Fallout Equestria: The Voice of the Wasteland

by shadowher

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Other, Adventure, Crossover, Dark
Length: 18691

Follow the story of Spark Wonder a stallion whose actions, might have changed the wasteland forever.

The wasteland is harsh on everyone on it, be it zebra, griffin, pony or anything else, when the village Clarefield proves this by getting completely destroyed by a group of raiders who call themselves 'The Red Army' a stallion named Spark Wonder must find a way to survive the wasteland and it's trials. Will he be able to beat the impossible odds and survive? Or will the wasteland claim yet another unlucky soul? Only one way to find out.

Published 2012-04-30 22:44:02 UTC
Last updated 2012-06-08 01:52:13 UTC

Chapter 1: Ashes to ashes

Ashes to Ashes

Every story starts somewhere, and everyone has a story to tell...

"It must be awesome being a unicorn..." My little sister said.

"What did I tell you about sneaking up on me? And besides, aren't you supposed to be grounded?" I told her.

"But it's so boring in my room! I'd rather watch you work than staring at the ceiling, can I stay? Pretty pleaseeeee?" I sighed. I was getting bored anyway

"Fine but don't touch anything, if you do you'll wish you'd stayed in your room." I told her.

My name is Spark Wonder. As you know thanks to my sister I'm a unicorn. I have a light-blue coat and a dark-blue mane. I have an open eye for a cutie mark, it means I have a talent for noticing small details. I live in the... I can't really call this a town, in the village Clarefield. Right now I'm at my store called Repair & Sell and we -you guessed it- repair the stuff the ponies break and sell the stuff my friend and I scavenge around the village.

My sister's name is Bell. She is just a little filly, she doesn't even have a cutie mark yet. She is an earth pony with she has a light-blue coat just like me and her mane is bright red. She spends most of her time causing ruckus and making my life hell but when she is not doing that she is actually a good filly.

"So... what are you working on right now?" I can't believe this she stayed silent for two whole minutes

"It's a toaster, I'm not even sure I'll be able to repair it. It's like it was owned by hellhounds before Carrot brought it here..."

"Where is Carrot by the way? I haven't seen her all day."

"I think she is out trading with the merchant that came here a couple of days ago." As soon as I finished my sentence the door flew open and a orange mare with an yellow mane came storming in.

"What's up everypony?! I’ve got great news for you." I rolled my eyes

"Oh gee I can't wait to see what it is. I hope you brought more worthless stuff for me to repair" I said with as much sarcasm as I could.

"Don't be silly Spark I always bring useful stuff!" I levitated the broken toaster in front of her, she didn't even look at it "Besides, this might actually help you with your work."

"What do you mean?" Okay she got my attention.

She then took something from her saddlebags and threw it at me and I barely catched it "Ta da!"

"What is this...?"

Then Bell squeaked "Oh my gosh! It's a PipBuck! Where did you find this?!"

"The merchant had it, I just traded it for some of the stuff you repaired Spark. I was lucky he didn't really know what it was or he wouldn't have been willing to part with it."

"Okay so... What's so great about this thing?"

"It's just one of the greatest invention EVER! The most important functions of it are the Eyes Forward Sparkle or E.F.S. and the S.A.T.S. It also keeps track of your health and the items in your saddlebags. It has lots of memory for audio logs or notes and automatically makes a map of the area you're in. It starts ticking when you are near radiation. It can also tune into every radio frequency it reaches and it assists with repairs! Oh and it can glow and has a tag function that lets you know where other ponies with PipBucks are."

"How do you know all of that?"

"Well the Stable-dweller has one so I investigated and asked around and that's what I found out" Of course she did, she is obsessed with the stable-dweller she listens to every report from DJ-Pon3 just to hear news about her, and her other obsession with technology didn't help.

"Right, so what do you say you put it on Spark?" Carrot said, Bell was looking at me with expectant eyes.

"Sure, if it helps with work around why not?" So I putted in on my leg, just above the hoof and as soon as I did it started beeping and flashing "Wow, is it supposed to do that?"

"I... I don't know, I guess?" I sighed and it just stoped flashing and beeping.

"Well I'm glad that's over" Carrot said while cleaning the sweat off of her forehead "Hey, why don't you check how it work?"

"Okay let's check it out" I then started messing with the buttons it had. I found the inventory manager and the repair assistant first so I decided to check them out. It's really useful so far, if I need an item I just look it up in here and then the PipBuck gets it to the top of my saddlebags. Then I found the E.F.S. function so I decided to activate it. "Woah!" It was surprising to suddenly see all this, I could see two green spots in a compass which I assume are Bell and Carrot, It also showed a warning that said 'You need to rest' as if I didn't know already.

"What is it what happened?" Bell asked worried

"Oh it's just the E.F.S. function, it was surprising seeing it." Okay let's keep checking, the S.A.T.S. function should be this one. All of a sudden time stopped and numbers appeared on Bell one for every part of her body but they all signaled 0%. How do I deactivate this? Then time went back to normal, I'm not sure how that works but at least I know what buttons not to press. But my curiosity got the better of me "Hey Bell what does S.A.T.S. do?"

She got excited because she knew something no one else did, foals being foals I guess "S.A.T.S. stands for Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell it's supposed to help you during a fight but I'm not sure how. I guess that since it says Targeting Spell it helps you to aim or something." Clever filly.

"Well nothing ever happens in this town so I guess you're not using that much, but we can go later and take care of some radroaches if you want. You know to try it." Carrot said with a sigh. She hates not doing anything which is why she and I sometimes go scavenge around the village.

"Sure that would be awesome, now if I'm not wrong the only thing I haven’t tried is the radio" So I started looking for the radio and found that this thing had an audio log and a note I decided to check the audiolog first the voice of a mare came from it.

"To whoever gets this, I don't think I have much time to leave so I'm just going to keep it simple. My name is Six Shot and I come from Stable 47. They did horrible things in that place. this stupid thing won't stop beeping no matter how far I get from the stable it just keep beeping and beeping and beeping and beeping it's so frustrating... Anyway this is a warning to anypony out there in the wasteland: Do not, I repeat do not, go near Stable 47, it must be a last resource to do this, but if you have to I must tell you: You won’t last long because of the monsters in there. I found out that they have a weakness to fire and, from accessing the Overmare files, I found the schematics for a blade that is on fire. I downloaded them into my PipBuck in case anypony needs it, I think the weapon is called: The Shishkebab. I hope whoever gets this has better luck in surviving the wasteland than I did... I should have listened to this in private, or at least when Bell wasn't around, she is very sensitive when it comes to the dead.

"Do- Do you think she died?" Bell asked.

"I don't know Bell, she might have survived though. Why don't we check the schematics for the Shishkebab? Who knows maybe we can build it here, imagine telling your friends that you have a Firey-Sword, they'll be so jealous!" To this she instantly jumped up and went to the back of the store in just a couple of seconds.

When she got there she yelled "Spark what are you waiting for?! Come over here with that schematic!" I couldn't help but chuckle.

"Do you mind taking care of the store for a while Carrot?"

"Sure but don't take long, Dad got really mad the last time I stayed too long here."

"You still haven't told him?" Typical of this mare, leaving everything to the last minute.

"No, but I will! When the time comes..." I sighed

"Fine but you should do it soon, and don't worry this shouldn't take long" I then went to the back of the store.

"Awwww, what a bummer" Bell pouted.

"Yeah it's a shame, I was looking forward to it too..." We didn't have all the stuff required for the Shishkebab it needed a pilot light, which we already had, a motorcycle gas tank and a hoofbrake, which we could get from any motorcycle, and a lawn mower blade, now that I didn't know where to find. "Say, how about we go scavenging tomorrow to see if we can find some of the materials. I know I saw a motorcycle in the junkyard not far from here."

"Really? You'll let me go with you this time?"

"Yes but only because is one of the safest places there are. If you behave I might let you have a BB gun." I said while stretching out the word might, it's not like she is going to behave.

"Really?! Oh my oh my oh my I can't believe I'm going scavenging tomorrow" She started jumping around the room dropping down some of the stuff. I just gave her a look and she said: "Hehe... Sorry, I'll behave I promise!"

Suddenly I heard the front door slam open, and not the way Carrot does it, this was like someone was angry at the door and just bucked it so it could open "I got a bad feeling, Bell stay here and don't make any noise" She just nodded and did as I said, as I headed to the main part of the store I heard a loud Bang!.

There was only one thing that could make that sound, and I only had one thought in my head: Carrot I dashed the rest of the way while taking my gun out of it's sheath. Before opening the door I tried to took a peek and felt relief as I saw Carrot, she was in the ground with blood coming out of her leg but she was alive. Then I saw other three ponies but looking at their armor I noticed that they were raiders. What should I do, if I go out they'll kill Carrot, but if I don't they'll take her prisoner or they might kill her anyway. I decided to do the only thing that would give me time.

"Everypony wait! I surrender!"

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" One of them said "Tried to sneak up on us and realized it was a bad idea didn't you?"

"Please take anything you want and just leave, we don't want any trouble."

"You don't want trouble? Let me tell you something kid, this is the wasteland, everywhere you go there IS trouble" another pony raider said, now that I could see the whole store I saw that there were 5 raiders in here, I’m glad I didn't fight I wouldn't have been able to save Carrot that way.

"And besides, it's not like we need your permission to take this," This third pony raider, everyone looked at her when she spoke and her armor looks better than the others. I guess she is their leader, that is if raiders have leaders. I have to keep them talking to make some time, someone must have heard the gunshot and should be coming to investigate.

"Yeah the Red Army doesn't take orders from nopony you hear? We do what we want, when we want!" Then another raider said talking to their 'lider' "Sapphire do you think we should take this?"

"The Red Army?" I said while looking at Carrot, it seems she is unconscious.

"You've never heard of us? We're the biggest group of raiders in the whole wasteland!" I haven't heard of such a group and I wasn't interested in them at all, but I had to make some time. Not for a second have they stopped looting and raiders aren't know for just taking what they want and leaving ponies alive.

