Fallout Equestria: And None Shall Follow

Chapters

Chapter 1: Of Ruins and Fortunes
Chapter 2: Practicality
Chapter 3: Follow that trail!
Chapter 4: Old Friends
Chapter 5: Two Steps Forwards
Chapter 6: Princess's
Chapter 8: And I Have Become Death
Chapter 9: A Light in Darkness
Chapter 10: Flickers of Hope
Chapter 11: Choices
Chapter 12: Rekindling
Chapter 13: Friends in Low Places
Chapter 14: Changes
Prologue
Chapter 7: Badlands

Chapter 1: Of Ruins and Fortunes

I don't want to set the world on fire...

Seaddle ruins

I stifled a cough, blinking hard to clear the dust out of my eyes. Shoving that shattered bit of fallen ceiling aside had sent a cloud of centuries old dust swirling around the small space, and now my lungs burned as they tried to deal with the contamination. Wasn't safe to have a coughing fit here. To close to the grey haze's territory. They found out someone was scavenging in what they considered "their" city, and my head would eather be on a pike, or on its was to the nearest slave auction before I could blink. So, stealth was critical. And wouldn't have been that hard if only I could get a few clear breaths. My ears twisted, scanning for any noise as I poked my muzzle out a crack in the wall and breathed what passed for clean air around these parts. Oh well, still better then the air around Filly or Canterlot. Here at least the worst I had to worry about were rads, not freaking pink poison or whatever the crap in filly was. And scavenging this close to grey haze territory would be worth it is what I had read in those old pre-war papers in vanhoover was correct.

I squirmed my way deeper into the ruin of what had once been an office, careful to only move crap that wasn't keeping what was left of the ceiling still above my head. The building had been badly damaged by the megaspell that took out Seaddle, and two centuries of weathering hadn't helped matters much. Many of the floors were nothing but shells, the floors either entirely gone or so rotten that a single step would have sent anyone plummeting a few floors. It had taken a lot of moving up and down floors through a maze of half-collapsed stairs and cubicles until I had finally made my way this far down. Now, if I could just get through this half-collapsed room to what looked like the last intact basement access, I could find out if my trip all the way here would be worth it. Finally, I managed to shove my way through a gap between filling cabinets, once more my smaller then average stature proving an asset in my "line of work". The door to the basement was locked, but someone had left a key siting in the nob. must have been in a hurry to get in or out when the building was hit. Swinging the door open, I found the staircase was indeed intact, and slowly made my way down, the old lantern I had brought with me illuminating each dust-covered step. The basement lights had long ago failed, and the dim illumination given off by the lantern failed to reach the limits of the room. I carefully stepped forward, ears rotating to catch any sound of life in the damp basement. Nothing. Ether I was alone, or whatever resided here was waiting, silent as the grave.

Stepping into the dank room, my hoofsteps echoed hollowly from distant walls. My lantern illuminated nothing but dirty bare floor and scattered papers, any writing long since made illegible by mold. A flicker of light ahead caught my attention, and my lantern was just starting to illuminate the screen of an old stable-tech terminal when the turrets on the ceiling sprang to life after a century of sleep. They both attempted to fire, one blowing holes in the ceiling, rust preventing it from fully lowering, the other fired blindly, its targeting sensor overgrown with black mold. I galloped forwards, working to avoid the wild spray from the second turret. I leaped, and with a tensing of my forelegs, blades sprang out of gauntlets on my wrists. They sliced though each turret like butter, causing them to explode after my leap carried me safely past. Really, these knives were ridiculous. Good thing half the wasteland didn't have one, or my job would be a lot harder.

Stepping towards the barely-functioning terminal, I turned my attention to the massive door next to it. That was it, just behind that, according to those papers, was a stockpile that would set me up quit nicely for the foreseeable future. All I had to do was get through this door. And that shouldn't be a problem. From the small bag hung around my neck, I pulled out a red key-card, faded with age. It had been with the papers I found. Trotting up to the terminal, I slotted the card inside. The terminal beeped, whirled, and spat the card back out.
"Error, data unreadable, contact technical support", the screen read.

I snorted, bucking the terminal in anger. Great, now I had to do things the hard way. Turning, I studied the door. It was a massive thing, almost like a vault door, but without markings identifying a vault numbers, and smaller, not made to withstand the apocalypse, but to withstand a lot of punishment. Still, it wasn't really a vault door, so it shouldn't be a problem. Rearing up, I placed one foreleg on the door, and extended the knife on the other. I placed the blade on the door and pressed, shoving down. The blade squealed as it ran down the door, leaving only a light scratch. I starred. Great, it really was built like a vault door. My knives I had gotten from a unicorn who had found a whole crate ready to ship off to some pre-war hotels kitchen. Why they needed knives sharp enough to cut through un-reinforced metal was beyond me. I had to trade a load of barter goods for the pair, but they had been worth it. Could never tell if it was the weird metal they were made from or some sort of magic placed on them, but they kept their sharpness forever, and cut through practically everything. The hard part in making them useful had been finding something they didn't cut through to make the sheaths in my gauntlet out of. But strong reinforced metals, like a vault door, could withstand them, ether because the metal they were made from was resistant, or because they were magically resistant I didn't know. If I had twenty years, I might just cut through this door, but otherwise, harsher methods were called for.

That caused me to sigh. Great, now I had to go back to where I stashed the rest of my gear, then bring volatile explosives through a half-collapsed building, and blow open a hole in the door without destroying everything inside it. Just great. Oh, why could I never find a bunch of goods just lying in a chest somewhere?

It took forever to get back out the the ruin, but even in a relatively safe lobby, I had to be careful. *Beep* *Beep*, the mine alerted me before I deftly disarmed it. A task I had to repeat several times before I could get to the closet where I had stashed my gear. After all, I wasn't about to just leave all my stuff lying around in a random bin without taking precautions. I wasn't the only scavenger in the wastes after all. I was about to root through it for the needed explosives when a noise outside made my ears perk up and swivel towards it.

Hoofsteps, running, several of them, coming this way. I ducked inside the closest, throwing out a freshly activated mine before I silently shut the door. A moment later, I heard the lobby doors burst open, and a set of light hoofsteps clattered across the floor along with the sound of frantic, winded breaths. They headed straight across the lobby, not turning towards my closet, and for a moment, I thought whoever it was would pass harmlessly by. Then, I heard the rattle of a doornob, and realized whoever it was had chosen to go for the one door in the place that was blocked inside by the remains of the room above. Before whoever it was could move to another door, I heard the lobby door opened again.

"Hey kid!" A rough male voice called, half laughing. "Come out, come out, time to play!"

"Leave me alone!" A wailing voice answered. Crap, a foal. Couldn't tell by the voice weather it was a colt or filly, but it sounded like it was exhausted, and trying hard not to cry. "I just want to go home!"

"Oh honey, well take you home." Purred a softer female voice. "A nice new one, with pretty collars to wear and everything." At that, the male voice burst out in wild laughter.

"Oh yeah, paradise ain't it?" He howled gleefully.

