Fallout Equestria: Big Business

by Gallant Aegis

Rating: mature
Tags: Original Character, Adventure, Crossover, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Other
Length: 12898

The telling of the story of a group of ponies that struggled to make an existence for themselves in the city of Tailgrund.

This events of the story take place after the events of kkat's, Fallout Equestria.
WARNING: THIS STORY AND THE DESCRIPTION CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM THE ORIGINAL FICTION
Over two hundred years ago, war broke out between Equestria and its satellite states, against the Zebra Empire. It was a long a bloody war, with great casualties on both sides. As its usually the case with wars, great scientific progress had been made in order for a side to get the upper hoof in the battles. Among the crowning technological achievements there were the megaspells. Insanely powerful magics that allowed for literally the control over life and death on an unprecedented scale. Eventually both sides fired their megaspells, and the world ended. Some survived in underground bunkers called stables, while others managed to somehow survive in that harsh inhospitable world, and slowly they all started to retake the world. Many did not amass to much, some settlements were formed or reclaimed, but now, five years after the cloud cover was broken, two nations, in the truest sense of the words, finally had they borders met.

Published 2014-12-08 21:40:09 UTC
Last updated 2015-07-03 13:54:56 UTC

Chapter 0 Introduction

Chapter 1, Introduction

War, war never changes… Regardless of what any pre-war, ministry washed history or psychology books tells you, from the earliest days of equestrian society conflict was a part of everypony’s life, and ponies were never the fun loving, innocent, and peaceful people that those books made them out to be.

Ponies fought, waged wars, killed, and did countless horrible things lost to the forgotten pages of history, both to others and to each other, and almost all of these wars were waged over resources. It is known to all that ponykind had battled the “aggressive” carnivorous griffins in order to keep their homes and family safe, it is also known that ponies had a long and bloody war with the zebras, the modern world itself still has proof of that, but, few know that in the days before the rule of the Princesses that ponykind also fought and killed each other in the days when resources were scarce, and each pony race formed their own societies and kingdoms. There are also legends of a powerful northern ruler that through the use of black magic managed to enslave the entire Crystal Empire, while it is unknown if the conflict between the Princesses also involved military action, and was underplayed in the history books, but, nevertheless it was all real.

After the bombs fell, and the world took its familiar form, there was no shortage of conflict, from individuals fighting each other for any bit of scrap that they could find, to people who would just not let old hatreds die, to the sick people who killed, raped, and tortured just for the fun of it. These stories are innumerable, with almost all of them were forgotten, and probably for the best. These were numerous , but incredibly small in scale, however recently to the all too long list of long bloody conflicts that the world saw, written in blood and in all capital letters two new big names were added, NCR and Germaneigh. Two nations, in the truest sense of the word, that through diplomacy, scare tactics, bribery, and let’s not forget violence unified huge parts of the world under one banner. Two ever expanding powerhouses, whose borders were destined to collide, and collide they did, a few years ago at the river Rein.

Thankfully, both powers quickly realized that their policies of, if we cannot get what we want peacefully, we are sending in the troops, would not work against the other, since both of them possessed both large amount of pre-war equipment, the people to give them to, and the caps, or the influence to make those people go kill, and die, for a nation, or for a cause that most of them did not actually believe in, or wanted to be a part off.

Separating what was once known as equestria from the Crystal Empire lays the Northern Waste, a huge, inhospitable, frozen wasteland that through the ages has claimed the lives countless brave, and foolish explorers and travelers.

Now as winter is drawing closer and closer, things were not well for the inhabitants of Hole#34, a relatively small mining town in the Waste [1], that also served as makeshift, small scale penal colony. Technical issues cut them off from the rest of the world when their only working radio decided to just stop, and no amount of tinkering, cursing, threats of violence, actual violence, sweet talk,  or prayer could get it working again. To make matters worse, a relatively small cave in injured a few of them, and made them lose weeks of hard work, and weeks of food. Their main food store being located above the collapsed area, and the nearest resupply caravan a good two weeks away, a whole week more than their food will last, even if rationed.

More out of desperation than anything else, the mayor, or the warden in the prisoner's eyes, decided to send three of their best fliers on the month long journey to the nearest settlement, and hope that they would be able to reach someone, though hopes were low.

With every passing hour, as more and more people realized the gravity of the situation, things looked more and more grim, whispers and rumors of possible violent actions by the prisoners, most of which were ex-raiders and ex-slavers, became ever more present and scarry. Fear spread like wildfire, and the people in charge were actually considering not if, but when they should kill the prisoners, and there was talk of making supplies last longer through “alternative food sources.”

On the second day after the messengers were sent out on their suicidal journey, one of the largest blizzards that anyone could remember hit Hole#34, and what little hope the most optimistic of them had was completely and utterly shattered. The pantry was approaching depletion, and people were desperate, angry, scared, and armed. Only luck and the divine will prevented violence from breaking out until then, but it seemed that both of those things ran out at the same time, and everyone was asking for action from the warden, some even said that if she is unable to do it, then they would take it upon themselves.

“Everyone shut the buck up!” a little voice rang out from the crowd, much louder than it normally should, causing everyone to do just that and turn towards the voice.

A small yellowish green unicorn filly, her mane a dark blue, wide open, almost white eyes staring at them, and an eye for a cutie mark was just sitting on a minecart, covered from hoof to glowing green horn in dirt.

“Good, now that you scared little foals are finally quiet, I can get back to my nap, wake me up when the tall lady with the food gets here,” she said before lifting a chunk of dirt and covering herself with it, as one would do with a blanket.

Before the crowd could understand what the crazy filly meant, they were blinded by a flash of light, as two entities manifested in front of them.

One was a pony, slim and tall, a unicorn mare by the shape of her face and the long horn sticking out of her forehead, her baby blue coat, and long white mane barely visible under the hood of her quite massive winter cloak, the faintest aftermath of a magical glow still linger a bit at the tip of her horn.

While the other was, or at least looked like a cistern truck that had steam coming from its back, not from any exhaust ports or anything like that, but straight from its back. However the most shocking part, the thing that both confused, shocked, and to a lesser degree disturbed everyone was the fact that it had a face, with eyes, snout, a mouth and a tongue that was sticking out almost like a dog does when it is panting.

A soft motherly smile showed itself on the mare’s face before her horn glowed and she started talking.

“Citizens of 34,” her voice was soft, but amplified by magic so that she could be heard. “We received your message and arrived here as fast as we could. We have brought food for all, medical supplies for your injured, and a new long range radio to replace the one you have. Now, the spell casted on this little guy, would last for ten to twenty minutes, I recommend that you all wait for it to wear off, since the way one would get the food out of him, the way he is now I mean, is… not very appetizing to look at,” she said while scratching what could be best described as the truck’s head.

A short moment of confusion, followed by a shocking realization and without a word the citizens nodded in relieved assurance that everything would be just fine, they went back to work like nothing had ever happened. Half an hour later, the Come to Life spell that affected the cistern truck wore off and the thousand liters of hot stew was fed to everyone and the rest bottled up. The canned and preserved supplies filled the pantry, and the injured were cared for, the mare in her part proved to be a skilled medic that used her magic to heal many of them within a few hours, so that the supplies she brought would last longer.

Now healed, fed, and with their spirits lifted the inhabitants of 34, citizens and prisoners alike resumed their daily business, the miners continued digging and ferrying the ore to the upper layers via minecart where it was put into large containers ready to be shipped away, the guards still kept an eye on the prisoners just in case, but for the most part things went back to normal.

