Chapter 4: Hunted

“I just saw the bitch here. She can’t be that far.”

Another day being the infamous Mother of The Zona, the mare somehow thought responsible for destroying an entire town.

A gruff-voiced earth stallion with a twin autorifle battle-saddle stomped around the remnants of a forgotten rock farm. Boulders ranging from pony to shack sized peppered the area, waiting patiently for a harvest that would never come. With a hearty kick, the stallion pushed over a massive boulder and spun around to aim at... nothing.

“We’ve been here an hour already, Earthmover,” whined a slim unicorn mare sporting a poncho and a wide brimmed desperado hat. She twirled a revolver in her magical grip as she spoke, her muffled voice coming from a mouth covered in a dirty bandana. “You sure she hasn’t ran off already?”

The stallion snorted and kicked over a boulder with as if it were made of styrofoam. “No. I know she’s still here. I can feel it.”

The desperado scoffed and twirled faster. “Yeah. Right. Just like how you ‘felt’ her back in Tarnation Junction or how you ‘knew’ she was hiding in a crowd at Shallow Sands.”

“That was different.” His eyes remained trained on the task at hand.

“That filly with a hole in her shoulder doesn’t think so.”

“But we SAW her go in HERE.” boomed the stallion as he shot her a grim look. “It’s. Different.”

The gunslinger winced and shook her head, avoiding the stare. “Sheesh. Don’t need to tear my head off.”

He stared quietly at a sharp boulder and pushed it with his forelegs. “My wife was supposed to be in Plumwood for the week. Caravan guard. She’s....” He paused and looked at the empty pit the boulder had caused and sighed. “No. I’m not going to stop. Not when she’s this close.”

The unicorn shook her head. “Yeah. Right, sorry.” She casually wrapped a small boulder in her telekinesis and threw it behind her. “Forgot about that. I can still remember the smoke in the sky. Crazy shit. Shame, too. They had some pretty tasty plums--” She almost dropped her pistol after double taking, her mind registering the cowering form of a pregnant unicorn at the bottom of the shallow pit, covered in dirt and weary from exhaustion.

“Please...don’t...” the mare begged with pleading eyes as she clutched her belly protectively. Her lower lip trembled in defeat.

“Hey, Earthmover! I found her!” the slim pony shouted, not looking away from the prize that had cost her an afternoon catching dozens of easier, better paying bounties. She took a magical fistful of her mane and dragged her out of the pit, tossing her into the mud at her hooves. “Don’t move. Make this easier for yourself.”

“What? Oh shit, finally!” bellowed the earth stallion. His heavy battle-saddle clattered as he trotted impatiently towards his partner. He looked down at the mare sobbing quietly in the mud. The sight made him scowl in disgust. “So. You’re the bitch that stamped out Plumwood.”

"I-I didn't, I swear..." Leaky stammered out between suppressed sobs.

“Shut up, bitch!” he roared as he kicked her in the face, her head bouncing off the ground with a sickening thud. Leaky yelped in pain, tears flowing down her already-bruising cheeks as she began to sob in earnest. She curled up, crossing her forelegs in front of her face in a meager attempt to shield herself from the ruthless follow-up.

“C’mon Earthmover, stop playing around. It’s getting really fucking dark really fast,” the slim mare nickered irritably as she leaned on a boulder. “Besides. You beating up a pregnant pony is as pathetic looking as I thought it’d be when you dragged me out here with you.”

The stallion's glare didn't flicker, burning holes into the sobbing, pregnant mess with each passing moment. “Fine. Get me the hacksaw.” He kicked the lever on his battle-saddle and loaded his massive machine guns. He leaned in close to her ear. “This is for Honeydew, cunt.”

With a choked wail, she cried out with all her breath, “DOG!”

The earth stallion stepped back in confusion from the sudden outburst. Before he could retrain his rifles at the helpless mare, the earth beneath his hooves began to tremble. He barely got a chance to glance around before the ground beneath him exploded, sending him spiraling into the air. His scream turned into a choking cough as fingers the size of his legs wrapped around his neck and slammed him against a boulder, staining it scarlet. As the unicorn turned to look at her partner, gun slipping from her grasp, an unearthly howl shook the world. The next thing she knew, she was on her back, the unnaturally bent form of her partner pinning her to the rock.

She gasped, scrambling to shove the limp form off of herself, before crying out in pain. Jagged white shards protruded from her knee, and everything below that was only agony. Trembling, she picked up her pistol, desperately firing round after round at the unflinching abomination before her.

BANG! BANG! click. The unicorn frantically reloaded her pistol, the weapon shaking in her magic. She raised it once more, but the beast ignored it, grabbing her head and pressing it into the ground hard enough to dent the rocky soil underneath her. Little cracks and pops could be heard over her pained screams.

“That’s enough, Dog...” the pregnant mare said weakly as she tried getting to her hooves.

The monster grunted and let go of the gunslinger’s head as she coughed through tears, her voice raspy and sore. It walked over to the pregnant mare and scooped her up in its fiendishly muscular arms.

“No... Dog... I can walk...”

“No walk. Mama hurt. Dog carry.”

The unicorn, all but forgotten, quietly took her chance. The pistol glowed and clicked as she reloaded it. Vindictively, she carefully aimed it at the mare’s head and squeezed the trigger.

CLAK!

Her heart dropped.

CLAK!

CLAK!

CLAK!

She looked down at her pistol, a look of bewilderment stamped on her face.

“It’s the mud...” responded her target, her orange eyes fixing empathetically on her would-be murderer, even as she drifted out of consciousness. “Revolvers have... openings... dirt and mud... clean quick, before... flana... min...” She went limp in her companion’s arms.

The assassin looked at her pistol angrily and tossed it at the pair. The Hellhound simply turned, the attack bouncing pathetically off its shoulder. Without a second glance, it began to walk away.

“Dog no kill. But they hungry.”

As if on cue, a chorus of ghastly, high-pitched shrieks echoed across the rock farm, the noise reminiscent of all twenty gates of Tartarus opening simultaneously.

Flanamingos.

The mare struggled beneath her partner, screaming ever louder as the shards of bone began to tear further out of her knee. “Wait! You can’t leave me here! Th-The Fla...Fla...You have to help me!”

Dog picked up the pace and disappeared beyond the maze of rocks. The panicked mare searched for her mud-covered pistol and picked it up, the barrel looking more like a colt’s failed pottery project than a useful weapon. If it was ruined before, it was useless now.