Oh great, looks like a pair of grey hazer's had found a stupid foal to enslave. I sighed, backing further into the closest. Hopefully they would nab the kid quickly and leave. Last thing I needed was to pick a fight with the hazer's when I was this close to my prize. But the universe never let me off easy. The worst thing happened. It sounded like the kid tried to run, and one of the hazer's moved to cut him off, moving right in front of my closet.

And right into the mine I had chucked out when I hid.

*beep* *beep* *BEEP*

"AW FU-" the hazer stared to shout, before the explosion cut him off. The door of the closest, already half rotted, was blown off its hinges, peppering my hide with splinters. The remains of a large earth pony splattered the room beyound, covering a small unicorn foal with blood and miselenious bits. The foals eyes met mine, and before I could even think "No, don't.." he screamed.

"Help me!" He shrieked, running towards my hidding place, plainly terrified and hoping for help. Well, crap.

"Who's there!?" The female voice snarled. A moment later, a grey unicorn mare came into sight, a knife levitating in a field of blue magic besides her. "Oh, so you have a little friend, huh kid? Not for long." With that, she lunged, sending the knife swinging at me.

She was to late. I had already been moving when she moved into view. And taking time to taunt had cost her. I ducked under her knife thrust and brought the blade on my gauntlet into her neck. Her eyes widened in shock as I sliced deep, yanking sideways. Her blood poured down her coat, splattering in dark jets across my face. I stepped back as the mare collapsed to the floor, the life draining out of her eyes, as her head flopped to the side, neck nearly severed in two from the unnaturally sharp blade.

I gave her a moment, making sure she was truly dead. Last thing I needed was her making a last ditch attempt at me before she was gone. Learned that one the hard way. To many drugs kept a pony going long after they should have been cold on the ground. Then I searched the ody. Hmm, bobby pins, a can of cram, and of course, the knife she had been wielding. Her barding wasn't much, just the typical cobbled together crap with the symbol of the grey hazes, a stormcloud over the city ruins, but I wrestled it off her anyway. It had to be worth a couple bottle caps at least. I began moving the see if the one my landmine had taken out had anything still good on what was left of him when I realized the foal was still here. I blinked, looking over to where the foal was cowering in terror by the closet. It was a colt, he seemed absolutely frozen, gazing at the dead mare with eyes the size of diner plates. When he saw me looking at him, he gave a little squeak, and ran into the closet. I blinked, and realized that, covered in blood, fresh from looting a corpse, I must look like some sort of raider.

Eh, whatever, let him be scared. He wasn't my problem. The earth pony stallion just had some bottlecaps and a healing potion on him, and I wasn't even going to bother with the barding on this one. Turning back, I began placing the loot in my pack saddle, ignoring the shivering foal in the corner. That is, until I noticed his barding. Hadn't realized it in the fight earlier, what with all the blood and bits covering him from the dead stallion, but he was wearing the typical stable garb that occasionally popped up at trading posts, usually when someone discovered another vault. But his was actually in good condition, just a little dirty. Whats more, he had one of those pipbuck things on his foreleg, and it didn't look like it had been pried from a corpse. Which was odd, I hadn't heard of any stables around here being opened in the past few years. So where the heck did he come from? He sure as heck wasn't a wasteland pony, his mane was a mix of neon blue and green, his coat a deep midnight blue. Anypony with colors that bright had gotten sniped long ago. Yup, stablepony. But what the heck was this one doing out here?
Well, there was one simple way of finding out. "Oy, kid.", I said, poking him with a hoof. "What stable did you crawl out of?"
The colt peeked out from behind his hooves, trembling. "56... How did you.."

"Know?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. Seriously, did he just step outside yesturday? "Lets see, your brightly colored, look well fed, are terrified of everything, and don't know to stay away from grey haze territory. Or it could be your wearing stable barding and a pipbuck, and you look like you've bathed recently. Take your pick."

The colt stared up at me like I was freaking sherlock hooves, before stuttering. "Please, I... I just want to go home."

"Then go", I said, waving a hoof. I began pulling the explosives I came to get out of the pack saddle, along with a timer. I was turning to leave when the colt moved to block my way.

"Please, I need help." He whined, teary eyed. "I'm lost, I don't know the way back. And what if more of these crazy ponies try and foalnap me!?"

"Not my problem." I said, rolling my eyes. Seriously, foalnap? Kid was fresher to the wasteland then most newborns if he thought that was all they wanted. I tried to move around him, but he blocked my path.

"Please!" He cried, now freely crying. "I'll give you anything!" He pawed at his barding, then apparently realized he had nothing to give me. I could see the raw panic in his eyes. "Um.." He was clearly trying to think of a something to convince me. I didn't care, I pushed him aside and headed back towards my goal. "The overmare will give you a reward!" I heard him cry out.

That gave me pause. Not because I believed that I would get much of a reward for returning the kid, but because his vault still had an overmare. That was odd. I never had heard of a stable that had an overmare, at least, not after they had been opened for any length of time. But if it had newly opened, why hadn't I heard of it? "Hey kid, how long has your stable been open?"

"It... isn't" He said, suddenly staring down at his hooves. "I.. hacked the door."

That froze me in place. Holy, crap. An unopened stable. And one that actually still had living ponies inside. Shoot, they probably had more good stuff in there then in any ten stashes like the one I had found. New plan, take the kid back to the stable, grab everything not tied down, retire to tenpony. Yeah, how could that go wrong?

"Oh, all right, I'll take you home." I said, trying to make myself sound kind and sincere. Which, I have to admit, I didn't exactly have a lot of practice doing. "Where is your vault hon?" I tried smiling, but that seemed to make him nervous, so I stopped.

"The entrance is in a big hole, with glowing liquid at the bottom." He said, waving his hooves around like I actually needed help figuring out what "Big Hole" meant. Then, he looked a bit apologetic, probably due to him seeing my expression at that. "I.. I'm not sure where it is, I got lost when the crazy ponies started chasing me."

I blinked. Well, that would explain why no one knew of a stable around here. Only one place that could be, it was in the freaking crater left by the megaspell that took out the city. Locals called it "The hole" or just "The crater". The grey haze had taken to throwing ponies that really ticked them off into it after breaking a limb or two, letting the radiation take its time killing them painfully over a few hours. But no one had bothered scavenging in that hot zone. "Yeah, I know where that is." I admitted. How could I not. Really though, how did the stable survive a near direct impact? Man, stable-tech really overbuilt those things didn't they? "Lets get you back." I slid into the light barding i wore under the pack saddle, not the best protection, but comfortable under the pack saddle. I got the pack saddle strapped on and headed out the building, the colt following, seeming slightly dazed by the sudden changed of events.

We headed out, moving towards a dull glow that signified the presence of the crater. Really, how could the kid not know the way? It literally lit up the sky. I kept my guard up, moving quietly. This was still grey haze territory, though the crater was at the very edge of it. No one wanted to live to close to that thing after all, it they had any choice in the matter. Thankfully I should have enough rad-x and radaway for what would hopefully be a brief exposure. The stable should be safe after all, once we got inside It didn't take long to reach the edge of the crater, and I took a rad-x as the kids pipbuck started clicking, getting faster and louder the closer we got, until we were looking over the jagged rim..
"Ok, where exactly is the entrance?" I asked the kid, staring down at the vast crater, the bottom of which had liquid, probably mostly rainwater, so tainted with radiation that it glowed green.

