eyes boring at my soul, she gave me the most saccharine pout from around the block. It was hard not to obey and the shivers beneath in my hooves made it impossible to assert myself. The chamber was so damn cold.

“You first, Alea,” I muttered back, cowering a little as her wide-eyed creeping face drew closer. “Mares are always first.”

And I sneezed straight at her face… Wasn’t going to flirt for a few days after that. Clumsily, I rubbed her muzzle, only to spread the misdeed a bit more.

“Why the long face, Sharky?” I puffed, holding back my laugh.

A little bit of spreading here and there and, Tadaaa! It was disgustingly perfect. A broken smile on my face, I watched a tiny bit of yellowish green slip off her cheek.

“Sharky?” she grinned. “I thought you hated them teeth.”

Eeyup. Not my fault if she had carved her teeth into razor-sharp fangs when she was younger. She was a reformed raider after all. People called her ‘Sharky’ for that reason. She had also the habit to crunch the life with full tooth to many ponies’ dismay.

She leaped on me and screwed me to the ground. My yelp echoed in the room and reverberated on the walls. Her dank breath washed over my face and she showed off her teeth and snapped then right above my left eyes. I cried out and tried to slip away from her lock. She let out a madly stretched out laugh as a shadow cast over her face, her two purple eyes tainting with the colour of blood. Her face slowly lowered next to my ear. Pinned down, I could only listen. She licked her curvy lips and rasped a raggedy breath.

“You know, little toy,” she cajoled at a horribly slow pace. “I need only one thing from you.”

“What?” I whined, feeling the touch of her canines on my temples, cold, sharp, and avid.

“A towel!” she shouted.

“No, please! Mercy!”

My ears ringing with her cry, she buried her snout in my neck and washed my own snort on my hide. We rolled, yapped, and chided around, the place keeping the screams and shouts trapped, echoing, tick-ticking in my ears.

Breathing and sweating in the cold, we rested on our back, uncaring of the frostbite.

“I’m gonna need a shower now,” I growled.

“Prude,” was her only answer.

She rubbed her hooves together, spreading a bit of warmth beneath the red fur that covered her all. My head rolled aside I surprised myself smiling as I looked at her. She was damn beautiful with her purple eyes and smooth lines. Alea was a pretty mare many ponies on the HMS Canterlot desired. I was making many jealous. We were childhood friends, though, that helped. And her flank, I wished I could have a bite… But her cutie mark, one dagger and a pair of dice jumping out of a magician hat, was a grim reminder of who she was and had been. I had never tried anything. She would have had my head on her shelf if so.

With my stupid smile drawn across my face, she batted my head with the back of her hoof.

“Tick, tick? Anypony inside? You lost in time?” she mused. “Clock’s broken? Wake up, Dervish!”

Glaring daggers in her general direction, I pushed myself on my side and lifted myself up with a grunt.

“It hurts, knuckle-head!” I spat, shaking my head. “Can’t you be less… you.”

“Eh, you’re talking to…” She thrust herself on her backlegs, startling me, and stretched her forehooves in a heroic stance and said with a wink, “… The Monster of Hollow Shades!”

“Dun… dun… dun…” I huffed half-heartedly with a slow sarcastic applause, “yay.”

She stuck out her tongue at me like a childish reprimand. At least until she needled it with one of her teeth. She gurgled, fell aside, and swerved like a beaten dog, a tiny bit of blood trickling on her lips. She would never change and I would never get used to them. Dem teeth! She always had had ponies on edge with them. She had watered down the flame of many lovers before with just a swift bite. Somehow, I was used to it. Not paying attention, I missed her getting up and she pinned me on a wall with her hooves.

“You know I know you like them,” she breathed next to my neck and laughed with a dreadful rasp, “Ah… Ah… Ah…”

I pushed her aside. She dropped and squirmed on the ice that covered the floor.

“You creep,” I mumbled. “I hoped I hadn’t been teamed with you.”

“Still afraid, limp dick?” she teased a second before she lunged, grabbed me by the neck, and pushed me back in front of what we had been studying before she’d started her antics. “You gonna make me sooooo sad if you don’t do it. We had a bet, remember?”

She hit the contraption with her hoof and the clatter ringed in my flopped ears. Cowering, I tried to laser her down with deadly eyes. She pouted, fluttering her eyelids so painfully slowly her puppy eyes made me wallow in remorse. She would own me one day, I swear.

I sighed, trying to erase the click-clicking from my ears, and watched her sport the smile of victory.

“Yeah, yeah…You won, Alea,” I said. “Let’s get over with it.”

“Oh, waffle-head, it’s the game. You bet. You lost,” she snarled. “You gonna have to deal with the challenge. My challenge.”

Trapped in the coldness with icy mist forming in front of our mouths, I pleadingly stared at her.

“Tut, tut, lil’ colt,” she giggled, clacking her tongue in her mouth. “You gonna fulfil the promise. No bargain or anything allowed.”

“Don’t you think we have more important things to attend but your raider games,” I said, rolling my eyes at the ceiling. “Like preparing for the docking. We’ve got a briefing in a few minutes.”

“Nuff said,” she put her hoof on my lips. “You played. You lost. Now stuck out the tongue and do it. And grow up a bit. Wake up.”

I grunted dismissively. She was the one who needed to grow up. Not me. As she watched me closely, I stuck out my tongue in the cold and closed the gap between me and… the thing…

“Come on,” she said, jumping on her clicking hooves, repressing a laugh. “Do it.”

“Yeah, I know,” I countered. She still had a bit of blood on her lips. Fucking maniac. “Just… let me sync.”

“Do it! Do it! Do it!” she cackled. “Or you’re chicken! Gok, bwok, gok!”

She rose on her hindlegs and wobbled her head back and forth with her forehooves behind her back.

“Oh com…”

Then she screamed at me. Screaming back instinctively, she bit in my mane avidly and ploughed me against the metal pole that had been sitting before us all along. I saw stars, tweeting birds, and clicking PipBucks. I was stuck tongue all out against the freezing metal pole. Damn, I hated her for winning every bet.

“Ah, b’avo!” I retorted, grunting with my tongue stuck on the frozen metal. I think she had broke one of my teeth. “ha’’y ‘ow?”

My butt slid slowly on the three inches thick ice-cover. My only bollard was that pole and my tongue, the only rope anchoring me.

Alea stretched her slender legs and lay in the cold next to me with a smug face. Pressing her lips together playfully, she poked my side without a word. Each time she poked, she went it a bit harder until I was gasping for air. Gagging as her painful blow dug in my flank, I slid aside, my tongue still stuck to the pole. My fare abruptly ended when my butt hit a nearby wall.

Alea rose on her hooves and walked up to my sore rump as I moaned in pain. Her hooves click-clicking on the ground she stood next to me. I saw droplets of blood fall down on the ice and crystallise.

“’ou hu’t ‘ou’self,” I warned.

She didn’t care or answered as she sat on my back with a rueful smile. She hummed a song, her head resting in her hooves, a slow trickle of blood going down her lip.

“’ou ‘eavy,” I growled. “’ou ‘ould go ‘o infi’ma’y.”

“You should wake up instead,” she said.

“Uh?”

She lowered herself and whispered in saccades into my ear, covering the tinkering of an unknown origin that engulfed the room, “One little pony sitting in an icy tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”

“You’re creeping me out, Alea.”

She whacked my head so hard my snout bit in the ice. My blood joined hers. She cackled, pouncing on top of my shoulders. I rolled aside and departed from her nightmarish grip. Sitting in the ice, I rubbed my sore mouth and my cold tongue, and shook my heavy head. She had hit my eye pretty hard and I could already feel the bruise coming up. Everything was ringing, clicking, repeatedly. With lights. And I could hear dripping. We shouldn’t have left the door of the Canterlot’s hold open. Everything was starting to leak and unfreeze here. I was so gonna be blamed for it.

“Done with your shenanigans, Alea?” I complained, munching on my tongue as she pouted like a foal and I rolled my eyes. “What if somepony finds us in the refrigerated hold?”

“Nothing, nopony ever comes here,” Alea answered flatly. “You should wake up.”

“Except us and your stupid bets,” I retorted. “And I hate that place full of noises and clicks. I’m sure the boat is haunted. Let’s just go get some preparation so we don’t get killed in the city.”

“It’s not like I’m gonna die,” she assured as I heard her thumping her hoof on her chest. “I’ve survived the Wastes. I got to geld some unfaithful Red Eye remnants if you remember. Wake up.”

I shook my head in disbelief as she clacked her teeth together in a bear trap-like thump that made me jump back. After blowing the snort off my muzzle, I wiped it on the icicle fallen by my side. A few drops of water fell on my back and the freezing sensation burnt me. Dripping sounds and clatters filled my ears. I heard a scream. Shivering, I shot a glance back at Alea but she had been silent all along.

“Don’t talk about de…”

“Wake up,” she cut me off robotically.

Blood was dripping out of her mouth… Her maw clanged and clacked… tick, click, tick…

“… Death…” I ended.

I fell silent.

“What,” she spoke with a long deadpan as her tone grew darker. “Wake up.”

But I couldn’t hear but the ringing and click-clicking. I pointed my hoof at her backlegs. Her backside side was soaked in blood, redder and gluer than her hide had ever been. Was it mine, was it hers? Thinking I was playing another game, she looked back. Her eyes grew wider as she took in the situation. It was the first time I had seen her that afraid.

“It hurts, so damn much now,” she cried. “Wake up.”

Her head swerved back in my direction. She tried to speak but no words came out of her mouth, just blood, annoying noises, ticks, blood… She had one deep gash that was cutting her in half. Her innards crumbled on the ground in a steaming puddle. The ice turned red. Water turned redder. And then, she screamed. She screamed until her voice shattered into a low screech. I heard nothing of her call to help.

Nothing… nothing but a click-clicking… Make. It. Stop. I didn’t want to die that same way as she was. I wanted to go home and to flee from here as she died in front of me. I wanted away. Far away. Everything blurred and feel to the darkness. I was burning. Everything but a far-far away tick-ticking that drew me back to reality.

Then everything was gone. The blood. The pain. The ice. The life… there was only Alea, boring at my soul with blank eyes riveted on me. Her colours seemed to fade. Her facial expression melted away like a mask of wax. Only her mouth remained. Her mouth and her shark-like teeth.

“Wake up, Dervish!” she ordered.

The ticking of my radiation meter woke me up. It was just a dream, I thought. I was not in that cold room. No. I was lying on some searing sand, my chest burning like hot embers. Hung at its zenith, the sun was grinning at me, its gnawing light drinking my steaming blood… blood…

“Where…?”

I rolled on my battered chest and crawled across the bloody mess unravelling around me. The hellishly hot city was echoing with yells, gunfire, and far-reaching cries. Yet, my ears turned deaf to the constant complaint. Something had hit and dazed me hard. My right eye was swollen, blinding half of my vision. My own blood had tainted the sand with a long trail. I followed the track and saw a wide splash against a crumbled concrete wall. There still were a bit of silvery grey fur on the rebar that protruded out of the rubble.

A shattering scream made me cringe. It was Alea’s. I buried my ears under my bloodied hooves just before a long jet of red splattered the ground in front of me. What had once been a large and animated plaza circled by magnificent and shiny buildings was now nothing but a patch of ruins. A few cables still dangled down centuries-old poles and were dripping with blood. A spark of electricity reanimated for a glimpse of a second a screen still screwed to an advertisement pole. In this short-lived moment, screeching static then a plain red image flashed back at me.

The sand had covered everything. The roads had changed into beaches. The carts that had survived time were shattered, broken, and probably looted, and the place sweated a perfume of abandonment. Yet, I hadn’t been alone since I had stepped in that city. And I wasn’t talking about the ponies I had made the crossing with.

Locked in the air by an invisible force, a Unicorn mare I knew so well wracked in two separate parts. The bottom halve barrelled through the air past me and disappeared through an open window of a neighbouring construction. The other halve hacked on the ground, ricocheted, and made a heavy and wet landing by my side. With my eyes widened, I heard the neck crack and the horn break. A shiver crept beneath my skin. Alea’s massive navy blue locks fell on the ground and brushed my blood.

I couldn’t tell where I was. My memories were too messed up at the moment, rushing like one rising tide in my brain. Dizziness made things worse. I was shell-shocked and as my surroundings reeled, I struggled to make out my name.

“Dervish,” the dead body of Alea answered for me. “Dervish. Help. Me.”

“A-Alea…?”