Shadowy figures darted around the mare, dodging in and out of rocks. Within seconds, the mare was surrounded by low hisses and a hymn of gnashing maws.

Tears streamed down the mare’s face as she put the ruined pistol to her head and squeezed the trigger, looking for a way out, any way out.

CLAK!

CLAK!

CLAK!

****************************************************

“Day 2 of ‘Momma Watch’ out here in the Zona and the pregnant cunt is still out there, keeping her head down, probably plotting on bringing down whatever bastions of civilization this fucking place still has. She’s good at hiding, I’ll give her that. Just like I’d give that pet Hellhound of hers a new hole to breathe through.

To rebump it to my morning listeners, I’m offering a five hundred cap bounty on her head for what happened in Plumwood, plus a shot at my sister if you can manage to bring down that mutt she wanders around with. I’m poor, you shit.

In other news, still no word from the neighboring town of Stirrup after two days of radio silence. Ponies who’ve gone to investigate have reported remnants of thrown tables, broken-in doors and a whole lot of hoofprints, though no bodies, bullet holes or ponies on fire have been seen that would link it to whatever-the-fuck happened to Plumwood. What was found was a neatly folded paper at the gate of the town that just said ‘It is your time.’

Spooky shit, eh?

I’m still betting on the “Mother of the Zona” having something to do with it. It makes me lactate with rage knowing that somewhere in this shitty place, this broad is out there listening to this, leaving stupid notes and having a laugh. Well bitch, you know what you did. And best of all, the whole Zona knows.”

*******************************************************************************

“She did WHAT?!”

The Overmare stood at the mouth of Stable 16, face flushed with rage as she stared at the throngs of exhausted children from Plumwood. The eldest of the children wore a familiar Stable security armor and the second oldest held a magenta machete in her mouth.

“T-The pony told me to show you this,” the oldest spoke up.He pulled a rectangular cartridge from his saddlebags and handed it to the fuming yellow mare. She glared at the hunk of composite plastics for a moment, then grabbed it with her mouth and inserted it to her Pipbuck.

***BEGIN TRANSMISSION***
“Hold on, Dog, it doesn’t look too bad...”
“Dog no feel good, Mama”
“Stop calling me that! You’re gonna be fine! Leaky Faucet’s log, day 2, time...whatever time it is! I don’t know! Goddesses, the shrapnel...children, don’t look!”
“SHLUK!”
ROOOOOOOOAAAAAAGH
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
“Children, please! Overmare Sunny Days, it’s Leaky. I found a town about two days from Stable 16 called Plumwood. At first it looked like the perfect place for our people, but then I found the children from the town trapped in a cage. The townsponies were...giving them to bad people, ma’am. Their mayor...I...I’m sending them to Stable 16. Please take care of them until I or any other Savior finds a place for our people--”
“Dog...take nap now...”
“Dog! Please! Overmare Sunny Days, I beg you--”
***END TRANSMISSION***

The recording stopped, leaving the infuriated Overmare only more confused. And angry.

She looked up at the children. It was night in The Outside. Many of them were shivering, probably hungry and most definitely tired. She scowled at the imaginary Leaky in front of her, who the Overmare imagined just took pleasure out of making her already-difficult life even harder.

A security guard with a dingy pistol in his telekinetic grip leaned forward and whispered into her ear. “You want us to close the Stable door?”

The Overmare rubbed her eyes with her hooves. Her best mathematicians had helped her to best distribute the Stable's supplies amongst the population. Adding the droves of children Leaky had dumped on her would upset the already delicate balance she had worked hard to achieve.

“No...The children can stay in my room. Allocate all of my future rations to feed them.” She would have to hold out on nutrient paste. She’d go hungry, but she wouldn’t starve. She hated nutrient paste.

She shook her head and waved the children inside her Stable as they hurriedly shuffled inside, eager to escape the cold bitterness of a night in the Outside. “Fucking Leaky.”

*************************************************************************

“What do you mean I can’t come in?” Leaky stood at the heavy sheet-metal doors of a gated town with high metal walls protecting it from the harsh reality of the Wasteland. A ragtag group of armored and heavily-armed ponies formed her welcome committee, pointing their sea of weapons down at the unarmed, unarmored and heavily pregnant unicorn mare.

“We hurd what the ray-dee-oh said. We hurd whatchoo did” a scraggly-haired earth pony responded with a thick drawl through a mouth featuring several missing teeth. “If we lechoo in, you’ll jus’ kill us all, too. Ah’m too smart fer yer lil’ tricks, missy.” He hocked a wad of chewing tobacco spit at the floor in front of the Stable 16 dweller.

Leaky stomped her hoof in protest, to which her welcoming committee responded by retraining their weapons on her. “I didn’t kill anypony! I wasn’t even there for what happened after!”

A homely stallion with a serious case of underbite snorted and retorted. “Whuddubout the mayor. We hurd yoo shooted her right in the head. In cold blood, too.” The rest of the guards nodded and let out grunts of agreement. Leaky recoiled at the accusation.

“It was out of mercy! She was dying! She was...she...” Leaky’s voice trailed off. She could have given Plum medical attention. She could have spared her and let the ponies of Plumwood tend to her wounds. She could have even shot her in the legs instead of fatally wounding her. But she didn’t.

Leaky looked to the ground, ashamed. Her eyes stung as her lips began to tremble. Her entire time in this Celestia-forsaken place had been one awful event after the other, and after all of that, her mission was so ruined that no town would even open the gates for her? She broke down and began to sob quietly in front of the gates, making some of the guards look at each other and grimace at successfully making a pregnant mare cry.

“Ah, jeez...Look. We ain’t gonna kill yoo and turn yoo in fer the reward, becuz we’re nice ponyfolk like that and yoo saved all those kids,” added the scraggly haired earth pony. “And also becuz I didn’t like Plumwood anyway. Bunch of fags makin’ the town of Hayseed look like dirt, with all their plums n’ shit.” One of the guards lost his footing and fell backwards off the ledge he was standing on.

Leaky wiped the tears from her eyes and looked up at the earth pony. “Th-Thank you.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. If yer lookin’ for supplies, a caravan just left due south of here, yoo can make it if yoo book-it now.”

“Okay...Thanks again,” responded Leaky. She stared up at the line of guards as they stood unmoving, pointing their weapons at her. She despondently turned tail and made her way through the dirt trail that led to the outskirts of the town of Hayseed. The guards, satisfied, began retreating off the wall.