The truck reverted back to normal some time ago, and the unicorn mare was just sitting beside her, just writing some things in a small notebook when the blind green filly from before approached her.

“Huh, you really need to learn to pace yourself,” she said when she was just a few feet away.

“Excuse me?” the mare replied in her soft voice, no longer amplified by magic.

“You are excused,” a smirk was on the filly’s face, proud of her joke. “But really, you should learn to pace yourself, you came pretty close to burning out back there. I would expect that from a filly, or from one of the dumbasses downstairs, but not from someone like you.”

“How did you...” she paused for a bit gathering her thoughts. “How did you know I was close to burning out?”

“Breathing,” she answered matter-of-factly. “Your breathing is shallow, it’s been like that for a while, honestly, don’t they teach you big city guys anything nowadays?”

The mare opened her mouth to reply but before she could say anything the filly continued.

“The way you walk and talk. You were going to ask how did I know you were from a city, and I was generous enough to spare you the effort. Right, so unicorn, mare, in her mid twenties, lives in a big city, quite a powerful spellcaster, knows Teleportation, Come to Life and a decent amount of medical spells, so judging by the way you walk and talk my caps would be either soldier, actually no, an officer or a mage,” she paused for a bit, “more likely military, a mage would pace themselves better. So how did I do?”

The mare, quite surprised, and with many more questions than before, simply replied “Not bad, three, maybe four out of seven, not bad at all. So, mind if I ask what exactly what do you want?”

“Nothing much really. I am just a curious little girl, who was wondering why the buck they send someone like you to deliver supplies to this hellhole, in this Celestia forsaken place?” the filly asked with an innocent demeanor.

A bit surprised by the bluntness of the question, as well as by the language the filly used, the mare couldn’t help but reply.

“You know, you remind me of a dear friend of mine,” she said with an innocent chuckle. “Both of you are really smart, and perceptive, and...” she chuckled again,  “both of you tend to use the same tone when talking to people.”

“Nice guy I’m sure, now would you be so kind as to answer my bucking question.”

“Well the short answer would be cause I was the closest. When news of your predicament reached Tailgrund, it only took us a couple of hours to get everything ready, and well a few moments for me to reach this place.”

“Do you think I’m dumb?” the filly raised her voice. “I know how teleportation works, you can only go to a place you know, and I know you’ve never been here before. Only one of your official types came here, and that was months ago.”

The mare just nodded. “What you say is true, but you don’t have to personally go to a place to know exactly who, or what is there. Sometimes, its enough that a really close friend of yours goes somewhere, and you can see things through their eyes.” She gave the filly a little wink, and then facehoofed when she realized that there was no way for her to notice her gesture.

“What did you do?” the filly asked, in an almost patronising tone as the facehoof was still ongoing.

“Nothing,” the mare replied, trying to think of something to change the subject to, in order to not admit to a blind filly that she gave her a visual cue. Clearly that will not be going on her report.

“Umm… Umm...” she looked around desperately for something to use, something to do, but, all that she could think about was just teleporting away, burnout be damned.

Thankfully luck was on her side today, as she saw a group of workers just sitting around an electrical heater trying to figure out what to do now that they were off shift, when an idea popped into her head. The mare got up, and trotted towards them, the filly following close by.

“Hello,” she said to them to grab their attention. “I couldn’t help but notice that you are bored, might I make a suggestion?”

“Go on,” one of the ponies replied.

“Well, there are a few hours before I have to leave, and I noticed that there are very few recreational facilities around here, so I was wondering if you would like to listen to a little story I know?”

Their ears, as well as the fillies perked up at that, but quickly went back to their normal position because of the cold, but the mare had clearly gotten everyone’s attention. The workers shifted about to make room for the speaker, and for the filly to take a sit.

They did just that, and the mare’s cloak opened up in the front revealing the clean pressed mage uniform underneath, to the surprise of everyone there, except the filly who couldn’t see.

“Now then, once upon a time....”

Chapter 1 Once Upon a time in Germaneigh

Chapter 2, Once upon a time in…

“Once upon a time in the magical land of Equestria...”

“Wait, wait, wait...” the yellow-ish green filly interrupted the narrating mare. “Everypony already knows that story.”

“No, I don’t think they do. I am sure of it. Now, would you be so kind as to be quiet and let me tell my story, pretty please,” again the mare facehoofed as she realized she was trying to use the sad puppy eye technique against a blind person.

“You did it again, didn’t you?” the filly asked with a deadpan expression.

“Shut up, White-eyes,” one of the worked said. “Let the mare tell her story.”

“Yeah, shut up,” the rest of them joined in. “Carry on miss.”

“Thank you.” she cleared her throat before continuing with the story.

“So, as I was saying…”

Once upon a time in the magical land of Equestria, or at least the northern part of it, in what could possibly be considered the northernmost NCR settlement, the small town of Haliflanks, a small company was undergoing a recruitment drive.

“Blue Rail Caravans is now looking for skilled ponies for both scavenging of pre-war resources, hauling of pre-war resources, and the guarding of the ponies who are busy with the scavenging or hauling of pre-war resources. Large groups welcomed, experience is a plus, but not a must.

Safe work, good pay, easy hours, free meals, apply now!

See Blue Rail Caravans recruitment headquarters, Haliflanks, NCR.

Bring your own guns and ammo.

Management.”

These messages were all over bulletin boards, nailed to dead trees, and could be found plastered at seemingly random locations across multiple NCR towns all over the region, as well as on the sides of the roads, on pre-war billboards, on the sides of ruined carts and rusted vehicles, basically everywhere and anywhere somepony might come across one of them. Whoever made them invested a considerable amount of caps into advertising, so they clearly had the caps to keep their promise. That was at least what most ponies that came across the flyers thought.

On the day of the recruitement, the town of Haliflanks was flooded with people who wanted to join, or who came here to take advantage of them. Some believe that more than two hundred people arrived on that day alone.

You had your standard mercs, and professional scavengers, who left quickly after they arrived, unhappy with what would be their cut, and of course the pickpockets who only came there to make these unhappy people even more so. But, the vast majority of people who came, and actually stood in the long lines, patiently waiting to reach the ponies that were in charge of signing everypony up, were your average wastelanders. Ponies not affiliated with any group or company, with little to no training, no jobs, no prospects, no caps, and the few of them who were actually armed, had either you standard wasteland varmint rifle, or some sort of small caliber pistol or SMG, most of them in need of repair.

Of course there are exceptions to every rule. But out of the dozens of ponies there, there were a few of them armed with actual decent weaponry, some shotguns, and even some exotic weapons like an actual sword, a crossbow, a laser pistol, or even a recharger battle saddle. And one could see even a few pieces of actual armor.

One by one the people moved in an orderly fashion toward the company ponies, a few basic questions were asked, like what’s your name? why do you want to join? do you know that you might be away for a couple of days? or do you accept these conditions, or this salary? All very standard stuff for a NCR business.

In charge of one of the lines, behind a desk and an ever growing pile of applications stood a greyish blue mare, with a black and white mane and tail, that for over an hour was forced to ask the exact same questions, and receive, for the most part the exact same answers, probably thinking to herself that she would kill for a little distraction. Sure there was the odd pony, like a pegasus dashite, or a white and pink feathery hippogryph, and a few unicorns, but most of the candidates that she had to signup were scrawny earth ponies with earthly colored manes, tails and coats, and even some unicorns that shared the same color scheme.