She stretched her hoof at me and I tried to cower away. The hoof poked my blood-soaked nose and fell aside. A wave of quivers washed over me and I whimpered. My heart hurt and burnt. I wanted away. The mare’s eyes went empty but her mouth was still wording. She wanted to speak but she was dead. She was already dead! I could see the blood, the bowels! Now dripping with her own blood, her sharky teeth sent a grim message. She had found a bigger predator. It was over. She was dead. No, Celestia, please, no!

“Away,” she whispered. “Go…”

Something blurred across the plaza like an invisible force that could only be seen by the distorted light going through its hide. It grabbed her by what remained of her waist and lifted her corpse off the ground. Her hooves wobbled and, gobbled by an invisible unknown, she vanished in a mist of red paint. Static was whirling out of the working speakers screwed to the walls that still made up the plaza. That music from Tartarus screamed around like an improper, defiant, and sadistic ode to death. Threatening with an incoming sandstorm, the sky wore the colours of battles and fires. A loud echo zoomed over my head and the earth quaked. Somewhere, somehow, a building was coming down.

My mane crawled as a wretched air washed over my bleeding face. It was the breath from an unknown creature that I couldn’t see. The sand levelled in front of me. The print of a claw twice the size of my head bit in the red-tainted ground. The claws clicked on the hard surface beneath, like a talon playing a piano made of broken asphalt. The floor screeched and cracked. I gasped and fell through along with cutting shards of glass.

I had broken through a tiny, hidden glass ceiling that had been hiding under the sand just beneath my hooves. My fall lasted more than I wished and I hit a sandy slope with a loud thump. I yelped as a barb of metal scrapped deep in my back. I rolled with chafing glass and sand showering me and the end of the treacherous steep welcomed me with another fall.

My reckless race suddenly halted when my shoulders crashed on top of a metal cart. My ribcage cracked as my back hammered in the abandoned vehicle. Dust slowly plummeted over me while I was fighting back unconsciousness. I focused on a sunray piercing through a far-reaching hole above my dizzy head. It was tickling my torn up chest and bloodiedface. I was beaten and my stomach was churning from thirst and hunger. Wisps of sand whizzed in the opening I had left in my trail, only to fall into small heaps over my immobile body.

“My name is Dervish,” I repeated, trying to convince myself.

I was a volunteer on the HMS Canterlot, going to Saddle Arabia to help survivors and scavenged old tech. I was born right out in the Wasteland and not one of those fancy, deadly, and horrible stables. I had celebrated my twentieth or so birthday during the crossing with my friend Alea or the ‘monster’ as they called her on the HMS. As far as I could remember, my life had been quite boring prior to the trip. For once, making it to Saddle Arabia would have added the bit of fantasy that so lacked in my daily life in the NCR territories.

Grunting as I raised my head, my eyes fell on my flank and my cutie mark welcomed me. I had a fucking box as a butt tattoo. Not a fancy box. Not one with holes and writings on it or anything. Nothing like that. I had a plain, dull, and annoyingly closed cardboard box for a cutie mark. Much thrilling, very sense, so potential, yay!

The quick memory-check done, I groaned and pushed myself on my rump with my head pounding horribly. Somepony was trying to bore holes in my temples, I swore it. I was seeing specks of white crawling in my vision and my breath rasped in my sore throat. For how long I lay unmoving, I couldn’t tell. I remembered the patched up frigate early that day. I had woken up that morning with a fucking hangover from some denatured alcohol I had snatched in the canteen. And I had lost that bet. After the hold, I remembered getting on the deck for a briefing and thereafter… the bodies… the ruins… That’s when the scream in the speakers began. And Alea… She had volunteered first and I had followed her. She was dead. Now she was dead. I bit my lower lips, dropped my stare, and hugged my legs. Tears rolled on my cheeks. I let that horrible fact sink in. I had been so lucky.

My eyes bawling out, I dropped on the ground and my legs gave way. I was too weak to stand on my first try and barely strong enough to think. At least, it was less hellishly hot here. And more than anything else, I was alive.

I didn’t know where I was. With the dim light pouring from above and lighting my path, I scanned the forlorn area. This underground place was huge; I couldn’t see its farthest wall, drowned in darkness. There were rows of carts parked on the cracked asphalt that littered the ground. A thick lid of sand and dust covered them all and I often couldn’t see through the windshields.

The situation struck me. Those carts still had pristine windshields and windows! They were untouched. I saw silver and golden linings etched in the bumpers, wings, and closed doors. I wiped some of my tears, and trying not to feel the void lulling in my heart, I focused on the display of richness in that parking lot. The ponies or whoever who had lived here were rich… immensely rich. The awe soon changed into a devouring curiosity.

Gathering all my might, I stood on my shaking legs and grabbed a rock that had fallen along with me. A shattered window later, I unlocked the door of the nearest cart. The dusty inside was made of high-quality leather and was big enough to fit in more than five ponies. As I sat in the back, I hit my leg on a massive metal box and a searing pain settled in my knee-cap.

It was a radio transmitter encased in the bottom of the cart. The well-crafted seats had been built around it and a round-shaped print on top of it was still visible under the dust on its top. Maybe a bottle. I smiled wistfully. Booze. Pony never changes.

To be honest, it looked like a cart built for parties. On the side of the transmitter, a small diode with the inscription ‘Recording’ written under it still flashed green. Curious, I pushed the black button that throned in the middle of the transmitter. The radio cracked, startling me, and seemed to rewind for a couple of seconds. Then, static blasted at me as the contraption tuned to a joyful female voice.

“Shut up!” I bawled at the box, afraid I could be spotted from the shear loudness of the transmitter.

“...Aaaaaaad welcome back on Stormy High 640-1240 AM, my friends. It’s your forever awaken fellow, Immortal, speaking to you from the top of the Burj. And it’s time for… Brace for it! The neeews. What can I say? It’s another magnificent morning in the city of Bahrneigh, outside temperature… fifty degrees centigrade, one hundred and twenty-two Fahrenhneight. Inside temperature? Eh! Whatever floats your air conditioning talisman? Today’s report… Nothing’s changed. It’s as it has been for years. War, war, war… There is only war. But I assure you, it’s not all bleak. The Pegasus Army that stepped on our shores one year ago after they invaded the Emirates launched another assault yesterday night and… Nah, they didn’t fail this time, those fuckers. They took the Northern Governorate… How’s that good news, you’d say?! No, of course. It isn’t good news. And how can I say that on the radio? Eh, I’m no Equestrian pony. Propaganda is for weaklings! But don’t worry lads. Our allies, the Zebras and Saddle Arabian horses, are preparing a counter-attack against those sub-races of birds. Whatever the Pegasus army sought in our faithful city, they will pay for it with the price of blood. Believe me, I’ve seen what’s coming! Those birdies won’t last on our embankment any longer. The sand and sky will taint red and, who knows, maybe green one day…?”

If only she had knew… Had she been a zebra? A horse? A pony that emigrated here a long time ago so that her bonds to Equestria had been lost? I’ll probably never know.

“We will all see the end of the war, lads. Hardships can’t last forever. Oh, it’s seen that the military police is staring at me from behind the recording booth window. They look pissed, lads.” She emitted a little, cute laughter.  “Now let’s listen to some good ol’ music. I’ll tell the tale later on! Now is time for Oasis Baraka, the voice from the desert and her delightful flagship song: ‘Home Sweet Hone’. It was Immortal, always her head hung at the sky.”

A soothing music followed. A strange instrument, maybe a guitar, a mandolin, or a high-pitched banjo, started a tune that was soon joined by a crystalline female voice.

The radio cut abruptly. The cart shook with a series of short quivers and I lay there silent, a trickle of sweat rolling down my back.

Something was there. I could feel it. Something was tracking the scent of blood that had leaked from my stinging flank. Fear clutching my heart, I rose my eyes to just above the frame of the window I had broken. In the reflection of the outside rear-view mirror, I could see that something! My blood ran as cold as ice and I ducked back in. I rubbed my eyes hopeful I could erase the horror off them. I would need more than bleach this time. It was unbelievable.

There in the dark, lifting the carts one after the other, a force was slipping through. A force, I say… I couldn’t see anything but a blurred blueish outline with specks of light peppering the air in between. It snorted puffs of air that crystallised into ice. Then it opened its huge jaw and I saw the sharp teeth. From it slurred a saliva slipping in between the razor-sharp canines like dark water, rendering the ground with black puddles.

I squeaked and crammed myself in the cart, and then I heard it turn in my direction. For the sake of my rear… I was fucked.

The thing forced its way slowly through the inert carts, bending metal and crushing glass in its wake under its heavy and unstoppable claws. My heart beating wildly in my chest, my body was screaming at me to leap outside the cart and run. I couldn’t. I was too weak. Moments before it reached the cart where I was hiding, I looked outside and saw an emergency exit not so far. If only I could limp away towards it. The dim red light above its threshold led the way. My beacon.

The cart bent under the weight of the monster’s legs. The other windows cracked and shattered, spewing like shrapnel over me. I gasped and squeezed myself behind a seat. Its head was inside at a hoof-length from me! It was sniffing for me! The beast reeked a foul stench of rotten meat. Dark sludge dripped out of its wide-open mouth, slithering between the fangs. Biting on my lips, a hoof in front of my mouth, I gagged. It was as if I could taste the stench through my eyeballs.

Somepony screamed somewhere. The beast trashed away, throwing the cart aside in the process. Rolling over, I was thrust butt over head against the inside of the vehicle until it stopped. With my back in pain, my breath was nothing but repeated hiccups.

The beast howled a crippling cry that petrified me. I closed my eyes and repressed my sobs. My head pounded as my heart rate spiked up. My vision blurred and, though I fought back and made no sound, puke dripped out of my mouth. Febrile, I left myself rest a few minutes until a pony’s scream detonated through the underground only to be shushed forever by a dreadful roar.

I couldn’t stay here. My one swollen eye and my flank undermining my movements, I crawled outside the wrecked cart and hit my head on the door frame in the process. As I held my wounded side, I limped towards the open emergency exit. On my way I snatched the rear-view mirror that lay on the ground, now dislodged from its support. It would be useful to check angles, I thought.

A bit of dust trickled from the ceiling as I slipped in between the cracked open emergency door. It was earthquake day apparently.

I closed the creaking door behind me and found myself in an immense and half-torn staircase that rose and descended far in the building. I was given two choices… up or down. For sure, going up would be nice. Time had preyed on the top of the building and what had surely been a tower was now an open-pit towards the sun and sky. Rays of light grimly illuminated the ruined staircase. Going up was tempting, but outside… there were those monsters, invisible and powerful. I couldn’t risk myself up there. And downstairs, there was darkness.

Depressed, I wondered if I could just stayed there and wait for the night. My stomach growled at me and I realised how sore and cracked my lips were. Staying here was a stupid idea anyway.

I needed water and food quickly and I chose in despair to go towards the unknown below. My path only lit by the worn-off red emergency lights that counted the underground floors, I went downstairs. Minus one floor… Minus two…

The twenty-fifth floor below the earth marked the end of my staircase trip. My head reeled and I held myself against a wall, leaving small peps of blood on the bare grey concrete. The air was cold and my breath formed a white mist in front of my beaten muzzle. The heat from the surface couldn’t reach out here. I slid against the wall until I came to a stop, my hooves folded under my sore body. There was nothing to pay heed at but the slow and ragged breath of mine, and a slow dripping. I looked around for the drip sound. I saw a small pond of water streaming slowly from a crack in the wall. A smile dashed on my face.

The taste was of rock and charcoal but it was still water. I drank avidly each drop that came to me, moistening my lips with the few I could spare. I couldn’t even breathe a thanks to Celestia. Speaking was hurting too much. Even patting my lips with humid hooves was painful. I stayed there ten maybe twenty minutes until I let myself drop aside the small rotten pond that had formed under the wall over the last two centuries.

Sitting uncomfortably, I spotted the rear-view mirror at the bottom of the stairs where I had dropped it. I too far from me to reach it with my hooves. I was losing all of my stuff today. I had left my radmeter up there…

“Oh… fuck me…” I rasped.

I hit my forehead so hard my vision went white. I had left it up there with the blood of Alea. Holding my head, I could do nothing but blame myself. I had lost my stuff, bags, food, everything. And I had lost Alea. Especially her. Why her. Why had she to die? She was dead. The claw of anxiousness closed on my heart. I curled up on my spot, squirmed and kept my hooves tight around my backlegs. Hot tears crawled over my face and slipped in the pond next to me. I’d be blamed when I’ll be back on the boat. Had to watch out for teammates. And everypony wanted her in their teams. I’d be blamed. Me. Just me. I was dead. And who could tell if I wasn’t in a deadly irradiated area? I coughed. That wasn’t helping.