“And don’t come back now, y’hear?”

Leaky walked towards a large boulder near the dirt road. A conspicuous head poked out from its side, then retreated back to hiding.

“You can come out now, Dog.” Leaky said with a dejected sigh. She had given almost everything to the children of Plumwood to make their trip back to Stable 16 safer, including most of her food and water. She had hoped the town of Hayseed would at least be sympathetic enough to her to let her gather supplies there.

“Mama get?” asked Dog as he lumbered from behind the boulder. His chest was wrapped meticulously with a thick layer of clean bandages, and his face was no less covered. Leaky had used most of her healing supplies trying to stop Dog’s bleeding and remove all the shrapnel embedded in his body by Plum’s grenade rifle, but her basic knowledge of first aid had caused her to waste more than she needed. The fact she had kept changing his bandages whenever they got dirty didn’t help her supply problem, especially since the fiend was fussier than any foal could ever be.

“Dog, please stop calling me that.” She sighed and shook her head. “And no...they didn’t let me in.”

Dog grunted and started towards the dirt path as he cracked his treetrunk-like neck. “Dog hurt town.” Leaky’s eyes shot open and she grabbed onto Dog’s massive hind leg.

“No! Bad Dog! There’s a caravan down the road! We can catch up to it and get supplies there if we hurry!”

The Hellhound stopped and looked down at his savior. “But Mama no run. Mama has pony inside.” He was right. Leaky was in no condition to run, being this far into her pregnancy. But she didn’t want another strike on her record of Wasteland’s Most Wanted for unleashing a fiercely loyal hellbeast on a town that wouldn’t give her supplies. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but no words came out.

“Dog carry Mama again.” Before Leaky could decipher what he meant, the monstrous mass scooped Leaky from her hooves belly-up and started a sprightly jog unbefitting of the Hellhound’s size.

“Wh-AAAA! NO! DOOOG! PUT ME DOOOWN!!” But Dog was too focused on getting mama the supplies she needed. Wearily, Leaky felt that all she really needed at that moment was to not be carried like a little filly. And a bucket.

****************************************************

After a few minutes of dry heaving, the caravan was in sight. Dog carried Leaky behind a hill and set her down. She groggily tried to regain her composure, almost falling on her face a few times. “Never… do that again, Dog,” she muttered as she fought back the urge to empty the contents of her unfed stomach. Dog shrugged. At least they had caught up to the only source of supplies for miles in every direction.

Leaky wearily made her way over the hill to meet the caravan. As she approached its miniature summit, she started hearing voices belonging to a heated disagreement.

“...A hundred caps?! Last week it was seventy five!” shouted a beige earth pony with a smooth, black pompadour. His white, ripped blazer matched his tattered patience. “This is fuckin’ highway robbery.”

He stood in front a dark gray mare with a curly black mane, who was leaning next to what appeared to be a two headed cow. She confidently shifted in her scarlet saloon dress and crossed her fishnet-covered forelegs. “You heard me, babe. Gotta pay attention to that supply and demand. And I am very in demand.” Her eyes remained dimmed, her smile sly and sure of herself.

The stallion with the slick manecut huffed and shook his head. “This is crazy. You’re crazy. Your rotten snatch is not fuckin’ worth a hundred caps.”

The mare shrugged and turned towards her mutated cow creature and pet it, who was absent-mindedly chewing on a mouthful of sand. “Oh well, what can I say. Come back when you have the dosh, honey.”

The angry customer reached into his blazer and pulled out a small pistol. “Fuff thaf. I’ff getting it fofrr free,” he spoke with the miniature weapon clenched in-between his teeth. The caravaneer froze and turned slowly, still wearing her same confident expression.

“Relaaaax, Jailhouse. We’re cool. And just because I like you, I’ll give you a free ride.” Her hoof slowly started to travel to her hip, furtively reaching for the small derringer she kept for unruly customers such as this one. “Let’s just head back to my place in Hayseed, buy a few drinks, light a few candles--” The mare was cut off as the stallion twitched, a sharp crack echoing off the landscape. She froze, not daring to breathe, until her brahmin collapsed behind her, blood pooling from each of its heads. She turned her dauntless smile back at Jailhouse. “Or here. Here is cool.”

Leaky reached for her machete and pistol—groping blindly at the space by her hip, before remembering how she had given them away to the children of Plumwood for protection. She turned frantically at Dog and whispered loudly. “Dog! We need to do something!” Dog looked up at her from the hill she was up on and stared blankly.

“What Dog do?” he asked.

“I don’t know! Anything! Just stop that guy!”

The pompadour-sporting scofflaw motioned diagonally with his weapon. “You knowff the drillf. Assf upf, doll.”

The gray salesmare leaned on her still-warm beast and rolled up her dress, flicking her tail to the side and giving the slimy patron access to her backdoor goods. He snorted in victory and placed both hooves roughly on her flanks to begin positioning himself. “Well, ain’t you the charmer.”

A blood-curdling roar cut him off from any further banter, the bellow echoing off the surrounding mesas, coming from a dozen directions at once. His head darted from side to side, frantically looking for the source of horrifying noise. It wasn't hard to find. Three tons of death ran towards him with unholy speed, cutting halfway through the gap between them in moments. The would-be rapist dropped the pistol from his mouth in shock and turned tail, stumbling as if his legs had turned to spaghetti. His terrified shrieks still echoed long after he disappeared into the maze of canyons around them. The mare pulled her pistol from her waist and shot four bullets at Dog’s chest, each bouncing off ineffectually. Dog halted his charge and backstepped, confused.

“C’mon, you fuck,” grumbled the mare as she pulled a shotgun from her dead beast’s pack.

Leaky burst from out behind the cliff. “Wait! He’s with me! He’s not going to hurt you!” She carefully but hurriedly hobbled down the hill. The salesmare kept the shotgun trained on the behemoth and looked at Leaky out of the corner of her eye.

“What? You own this freakin’ thing?” she cautiously retorted.

Leaky approached the armed gray mare as if the ground were made of eggshells. “Well...own is a strong word...” Dog looked at Leaky and shrugged his massive shoulders. “But yeah. He’s with me. I told him to help you.” She turned to her companion and nodded sweetly. “Dog, go back behind the hill, please.” The bandaged Hellhound gave his savior a frown and begrudgingly skulked back over the hill.

