Fallout Equestria: Ascendancy

I think it would be putting it lightly to say that the world outside wasn’t what I’d expected. According to the Overmare, the world had been blasted by the mega-spells and the land was broken and scarred beyond repair. “Every sign of life was gone and Stable 72 was the last bastion of ponykind,” she said.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

The land showed absolutely no sign of destruction. The mountains around me were bathing in the sun as well. The warm palette of colors were a refreshing change from the infinite grey of the Stable. I couldn’t have even imagined how nice it was out here; I kind of wish I would have humored Radiant in her wanting to leave. It wasn’t so bad out here. Actually, it was amazing. The only sounds were of the breeze and the tumbleweeds it was blowing around. No buzzing lights or gossip from the ponies you knew were talking about you.

I felt the sun for the first time and fanned my wings out to take in as much of its warmth as I could.

But there was a reason I was out here in the first place. I needed to find Radiant.

As nice as it looked, there wasn’t much of anything except rock and sand. The mouth of the passage out of the Stable led to an opening that overlooked a small canyon. Gusts of wind blew sand and tumbleweeds around the canyon below. The former made visible spirals that danced around the landscape and caused the flora to sway as they passed.

The canyon walls were littered with holes of all different sizes. Some were too small for a foal to fit in. Some were five ponies tall. I didn’t want to know what any of them were housing.

After a few hours of wandering, it looked like I had been going in circles. The sun crept behind the horizon and took its light with it. We always had light in the Stable. I didn’t know what to do.

Then the moon was there and it bathed the world in a light the opposite of the sun. This light was cool and pale and didn’t burn my hide if I stood there for too long.

I couldn’t tell you exactly what the sun looked like; it hurt my eyes when I tried to look at it. But the moon… It was a beautiful orb of artistic expression. It’s pale surface was adorned with darker swirls of grey and it radiated a pale light. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen and I felt a strange desire to thank Princess Luna even though she doesn’t even exist.

Then I heard a faint clicking noise behind me. I turned around. The monster stood low to the ground on six slim legs and had two giant pincers in the front, slamming shut and making that clicking. A barbed tail was being pulled behind it. I bet that’s venomous, I thought.

I let out a sharp cry and flapped my wings to fly away. There was just one problem: I didn’t know how to fly. Being trapped in a Stable had robbed me of the unique trait of my race. It was enough for a large bound but I plummeted back to the ground.

At first I thought of Radiant, but I figured these things were nocturnal. They hadn’t bothered me until the sun went down. Hopefully she got out of here before dark.

I started firing my Laser Pistol at it. The orange beams hit the carapace and it began to smoke. The monster reared back when I hit it in the mouth. A glow began at the mouth and spread across its body, then it was a pile of ash.

My victory was short lived. I heard a chorus of clicking and a black mass was headed toward me.

“Fuck. That.” I ran.

I took potshots here and there as I ran. The occasional creature would light up and burn to ash. There were so many of them.

I saw a fence in the distance. The large chain-link border had been trampled down and was making a ramp that went up toward me. Clearing the fence was easy.

The landing wasn’t. I went, face first, into a sandstorm. I squinted my eyes as the sand blasted in and landed awkwardly on the steep and uneven terrain. The next thing I remembered was my stomach dropping as I was free falling. I tried to fly but I just started flipping and flailing in the air.

Is it wrong to think that that probably looked hilarious even though it happened to me? I wish I could see it now.

I landed on my shoulders, flipping head over hoof in a very painful descent and fell into a deeper canyon. I did finally get to the bottom, only to land on my back with a sick crunch.

The outline of a Pegasus appeared in my vision and it said that my wing was broken. No shit, I thought.

It sucks out here…

* * *

I awoke to the sun beating down on me. There was a gross pop when I rolled over to get up and a sharp pain shot through my body.

“Agh!” My wing stuck straight out, then halfway up it just went limp like a deflated balloon. “Oh, fuck… I need a doctor.”

I hope Radiant didn’t do that, I thought. I got up and started walking again.

My broken wing flopped as I walked and I felt a pang with every step. The sandstorm had died down. All that remained was the occasional mini-twister that wreaked minor havoc on the shrubbery.

The bottom of the canyon wasn’t barren like the one with the bugs. It was littered with bunkers that were hidden in the ground. They weren’t concealed as well as the Stable but, under the cover of a sandstorm, I doubt that most ponies would have noticed them.