I sighed, blew my muzzle on my forehoof, and looked back at the rear-view mirror. I concentrated, focused, and pictured my mind reaching out for it and floating it back to me.

It never happened. I scrubbed my empty forehead with a regretful smile crawling on my face. I wished I was a Unicorn. Everything would have been so easier. I was just lucky to be an Earth Pony.

I wiped the tears off my face and rubbed my watery eyes. Couldn’t see properly. I wiggled my ass on the dirty floor and carried my poor lonely ass to the mirror. Holding it between my hooves, I settled it so I could see the frail stallion I was. Skin had sunken over my bristle cheeks and ribs. My light blue mane was falling over my reddened face. Red from tears… Red from blood. The same silvery grey fur I had seen scratched on some barbed metal earlier patched me up along with dirt, caked blood, and a weird black goo.

I shuddered with anxiety. The beast had drooled on me back in the car and the sludge had glued to my mane. I reached my locks with the back of my hoof and tried to scrub the dirty substance away. Hairs and fur stuck together to my hoof, entangled and nasty. After a few minutes fighting off the foul-smeeling goo, I surrendered. Grooming myself was too much of an ordeal. I let myself lie on the ground with the broken rear-view mirror balancing above my forehead, puffing up the few less scrawny strands of my mane up with short and focused breaths.

A shushed whisper popped in my ears that perked instinctively. I had reached the end of the staircase when I hat hit the twenty-fifth floor below the ground level. There, a massive metal door had barred me from advancing. I had try to pry it open but the rust of the locking wheel was far too thick to break. Though the door was massive, I had seen some made out of thirteen tons of steel. Stable-Tec underground hostels knew the deal.

Anyway, the door I had in front of me was still too heavy to force my way through. Somepony had scratched on the metal door and had etched marks in the white paint that had once covered it. I supposed those markings belonged to the pony or zebra skeleton that rested in a corner. I pressed my cheek against the floor. I could hear whispers coming from under the gate, through the blade’s width crack left between the ground and the piece of metal. I crawled closer to the slit and eavesdropped.

“Okay, I don’t want this to be bloody. Give it to me and you won’t be hurt,” somepony growled rudely, his voice growing in power as if it was coming closer to the door. “I just want what you found in the room. Give it to me nicely, then we can all go home without calling any spawn on us. That would be nice of you, dear.”

“There are strangers coming into town.” Somepony answered rudely. “I won’t let you fuck this up. Go fuck your own wretched lineage.”

“I won’t repeat myself,” the menacing voice threatened. “I won’t let you jeopardise our plan.”

I heard a shard of metal click back and fro and mayhem broke lose behind the door. Thunder rumbled through the underground building and the walls shook wildly with bits of paint detaching from them. Somepony liked explosives. I rolled over and away from the door and backed up in a corner. It’s only then that I saw light and flashes of thunder coming from under the door with rust falling into clumps from its hinges. The light pouring in the slip beneath the gate was suddenly barred by a set of hooves.

An order than came like a dreadful sharp scream blared from behind the door. Gunfire grew louder and the orders went drowned in the din. A swoosh resonated and a yellow and orange taint flooded through the crack. Nearly petrified, I pressed myself against the farthest wall. A salve of bullets ricocheted against the door and the echoing ping sound made me sick.

The steering wheel in the middle of the door suddenly vibrated as somepony grunted behind. The whell cracked and finally gave way, rolling aside. I rushed under the staircase and squeezed myself in its shadow. The wheel finally clicked and the pony, or whoever was behind, backed up in a twist of fate. A wave of bullets rammed once again in the metal door. I let a breath of relief as nopony came back to action the handle.

The door exploded in a tide of flames and debris. Knocked back by the force of the explosion, the bent door blasted inward and smashed into the stairs in a flying heap of rubbles. Heat burnt my face and, showered with concrete, I crooked back further in my hiding spot and tried to avoid the flames.

“GET IN!” a brownish Pegasus shouted gravely at comrades I couldn’t see. “Retreat!”

As he limped in the staircase I could get a better view of the brown Pegasus. His armour was a patchwork of sheets of metal and the tips that mounted his wings were strewn with blood. His yellow mane was tangled in the bits and screws that held his barding in place. Two twin turquoise Pegasi mares stormed in the staircase, one with her khaki green mane fuming with fire.

“It’s madness coming upstairs,” the untouched mare cried out. “Spawns and stalkers are on the loose!”

“It’s them or here! And you heard the report, a warship docked in the SG!”

“Move up!” a fourth voice screamed from behind the frame of the blown off door. “NOW!”

The three Pegasi rushed higher in the staircase, took off, and slipped over the stairs as fast as their wings could carry them. A fourth Pegasus came into view, the metal demijohn strapped to his side undermining his balance. Linked to it, a long hose led to a thin, straight metal pipe which tip was on fire.

The Pegasus bit on the trigger in his mouth and the contraption sparked with a stream of black oil spurting out of the tip. A wave of heat washed over my face again as everything caught fire in front of the flamethrower.

The heat stopped with a wet and sloshy tearing sound. Blood splattered all over the debris strewn at the pony’s hooves. The Pegasus’s head hit the ground, detached. Both wings wracked off of behind the beheaded body and fell on the ground too. A final blow cut the flaming tip from the rest of the weapon and sent it fly far away from the oil that started leaking off the arm. Finally, the dead body slumped over in a wet squashed squish.

Above the bloody heap stood a zebra. His face was rounder than normal and topped by a short and brush-like mane. He was definitely young. A blue and golden ring dangled from his right ear. A blue necklace was hung around his neck. Breathing in short and hastened puffs of air, he had knives mounted on retractable strings strapped to his hooves. He had one sawed-off shotgun strapped to his back that time hadn’t spared. Blood covered his dark grey and cream hide, trickling down to his hooves. He had moved too fast for me.

The Pegasus’s head was still rolling on the ground when I looked down at it. Diverted by a pebble, it fell in the small pond of water I had drunk from. Fine little bubbles escaped from its mouth.

“Oh, Celestia…” I gasped.

‘Oh, Celestia’ indeed… Idiot.

The zebra pulled me out of my spot and sent me flying through the door threshold with an incredible force. My back hit a sturdy piece of metal and I bumped over. Flailing, I found myself on my back, a knife at a speck-length above my right eye.

“Please, please!” I blubbered, waving my hooves at him. “I d-don’t want no trouble.”

The zebra took a step back and, as he kicked his forehooves on the ground, the knives strapped on them rotated back to a safety position. He still had me pinned down with all his weight on what seemed to be an old vending machine.

“I see no wing on you, birdy,” he spoke ominously.

He was scanning me from tail to top and smirked. His eyes narrowed and his face crept dangerously close.

“Who do you serve?”

“Eh… what? Who?”

The question had come like a whisper with cold and terrible apprehension. I was shaking. Sweat was slithering down my back and falling from my brow into my eyes. His eyelid narrowed at me and I laughed out of fear.

“I- I serve nopony. I’m not even from here! I- I came on a boat, from Equestria- ah… Aaah!”

His eyes went wide and he kicked his left foreleg next to my head, breaking the glass of the vending machine to bits. His knife clicked and sprung forth and he threw a punch towards my neck. In all my misfortune, I looked upward and froze the glimpse of a second. Above us, a blueish form had just materialised out of the nothingness. Latched to the ceiling like a monstrously large spider, its open maw gaped open. I saw long and crooked appendices aim then leap.

“WATCH OUT!” I yelled.

I pushed the zebra away just when I felt a painful nip in my neck. Building on the momentum, I dodged the ethereal limb that smashed in the vending machine. My heart on a speeding rampage, I rolled behind a heap of rubble that had fell down from the ceiling and hid. Fatefully, the beast roared and launched itself at the zebra who rushed to the staircase and disappeared.

The monster in the young zebra‘s tread, I again found myself alone in a dimly lit underground level that had nothing to do with a parking. With only the far rumble of the pursuit echoing down to here, I finally rose on my shaky hooves.

“What’s wrong with this place?” I stuttered, a hoof on my now red dripping neck, a flesh wound that still burnt like fucking Celestia’s sun.

The place seemed to have been the security office of the building. Many desks once pristine and shiny were left to rot here, overturned and smashed to bits. Terminals of an unknown brand lay on the ground, broken only for a few. Those which remained alive were screwed to one wall, suspended over one long desk that had had several chairs in a row. Ponies or Zebra had sat here to observe the building and beyond. In the middle of the room a small crater marked the place where the fight had all begun. I looked away and took in how vast the room was. I had found the security level of the building.

At that point, I spotted hoofprints cast in the dust that blanketed the area. Prints that weren’t mine. Tracing back the path, I was led to a large opening in a wall. Explosives had left a blackened hole around it that could let five ponies goes in all lined up. Cowering in with shivers of apprehension, I face the dimly lit room. To the dark ashes strewn on the ground blood soon joined. Among the black and grey ashes a pair of Pegasi sat in their own blood, their neck slit open in such a gory way that it made me gag.

“What the fuck is going on in this city…?” I sighed tiredly.

The room was as large as the one I had just left. Yet similar, it struck me with dread. A cold rush of quivers crept up my sweaty backbone. My beaten eye stung from the dust that swamped the air and my side still hurt. Each time I was prodding my painful ribs, my hoof came back a little redder.

Compared to the other room, this one had a fantastic display of military tech. Or I thought it was military-related. The decrepit walls were marked with old bullet holes. Large and flat terminal screens still flashed greenish images, recorded by cameras scattered across the city. Unused shells had flooded out of a turned-over ammo box and had sunken in the blood that covered the floor. What screamed that all this was military to me was that every piece of furniture was etched with the same symbol: three stripes shaped in lightning bolts and encased in one smooth circle that showed only one break on its top. It was some scary insignia.

Papers had been thrown on and off the desks and the ground hastily. Some had been stomped on and often, they had been left soaking in the gore that had spread on the ground. Looking down at some, they all bore the same red stamp of secrecy.

The fight that had occurred here had been violent and quick. In the flashing light that lit the scene, I thought I understood what had happened. The few desks that had drawers had been broke to shreds and their content had been looted. I looked back at the other room through the hole dug in the wall. Was that zebra chasing for those documents? The Pegasi had probably took all the juicy stuff.

I turned back at the two Pegasi that lay immobile in their own grim, the colour of their fur and mane barely visible under the crimson red of their own fluids and green light coming from the monitors. As I had seen with the Pegasus that had shouted orders, the sergeant probably, they all wore patchwork pieces of metal that could barely be called armour.

Yet something caught my attention. Sewed to the leather patch that covered their shoulders, they both had a round black fabric that sported a white inscription: ‘1st’.

They had a makeshift battle saddle and both carried the same weapon: a long and thick wooden rifle that was definitely semi-automatic. It wasn’t built like the assault rifles I had often seen on Applejack’s Rangers back in Equestria. Those weapons were old and not produced in masse. They looked to me more the product of an artisan that had to use spare parts to build replacements to weapons that couldn’t be repaired anymore. And they were fucking heavy! Using my own weight to dislodge the rifle that seemed the most intact to me, I struggled to get it out from beneath the heavy cadaver. Finally, it went off and I fell face first on the ground, the weight of the weapon carrying me down with it.

Rubbing my head, I looked back at the other room. There were obviously nopony there but witnessing one of those blue monsters appear into thin air had me on edge. I felt watched and it drew me to an insane paranoia.

Taking some random papers on a desk, I started sweeping the coagulating blood off the weapon. I needed it. Wanted it. I had lost all my stuff. I needed to survive. The top of the rifle had a broken support. Maybe it had a scope a long time ago and, maybe, it had served during the Great War… Who knew?

Now partially cleaned – I would still need to clean the inside string – I left the weapon on the same desk and went back to the two bodies. I needed one of those armours. Then I spotted the saddlebags strapped to the flank of the closest one. Food! There must have been some in there. My stomach growled with glee with the hope of finding anything eatable inside.

As I approached, an intercom cracked and I jumped, slipped, and ended in the pool of blood. In the cold and dank of the room, my flank washed in blood that wasn’t mine, I heard a voice rising from an earplug that dangled from one of the Pegasus’s flopped ears.

“Team Four report.” the voice urged. “Team Four report!”