“Next pony, please,” the mare said after finishing signing up the dashite, who, apart from name, Optic, her dashite mark, and the fact that, to put it in her own words, she can shoot things really well, she was just as bland and uninteresting as the rest of them.

“Name?” she asked, not lifting her muzzle from the piece of paper sitting on her folding desk.

“Solance,” a somewhat masculine voice replied.

The mare lifted her gaze to eye the pony, but all she could see was a tuft of yellow hair and a purple horn at the other side of the table. She stood up, just to make sure that the boredom was not affecting her vision, or she was going insane, she was not.

As she saw in front of her stood a purple unicorn colt, a bit on the chubby side, with a golden mane and tail. To his sides two very big magical energy weapons were mounted on a heavily modified battle saddle, that if it was any larger it would be bigger than the colt. Backpack on his back, and a miner’s helmet tied to his neck, which was odd yet didn’t compare to his clothes - a pair of very tight boxers, with a very distinctive pattern more fitting for a gentlepony of the night, or a dancer in one of the more, “special” places in the NCR, and a pair of sunglasses.

“Are you sure you are in the right queue, kid?” the mare asked, not exactly knowing how to react to the pony in front of her.

“Pretty sure,” the colt replied, looking up at the mare. “Blue Rail Caravans recruitment right?”

“Right...” the mare trailed off before sitting down. “So… what’s with the getup?”

“Huh?” The question caught him a bit off guard.

“Oh, these… I was told that people would pay more attention to me if I wore them,” Solance said with an innocent enough smile on his face. “Do they work?” he asked looking at the mare, and then at the ponies behind him.

“Now I personally wasn’t there, and this has happened some time ago, but legend has it that that conversation made so many ponies uncomfortable that after Solance signed up, only one more person stood in line after him.”

“Everypony noped away at the speed of nope,” the filly, White-eyes said, barely contain her laughter. “Clever way of making sure you get the job, make sure no one else who is sane sticks around, cause the crazy ones get turned down by the ones in charge. Brilliant I say!, Brilliant!”

“Shut up!” everypony but the storyteller yelled out.

The filly just pouted, and did so.

“Now as I was saying...”

“Right… Um… I really don’t know what to say to that. Maybe?” the mare shook her head in an almost childish manner before carrying on. “Just put your mark here [2], and go over there.”

“Sure,” he said grabbing the pen with his telekinesis and writing his name on the sheet of paper before returning it and trotting in the direction the mare pointed him in.

“Next pony, please,” she could not help but follow the colt with her gaze, mostly out of curiosity and confusion than anything else.

“I guess that would be me...” a voice with a bit of an odd tone.

Turning toward the sound of the voice, the mare noticed a rather odd looking griffin walking towards her, no other pony anywhere in sight. The griffin, or hippogriff to be precise he had back legs were those of a pony, except for the feathery tail, had white feathers with bright pink tips,  and a baby blue coat covering its pony side, and I say its because it was really hard to tell if it was a he, or a she. While its mannerism, and colors may have made one believe she was a mare, its body structure and voice seemed male, though it was almost like it tried to make its voice a bit higher pitch to disguise the fact, so just to not make it awkward lets just call it a he.

“Bright Flush sweety,” the griffin said towards the mare, “former mercenary if you can believe it. So how about you just give that little clipboard over so I can fill it out. These things are a little bit more useful than your cute little mouth.”

While there was nothing particularly naughty in the words, there was something in the way they were said that caused most ponies to stop what they were doing and just look at the two. The mare turned a hot pink, mostly from the stares of everypony, while the griffin was just busy filling in the form, before passing it back to her.

“See... I told you, my claws make short work out of anything~”

The mare coughed nervously as she took the clipboard back, and made herself busy going over the information. A few snickers, sighs and whistles came from all around, making the pink mare even pinker, while the griffin only huffs and ruffled his feathers.

“Anyone of you lovelies know a place to stay?” he asked everypony.

Grabbing all her files and pretending to be in a hurry, the mare made her way towards the main building, but not before telling Bright Flush, as well as everypony else that they can use the company barracks for the night.

Inside the barracks there were about forty double military bunk beds, and roughly that many lockers and footlockers, but only a little over a dozen ponies and one hippogriff, with so many beds and so few people to sit in them, ponies could just sleep wherever they pleased. Everypony, and griffin, just chose a bed and made themselves comfortable, for many of them it probably had been days, maybe even months or years since they slept in an actual bed.

“Now again I wasn’t there, and the details are a bit sketchy, but there are some accounts of the existence of a jewel encrusted… toy…” the mare said with a blush, “present in the possession of one of the individuals, but it was never mentioned, or talked about ever again.”

The night was pretty uneventful, the ponies there got to know each other a bit, but rarely were more than a hoof-shake, claw-shake, or hoof-bump  and a name were exchanged, the ponies there knew each other in only the broadest definition of the word.

Morning came rather quickly, and unknown by those who slept, some ponies came in and woke up only particular individuals, gesturing to them to grab their gear, and not make a sound as to not wake everypony else up.

Somewhere around eight in the morning, the mare came in to wake up her group. Maybe she complained to her bosses, or just had the luck of the draw, but somehow she ended up with the most colorful group of individuals, or maybe she was the lowest on the company totempole and she just ended up with the weirdos, we may never know.

Inside the room were probably five of the strangest individuals the Wasteland would ever see. First you had a white unicorn with a red mane, that went by the name of Rapid Repair, he wore a mechanic outfit, as well as a hoodie that kept his face mostly hidden, and carried a crossbow on his back as well as a quiver with barely a dozen bolts, he was either the best shot in the world, or did not plan too far in the future. His cutie mark was a stretched out retractable ruler.

Secondly there was a unicorn mare, Black Tea, just like Rapid she was pure white, but her mane was black, just like her namesake. She wore a black pre-war businesspony outfit, that was rather well kept, despite being over 200 years old, and a matching fedora and sunglasses. All painstakingly chose to accentuate her already attractive physical characteristics. Her weapon of choice though did not make any sense, or maybe it did and no one could piece it together, but regardless the mare carried around with her a silenced .22 SMG, a rather heavy weapon, but small, subtle and with very little kick. A steaming cup was her cutie mark.

Optic, the dashite mare from before had a grey coat, and a dark blue mane and tail, sporting a duster on top of a military flak vest, and a pair sunglasses. Just like Black Tea, she was also rather attractive looking, the fact that she was a pegasus only adding to her charm. She carried a rather simple scoped varmint rifle  as her primary means of protection. Obviously any trace of her cutie mark was removed when she was branded, but according to her, it was a snipers crosshair, and she was, again according to her, one of the best damned snipers the Enclave had to offer, and when she left their entire sniper division cried.[3]

Bright Flush wore a tribal armor, and assorted helmet, that was clear for everyone that weren’t his to begin with, but has since made his own, and carried a particularly long .357 revolver, and a sword that somewhat matched his outfit. Surprisingly enough, despite being a griffin he had a cutie mark, and a complicated one at that. It could be best described as being a blend between the typical male and female symbol, with a heart instead of a circle, in rainbow colors, and with sparkles around it [4].