I walked up to the door of the nearest bunker. There were anti-war messages scrawled on every inch of it and surrounding wall. If only everypony agreed with these ponies. I hit the button and the door came to life with parts sliding and spinning before the whole door slid down into the ground. I stepped inside.

It dawned on me that using my E.F.S. would be a good idea. I hated the interface, but I didn’t want to bump into anything nasty down here. I rotated the dial on my PipBuck until the opacity was at 100% and looked around.

No bars. I was alone.

I checked my map to see if my PipBuck knew where I was.

“Whoa…” It did. I was in Hidden Valley and had come from Scorpion Gulch. There was also a marker for Stable 72. Suddenly, I was more impressed than annoyed at the interface and truly appreciated the accomplishments of the ponies of the past.

There was a staircase just inside the door that lead down to a dimly lit room. There was nopony in the room. The only light came from a burning barrel by another automatic door. There was an intercom next to the door like the ones we had in the Stable. I walked up and held down the button.

“Hello, is anypony there?”

No answer.

“Hello?! Anypony there? I need help.”

I heard a clank and saw several green bars on my E.F.S. The door in front of me disappeared into the floor and through it stepped the most badass looking pony I’d ever seen.

He wore bulky grey armor with no helmet and had an eye patch covering an eye that probably wasn’t there. His guns were even more impressive. On his left was a Gatling Laser. I didn’t recognize the gun on the right, but it looked dangerous. It had a long silver barrel that had solid metal discs down its full length.

“You’re going to hand over your belongings and come with us,” he said in a gravelly voice. Not that I wanted to piss this pony off, but I had to find Radiant.

“I’m kinda busy. What happens if I don’t?”

The armored ponies behind the massive stallion snickered and he cleared his throat. He pulled the trigger of the gun on the right and a missile… thing… struck the ground in front of me. The explosion knocked me off my hooves and I was peppered with small bits of concrete.

“I won’t tell you again. Hand over your belongings. You’re coming with us.”

Damn. I slid my Laser Pistol across the floor and threw my saddlebags to them. He stared at me for a few seconds.

“What?”

“Your suit.”

“It’s only clothing. It wouldn’t even stop a spoon.”

“I said everything, you moron. Now!”

His gun revved up again. I don’t think I’ve taken my clothes off that fast before, but I stopped when I got to my broken wing. There were holes cut in all of my suits for my wings, but it was all twisted and jutting in every direction and I couldn’t slide it out. I heard the metal pony sigh and then I was screaming like a filly, much to the amusement of the others. The bastard ripped the suit straight off. Then his armored hoof smashed my face.

“Put the collar on him.”

I heard heavy steps on the metal. A cold ring snapped around my neck with a click and everything went black.

It really fucking sucks out here…

* * *

Two stallions dragged me across metal floors. My rear hooves scraped along as they pulled me. The smell of rust filled my nostrils and the place reeked of failure. My face was cold and sore. This bunker I was in had automatic doors like the Stable. Two armored ponies stood on either side, guarding from a nonexistent threat.

They brought me to their Elder. She was a middle-aged Unicorn mare wearing robes instead of armor.

“Good morning,” she said. “I am Elder Fancy Script. I’d like to skip the formalities, if that’s all right with you.”

“Formalities? There’s nothing formal about this, in case you haven’t noticed.”

One of the guards struck me in the side with the butt of his gun. “You better not do that again,” I said to him.

“I beg your pardon?” the Elder said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“You bastards knocked me out, put what I’m guessing is some kind of bomb around my neck, kidnapped me, and dragged me down here.”

The guard hit me again. This time, I slammed my head to his. The flashlight on his helmet shattered and he tipped over from the sheer force of the head-butt.

Head-butting a pony with a metal helmet? Not my best idea. I staggered and another guard touched a forked metal rod to my side and I felt electricity run through my body. I fell to the floor and several ponies piled on top of me and began pounding my head in.

The Elder stepped through the crowd and called them off. She was levitating a small box with an antenna and a big red button on it.

“Ah, ah. You might not want to try that again.” She levitated the box closer. “I press this button and that collar around your neck turns you into the Headless Horse.”

I didn’t reply.