"I don't remember" The kid admitted, "I looked out from the cave and fell down into the crater."

Well, that was just great. Little fissures and openings permeated the crater, from old basements to molerat tunnels. It could take days to search them all. Then, I saw the colt facehoove.

"My pipbuck map!" He exclaimed, he started fiddling with his pipbuck, and after a moment, looked up sheepishly. “Its down there.” he said, guesturing.

I nodded, and we made our way down the side of the crater, heading for a narrow crack in the earthen wall. Seriously, if I had ever doubted the kid had spent about 5 minutes in the wasteland, this confirmed it. He seriously had a map the whole time, and just forgot. Oh well, I just had to put up with the colt a little longer, until I get my reward. “So, why did you hack your way out anyway?” I asked as we climbed down the crater, partially curious as to why anyone with plenty of food and water would seem to be desperate to escape. Then again, it was a stable, and this kid might have information on what dangers were inside it. Stables were nearly always death traps after all. “Your experiment get to bad?”

“Experiment?” He said, sounding confused. He reached the crack and hopped through, it being plenty big enough for the scrawny colt. It was a tight squeeze with my saddlebags, but i managed it. Inside, it looked like an old cave, with some reinforcements, the crack we came in was the only opening left after the megaspell blasted apart the rest of it. It was amazing anything had survived here. “No, I.. well, I don’t have my cutie mark.” The colt continued to explain, not realizing I was barely paying attention. Huh, never noticed he didn’t have one of those, but hey, I never put much stock in the magic flank tattoos anyway. What that had to do with breaking out of a stable, I didn't know.

We headed deeper into the cave, loosing the light. Before I could bring out my lantern however, the kid lit up the area with his pipbuck light. “I was always good with computers, but I could’t get a cutie mark in them, and then Falling Star dared my to hack the vault door, and um... I did.” He turned back, looking embarrassed. “And when I still didn’t get a cutie mark, I um... decided to go look outside. Then the door shut, and I fell... and..”

I raised a hoof, cutting him off from what might have been an interesting story, if he could have told a story to save his life, or I had been really listening. The vault door had finally come into view, with a big 56 printed on it. “Yeah, ok, Look, were here, now get the door open kid.”
The colt looked a little startled at the sudden interruption, but moved to some sort of control panel mounted by the door. He plugged his pipbuck into it and began fiddling. I moved around the cave, keeping a lookout. I noted that, unlike a couple old vaults I had been in, there weren't bones scattered around the door. Also unlike the others, the entrance had been scorched and blackened, and I could see a lot of cracks in the walls and ceiling. Then the colts light shifted, and I could see that, although the vault door had been blackened, there were darker areas of blackening. Pony shaped areas. Well, that explained the lack of remains. It was ground zero after all. The colts pipbuck still clicked rapidly, and I drank a radaway while I waited.

"No, no, no..." The colt began to mutter, still fiddling with his pipbuck. He stopped, seeming to read something on the screen for several long moments, then abruptly started screaming.

"NOOO!" It was loud, anguished, the kind of thing I didn't want to hear from a colt, not even a unicorn. He abandoned the panel, running over to the vault door and pounding wildly on it. "Please! Please let me in!" He howled, tears freely running down his face. "I'm ok! Its ok, please let me back!"

Well, this wasn't looking good for my profit margin. I moved over to the kid, who was still hammering away at the door and sobbing helplessly. "Hey, whats going on? I thought you could hack these things." I asked, realizing even as I said it that this had probably been a waste of my time.

The colt could barely speak from crying, and he slumped down to the floor hopelessly. "They.. they blocked my pipbuck from the systems." He looked up at me, tears still pouring down his face. "They... They left me a note, said I was contaminated now, they wont let me back, even... even if I survive long enough in the radiation out here to get back..." His voice trailed off into sobs again.

I shook him, trying to get him to focus. "Hey, can you hack in or not?!" I demanded. He seemed to wilt even further before me.
"No, I can't... They..." He started to whimper. I had stopped listening after the first word.

Yup, waste of my time. Great, now I had to go all the way back to that old office building, hope no grey hazer's had come looking for their two dead companions, and still blow that door and get the stash out before anyone came looking for them. I gave a low growl of frustration and turned, heading back the way I had come. I was almost to the exit when galloping footsteps behind me told me the colt had realized I had left.
"Wait!" He called, galloping to my side. "You can't just leave!"

"Can, and am." was my reply as I wiggled my way out the crack. The colt followed, tears once agains filling his eyes. Now he was wasting his time. I wasn't falling for this crybaby act of some freaking unicorn.

"Please, I don't know what to do!" He cried. "What am I supposed to do?!"

"Dont, know, dont care, not my problem." I said, not even bothering to look at him as I started climbing out of the crater. His pipbuck was practically a monotone now, clicking so rapidly that the individual notes blurred.

He moved in front of me, trying to block me from getting out of the crater. "Please, take me with you!"" He begged, obviously grasping at any vauge hope. I didn't even dignify that with a response. "Please!" He half howled, frantic now. "I... I don't have anywhere else to go!" I kept moving. "I can help you!" He tried "Please!"

"No, you couldn't." With that, I pushed past him. Once again, he moved to block me.

"I could!" He insisted. "I don't even care that your a zebra..."

That was as far as he got before I turned and bucked him in the chest. He fell, sliding down the slope towards the glowing gunk below. I glaring down at him. "I. Am. Not. A. Zebra." I hissed. "Not everything with stripes is a zebra you stupid little twit. Now get lost, i don't want you, I don't need you, and if you try and follow, I'll buck you until you get the hint."

With that, I turned and trotted away. Behind me, I heard one last murmer from the colt. "What are you?" He asked, barely whispering.
"What, no donkeys in your stable?" I shot back over my shoulder as I climbed over the crater rim. Alright, enough wasted time for today. Freaking unicorn had cost me time, and I had work to do if I was to make anything on this little venture.

.......

Ok, primer set, explosives in place, now to just get the timer set. I carfully reached out with a hoof, attaching the wires to the simple egg timer. Careful, as one false move and I wouldn't get to enjoy my prize. I reached out to set the timer, when behind me, a voice spoke.
"I can open the door." Said the all to familiar voice of the colt.

I jumped. Obviously I had been giving far to much attention to getting down here and setting up delicate explosives, rather then watching out for someone sneaking up behind me. Speaking of explosives, I disarmed mine, before turning and glaring at the colt, who cowered at my look. "Are you TRYING to get me killed!" I half roared, trembling at little at the sudden adrenaline rush that came from almost getting oneself blown to pieces. I took a couple deep calming breaths before speaking again. "And what do you mean you can open the door?"

The cold trembled, but stood his ground. "I can hack computers." He said with a gulp. "And I think that terminal opens the door."
Dang, seriously? After i spent all that time setting up explosives, this colt thought he was going to just hack the terminal? Joy, more time wasted. That is, if he could hack the terminal. From what I had seen so far, his skills were in doubt. But hey, he had apparently hacked OUT of the stable, so... "Fine, do it."