I then saw something through the front door, the shape of a pony with a weird hat. I don't think the raiders have noticed it yet, I must move fast if I want to save Carrot. I used my magic to make a ‘Pop’ sound at the corner of the store, making all the raiders look in that direction. I then attacked the raider closer to Carrot, he never saw it coming and I managed to knock him out in one hit. Then I wraped Carrot in my magic and got us to the back of the store while screaming: "Raiders!" as loud as I could.

Just as I finished taking cover behind the wall guns started firing through the door and another door slammed open while I heard some gunshots, but these were from a different gun, the sheriff of Clarefield was here. But there were five raiders in there, even with the element of surprise he can't take them out on his own.

After putting Carrot in a safe place I take out my revolver from my saddlebags and open the door. I immediately think of my PipBuck and it's S.A.T.S. function so I activate it. I see that three raiders are still standing and taking cover behind different places. I aim for the head of the pony behind the counter and see that it has a 95% hit chance, I imagine it's because of how close he is because I don't have much training in guns. Still I select to fire twice at his head, then change targets to the mare that was taking cover behind a closet and aim for the head again but this time the hit chance is 40% so I decide to try and fire three times, but when I try to select the third time a warning appears and says 'Not enough Action Points' so I decide to go with it.

Time goes on normally again but I feel different, I take aim at the pony that's the closest and shoot. The first shot got through his ear but didn't kill him, but the second went between his eyes. Then I aimed for the second pony I tagged and shoot twice, the first shot from my revolver got him but the second one failed. I see the sheriff going for cover behind the wall and I dive to get behind the counter. I only have one bullet left in my revolver so I reload and go up to take aim again. There are still two pony raiders, one injured and the other behind cover.

The raider behind cover then gets out to fire at me with an automatic gun but thankfully the counter provided enough cover. I notice that the mare is the one with the heaviest armor, their leader. Once the shooting had stopped I heard the sound of the sheriff's gun firing again, I try to follow up with him and get up from my cover, to find a shotgun floating in front of me. The raider I injured was a unicorn and was now aiming at my face. Then I hear a gunshot but it didn't come from the shotgun it came from behind me. Carrot was now conscious and was standing in the back door, she had shot the unicorn raider before he could blow my face off.

Now there were three of us and only one raider, but this one had an automatic gun, the strongest armor and she had somehow found a place that covered all her sides. Even if we did manage to get her she could easily kill one of us. So I did what I could and tried to talk my way out of it. "You're outnumbered and in a bad position, surrender now and we won’t hurt you!" Sadly her answer was not what I expected.

"Like hell! This is untill one of us drops death!" She then came out of cover and started firing, one of the bullets went through my leg and I screamed in pain, I could hear her grin, but then another gun fired and the mare dropped death with a hole in her head.

If I'm not wrong that was it, but I'm very careful when I check the bodies. “They're all dead.”

"Looks like that's it," The sheriff said while looking at the bodies of the raiders. The brown pony with a short black mane then looked at Carrot and me his eyes widening by the second. "Carrot what are you doing here?! You were supposed to come back home once you finished scavenging! You could have died here!"

"I'm okay dad, they only got a lucky shot because they surprised me. A health potion and I will be fine."

"No you won't you must go with a doctor to get that bullet out of your body before you can get a health potion." The sheriff answered.

"Fine I will. How did they get so far into Clarefield anyway? How comes nopony noticed they were raiders?"

"Well ever since the incident of what happened to the Stable-Dweller we are very careful of not just shooting at somepony with raider armor. And since they didn't shoot first we assumed they had escaped from some raiders and got their armor." He said with some regret. He must be blaming himself for the raiders who shot his daughter.

"Hey look, it's not your fault this happened. Your intentions were good and nopony blames you for this." I said and then remembered that we were not the only ponies in here.

I went as fast as I could to the back of the store "Bell! Bell are you okay?!"

"Yes I'm fine I did just as you asked and sta- You're bleeding!"

"Don't worry I'm sure it's going to be okay the bullet went through so I should be okay with some bandages and a bit of time, a health potion would speed it up but I don't think it's necessary."

"If you say so... There were so many gunshots I was so worried" She had tears in her eyes as she said this, I put my leg around her and pulled her closer for a hug.

"Don't worry, everything is okay now, everypony is okay and the bad guys are gone." Once she calmed down a little I told her: "Hey, this thing, the PipBuck, helped me a lot back there. I think I'm going to keep it and you know what? We still haven't checked the radio. What do you say we check it right now?"

She nodded and I started to look for the radio, it had two frequencies right now, I checked the first one and it was the regular music we heard everyday, it didn't seem like DJ-Pon3 was going to talk anytime soon so I changed to the other frequency out of curiosity.

We heard a pony trying to communicate with another pony "Come in Saphire, come in Sapphire, god damn it Sapphire answer the radio." Then a different voice said something that froze me in place "Something is wrong, send another team to Clarefield to check on her, give them orders to shoot on sight.

"Everypony listen" The sheriff was talking to all the ponies who lived in Clarefield, we were going to need all the help we could get. I had already explained the situation to the sheriff and he quickly got all the ponies gathered in one building. It wasn't that hard considering how small this place is. "There is a gang of raiders coming to Clarefield, and we need everypony to cooperate if we want to survive this." The crowd was getting out of control. All the time I've been here there's never been to much to worry about, the place is so isolated that not even raiders come around. "I'm not going to force you to fight the raiders, I'll only take volunteers for this but if you want to save this town, if you want to protect any family you have or if you want to kick some raider flank, talk to me and we'll give you a weapon and some armor. The more ponies who volunteer the higher the chances of getting out of this alive. This is the plan: We will gather together in the biggest building we have, that is this very building, and we'll have snipers positioned on the roof and some windows. Foals and those who don't want to fight will be in the basement behind a barricaded door in case we have to evacuate and we will fill the entrance with mines. We'll take all of them out as fast as we can and with luck they won’t reach the building, but prepare for the worst..." And with that everypony started doing their part, the volunteers got taught how to use the sniper properly, and everypony else started to plant the mines and barricade themselves in another building.

"Bell, listen to me, everything is going to be ok. We are going to take care of the bad guys and then we can go scavenging tomorrow okay?" She was scared but she managed to nod "I want you to stay with everypony else, don't leave unless it's an emergency and always stay with somepony else," She nodded again "Why don't you practice that song you heard on the radio the other day?" She nodded for the third time, I know somepony might hear her singing but with all the gunfire and with a bit of luck they might not pay attention.

Before I could leave to take my sniping position she said "I love you Spark, please come back."

"I love you too Bell, I'll be back before you notice I'm gone." Then I saw Carrot. "Hey, you okay there?"

"No I'm not okay! My father won't let me join the fight, he says I'm injured and that I should stay with the foals!"

"Well you did get shot, you know?"

"So did you and my father doesn't have a problem with you entering the fight" That's because he hates me, but I don't say that instead I say:

"Look, I'm glad you're not joining the fight directly, that way I can ask a favor, could you please take care of Bell?"

She looked at my trying to protest for not supporting her, but I just stare at her and she sighed "Okay, but you have to come back, that little filly needs you."

"I know, and don't worry, I don't plan on diying anytime soon." With that I then started going upstairs to the floor I was going to snipe from, but before I could leave Carrot whispered to herself.

"Since when does a plan work in the wasteland?"

I'm alone on the 4th floor while checking out the window for raiders. 2 hours had passed before I saw the first sign of life. It was a group of at least 20 ponies, I'm sure they were raiders but I was curious as to see what they were going to do... it surprised me when they ignored every building but mine, and when they came in I remembered something: The bodies were still there, but how did they know? Did they even know the bodies were there?

But then they came out and started going all around town, I took aim and was ready to take the shot...

Bang!

I didn't fire, it was another pony from an upper floor, his shot killed the raider, but now the others were running for cover. All of us shooted at them but with the little experience we have in guns we only managed to kill 4 of them. I saw one of them getting out of cover and pointed his hoof at this building direction. I went into S.A.T.S. and saw a 40% hit chance but I took the shoot anyway. The shot had went right through his chest and he was death, but they now knew where we were and started running towards us. I then sprinted as fast as I could for the basement but when I was in the 2nd floor I heard a loud explosion and knew that the mines had exploded.

I heard hoofsteps on the upper floors and I knew the raiders had too. So I took out my revolver and shot twice in the raiders direction, and started running taking as much turns as I could.

I could hear the shooting behind me and I knew they were coming following me, so I took another turn and hid but this hall was a dead end and they would find me soon,. So when the three raiders started looking for me I used my magic to make a noise in the wrong direction and all the raiders turned. I used this chance to get out of my hiding spot and turned on S.A.T.S. they were all close so they all had a 95% hit chance, still I tried to fire twice at the one that was in front of them, just in case.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

I got them all with a single bullet each, the 4th shot came from behind me. The shot bounced in my armor so it didn't penetrate but it still hurt like hell. I tried turning while shooting but my other 2 shots missed, but as I tried to reload the pony raider tackled me and we both fell to the floor. I tried pulling him off but he was bigger and stronger. He had put his hoof on my throat and I could feel my consciousness fading, I thought: So this is where I die, I couldn't defend the town, I couldn't help you Bell... I hope you managed to escape...' But then I heard a loud scream, the scream of a filly Bell!' And I kicked the stallion in the stomach getting the air out of him, I could barely recover myself before he was throwing himself at me again. I dodged it barely but he was coming for me again, and this time I couldn't dodge it but I saw something that could help me: A pipe that had fallen from the ceiling. I wrapped it in my magic and used it to hit the raider's head multiple times. 1 hit, he let me go 2 hits. 3 hits, he was now on the floor. 4 hits. 5 hits. 6 hits, he wasn't moving anymore but I didn't stop until I had reached the 14th hit, by then his head didn't look like that of a pony.

Another scream could be heard in the whole village and I ran as fast as I could to the place where Bell and Carrot would be. I took the pipe with me it might be useful.