Then there was Solance, the blond colt that somehow scared away almost everypony from joining. Lantern helmet and sexy underwear, magical energy battle saddle, recharger rifles to be more specific, and no cutie mark on his flank whatsoever.

And lastly there was the mare that was supposed to be in charge of them. Gallant, as she introduced herself, wore what could be best described as typical mercenary attire, with a fade, worn out patch half-hazardly attached to it, a bandoleer across her chest filled with extra ammo for her heavily modded .32 rifle that she wore on her back. With a utility worker’s lantern helmet on her head, and a pair of binoculars tied around her neck, she looked by far the most competent and well equiped out of the lot.

“Good morning everypony,” Gallant said as they were getting out of bed. “And congratulations, you are now fully fledged members of Blue Rail Caravans, your official company designation is Team 4, I am Gallant Aegis and I have been chosen to lead you for the foreseeable future.” She was trying to act cheerful, but it sounded more like a well rehearsed speech, this was not the first time she was in charge of ponies.

“Since this is your first day at the job, it is my job to inform you about the more important and sensible particulars about the mission we are about to undertake together. But before I do that let me remind you that you all signed confidentiality agreements and copies have already been sent by night courier to the NCR central government for validation.”

Everypony looked a bit confused at the mare, but before they could voice their questions or concerns she continued.

“Now then, about the mission at hoof. Until recently the journey towards the city of Tailgrund, as well as the city itself was extremely dangerous because of the multitude of raider groups that inhabited the area, and used to call that city theirs. However we have it on good authority that they finally killed each other and the city, and all its valuable pre-war technology and knowledge are just right for the picking, and we at Blue Rail Caravans, are going to extreme lengths to have first pickings. According to our sources, we have about four to five days before the news spread to our competitors, and about two more until they can organise a massive expedition. Now, this is where you come in. We are… were, in need of ponies to do the scavenging, as well as protect themselves from any dangers that may show itself. Even if the raider menace is gone, there are other dangers in the wasteland. Alright then, we are the last group to depart, so lets try to hurry up, and show everypony else that group four is the best.”

Her little pep talk was meet with a general, meh, attitude, as everypony was just busy dressing up and making sure they did not forget anything.

“Great, now that everypony is ready, lets move out.”

The more she talked the clearer it became that she had some sort of an accent, but nopony could place it.

“Say,” Rapid asked after about an hour or two of walking. “Where exactly is this Taildrund place?”

“Oh, right. Getting from Haliflanks to Tailgrund is easy,” Gallant replied almost instantly. “You just have to follow this road, it shouldn’t take us more than a fulls day or so of light trot. There are a few places along the side of the road, some pre-war diners and rest stops, but they hold no interest to us, and have been picked clean a long time ago.”

“A whole day of walking?” Bright Flush asked, his voice showing traces of annoyance. “If I knew it was that far away I would have wore something lighter.”

The rest of the group shared his annoyance of the long journey they have to undertake.

Some minor chit chat happened between them, but the only thing worth mention would be Black Tea’s attempt of asking Gallant if they couldn’t be closer than friends, to which Gallant promptly replied with a clear nope. Let just say judging by her attitude, people rarely said no to Black Tea, especially when she asked if they could be more than friends.

“Apparently not everypony is up for fun and games this morning I guess,” Optic added with a snicker to the even more annoyed Black Tea. The group made good time as they were to keeping up with her huffing and puffing, as she tried to move as fast as her sexy flank would take her.

After a hastily eaten lunch, they resumed moving at the same speed, and made it to the rest stop with time to spare, where they spend the night. However from the location designated as their campsite, one could easily see the tips of the skyscrapers that Tailgrund was famous for, tallest among all of them stood Hoofway Tower, a testament to the strengths of pre-war engineering and technology, a monstrous, by comparison, building that stood well over 2500ft tall [5].

Their destination in sight, the group went to sleep happy that because they made good time, they would be getting some extra hours of sleep, things couldn’t be better.

Chapter 2 Welcome to Tailgrund

Chapter 3, Tailgrund

The sun rose to signal the start of a new day, and act that only five years ago, would have filled the world with so much wonder, and hope, now, especially for the younger of the group, was just another early summer morning, and early it was.

Since they made good time, everypony expected that they could use it to get extra hour or two of sleep, but that was not the case. Bright and early, at six to be more precise, Gallant was already dressed, her gun swung across her back, and was all too eager to wake everypony up so that they can get even more closer to the rest of the teams, who had a great headstart from the beginning, and whose team leaders were probably pushing them just as hard, if not harder.

Moans and groans came from the ponies as they slowly complied and got up. A short breakfast and in less than half an hour they were already on the road.

The second part of the journey was significantly shorter than the first, and if they kept to their planned schedule they should reach the rendezvous point in less than twelve hours. Thanks to Black Tea’s attitude they made it in nine and a half.

With each step the group took, more and more of the city revealed itself, and it goes without saying that for most, a city that was design to house about half of a million ponies, and provide them with working spaces, in industry nonetheless, as well as all the creature comforts a pre-war Equestrian citizen expected, was a sight to behold. And the scale of their mission, scavenging such a place came quickly into view, and it never seemed more massive, or harder.

After traveling through the suburbs for a bit, just blindly following Gallant, since she seemed to know where she would going, they heard the very thing that no one wants to hear when one is in a completely new environment, relying on the guidance of a pony they know little to nothing about.

“Something doesn’t seem right.” Gallant said, not realizing she was thinking out loud. “Guess they must have walked at a faster pace as well,” she tried to reassure everypony. “Okay, listen up, the other teams have moved onto the secondary meeting place further inside the city, lets all take a short break and rest up before we go join up with them. We move out in ten.”

With german precision, exactly ten minutes later, Gallant told the ponies that is was time to go, and the group was heading to their new location.

Before they even began walking Gallant took this time to make sure they all knew what to do.

“Normally, Mister Deep Pocket would have briefed you, but since he is not here that responsibility falls onto me. Like I said before we left Haliflanks there might be still some dangers here, especially now that we head deeper into the city. So I would want all of you to be extra careful, and tell everyone if you spot anything that could be dangerous.”

The group just nodded in agreement and were on their way.

The suburbs of Tailgrund were weirdly designed, and felt just wrong, they were unlike any other post-apocalyptic Equestrian city the ponies were used to. The streets were unnaturally wide, so much so that all six of them, could easily walk side by side down the street, with enough space between them to fit six more, the sidewalks were just as disproportionately wide by comparison to the rest of the cities in Equestria, and aside from that, almost all the houses had a rather large unfenced front yard. Literally the only things that stood in their ways were a few downed power poles and trees, not a vehicle, or ruin in sight, for the most part even the roads looked well. No dead bodies or skeletons of any kind, no rubble, almost no craters and no more bullets holes than anywhere else in the Wasteland. This city almost looked... livable.

The ponies, for their part were vigilant, but from time to time their curiosity got the better of them, and split away from the group to investigate one thing or another, but only for the briefest of moments. They were curious, not stupid, never mind suicidal, like other curious ponies that the Wasteland seemed to punish with almost a sadistic pleasure for their curiosity.

During one of their minute detours, the hippogriff, Bright Flush, called everypony over, because, for the first time since they entered the city he had found a corpse, well three corpses actually. Three freshly killed corpses that were stripped bare, and seemingly moved out of sight to what could be described as a random building, and it was only because of the roll of the die [6] that he chose that particular house to look into.