"No." He said, stomping a hoof.

"The crap?" I exclaimed. "You just said..."

"I'll open it if you take me with you." The colt interupted, obviously trying to look confident with his expresion.

"And just where do you expect me to take you. I'm assuming the stables out of the question." I said, glaring. Great, bartering with a foal. But seriously, why on earth would he want me draging him all over the wastes?

"I... Don't know." He admitted, once again staring at his hooves. Then, he looked up, and I was surprised at the determination in his eyes. 'But your the only pon.... Uh, donkey up here who hasn't tried to foalnap me.... so..."

Oh great, I was the most decent individual this idiot had met in his five minutes in the wasteland, and now he wanted to follow me around. But, on the other hoof, he might be able to open the door. And hey, I could just leave him here after he open it anyway. "Sure, whatever, open the door and you can follow me around until your hooves fall off."

"Promise?" The colt said, glaring.

"Yeah yeah, cross my heart and all that." I said, rolling my eyes and crossing my heart with one hoof. The colt looked at me with a bit of suspision, but moved to the terminal and plugged in his pipbuck. I waited, tapping my hoof a little, wondering if I should bother putting the explosives away. Really, this was some sort of high security vault, like some colt could...

"I'm in!" The colt exclaimed, sounding not a little surprised he had managed this feat. "There, I opened the door and turned off security." He actually sounded smug about that one, and he practically pranced over to the door. I glowered, but moved up as the door loudly rolled away. No alarms, that was good. Then, the door finished rolling away, and the kid stepped forwards. Fine with me, let him find out if he really had turned off all the security.

Turned out he had, as nothing popped up and shot him. I followed. Shelfs upon shelves of metal boxes greeted my eyes, and I trotted over to one and opened it. Papers, tons and tons of papers. With a growl of frustration, I went to the next box, and the next, and the next. "Crap, crap, crap!" I snarled, hurling a box across the room. It hit another, and both sprang open, spilling papers everywhere. "Nothing but freaking papers!"

The colt cowered in a corner, frighted, papers fluttering down around him. I stormed around the room, checking every box. Nothing but papers in every one. "Wha... What were you looking for?" The colt squeaked.

"Energy weapons, zebra tech, valueble crap!" I snarled. "Whatever "confiscated goods" ment. Not a bunch of office memos!"

"Um, this one says a bunch of stuff got relocated." He said, levitating a paper. I grabbed it and read. Yup, he was right, this memo mentioned at "Storage items 1034 to 1248 were moved to newly constructed storage site 23 alpha." Crap, where in blazes was that? It was dated a week before the megaspells hit, so my info must not have gotten updated in time. Great, just great.

"Where did you find this?" I demanded, turning to the colt.

"It was in one of the boxes you threw." He said, cowering a little. "It fell on my face."

"Great, anything telling you where storage site 23 alpha is fall on your face?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. As it turned out, no, it hadn't, and we spent the next hour looking through papers to find anything useful. No luck on my part, but the kid managed to find several papers that kept listing more storage items or confinscated goods moved to the same site. Then, I found a sheet that seemed to list info on the "new" storage site, but the location was only listed as "redacted".

"Um, are we interested in temporary storage site 16 charlie?" The colt asked.

"No, its storage site 23 alpha." I said, rolling my eyes. Really, was it that hard to remember.

"Well, this one has a listed location, and got stuff from here to."

"Okay, interested." I admitted, I grabbed the paper from the colt, reading. Yup, location and everything, to bad it wasn't what we were looking for. Unless... if it was only a temporary site, then it would ship stuff to the permanent site, right? So it might have the location for where storage site 23 alpha was. We weren't finding it here after all.

"Okay, thanks for the help." I said, heading out. "See you kid."

"But you said, I could go with you! You promised!" The colt cried.

"Yup. I lied. Your not useful anymore. Bye."

"And what if you need to get through another door?"

I was about to respond that I would pick the lock, when I realised he might have a point. This door hadn't had a lock, it had to be hacked, and if the next one was the same...

I glared at the kid. "Fine. Come on."

Level up!

New perk added: Foalsitting. Due to your new companion, you now appear less menacing to others. +1 to charisma when your companion is present. However, hostile random encounters are now more likely.

Author's Note

Meh, not the best, but ok for a start.

Chapter 2: Practicality

I ignored the kid on the way out the building, pretending to not notice how smug he looked. On the streets, I kept quiet, moving as steathily as possible towards the end of grey haze territory. Of course, this would be much easier if I didn't have an idiot stable dweller foal trotting along after me poking at everything he found remotely interesting. Which was nearly everything. Couldn't entirely blame him, usually I would be looking just as hard for loot, but not in the middle of extreamly hostile territory. Plus, he was being far to load, and of course, his coloring and bright stable barding also didn't help him blend into the surrondings. I was going to have to see about that later. I tried ignoring him for a while, but when we got into what was once the suburban area, he started jerking open every mailbox, and sent several coffee cups spilling from one into the street, where they shattered loudly.

"Kid, keep quiet." I growled. He looked back at me, startled, already looking to go through another mailbox. Then, he looked around quickly, like he thought something was going to jump out at us.

"What is it?" He whispered. I had to make an effort not to facehoof.

"Its called, we are still in the territory of the grey haze, you know, those ponies who tried to enslave you? And if don't want more to find us, you'll keep quiet."

"Slavery!" The kid squeaked, eye wide. "You pon..." He looked at me obviously thinking quickly, "You... wasteland dwellers have slavery?"
"Aint a supporter" I said, rolling my eyes. "And yes, you PONIES do have slavery up here. And the grey hazer's are one of the biggest bunch of slavers in the area. When they don't just go full raider and kill anyone they come across."

The kids eyes were bugging out, and I noticed he was following much closer now as I walked. "Please tell me your joking." He half whimpered. When I shook my head no... well, lets say it didn't help much. Hey, the kid needs to learn, out here, you got to be careful, you got to be quiet, or your going to get dead, or get someone else dead.

That lesson sunk in real fast when night fell. We weren't getting out of grey haze territory tonight, and needed a place to bunk down. We were still in the former suburbs, so I started moving house to house, looking for something suitable. The kid followed of course. the first few places were the norm, looted husks with nothing but a few odds and ends left inside. But one... well, I never did understand why raiders choose the decorations they did, but they certainly left an impression on the kid. Especially after he decided to ignore my warning, rush in first, trip over the doorjamb, and landed in a pile of intestines. Well, that would learn him. Not sure though what rattled him more, the gore or the fact I just stepped over it and went in anyway. Come on, its the wasteland, I dealt with this kind of crap every other day.

He stayed on the front steps as I explored the place, seeing if this was a loot stash or not. Turned out, it wasn't. Two streets down, and I found what I was looking for, a house with a basement, one that wasn't half full of radioactive water and still had a door guarding entry.

"We're camping down here for the night." I said, indicating the dark basement. It was completely empty, and, with only one entrance and exit, would work to our advantage if we were discovered. The kid just nodded and followed me down. Huh, looked like the reality of the wasteland was finally setting in. I should take him into old raider nests more often.