When I reached the entrance I was shocked by what I saw, parts of the ponies who had stepped on the mines were everywhere and there were ponies both raiders and villagers, with so many holes no one could recognize them. But one of them caught my eye: the sheriff was death in front of the place where the barricade should be, he died protecting Bell, I wanted to stop and mourn but Bell was in danger and I had to save her.

I went to the place where the ponies barricaded themselves in, there were a few corpses but none of them were Bell or Carrot so I stormed through the back door. I felt the heat instantly, the whole village was in fire and I could hear screams everywhere, I must find Bell and Carrot.

I runned through the burning village, I didn't saw any raider but I knew they were still here, then I heard another scream, but this one was a familiar voice "Bell!" I ran in the direction I had heard the scream and I saw Bell, with 2 raiders closing in on her. I instantly switched into S.A.T.S and killed both of them and then ran to where Bell was. "Bell! Are you okay?! Did they hurt you?!" She was crying and couldn't answer me but she aimed a hoof at a pile of debri. Except it wasn't a pile of debris, it was Carrot. She had been shot multiple times and was dead. She had also died protecting Bell.

"Bell, come on we must go, hop on my back it'll be faster." Before she could answer I had grabbed her with my magic and put her there. I ran as fast as I could, to get out of Clarefield. There were a lot of raiders here and every scream made Bell tremble more. The smoke from the fire wasn't helping at all I could barely see where I was going, but then I reached the border of the village. For the first time I was glad it was a small place, but I didn't stop there, I kept on running and running until I couldn't run anymore and tripped over.

Even with my heavy breathing I managed to say "Bell, Bell are you okay?" But she didn’t answer she had breathed too much smoke.

Then I heard hoofsteps, a lot of them it was the raiders. How did they find me? I didn't hear anypony coming after us!' I tried shooting at them but I couldn't even lift my revolver with my magic, I was too weak, and then I passed out.

Footnote:

Spark Wonder

Strength: 7
Perception: 6
Endurance: 5
Charisma: 3
Intelligence: 8
Agility: 7
Luck: 4

Tagged skills: Repair, Melee, Sneak.
Quest Perk: Special Talent: You were born with the ability to notice small details, and you have a Cutie Mark to prove it, you gain +2 in perception when outside of combat.

(Author's Note: I wanted to thank Kkat for making such an awesome fic and everyone reading this fic, I also would like to thank the whole FoE community just for being so awesome.)

Chapter 2: New begginings

New beginnings

You've ever heard the phrase 'when a door closes, a window opens'?

I wake up with a slight headache. I try to get out of bed but I'm so dizzy I just fell flat on the floor. I try to stand up again, this time slowly, the world is turning, why won't it stop turning? I barely manage to go a few steps before I fall again. Great way to start the day.' I shake my head to try to stop the world from turning. "Would you look at that, it worked!" Well sort of, at least now I could walk without falling.

Once I had recovered myself I started to notice the surroundings, "This... This isn't my house..." Then the door opens and 3 ponies, all armed, come in and I remember the events that happened last night. I remember the attack on Clarefield. How I ran from 4 raiders and the bodies I saw. How I couldn't say goodbye to Carrot before she died and how I escaped the town with Bell, only to pass out when more raiders were coming.

I attack the pony that's the closest to me, an earth pony a mare, and I take her gun. Then I put her between the other ponies and me and aim her own gun to her head, "Where is Bell?" The other ponies are shocked and don't answer me so I repeat my question, this time shouting in anger "Where is Bell?!"

"I'm right here you silly!" I turn my head to the door to see her standing there, with a hoof to her mouth suppressing a giggle. I notice the other 2 ponies trying to come for me and aim the gun to them.

"Stay right there!" The ponies froze in place and I asked: "What's going on?" ... Or I would have if it wasn't for the weird feeling in my chest, "Ha ha ha ha ha- st- stop that it tickles! Ha ha ha ha"

I let go of the mare and lose my concentration so I drop the gun. The other ponies take this chance and tackle me to the ground, not letting me move, then I notice what was it that made me laugh: The mare, who I thought was an earth pony, was actually a pegasus and her feathers were tickling me. Damn it, that's not fair... And now Bell bursted into a full laughter.

After that they explained me what was going on, it wasn't like I had any other choice and if Bell trusted them so could I.

"So let me see if I got this, your name is Sweet Trade," I pointed a hoof at the mare pegasus. She had a white coat with a yellow mane and a bag of caps for a Cutie Mark, at least she says it's a bag of caps I only she a bag full of something. "You're a traveling merchant and these two are your guards, Big Bang and Steel Bender," I pointed at both of her guards, two really big stallions, both earth ponies. One was red with a darker red mane and the other was yellow with green mane. "You found me and my sister lying on the ground and decided to take us with you to the nearest town, and to the doctor. And this town is called 'Haysticks'."

Sweet nodded to all of this and then said "Good thing you catch up quick, but remember if you ever point a gun to me head again these two are going to have to do what I hired them for."

"Don't worry I'm not stupid, and I wouldn't hurt the pony who saved both me and my sister"

"Good thing that's clear, now if you'll excuse us we'll leave."

"Hey wait a sec," Bell was now speaking. "We have to repay you somehow, you just saved our lives after all!"

"Bell's right, the problem is we don't have any caps to pay you for it, so how about we help you get to the next town you visit?"

"That's... That's not a bad idea, the next town we are visiting is far away from here and we might encounter many creatures along the way, a gun or two more would certainly be useful."

"Oh no Bell can't shoot a gun, she doesn't have any training in it she might end up shooting one of you." In truth I just didn't want Bell to use a gun, I knew she would have to learn eventually but just not now...

"Hey!" She pouted...

"If you say so, but anyway we are staying here a couple of days. So you might want to gather some caps and fast otherwise you're going to starve." Then Bell's stomach growled, and I had to laugh

"Don't laugh at me!" She was blushing embarrassed.

"You're so cute when you're embarrassed" I answered and laughed a bit more

"S- stop!" Her face getting even redder.

"Fine, fine I won't laugh anymore, say how about I cook you something?"

"How? We don't have any caps and we couldn't really pack things up..."

"Well... Oh right, I have some things in my saddlebags and there is a merchant right here. Say Sweet, wanna get some stuff for a few caps? Oh and I noticed your weapons are in poor condition, I could repair them for a small price."

She laughed and said "Now you're talking my language, but they don't call me Sweet Trade for giving off caps you know?"

I managed to get a enough caps to feed Bell and I for the 3 days that we'll be here and she was nice and gave us some food which I cooked for Bell and I, but I still needed more caps if I was going to help Sweet. I didn't have a gun because I had lost it back at Clarefield apparently, and I sold the rest of the ammo I had to Sweet. I still had my pipe but I wouldn't want to have to fight enemies in close combat.

I went and talked to the mayor of the town and he told me that they've been having problems with radroaches in some old building but haven't had the time to kill them, and he told me that if I took care of them he would give me some caps. When I told him I didn't have a gun he offered me a BB gun and some ammo for it, honestly the thing was so old and damaged I'd rather use my pipe instead of this toy. But I took it anyway, I couldn't leave Bell in the town without knowing anypony so I took her with me to take out the radroaches, and as much as I hated it I gave Bell the BB gun so she could defend herself...

"Take that you stupid radroach!" She was enjoying shooting at them, I would say it was a little weird but I was not so different. I mean have you seen those things? Everypony should be happy we are killing them.

"Hey you better save ammo, we might need it later." Bell was shooting at the radroaches from on top of my back and I killed the ones that got close to us, the building wasn't well lit but with my E.F.S. and the light coming out of the PipBuck it wasn't hard to find them.

I was checking every part of the building. It seems nopony ever came here because I found a few caps here and there and there was an ammo selling machine I managed to open and found a bit of ammo for the BB gun and ammo for weapons I didn't have. I kept them anyway, maybe I could sell those to Sweet.

"Need it later? You just have to give a good swing of your pipe and they're done for. Besides it's not like this gun manages to kill them, I'm practicing so that I can use a gun later, aren't I?" My heart sank with that last statement.

"If it was up to me you would never use a gun in your life... but yes it's so you can practice."

The rest of the day was uneventful, what did you expect from a building full of radroaches? A big giant radroach that regenerated faster than I could hurt it? Sorry to disappoint you but that didn't happen, Bell and I went back to the mayor and told him that the building was now completely clear. He doubted how could I be so sure about that but I explained him about the PipBuck and the E.F.S. function. He gave us the caps he promised and let us keep the BB gun.

I was now looking for Sweet but a pony I didn't know called me and wanted to speak to me. "Hello, you must be Spark and Bell." The stallion with a purple coat and black mane said: "My name is Show and I wanted to talk to you about Bell."

"What problems did you get into now Bell?"

"I haven't done anything! I've been with you ever since we got here!"

"No this isn't about Bell being in problems, you see your sister has a talent for singin., I heard her singing while I was talking to the doctor to see if I could buy some health potions. She sang beautifully and I think she has a future in music. I manage a talent show in Dice, if you're ever in need of some caps and are in Dice feel free to come over and we can make a deal."

"Uh, sure we will." I knew Bell was a great singer and I love to hear her sing, but I never expected that somepony would offer her a job for it.

"Good then I'll be off, got a caravan to catch." He then walked past us to the caravan that was waiting for him.

I looked at Bell and she had a slight blush on her face, I think this is the first time somepony other than those of Clarefield praised her on her singing. She was very shy when it came to singing she only sang when she was with Carrot or with me. "Wait, I don't remember hearing you sing after I woke up."

"That's because I sang while you were sleeping." She said in a whisper.

"Hey, there is nothing to be ashamed of, you're a great singer and everypony should hear you sing," She was still blushing a bit but nodded and we continued looking for Sweet "Oh, and thanks for singing for me even if I couldn't hear it."

It's hot, too hot, why is it so hot?

I open my eyes and notice that I'm standing in the middle of a fire. I'm trapped, there is no way out. Everywhere I see there are flames.