“Good to see that I have your attention.” She turned around and started walking away from me, then stopped. “Now… you’re going to tell me what you’re doing poking around in my bunker.”

I wiped the blood from my lips. “Why should I tell you anything?”

“Because. I press this button… you die. You don’t want to die, right?”

“You’d kill me for not telling you something?”

“Yes."

“Fine. I came out of my Stable to find my daughter.”

Her eyes widened. “A Stable? Where is this Stable?”

“Fuck you.”

She chuckled. “Go on.”

“Okay. I walked through these canyons and these monsters came out and chased me down here.”

“What kind of monsters?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen them before. They were short and had big claws and a long tail with a barb on the end.”

Her interest dropped. “Oh, that’s just Radscorpions.”

“Just Radscorpions? They almost killed me.”

“You don’t have our resources. Killing them isn’t even worth the ammo spent. A nuisance is what Radscorpions are.”

“Well, the nuisances chased me over a fence and I fell down into this canyon. I landed on my wing and now it’s broken.”

“Then…”

“Then I came down here, your fucking Cyclops pony took my stuff, knocked me out, and now I have a bomb around my neck and you are all bigger assholes than I am.”

She didn’t look like she believed me at first, but I guess my story didn’t make all that much sense in the first place.

“That’s quite a tale. I believe you. For now.”

“So when do I get to leave?”

“Who said you were leaving? This is a secure facility and its location is to be known only by the Steel Rangers.”

“I don’t care. I have more important things to do than be your prisoner.”

“You’re not in any position to demand anything.”

“You better kill me then. I’m not just going to sit down here.”

A Steel Ranger stepped up to the Elder and she whispered something into its armored ear.

“Very well then. I’m feeling generous today. I’ll let you leave. But you’ll help me with something first. A wanderer has been sheltering in one of our bunkers. We want you to get rid of him. The security of the Steel Rangers depends on it.”

“You want me to kill him?”

“If it comes to that, yes.”

“I’m not going to kill him.”

“As I said, if it comes to that. If you can convince him to leave then, by all means, do that.”

It was disturbing how low these ponies held the lives of others. Kill them because we want to? It makes me sick.

It took convincing, but they returned my belongings in case I actually needed to kill this pony. They left the explosive collar on.

I wandered back out into the desert and was greeted by the scorching sun again. I reeled back as I did coming out of the Stable.

The bunker the wanderer had been in was identical to the one I had stumbled into. I crept down the stairs and through the door. The wanderer sat beside a fire. He whipped up a pistol the second he saw me.

“Get on the ground.”

“Shit…”

He walked up and stood over me.

“Are you going to murder me now? What the hell is wrong with you ponies out here?”

“I could ask you the same thing, stranger. What are you doing down here?”

I figured he might understand my situation. Since he hadn’t blown my head off already, he might have it in his heart to help me.

“Okay. I was kidnapped by some ponies in metal suits. They put a bomb around my neck and want me to get rid of you or they’re going to kill me. Care to help out?”

He examined the collar and pulled a screwdriver out of his bag. He fiddled around with the collar and it clicked open and fell, with a clunk, to the floor.

“Demolition Specialist Blackpowder,” he said, extending his hoof to me. “The audio feed is dead. They heard everything you just said.”

I sighed. “I don’t care. Thanks for the help though.”

He snatched up the collar and put it in his saddlebag and looked at me. “Worth a lot of caps.”

“Caps? As in bottle caps?”

“Yeah.”

“We don’t use bits anymore?”

He saw my PipBuck. “Stable pony, huh? Pretty much everything out here is money. You just trade whatever you got for whatever you want. Anyways, what’s this about metal ponies?” His expression said he was not a friend of them.

“They dragged me down into their bunker and put that collar on me. They want you gone and sent me to get rid of you. In return, they’ll let me go.”

“Sounds like the Steel Rangers, all right. They aren’t going to ‘let you go’. They’re going to kill you and take that PipBuck you got there.” He pointed at my PipBuck. “They care about one thing: technology. They’ll murder and steal to get their hooves on it, too.”

“Why hasn’t anypony done anything about them?”

“Well, for one, you’ve seen the firepower they’re packing. Add to that they’ve been hiding for decades. We haven’t’ heard nothing from ‘em since we ran ‘em out of the power plant.”

“Who’s we?”