The gray mare slowly lowered her shotgun and scoffed. “Jeez, that thing really does listen to you.” She turned her full attention to the pregnant unicorn before her and squinted with realization. Something clicked in the sly earth pony’s head. “Wait a sec...Ha. As I live and breathe. The Mother of the Zona.” She shifted her shotgun.

Leaky took a step back as her ears drooped. “Are you going to attack me for the reward? Because I’ve had a really bad day, Miss.” She considered shouting for Dog to come to her aid, but by the time the beast came, she would have already been blasted away by the merchant’s scattergun.

“What? Ha, oh, no,” she said casually as she tossed her shotgun back onto her dead pack animal. “The Zona is pretty scummy, but betraying somepony who saved me from Jailhouse’s slimy dick? Nah, that ain’t my style.”

She sized up the naked, weaponless mare and brushed her dark curled hair out of her face. “Looks like you’re in need of some supplies. Name’s Silk Road. Welcome to my shop.” She grandly extended a hoof to her dead pack beast. Leaky craned her neck to look at the mare’s mobile place of business. Flies were already buzzing around the pooling streams of ichor that oozed from its wounds. Silk paused. “I’ve had better days.”

“Yeah, they wouldn’t let me in Hayseed...what do you sell?” inquired Leaky, much more relaxed now that the barrel of her shotgun wasn’t being waved around.

“Oh, you know,” Silk responded with dimmed eyes. “Bits, baubles, anything I can find. Other stuff. Everyone digs the other stuff. Do you want some other stuff, cutie?” She leaned seductively on the rapidly cooling carcass.

Leaky broke out in a blush and stepped back in red-hot embarrassment. “Ah...n-no thanks.”

Silk shrugged and turned towards the bags the dead beast was carrying. “Suit yourself, honey. What are you hankering for?”

Leaky looked down at herself. She had done an admirable job of laying low so far, barring this morning, but it wouldn’t last long. Sooner or later, someone would come for her, and Dog wouldn’t be able to protect her forever. “I don’t know...maybe some armor? Something light, please. And maybe your cheapest weapon. I don’t have a lot of...whatever you all call these.” She floated out a pouch of lightly clinking bottle caps. Almost a week out in the Zona, and the concept of using these things as currency was still baffling to her.

Silk looked back with a sly smile. “Oh, you think you’re paying for this? What do you take me for?”

Leaky shifted slightly in surprise. “I can’t, please...”

“This isn’t a negotiation, hun” smiled the mare. “You helped me out back there, I owe ya. Now, all I’ve got on me in your...heh...size, is this leather barding. It’s a bit stiff, I found it on some dead fat guy in a bar. He didn’t take too good care of it. But it’ll fit you just fine.” The armor, if you could really call it that, was a simple shirt padded with thick strips of leather. It had metal studs embedded at the shoulders and neck, though some of them were loose and in some parts, just plain missing. Still, it was better that roaming the wastes naked.

She slipped on the leather barding with little effort. It was a perfect fit, which only made Leaky’s nose scrunch. “Thank you, Silk...I appreciate it.”

She waved a hoof. “Nah, ain’t no thing. Now. I don’t have any weapons on me right now ‘cept the shotgun and the pistol I sprayed at your...eh. Pet. And sorry Mother, but I need those to live.”

Leaky cringed at the casual mention of her infamous brand, but nodded. “Yeah, I understand.”

Silk rummaged through the pack animal’s bags and grunted. “Well. I have this bat I found a while back. It ain’t much, but eh. It’s all I can spare. It’s been slow recently.” She pulled out a humble baseball bat from her bags. It was chipped at various points and the grip had been thoroughly chewed by whoever it used to belong to. A faded logo was on its side. It read “Screwy’s Balls, home of crazy crazy deals! WOOF.”

Leaky grabbed the bat with her telekinesis and stashed it away a the slot her new barding had on its back. “I appreciate it anyway, thanks a trillion.”

Silk clapped her hooves together once. “Now then! About me feeding you...”

Leaky’s ears folded. “No, please, this is too much...”

The gray salesmare scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Nah. Trust me. I’m a whore, but I’m also a great cook.” She nodded towards her pack beast. “And that guy has a lot of meat.”

***************************************************************************

“...The two were found dead in the ruins of the old Balboa Rock Farms. The guy had the entire back of his head crushed and his neck snapped, and the mare was pretty much eaten alive. Some sick shit, eh?

What makes it sicker is that eyewitnesses confirm the “Mother of the Zona” was seen fleeing from the pair into the Balboa Rock Farms. I’m not saying the cunt somehow crushed a guy’s neck and caved in his head, then ate the other broad alive just for the fuck of it. But her pet Hellhound? That’s another boiling pot of flanamingo shit entirely, ponyfriends. So don’t be like these dumbshits and somehow forget this bitch has an 8 foot tall nigh-indestructible bodyguard with her at all times. At least pack a grenade launcher or some anti-armor rounds or a flamethrower next time, you fucks. Or else next time, I’d be telling my faithful listeners about how this big son of a bitch turned YOU into potpourri—“

“Aight, guy, that’s enough out of you,” said Silk Road as she turned off her radio. She took another bite of her steak. “Fuckin’ blowhard.”

Leaky had dug through three servings of steak, two cans of pork n’ beans, and a whole mess of something Silk called “Wasteland Salad”. She didn’t even notice she was starved until Silk had begun frying up the first steak, filling their little camp with the thick smell of succulent meat. Her stomach made weird noises as she had decimated her first steak, but she was too hungry to care. And now, she was satisfied.

“What’s his problem?” asked Leaky, wiping her muzzle clean from the aftermath of her meal.

“Who, Muckraker? Eh.” She waved her hoof at the thought. “He’s just some good-for-nothing raider who found radio equipment one day while being a degenerate scumfucker and scavenging pre-war buildings. Now he just spouts probably-made-up bullshit about his “conquests” and his old days of being a raider. When he’s not playing badass music, of course.” She shrugged. “He’s an annoying bastard, but no one kills him because he’s pretty much the only radio station in the entire Zona. That, or they genuinely believe his ass, since he’s pretty much the only news source we have.”

Leaky carefully placed her knife and fork on top of the massive pile of plates before her. Seeing Leaky’s plate cleaned for more than a minute, Silk started putting away her pots and pans. “Throughout my years as a traveling whore slash cook slash merchant, I’ve lost eight pack brahmin. Yet, that fuckin’ blowhard has been the only constant in this place. Whether that’s funny or sad, I don’t really care that much to find out.”

She began scraping burnt grease from a pan. “Seems like he really took a liking to you, eh?”