There is no other option, I run through the flames, as fast as I can so as to avoid catching fire. It's burning to death trying to escape, or burning to death standing still. I managed to escape the flames, but the fire is catching up to me, I can't stop now. I see a door, maybe I could actually escape this place, but the door is closed. I slam against it multiple times and manage to open it and go in, but what I see inside is no salvation...

"Hello Spark, what are you doing?" It was Carrot... She was standing there, looking at me with her with her bright green eyes...

"Run Carrot! The fire is coming!" I tried to warn her, but she just smiled and giggled.

"There is no fire you silly! Look there is nothing there."

I turn and see that the door is gone. In its place there is just a pony, the sheriff. "Hey Spark, glad to see you're as active as always."

"But but but, there was a fire, I'm sure of it!" I looked both at Carrot and the sheriff, they looked back at me, with pitiful eyes.

"Why are you so fixed on that Spark..." Holes started appearing on both of them, and they started burning, I just stood there, shocked.

"You should have helped us Spark, instead you ran to save yourself..." The sheriff said. Then the fire started up again, but this time I did nothing, and it burned me alive...

"It was just a nightmare..." I wake up to see the ceiling of where Bell and I are staying, she was sleeping next to me, we could only afford one room and I wasn't going to leave her alone.

I had managed to keep myself busy and not to think about Clarefield, but my dreams weren't safe. And now it was all I could think about, I regret everything I did there. I should've tried to help Carrot and the sheriff. I shouldn't have ran from the main room. I should have stayed with Bell all the time...

"Are you awake Spark?" Bell was awake, I don't know for how long she had been but her voice was a whisper.

"Yes Bell, I'm awake, need something?"

"I had a nightmare, I was back at Clarefield, and I saw how Carrot got shot by the raiders, and then I saw you, but you couldn't save me and I saw the raiders killing you, and then the fire came to me and burned me alive..." I could hear her sobbing and I could feel her tears in my hoof, so I pulled her closer and gave her a hug and a kiss in the forehead.

"It was just a nightmare, I'm here and I'm never leaving your side."

"You promise?" She was looking at me directly in the eyes, her eyes were red from crying.

"I promise." I told her, and I started singing to her, I wasn't as good as her but you don't have to be good to sing a lullabyHush now, Quiet now

It's time to lay your sleepy head

Hush now, Quiet now

It's time to go to bed...

"Wasteland Survival Guide?" I inspected the book as it floated in front of me, it was made by a pony named Ditzy Doo and it seems she brought a lot of these a couple of days ago. "How much do you want from it?" A bit of extra information could always help.

"A book? You come to a gun store and you decide to buy a book?" The owner told me, giving me a weird look. I came here to buy a gun, I was going to need one if I was to travel the wasteland but this book caught my attention. "I got that book for free, so you can have it that way too. Now are you going to buy a gun or not?" Free? All the more reason to take it. I figured I'd read it later if I got bored.

Now let's check the merchandise.' I looked at the weapons he had, shotguns, machine guns, revolvers and such, one of them much like the one I had before I showed him how many caps I had and asked "What can you sell me with these." The stallion just gave me a weird look, there weren't that many caps but I'm sure it wasn't that bad.

He took out 3 different weapons, a revolver, a rifle, and a very, and I mean very deteriorated sub machine gun. I wasn't an expert in guns but I knew how most of them worked and could tell when a gun was in a bad shape. "Really?" He didn't answer and I sighed.

"Choose fast kid I got other clients," Aside from Bell jumping around the place checking things out and making a mess the store was empty... "The 9mm pistol, the Varmint rifle or the 9mm smg."

I sighed again and said "I'll take the Varmint rifle." It was the one in the best condition and I hadn't still sold the ammo I found back at when I killed the radroaches so I had plenty of it.

The sooner I leave this place the better, "Come on Bell, we're going."

"Coming!" As I pushed the door open I saw Sweet and her guards so I waved a hoof to her, I hadn't seen her since we got here and I had to talk to her.

"Hey Sweet, where've you been? I couldn't find you yesterday and I had found some more stuff to... sell... Something wrong?" Was it me or she looked nervous?

"Oh good thing you're here. Change of plans, we're going now."

"What? Why?"

"No time to explain, come on we are going now!" She started heading the the border of the town, I had no other choice but to follow. I put Bell on my back and try to catch up to her, Why is she going so fast?!' And then I heard screams from behind me, a mare...

"Sweet please come back! Don't leave me just like that!" I sighed, the mare was now screaming vulgar things so I used my magic to cover Bell's ears, I wasn't even sure it was working but it was the best I could do at the time.

"Spark, what's a dildo?" Damn...

After a while Sweet had finally stopped running and I managed to catch up to her, panting heavily I glared at her and she just said: "What? Do I have something on my face?"

Our trip was uneventful at first, just a couple of geckos and radroaches, I didn't even need to use my rifle, when they somehow manage to get through Big Bang and Steel I just used the my trusty pipe to blow their teeth off. After a few hours of walking and listening to the radio, Sweet suggested we stopped to take a rest in an abandoned town, it was getting late already.

"I think we can stay here for the night."

"I'll go check out some of the buildings before we need to stand guard. Who knows, I might find something useful." Sweet nodded and I signaled Bell to come with me, I wasn't going to leave her with them. I know they saved our lives and I might be over-protective but I don't want to get her off my sight.

"Be sure to come back within the hour or you won't get dinner." Sweet said before I left, Huh, so she is cooking dinner

I went into the first building I found. It was a 3-floor building but the door was locked. I knew there was a way pick locks but I didn't know how to do it, so I went and did the reasonable thing, I slammed against the door trying to force it open, I failed and it hurt like hell. Then I heard Bell giggling and saying "Why don't you use the big hole on this wall instead of hurting yourself?" On a wall I couldn't see from where I was there was a hole big enough that a pony could fit through...

Inside there were a lot of chairs and a big desk, this must've been the reception. To the side I found a sparkle-cola machine and to my surprise it was still working, but I didn't have any bits and it was locked. I'd better learn how to pick a lock it seems useful.

On top of the desk I found some bottle caps, Who left these here anyway? I went deeper into the building and my E.F.S. caught a red mark. "Stay close Bell." I whispered to Bell and she did so, when I turned the corner I saw a robot, a big robot standing on two wheels with a dome made of glass for a head. It was the red-mark on my E.F.S. he hadn't seen me yet so I tell Bell to stay there and sneak up behind him. When I got close enough I levitated my pipe and smashed it against the guard robot and it fell to the ground.

"It's okay now Bell, come out." She did and when she saw the robot she squeaked.

"Spark! Do you know what you just did?"

"I killed a robot that was a threat to both of us and that might have killed us if he had the chance?" I replied.

"Aside from that. This robot is a security model is SC-375 and it's one of the latest security models from before the war! It's made from the strongest materials so it's armor it's really hard to break. It also has a great deal of guns and ammo that makes it great at both close and ranged combat. Its only weakness was the 'head' where the CPU," There she goes again showing off how much she knows about pre-war tech "How did you know it was its weak point?"

I just smiled at her and said: "I didn't. Anyway you said this thing has lots of guns? Let's loot it then!"

"That's not going to happen. Its guns are attached to it in a way that if they're removed they won't work anymore, but we can still grab the ammo and some scrap metal, you never know when it'll come in handy."

We continued checking the building and found a couple more robots, we weren't so lucky as to find the others looking to the other side but the things weren't made to be really bright and one sound spell and they gave me their backs. I couldn't risk going in close as the last time but I had my varmint rifle, getting close enough and using S.A.T.S. I managed to put a couple of bullets in their CPU.

We found the stairs going up to the second floor and decided we still had a bit of time and that we could check the rest of the building. The second floor was pretty much the same as the first except that in here I found some bobby pins and a screwdriver in a toolbox so I tried lockpicking the nuke-cola machine in the first floor. It wasn't really that hard but I imagine it's because the lock was simple enough.

Back in the second floor I also found a working computer, but it was locked with a password, luckily the PipBuck could help me hack into it, those Stable-Tec ponies thought of everything. Inside I found just a couple of messages with no importance, but it was nice to know that I could hack into computers.

Aside from that we also found a couple of caps here and there, and the stairs to the third floor. we thought that if we'd made it this far might as well check the whole building. Except that when we reached the top of the stairs we heard a rumble to our left and when we looked there was one of those robots, only bigger and with bigger guns. We didn't need anypony to tell us to run so I grabbed Bell and started running, I tried using my magic to make a sound behind the thing but it didn't need to turn. It just fired its weapons behind him and continued chasing us.

Then I made one last turn and I found a wall, there were no rooms to hide or any other halls to go through, my only chance of survival was to fight that thing...

Sweet Trade was sitting down in front of the bonfire Big Bang had made. She took a sip from her special soup, nopony but her knew what the soup had in it and with the taste it had nopony wanted to know, but Sweet seemed to like it anyway. She finished the thing with one last gulp and sighed in satisfaction.

She then saw Big Bang and Steel Bender had barely tried her special soup Their loss' she thought, and then noticed there were 2 ponies missing "I wonder where those two are now, their soup is going to get cold..."

"That... was... AWESOME!" Bell screamed while I panted on top of the tank-robot. I had managed to destroy it and I still don't know how, I think I just used all the luck I would have used for the rest of my lifetime...

"Well... I... think... we should... head... back... to Sweet..." She then looked at me and said:

"Don't you want to see what that thing was guarding? It must be an awesome loot if nopony ever got past it!"

"No." She then used her puppy eyes. That's unfair, let me rest for a while would you?' I just sighed and started walking with a jumping filly behind me.

We found the room quickly, we just had to follow the destruction that that robot caused. He guarded a big room with the biggest desk I had ever seen, there was a safe and a computer working. I checked the desk first and found some bottle caps in it and some ammo for a gun, but the gun was nowhere to be found, Maybe it's in the safe?' I tried lockpicking the safe but it was way too hard for me. Before I used all my bobby pins I gave up on it and checked the computer. It was a bit harder than the first computer but not that much. The password was: 'IWantBits'...

The computer had some files and schematics for inventions that could no longer be made, but a file caught my interest.