“The NCR. We’re pretty much the Equestrian Military.”

“And you’re the good guys?”

“There’s no good guys out here. We’re not the bad guys, though.”

“Well, I’d love to stay and chat but I’m looking for somepony. I really need to go.”

“Yeah, we need to. It’d be bad if they decided to come solve the problem themselves. They’re mules, but they have the firepower to take the two of us.”

“I’m looking for my daughter. You haven’t seen her, have you?”

“You been looking for her long? I might have seen her.”

“Since last night.”

“Oh, sorry. You’re the first pony I’ve seen in a few days. You should follow the highway. You might find somepony who’s seen her.”

“Thanks anyway.”

* * *

The road seemed to go on forever. I wished I were a white pony; the sun was stifling and I almost missed the cool halls of the Stable. Imagine what it was like for the ponies who had to build this road.

With a small mountain range drawing near, I saw two long wooden barriers. I walked in between them, continuing down the highway.

“Wait!”

I jumped and spun around, ready to defend myself.

“Hold up there. You don’t wanna go that way.” The pony that stopped me was a pudgy Earth stallion. He was wearing a yellow hardhat and had a pickaxe for a cutie mark.

“Why not?”

“We were digging through the mountain when we busted through the wall of a cave full of Hellhounds.”

“What’s that?”

“The scariest thing you’ll find in the Marejave, that’s for sure! Two of ‘em came out and killed eleven of my guys in about five seconds. They’re mean as hell and bulletproof.” He pointed at my Laser Pistol. “That little laser light there won’t do nothing but piss ‘em off.”

“Oh. You didn’t see a Pegasus filly come through here, did you?” Please say no, I thought.

“I don’t think so. If she did, there ain’t much you can do for her now. She might make it past me, but not a Hellhound.”

“I didn’t need to hear that last part, you know.”

“Sorry, friend. I won’t sit here and lie to your face. You go lookin’ for your filly down there, and you won’t be comin’ back. I can guarantee it. You’d do best to check Thunderhooves, that way.”

I suddenly felt like hitting myself in the head. I punched in Radiant’s tag and a hollow waypoint appeared on my map. It was moving and in the direction that the pony had pointed me in. I wasted most of the day coming here. But that means Radiant didn’t come this way.

The walk back—I’d say it was more of a trek than a walk—took longer than before. I finally made it back to where I had turned and kept straight. I figured I was going faster than Radiant, so I’d catch up eventually. Just no getting sidetracked again, I thought. Hopefully she wasn’t hurt and at least grabbed water. No, she’s fine. She’s a smart pony.

There were abandoned carriages a small ways off the road. I came to a crater that consumed most of the road. Barrels were piled at the bottom and green ooze pooled around them. The area around the holes the ooze spilled from was covered in sun-baked ooze that had hardened and sealed them shut. A reptilian creature with a wide head fought with a Radroach over the right to bask in the radiation. The roach didn’t last very long.

Thunderhooves was ahead. A large building towered over the small town. I could see the neon sign perched at the top floor. It looked like a massive hunchback pony. Thunderhooves Hotel was spelled out in dead neon letters above it.

The road went under the overpass that led into the town. The left side of the highway was blocked off by rubble and the right side only had a very narrow path through it. I started under it when a voice called out to me from the bridge above.

“Where the hay do you think you’re going?”

It was from a dusty pony bundled in heavy cloth. The metal breastplate on his clothes had a two-headed Ursa Minor etched into it and he wore a hat with goggles.

“I need to get into Thunderhooves.”

“Thunderhooves is off-limits.”

Of course it is. “Why?”

“A bunch of our convicts killed the guards and took over our prison. Most stayed there, but some broke off and came here. They shot some of the civilians and tied up the deputy and hauled her inside. Don’t know if they’re holding her hostage or if they just killed her.”

“Can I help?” I couldn’t just walk away.

“Officially, no. Commander Nightshade would be pissed if she found out we had to get outside help to fix our problem. But, between you and me, maybe outside help wouldn’t be such a bad thing. We’re supposed to sit out here and ‘wait for reinforcements’,” he made air quotes. “They ain’t coming. That deputy’s gonna die if she hasn’t already. She needs help and we can’t give it.”

Someone needed to take back this town. I guess it fell to me. I looked at the moving waypoint on my PipBuck. Sidetracked, yet again.