Leaky lowered her head. “I don’t know...he’s made my life miserable so far. I just want to finish my mission and get it over with.”

“Yeah. Sucks to hear about that. You seem like a cool gal, I’m sure Plumwood was just one big ‘ol misunderstanding.”

Leaky sunk even lower, but said nothing. Plumwood would be a black scar on her psyche for the rest of her life.

She looked over at Dog, who Silk had strictly instructed to remain far away from the camp she had made. He was picking at the stripped carcass of Silk’s pack animal, sucking the marrow from its bones. “Question is, though… your pet.” Silk’s voice was coarse with venom. “What’s his deal?”

Leaky shrugged. “I don’t know. He was held a in shed back in Plumwood… the ponies there had him chained up, hurt him pretty bad. He said they forced him to dig, and when he couldn’t anymore, they tried ripping out his claws.”

Silk just scoffed. “And what? You just believe his sob story?” She shook her head. “Hellhounds are monsters. Soulless killing machines who attack ponies for fun. I heard stories about you running around with one, but I thought it was just Muckraker trying to make you look even… y’know. Spookier. I can’t sleep knowing that fucker could turn against us at any moment.”

Leaky lifted her head. She remembered how brutally he defended her against her most recent assassination attempt. “Ah… I don't think he’d do that. “

“And what makes you so sure?” Silk retorted with words loaded with vitriol.

“He’s the only reason I’m alive right now... ” she began. “He’s had many chances to run away or attack me, but he hasn’t.”

Silk glowered at Leaky. “Don’t tell me you actually trust him.”

The blunt insinuation took Leaky off guard. “I do trust him. He’s loyal to me, probably more than he should be,” she punctuated. She looked at Dog, who looked back and waved slowly. “So yeah. I do trust him. With my life.”

Silk scoffed and scraped bits of food into a tin can. “Whatever you say, MOZ. You’ll find out soon enough,” she said with a faraway sigh. “Ponies always do.”

Leaky tilted her head at the somber words. “What do you mean?”

She fished a rusty lid from her blood-stained packs and jammed it into the serrated opening of the can, ignoring the question with a slight chuckle. “You should check up on your pet. He doesn’t seem to be the kind that likes being alone.”

Leaky looked back at the hulking beast. He had lifted the stripped carcass over his head with a single muscular arm looking for unpicked parts. He tossed the animal’s body to the ground a few yards away and grunted.

“Hey, Dog.”

Dog’s ears perked at the sound of Leaky’s voice. ”Mama.”

Leaky cringed visibly at the name the fiend had been referring her as since she had saved him. “Dog, please stop calling me that.”

The hellhound blinked at Leaky. “Dog sorry, Mama.”

She opened her mouth to protest but sighed and shook her head. There was no use.

Dog stared expectantly with full attention. “Mama okay?”

“Yeah, Dog, I’m okay.” Silk's words rattled on in her mind. She had to admit, she had her own reservations about Dog as well. “Dog, why haven’t you left yet?”

Dog shifted his weight. “Dog love Mama forever.”

Leaky shook her head. “No, no, I mean… you don’t owe me anything. Why stick around?”

Dog stood quietly, eyes trained on his savior. “Pony hurt Dog. Force Dog to dig. Mean to Dog. But Mama not mean to Dog.” His thick and gravelly voice was saturated with affection. “Mama save Dog. Mama nice to Dog. Dog love Mama forever.”

Leaky nodded slowly. “I understand… I think.” She scanned the beast’s tattered body: his near-mortal wounds were healing much faster than she had thought, leaving not much behind than barely visible scratches under short, wiry fur. His long, fiendishly sharp claws tapped the ground patiently as he hung on her words, jaws quietly snapping behind his closed muzzle. Leaky’s fascination with the wasteland’s twisted creations grew stronger by the day.

“Dog, there ARE others like you, right?”

Dog nodded. “Other dogs”, he snorted. “Other dogs live below. Dogs scared of pony. Dogs no come up.”

She tilted her head at the new information. “W-What? Demons are afraid of us? Why?”

“Pony trick dogs. Pony dump rainbow goop into dog homes without dogs knowing. Pony not let dogs leave.” Dog grunted, his formidable figure highlighted faintly by the dim campfire not far away. “Pony violent. Pony kill other pony. Pony kill world.”

A single unearthly warble rang out in the distance, followed by another, and another. Within moments, a chorus of shrill cries joined them

“WELP,” shouted Silk from the small camp. “SHOW TIME.”

She dove into her packs, cursing every second she dug through them not finding what she wanted. She reared back, clenching a jar of dark viscous goop in her teeth. Without a moment’s hesitation, she popped the lid and began smearing her face in the fluid.

“What? What happened?” asked Leaky as she trotted towards her. As she got nearer, the putrid, sour smell of the fluid attacked her nostrils, causing her to shield her nose from the assault.

“A lot of things, MOZ, a lot of things,” retorted Silk as she worked down to smearing her forelegs with the goop. “Say, you’re not afraid of blood, are you?”

Leaky squinted and turned her head slightly. “Ah… not particularly, I gue--”

“Great!” interrupted Silk as she threw a glob of the dark goop at Leaky’s face. She sputtered and gagged as some of it landed on her tongue. The taste was horrid, somehow worse than it smelled. It was sour and rancid beyond what Leaky considered possible. She opened her mouth to gasp for air, only to have Silk’s slimed hoof rub the goop all over her face.

“S-Stop! What are you doing? Agh!” She recoiled away from the rancid ambush and began to wipe the fluid away. She could feel the oily substance already clumping deep into her coat.

“I wouldn’t do that, MOZ,” Silk said as she threw more globs at Leaky’s forehooves. “That’s flanamingo blood. It’s pretty much the only fuckin’ thing that repels--”

A chorus of shrill, ghastly screeches echoed across the fog-washed plateaus and plains of the Zona, like a concerto from Tartarus building up for one last encore.

She motioned grandly at the direction the unearthly sounds came from. ”Yup, there you go, right on time.” She tossed Leaky a pile of rotten wood. “Here, feed the fire.”

As the plateaus' deep shadows rapidly crept upon the camp, Leaky carefully arranged the wood, piece by piece. She wasn't sure what was going on, but between the horrifying noise and Silk's taut expression, it was clear that she needed to move quickly. Every second was a minute, and every minute a second. There wasn't enough time in the world, but every second of creeping doom felt like an eternity.

“Silk? What’s happening?”