Entry #34

Today we found a special gem in the mines. We don't know what it does yet but we're going to find out, a couple of experiments and we should find out its purpose and if we can make profit out of it mass produce it...

Entry #35

That gem burned the whole lab! I don't know how it happened but that little piece of solid magic managed to somehow burn a whole room, we tried taking it off with water but not even then the flames would go off! We had to take out all the oxygen from the room, many ponies died today but I'm not ready to give this up yet...

Entry #43

This gem is an enigma! I can't understand how it can burn everything it touches! And now we lost so many ponies we can't continue researching it and nopony would come for job out of fear of burning alive! Damn it I'm not going to give up. I can't continue now but I'm saving it in the safe of my wall, I have the only key and nopony knows my password so nopony can use this computer to open it.

I then found the computer had two more options, the first one disabled the giant robot tank Would you look at that...' I sighed and looked at the second option, it opened the safe. Yay.

When the safe opened I the first thing I saw was the gem the pony was talking about. It was a red gem square shaped and it glowed a bit, but enough that everything in the safe had 2 shadows. I grabbed it and put it in my saddlebags, I hoped that it didn't burst into flames when I was sleeping but I doubted that would happen. I also found a lot of pre-war money, and a couple of grenades. I grabbed them and put them in my saddle bags and headed out of the building with Bell.

When we found Sweet and her guards all I wanted to do was sleep, I was so tired because of the fight with the robot tank, but Sweet said "Damn you look like hammered shit," Really? "Here you must be hungry." She gave me a bowl of soup so thick I bet I would have to chew it for it to get through my throat, still it was food.

"Thanks," I took a sip and I could barely kept myself from puking, instead I just looked at Sweet and said "Next time, I'm cooking."

I didn't even have time to have a nightmare before Steel woke me up saying that it was my turn to take guard. I didn't complain but I sure as hay would have liked to stay sleeping.

After a few minutes I got bored of looking at the nothingness and decided to give the book 'Wasteland Survival Guide by Ditzy Doo' a try. The book was full of tips and locations, it said what places to avoid and what you should have if you're ever going to explore the wasteland.

I didn't manage to finish the book before I saw a red light in my E.F.S. I immediately got up and put the book on my saddlebags and took out my Varmint rifle. There was only one red light but I didn't know what it was, for all I knew it could be a hellhound, not that hellhounds come through here... right?

I went and inspected what it was. I tried to sneak behind it but it was out in the open and too far to have a good look at it. Seems like a good opportunity to practice my new spell.

I closed my eyes and focused my magic on them, then I opened them again and focused on the creature, and then my vision zoomed in. It was a manticore, it seemed hurt but thanks to the wasteland survival guide I knew that it was still a great threat. It was worse now that it was wounded, the book also said to get away from it if you can, so I went back to the camp and woke up everyone, as quietly as I could.

"What is it Spark? I hope it's something good I was having a nice dream..." Sweet said after I woke everyone up.

"Any chance it included the mare from Haysticks?" She blushed and looked away with a hump. "Anyway I woke you up because there is a manticore nearby. I wanted to ask you what to do, it's hurt but I don't know how badly, if we stay around too long it'll catch our smell and come attack us."

"We'll have to move then, wouldn't want to have to fight a manticore, even if it's wounded."

So we decided to sneak past it, Sweet said that we should leave some of her soup to make the manticore look for it, I just answered: "We don't want to kill it remember?" And Bell giggled a bit.

I got Bell on my back because she made too much noise while walking, but we managed to sneak past it without much problem, but now we were out in the wasteland without any kind of cover and we were all tired because no one managed to sleep.

"How long till the next stop?" I asked, wondering when were we supposed to make our next stop.

"Well if I'm not wrong we should get there by tomorrow in the afternoon, that is if we don't find any trouble along the way..."

Then I remembered that I didn't ask a really important question: "Where are we going anyway?"

"Oh, I didn't tell you?" She said and giggled, "We're going to the only place in the whole wasteland you could consider a city. The place where everyone goes to drown in their sorrows or to have the greatest fun ever. The only bad thing is that you never leave with more caps than when you got there," Oh no, not that place
"We're going to Dice!"

Footnote: Level up!

New Perk: Intense Training: You might think that your battle with that giant-tank-robot might have used all your luck, but it actually gave you a bit more! You get +1 luck in your stats! Great battle by the way.

Companion Perk (Bell): Extreme Cuteness (Rank 1): Whenever Bell is in your party the merchants might notice how cute she is and give her some spare items. I mean look at those puppy eyes, here have a sweetroll.

(Author's Note: Hey guys Shadowher here, did you like the chapter? If you did good for you, if you didn't well sorry for wasting your time, I'm here to thank Kkat for making such and awesome story and all of you for taking your time to read this note. There are more thanks to give specially to the guys over at the FoE side stories compilation, you guys are awesome.)

Chapter 3: The city of sins

A new hope

'Luke... I am your father'

I could see Dice in the distance. It was hard to miss, just look in the direction of the bright lights. You couldn't miss it. I had been carrying Bell ever since the incident with the manticore. She had fallen asleep, but it seemed the peace and quiet that came with her sleeping was about to end.

"Hmng..." She mumbled while turning and yawning. "Good morning everypony.” She turned and pointed at something in the distance. “What is that?"

She was talking about the bright set of buildings in the distance. "Morning Bell, that there is Dice, the one city that we have that's full of drunks and gamblers..." I remember this city, not a single good memory from it.

"It sure is bright isn't it?" I could feel her rolling around on my back but then stopped.

"Something wrong Bell?" She didn't answer so I looked back at her and saw her laying on her back, staring at the sky with her mouth open, out of curiosity I did the same and looked up. I stopped right where I was and I could feel my mouth hanging open, I must've looked so stupid but I didn't care. What I was seeing was so beautiful I could just stare at it till I died.

"What are those?" Bell asked. I couldn't answer but I heard Sweet talking.

"Those are stars, and that big round white thing there is the moon, though it's not always round. sometimes it's not even there. I heard that before the war Princess Luna took care of it and all of the stars, and that she made every night look as beautiful as she could, I can't imagine how though..."

"So those are the stars... Wait, I thought the pegasi had made a cloud curtain so that they could protect themselves after the war, what happened to it?" I asked, no longer looking at the sky but at Sweet.

"I don't know, last I heard it was to stay closed, forever."

We continued walking but Bell was still looking at the sky and I could hear her whisper: "Princess Luna..."

I had hoped to have a nice walk, but this being the wasteland, that's impossible. It wasn't long before I saw some red dots in my E.F.S. Probably some wild animals from the wasteland.

I told Sweet about it and she decided to ignore it and to try to avoid it. I agreed and we started to change course but then, between the red dots, I could see a green dot.

I started moving towards the hostiles and as I got closer I could hear voices. These weren’t animals, animals don’t speak. The dots on my E.F.S. were right behind a hill and I started running to get on top of it, but before I could get a view on the hostiles a shot sounded from their direction.

The shot was followed by screams and a green dot vanishing from my E.F.S. The scene I could see when I got to the top of the hill wasn’t one for the eyes of a filly: Five raiders were surrounding a family of a mare and a colt. On the floor I could see the dead body of a stallion and a gun close to him.

"Bell get behind me." I said noticing her getting down, I took out my Varmint rifle and took aim. I tried using my zoom spell but it just made my head hurt, I decided to activate S.A.T.S. but before I could Sweet stopped me.

"What do you think you're doing?!" She had tackled me and pinned me to the ground.

"I'm trying to kill those raiders!" We weren't really screaming because of how close to the raiders we were, but even in whispers I tried to express my anger.

"And getting us killed along the way? For all we know they're another group of raiders, or murderers, what makes you think I'm going to risk saving them?"

"You saved me not two days ago remember?!" I had pushed her away and got up to take the shot, but the raiders were gone, the family was still there, on the floor without moving and above a pool of blood. "Damn it they're gone!" I then glared at Sweet "Are you happy now? The whole family is dead!"

"It was them or us, now let's get moving before more raiders show up." I couldn't believe her! She goes and lets that family die and then acts like nothing happened. I was angry... no, I was furious at Sweet for stopping me from taking the shot, at myself for not being able to do anything, and at the raiders only because they existed...

I glared at Sweet as she trotted away and was about to scream at her. I wasn't done with her yet, but Bell caught my sight. She was standing there, looking at the bloody corpses of the family that was killed by the raiders. She was shaking. She couldn't stop looking at them. I moved to her, all my anger gone away. She was visibly trembling and on the verge of tears, I got close to her and said in the softest voice I could: "Come Bell, we have to move now. We can talk later..."

But she didn't move, she wasn’t even reacting to my voice. I reached out with my hoof and when it touched her, she jumped up and looked at me, tears in her eyes. "Come on Bell, it's not safe here..." She could barely nod but started walking next to me. I didn't understand why she was so shocked, it wasn't the first time she saw a dead pony, but then I realized: what she hadn't seen before, was how a raider killed their victims, and the only thing she could do, was stay there and watch it happen...

"This is as far as we go." I said, looking at the great wall that surrounded Dice. There were many reasons for not going into the city, one of them was to get as far away from Sweet as I could, but the main reason was because I couldn't. You see to be able to enter Dice you must be 'worth it', you must have at least 5000 caps in your pockets. What you did with them didn't matter when you were inside. They just wanted to make sure that you had caps to use.

"Fine, good luck out there in the wasteland, you're going to need it." We hadn't spoke during the rest of the way. I couldn’t forgive her for what she did and I'm sure she was still angry at me, but we didn't have to speak of it. She then went into Dice with both her bodyguards behind her.

"Bell..." I hadn't had the chance to speak with her, at least there were ponies here and was relatively safe. She didn't answer but instead she looked at the ground. "Bell, look at me." She then looked up at me, she could hardly keep her eyes on mine. "Bell, what happened there wasn't your fault, there was nothing you could have done, if there is somepony to blame, it's the raiders."

If I knew my sister well she would be blaming herself for what happened, she did this a lot back in Clarefield when the other foals had accidents, she would blame herself for not stopping them from getting hurt.