“Anything I need to know?”

“You know about as much as we do. Since they took this town, you can bet that they’re armed and willing to use their weapons. And remember, they’re murderers. Every last one of ‘em. Don’t feel bad about ending the sorry sons o’ bitches.”

I wouldn’t.

I went to the entrance and stepped inside.

* * *

The stench hit me immediately—why did every building out here smell like carrion? The lobby looked as bad as it smelled. A nearly complete skeleton rested in the chair behind the receptionist desk. It looked equine, but I’d never seen a pony that big. It was like the neon sign outside.

I bit the grip of my Laser Pistol and inched forward. My jaw was tight and ready to end the first pony I saw. I could hear faint voices but they were frequently drowned out by the crackle of small pieces of debris that fell from the ceiling. My heart raced from adrenaline and I peeked into the hallway.

Nopony.

There was a burning barrel about halfway down the hall, casting flickering shadows on the wall. I slipped into the first room, which appeared to be a gift shop or something like that. Bottle caps were scattered on the counter and the surrounding floor. Boxes of food were up on the shelves so I put them in my bag. I saw a safe. I’d probably need what was in there.

I don’t know how to pick locks, but I figured the terminal above the safe had a lock override. They did more often than not. The password was five letters. I got it on the second try: Storm.

The terminal came on and showed three options: Business Ledger, Daily Log, and Unlock Safe. I didn’t have time to see how much money this store made and I really didn’t care about this pony’s diary. I unlocked the safe.

Bits, a title to the hotel, a box of shotgun shells…

“Whoa…”

A gun case lay hidden under the clutter. I pulled it out and opened it and stared in awe at the Riot Shotgun within. It had a glossy black barrel with a strange red tint to it and a massive ammo drum. The wood of the stock looked charred but was polished to a shine. I looked it over, taking in all of its beauty. That’s when I noticed the word scrawled in letters that looked like blood.

“Perdition…” It was a gun important enough to have a name. It’d be a shame to leave it here. I loaded it with the shells from the safe, it held fifteen, and emptied the safe into my saddlebags and crept back out into the hall.

I continued toward the voices, keeping an eye and ear out for the deputy. My shadow blackened the other side of the hall as I stepped past the burning barrel.

The voices grew louder as I neared the end of the hallway. I could hear at least five or six ponies in a drunken revel and listened in on them. They all sat around a bonfire, laughing and singing, with the bottoms of their booze bottles pointed to the ceiling. The leader of the group was clad in leather barding that was reinforced with pieces of metal and had large gas tanks on his sides. I nozzle pointed forward, past his head, from both tanks.

Too easy.

I lined up my Laser Pistol; I could try to fire Perdition with my mouth like an Earth pony, but the recoil would probably knock my teeth out. One orange beam later and the revelers were showered with fire. I felt bad for them at first, but they deserved it.

Nothing on them was salvageable so I moved on. They were partying outside the kitchen. The refrigerator was stocked full of food and drink but I would get them on the way out.

The elevator was out so I had to take the stairs. The stairs to the third floor was blocked by debris. The second floor was nothing but hotel rooms. All the doors were shut except one; it was cracked. The muffled cries of a mare came from within.

I heard a thud, a whimper, then a stallion’s voice. “Hush now, Deputy. We’re just gonna do a full body search.” Another stallion laughed.

I knew exactly what was going on in there and I knew exactly how to deal with it. Perdition was going to help me.

I burst through the door.

The deputy was on her stomach with her hind legs spread. One stallion was holding her head down and the other had mounted her.

The rapist crumpled to the floor when I slammed my head to his. The deputy yelped when he was ripped out of her. The rapist was on his back, spread eagle. I stood on my hind legs, flapped my good wing for balance, drew Perdition, and turned him into a mare.
The deputy broke free of her startled captor. He pulled something from a strap on his barding and tossed it at me. It beeped then exploded. I instinctively raised my broken wing to shield myself and a second later, the floppy half of it was gone. I fell to my back, screaming in agony. The stallion came up and gave me some new holes in my gut with his knife. According to my PipBuck, I was about to die.

There was a gunshot and the stallion crumpled to the floor.

The deputy was sitting with her back against the wall. A revolver was in her hoof. She was still crying and hyperventilating. It looked like she couldn’t stand. She dragged herself to me. “Oh, please don’t die on me.”