Silk pulled out her double-barreled shotgun from her pack and scoffed as she gathered shells from her bags. “How long have you been out here again?”

“Wha..? Like.. four days, I think?”

“And you’ve never been in the middle of a fuckin’ flanamingo stampede?”

Leaky’s jaw dropped. “A WHAT?!”

The shrieks on the other side of the hills were growing louder and louder with each passing moment.

“Yup. If you thought one was fuckin’ terryfing--” she tossed her small derringer to Leaky. “You might need this.”

Leaky looked down at the small double-barreled pistol. If she wasn't careful, she could swallow it. She wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but she couldn't help but feel that the bullets could barely tickle one flanamingo through its carapace. Against a whole stampede? "What?! No! We have to hide! We can't fight them!

“No, you doof, we aren’t fighting them,” she pushed a terror-stricken Leaky near the brightly-burning camp fire. She quickly surveyed the area the warm light cut a small swathe through the inky darkness and drew an X on the ground with her hoof. “Sit down, right… there.”

Dog lumbered from the darkness and engulfed the small X with his rear as he sat down. Silk shouted at the beast and pushed against it futily. “Not you, you fat fuck!”

Leaky looked to the sky. The hills surrounding them were pitch black, only recognizable from their outline created by the sky’s dying light. Numerous dark figures appeared from the horizons and dashed across them. Their shrieks vibrated throughout Leaky's body. She couldn't tell if the erratic pounding of her heart was excitement, fear, or some combination of the two.

Silk shoved her to the ground next to Dog and jumped over her, landing on her flanks. She loaded her scattergun and shouted at the top of her lungs. “I hate this paaaaaaaart.”

The ground vibrated as the shrill shrieks grew into a deafening din surrounding them. Hundreds of clawed feet threatened to break the world in two from the sheer numbers that surrounded Leaky and her companions. The roaring campfire flickered in the wake of the stampede, bringing the nightmare of a purple-chitin tsunami in and out of reality. Gnashing maws snapped together in unison, ignoring the terrified pregnant mare and parting a small wedge in the ocean of hungry death like a tide around a stone.

The small pistol in Leaky’s telekinetic grip shook erratically, her aim leaping from one purple shadow to the next, wondering when to shoot, if to shoot, what to shoot.

“I wouldn’t waste the bullets, MOZ...” Silk shouted from behind her. “That gun isn't meant for them...”

Out of the sea, one featureless face turned towards them before leaping from the stampede with a shriek, ready to tear into defenseless prey. Silk’s scattergun roared back at the darkness and blasted the leaping monster mid-air, sending it spiraling back with an agonized screech. A horrible keening wail came from beyond the wall of beasts where it landed, answered by hoots and shrieks as small chunks of carapace splattered against Leaky’s barding.

Another of the avian-like atrocities took interest, dashing straight towards the trio and leaping, hurrying to get to the fresh meal across the gap. A burst of thunder drowned out the stampede for a moment, and the limp form of their attacker fell to its eager brethren below

“Agh! Fuck! Shit! I need to reload!” she sputtered as she reached for more shells, spitting ichor-ridden gray matter from her mouth. Another beast leapt from the darkness at her as she hastily shoved the first shell into her weapon, dodging past her defense only to find its neck pulverized in an equally monstrous granite grip, still twitching with anticipation for the kill.

Silk looked back at Dog and leered, slamming her loaded weapon’s breech shut. Another burst of light illuminated the dark plain they found themselves in. And another, and another, each blast bathing the wave of identical gnashing faces in a stark white light for just a moment as, somewhere in the Zona, a very pony-like scream signaled that some of the stampede wouldn’t go hungry that night.

*********************************************************

“WATCH OUT, ONE’S RIGHT ON TOP OF YOU.”

Leaky’s eyes shot open as she let out a wild shriek swinging her baseball bat wildly into the air, nearly striking Silk with it several times.

“Jeez, calm down there slugger!” she exclaimed with a smile, nonchalantly ducking.

Leaky sat in wide-eyed terror, bat half-primed to swing. Last thing she remembered, she had been smack-dab in the middle of an ocean of hungry death. She looked around wearily at the foggy plains around them: dead flanamingos dotted the area, victims of either ravenous betrayal or fatal misteppings. What little plant life there was on the dry, cracked earth was mauled haphazardly, effectively ruining its chance into ever growing into something meaningful.

“You kinda just passed out in the middle of our little last stand there,” Silk chuckled as she picked small, round pellets off the floor and dropped them into a small glass jug. “Left me and your pet to fend off those fucks all alone.”

“Oh, Goddesses, I’m so sorry...” pleaded Leaky as she looked around looking for her faithful companion. She spotted him absently crunching on the empty shell of a flanamingo, savoring the last of his breakfast.

“Nah, don’t be,” the merchant started as she shook the pellets around. “Not much you could have done, really, with that pea shooter I gave you. And your pet helped me out a lot more than I thought it would. I’d still put him down first chance you get, if I were you. But still. I appreciate his help.”

“Yeah...” responded Leaky, still jarred from the most recent traumatic experience the Zona had provided her. She’d left Stable 16 eager to see the abominations that inhabited the Outside, but after narrowly surviving a rampage of one of its more ferocious creatures, she felt what she could only describe as the opposite of curiosity. She absent mindedly floated one of the pellets Silk was collecting and brought it near. It was surprisingly polished, for the dark color it had. Like something a filly would keep in a box and collect.

“Don’t gather flanamingo shit without a jar, MOZ. Makes great kindling, but it’s pretty toxic.” Silk capped the lid of her jar and shook it around.

Leaky dropped the pellet in disgust, feeling like her brain needed a shower after touching that with her magic.

Silk chuckled and shook her head. “Welp. I’m gonna be staying for a bit, see if I can gather fresh flanamingo blood from the corpses that ain’t run dry.” She shrugged and put away the jar. “Sorry I can’t offer you breakfast or anything, don’t really have much on me at the moment.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” said Leaky as she shook her head. She felt like she wouldn’t be able to eat even if she had the chance. She looked at the heavy bags Silk carried on her back, all the ones her pack animal had carried. “Where are you going to go now, Silk?”

“Well,” she began with a grunt as she adjusted her cargo. “Seeing as I’m short one brahmin and got no way to carry my wares, I’m gonna head back to my room at Hayseed and see if I can’t haggle one free from some inbred coot somewhere.”

She cracked her neck and pointed behind her. “Your stuff is right over thereby. Snuck a jar of flanamingo blood in there on the chance you get stuck out here again.”