"I know I couldn't have done anything, and that's what makes me so upset! I wish I could've done something! I wish I could have saved those ponies! I... I wish I could have killed those raiders..." The last part was just a whisper, but I managed to hear it and as I did, my heart sank in my chest.

"Bell..." I didn't know what to say, I knew what she was thinking was right, but I didn't want the wasteland to make a killer out of her, I didn't want her to become like me. Without any words, I pulled her closer and hugged her, and whispered in her ear: "I'm sorry Bell, I'm sorry..."

"For what?"

"For not being able to save those ponies, for forcing you to see what those raiders did to them,. I'm sorry for not coming back to you earlier at Clarefield..." She didn't say anything. We stood there, wrapped in each others embrace, for a while. But we had to get moving. We had to find a place to stay for a while, a place where we could rest and get some food.

I approached the security guard pony standing in front of the doors to Dice and asked him where the closest town was. "That would be Foretrot, it's a bit of a walk from here but you should make it before sunset if you leave now."

I gave my thanks as a beep sound came from my PipBuck, I checked it and noticed that the map had a mark that said 'Foretrot'. I'm starting to see why Bell wanted me to put it on so badly, it was a pretty useful little thing.

I walked up to Bell and told her what we were doing, I remembered the radio in this and decided to turn it on, to my surprise the frequency in which DJ-Pon3 normally spoke was emitting just static. I also noticed that there were other frequencies as well, which I checked the others, but they most only came out as static. I eventually found one that had music playing.

"... Ain't that a buck in the head.”

It seems I got to the station just before the song finished, when it did the voice of a stallion sounded in the radio. His voice was really different from DJ-Pon3 but it had something to it that made me want to keep on listening.

"Well kids it's me again and what do ya think, it's time for the news. The fights between the factions in Dice are pretty much as always, bloody, with a chance of gore. If you ever go to Dice make sure not to piss off any of them. This news comes from a place that’sa pretty far from here, and I don't think many of you have heard of it, it seems some raiders that call themselves 'The Red Army' went and destroyed a whole town full of ponies by the name of ‘Clarefield’. No survivor have been seen. If any of you have heard of this town, please come by my radio station, I'd like to know the details of what happened there. And that's it for now folks! Now I leave you with Sweetie Belle singing: 'Let it go’.'"

It seemed Clarefield was never going to leave my mind. Don't get me wrong, I didn't want to forget, I mean how could I forget the town that had taken myself and my little sister when she was a foal so small she couldn't even speak? But the thing was, I didn't want to be reminded of my mistakes every 10 seconds.

Bell and I continued walking for a couple of hours, neither of us said anything, we just listened to the music on the radio. There were at least 7 songs, so they repeated a lot.

‘This place needs more music.’

Then I looked at Bell and wondered if she wanted to sing. Suddenly I had an idea, a way to cheer her up, but I was going to have to play my hoof well, or the chance would be lost completely, seeing how shy she is when it comes to that.

"Hey Bell, how do you like the music?"

"Huh? Well I don't know... I really like the way Sweetie Belle sings, but most of the songs have such sad lyrics they just make me feel depressed.” She shrugged. “Why do you ask?"

"What would you say if I told you I knew of somepony who can make great songs, and perform them on the radio? This pony tries to bring a bit of peace to other ponies in the wastes by singing with a really great voice."

"Really? I'd like to meet that pony! What's his name? Where did he learn to sing? Why aren't his songs on the radio?"

"I'm sorry Bell but I can't tell you anything about her, I promised her..."

"Her? It's a mare? Is she pretty? Is she really that good?"

"Oops, well yes it's a mare, but I can't tell you more. Sorry, Bell."

"Awww come on! I won't tell anypony! Pleeeeease, pretty please?" She said while shooting me puppy eyes. I had to sigh to hide my smile.

"I can't tell you, but it can't be helped if you find out by yourself can it?" I said with a wink. "That is, of course, if you're smart enough to figure it out." To that last part she smiled proudly and looked at me.

"Of course I can!"

"Well as you know she is a mare, right?", she nodded "Well, she has a crimson mane."

"Crimson? That's like red, right?"

"Yes that's it. What a smart filly, are you sure you're my sister? Anyway she's also very very young."

"Young? Hmmm... Do I know this mare?"

"Actually you know her very well, you might say that the only pony that knows her better than you is me."

"Hmm... can I have another clue?"

"Sure but this is the last, her name rhymes with sell."

"Rhymes with sell..." After a while of walking and thinking she finally said "I give up! I don't know anypony with a name that rhymes with sell!"

"Of course you do you silly pony, tell me, what words rhyme with sell?"

"Well there is gel, and fell, but I don't know anypony with that name. There’s bell, but I don't know of anypony that shares my name..." I gave her a huge grin. "Y- you mean me?" I nodded "But I don't sing in the radio and I don't make songs."

"That's because it was a vision from the future! It's a new spell I found that lets me see the future of a pony I care about, but it's only for a little while and it hurts my head after I'm done, but you want to know what I saw?" She nodded, her mouth hanging open in awe. It was a lie, obviously, but it was the only way I could get her to sing. She enjoys doing it, but doesn't because she thinks that other ponies won't like her if she does.

"I saw you, all grown up, singing on top of a big stage, with lotsa ponies watching you. But you weren't nervous at all, you were confident they would love you and started singing the most beautiful song I've ever heard, and when you finished singing, the spell timed out, but I could see that everypony was cheering and stomping their hooves on the ground because of how good you were!"

She just looked at me in awe, and after a while she managed to gain control of her jaw and say "Well... If it was a vision of the future, I guess I can’t argue... Might as well give it a try!"

Yes! I did it! She’s still a bit reluctant, but who cares! She’s going to sing! And when she sees that everypony loves her, she will keep on singing! She might even get a job singing and have enough caps so that she wouldn't need to scavenge or be hungry ever again! Ever since we left Clarefield things seemed to be going somewhat well, so I made a mental note to go visit Dice and talk to Show about that conversation we had back at Haysticks.

Once I had the caps to get in that is...

"Would you look at that..." We walked for a while, but before reaching Foretrot, I saw a junkyard that reminded me of the one around Clarefield. That reminded me of Clarefield and its... hard to describe how I felt about Clarefield. And then I was reminded of the Shishkebab and its components... so that was something. We decided to explore it and see what we could find, and to my surprise, we found everything we needed. I found a motorcycle that was really busted up, but its motor was working, and the hoofbreak was somehow still there. Later, Bell saw a lawn mower, and I quickly made my way over to her and started taking it apart. I managed to find that one of the blades, even if it was rusty as hell, was whole and could be used to make a Shishkebab. "If only I hadn't sold that pilot light."

"I'm sure we'll find another pilot light. There was one in, like, every kitchen right?"

"Yeah, when we get to town all we have to do is say: 'Hey we’re ponies you don't know, but could you let us take a part of your kitchen with us? We just need it to make a flaming sword, but don't worry, we're not going to use it on you'."

She looked away trying to act angry but I could see her trying not to laugh, so at least she was out of the bad mood she had been in before. "Anyway let's head to Foretrot, it's gonna get dark soon, and we need to find a place to crash." She nodded and we left the junkyard.

We approached the town as the sun began to set. I just wanted to get to the Inn, get a room and fall asleep in the first place I fell, but something stopped me. To be specific, it was a bullet that got buried in the ground next to my hoof. After recovering from the surprise I looked up and heard a mare scream: "That was a warning, another step and you're dead!" Right, crazy mare shooting at me, everyday stuff, what did I do last time? Oh right! I ran for my life, but those were completely different circumstances...

"Look, we're not looking for trouble! There are just two of us, and one of us was a foal who can't even fire a gun! If we were to cause trouble we’d be dead in 10 seconds!" I hope that worked...

There was silence for a while.

"Fine you can come into town. But we'll be watching you!"

Works for me. Bell and I started to walk into town. You could almost feel the stares of the inhabitants.

Then a mare with an amber coat and a black mane walked up to us. "Hello travelers! My name’s Amber, and we welcome you to the town of Foretrot!" I looked at the other ponies who just glared in my direction, some of them holding a gun in their mouths. "Or at least I do... Anyway, what brings you here, completely welcomed visitor?"

"If this is how you treat a 'completely welcomed visitor' I can't wait to see how you treat a bunch of raiders." I said with a smile on my face. It's nice to see a welcoming pony, specially after seeing the whole town want to shoot you. Instead of laughing like I thought she would, she looked kind of gloomy.

"Shouldn't be long before you find out... But that doesn't matter right now. It's not everyday we get visitors, most caravans decide to go straight to Dice." Amber told us as we walked around town.

"We're here because we need somewhere to sleep... and a place to eat... and we have to buy stuff, and sell stuff... We're like a caravan I guess..." Bell said and got the mare to chuckle a bit.

"Well if you need somewhere to sleep and eat, the inn is over there," And my PipBuck beeped, now showing the location of the inn. How it does that I don't know, but if the wasteland has taught me something, it's to be grateful for the good things, and to shoot anything that wants to kill you. "And there you have 'Filthy's General Store'." Beep "You can buy and sell supplies there, I wouldn't stay too long inside. Filthy isn't exactly known for bathing, then again almost nopony does, but for some reason he smells worse than everypony else..."

"Thanks Amber, but tell me, how come it looks like everypony but you wants to shoot us?"

"I’m not all that sure I should tell you. Tell you what, go talk to the mayor.. She might be able to help you." Before I could answer, I heard gunshots and screams. Then everypony hid in the closest building they could reach,and in 4 seconds the street was empty and I could feel something pulling me and Bell into a building. "Don't make a sound..." Amber whispered.

"What's going on?" Bell asked, but Amber didn't answer. We could hear more gunshots and screams, but these screams weren't terrified, they were screaming curses and saying: 'Come on out everypony!' They were raiders, or that's what they seemed to be. After what seemed like an eternity, they left just like nothing had happened, and everypony left their hiding spots.