My side was sticky and every breath was painful. She went through my bags. I didn’t know what she was looking for.

“Aha! Ah need ya to stand up so Ah can put these here bandages on ya. They’ll stop the bleedin’.”

I slowly got up, wincing the entire time. Blood poured from my wounds. She looked up at me. She wouldn’t be able to reach over me if she couldn’t stand. “Uh, can you just kneel down then?”

That was even more painful. The muscles in my abdomen strained and pushed the blood out faster. “Hurry… please hurry…” I was about to pass out again.

She threw the roll of bandage over me a few times and I felt the fabric tighten around me. They were quickly soaked but I felt a tingling sensation in my gut. I still felt the pain but I wasn’t bleeding anymore.

“Thanks.” I offered a hoof to help her up.

“No, no, Ah can’t stand.” She looked up at me and wiped her nose. “Wait a sec, what are ya doin’ here? You just wander in on your own?”

“Kind of. The NCR pony outside ‘officially’ advised against it, but I heard that the Deputy was captured. And here you are.”

“NCR? This here’s mah town.” She paused, then smiled. “Well, Ah’m glad not everypony does what they’re told.”

I knelt down to look at her hind leg. It was swollen but the skin wasn’t broken. “You think it’s broken?”

“Probably. Mr. Horny Horse busted it when they brought me up here.” She looked at the gelded stallion who was taking sharp breaths and covering his crotch. “Why didn’t ya kill him?”

“He’ll bleed out, but you’re welcome to kill him now. Or… imagine if he doesn’t die. I don’t think there’s a potion that can fix that.”

“Ya know, Ah rather like that thought. That’s much worse than dyin’.”

“Wait! You can’t just leave me here!”

“Yes, we can,” I said.

“You have to help me! I’ll die!”

“Or worse,” I reminded him.

We left the blubbering stallion and headed for the exit. The deputy rode on my back since she couldn’t walk.

“Watch the wing. It’s broken.”

“Broken? It’s gone, buddy.”

I returned to meet with the NCR trooper with the deputy on my back. The look on his face said he didn’t expect me to walk out, much less with the deputy alive.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “You killed all those convicts and rescued the deputy?”

“I don’t know. I just got to the second floor. That’s where I found her.”

The deputy nudged the back of my head. “Ah’m still right impressed, stranger. Ah’m sure the rest of us can take care of any of ‘em that’s still up here. Element o’ surprise and all. Ya ever need anythin’, you let me know.”

“There is something I need, actually. I’m looking for my daughter. She’s a Pegasus, only six years old. Seen her?”

The deputy shook her head. “Can’t say Ah’ve seen ‘er. Yer the first flyer Ah’ve ever seen.” She looked at my half-wing. “Shame what happened to ya.”

I wasn’t surprised. I just couldn’t get a break out here. But then the trooper cut in. “We only set up here a few hours before you walked by. Would she have strolled by? Somepony here may have seen her.”

“No, she’s at least a day ahead of me. I got sidetracked.”

“I can file a report and send a notice to our patrols to keep an eye out for her.” He pulled out a notepad. “What’s her name?”

“Radiant Eclipse.”

“Eye color?”

“Why is that important?”

“We’re not going to going around asking every filly for their name. She’s probably the only Pegasus filly out here, but we still need to know what she looks like.”

“Oh. They’re amber.”

“Coat?”

“White.”

“Mane?”

“It’s purple with a gold streak in it.”

“Cutie mark?”

“A lunar eclipse.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It looks like the moon, except it’s orange.”

“Ah. And she’s a Pegasus?”

“Yeah.”

He put the notepad back in his bag. I thanked him.

“Not at all. It’s the least I can do, what with you risking your life to help us out and all.” He saw my mangled wing. “Whoa! What happened?”

“One of the convicts threw some kind explosives at me. Like a grenade.”

“Wow.” He looked up in thought. “There isn’t much you can do about it here other than clean it out. You’d probably want to see a doctor in New Pegasus about an injury like that. They hoard the best of everything.”

“The deputy has a broken leg. Can you at least help her?”

“Oh, yeah. We get broken legs all the time. You’ll be good as new by morning.”