Leaky nodded and smiled at her new friend. “Alright, Silk. Thanks. For everything.” She called for Dog, and the lumbering beast eagerly closed the distance between them.

The salespony shook her head and turned tail, beginning her long walk back to civilization. “It’s nothing, MOZ. Keep your chin up. I’m sure shit will get better for you.”

“Leaky Faucet’s log: Day 7, time: 9:42AM in the morning. Quadrant 4A4 is a disappointing failure. The area is perfect for habitation. The water is slightly irradiated, but nothing that can’t be treated, and the ground is shown to be fertile enough for plant life of various kinds of crops to be grown.” She gave a heavy sigh. “Unfortunately, this area is SO perfect for habitation, that I have found many piles of...ah...refuse, belonging to flanamingos. These creatures, I have learned, are products of bioengineering. They are ferocious and carnivorous by nature, and though mostly nocturnal, they have been known to wander mid-day for food. I have personally seen what they are capable of, and seeing this many piles of flanamingo droppings implies this must be a very frequented hunting ground or that this is near a nest or something. I highly advise against this area.”

She ended the recording and sat on her haunches, making sure not to accidentally smear flanamingo manure on herself as she did so. Dog stood on a cliff, looking out for purple trouble. The flanamingos were probably asleep at this time. Probably. Leaky switched on the radio, hoping to catch that jingle that’d been stuck in her head for days to cheer herself up.

“--ayseed has been sacked. I say again folks, the backwater town of Hayseed has been sacked.”

“Oh, no…”

“That makes FOUR major towns so far, all gone down by whatever the hell also sacked Plumwood. Ignoring the fact we have witness reports that our little Mother of the Zona was last seen being turned away from doing business with Hayseed, we finally have eye-witness details on what exactly is responsible for these attacks. This is new to me too, ponyfriends, I’m finding out as I read it to you. Exciting, eh?

“I recorded the interview on holotape. Had to put up with the dude’s horrible accent, so bear with me here. Ahem.

“‘We was playin’ cards with Turnip Jam and the rest o’ the fellas when we heard a voice outside the gate. It was loud, but girly. Was a mare. She said some shit about salvation through old glory or somethin’. The guards at the wall just laughed at whatever it was over the gate. I started getting up and walkin’ to my crawl space because the voice was gettin’ all angry and shit. As soon as I got to it, I heard the gate explode and a buncha hooves marching. I heard screaming and hollerin’, so I ducked into my crawl space and shut the cover until it all stopped. Last thing I saw before I closed the cover were ponies in gas masks and dull bronze armor shootin’ my asshole neighbor with this yellow beam doohickey and him fallin’ to the ground. His eyes was movin’ all crazy and his mouth hung open, like he was awake but couldn’t move. He was starin’ right at me.”

“Welp, you heard it here folks. Ponies with gas masks and bronze armor. Those are the fuckers invading the Zona and stomping out any civilization they see. How do they relate to the big MOZ herself? Who the fuck knows, but we’re gonna find out, aren’t we, ponyfriends? I--
.
..
…

“What’s… ah shit.

“Well, you’re in luck, ponyfriends, you’re gonna get to hear ol’ Muckraker fight some fuckin’ flanamingos. Oh shit, three of them. Big boys, aren’t you? Alright, fuckers, I’m ready for you. Come and get it.”

A sharp explosion bounced around the wasteland, making Leaky flinch. The sound was deafening.

Moments later, like an electric echo, the radio broadcast the same explosion.

“ahHA! Fuckin’ Flanamingo Flambe. Come on, you shits! Join your friend in hell!”

Leaky’s ears perked. She had just heard the same shout in the area.

Muckraker was here.

*****************************************************************

Leaky shimmied up a wind-blasted cliff, trying to track the location of her number one fan. In the scorched plains before her stood an olive drab earth stallion with short, messy, jet black hair, covered in pieces of broadcasting equipment welded on some sort of makeshift armor made of rusted road signs. Above this 'armor' lay the biggest battle-saddle Leaky had ever seen, even bigger than the machine gun battle-saddle of the earth stallion who tried to kill her the other day. A tall antenna jutted from the back of this contraption, crackling with electricity. Muckraker was literally a mobile, armed, broadcasting station.

Two giant flanamingos, each easily twice the size of any Leaky had seen before, circled away from the charred, exploded remains of their kin, cautiously creeping in opposite directions. Their heads were low, their chitinous lips pulled back, revealing their rows of malicious, needle-like teeth. One snapped forwards before darting back, its partner taking advantage of the distraction to leap at Muckraker’s undefended flank.

Causally, Muckraker kicked a lever in his battle-saddle and a port opened to face the flanamingo. As the flanamingo darted back, confused, he broadened his stance and braced himself before biting down on the battle-saddle’s mouthpiece.

Another rocket ripped through the silence of the wasteland, catching the purple monstrosity square in the chest in midair before exploding violently, showering the remaining flanamingo and the armored stallion with guts and gore.

“FUCK yeah! You want some of Muckraker too, you bottom-of-the-foodchain nature’s-reject motherfucker?!” He kicked the lever to open the ports once more, only to be met with a pained mechanical whir. He looked frantically at his malfunctioning battle-saddle. “Now?! No fucking way!” He kicked the lever repeatedly, trying to unjam his weapons as the lone flanamingo puffed itself up dashed towards him with a shriek of triumph akin to nails in a blender.

For the first time in stepping into The Outside, Leaky hesitated saving the life of a pony. Every joint in her body ached for her to charge into the scene and save him from a horrible fate, but her mind wouldn’t co-operate.

It’s him. He’s the pony who’s made your life a living hell,’ she thought impertinently. ‘A few more seconds and you’d be free to save Stable 16 without any more problems. And you want to save him? So he can continue torturing you? You don’t owe him anything, especially after going so far to get you killed. Why would you even consider coming to his aid after turning the whole Zona against you?’

The chitinous monstrosity arched its neck back and gnashed at Muckraker, a narrow dodge saving his life but unhinging the microphone he had used to spread Leaky’s misery all across the Zona. “You shit! I need that!” he barked as he headbutted the creature on the snout. It stumbled back, more offended at the ineffectual attack than anything. It reared again, preparing to rip off more than ancient pre-war equipment this time.

A rock pelted it right in the temple before it could strike. The creature let out a confused cry and turned angrily with a cold eyeless glare.