“Team Four here, we’ve got what you wanted, the proof about Luna… Maybe a location,” a grave voice answered in the channel. It was the one of the green Pegasus I had seen earlier. “We’ve been ambushed, a bit of a resistance from one zebra. One wounded to bring back.”

Luna? Wait, what?

“Do you think we have been busted. Spied on?”

A pause ensued, followed by a short-lived stream of swears.

“I think, Sir. We had a welcoming party down the special security booth. I think we were followed. We need to get rid of that zebra as fast as possible.”

“This communication channel isn’t secure anymore,” the order snapped. “Change to channel Zeta. Over.”

The transponder went silent and left me all alone in the coldness of the room. What proof about Luna? It had been proven she was dead yeah! The fuck!

After trying to scrub the blood off my flank with the papers around me that still wasn’t soaked, I chose to snatch the Pegasus’s saddlebag. I was lucky. The Pegasus had a bottle of an amber liquid that smelled like alcohol. But more important, he had a square of bread packed in a dry tissue. The bread was crispy like a piece of glass but to my empty stomach, what a hell of a meal!

Sitting in silence in a chair I had scavenged in a corner, my eyes never leaving the hole in the wall that served as an entry, I finally felt my heart coming back to a healthy beat. After making sure I was undoubtedly alone, throwing bits of wall and balls of folded paper around, I finally stopped focusing on that blackened opening. I still threw some furtive glances at it from time to time, though.

I think I expected Alea to pop her head around the corner, a shark-smile adorning her face and crying ‘jokes on you, bitch!’ as she jumped on my backside and batted the back of my neck. But I was dreaming, as always.

Crying, I went watching the screens as I savoured bitterly my small bread. The city was a ghostly desert, empty and covered with a thick cloud of sand. A sandstorm was gaining momentum and one by one the skyscrapers I could see on the videos gradually disappeared. It would still be hours before the real storm hit the city.

On one of the streaming cameras, I could see the HMS Canterlot anchored in the City’s bay where once a massive harbour surely had made the inhabitants proud. Sometimes, the speakers carried a gunshot to me or a shadow, but nothing more. I felt alone down here.

Scanning the room around me, avoiding to look directly at the two bodies that began smelling, I found a door cast in the wall far away from the hole pierced in that chamber. In the chiaroscuro, I hadn’t seen it.

Painfully, I lifted my sore rump off of my spot, went to the bodies and finally unstrapped one of the battle saddle with a grimace. A few minutes cleaning it afterward, I put it on and found myself wondering how to clip on the large rifle. I was fearful I couldn’t handle such a chunk of wood and metal.

The sides of the battle saddle were devoid of straps or clips and it was only when I turned my head over that I found why. Unlike the majority of battle saddles I had seen in my life, this one had been designed to support the weapon above the wearer’s shoulder, probably to give a steadier grip and provide more accuracy. But to be honest, it was probably meant to balance the horrible weight of that semi-auto rifle I’d scavenged. Five minutes flew by until I had finally lumbered myself. I ripped off the black herald sewed to the shoulder of the armour, afraid to be targeted by a faction I knew nothing about, then headed for the door which, as I had expected, was locked.

Well... that was anticlimactic. The fact that I didn’t know how to lock pick a door didn’t help either. Swelling my cheeks with air, I pondered what to do. I wasn’t going to buck it open, was I?

I went for the busted open desks. I wasn’t going to go away without something, really. It would feel like failure and apparently with my partner dead, I wasn’t going to go back to the HMS with empty hooves. And Alea… I sighed. ‘First in, last out’ she’d said back in the boat. Well… It didn’t turn out that well. It never did apparently. I buried my snout in the hollow of my shoulder.

After I unstrapped the uncomfortable rifle off my back, I let myself slid against one of the busted open desks. Resting with my butt sitting in the dirt, my face only lit by the light of a nearby terminal, I looked down at the heap of papers. Beneath a lying long cable caught my attention. That must have been important. I threw the papers away, there were enough of water droplets on those. I had to focus on something relevant. Tears. Are. Bad.

It was a interphone linked to a transmitter. I had seen some before. I think I knew how to operate one. My hooves hesitated over the range of buttons. I checked if there was still remaining power. If the microphone was still well preserved. I found what seemed to be a switch. I pushed clumsily. Static was the only thing I could hear on all the frequencies. No, that can’t be. Then I switched to the left and heard somepony.

“HMS? HMS? Canterlot? Is that you?”

Silence. I bashed my hooves on top of the transmitter.

“HMS! HMS? Please.”

“Stop it! You’re saturating the frequency,” a gravely voice cut in the static silent and I held my breath. “Yeah, Captain of the HMS here. Report.”

“Alea is dead!” I cried. “We’ve got caught by monsters. I’m alone.”

“Where is the rest of your team?”

“Dead,” I whimpered. “I’m trapped in an underground. I don’t know where I am. I’m alone.”

“Calm down, son,” the captain soothed. “You’re not alone in that mess. Other teams reported hidden assailants. We’ve ordered a retreat to the HMS.”

“They are invisible!” I warned wiping my leaking nose.

“What?”

The radio cracked with static and a buzz shut down the conversation for two horrifyingly long seconds.

“I’ve seen Pegasi and a Zebra fighting each others. They were talking about Luna…” Silence. “Captain?!”

“Here is Sergeant Stuka, First Pegasus Army. Do you have it!?” a Pegasus’s avid and menacing voice urged. “The weapon? Did you bring it?”

“Captain,” I howled at the microphone.

The transmitter fumed, buzzed, and clacked with an arc of electricity popping up from under its top.

“FUCK!” I screamed, throwing the intercom to the ground.

“What?” the captain blurted, his voice fading as he backed off his microphone. “Who’re you?”

“The Word of Genesis, did you bring it here?” he repeated.

“Wait… No! The fuck you’re talking about? We’re here to take back any survivor. T’find tech for the homeland.” the captain explained. “How many are there left? And the fuck of a weapon are you talking?”

“Soldiers? Maybe five… eight… nine hundred still fighting actively, Sir,” the Pegasus answered. “Two thousands with the mares and children in the camps. And there are probably Five to six thousands enemies still alive left in the city. Then there are the traitors. Fuck them. We’ve done a good job, though. Luna told us to wait for her to come back. She promised us the Word to end that city! We’re true to our oath. We fight!”

“Wait, what are you...”

“Captain,” the Pegasus cut him off with a creeping calmness that sent shivers down my spine. “Tell me. Did we win?”

“Win… what?” the captain blurted out, unphased with the Pegasus’s train of thoughts.

“The WAR!” the captain blared back frantically. “Did we win the war?!”

“Wait, no!” Voices rose in the background, voices the captain didn’t wait to silence with an order. “No, we lost… Everypony lost. Everyzebra lost. Equestria is no more. There was the balefire. The Zebra Empire is no more too.”

“Oh...” somepony had a sudden realisation. “So Luna…”

“Luna’s dead… Don’t tell me you’ve been fighting for two hundred years,” the captain asked bemusedly.

“Loyal to the crown. Loyal to the core, Captain. We are the Night Guard. Loyal ‘til the end, generation after generation,” the voice trailed extensively and broke into a wicked laugh. “She’s dead… Luna is dead. She lied to us… No, she won’t. She was betrayed. We must avenge her.”

“You. Are. Insane.”

The Pegasus snorted. “Back in the day, you would be put in martial court for that foul language, Sir.”

“The fuck you’re talking ab… What’s happening in this city!?” the HMS Canterlot’s captain roared through his own intercom.

“This city is cursed, Sir.” the sergeant answered. “We need the Word to make it end.”

I heard screams coming from the captain’s side. My eyes deported on the screen where I had seen the HMS Canterlot anchored in the bay. I couldn’t believe what I saw. The air around the warship was frizzling and vibrating as if monstrous heat distortion was engulfing the warship. The frigate quaked violently and I heard loud scream coming from the transmitter.

“Oh.” The Pegasus let out a long sight. “They are quite on the schedule today…”

The Pegasus, that Stuka, and I were apparently watching the same thing. An invisible talon clutched around the frigate. I could see the metal bend and crack through the image. And the screams. It reminded me Alea’s. Oh, Celestia. The sounds that a far and still alive CCTV carried to my little greenish screen chilled me to the bone. The thing I couldn’t see lifted the warship above the sea level like a toy. lifted the warship above the sea level! Then the invisible hand smashed it down. The wreck crashed and shattered in a massive storm of metal, blood, and screams.

“My friends…” the Pegasus said, his voice tainted with something that I couldn’t say if it was delectation or pity. “Welcome to Bahrneigh.”

[α Ω α]

Footnote!

Dervish

Specials:

Strength: 4

Perception: 6

Endurance: 5

Charisma: 5

Intelligence: 5

Agility: 7

Luck: 6

Thanks to Kkat for writing Fallout: Equestria

Chapter 1. Hideout

Ursa was destroyed and Bears, unwavering in their fortress of ice, were no more. Marozi was destroyed and Lions, treading their endless savannahs of golden wheat, were no more. Alveare was destroyed and Changelings, timeless masters of the underworld, were no more. Andina was destroyed and condors, majestic far above the clouds and the Pegasi, were no more.

Canterlot will be brought down. Roam will be annihilated. All of you, no matter that you’ve got stripes or not, will be eradicated just in time. Who do you think you are to deserve eternity? It is just a matter of hatred… Sweet, sweet hatred.

τϧφΞϙυαϡѮφΟϗ҉ᶉẞӾЁɧɈɎȷɮɠəȟȾǵǖǞȖᶱ₫₪β

I wiped my eyes again. I was slowly spinning in a chair I had scavenged in a corner. The HMS Canterlot was lying destroyed in the bay. I could see it through the greenish screens displayed before my watery eyes. With its demise, all my hopes to go back to Equestria had been dashed. I could just watch the ashes flying by.

Alone and probably trapped down the city underground, withering away was a tempting idea. It would be fine. The dead have seen the end of suffering. I remembered the faces of Hollow Shades raiders’ victims. They had stuck to my dreams.

I buried my head deep in my hooves, covering a pair of eyes that I had been so ashamed to feel tearing up. My stomach growled; I had nothing left. I had already eaten all the bread I had stolen from the two dead bodies. They smelt like rotten yet the flies were still awaited. How long had it been since I’d wandered there. It was cold. Bodies shouldn’t rot that fast.

My vision was blurry. My hooves were trembling from the coldness of the room. My cheeks had dried out of tears and the few remaining drops of saliva I had were dangling on the side of my lips. How long had it been since I had left the Canterlot? I had lost track. Day and night cycles were an eerie thing deep down the pits…

When you’re unprepared, starvation and lack of sleep causes weird effects on the body after two to four days. It starts with disorientation soon followed with mental confusion and a loss of equilibrium. You just want to sit down and make the spinning in your head stop. Your temples hurt. You want to puke but nothing really comes up… just some acrid bile. It’s just your stomach fighting over its own acidic fluids. You want to drink but there is nothing around you. You’re too weak to move. So you grab rocks, wood, anything that could fill and feed the gap. You mouth just feels like dirt. You shiver. You want to gag and eat something, anything, everything… It drives you mad. And that’s the point… Lacking of nutrients, the body and even worse, the mind, start going to shit.

First it was auditory. Songs, laughs, and foggy words flying in and out my buzzing ears. Away. Coming from nowhere. Nowhere but from inside. Then, it was visual. You see the shit your body yearns for. Food. Water. Freedom. Light. Warmth. Security. Whatever… To me, it was Alea, crawling like a wisp of air between the chairs and desks of the room. Silent, she was paying absolutely no heed to me.

“Alea,” I whispered. “Alea, it’s me?”

She didn’t budge.

“Alea, please,” I gurgled. “Tell me it’s a joke.”

She looked around, ransacked some piles of rubbish, then she glared at me.

A voice in the distance cracked through the uncanny silent and Alea disappeared in a cloud of shadows, meddling in the ambient darkness.

“You sure they went through that hole?” A female voice reached my ears.

I held a hoof in front of my mouth after another gag had wracked my throat.

“Yeah! I think I’ve seen a group of Pegasi. They broke through the ground to get to the lower level. Another group came through too,” a stallion pressed to answer. “There was some gunfire.”

“I’m really questioning how you got to walk through here,” the mare mumbled, her voice nearly unintelligible. “You gonna get killed one day.”

“One day, yeah,” the stallion snorted back. “Don’t worry. I can fight off a spawn with closed eyes!”

“Yeah… and I can offer you a flying fare from Roam to Warclaw by flapping my buttcheeks,” the mare deadpanned. “So keep quiet and hold your weapon tight. It’s too calm ‘round here.”