"Time for explanations." I told Amber. She nodded and took us through the town. It was a pretty run down place, but what place in the wasteland wasn’t. We soon arrived at a building that seemed a rather... Alright, so it was as run down as the other buildings, but it did look slightly better. There were several ponies standing outside the building. Just as we approached, most of them left, while shooting glares at us, leaving a single pony.

“Hello there Ember. Care to introduce me to your friends?” She asked, a smile spreading across her face.

"Hello mayor, this is... ah..." Oh I hadn't introduced myself, stupid me.

"My name's Spark Wonder, and this here is my sister Bell. We came here because we needed a place to crash, but as soon as we got here we were shot at and then the raiders came. Would you care to explain what's going on?"

"Straight to the point I see..." The mayor said, she was a mare with a gray mane, but it was gray because of her age. I could see many wrinkles in her dark-gray coat. "First of all, I'm sorry about the actions of the citizens, as you saw we've been having problem with 'visitors' that aren't very friendly. We were going to try to fight back, but we got distracted when you arrived and that's when they attacked." She gave me a suspicious look, of course she did, raiders attacking when you are distracted because of a visitor? That's suspicious as hell, just my luck that I'm the visitor with the bad timing.

"What I don't get is, if they're raiders, how come they left just like that? I know raiders are crazy but that's not how they act."

"That's because they're not raiders, or at least not conventional raiders. Every month they come and demand supplies, and if we don't give them the supplies they start killing ponies, aside from that they sometimes just come here and start killing ponies just to 'let us know who is in charge'."

"That's horrible! Spark we've got to do something!" Bell said. She was right, I couldn't risk being here even for one night if these raiders can just come tomorrow and kill somepony.

"You're right, but it's not we, I'm going to do something, you are going to go to a safe place while I think about what to do." Then the door burst open and a mare, the same mare that was shooting at me when I got to town, came right in and punched me in the face. "What the-" Hay, but before I could finish my sentence I could see another hoof coming down on me but this time I was prepared and dodged to the side, with the momentum I turned and used my hindlegs to kick her in the stomach. She dropped to the ground and dodged my buck and then kicked at my legs, causing me to fall. I tried rolling but she got on top of me right after I managed to get on my back.

She had me pinned, and was about to start punching me in the face, but Bell jumped on top of her and used her hooves to cover her eyes and started biting her ear and pulling. "Get off my brother!" She got off of me and slammed herself against a wall to shake off Bell.

"Stop that!" The mayor shouted. It was so loud, my ears rang for a while and it made Bell stop biting on the mare's ear and fell off her back. I manage to catch her with my magic before she hit the floor, and put her down gently. The mayor was glaring at the mare that had attacked me. "What do you think you're doing?!"

The gray earth pony mare with a long red and blue mane was glaring back at the mayor. "I'm killing the bastard that killed Autumn!" She pointed a hoof at me, what is she talking about? I haven't killed anypony... in two days... She then turned to glare at me with her two bright yellow eyes, full of anger. Bell stepped in front of me staring straight into the mare's eyes.

"He didn't kill Autumn, those raiders did."

"Do you really think he didn't do anything? What a coincidence that the same exact moment we want to fight back a pony comes and distracts us and then bam! The raiders attack!" The only thing stopping her from attacking me was Amber, who was trying to hold her in place, with little effect.

"Hey it's not our fault that those raiders came at the exact same moment we did! It was just a coincidence!" Bell screamed at the mare. "If you want to blame someone blame the raiders that did this!"

"She's right, you can't blame us for something we didn't do, but I know of a way to make the ones who did this pay, and to make them stop attacking the town," I could feel all the eyes looking at me and I said "It's simple really: Kill them all."

"Like it's going to be that simple, you're one crazy pony if you think you can take care of all of them by yourself.” The mayor said.

"Well I've got to try, otherwise this town will never be safe. I know raiders, they just keep coming and coming until either side is dead." I was working on a workbench. When I told everypony my great idea they all laughed. Well the mare that punched me just gave me a confused look, but I was dead serious. When they realized that, they tried to talk me out of it. I heard the mayor sigh. “Besides, I owe you for distracting your defenses, even if it wasn't on purpose."

"There's no convincing you not to go, is there?"

"Nope." I was kind of glad she was worried. That was so hard to find here in the wasteland. "They're just a bunch of raiders that know that you get more from a town of working ponies than from ruins full of corpses. Raiders have lousy aim and are usually sick and hungry. All you need is to know how to fight to take them on."

"If it was really that simple, we would've sent a team to kill them before, but it's not. I know we are willing to fight, but we won’t send anypony on a suicide mission just because a stallion thinks he can take care of a bunch of raiders."

"I'm not asking for your help, at least not with the raiders, I just want you to take care of Bell while I'm gone." Finally I finished working on the workbench and smiled at the result, I had created a Shishkebab. Turns out Filthy had a pilot light and didn't know what to do with it, and Bell managed to get it from him for free, saying that she 'Really really really really really wanted it', after buying the supplies I would need, such as ammo and healing potions. I hunted for a workbench and it turned out the mayor had one in her office.

The Shishkebab was a sword. The lawn mower blade was connected to the motorcycle hoofbrake via a mechanism that filled the blade with magical fuel and held it in place. The fuel was supplied by the motorcycle gas tank that I strapped to my back, and the thing was, the tank pulls the magic out of the air, and turns it into fuel. I'll assume it uses more than it charges, and it obviously is out of fuel when the blade is no longer aflame.

I held the blade in a magic field and pulled the handbrake which made some sparks appear. The sparks made the blade catch fire. I turned to look at the mayor who had her mouth open and said: "Well, you might stand a chance..." I gave the blade a few careful swings and then turned it off.

I then left the mayor's building and began to head out of town. Amber was kind enough to look after Bell while I was gone. I didn't want to leave her alone with a stranger, but I couldn't take her with me to the raiders base. And Amber didn't seem like a bad pony.

Just when I reached the edge of town, the grey mare that had punched me stopped me. She was wearing some sort of armor. "What do you want now? Came to fight some more?"

"No. I'm going with you. You can't possibly think of killing them all on your own, and I want to kill those bastards myself."

"How can I know that you won't shoot me in the back once we're there?"

"Because those bastards have been coming for a long time now, and as I said before: One pony alone can't kill them all, that includes me, but with the two of us we might have a chance."

"How about when we're done, what will stop you from shooting me then?"

"If we manage to kill them all without dying you would've proven that you didn't have anything to do with the attack, then I would have no reason to kill you." That was good enough for me.

"Fine you can come. My name's Spark Wonder."

"Charcoal."

By the time we reached the raiders base, it was night and the stars and the moon decorated the deep blue sky. We snuck around the building they use as their base, trying to see how many entrances it had, and how many guards we could see.

Neither of us spoke the whole trip, but if we wanted to survive, we were going to need to come up with a plan. “So, do you have a plan?”

“You mean you don’t?!”

I shoved my hoof in her mouth. “Shh, we don’t want them to know we’re here, not yet at least.” She pulled my leg away from her.

“Get your that out of my mouth, who knows where it’s been,” She spat, totally uncalled for. “So you come here, boasting that you can kill them all and return to town with your sister, and you don’t even have a plan!? Just what I needed...”

“Hey I was giving you the chance to come up with a plan, seems it was too much to ask for. Anyway, here is what we’re going to do. Step One: Sneak around. Step Two: Kill raiders without the other raiders noticing. Step Three: Search the building. Step Four: Go back to town and be treated like heroes. Sounds good?”

“Works for me.” To my surprise she started to head to the raider base. As I stared at her she took out a raider guard by sneaking up on him and cutting his throat with a knife. Poor bastard couldn’t even scream. Then she looked back at me. “You coming?”

I sighed and headed for the door. I took out my Shishkebab but didn’t turn it on. When I got close enough I whispered “I was kidding when I suggested that plan.”

“I know, but I liked it.” I sighed again as she entered the building and followed her.

“Wait, let me go first.”

“Why? Because you’re a buck and you don’t want this little mare to get hurt?” She said, glaring at me.

“No, because of this” I said tapping my PipBuck with a hoof. “It shows me where the enemies are, kind of, that way we won’t be going into a room full of raiders.” Charcoal nodded.

I walked in front of her, as I did two red bars appeared on my E.F.S. and they were moving,they were just around the corner and were heading in our direction. I grabbed Charcoal and entered the first room to our left. It was an awfully tight storage room. Not exactly the most comfortable place but it sure beats being discovered. I could hear hoofsteps outside and see the red bars just outside this room. I started to fear they might find us, but then they moved back to where they originally were.

We stepped out of that cramped room and I signaled Charcoal to take care of the raider in the left while I killed the one in the right. They both died at the same time and we caught their bodies before they fell, and hid them in the storage room we were just in. Not before looting them, of course.

We continued sneaking around the building trying our best to ignore the pieces of ponies that the raiders used to decorate their base. I noticed two more raiders on my E.F.S. just around the corner, and raised a hoof to signal Charcoal to stop. The raiders were standing still in front of the door. I don’t think they were guarding it, but they weren’t moving from that point. I whispered to Charcoal: “Should we look for another way?”

“Fuck that! I’m tired of sneaking.” And there she goes again, she took out her shotgun and ran around the corner screaming “Hey assholes! You’ve better prayed for forgiveness ‘cause you’re all dying tonight!” And with that she shot at both raiders and the red marks in my E.F.S. disappeared, but in their place seven hostiles showed up. Of course the gunshots had caught the whole building on alert. I glared at Charcoal and she just shrugged saying “What? Now we won’t have to look for them.” I sighed.

As soon as the air left my lips, the doors behind the dead raiders slammed open and three raiders came in, surprised to see the bodies of the other two raiders and us. I took this chance, fired up the Shishkebab and slashed twice at the closest raider. He managed to dodge the first attack, but the second had still hit him and his armor caught on fire. He dropped and rolled taking out the flame, but when he got up, Charcoal was in front of him with her shotgun pointed at his face.

Bang!