Leaky threw another rock up in the air with her telekinesis and knocked it towards the flanamingo with her baseball bat. It missed completely. “That’s it! Over here! Woohoo!”

Muckraker looked at the mare who had just saved him, bewildered until a slow realization washed over him. He quickly went back to work unjamming his weapons, cussing at each failed attempt.

The alpha flanamingo took no time to stalk, infuriated at Leaky’s provocation. It ran towards her at full speed and lunged, giving Leaky barely any time to pull up SATS. She wound up her decrepit baseball bat and swung mightily with all of her strength.

CRAK!

The full force of the blow caught the creature square in the jaw, the bat splintering as the beast recoiled, apparently unharmed ( [Strength 9+] Failed). It shook its head, before its talon shot forward with lightning speed, catching her in the chest and sending her flying. As the beast stalked closer, Leaky held up the broken stump of her baseball bat. It was better as firewood than a weapon at this point, but it was better than nothing. As the creature lunged, she thrust the splintered end at the creature’s neck, recognizing only after that the move was a faint. With something almost like a chuckle, the beast snapped its head, sending the bat flying off into the distance.

It was toying with her.

Leaky slumped back. Of all the ways to die in the Zona, she’d never expected to go like this: saving the life of the one pony who was the root of her strife. As the creature strode forward, it made a whistling noise, almost like a—

A rocket grazed by her face, singing her coat and strands of her mane. Panicked, she rolled away, somehow dodging a surprise assault by the flanamingo as it clipped the creature’s side, before the world decompressed around her. She collapsed to the ground, her ears ringing from the deafening pressure of a shot that had missed her by a mile. The flanamingo wasn’t so lucky. Her hearty dinner spewed in front of her, mixing with flanamingo guts as she tried desperately to confirm which way was up.

She looked up frantically with stinging eyes and shouted something even she couldn’t hear over the unceasing ring in her ears. From the distance, Muckraker strode towards her, leaning in close to her bleeding ear and smirking, knowing full well she couldn’t fully hear him.

“Haven’t you listened to my stories? Never, ever save the guy trying to kill you.”

He shot up suddenly and adjusted his disjointed microphone with a grunt. “Took me forever to fucking weld this thing just right.” He looked over to the crumpled mess trying desperately to get to her hooves. “You know what I’m talking about, right?” He sweeped her foreleg out from under her, sending her crashing into the ground again. “Ha. Right. Look who I’m talking to.”

Muckraker turned away from Leaky as he pressed a big flashing button on his makeshift armor. A light at the tip of the antenna on his back lit up as the metal construct sparked to life. Neon signs on the sides of his battle-saddle lit up, reading “ON AIR” in obnoxiously saturated red.

He motioned with his hooves grandly, as if trying to rile up an imaginary audience in front of him. “Gooooooood evening, ponyfriends. You won’t believe what just fell into my hooves. Princess Luna’s star-studded clitoris? I hear you ask. Nah nah, I say. That was last week’s dream. No, something way more succulent this time.” He turned his head slightly to the object of his obsession for the greater part of this week and smiled dubiously. “The Mother of The Zona herself.”

He spun around quickly and raised a hoof to the air. “Yes, my fellow degenerates. When Muckraker sets his sights on something, shit gets done. You’re all lucky I’m just as lazy, or else you’d be calling me King Muckraker by now! Isn’t that right, MOZ?”

He trotted leisurely to Leaky, smirking as she desperately tried to find some strength in her legs.

“I’ll admit, ponyfriends. She’s a lot cuter than I thought, in a sort of ‘bitch terrorizing our home’ kind of way.” He winked at her with a snide smirk. “Speaking of which, where’s your Hellhound anyway? Wasn’t he ‘fiercely loyal’? ‘Cos I got a rocket full of napalm with his name on it if he decides to interrupt our little show, and I want him to try it badly. Because I literally have his name written on it. Wanna see?”

He leaned over and flashed Leaky the exposed port of his battlesaddle. Drawn crudely in white chalk was the head of a cartoony hellhound, it’s eyes crossed out with Xs and its tongue lolling out. “Well, not written written, but hey. Direct all complaints to my buffalo tribe. The So-Sue-Me’s.”

He sat on his haunches in front of her and picked her head up to force her to look him in the eyes, both hooves squishing her cheeks. “Anyways, you fucks. Stay tuned for the show of the century, the presentation that tops post-pony apocalyptia entertainment: a live execution, starring the Mother of the Zona.”

ZZZORCH!

A yellow zap of wispy energy engulfed both of them without warning, sending them both seizing to the ground as energy coursed over their bodies. Unable to even scream at the unearthly sensation, Leaky and Muckraker collapsed on the dirt with a thud, prisoners in their own bodies.

Leaky’s eyes darted all over, trying to pinpoint the source of the attack. She tried calling for Dog, who she had foolishly told to wait back at the cliff, but only managed to let out a wet gurgle.

As the ringing in her ears finally began to subside, she heard the stomping of metal boots all around her. A smaller set of hooves stood over a glaring Muckraker and grabbed his microphone from his suit. He stirred slightly, furious that someone had touched his prized salvage.

She felt something pick her up and gently carry her to the back of a wagon, laying her down with a delicate hoof. A burst of static played through Leaky’s Pipbuck, announcing that the airwaves were broadcasting yet again. A youthful, exotic, but coldly stern feminine voice emanated from the speakers.

“Ponies of the vasteland, it is your time.

For far too long, zhe blessed land of our Goddesses Luna and Celestia has been blighted, infected by disease, radiation, death and plight. By abominations who hunger for your blood and your fellow ponies who are just as eager. For far too long vee have hoped that some special few would actively seek to restore the old glory vee, as a race, once claimed, and rebuild everything vee, as ponies, stood for.

“But ponykind has vallowed in its misery time and time again, forced to drown in the inheritance our ancestors have cruelly handed down to us.

“No longer. Vee vill be the hoof that pushes you to be better. Vee will be the hoof that helps you give life to your ‘Zona’.

“Vee vill not do zhis for ourselves, it is not by our hoof that vee rule. It is for you, for your children. To have clean water, to be free from zhe abominations zhat hunt you, to never feel an unheeded need from the earth your descendants have taken for granted.

“Vee toil not to rule over you, but to vake Equestria from her fitful coma. And you, my little ponies… are the catalyst.”

******************************************************************************************

Footnote: Status updated: Captured!You have lost all of your equipment.
You are Concussed! You suffer -4 to Perception.

Author's Note