The group headed over there to take a look, and to a certain degree, in a kind of sick and twisted way, were reassured that even this place has a drop of normalcy. The illusion of this place shattered, and everypony returned with their hooves firmly planted on the ground to reality. A few dead bodies rarely shocked anyone those days, and even the colt did not seem phased by it. But Gallant, Gallant was shocked by what she saw, and urged that the ponies would stop wasting time staring at the corpses and just get a move on.

Nopony paid any mind to her reaction.

After a few hours of walking through the suburbs, one identical empty street after another, the group was actually a bit surprised when, from the distance, they could hear both the sound of rushing water, and the more familiar sound of ponies talking. The ponies there, a dozen or so in numbers seemed quite agitated and shaken up, as they seemed to be arguing about something, right beside the riverside.

Knowing who they were, ponies recruited by the company for this particular job, they approached them. As soon as someone from the larger group spotted them everypony turned towards them, guns within hoofs reach.

For some reason the situation seemed tense.

“Who the fuck are you?!” one of the ponies shouted, his voice a bit shaken, and his tone hostile.

Nopony answered.

“Gallant you are in charge, you take this,” Solance said poking her.

“I asked who the fuck are you?!” the same pony asked again, his voice a lot more hostile and confident.

“We are with the company!” Gallant replied.

“That’s what a raider would say!”

A very confused look appeared on everypony’s face from the smaller group, and, while no one said it, the question in everypony’s mind was “the fuck?”

“Were are not raiders,” Gallant tried to reassure them.

“That’s what a raider would say!” was their reply.

“Look at us! Do we look like raiders?!”

“That’s what a raider would say!”

The more the two of them talked the more on edge every pony got, the words itchy trigger hoof would be a fitting way to describe everypony’s mood. As ponies got ever closer to the point where the only next logical step would have been open fire and the side that was still alive at the end was in the right, Solance took it upon himself to try to disarm the situation, literally.

At a point where any small move could have resulted in a bloodbath, one tiny purple unicorn, though it was a good idea if the other’s group weapons would just be yanked out of their hooves by magic. A quick scan of the group and a pretty clear picture came to mind.

Out of twelve ponies, one was armed with a shotgun, three of them had rifles, one had some sort of SMG, while the rest of them had either some sort of low caliber pistols or simple melee weapons, mostly knives and clubs.

“Listen,” Solance whispered to the mare standing beside him, Black Tea. “This may get out of hoof really soon, if we act now we can take them by surprise and take their weapons, then they would have no choice but to listen. So if i take the big gun and the rifles, can you take the SMG and some of the pistols?”

Black Tea nodded in approval before focusing her entire attention towards the ponies in front of her, more particularly the guns they had.

On Solance’s cue the two of them gathered their magical strengths, and put their plan in action. Now, telekinesis is a powerful spell, very versatile, and is one of the most easiest spell a unicorn learns, for most it comes as natural as flight does for griffins and pegasi, but not many unicorns use the spell for lifting, and wielding, more than one, maybe two small objects, and rarely is it used against an opposing force, so even if it was a simple plan, that used a simple spell that both of them were familiar with, the task itself was hard, and as with anything else one does failure is always an option.

Solance on his end did alright considering his age, out of the four weapons he sought to remove from the other ponies reaches, he managed to take all but one of the varmint rifles, however Black Tea failed, and failed miserably in her endeavor. For some reason, stress most likely, she failed grabbing the guns, her telekinesis grabbing instead the hoofs of the ponies who she was trying to disarm.

No sooner that the first pony realized what has happening, that four shots echoed through the air, and one of the ponies fell down, his clothing no matched for the three .32 caliber rounds that hit him straight in the chest, she was dead.

“What the?!” the four ponies that suddenly found themselves grabbed shouted in unison, causing the rest of them to reach for their guns, a few realized quite quickly that their weapons were now floating a short distance above their heads surrounded by a glowing purple aura, the very same aura that enveloped the purple colts horn, and of course that one of them was now bleeding out on the ground, well beyond saving.

At the very same time, Solance’s horn brightness intensified, and in the blink of an eye a thin, see through purple magical film separated the two groups, he was too late with the cast to stop the bullets. The shield, although large enough to protect most of them, it was not big enough to span the entire wide gap of the street and sidewalk they were on.

“Are you retarded?!” he snapped towards Gallant, after the split second it took him to notice the smoking gun. “You blew our only chance of talking them down!”

“They were going to shoot us you fool!” Gallant yelled back, her voice betraying a rather distinctive accent.

Not waiting for their new “enemy” to get a chance to fire back, and possible not used to fighting beside an actual magic wielder, Optic took to the sky and landed on the angled roof of a nearby building, using it, and a chimney stack as cover, pulling out her rifle and taking aim. While Rapid dove for cover behind a chest high brick wall, instantly pulling out his crossbow, and without even bothering to aim, fired it blindly into the crowd, hitting a pony in the shoulder, before hiding himself completely behind the wall and reloading his next bolt.

Scared, and now panicking, most of the wastelanders shot wildly towards the group, a few stray shots grazed Rapid, but of the shots were directed towards the four people that only had a soap bubble between them and bullets that were looking for blood.

What came next, shocked all but the colt.

Something many of you might not know about magical shields, especially unicorn ones. Their decent against heavy weapons, however they are beyond amazing against small arms fire and weapons designed to put a large number of low caliber rounds down range hoping to hit something, or a weak or unarmored part of the target. Some of you might have heard stories about the magical shields of alicorns that stop all but the most powerful of weapons, unicorn shields are not like that, they work not by stopping shots, but by slowing them down.

Out of the dozens of rounds that were put down range, barely a hooffull passed through the magical shield, and a few of the ones that did had so very little momentum left that they just blinked harmlessly off what little armor the ponies behind it had. Some shots did connect, especially the rifle ones, and they did pierce, however all injuries were superficial, on par with some of the more nastier scrapes and bruises.

Bright Flush’s flapped his wings and in a moment he was airborne a couple of feet above the battlefield, just high enough to get a birds eye view, and to chose his target, the rifflepony, but before he could dive and slice his head off with his sword his train of thought was interrupted by a loud sound, and his attention was now on the relatively small house on the other side of the wastelander group.

Pouring out from its doors and windows a hoard [7] of raiders emerged, thinking clearly even in the midst of combat, Bright Flush dove towards a raider, knocking him to the ground, and slashing him over the chest for good measure.

Still charging, the raiders were trampling everything, yelling and screaming obscenities, as well as describing in great detail what the plan on doing to the corpses of all.

The air crackled as two superheated laser beam fired from Solance’s saddle, the surrounding air becoming hot, but the shots, aim towards the charging raiders were off, hitting a wall behind them, the next pair of shots just scorched a nearby tree. Not actually accomplishing anything he returned back to the safety of his shield, giving the guns a chance to recharge.

Black Tea’s horned flared again, this time her magic focused on the very wall Rapid was hiding behind. She knew what she was doing now, and the spell worked like a charm. The brick of the wall became like putty, and molded by her magic, created a personal bunker for her to hide behind, which she did. From a little gap she intentionally left in the wall to use as a firing slit, she aimed her SMG towards the SMG wielding wastelander, took aim, fired, and no sooner than one bullet left the barrel, that the all too familiar and hated click was heard. Her gun jammed.

“Fuck,” she said as she took cover and tinkered with her gun.