“It’s always calm before the fun begins,” he defended. “Eh… your weapon is unloaded.”

“What? Oh!”

I heard somepony fumble through her gear and swear as a heavy metallic item clanged on the ground.

“Ah, bravo…” the stallion sighed. “Miss Seriousest-than-thee even lost her shit. What’s next? A boat crashing on our head?”

“Silence!” she snapped back with a hiss.

I already had my heavy gun readied between my quaking hooves. Though I struggled keeping the barrel straight towards the blown up hole in the wall, I was ready. I could see far shadows going around the other security chamber. They hadn’t spotted me yet. I was lucky. I won’t let them.

“Don’t come…” I rasped. “I’m… I’m armed.”

“Uh? You heard?” somepony crowed at a stone-throw from me.

Was I grunting in pain? I couldn’t tell. My ear were buzzing. I was starved out. I wanted away… even it was through and at the end of a bullet. My hooves failed me and my wooden rifle slipped and dropped on my side. I could imagine the dead Pegasi I had stripped off facehoof at the feat.

Heavy, the semi-auto weapon clattered and gave a loud shot. The bullet flew by through the hole and zipped far above the targets I had intended to hit. The metal shard pinged on the ceiling and vanished far away.

Answering my stupid action, a spray of firepower riposted. A burning sensation snipped in my right flank…

As dust settled down and silent took hold of the short-lived battleground, somepony unwisely popped his head out in the threshold of the large carved out hole. With picky eyes, he scanned the surroundings for a brief instant, saw my throne of leather, dirt and blood, and ducked back.

“There’s somepony,” he murmured.

“Of course there is somepony, idiot,” the mare grunted. “Who do you think shot at us..? Is it dead?”

“Haven’t checked…”

“Deadweight!” she spat.

“I’m sorry…”

A shadow thrust over the rubbles marking the entry of the booth. A shot echoed and something sharp grazed over my cheek. Somepony rushed over like a whirlwind and threw me off my chair. With a hoof pressed on my throat, I was lying on the ground.

“Water,” I begged as my vision grew dark.

“Come on!” she ranted. “You were shooting a dead.”

“I’m not dead,” I hissed with difficulty.

“What?” the stallion said as he came closer.

“Nothing,” the mare answered.

“I’m not dead!” I urged.

“He says he’s not dead,” the stallion pointed out.

“He’ll be very soon,” she said ominously as she lowered her head towards mine.

“I’m getting better,” I claimed.

Her hoof released pressure and I struggled away, grinding my chin on the concrete floor. Once again, she pinned me down, her two forelegs on my back as she pulled on my barding and spat next to my head.

“I’m not dead!” I pleaded.

“Bring me the knife,” the mare ordered. “He’s one of the Firsts.”

“Damn, they really went here?” the stallion gulped. “I’d hoped those were just scavengers.”

“Apparently,” she announced.

Like a grim guillotine’s edge hovering over my neck, I heard a knife being unsheathed. Then, a swift whistle slit through the air.

“No, please, I’m not!” I said, rolling over to my back and raising my hooves above my sorry head.

She spoke but the knife in her munching mouth kept me from understanding. The knife whistled down right at my throat.

“Hop! Hop! Hop!” the stallion shouted as it reached out the mare’s mouth with a claw.

A claw…? I wiped the dried tears off my eyelids. I had a Griffon and a Zebra hung above my head, staring down at me. The Griffon was the bigger and taller of the two, his yellow face and his pinprick black eyes standing over a puffy and feathery white chest. The sharp edge of his brown claws shone in the dim light of the room’s monitors. With that smug grin constantly cast on his face, I guess he was expecting to face off the world and win. Two strange three-barrelled guns tipped out from under his wings. Set in a triangle pointing downward, one barrel – the bottom one – was significantly larger than the others. Looking further, I saw another knife strapped to his right back leg.

My head fell aside towards the Zebra mare. Her white stripes contrasted with her very dark grey colour. Or was that grey stripes over a white fur? I could never remember which one was right. She was pissed, her frowned-up face darting fire at me from her narrowed yellow eyes. She was tense and still trying to lung at me, ready to cut open my neck. She was so close that her long uncurled mane and her blue necklace was resting upon my shoulder. Only the Griffon was standing between her rage and my poor rump. With her mouth-gun strapped to her side with a makeshift leather band and the Griffon’s claw pinched on her knife’s glistening edge, I was safe from now. I was definitely too tired for those antics.

“He ain’t a Pegasus,” the Griffon pointed out.

“Ain’t the first time they employ proxies,” the Zebra warned as she letting the knife slip away from her grasp in the Griffon’s talon. “What’s the deal, Cartier? You know we can’t mess around with the Firsts…”

“Pay attention, Zina,” he cut her off, pointing at two heaps of flesh a few meters away. “You gotta check your sense of smell, really. He just scavenged those two birdies.”

She frowned at the two cadavers, spat on the nearest one, and rolled her eyes.

“Not my fault if peeps want to be live targets. Brainfucked Ponies…”

“You really start sounding like them,” the Griffon smirked.

“Yeah, whatever,” she waived away. “What do we do with the bag of bones?”

They both looked at me with questions in their eyes.

“Am… from the HMS C-Canterlot…” I breathed. “Water.”

They glanced at each other. Cartier rose an eyebrow before peering back at me.

“You mean the big shiny wreck in the bay?” he asked.

“Y- yes…” I coughed after a long raspy break.

I rubbed my sides and my hoof came back a newly revived red.

“Hang in there, bro,” Cartier said, grabbing me by the waist and hauling me to his back.

“Are you crazy!?” Zina countered. “Hideout is not to be shown to anypony, Zebra, or dust specks.”

“He’s from outside Bahrneigh,” the Griffon snapped back, any trace of lightness gone from his speech. “He might know things.”

“I wash my hooves of it,” she blurted. “You bear responsibilities.”

“No care,” Cartier brushed off. “I’m curious ‘bout the outside.”

“Griffons…” she grunted, her head resting in her hoof.

After I had been stripped off of my snatched barding, we started moving. The trip saw me in and out quite a few times and, at each of my blink of eyes, I found myself in a different place. On a narrow glass-covered bridge above the city, back in the hotness. In a dark and steep tunnel, dank and sweaty. Down a pipe and a ladder, engulfed by murmurs…

My ears were listening to the sound of the silent walk, the air whistling through the cracks and the ruins. The sand was crumbling under hooves and claws. My rasped breath and dehydration pained my lungs. The moaning of a far sounding storm without rain and thunder was trailing behind us. The swearing of a disgruntled Zebra mare melted in the constant complaint of the city. My difficult breath echoed as I blacked out again.

“The password?” a male voice barked through an intercom, jerking me awoken.

“Come on…” Cartier complained. “Can’t you see the most beloved Griffon of the village?”

“I see one more than expected? Reason?”

“Cartier’s caprice,” Zina grunted.

“Tut, tut…” the Griffon rose up. “Scavenger found in the Southern Governorate, came on the boat the spawns took down three days ago.”

Had it been already three days…? It had no importance now.

“There are survivors?” the voice said in surprise.

“At least one,” Cartier shrugged.

“Did he speak? Did he say from where he come?”

The Zebra and the Griffon looked at each other. Cartier pondered, a claw on his chin, just before his face lit up.

“He said Canterlot,” the Griffon announced.

“Let me check with the procurator,” the voice declared after a long unsettling silent.

“Canterlot?” Zina asked her friend with a raised eyebrow.

“Haven’t followed in class history? You who’s always so swift at blaming Ponies?” Cartier snarled.

“Shut up. I just have a hard time with names. And schools don’t exist anymore anyway.”

“It’s Equestria’s capital. Probably blown up like Roam and companies in the Levant.” Somepony prodded my side and I grunted, trying to roll over as I still lay on Cartier’s fluffy, comfy back. “That those Ponies had a boat called as such is… interesting.”

“What if he’s a spy?” Zina supposed.

“It’s been like… two centuries, Zina. I don’t think they are that spiteful. They ain’t like you.”

The back of a hoof slapped across a grinning face and I fell off the Griffon’s barding. Hitting the ground sturdily, I sprawled on the dirt that made out the floor.

“Ziiiinna!” Cartier grunted. “It hurts!”

“It means you learn.”

“Shit, shit!” the Griffon complained, tip-toe jumping around as he held his cheek.

“You dropped your prize,” the mare smirked, poking at my side with the tip of her hoof.

I was lying my head under my chest, puffing clumps of dirt off and around my muzzle. A sharp rock was nibbling at my neck and though the position was uncomfortable, I couldn’t find the force to move.

“You made me drop it,” Cartier blamed.

“You chose to keep it,” Zina defended. “It’s yours by law.”

“You accepted that we kept it too! And laws don’t exist anymore!”

“I? You…” The Zebra threw her hooves above her head and lashed out at the air with a loud grumble.

“I’m here,” I growled weakly.

“Hey? The two birds of love?” the stallion gate-keeper called them back.

“We’re not together!” the Griffon and Zebra denied at the same time.

“Yeah, whatever. You can bring him inside. To the doc’.” The stallion coughed repeatedly through the intercom, giving us some bursts of static. “Cartier?”

I heard claws dig in the dirt as the Griffon focused apprehensively.

“Yep?” Cartier acknowledged.

“You get to speak to Shaman about it, though.” The stallion’s voice stipulated.

“The wheeled rag-mare? Don’t want! Granny’s creepy.”

“She came to me. She wants to see you presto!” The gate-keeper sighed. “Just, grab the flesh-bag and you two come in. Something’s lurking out around the metro station… It tripped on the carillon trap.”

As the intercom cracked, Cartier’s claws hastily bit in my hide and threw me back on his back. A metal door creaked on its hinges and the three of us walked in somewhere.

The first thing I felt was the warmth. I had left the dank coldness of the underground to some place warmer and slightly better smelling. I was finally safe.

“Doc’s in his office,” the gate-keeper said, his voice graver than I had heard through the sound-warping speaker outside. “You should stop bringing new pets in, Cartier. It’s not that we have an open buffet here.”

“The dude might have some good stories to tell. If he’s useless, at least he’ll entertain the kids,” the Griffon said, poking my side.

I weakly grunted back at him. He was upsetting to say the least, hurting even. But who was I to protest? I was the one free-riding on his back.

“You see what I have to deal with, Grinding?” Zina rumbled. “Damn child.”

Opening my eyes again in a huge effort, I looked with difficulty at a brown Unicorn wearing nothing but a key around his neck. His short sandy yellow mane was brushed back behind his ears and horn. He missed a few teeth and his flank bore a white millstone.

Grinding – It was his name apparently – had been sitting all along on a chair next to a small rectangular metal door, which he had closed behind us. Next to the chair dwelled a small desk on which a terminal was still flashing alive, a microphone plugged in one of its many empty ports.

“Shaman’s busy at the moment, but she’ll come,” the stallion stated before looking at me doubtful. “Just go see the Doc; your little Pony is quite a bruise.”

“No way,” Cartier joked.

Without any further ado, I was carried through a long underground alleyway. Its ceiling sparkled with old frizzling, dangling lamps and decrepit mosaics had once adorned the walls with heroic scenes. A massive Zebra holding a black sword in his mouth was lashing out at a massive lion in a whirling assault. One three-legged mare was smashing open a jar of blue goo that unleashed a stream of bats…

I guessed it represented some Zebra mythology. Stars, magic, military feats, and sacrifices seemed to be recurring themes… The most used colours? Light grey, blood red, grass green, and midnight blue. The flashy shades of the colours had long diluted and only a spectre of their former self still shone under the dim light.

I heard some Ponies and Zebras gasp.

“Cartier! Cartier!” A set of young, shrilling voices called out.

“Wow, wow, children,” the Griffon pleaded with a sudden honey-like, grand-fatherly tone. “I’ve got a wounded up here.”

“Where did you find him?” a foal’s voice asked blaringly.

Opening an eye, I found myself hanging upside down on Cartier’s back with four foals watching me curiously. Two young Zebras fillies stood on edge along with one creamy rose young Earth Pony colt with a chocolate mane and a slightly older bright yellow Unicorn filly with an electric blue mane. All of them were looking at me with their wide blue, green, and brown eyes.

“What’s your name?” the two Zebra fillies asked in concert.

Rolling over Cartier’s back, I fell on my hooves and shakily got up.

“Name’s Dervish,” I croaked, my mouth feeling like my teeth were falling out.