Setting up camp didn't take much time. I wasn't going to risk a fire, both because we were under a rotting ruin of a house, and because I didn't want any grey hazers seeing the light. So setting up camp simply consisted of me taking off my pack saddle and barding, setting out the lantern, and laying out a bedroll. I pulled a can of cram from my pack and began eating, and the colt looked up at me.

"What is there to eat?" He asked, barely whispering. Huh, figured he wouldn't have an appetite after how he had reacted.

"Whatever you can scrounge up." I replied through a mouthful. The colt moved towards my saddlebags, but I stopped him with a hoof. "Mine. Get your own stuff."

"But you said..."

"I would take you with me. Didn't say anything about feeding you."

The colt looked slightly panicked now. "So where do I get food?" When I motioned to the basement door, he looked more then slightly panicked. "Out there, alone?"

"Yup." I intoned, finishing my food. I packed the empty can away, and started getting ready for sleep. Seriously, I wasnt going to hold this foals hoof all across the waste. If he didn't like it, he could always leave. Hey, I hadn't exactly wanted to bring him along, I just needed him for hacking any more terminals that were in my way. He was a tool that, right now, I needed. When that changed, he was on his own.

The colt meanwhile, went through a whole range of panicked expressions as he looked up at the door, obviously trying to decided between satiating his hunger, and the risks of wandering outside alone. "Decide now, I need to secure us for the night." I finally said in exasperation. He shook his head, backing away from the staircase. I got back up and retrieved a mine from the saddlebag, setting it up just inside the basement door. Anyone trying to sneak in here was getting a not so nice surprise. I moved towards one side of the basement, where what was left of an old mirror had been left leaning against a wall.

Not much was left of it, but enough remained for me to get a good look at myself. I was a mess. You could barely make out my light grey coat under a coat of grime and dried blood from crawling through the ruins and the raider encounter. Couple that with the scar on my neck, ripped ear, and a mane style ponies always called a moehawk, and any wastelander would probably have shot me on sight as a raider. Well, I could take care of part of that at least. I brought of a bottle of water and a bit of rag and began washing myself. It took a bit of scrubbing, but I managed to at least get the blood off. For a moment, I thought I had damaged an ear some more, but it was just a piece of raider skin stuck to the black tip of my ear. I twisted around, making sure no more raider bits were stuck on me. Nope, clean.

I caught the colt staring at me, but he hurriedly studdied the wall when he saw me looking at him. I snorted. It was the stripes. They always confused ponies. Guess I shouldn't blame them. For 200 years stripes had simply meant evil zebra. But seriously, zebras were all stripes, I just looked like I was wearing striped socks on every leg. That, plus the "cross" on my back, meant I spent a lot of time convincing ponies I wasn't out to conquer equestria. Or, rather, what was left of it. After all, doneys had apparently been rare in equestria even before the war. Now most ponies didn't even know what we were.

Finally clean, I trotted back to my sleeping pad, settling in for the night. I raised a hoof when the colt tried to settle on the pad as well, and he scuttled off to a corner. Get the mesagge kid, you can follow, but its pay your own way.

I tried to sleep, but sleep wasn't coming. I tossed and turned for a while, until I rolled over and caught the colt staring at me. "What?" I demanded, and he backed further into the corner, sputtering. Apparently he couldn't sleep ether.

"Why do you have stripes if your not a zebra?" He spoke up after I had turned my back to him again.

I groaned, rolling my eyes. Oh yes, the question of my life. Seriously, I could forgive most wastelanders for this, most of them couldn't even read, but stables had to have a school right? "Donkey's can have stripes to kid." I growled, in a tone that made it very clear I was not about to explain further.

It was silent for a while, then the colt spoke up again. "My names not kid you know, its..."

"Kid." I interupted. "Its kid. I don't need, or want to know your name."

"But.." he started, obviously confused.

"Can it." I snapped. "Face it, your here because you might, MIGHT, be able to help me. Don't kid yourself, this isn't some grand adventure, and I'm not your friend. Once I'm done with you, your gone, and I don't need a name to remember you by." I meant it to, he was a tool. Give him a name, and I might just starting thinking of him as someone, rather then sometime. And I didn't need that sort of complication in my life.

The kid started tearing up again, though I could tell he was making an effort not to cry. "Why are you so mean?" He demanded, voice warbling.
I clucked at that, which just made him madder. "Mean? I'm positively pleasant for these parts. I'm just honest kid. How long do you really think you'll survive out of your nice safe vault? You almost got enslaved in your first ten minutes outside."

"Its not my fault!" He cried, tears starting to fall again. Seriously, did I get the biggest baby in the wasteland or what? "How was I supposed to know they would try to enslave me when I asked for help?"

I fell over laughing. "You.." I gasped. "Asked... grey hazers... for help?"

The colt was still crying, and now his face reddened, embarrassed. "Well how was I to know!" he repeated angrily.

"Uh, the bloodstained armor would have been my first clue." I chortled. "Seriously kid, you need some serious leasons in wasteland survival."
"Then teach me!" He demanded.

"Hey, do I look like a teacher to you?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Know a better one?" He retorted.

I opened my mouth to reply, and realized that no, I didn't know any better teachers of wasteland survival. Or any teachers at all. Dang it, I shouldn't have sold that book at the last trading post. "I have better things to do." I said at last. Dang, wasn't that a snappy retort?

"Like what? I'm going with you anyway."

Dang it, he was right on that count to. Dang it, how did I keep being talked into things by this kid? No, I wasn't being talked into anything else by this little annoyance. I had my pride after all. "No." I said simply.

"Why not!?" he demanded.

"Nothing in it for me." Hey, quid pro que and all. If you want something in the wasteland, you had to give something for it... or just find it in a box, or steal it. Whatever.

"I'll... I'll..." Seriously, the kid had nothing more I wanted, and now he was trying to barter. Pathetic. "Um, I ask you a question, you can ask me one?" He tried at last in desperation. Seriously, what on earth could I have to ask him. He was a colt that broke out of a stable, and could hack computers. That's all I needed to know. Come on, I had already told him I didn't even want to know his name. I told him as much, and he look crestfallen for a long moment, before perking up. "I can teach you to hack computers!" He cried victoriously.

I waved a bare forehoof at him. "And would I need a pipbuck for that?" I asked, smirking. he deflated instantly. I could seem him muttering to himself, obviously trying to figure out some other kind of information to trade. I didn't care, I needed sleep, weather my body realized it or not. I lay down, only to hear...

"What about magical energy weapons?' He asked.

"What the crap would you know about magical energy weapons?" I asked, jerking my head back up in surprise. He smiled, and I realized he got me. "Fine." I sighed. "You get a question for every one I ask you, deal?"

"Deal."

"Ok, what the freaking crap do you know about energy weapons?"

"My dad used them in the vault." He said proudly. "He showed me how to fire them once."

"You fired a magical energy weapon... once." I said. Oh joy, I had been conned by a freaking foal!

"Uh huh. So, how can I find food?" He asked, grinning like a shark. I was beginning to think his crying was mostly an act to get his way now.