Moving towards the edge of the shield, Gallant took aim, four more bullets fire, took down one more wastelander, reloaded, as if it was nothing, just like shooting bottles on a fence.

“My goddess!” Solance yelled “Your company hired these ponies!” His words fell on deaf ears, all were focused on the battle and did not have time for anything else.

“The company is dead,” Gallant replied plainly.

The raiders reached the wastelanders and began hacked and slashed and chopped at them, as the scared wastelanders, now shot at from one side, and assaulted from the other, were being forced to rout, and just take wild shots at whomever the could. Their weapons fared decently against the raiders, but any shot directed at the magical shield just fell to the ground harmlessly.

I would like to say it was an epic battle, but for the most part it was a lot of the same.

Black Tea and Gallant fired shot after shot at the wastelanders,  the later taking down one or two of them before needing to reload, while Black Tea quickly discovered that there is a reason why SMG’s a very niche and not often used weapon, as time and time again, it either missed wildly, or jammed.

Bright Flush, engaged the raiders in melee combat from their rear, and fared quite well, it helped a lot that except for a few stragglers, the raiders were focused on killing the weak wastelanders, and not dealing with the actual competent griffin.

Solance maintained the shield, and took shots at the raiders with his saddle, but only hit once or twice the entire battle, but when he did, the smell of scorching raider could be felt everywhere. While Rapid took his time aiming his crossbow and got a some good hits in both raider and wastelander alike, even putting a few of them down.

Between the savagery of the raiders and the accurate shooting of Gallant, the wastelanders did not last long. One of the last surviving ones made a mad dash for the river, hoping to at least stand a chance of survival, when the sound of a high power rifle, rang out, and the pony’s head exploded, chunk of it were sent flying to shore.

With them dead, the group’s attention focused towards the raiders, the shield is dispelled, only to appear a moment later, cutting off three raiders, from the rest of the group imprisoning them. The remaining raiders were dispatched with surprising ease shortly after. Several times the raiders broke the shield, but Solance just casted the spell again, and eventually the raiders just gave up eventually.

The battle now over, the most of the group wasted no time scavenging the corpses, looking for valuables, and considering if they should bother keeping the crappy weaponry the wastelanders and the raiders were using.

In a stroke of genius, probably caused by the pain of the few shoots he took, Rapid went about stripping the raiders and the the wastelanders, and de-raidefing the raider armor. First he removed the blood, gore and guts, as well as any other pony bits a raider might have decided to keep as trophies or integrated it into their armor, bones and skulls, particularly unicorn one, or at least the horns, ears and teeth, or fangs from other creatures, and so forth. He then wiped it clean for good measure, before proceeding, to tie, sew or just have them held in place with nuts and bolts and wishful thinking, pieces of regular clothing. He might have picked it up from an earth pony mechanic sometime before coming here.

However Solance seemed a bit out of it, and for some reason he just seemed to be staring towards Gallant.

“So,” Rapid said while he was still busy thinkering, “what should we do with these raiders?”

“I don’t know,” Bright Flush answered as he was busy wiping the blood of his sword on a body, “kill them?” He seemed to be putting less of a show now, and his voice seemed more masculine, and less forced.

“I think...” Black Tea started to say, but was rudely interrupted by a scream, followed shortly after by the sound of glass shattering.

Everypony turned their head towards the place the scream originate from, and caught a glimpse of Gallant, her body filled with a dozen magical knives already vanishing from sight, falling backwards and breaking a window, Solance besides her, horn glowing, rage clearly visible on his face.

“You MURDERED them,” was all he said before walking away and leaving the pony to her death.

“What the hell are you doing!?” Rapid yelled dropping what he was doing. Everyone just stared at the scene for a while, not knowing exactly how to react.

“What the fuck!?” Black Tea shouted at Solance, before breaking into a gallop to aid Gallant.

When she reached her, she saw Gallant laying unconscious in an ever expanding pool of blood and glass shards, with ten deep stab would spread across her entire body, bleeding profusely.

“She murdered them,” Solance said to her, in a low, almost monotone voice, but Black Tea did not care for his words, she was more busy trying to administer first aid to the dieing mare.

“Someone bring me a healing potion!” she yelled out, “magical bandages, fuck there is so much blood! Anything!”

Everypony looked at each other, but it soon became clear that nopony had any medical supplies on them, nor did they find any on the dead.

“Hurry!” Black Tea yelled again.

Rapid just took a pile of rags he had laying around to be used for the armors he was working on and rushed it over to Black Tea, who used what little medical knowledge she had to at least stop the bleeding, and keep her alive, even if for a little while longer.

“She is stable for now,” she said after finishing bandaging up Gallant. “But without actual healing, a potion or some bandages, I don’t think she would last long.”

“Where the fuck are we supposed to find a healing potion?” Rapid asked. “We’re in the middle of a city we know nothing about.”

While they were busy arguing and brainstorming where they could possible find medical supplies, Solance walked up to the trapped raiders, who have long since given up trying to break out, and had a front row seat to the violent magic show that the colt put on just a couple of feet in front of them.

“Push your weapons towards the edge of the shield,” Solance yelled at them.

They did just that, and with a flicker of his horn, the shield shunk, separating the raiders from their weapons.

“Who sent you?” he plainly asked the raiders.

Normally one would expect the raiders to speak nonsense, or curse, or talk using only screams and threats, one does not expect to have an actual conversation with a raider.

“What in the world was that?” one of the raiders asked in a quite eloquent tone, catching Solance off guard.

“Wha...” was all he could manage to say.

“Your camarade, why did you use such a gruesome spell on her?”

“Bwahaha...” White-eyes just burst into laughter completely killing the mood and breaking the flow. “Really?! Really? Really! Gentlecolt Raiders? Really!?”

“They prefered the term Shirespearean Raiders [8] in all honestly.”

“Shirespear? The pony that said: To squee... or not to squee. That is the question? That Shirespear?”

Everypony looked at the filly.

“I can tell you are all staring at me. Stop it!” she said defensively. “I read… Or at least I am read to.”

“Right… carrying on...”

“Why did you use such a gruesome spell on her?” the raider asked Solance.

“She deserved it, she killed ponies, innocent ponies.”

“So did we, and you only shot at us, and even spared us three until now.”

“But you are savage raiders, no one expects anything else from you.”

“Hey, we take offense to that,” one of the raider said.

“Yeah, just because we’re raiders that doesn’t mean we’re savages,” another added, while the last just nodded in agreement.

“My apologies then,” Solance replied. “I thought all raiders were bloodthirsty, murderous, rapists.”

“Oh, we are bloodthirsty and murderous, and while some of us are rapists, we are not savages. We only doing it because it is entertaining and pleasurable.” The other two nodded in agreement.

“Right… So… what are you doing here, I heard that the raiders killed each other out and the city is now safe.”

They just chuckled at the notion. “My dear boy, you were either given false, or misleading, or maybe even falsely misleading information.”

“Either that or they could have just interpreted the evidence wrong.”

“Quite true, quite true. Yes, that might just be the case. Hmm… gentlecolts I think we might be able to get out of this certain predicament.”

Everypony, including the one that have since just been listening to the conversation for a while, raised an eyebrow.

“We could not help but overhear your current situation, your desperate need for medical supplies to aid your injured friend, and your life threatning lack of local knowledge. We can provide you with both, but before we discuss this any further, we would like to know something. If there were to say, raiders between you and the medical supplies what would you do to them?”