Wiping my forehead, I saw sweat trickling over my fur. My vision blurred and I would have fallen if Cartier hadn’t rushed to my side to hold me up.

“Is he okay?” the rosy colt asked.

“Not really,” Cartier answered for me. “Bad things happened.”

“Star monsters?” the foal added.

Cartier reached out and shuffled through the young Pony’s brown mane with a grim smile.

“Yeah,” he said simply. “Again.”

Once the kids were gone towards their own little games, I was brought around through a series of shacks build with scrap metal, wood, and pieces of fabric. Stuck in between the ground and a two-Pony high ceiling, the place reeked an atmosphere of closeness I wasn’t so happy about. It felt like a stable; a poorer version of one.

Hardly walking on my own, I passed by at least two dozen adults, Zebras or Ponies. All of them bore the marks of old or recent fights. One had even lost his two back legs and was now rolling around with two wheels stuck to his back end. Every time, they stopped their activity to look at my sore sides, sorry face, and bloody fur. They were all carrying weapons.

Looking away from the rows of habitations, I saw that we were treading along a hole in the ground. Rectangular, the embankment we were walking on was tiled and had decaying yellow markings. The bottom of the hole had rusty rails. Looking slightly further, I witnessed that the other side of the hole was a symmetrical replica of where I was. There, a set of stone stairs had been barricaded with rocks. The exit sign still shone red above the rubbles. I was in a metro station.

As expected in such a place, there was a wagon further down the platform. Stuck to its position for two centuries, the whole construction of metal had rusted, the once blue paint nothing more than old clumps on the track that ran through the station. The shattered windows of the wagon had been covered with brownish curtains and the entry to the carriage was also blocked by such fabric. A small rectangle wooden piece had been stapled to the fabric with ‘busy’ written on it.

“Here we are,” Cartier said.

“Finally,” Zina grumbled. “We were supposed to go scavenge some food cans, remember? Now, it’s too late to go back in the tunnels.”

“It’s the opposite, my dear. We can go back now,” Cartier noted. “We’ve just made a detour.”

Zina hung her head low with one long sigh.

“I hate you, really.”

Even I chuckled. Centring the attention on my now sitting rump, I weakly smiled at Cartier who shared it with me.

“You’re okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. Not dead yet. Good thing. I guess,” I panted. “Thank you. Both of you.”

Zina nodded and Cartier brushed his claws through the feathers peppering his forehead.

“Was nothing, really,” he said. “We gave you water when you passed out.”

I will have to make up to that too, I guessed.

“How can I be of any help?” I croaked. “I owe you my life.”

“Stay alive,” Cartier grinned. “You owe me the tale of what’s going on outside the city.”

I chuckled, and looked at the Zebra.

“Th…”

“I want nothing to do with an Equestrian,” she cut me off. “I’m just tolerating you.”

She snipped her tail through the air, nearly slapping it in my face, and swivelled on her hooves. As she departed, the gun hanging on her chest clanged at each of her hoofsteps.

Shooting a wondering look at Cartier, who was still grinning by the way, I small-talked, “Is she always like that with everypony?”

“Uh?” Cartier blinked and glanced down at me. “Noooo… She just hates when things or people mess with her agenda. She’s a busy mare.”

“I guess,” I replied.

“Hey, Cartier!” a stallion called.

As an old blue stallion walked out of the train, a far younger and slimmer white Unicorn with a long orange mane falling over his face popped his head outside the door curtain.

“Hey, Gigli,” the Griffon responded, waiving his claw at him. “I’ve got a new client for you.”

Saying so, Cartier pointed a talon at me. The white Unicorn frowned at my general direction.

“New guy?” Gigli wondered.

“Yep.”

“Come on in, you two.”

Hauling me on my back legs, Cartier helped me enter the wagon. Inside, a series of bunk beds had been screwed to the walls, occupying the space where seats had once been installed. I was the only client. The head of the train had been made up in a small bureau. Though the exterior gave no hint about it, the interior was the cleanest place I had seen in a long while. On the wall had been hung a whole set of medical items which I refused to know the real use.

“So, what’s it for?” Gigli asked as he peered down to a series of boxes he kept under one of the bunk beds.

“I…” Damn my throat was sore. “I…”

Rummaging through his stuff, Gigli let out a cry of victory. Meanwhile, my eyes settled on his butt and went wide in terror. The buck’s cutie mark was a cartoonish pink Pony screaming in pain with a saw going half through his right back leg.

“What time is it?” Gigli said as he turned back to me with the widest smile he could muster, a saw hovering in his white magic next to his head. “Amputation time!”

I think I squealed like a foal. He rushed at me with a shout and I blacked out.

When I woke up, I had been laid in a bed with a Griffon and a Unicorn laughing in concert right next to me. My cheeks burnt with shame and, unwilling to cross their tearful stares, I scooped under the stained bed sheets.

“Fuck you,” I hissed. “Fuck you, both.”

“Oh, come on,” Gigli laughed. “It was a pretty good joke.”

I grumbled, “I’m more concerned about how you got that cutie mark.”

“Oh, that? Long story short, I saved somepony in a dire situation.”

“Are you… Were you a raider?” I asked.

“A what now?”

I raised my hoof, my mouth hanging open at him. How could he not know what a raider was? In which heaven was he… I sighed deeply as the truth sunk in. I was not in Equestria anymore. Nothing that I had learnt there would probably be useful here and thus, I felt naked.

Facing my silence, the Doc’ stripped me off my bed linens and prodded my sides. A sharp pain burst through my skin and I shrunk away from him. Crawling on my belly with long quivers running down my spine, I whimpered.

“It hurts,” I complained.

“No shit,” the doctor confirmed. “You’re in an advanced state of starvation and dehydration. You’ve got several gashes, two bullets wounds, you’ve got rat bites on your skin, and a knife wound on the neck, and probably what was two sharp claws dug in your flank.”

I glared accusation at Cartier and he put his claws on in chest dismissively.

“Not him,” the orange-maned stallion explained. “It was much bigger. To be short, you’re one damn lucky Pony. It will take a week to recover at least.”

Looking around, I saw an I.V. bag dangling at a pole, pumping some translucent mixture right into my leg. The ceiling had a screwed lamp that irradiated a powerful white light. On the back of the tram, a series of terminals biped at the rhythm of my heart.

“And you’ve got some radiation poisoning too. And I don’t have those…” He looked at Cartier. “You know… those orange bags.”

“RadAway,” Cartier brought forth.

“Yeah, those… I don’t have any of those anymore. You’ll have to be careful about going outside now. Your condition will have to be monitored closely.”

“Don’t you have some health potions to patch me up?” I asked.

“A what, now?” Cartier interjected.

Gigli was laughing slowly, shaking his head with a rueful smile.

“Where are you from?” the doctor asked.

“Equestria,” I answered half-heartedly. “I came on a boat…”

In the background, what sounded like an electronic bell clanged three times, cutting off our conversation for a few seconds.

“I must go,” Cartier chirped in. “Keep the juicy story stuff when I’m back, you… eh…”

“Dervish,” I said.

“Yeah, that name,” Cartier said as he walked outside the train.

Gigli and I remained silent until the clatter of Cartier’s claws had vanished in the dim ambient noise of the metro station.

“You’re really from Equestria?” Gigli restated, hardly believing me.

“Does it really matter now?” I glowered. “I’ve got no way to go back home. The mission is a failure.”

Silence hung between the two of us long enough to become awkward, which Gigli put an end to by coughing profusely.

“About the health potion…”

“You don’t want to spare one for me?” I said, neutral. “I understand.”

Yes, that would be understandable. I was not from that place. No Pony nor Zebra knew me. I was a threat for their security. In fact I was glad they hadn’t left me to die… I was happy that Cartier had taken me up.

“No, no! That’s not that at all. We ain’t assholes,” Gigli denied. “Health potions don’t exist anymore.”

I turned back and stared back at him with incomprehension. Health potions were a basic commodity back in Equestria. They were the blood of the warriors, wastelanders, traders, scavengers, and everypony else, old or young.

“Uh?” I uttered, baffled.

“The health potion technology is unstable. When temperatures changes rapidly and on a great scale, it degrades,” the white Unicorn explained matter-of-factly. “Unless you’ve got special carriages, refrigerated boxes, etcetera… Health potions often go to shit after two to three hours outside in Bahrneigh. When Equestria invaded two centuries ago, the First Pegasus Army experienced first-hoof the ravage of such flaw.”

“So no health potion at all here?”

Gigli nodded with a slight shrug. What in tartarus was that barbaric world? Health potions were somehow at least as important as caps. Speaking of those…

“How do you trade around here?” I asked and, trying not to sound too stupid, I added, “I guess I have to pay you back somehow.”

Nodding comprehensively, Gigli walked back to his desk, his hooves hammering on the metal floor. I heard a zip and he moved some stuff around in a leather bag. After a minut, he walked back to me.

“We use that as currency,” he said, dropping something on my bed linen.

It was round-shaped with little indents on its side and pressed in like a cap. In fact, it was a capsule, the beverage name ripped out by time, leaving nothing but old green and orange shades. I laughed out loud so much my sides wracked in pain.

“Some things will never change.”

Laughing lowly with Gigli raising an eyebrow at me, my head suddenly burst in pain and I held it in my hooves.

“Something’s wrong?” Gigli demanded, concerned, as he rushed to my side.

I was seeing spots of white in my eyes, small dots crawling against my closely shut eyelids. My ears were buzzing with a hissing that wouldn’t go.

“I’m…”

I opened my eyes with difficulty. She was there. Looking at me from behind the Doc’ with her purple eyes, she was smiling. A little, peaceful smile hanging in the middle of her scarred, red face. Alea… The Doc’ stared at my eyes and with a shiver looked back above his shoulders. His stare met the nothingness between the metal wall and himself.

“Do you see something?” he asked.

I wiped my cheeks. I was in tears. What was the use to lie? Alea’s shaking head was already vanishing.

“No,” I ghouled out. “Not at all.”

I curled up on my knees and broke into tears. She was dead now. I couldn’t save her. I hadn’t been strong enough… I wasn’t strong enough anyway. It was all my fault. I wished it was just a dream. Gigli stayed silent for a couple of seconds until he went patting my back.

“In an hour or two, when the I.V. has started to act, we’ll move out to the bar. I’m sure you’re thirsty.”

To be honest, I was.

“I would give a limb for a sparkle cola.”

Gigli widely grinned at my statement and I violently cowered away until my back hit the cold wall of the train.

“It’s a figure of speech!” I defended.

Gigli chuckled silently and asked, “What were you doing in Bahrneigh? You’re so far from home… Dervish. Is that your name?”

I nodded. After a fit of coughs, I started explaining the deal about that Equestria needed water cleansing talismans, which technology could probably be recovered intact in Zebra lands. I brushed over the last ten-year events that impacted the Equestrian Wasteland. I also broached over LittlePip’s plight, one of the names that would leave an eternal print on my homeland. However, I never went in the details. I had promised Cartier I’d keep it all for him.

“What happened to the city?” I said, willing to learn more about Bahrneigh.

“Well, Bahrneigh is not the name of the city itself actually. It’s the city-state’s name. We’re currently in Al-Marenama, the capital. Bahrneigh was one of the frontlines of the Great War. There was once ten to twenty millions inhabitants in the state. One year prior to the megaspell attack, it was invaded by Equestria who took the Northern Govern… region. There were close-quarters combats everywhere. Pegasi and Zebra fought for each corridor, each floor of each building. It was a bloody mess.” He sighed. “Who would have thought a paradise where the land of the sun meets the endless ocean would turn into a hellish pit…?”

“What happened during the Last Day?”

I told him about the Balefire megaspells and the pink cloud in Canterlot, which he winced at.

“It was fairly similar,” he confessed. “One thing though was that Bahrneigh is a small state but also a gigantic sprawling city. Two megaspells, what you called balefire, struck the Southern part of the state. The other struck the Northern part.”

“Wait… But there were Pegasi there!”

“In fact Equestria launched the one that hit the South. The Zebra Empire launched the one that exploded over the North.”

In the end, both sides had betrayed the city.

“I’m sorry…” I muttered.

“What are you talking about? You’ve got no responsibility in that mess, really! And the buildings are still standing.”

Speaking of which…

“How Bahrneigh did survive the blast so easily. The cities in Equestria were just a patch of ruins,” I notified, remembering the view from the upper deck of the HMS Canterlot. “We had a large view of the city from the harbour.”

