It's been a month since you left the stable: The first stable to open to blue skies in the wasteland.
It's been a week since the enclave became the focus of a great deal of suspicion over old experiments involving mind control. Overmistress Littlepip saw it as an evil that must be eradicated, but she lives in a tower in what remains of the clouds.
The reality down here? very different. The mind control devices are like toys, commonly available at a price now their caches are public knowledge.
"Go hellhound! I choose you!"
The cage opens and the monster appears, it's gigantic claws shredding the concrete under-paw.
"Oh yeah, well your hellhound is no match for my level 100 bloatsprite! Go, I choose you, Bubbles!"
The bloatsprite is a tiny thing in comparison to it's towering foe. Wings battered and damaged, pus boils and cancers cover it's lower half, riddled with what look like wires.
"Hellhound, use scratch attack!"
It darts forward on command, propelled by a sudden need; drugs addling it's brain teach it to follow commands issued.
The claws come up and scythe through the air towards the bloatsprite, audible in separating the air as it passes... but is stopped before contact is made, as it if having impacted by a wall of air.
"HAH, don't you know cyber type is immune to physical assault?" the sprite's operator jeers, a complex, scrap-built controller in his telekinetic hold.
The opponent presses a button on the pad and the sprite's weapons emerge- each enormous boil concealing a laser-pointer and mounted - though ridiculously small - machine gun.
Your hellhound is riddled with bullets, though you know that won't stop it.
"That's what you think! Get em' hellhound. Treat it like an alicorn!"
Barely having twitched after taking the salvo, the monstrous canine lurched forward again, this time aiming at the air ahead of the sprite.
A great cacophonous din fills the empty canyon; the claws having ripped a hole in the gem-powered defences of the sprite. This had caused both the mutant insect and the pony controlling it to cry out in terror, with a mixture of curses from their entourage.
"So, do I get the win yet or what?"
"No, not yet, we're not done here!"
"Yes, we are! Hellhound!"
Again, the beast lunges. Not at it's sprite foe - still very much alive - but at the pony ahead of you.
Horn tattered and part of his jaw missing, the scrawny pony withdraws hurriedly.
"Th-that's against the rules! What are you? A fucking raider?!"
His groupies having abandoned him - a trail of kicked-up dust pointing East - you approach the scrambling, now collapsed pony.
The hellhound takes a few steps back, knowing better than to go in for the kill without orders (which would hurt).
"On the side, perhaps."
Now straddling the fallen equine, you lay a single talon on his neck and spread your wings wide.
You trace a line across his throat, disturbing the flesh and undoubtedly leaving a scrape under the fur.
A sound breaks the moment as the sprite seems to have decided to move in and tries to protect it's owner; sub-sentient though they may be, they still know where their food comes from, you suppose.
It takes a matter of a pointed tailtip to order your hellhound back into the fray. It immediately deprives the grotesque creature of it's wings and renders it useless.
Returning your gaze to the prone unicorn, you narrow your eyes.
"Now, you gonna give me that fucking badge or not?"