“Kill them,” Black Tea said, voicing the opinion of all.

“I see… very well. First to clarify a few things, we did not kill each other, we stopped fighting because we joined forces. Most of the lesser raider factions were coerced into joining one of the larger ones, bolstering its strengths, and causing a chain reaction that made more and more tribes joined. So to put it bluntly, we, and by we I mean we the raiders, control this city. Now, for your other, and more pressing problem, we know of a encampment just a short distance away, and if you are willing to release us, we will be more than will to take you there.”

“What’s the catch?” Black Tea asked, again acting like the voice of the group.

“No catch, the deal is exactly what it says, we tell you where you can get medical supplies, you grant us our freedom. Simple. No catches. No strings attached.”

“Right...” Solance said looking towards the rest of the group, they shrugged.

“What are we going to do with Gallant?” Black Tea asked.

“Well if you give me some time, and some materials, I could fashion a stretcher,” Rapid replied.

“Umm… I could carry her,” Solance said, surprising everyone. “I can grab her with my magic, keeping her completely immobile.”

“Fuck no!” Black Tea exclaimed embracing the unconscious Gallant, gently stroking her mane. “We ain’t lettin you anywhere near her”

“Look, you said time is of the essence, so why wait till we can gather the right materials, and then for him to make the stretcher, then carry her the old fashion way, where every little bump in the road would worsen her condition.”

“Okay you little psycho, talk. First you wanted to kill her, and now you want to save her?”

“I wanted to kill her, yes. But she did not die, even if she should. So if some higher force wanted her to live for now, who am I to go against that. Look, I am offering you my aid. You can take it or not. It matters not for me. But it may matter the world to her, it may be the most important decision for the rest of her life.”

“Fine,” Black Tea said after a moment. “But I am keeping my eyes on you.”

Chapter 4 Our Suburban Nightmare

Chapter 4, Medic!

In only a few hours, team 4, all but disbanded. One of them was close to kicking the bucket, at the hoofs of another member of the team no less. Member which because of his action earned the distrust of the rest, making matters worse one member, the enclave sniper Optic disappeared during their first battle, and no one can remember if she even fired a single shot. They were in a city that they knew little to nothing about, and the things they knew only helped in lowering the moral.

The city itself was under the rule of a raider overlord, and just to make things even more surreal, the raiders seemed to be more eloquent and smart than most wastelanders, and the scary thing was that they were just as fierce, savage, and aggressive as their more common counterparts.

So right now, our five adventurers, one of which unconscious, are being lead by three raider towards what they could best guess was a rival raider compound, where they would probably have to fight in order to get the medical supplies they need.

After about an hour, or two, of traveling through even more similar streets, they finally reached their destination, a small raider compound. A big warehouse, a large dinner or restaurant, and a ruined burned building, surrounded by a chainlink fence with barbed wire on top of it, and two makeshift scrap watch towers watching over everything.

True to their word, the group let the raiders go, not actually caring about future consequences of their actions. With them gone the group could focus on the task at hoof and nothing else.

Across the street from the compound, an almost intact two-story house stood. After opening the front door, and briefly checking for traps they made their way to the second floor to get a better view of the compound, and the ponies living inside.

“Two in the warehouse, two in the towers, one sniper on the roof,” Bright Flush said.

“I think there are at least these many more inside,” Solance added.

“How do you know?” Rapid asked him.

“It would make sense if you think about it,” was his reply. “So what should we do? Just hang back here and gun them down?”

“I will sneak in the back and take down the sniper, quietly,” Bright Flush said already planning the way he was going to enter.

“I will go to the roof and shoot them from there,” Rapid added.

“Ugh, I am going to stay here there, take some shots at them and I think Gallant should stay here as well, its safer.”

“Yeah, I am not going to let you alone with her,” Black Tea told Solance.

Each of them, knowing what they wanted to do, and having a vague idea what the rest were doing moved into position and waited for Bright Flush to either kill everypony, or to get caught.

It started well enough. Bright Flush moved around the raider base, keeping at least a house between him and the compound, until he reached what he believed to be a blind spot in their defense, with a flap of his wings he went over the chainlink fence, crossed the empty lot, and landed on the roof without making as much as a sound. Slowly he crept closer and closer to the unsuspecting sniper pony. Keeping low to the ground and using what seemed like a mixed of training and natural instinct, he moved within pouncing range of the unsuspected pony, and…

“What the?!” the pony turned around to see the fierce white and pink hippogriff just a few feet away from him, sword drawn, and murderous intent in his eyes.

“Fuck,” he managed to say before Bright Flush pounced on him, stabbed him, but the pony managed to avoid being hit in a vital spot. He grabbed onto Bright Flush and the two of them plummeted to the ground from the roof of the warehouse. Luckily, it seemed that the hippogriff new a thing or two about aerial combat and he managed to make sure that the pony was the first one to hit the ground, cushioning his own fall.

Two ponies armed with varmint rifles came out of the window and aimed their guns at him, but, before they could pull the trigger one of them received three pairs of twin lasers to the chest, dropping from his window, dead. Two crossbow bolts from the same building and his companion joined him.

Taking advantage of the window of opportunity Solance and Rapid created for him, Bright Flush charged one of the raiders keeping watch from the watchtower, but a shotgun butt to the face knocked him off balance enough for the raider to turn his gun towards him.

That would have meant the end of one brave pink griffin, if not for the actions of a brave white mare. In an act of badass, almost suicidal bravery, Black Tea teleported inside the small watchtower, wrestled the gun out of the raiders hooves, and with all her telekinetic might she threw the shotgun back at him, knocking him of the tower, and onto a rusty bed of nails, impaling him, and killing him on the spot, before handing Bright Flush a hoof to help him get up.

“Oi, boss! Wake up!” the raider standing in the other tower yelled. “We’ve got a bunch of assholes in our base!” A loud shotgun shot from him made sure any raider not aware of them yet, would be coming for our blood.

From within the burned building a dark figure flew out, in less than a second the a rather bulky black pegasi raider, hovered in front of Black Tea, and with a maniacal grin pulled the lever on his flamer and a stream of highly pressurized gas spew from the nuzzle, ignited by a tiny flame and started to burn the brave mare to death.

Driven by adrenaline, pain, and limitless anger [9], Black Tea, still burning, moved closer so that the long nuzzle of the flamer stood to her side, and from point blank fired her red hot .22 SMG into the pegasus face, dropping him instantly.

“THAT WAS MY FAVORITE SUIT!” she yelled, trigger still being squeezed by her magic, and bullets continuing to lodge themselves into the more than dead pegasus.

As this was going on, two more raider came to the window and because the ponies in the tower were just out of sight they started shooting at the two obvious ponies in the house across the street.

Noticing them, with a flick of his horn, Solance casted his shield spell, but only this time he made it take the shape of the wall, letting the window open so that he could shoot back. Rapid took a shot at them, but the just bolt hit the wall.

The ponies in the window opened fire with their service rifles, putting down a barrage of bullets aimed at both ponies with surprising accuracy.

“Aaaa!” Rapid yelled as half a dozen bullets hit him, making him drop his crossbow and crawl towards the roof access hatch, bleeding the entire way.

Solance for his part did not even notice the bullets, between the wall, and his shield, despite not having any armor, the bullets hurt less than a shot from a BB Gun, the wild shotgun shot from the raider sentry did even less, the buckshot not even piercing the wall.