With the raider pony dead,I took out the revolver I bought from Filthy and went into S.A.T.S., taking two shots at each of their heads. Once they fell to the ground I reloaded the revolver and ran past the bodies to a big room full of tables, and four more raiders that started shooting as soon as we entered. I used my magic to throw a table at them and flipped another for cover, but the raiders kept on shooting. There was no way to leave our small cover, and I could hear their hoofsteps signaling that they were drawing in for the kill.

“What now genius?” Charcoal asked, reloading her shotgun.

“Hey I wanted to keep on sneaking but you had to go and start shooting, telling everypony where we were”, She answered with a ‘Hump’. “Alright. Grab a grenade from my saddlebags. I’m going to distract them and then you throw it at them.”

“And how exactly do you plan to avoid the bullets?”

“Just do it, okay?” She nodded and started looking into my saddlebags for a grenade, once she found it I concentrated my magic and started making noises behind the raiders and screamed “Oh yeah reinforcements are here!” I could hear shooting, but the bullets didn’t come in my direction. My plan had worked. I left cover and aimed my revolver at one of the raiders.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I didn’t kill him, but I got him in his side, and he was on the floor screaming from the pain. The other three noticed it was a trap and started shooting at me. I flipped another table to get cover, but a bullet had got me in the chest and pierced right through my armor. Damn it hurt like hell! I’ve been shot before, but you never get used to it.

“Charcoal! Now!” I shouted through the pain. I heard the explosion, but how could I not? Charcoal was toppled over because of the blastwave. With the wave, all gunfire stopped, and I could see Charcoal looking over her cover, slowly making her way to me. I looked at the spot where raiders used to be.

“Would you look at that, your plan worked. You think those were all of- What happened to you?!” She looked at the bullet hole in my chest.

“Bastards got a lucky shot off. Would you be a sweetheart and toss me a healing potion? I can’t seem to be able to reach my saddlebags.” She looked at me skeptically.

“That bullet is inside of you, if we don’t take it out you might die later!”

“Can you take it out?” I asked honestly hoping that she could.

“Well no, but can’t you take it out with your magic?” I wish I could, sadly it wasn’t that easy and my concentration was fading.

“Just give me the potion, I’m dying over here!” Thankfully she obeyed and gave me the potion, I bit on the tip and drank the whole thing down, I could already feel the wound closing. I managed to get up, I still felt the bullet in my chest. “Look, there’s a medic in Foretrot right? He’ll get the bullet out when we get there. By the way, I think that was it, my E.F.S. isn’t getting any more hostiles. Say, want to see what we can find in here?”

She looked at me as I tried to walk normally, but walking with a bullet in your chest isn’t nice. “I’m going to need help carrying all this stuff Charcoal.” I said as I checked the body of a raider. I could hear her sighing.

“You will not believe how much that hurts” I said walking out of the doctor’s office. Getting opened up and having a bullet removed from your chest is not something you want to experience.

“That’s what you get from drinking a healing potion with a bullet in your chest.” She said and gave me a slight punch in the chest.

“Ow ow ow ow. Is that how you treat somepony who just got out of surgery?” She just laughed.

We arrived at Amber’s house and I knocked a couple times. The door creaked open, and a very sleepy Amber was behind it. Not that I was the most energetic pony in town. “Oh my... Welcome Spark! Since you came back in one piece and on your own I assume you did it?” I nodded as my answer. “Oh my gosh this is great news! We have to tell everypony right now! Everypony will be so excited to know that the raiders won’t be a problem anymore!” I couldn’t help but smile at her excitement.

“Hate to break your bubble, but it’s kind of late, don’t you think? Everypony will be kinda mad rather than happy if you wake them up at this hour.” Charcoal said from behind me.

“Charcoal? What are you doing here? Why are you up at this hour?”

“Well she was helping me of course, if it wasn’t for her I might be dead right now, though if it wasn’t for her I probably wouldn’t have gotten shot either.” Charcoal blushed and looked away with a ‘Hmp’

“Oh that’s great! Come in you two I’m sure it’s cold out there.” I nodded and headed into Amber’s house, it was actually a big place. it had a main hall with some furniture, a couple of sofas and a fireplace that was lit up. There was a hall that lead to the rooms and the kitchen, that’s where Amber was going.

“Thanks Charcoal.” I said when I was alone with her.

“Huh? Why are you thanking me?”

“For helping me with those raiders and... Well, you kind of saved my life.”

“Oh, yeah that. Don’t worry, it was nothing.”

“If you say so.” Then Amber came out of the kitchen with some food. I couldn’t tell what it was.

“Here, have some food. Don’t decline, this is the least I could do for the pony who finally took care of those blasted raiders.” I nodded with a smile and started eating. It was actually pretty good, actually it was the best thing I had tasted in my life!

“Wow this tastes great! What is it called?” Amber giggled at my compliment.

“It’s radscorpion cake.”

“This has radscorpion in it?” I hadn’t eaten radscorpion before. It sure was tasty.

“Kind of, it has its poison, but not like that! Let me explain!” She said, watching my expression of horror. “The poison is mixed in with other ingredients so that it won’t hurt you, but it’s needed because it’s what gives it the taste.” Well that explains it. I wonder if I could make it.

“That makes sense, could I have the recipe? It’s really tasty and if it’s not harmful I might as well try to eat it more.” But before she could answer a small snore caught my attention. Bell was fast asleep on one of the sofas in the room. I hadn’t seen her before because the sofas back was facing the door.

“Oh she said she was going to wait for you here, but I expected her to go to the room I prepared for her after she got tired of waiting.” I smiled while wrapping my sis in my magic.

“I’m going to take her to the bedroom, we’ll talk about the recipe tomorrow okay?” She nodded. “Good night, both of you.” I said entering the room Amber had pointed at with her hoof.

“I should be going home too. Good night, Amber.”

“Good night, Charcoal.”

I closed the door behind me and put Bell in her bed. I kissed her forehead. “Sweet dreams, Bell.” And not long after that, I was asleep myself.

I wake up from the same nightmare I had before, the room only lit by the light coming from the window directly into my face, glad to see Celestia’s aim is perfect even when she is not controlling the sun...

I stand up and notice that Bell was still sleeping, so I leave the room as quietly as I can. Outside I find Amber cooking more of her radscorpion cake. It was a good time as any to learn how to cook it. After a few lessons from Amber, I managed to make one and she tried it.

“Well you’ve actually done it! And it tastes delicious, even better than mine! Say, are you interested in a job as my personal chef?” I laughed at that.

“If I managed to do it is because I had a great teacher. Besides, I couldn’t even dream to reach your cooking skills.”

“Yeah right, I believe you’re already there. But seriously. Wanna be my personal chef?”

“Good morning Amber, good morning Spark. What’s that smell?” I wasn’t sure if she was completely awake.

“Morning Bell, it’s some radscorpion cake. I made it myself! Want some?”

She nodded vigorously. I gave her a bit and she started eating it right away. “Yummy! I told you he’d be able to make them!” She told Amber.

“What are you talking about Bell?” She took a deep breath and started talking.

“You, see last night Amber gave me some of her radscorpion cake and I told her how delicious it was, but then she said that she was the only one who could make it and I told her that you could make them, and that if you made them it would be even tastier, but she said that you wouldn’t be able to make them because it was a family recipe, but I knew she was just scared that you would make it better and made a bet with her that when you came back-” She stopped for a second, her eyes widening. “Ohmygosh! You’re back I was so worried I couldn’t even sleep last night wondering if you were going to come back! Why didn’t you wake me up when you got here?!” She said while hugging me and it made Amber go ‘Awwww how cute’.

“Because you were sleeping you silly pony, it seems you weren’t so worried as you said you were...” I teased her and for dramatic effect I sighed.

“Of course I was! It’s just that it was so late and the couch was so comfy I couldn’t resist it...” She whispered the last bit while blushing and looking off to the side.

“I believe you.” I said, messing up her mane.

“Hey! You know how long it takes me to make my mane look that way everyday? Now I have to start all over again!” Both Amber and I chuckled as Bell blushed.

We talked with the mayor, who thanked us for killing the raiders with some bottle caps and some ammo they were going to use on the raiders. I thanked her for it, and after visiting Filthy to sell some the stuff we got at the raider’s camp, I was ready to leave town when...

“Hey! Wait up!” Charcoal called from behind, no longer wearing her armor, but wearing her saddlebags. They looked pretty heavy actually.

“Hi Charcoal, I was just about to leave, what is it?”

“What do you mean you were just about to leave? Weren’t you going to wait for me?”

“Uhh, I am waiting for you right now aren’t I?”

“Spark, isn’t she the pony who was trying to kill you yesterday?” Huh? Oh right, I had forgotten about that incident.

“Well yes, kind of, but she also helped me taking care of the raiders and saved my life, so I had forgotten about that.”

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced. My name is Charcoal.” She offered a hoof to Bell but she just stared at her.

“Bell.” She didn’t shake her hoof, instead she was glaring at her.

“Okay. Let’s get going then.”

“Going where?” I asked, still not knowing what she was doing.

“I don’t know, you were leaving town and didn’t know where to go?”

“Well I know where I’m going, but I don’t know where you’re going.”

“I’m going with you of course!”

Footnote: Level up!

Oh you silly pony you forgot to do a skill check last level! Well here it is:

Melee (25)
Repair (25)
Guns (25)
Sneak (25)
Survival (25)

(Author’s Note: Hello guys, it’s Shadowher here thanking you all for reading even this little piece I left at the end. Wonderful ponies all of you.

Anyway I wanted to thank Kkat for making Fallout: Equestria, the masterpiece as it is known, and also all of the FoE fandom for being awesome, specially No One for making ‘Heroes’, because if you haven’t noticed this happens at the same time in the same general area as that ‘Heroes’. If you haven’t read ‘Heroes’ yet go do that now.

And of course I’d like to thank all of my pre-readers Pata-K , Masquerade, AnonMD and v-dub for doing their jobs, they let me know how I messed up with grammar and stuff, thank you guys! Geez that was long I better keep these shorter next time.)