A Derpy Apocalypse: Perseverence

I suppose every place has it's own feel. From a Sci-Fi lab, to a wasteland, and now vast fields of free-flowing tall grass. It looks beautiful against the rising sun. A flourishing field of a vibrant green, turning to brighter and darker shades in sync with the soft, brushing winds. I feel a bit of pity for the few of the raiders who are asleep on the ride. The clouds we're powdery, white and twisty floating across the bright blue sky. I wonder how they would have felt in such a perfect world. No smog to worry about, just perfect clean air. Such beautiful—

THUD!

I'm removed from my chain of thought as we hit a small bump in the dirt road. Two sleeping raiders at the edge of our cart wake up, the mare, whom I presume is in charge, is sitting across from me, looking down to Thunder who had reacted to the bump with a grunt of minor pain. Also sitting across from him was a, besides the armor, well-dressed mare who had a number of odd instruments strapped to her. She was also moving her hoof around one...No...That's a hand.

Seriously, what happened while I was gone?

"Why are there so many anthropomorphic ponies?" I ask, seemingly out of the blue as nopony has talked for the entirety of the ride.  The mare stayed focused on her pad-tablet thing. The rainbow pony nudged her, grunting. The mare looked up.

"Oh! Err, hold on," she said, speeding up with the flicking and dragging as a few bluish text boxes appeared around the device. It looked like one portion of a black nano-fibre framing. It projected a bluish, touch-sensitive hologram. It seemed all to advanced for me, at the moment. Finally, after the rainbow mare nudged her again grunting louder, she put away the device.

"Um, hello," she said, awkwardly, "Excessive Anthropomorphisis? That's from a new thing by TwiCore," she laughed nervously, "well, it was new about five decades ago. Now it's just a half and half thing. So many ponies started walking on hind legs since the apocalypse, and it wasn't so easy to do that, so Doctor Twilight Sparkle decided to utilize the mirror magic and studies in the homo-sapien world to blend the anatomies. Of course, it was a trial an error process with the limitations of the apocalypse and technology at the time being, regardless of their now reinitialized and improvised methods — which really just got more over-sophisticated as of late, so no real change in the methodical parts other than the excessive increasing of arduousness, and the more convoluted and perplexing intricacy of the way they go about their methods. Anyway, they basically did other experiments on ponies and humans, forming controversy, and from that, we were born, the resistance."

"Arduous, Convoluted, Perplexing, and intricate, mean the same thing," I said frankly. She blushed.

"I..know that," she replied quietly. The rainbow one laughed.

"Your name is Derpy Hooves, correct?" she asked. I nodded in approval. She smiled. "Nice to meet you then, didn't have time for proper introductions back in the laboratory, but I suppose a two hour trip would do." Two hours? It's felt like six. "My name is Spectrum Splash, according to my files, you might know my great, great, great, great...er...great grandmother, Rainbow Dash?"

"Rainbow Dash being a grandmother..." I slowly stated, "that's probably the weirdest thought I've had all day since waking up." She laughed.

"By the way, this is Techy Pie," Spectrum said, gesturing to the mare beside her, "the breathing thesaurus has just about as much ecstasy for looking and being smart as her ancestor did for parties and laughs." When Spectrum mentioned that fact, I noticed something about her mane; it was short, but curly and pink.

"Yeah, they said she was whimsical when it came to having fun — in the nice way," Techy continued, "She lived the longest out of the...well minus Twilight...out of the Mane six. She lived for about 121 years."

Damn.

"Hell, you're Pinkie's ancestor?" I say, laughing, "Ha! You've both seemed to have changed a lot from them." I looked at Spectrum, "Also, I did punch Rainbow Dash in the nose one time."

"Really?" Spectrum asked, raising her eyebrow and laughing as well, "I was told she could be a jerk sometimes, but jeez!"

"Don't ask, it's a long story I don't wanna tell," I say, still laughing. She looked at Techy, waiting on her to say something. Techy noticed after a few seconds, and hastily pulled her device back out.

"Luckily, since we brought the TwiCore SWAT member, we can replicate the titanium armor," she said, "given the data, it won't be hard to do. I mean, really, it wouldn't matter how hard it was, we've been eager to get our hands on this tech since forty years ago when the whole fight bypassed simple protests and anger, it eventually became a vital piece of warfare to have their technology because we were so outgunned and outnumbered and, well, outarmored." She leaned in with the device. "Now, let me take a closer look." Several pings began to go off on the device as she would swat them away and zoom a few in. "TwiCore NanoFibril, TwiCore Modified Titanium Plates, Billy's Super-Stick Velcro..." She gave a confused look, shaking her head as she continued to read. It was like she faded in and out. "Refortified Nano Fibre Construct...Reinforced Velcro and buckle strapping, memory foam...Enhancive Optical Reception Goggles..Neuronic Impulsive connection..." She smiled. "We have that, now."

"How much longer do we have?" I ask. Spectrum looks around, to the wagon behind us and the horses pulling us in front.

"About fifteen minutes," she replied.

I look once more at the beautiful landscape around me.

How long before you go away, too?

Sure enough, fifteen minutes got us there, and what a sight it was. A massive stone wall, within every two meters of each other lied a well-constructed watchtower. Cannons, mounted weapons, and all sorts of other things were up there to make the area seem much more intimidating. It was sealed off by a steel gate, I'm sure those tiny Super-SWATS wouldn't manage to get into. The gate opens with the loud shriek of scraping metal. The our wagons are pulled in to the massive base.

This place, I thought it'd be a camp. It wasn't a camp, a camp would have reached at most a quater of the size. This camp -- this base -- its a society. I see one of the oddest blends of children playing and military operatives hauling weapons around. There are mothers taking their children to parks and stores, there are husbands, wives, kids, everything from the old world. Except there's another side. Medical tents, guns, swords, armor, soldiers, towers and buildings of all kinds. It's like an individual country. Could TwiCore do this? Could they construct a compound equal to even one fourth the size of this place?

"Welcome to our humble abode," Spectrum said as we passed a large group of soldiers laughing, talking and drinking. I noticed that the beautiful look of the grass had never left, or rather, we never left it. It was still just as green and flowing inside of the brightly-lit camp, a much more pleasant environment than what TwiCore had to offer. I look down at Thunder. He had his eyes barely closed; I knew he wasn't sleeping — just resting.

"Hey, Thunder," I said. He opened his eyes and looked up.

"Yeah?"

"How are you feeling?" I ask. He hesitates for a moment before speaking up.

"Well..." he replies, taking a moment to think, "I don't know. I guess I feel fine but I don't have my limbs anymore, I don't know how useful I can be." I wasn't sure what to say, and before I could conjure up something cheesy to comfort him, Spectrum saved me.

"Not necessarily," she said. "I'm not sure what TwiCore does for prosthetics anymore, but I — we — do know what they did six years ago at least."

"Yep," Techy chimed in, "that's one of the two things I was doing earlier, in fact. Other than scanning that precious tech you're covered in, I was trying to get some areas and vital scans to acquire fitting prosthetic limbs for you."

"I suppose they're not just shitty peg-legs anymore?" I said.

"Oh no, they link with the nerve system in an almost unnatural way," Spectrum responded.

"Synthetic," Techy added, "Incredible."

Techy nearly dropped her tablet thingy when the wagon came to a screeching halt.

"What the Hell?!" Spectrum shouted, looking at the carrier.

"Damn kids," he spat out as two foals ran from out of the way. Spectrum sighed, seeming to have wiped the frustration away.

"Let me escort you and Thunder to a quartering area," she said, smiling.