As Rapid continued to drag his injured body downstairs, Solance returned fire, turning one of the raiders to ash, as the other ducked for cover.

“Rapid!” he yelled as he saw the nearly dead pony shambling into the room. “Fuck, get over there besides Gallant.”

He moved towards the ruined couch that Gallant was laying unconscious on, and after tearing some of the fabric he managed to at least stop some of the bleeding, while Solance continued shooting at the raiders across the street. Bright Flush pulled out his revolver, took a few shots at the pony in the other tower, grazed him twice before having to duck down to reload.

A mixture fancy shooting from Bright Flush’s revolver, and a multitude of twin laser beams from Solance’s saddle took out the last raiders, Black Tea helped as well, but most of her bullets were aimed at the dead pegasus, until the clip of the SMG ran out, then to add insult to injury she took his flamethrower and made it her own.

“We should check the the buildings,” Bright Flush said as the ponies entered the compound, except for Solance and Gallant. He decided to stay behind to act as a look out, while Gallant had very little say in the matter.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Black Tea added following the Griffin towards the warehouse entrance.

The warehouse was old, even by wasteland standards, built with brick rather and iron and sheet metal, it had at least one windowed floor, and two entrances. One was a large wooden door that did not seem to have been open in over two centuries, while the other, and a smaller pony-sized side door.

Bright Flush moved toward the door, his back to the wall, and lifted his gun up, ready to kick the door open and go in gun blazing, all he needed was a fedora and a trenchcoat and he would have looked like one of those griffins from those pre-war crime novels, Ugly Hairy, or something like that.

“The’re all dead,” Black Tea told him as she just opened the door and took a step in only to be meet with a barrage of gunfire, only Bright Flush’s quick reaction pulling the mare out of the line of fire saved her life.

“Fuck!” she cried out applying pressure to her new wounds.

The griffin peaked around the doorway, took a couple of wild shots before turning to the rest of the group.

“Three guys, maybe four,” he yelled out, hidden behind some crates. “Rifles all of them, if we could...” he paused and took a look at the state of the two unicorns next to him. Both Rapid and Black Tea were shot up pretty bad, and they had to use rags just to make sure they wouldn’t bleed out. They weren't in any state to siege a building.

“Nevermind I’ve got this. You two go to the kid and tell him to fire inside the building, that might just give me enough of a window to get in and find some cover,” he said as he took a few more blind shots into the building, not even looking where he fired.

The two of them just nodded and made their way towards Solance and Gallant.

The colt just nodded and started firing inside the building, two-three double laser rays enter through the window every few seconds, and one even managed to hit a raider that was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Taking advantage of the distraction he was being provided, Bright Flush entered the building and took cover behind some crates, and instantly killed one of the raiders. A lucky laser beam hit the crate two of them were using for cover and disintegrated it entirely giving him a clean shot, two bullets later all that could be heard was the sound of the magical energy saddle firing into the building, but no gunshots.

“Hold your fire!” Bright Flush yelled, and the compound went completely silenced.

A quick, but a lot more attentive check of the other building yielded some promising results three healing potions, some dirty water, and a few cans of prewar food.

Both Black Tea and Rapid rushed towards the potions, but found the little glass bottles yanked out of their grasp by the purple aura of Solance’s magic.

“What the fuck kid!” Black Tea yelled in annoyance. “Give them here!” All her ladylike manerism were long since gone.

“Yeah, what gives?” Rapid added while Bright Flush just had his tallon at the ready on the draw just in case it got ugly.

“Look before you go about chugging healing potions like your lives depended on it hear me out,” he wasn’t the most social of talkers. “There are the only options we have, and Celestia knows when we would get more, so we need to make them last...”

“I have like ten bullet holes in me,” Rapid plainly said.

“I have that and I am burned all over!” Black Tea yelled. “If you think I am...”

“Would you shut the fuck up and let me finish! Look, if instead of drinking the potion you soak bandages in it, and then apply them to the wounds it would have the same results, it may take a couple of minutes, but you can make at least two healing bandages from each potion.”

“Oh, so that’s how they're made,” Rapid said mostly to himself.

“Right,” Solance continued, “we need something resembling clean fabric to tear apart and make bandages, and then let them soak in the potion, we should be able to make five, maybe six from what we have on hoof.”

“What?” Black Tea asked noticing that Solance was looking at her.

“We need clean fabric.”

“And?” she asked before realizing what he meant. “No. Fuck no!” she yelled at him. “You ain’t tearing my suit to pieces. Fuck that.”

“Okay,” Solance said turning around. “I guess we could use whatever rags the raiders use for Celestia knows what, I just hope they are not covered in diseases or fleas. But hey, I am not going to be the one applying them to open wounds, or to sensitive burned skin.”

Only Bright Flush could see the smile Solance actually had on his face when he said those words, and the griffin could not help but smile, internally that is, the words you manipulative little asshole came to mind.

A shiver came across the mare as the image of a flea infested, disease piece of cloth, that some raider used to wipe their tears or other bits, being wrapped around her delicate, elegant physique, and also across her innocent pretty face came into her mind. And, without a single word, she took off what remain of her once elegant suit, now little more than tinder except for the piece covering her back, and tossing it to the colt.

“Thank you, how very generous,” Solance said as he poured the contents of the bottles of potion into an empty tin can, and, after rippling what was left of the suit right in front of its previous owner, he shoved the strippes of material into the same can, and allowed the fabric to absorb the healing liquid. “Shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.”

While waiting for the bandages to be ready for use, Black Tea took a sit next to Gallant’s unconscious body and started gently stroking her mane, calming herself down in the process, Rapid continued work on the de-raiderfied raider armor, while Solance and Bright Flush went out to see if there was anything of value left in the compound, and to take whatever useful things the raiders may still have on them.

“Okay kid, tell me this,” Bright Flush said to Solance as they were searching the boxes in the warehouse, well out of earshot of the rest. “Why did you decide to help us? And don’t give me any of that higher force bullshit, cause I aint buying it.”

“You want the truth?” Solance asked opening a crate with his telekinesis.

“Of course.”

“Fine, the truth is that I don’t give two fucks if that mare lives of dies, it would make me feel better if she did.”

Bright Flush stopped searching and reached slowly drew his claw closer to his gun, keeping an eye on the colt.

“But,” Solance continued. “But, I didn’t want to die. Don’t get me wrong, if I got my shield up, I doubt that any of you could hurt a hair on my head.”

The griffin now had his claw firmly on the stock of the gun, and was getting ready to whip it out, and put two into the back of this arrogant little colt.

“But this city is dangerous, and I would probably die alone, and I didn’t want to take the chance. There is safety in numbers after all.”

“So that’s it?” Bright Flush said releasing the grip on his gun. “You helped us out cause you needed us?”

“Pretty much,” he replied moving onto the next box, completely oblivious to the danger his life as in. “As you said it I need you, and you guys need me. We are in this shithole together, and everypony we lose would reduce our chance of survival considerable.”

“Kid, I don’t know if I like you or not, but I think I trust you enough to not stab us in the back.”

“Nope, I alway stab in the front,” he said jokingly. “This place is a bust, most of the boxes are empty, or filled with garbage, literally. Lets take what they had on them, and see what we can do with it.”

“Right.”

“Also, Solance, my name is Solance, not kid.”

“Right...”

Chapter 6 A Town Down Under

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