“Yep, it must be weird for you,” Gigli confessed, “but Bahrneigh had an immense aerial defence system. That’s why many people had thought it untouchable… unreachable for Equestrians. The odds played against the city, again. The two megaspells were intercepted. It spared the people from the blast. However, the fallout… They were terrible for both sides. I think that that about eighty percent of the survivors in the city died in the first weeks after the megaspells struck.”

“I’m…”

“But it’s not all. There was a third megaspells that exploded in the city.”

“A third?”

“Yep. We don’t know who shot it… The weirdest part was that it happened five weeks after the balefire struck. Five weeks after the radio contact with the outside had been cut.”

Five weeks… How was that possible? Who would in a sane state of mind do that? That was stupid. Worse, that meant somebody had been still alive with that kind of firepower more than a month after the canons had finally shut up.

“It wasn’t a balefire bomb,” Gigli developed. “It was weaker. It still left a crater near the city centre, just next to the Burj.”

“Burj…?” I interrupted. “I’ve heard that name.”

“It’s the highest tower of Al-Marenama, like… one kilometre high. The finest construction of the realm. A monument to science and faith and victory.”

He chuckled cynically.

Back on the HMS Canterlot, I should have seen it easily, but at the time, the sand storm was already coming, obstructing the sight.

“It’s all rubbish,” he continued. “We know the Burj because of the crater. It’s from there that the star… monsters like the kids say happened to appear.”

I shivered. A megaspell that created… Star spawns, legends coming from in Zebra tales, was something that terrified me to the core.

“Yay, they eat Ponies like candies, my mother told me!” a foal who knew what he was talking about claimed, his rose snout poking in through a window with three other pairs of eyes.

Gigli shot up on his legs and leaped towards the window, towering the four foals with a surly face.

“I’m going to ground y’all!” Gigli warned.

“He saw us!” the two Zebra fillies shrieked and scampered away.

Like wisps of air, they all slipped out Gigli’s hoof-range and ran away. Only then, Gigli came back to me with a sullen chuckle.

“How depressed we would be without the gang… Bahrneigh and Al-Marenama are a living hell once you’ve stepped outside the station.”

“You must hate me,” I dropped.

Gigli stepped back. “No. Why so?”

“Equestria made your life a living hell.”

“Oh come on!” he countered. “I’m from Equestrian descent myself!”

“Uh?” I glanced at the door, expecting Zina to be pointing his hoof at her barbed-wire-wrapped dagger glaring eyes then towards me. “But I though…”

“Hideout is pretty cosmopolitan,” Gigli explained. “There must be like…”

Somepony knocked on the door and a Zebra stallion popped his head through the closed curtain.

“Ni karibu. Mimi nina busy na mteja,” Gibli spoke with a voice and language that surprised me.

“Auo vestro vidistis?” the Zebra asked.

“Ah…” Gigli mumbled, rubbing his forehead. “Taceo de illo bene ... Et… misit illum in domum suam. Nolite ergo esse solliciti.”

“Gratias,” the Zebra said and walked away.

“Even if I put up a multi-lingual plaque, he will never read, that buck!” Gigli ranted towards the door.

“You speak Zebra,” I said, impressed.

“Two dialects!” Gigli confirmed with a smile. “More or less, to be honest. Their languages are bloody difficult. Bahrneigh was very open towards the outside before the war, Equestrian was the lingua franca here. Though, with the war and dealing with the aftermath, it’s become less prevalent. Anyway… where was I? Yes! Hideout is maybe fifty percent Zebras, forty-five percent ponies, and five percent of others, horses, etcetera…”

“You’ve got horses?”

“Uh-uh,” he confirmed.

I was curious now.

“Say again?”

“We have horses.”

My head reeled.

“Are they…”

“Tall?” he ended for me. “Oh bloody hell, they are. Anyway, yes I’m from Equestrian descent. My grand-grand-grand-grand-grandfather was a Pegasus who was part of the invasion. He survived the megaspells and ended up stranded here.”

“But… I heard on the radio!” I protested. “The army is still fighting.”

Gigli sighed and, as he pushed his orange mane aside to reveal his green eyes, he sat next to me.

“Why do you think we call this place Hideout?”

He gulped and looked at me with his dark-ringed eyes. He hadn’t had a good sleep in ages. After holding himself silent for a couple of seconds he answered himself.

“Most people in the city have gathered in small villages. However, there are Zebras and Pegasi still fighting each other. They still think the war their forbearers fought is still worth fighting for. They still think Roam for some, or Canterlot for the others, will come to save them. And… I’ll be honest with you, Dervish, your arrival in Bahrneigh kicked the warmongering anthill back to life. We’ve survived until now, villagers, by detaching ourselves from the armies’ remnants and by keeping a low profile.”

I stared at my hoof, only able to listen to the stinging truth.

“That doesn’t mean I’m asking you to repair all this. It’d be stupid. It’s just that whatever your party wanted to do here, Hideout and its inhabitants won’t help you.” He wiped his muzzle with a long snort. “I hope Shaman will explain that to you better than I can.”

“Shaman…?” I pondered. “It’s a she, isn’t it?”

“Yes. She’s an old mare. She founded Hideout like… sixty years ago. She’s very old and crippled. But she’s our mother to all somehow.”

“So she rules here?”

“Shaman?” Gigli laughed. “Oh no, we elect our Procurator every year… I think it was called mayor in Equestria. Shaman is just… a general advisor, a priest. Well, she does the weddings. Some says she can read the future.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Rumours. It’s just that she talks very cryptically. She’s very old,” Gigli explained. “It’s not that I say she’s senile but sometimes her potions make you see weird things.”

“So you have a drug dealer in instance of a priest?” I asked.

Gigli raised his hoof, ready to interject, opened his mouth, but stayed silent. As he licked his upper lip with doubts cast on his face, his voice trailed out in a long hum.

“Well… From that point of view...” Holding his left hoof in front of his muzzle, he quaked a little from some repressed laughs. “I’m gonna store that joke somewhere.”

Gigli stood up and walked back to his desk. Meanwhile I lay in the bed in the most comfortable position I could find. There still was a damn spring pinching my back. Now wearing a stained white vest, Gigli came back to me with a bottle of water.

“Drink and get some rest,” he advised me as I sucked on the bottle. “I’ll come and wake you up a bit later.”

“Okay.” He began walking to the door’s curtain. “Gigli?”

“Yes?” he said after he’d turned his head.

“Thanks. I’d have died without you, Cartier, or Zina.”

He smirked, “Don’t thank us yet. I’m sure some people around the corner will want to put you to good use for basic work as a payment. Get some rest.”

“Yeah,” I guffawed, my guts already wrenching with apprehension. “I… I have another question.”

Gigli shifted back towards me and sat on the metal floor.

“While I’m still here, shoot.”

“What is the Word of Genesis?” I asked.

A chill washed over Gigli’s face and a swift tremor crawled down his back. With his eyes staring at me from above invisible glasses, all trace of joy vanished in his voice, his next words struck me like a hammer.

“How do you know that name?” he swallowed.

Unable to sustain his glare, I looked at the ceiling as I nibbled on my lower lip.

“On the radio, there was that Pegasus. He asked if we had brought it with us.” I met back his stare. “What is it?”

“It’s a weapon.” I held my breath. “In fact we don’t know… There is a legend going on that Luna herself promised something to the First Pegasus Army… I don’t think that even they knew what it was.”

“You have no idea?”

“We, Ponies, have the distasteful habit to give pompous names to our projects. We probably try to compensate for something. In fact, talking about hypothesises… I have one.” My ears perked up. “Equestria tested a weapon on civilians during the last year of war. It was called the Cococ, or cinnamon gas.”

Gigli dropped his stare and held himself between his forehooves, shivering as his eyes looked a thousand-yard away above me.

“You’ve seen it?” I wondered.

“Unexploded ordinances, compound pools, and stagnant residues. A long time ago… Back when…” He shook his head. “This gas was meant to kill living beings while leaving the infrastructure quite intact. Didn’t work very well.”

Pain and hurtful memories cast on his face, he swallowed as he slowly looked up at me.

“This gas sets people on fire… from the inside. I’m not talking about metaphors here. It really sets Ponies, Zebras, everything that breath on fire. I’ve seen people screaming.”

He drew a long, raggedy breath in and let it all out in short hissing puffs.

“I think that at the time they wanted to retreat out of Al-Marenama. It was a hellhole. A place where somepony died every seven seconds. I think they wanted to drop a cinnamon gas megaspell on the city and…”

“What about that… Word?”

“I think it’s a way to wash off the ‘fallout’. The compound glues to the walls, slips into every cracks, and it even melts in the bones of those it killed. It’s a death trap. But it was a way to take over Bahrneigh without anymore Pegasi dead.”

“It’s evil.”

“It’s war,” he said, wiping his nose. “Excuse me for being such a wussy. Um… I’m going out now. Go back to sleep. I’ll be back in an hour or two.”

I laid in silent on my bunk bed, the linens crept over my curled up body, protecting me from the relative coldness of the station. War had never ended in Bahrneigh, Al-Marenama, or whatever. I was back in hell, prior to the Day of Sunshine and Rainbows, even prior to the Last Day. I was back two hundred and ten years in the past, back when bodies fell like sheep. It seemed impossible.

“Celestia, if you hear me… Please, help me.”

Left to my thoughts, I slowly slumbered away to the rhythm of the distant cacophony of villagers going around their daily antics. Sleep welcomes the ones whose souls seek rest.

“Hey! Wake up, wood log!”

Opening one eye, I found myself snuggled into a ball under my bed sheets. Four foals were looking at me from above the edge of my bunk bed. They were the same ones than earlier. The bright yellow filly with a mane so blue it hurt my eyes, the two Zebra twins, and the rose colt. They were relentless. Point for them.

“Was it fun?” the most talkative of the two Zebra fillies broke the ice.

“Fun, what?” I grumbled.

“Fighting star monsters, of course!” She kicked and punched through the air at invisible enemies. “Boom! Bam! Ka-tching!”

“No,” I snapped back. “Ponies died.”

A small silent hung between me and the… gang. The filly rolled her eyes.

“Not fun,” she grumbled.

“Mommy said that everypony dies last time I saw her,” the rose colt said egg-headly.

“She’s right,” I confirmed with a trailing, low voice and a nod. “Everypony wants to live but… we all die in the end. It isn’t fun...” I looked at the Zebra filly. “… at all.”

“But you should have fun then!” the bright yellow Unicorn filly finally blurted out. “Adults never have fun. Only Cartier is funny. The others are just grimacing and never smile.”

She started grimacing herself with the corresponding onomatopoeias. I smiled ruefully and sighed.

“What’s fun in all that?” I said. “Fighting, no thanks, I got my load back home and it was a mess. Helping out? It didn’t turn out so well lately.”

“He sounds like grandpa,” the other Zebra filly cut me off with a giggle.

“You didn’t have fun?” the colt asked again vehemently, banging his forehooves on the metal of the bed. “But Cartier always says great fight stories.”

“No! In a fight, there is always a winner and a loser. Cartier just had the luck to be a winner all along!

He’s just a child, Dervish. Maintain yourself. He’s just a child. It’s no use to be mean.

“One day, he will not come back! Then, what will you say?” I breathed harshly and, upon seeing the colt stepping back from me, I gurgled, “Sorry… It’s just… Somepony dear to me died.”

“But you’re alive, that’s what…” One of the two Zebras bashed the colt over the head. “Ow!”

Chuckling sadly, pushing a birthing tear off my eye, I shook my head and focused on the colt. Rubbing his forehead, a little drop of blood was trickling over down to his cheek.

“Look what’s you’ve done,” I scolded the violent Zebra. “What your mother will say?”

They just laughed. Rolling my eyes, I grabbed the cold and dragged him back to me. Though he fought off and hacked a bit, he let me examine the scratch. It wasn’t deep or large but I had seen smaller getting very nasty if left untreated.

“Stop moving,” I ordered at the laughing colt, scrubbing over his forehead with the tip of my linen. “Come on! If you don’t let me, it won’t come off.”

“I’ll have a super-duper scar! Like father showed me once!”

I shook my head. Colts… The four youngsters laughed together. One of the Zebras scrambled around making me slip over the colt’s forehead making the small cut a bit worse. We both irked and gasped, and my throat tightened.

“Stop it!” I vented angrily at the Zebra.

I hated blood. As I scrubbed over, it tainted all the sheet and worse, I was painting the colt’s forehead with it.

“And stop laughing,” I ordered.

“It was fun!” the colt assured.

“No it’s not,” I countered. “You’ve got blood on your face. Getting wounded is no fun.”