"Look in fridges and cabinets." I said, might find stuff."

"How do I tell if its any good?" He asked. I just grinned back at him, and lay my head back down.
"Are all donkey's as mean as you?" He asked angrily.

"Find another one and ask them." I said quietly, it coming out sadder then I wanted. I rolled over, and, after a while, sleep finally claimed me.
.......
The next morning, I ate, disarmed the mine, and headed out, the kid trotting after me. Immediately, he went to where the houses fridge lay on its side and opened it. Empty. The cupboards were the same. Seriously, I had looted the place before setting up camp, and he knew that. Outside, he trotted straight for the nearest house. The door was locked, and he started for the next one before he turned back, realizing I had stopped. Locked house? Always worth a check. I brought out my tools. Screwdriver and bobby pins? Please, that was for amateurs. I lived off savaging, and bobby pins always broke when you really needed them. No, I was the scavenger that was smart enough to have spent the time to track down an old locksmiths shop and get the proper tools. That of course, made the job so much easier, and the houses lock wasn't hard. After a moment, it opened, and I headed inside. The colt burst past me, racing for the kitchen. He probably thought I would loot the place of everything if he didn't beat me to it. Smart kid, he was right. Then a shotgun went off, and the kid screamed.

I instantly fell into a crouch, readying my weaponry, My ears perked into full alert, but I could hear nothing but the colts sobbing from the kitchen. I crept forwards, peering cautiously around the corner, the colt was sobbing under the table, blood marring his hind leg. I could see and hear no one else. Then, I saw the tripwire across the doorway. With a sigh, I rose up and moved cautiously forward. After all, there was rarely only one trap. I was right, just around the corner, a bear trap lay, ready to spring. Seriously, how was a bear trap sitting on a bare floor ever supposed to get anyone? I disarmed it and added it to my gear. Always worth a cap or two. I stepped into the kitchen and examined the shotgun. Just a single shot deal, no one wasted good guns in booby traps. Still, free gun, even if it did have one of those stupid triggers only a cheater unicorn could use if it wasn't rigged in a trap.

"Thanks for finding the gun kid." I said, turning to look at the terrified foal. I could see were a the buckshot had just grazed his leg, no permanent damage, but painful. Lucky kid had been going fast enough it mostly missed him. "Oh get up, your fine." I said, moving to check the fridge. A can of cram fell out and rolled over to the kid, bumping his leg. He didn't even notice. I looted the fridge and cupboards, finding only a little food. Seriously, nothing so far was worth the traps. Then I tried the door to what I assumed was the closet, and instead found another basement. I brought out my lantern, and proceeded down. Beer. Kegs and Kegs of homemade beer, and a still. Figured. Valuable, but I couldn't move these kegs. There were only a couple of loose bottles, which I took, then moved back upstairs.

The colt was still under the table, his sobs having died down to sniffles. "Do you have bandages?" He asked.

"Yup", I said, before walking past him and into the main room. I heard him curse behind me.

"Your not giving my any, are you?" He called.

"Nope."

More cursing.

As I checked the main room, I saw him hobble out of the kitchen and cautiously head into what I assumed to be the only bedroom. Huh, looks like he was learning not to rush in unaware after all. Nothing good in the main room, and I was heading into the bedroom after him when I heard a load crashing and the shattering of glass, followed by a thump. I trotted cautiously forward. The kid wasn't in the bedroom, but I spotted an open door to a bathroom inside. In the bathroom, I found a medical case on the wall, hanging open, its contents all over the floor, the healing potion bottle smashed on the tiles. That was the crashing and shattered glass. The kid was lying amidst the mess, bandaging the leg, and a cut to his head sloppily with his magic, which glowed a soft green. It didn't take a genius to realize that he had tried to open the medical kit, only to have everything fall on top of him when his magic opened the latch.

"Your bandage job is sloppy." I said. "Your wasting to much bandage."

He simply glowered at me, sticking out his tongue.

I turned, and checked the bedroom. Only prewar cloths, but they were in ok condition, so I took them. The kid came out of the bathroom, looking a little like he was dressed as a mummy for nightmare night, holding a everything else from the medical kit in his magic. The bottle of purified water he was already drinking from greedily. Smart, now he wasn't going to have to ask for my water.

We left the house and headed down the road, the kid trailing a bit behind, still limping. Seriously, it was only a graze, it was like he had never been shot before. Well, true, he probably hadn't, but hey, time to learn pain tolerance.

"Um, can I have a bag for this?" He asked after a bit, gesturing at the random medical supplies floating next to him. He had only fit a few things in the few pockets his vaultgarb had, which left two rolls of bandages, another water, and some syringes of something floating in magic.

"No."

"But you have tons!" He said, pointing to the various bags tied around my pack saddle.

"Yup, mine." Was my simple reply.

The kid groaned, and headed for the nearest house. I followed, amused. Hey, the kid had to learn. This houses door stood ajar, and the colt proceeded inside, this time with caution. I followed. The place had clearly been long since looted. He searched, but didn't find anything better then a tin can. The same followed for the next house, and the next.

"Kid, we need to go." I said at last. "We can stay in grey haze territory this long." I was a little regretful of that, since this trip hadn't exactly filled my bags with caps at this point, but it wasn't worth the risk of encountering more of the gang to loot a few more houses.

"Just one more!" Was his reply, and he raced to the next house before I could argue. Inside was again, looted. Upstairs though, he disappeared into the room, then gave a cry of triumph. I followed, finding myself in what must have been a foals room. Not much raiding had been done here, after all, broken toys were pretty much worthless. But the kid had found one thing of value, at least for him. The saddlebags had once been brightly colored, but time had dulled the colors. Now they were a muted grey and purple, with dull yellow letters on the carry strap proclaiming "Go Shadowbolts!"

I blinked. Seriously, this kid had ether the best or worst luck in the world. I wasn't sure which. Although, I guess most of the grey hazers weren't going to be interested in a couple of foal sized saddlebags. The kid strapped them on and loaded his meager medical supplies inside. Then we finally got moving again. A couple hours later, we neared the edge of grey haze territory on this side of the city. I carefully moved through backyards and around what remained of houses, abandoning the road. Even the kid realized we needed to be quiet now. Except near their base, the best place to meet a grey haze patrol was at their border, where they charged a toll to anyone passing through, if they didn't just choose to murder them and steal all they had. At least their border wasn't hard to spot. It was marked at random points by pony skulls or body parts mounted on mailboxes or poles driven into the ground.

I heard voices, and flattened behind a dog house, the kid right at my side. I could feel him trembling violently as a pair of earth pony stallions trotted by, talking and laughing. They could have been a pair of friends from any place in equestria, is it wasn't for their barding being stained in multiple places with old blood, the excessive use of spikes and leather, and one of their cutie marks being a leg, broken in the middle and surrounded by blood. After several long moments, they were out of sight, and when even their voices had faded in the distance, I moved cautiously into the open again. A few minutes later, we were past the border, and moving rapidly, but still cautiously, away. An hour later, and I finally decided we were relatively safe. The entire time the colt had been so close I could feel his breath on my legs, and when I turned to look at him, he was still trembling like he had been caught out in a blizzard.