The trooper led us into the medical tent. I was hit by a draft of air that smelled of rubbing alcohol and death when I passed under the flap. A patient lay unconscious on a cot in the corner. His head was wrapped in gauze and he had suffered severe burns on his back. The medic was applying a salve to them.

“Afternoon, doc. Got two more for ya.”

The medic looked us over. She was a pretty mare. Her candy-cane colored mane broke off in small swirls and her think-rimmed glasses magnified her teal eyes.

“Wait… you two aren’t NCR. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you,” she said.

“Now, hold up now, doc. These two really helped us out. They only need quick fixes. I’m sure the captain won’t mind.”

She thought it over for a moment. “Um, okay. But it’s your flank if he does mind.”

She walked up to the deputy and gently poked around on her leg. “Yes, it appears to be a fractured metatarsus. A serious injury, but fixable.” She guided the deputy to a cot. “Please have a seat. I’ll begin the operation shortly.”

Then she looked up at me. “What have you got for me?” I turned, revealing the mangled, bloody mess that used to be my left wing and heard her gasp. “Oh… my…” I hadn’t seen what it looked like until now. The bones at the tips of my wing were gone. Bloody knobs sprouted from the wound. One small section was only dangling by a strip of flesh.

“Oh, and I got stabbed a bunch.” I pointed to the blood-soaked bandages.

“Does it hurt?” the medic asked. “Still, I mean.”

“A little bit, yeah. I’ve been walking around with it broken for a while. The nerves are probably dead or close to it.”

“Oh. That’s, um, not good. All I can do is sterilize it for now. The only thing that could save your wing is a dose of Hydra.”

“Oh? Do you have some?”

“No. It’s very rare and expensive. And it’s a narcotic so NCR medics don’t normally carry it.”

“So I have to walk around with my wing like this until I find some Hydra?”

“No, it needs to be cauterized to prevent further infection.”

“But then I wouldn’t get my wing back.”

“Not necessarily. If you did happen to find some Hydra later on, you would just have to re-open the wound.”

“And by ‘re-open’ you mean cut my wing off.”

“Yes.”

I shrugged. “Well, I guess it’s better than walking around with an open wound.”

“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to tend to the deputy first?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

The medic expertly aligned the deputy’s bones and put a splint on her leg.

“So, stranger, we never was properly acquainted back in the hotel. I’m Deputy Silver Bullet,” she said, extending her hoof.

I extended mine. “Plasma Storm.”

“Just want you to know you’re always welcome here in Thunderhooves. I know you can’t stay, but make sure to visit if you’re in the area. We need more ponies like you around here.”

It made me feel good to see that there were ponies who appreciated what I was doing, even though I’d expect no less from anypony else. I didn’t deserve a reward. I was just doing what’s right.

“Will you be heading out once you get your wing burned shut?” She sounded like she really didn’t want me to go.

“I have to find my daughter. I can’t afford to get sidetracked again.”

“I hate to see you go, but like I said, feel free to come back. We’ll always have a place for you. I’ll make sure of it.”

* * *

I never want any part of me cauterized again. It wasn’t so much the heat as it was the fact that I was tied down. All I could do was flail my good wing around and scream. I was splayed out on my stomach with leather straps around my legs that pinned me to the medical table. They were tight, nearly to the point of cutting off circulation, but they needed to make sure I didn’t move. I was given a dirty chunk of wood to bite down on when the medic brought the white-hot metal to my mangled wing. The hiss of my boiling skin came with the most disgusting smell.

The medic applied the salve to my burns and wrapped my wing in healing bandages. I felt the melted flesh crawl as the magic seeped in and restored my skin.

I didn’t have a stump. I had roughly half a wing. Feathers were charred and twisted in different directions and my exposed grey flesh showed everywhere but at the base of my wing, where my dark purple feathers met my coat. No more pain, but it looked pretty gross.

“Uh, can you just leave the bandages on?” I asked. “It looks better with them.”

“If you want.”

Silver Bullet frowned. “Then I guess you’re leaving now?” She put a hoof on my shoulder. “ I’ll make sure everypony ‘round here knows you’re one of the good guys. Good luck finding your daughter. If she’s anything like you then I’m sure she’s still out there.”

I smiled. “I can’t believe anything else.”

“Well, maybe you two can come back here. I hope you don’t get killed,” she said awkwardly.

Me too, I thought. Me too.