“Oh, t’is just a scratch. I don’t worry,” the colt exclaimed. “I’m not gonna get blamed for it.”

“Aren’t you worry about your mother knowing you got hurt?” I replied. “You’re gonna get grounded.”

“Oh, I won’t get blamed,” the rose colt snarled.

I paused and eyed him with a wondering look. His mother was very liberal… maybe too much for my liking.

“Somepony else will,” he dropped, his pinpricks eyes piercing me.

I froze with a knot in my stomach. A cold sweat licked over my neck and back. I felt shivery.

“Who?” I blabbered, biting on my tongue as I focused on scrubbing the ever-flowing blood. “Come on, your mother will be dead serious about you getting harmed.”

It was getting everywhere, reddening his rosy fur. Celestia dammit, it was messy.

“No, mother won’t!” he assured. “She will never blame me!”

I rolled my eyes at him and stared straight in his eyes.

“And why so?” I defied him.

His smile spread widely across his round red and rose face.

“Because she’s dead,” he stated coldly.

I recoiled from his defiant grin and looked at the three others foals.

“Was it fun?” the two Zebras cried out at me in unison.

“No!” I burst out. Blood fell in drops from their throat where no slash had been dug yet. “It was… not.”

The blood tainted my bed sheets. First it had just been mere peeps. Now, the linen drunk at it into large puddles of red. It washed over my fur and dripped slowly down the ground.

“Look what you’ve done,” I blamed the colt as I grabbed him by the shoulders.

I went to stare right into his eyes but they had drifted away in opposed directions. His mouth was hanging open, limp. The laughter stopped abruptly. My breath speed rocketed. Unbearably slowly, I raised my head from the heap of a colt I had in my hooves, crushed, lifeless, blank-eyed. The remaining three foals were staring at me silently, a light griming out from the pit of their irises.

“Somepony else will.”

The words echoed in my head. Red covered everything. It dripped from out the cracks, trickled, and drip-dripped over my face, getting in my sore, teary eyes. Crimson. Ecarlate. My breath depleted in small, ragged in and out puffs. I was cold. I could barely open my eyes and with an heavy weight on my shoulders, I let the hissing silence engulfed me. I could only hear my breath, a whispering murmur, as I knew that accusing eyes awaited me if I reopened mine.

“Was it fun?” a female voice cracked through the uncanny silent.

“No,” I uttered.

“But you killed…” it answered. “Was it fun?”

I contemplated the contorted heap between my black red hooves. Where were my natural colours gone? My grey fur. My light blue mane. There was just red. Just that fucking red.

“No!” I boomed. “I… I could have done better. Fluttershy, she told me. We. Must. Do. Better.”

How could it be fun? There were blood everywhere! On their faces. On and out their gashes. Streaming down their cheeks like tears dripping from their bleached eyes. Sliding in their mouth in between the cracked, broken-in teeth. How could it be fun when there was blood everywhere? On everypony’s hooves, and especially on mine.

“Hey, wake up, wood log!”

I jerked from under my bed sheets with a hoof on my racing heart.

“Aaah! Sorry, Alea!” I apologized.

I wiggled aside and slipped off down the bunk bed. My head hit the sturdy floor and white crawled in my vision.

“Ow…” I grunted, rubbing my forehead.

With a spike in my gut, I saw that my friendly and beloved red Unicorn in front of me vanished, giving space to an angry-looking Zebra. I sighed and looked down in shame.

“Zina, am I right?” I mumbled.

“You’re star-damn right,” she said, giving me harmless hoofkicks into the side. “Gigli can’t come, he had an urgent course to do. He asked me to wake you up.”

“Sounds like a torture the way you say it.”

She rumbled, “Don’t be a second Cartier, I’d use one of you to bat the other.”

I zipped my mouth close and helped myself back on my shaky hooves. I was sore and hurting. A stinging pain sparked in my back leg and I crumbled on the ground in a moping, shaky heap. I felt Zina extract the painful I.V. needle very slowly.

“Stupid,” she rumbled.

As I wiped my tears, pressing hard on a gauze above the tiny hole in my hide, the Zebra reached out for something in her saddlebag. She gave me a long, tiny orange paper tube and we both looked at each other silently for a few seconds. Awkward.

“What is it?”

“Painkillers,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Hey, it’s not the same we have back home!” I protested.

“Yeah, sure,” she snarled. “Take some, I don’t want to have to carry you around. I’m not a cart.”

I took the tube and limped towards Gigli’s desk. Not willing to bit in the paper tube, I scrambled around in search for a knife. Instead I found a scalpel and proceeded to open the tip of the tube. A series of vaguely round-shaped tabs welcomed me. Inspecting further the tube for prescription advice, I faced indecipherable Zebra glyphs.

“Um… Zina?”

Already by my side, she glared between me and the tube back and forth, disappointed.

“Could you…” I gave her my best smile. “… read this to me?”

“It’s one tab every six hours. Don’t take much. Those pills are addictive.”

I stared back at the tabs. Well… Addiction was a real thing in Equestria. Careful, I used the scalpel to break one tab in two and gulped the first halve. I would save the next one for later.

“I guess you’re hungry,” Zina deadpanned. “I have to bring you to the canteen.”

“I am,” I answered honestly, looking at the window where Gigli had chased off the children. “That… gang of fillies and colt… who are they?”

“Orphans,” Zina breathed. “Their parents went for a scavenging streak one year ago. They are still waiting for them to come back.”

She shook her head.

“At least,” she continued. “Shaman and Cartier are taking good care of them while they… wait.”

Sadness. Her head was hung a little, the side of her lips slightly scrunched up and down. She sighed and rubbed her forehead.

“Oh, fuck it,” she rasped and glared at me with some reddened stare of her, trying to set me on fire. “Get your ass moving. I’m not here to play the psychologist.”

Looking around, I found a little worn out saddlebag that I threw over my right flank.

“Just borrowing,” I excused myself.

I slipped in the tabs and a few bandages. I will have to do with those. Damn this place for not having any health potions.

We walked outside the wagon and made our way through the underground city. As I had already seen, the habitations were just mounts of slightly arranged scrapped metal, wood, and fabric. Fire camps were settled regularly to spread warmth as evenly as possible. Parents snuggled their slipping child and snores could be heard coming through many windows.

“So that’s Hiedout?” I wondered.

“Yes, it is.”

“You’re a lot here?”

“One hundred at most,” she said. “But the number is dwindling month after month.”

That shut me up for a good minute. Only after did I tried to small-talk my way out of a shameful awkwardness.

“What time is it?” I asked the Zebra mare.

“It’s night. Maybe thirty past eleven… Our clock broke two months ago and we haven’t yet find a good replacement part.”

“A cogwheel?”

“Yep. You know something about it?”

“No. Not really,” I confessed.

She didn’t answer. Instead, we kept moving through the habitation until I could see the thick entry door. Grinding was still sitting in his chair, sleeping. Only then did I see a long corridor opening behind his booth. For once, a vivid light slithered through and projected many shadows up onto the rusty rails that sat by. To the light soon joined sounds and, as we turned in the narrow alleyway, laughs.

“And then I took out my two beloved guns, ‘Head’ and ‘Tails’ and blasted off the wings of the flying Pegasus. He fell right in between three star spawns. As they fed on him, Zina and I reached out the Trading Exchange of North Al-Marenama and headed for the vault. To our greatest and upmost disappointment, it was empty!”

“Ooooh,” young voices answered.

Zina and I stepped in what was surely a saloon. Round tables adorned the place and many chairs had gathered with their occupant around a white and brown Griffon, Cartier. Mimicking his feats with his two three-barrelled gun in his talons, he managed to swerve and hack his arms across the air as he still sat. More impressive, he had the gang sitting on his lap as he did so.

“So who stole the prize?” an adult Pony asked even before the kids did.

“I’m coming to it,” Cartier smirked with a wide smile. “The truth is… we don’t know. The vault was protected by active turrets and they hadn’t fired a single shot yet before we arrived. The Gentlecoalt who’d been there before us had the keys and codes of the Exchange.”

“But, do you have an idea?”

I looked around, Ponies and zebras were playing poker on a table and one other groups of two residents were facing each other. Between them was displayed an open box with twelve sewed in triangles on each side. Little ivory tokens, black or white, were stacked on those triangles. One of the Pony grabbed two dice, put them in his glass, shook, and let the odds work it out for him. As the result came up, he moved his tokens, the whites, clockwise. I didn’t know that game.

My eyes wandered further towards the counter. Some Ponies and Zebras were drinking a murky brew served by a… Oh, fuck me… As tall as an alicorn, as large and bulky as a Macintosh, completely black from top to bottom with only a grey mane to contrast, a Horse barman was talking to his clients. He was, at least, twice my size and… look at those gigantic hooves!

On the top of the bar, a transmitter was being manipulate by a Zebra, probably listening with a pair of earplugs to transmission going around the city. The transmitter’s antenna had been replaced by a long cable that went directly to the ceiling and disappeared in a hole. It was probably going up to the surface.

“It is the… Newcomer, Dervish!” Cartier boomed over at me, making me duck.

Eyes dashed in my direction and looked at me with curiosity, apprehension, and wonder.

“And he comes from Equestria…”

Fuck you, Cartier. Just… go sit on a dragon’s dick. Cold stares, wondrous stares, curious stares, I was entitled to all of those as I stepped in with Zina. And, as I closed in the gap between me and the Griffon, I never expected the stream of questions that assaulted me.

The next hour was spent getting harassed with questions about the outside by everypony, Zebras and whatnot. I tried to be the most concise possible and helpful. Trying to tame the spite of some Zebras, which didn’t turn out so well to be honest, I skimmed over Luna’s death, which brought some relief in some of them. Telling them about the Enclave and the war that opened the sky ten years ago was the hardest part… LittlePip’s adventure was something that was hard to believe for those who hadn’t experienced it first-hoof like me. The Great and Powerful goddess and Red Eye were topics I didn’t broach much. Honestly, those two deserved their own story time, especially Red Eye.

While the attraction I created slowly withered, Zina sat next to Cartier as the four foals slowly drifted asleep next to him. It was getting late.

“I’m really thankful,” I began. “I’d not have survived out there without you both.”

“Oh, come on,” Cartier answered. “It was nothing.”

“It was something,” Zina hissed, keeping it a whisper for the children. “We lost a day of scavenging because of you.”

“Don’t be so mean, Zina. I’m sure you like to go off the road from time to time.”

“Um…” I tried.

“Mean! Me? How dare you? You’re the one trying to go checking on Pegasi.”

“Um…?”

I raised my hoof.

“It’s all fun, Zina. I’m sure you…”

“Um…?”

“What!?” Zina barked at me.

Cartier grimaced, pointing at the yawning children at his paws.

“Are… Are you two together?” I supposed

Thunderbolts sparkled out of her eyes.

“No,” she said and, slowly turning her head and staring with narrowed, pinprick eyes at Cartier’s snarky face, she growled, “Careful about your next words, birdy…”

He eyed Zina with a cowering look.

“Not yet?” he said with an amused smile.

“You’re dead!” Zina warned.

“Hey! Guys, keep quiet! I’m getting a transmission,” the Zebra working on the transmitter called out at the two birds of love. “Some scavengers got stranded in the Cathedral, they are emitting a distress signal.”

He unplugged his earplugs and a burst of static filled the saloon. Ears perked up and a ragged grave voice tuned in.

“… lost. We’ve taken refuge in a cult centre in the city. Oh, fuck! Shoot!” A barrage of bullets echoed through the intercom, soon followed by the characteristic sounds of an exploding grenade. “We’ve gathered. We’re maybe twenty, thirty survivors… Damn it.” Another explosion wracked out and left the channel hissing. “There are those monsters coming from the underground. Invisible. Please, if there is somepony out there from the Canterlot, stay safe! And if you can, come and find us. Please. If there is somepony out there...”

I rushed, pushed over the operator, and snatched the microphone.

“Hey what are you doing!?” the operator gasped as I pushed on the button at its bottom. “We must not send outward message! It’s forbidden!”

I didn’t care. At that moment, I didn’t know my move would settle my fate for the six months forward. I had people to meet. I had a mission to fulfil.

“Here is Dervish from the HMS Canterlot,” I blared. “I’m coming. You’re not alone. They are other survivors.”

I had sins to attend.

[α Ω α]

Footnote!

Level Up

New Perk: Fast Metabolism

You recover fast, but you get worn out more easily and faster than others.

+1 ENDURANCE in the eight following hours after resting, - 1 afterward.