"Kid, were past them." I said, still keeping my voice low. "calm the crap down."

Apparently my words were of little help, so I just rolled my eyes and kept moving.

That night we camped out in an old grocery store on the very edge of Seaddle, where the city began to give way to what used to be forests and farmland, but was now just wasteland. The kid had finally calmed enough that, when we stopped for the night, beat me to looting the place. As such, he actually had food for dinner. However, his eyes when I popped some prewar money into the sparkle cola machine in the corner and actually got an ice cold sparkle cola were something to behold. He kept going on about his amazement that prewar technology was still working and blah blah blah. I ignored him and went to sleep.
.....
Next morning I was ready to get underway, when I caught the kid looking back at the city, ears low, eyes brimming with tears. I tried ignoring him, but finally, I had to ask. "Okay, whats wrong." I finally sighed.

"I... I've never been this far away from home before." He murmured, blinking away tears. "They think I'm dead, and I'm going away from them, and I don't know if I'll every see them again..." His voice drifted off, and tears were running freely down his cheeks. For once, I didn't know what to do. I knew what we should be doing was moving on. Grey haze patrols out here were rare, but they did happen. But deep inside, I couldn't help but feel for the colt. Yeah, his was a privileged little stable-born unicorn brat, who annoyed me at every turn. But he had just lost his home, his friends, and his family, and he might never see any of them again. Heck, he might not even see Seaddle again. Oh, don't look at me that way, I'm not a monster after all.

So, I did the only thing I could think of. I sat down next to the foal and put a hoof around him, giving him a brief tight hug. He turned, and sobbed into my stiff mane, and I was left patting his back awkwardly. After a minute, I pulled away, blinking hard.
"Yeah, lets go, don't waste daylight." I said, voice oddly tight. We walked away, not looking back at the city.
.....
We traveled for days, moving across the barren waste. Between Seaddle and this temporary storage site, their wasn't much. Mainly just a few scattered farms. After a few days though, we came across the only settlement that was on our was to the temporary storage site. The town, if you could call the few buildings made of barely held together scrap a town, was called rain. No seriously, that was its name. And it was apt, as it had been raining for two full days before we even reached the town. Ugh, there was a reason I didn't come to this part of Equestria this much. I freaking hate rain. On the only road into and out of town, we were stopped by a pair of earth ponies, a stallion and a mare, who stood inside a little lean-too. They had lowered weapons at us when we approached, and had ordered us to stop.

"Whats your business in Rain?" the stallion demanded.

"Trade!" I shouted back, jingling my rather full packsaddle. The stallion came out and circled us cautiously, the mare covering him from the shelter.

"All right." He said at last. "Keep all weapons holstered when in Rain. They come out, we shoot you, no questions asked. That building there." He pointed to one of the ramshackle buildings. "Is the store. That one" He pointed to the largest building in town "Is the common house. You can stay the night for a few caps."

"Yeah, thanks." I said, moving past him. The colt followed, and I could see the pair giving us an odd look as we entered town. Well, it was pretty obvious he wasn't mine, and a stable-pony wasn't a common site around here I was guessing.

I entered the town store, and was instantly relieved by the warmth given of by a small stove in the corner. What must have been half the town looked up at us from where they stood, gathered around the small stove. Well, looked like the store was also the local gathering hole, except whenever the bar I saw down the street opened. "Got trade." I said, heading for the counter at the rear of the small store.

Most ceased their attentions to me at that, but then they shifted, looking at the colt, who stood their, looking like a animal caught in a hunters sights. Then, he broke and ran after me, to the sound of much laughter.

The shop pony was a pale grey unicorn buck with a mane the color of old moss, a sort of sickly green. He waited while I unloaded the small mountain of good from my packsaddle onto the counter. Then, the dickering began. He wanted to pay as little as possible for my goods, I wanted to get as much as possible for them. He tried to talk down my wears, I tried to talk down those he was offering in trade. Finally, we made a bargain, and he took my pile of loot from Seaddle, minus a few things he refused as "trash" and I got a bag of bottle caps, some rope, medical supplies, and a set of prewar rain boots close to my size, something I never thought I would find. He tried to offer me a voucher for two free drinks at the local bar, in exchange for some ammo, but I turned him down.

"Quit drinking." I said, rolling my eyes. He of course, had to ask about that, and I gave him the stock explanation. "Last time I got really wasted I woke up in bed with a hellhound." That got quit a laugh from him.

Then, the stallion moved up closer to me and whispered, "So, how much you want for the colt?"

My jaw dropped for a moment before a look of utter disgust took over. "How dare you..." I hissed under my breath.

"What?" The storekeeper said lowly. "Its obvious he's not yours. And he sure as shooting doesn't supply security. Don't know why else a trader would be dragging a non-relation all over the wasteland. But I guess its your business."

"Yes, it is." I half growled. With that, I turned to go, half tripping over the kid, who had been practically glued to my side in an effort to get away from the stares of the townsponies. He fell back into a shelf, scattering canned food everywhere, to the laughter of the townsponies. I wondered if he had been paying enough attention to overhear anything. Well, it didn't matter in any case. He picked up the mess, apologizing profusely. We both headed straight out of town, passing by the hotel and entrance guards. No way I was spending any more time in this town then I had to, not when ponies in it would try to buy a foal. Hours later, we found what was left of an old barn to take refuge in for the night. This time, we had a fire, and I was taking my time drying my coat in front of it when the kid spoke up.

"Why didn't you sell me?" He asked quietly.

I turned, glaring daggers at the kid, he started backing away, mouth moving wordlessly. "You've been traveling with me for nearly a week, and still think I'm the kind of donkey that would sell a freaking foal into slavery?" I asked, my voice low and tense with the anger rising in me. "You really think I'm that heartless?"

The kid had stopped backing away when his tail ended up out in the constant rain, now he stood, head lowered and cowering. I hadn't moved from where I stood. "I... I..." He stuttered. "I don't know. You won't learn my name, you act like I'm an idiot, you won't even share food with me. I just thought... well, when you got a way to get money out of me, I figured... you would."

My glare only intensified. I stepped forwards until I was right in the kids face. "You get this straight right now. I am out for myself. I don't let ANYONE get in the way of me making it to tomorrow. Anything I give you, I loose for myself. I don't give away things that I might need tomorrow." I paused. "I already told you, you are useful. I don't throw out useful things. And yeah, I already told you, once your not of use, I will dump you like a sack of crap." Then I stepped up, so that we were literally eye to eye. I really hated that I didn't have to lower my head to far to get to his level. "But I will never, NEVER, sell anyone into slavery. Get that through your thick little head, or get lost." I turned, and walked back to the fire, lying down beside it on my sleeping mat.

The kid stayed where he was, looking confused. Then, he spoke up again. "So, your ok if I starve to death when you have a pack of food, but you won't sell me into slavery?"

"Pretty much." I murmured. "Sleep now."
....
The next morning, I awoke to find the kid fast asleep on the ground, suspicious looking bits of food surrounding his muzzle. I opened the saddlebags he wore. Several cans of differing pre-war foodstuffs were littering one case. I poked the kid, and studied my pack saddle to be sure, yup, missing nothing. The kid woke up slowly, blinking and stretching as usual. He froze though, when he saw that his saddlebags were open. He looked over at me, reaching out a hoof and shutting them, trying rather obviously to act natural. He put the bags back on as I ate my own breakfast. I noticed he ate nothing, still trying to act like he had no food. I underwent the rather more difficult process of putting back on my pack saddle, and we got underway again.

After we had been walking a while, I finally turned to the kid. "You stole from the shop, didn't you?"

The kid froze right in his tracks. It was a little funny really, him standing there, one foot in the air, eye wide. "I... don't know what your talking about." He said at last, obviously trying hard not to stutter.

"Right, because you totally don't have 6 cans of food just like those on the shelf you fell into in your right side bag." I remarked, rolling my eyes.

"I... I..." He stuttered. Then he sighed, lowing his head. "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

He blinked. "For... stealing." He said, acting like he was explaining a very simple subject to a very young foal.

"Bah, guy would have bought you as a slave. Should have taken more from him." I replied, pulling a small bag of caps from my pack saddle and jingling it.

"But... I... You..." He stuttered, looking confused. "Wait, your telling me its ok to STEAL?"

"Yup." I said, putting away the caps. "As long as they're jerks anyway. Or if survival depends on it." I looked at his shocked expression. "Oh come on, its the wasteland, thievery is practically an art form out here. Heck, why do you think I have locks on my packsaddle?"

He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again, looking over at my packsaddle like he had just seen it for the first time. He seemed... oddly depressed. Weird.

We kept moving. We had several days of travel until we would reach this temporary storage site. As we started moving through the remains of a prewar farm, my ears perked up. I could hear... something, something at the very edge of my hearing. I froze, holding out a hoof for the kid to do the same. I listened, hard. Nothing but the sound of the slight breeze met my ears. Still, something felt off. "Lets move" I as quietly as I could and still have kid here me. We moved forwards as a semi-rapid pace, I tried to be as quiet as possible, but the kid, obviously nervous at my actions. I headed for a large boulder in the corner of the barely recognizable field, and a few feet before we reach it, a shot rang out, and a bullet struck the ground in front of me.

"Go!" I yelled, racing for the protection of the boulder. We ran, a few scattered shots striking the ground around us. We reached the boulder, and I leaped behind it, the kid following. The shots stopped, and a voice rang out.

"Oh, looks like were going to have some fun!" Rang out a creepily gleeful voice.

"Shoot, raiders." I growled. Great. Bandits would have been bad, slavers I could deal with. Raiders... you never really knew what they were going to do. They were obsessively violent, had no regard for their own self being, and tended to have the general intellect of a radhog. However, once in a while, one with a little intellect would pop up and pull a flanking maneuver or something. That always annoyed me. Either way, I could hear at least 4 voices either shouting or laughing as they approached our cover.

"Kid, if any of them get around the rock, hit them with everything you've got." A said in a low, urgent voice.

"Can't we try talking to them?" The kid asked in a voice tinged with rising panic.

I glared back at him. "You remember that house with the carved up pony bits?" He nodded, looking decidedly ill. "That's what raiders do to idiots who try and talk their way out of things."

The kid's legs started shaking so bad I was surprised he didn't fall over. "I don't have a weapon!" He squeaked.

I thought back to the shotgun I had taken, sold already at that store. Heck, I wasn't giving firearms to inexperienced colts anyway. "Your a unicorn, use magic or something!" I snapped. Then I bent down, flipping a catch and pulling a metal bit up from the pack saddle harness that ran across my chest. I Leaped out from behind the cover of the boulder, facing where my ears told me a pair of raiders were rushing towards me. My pack saddle wasn't anything special to look at. I didn't wear simple saddlebags, they didn't hold near enough barter goods, and without straps they fall off all to easily. My pack saddle, to most, looks like a simple frame supported by several straps, one each across chest and belly, and one around each of my rear legs. On the frame I had mounted a couple large ammo canisters, great for keeping goods safe and protecting my sides from fire. I could also tie bags and boxes to the frame, until I looked more like a moving pile of junk then a donkey.
But the more important side of my packsaddle most folks missed. Mainly because it was hidden. That part was what looked like a bit of old pipe sticking out from behind my left ammo can. I faced the first raider I saw, an earth pony mare with a knife, aimed, and bit down on the trigger. The first projectile shot past her head, not even making her pause. The second however caved in her face, sending her tumbling to the ground in a shower of blood and bone. And possibly coffee cup fragments. The second raider, this one an earth pony stallion, had used those seconds to aim a battered sawed off shotgun at me. I fired, sending a clipboard smashing into his fetlock, causing him to drop the gun as I heard bones shatter. The second shot had a ruined book smash his throat, crushing his windpipe, leaving him gasping out his last breaths on the ground. I looked up and saw the third raider, another earth pony stallion almost on top of me, this one holding... seriously, a pool cue? I took one step back, ducking under his swing. He stuck the rock, and the impact traveled straight up his unfortunate weapon choice, sending it and several rotted teeth flying from his mouth. My shot sent a thin piece of scrap metal right through his neck, sending his head flying several feet away, and covering me with his arterial jet of blood.

I looked around. I knew there had been at least four of them, and I had only gotten three. Crap, someone was getting smart. I turned just in time to see the fourth raider, a unicorn stallion carrying a revolver, race around the other side of the boulder. The kid had already been facing that way, but as I watched, he cowered down. I readied another shot, but before I could manage to get proper aim, the kid moved. With speed unlike anything I had even seen him do, he suddenly levitated several chunks of rock up from the ground around him. One after another, they slammed into the raiders head, sending him to the ground, dazed. The kid stood, panting, looking down at his foe as if uncertain what to do next. I knew what to do. I extended the blade of my gauntlet as I stepped forwards, and sent the blade into the raiders neck. Blood pooled on the ground as I pulled the blade out and wiped it on the raiders clothing.

I turned, just in time to see the kid being sick on the ground. Hey, kid had to make his first kill sometime. Those never did come easy. Though technically, he hadn't done any killing yet. "Good job kid." I said, retracting my blade. "Didn't finish him, but eh, I'll give it to you anyway."
The kid spent several minutes retching and shaking, while I got busy looting the bodies of the raiders. When I finally turned back, he looked up at me, shakily. "I... He's..." He was stuttering uncontrollably, still very green in the face. Finally, he seemed to find a thread of conversation to concentrate on. "Give what to me?" he asked shakily.

"That raiders loot." I said, gesturing to the dead raider he was trying so hard not to look at. If anything, that just made him look even more sick. Then, I saw him glance at the bodies I had already begun looting, and swallow hard. He shakily moved to the corpse and began looking through his pockets. He was smart enough to take up the gun in his magic, but dropping it promptly when I dove to the ground when he accidentally pointed it at my head. "Be careful with that!" I snapped. Great, now I was going to have to give him weapon lessons to keep him from shooting me in the... Well, I needed to give him lessons.

When he was done looting, I took everything else off the raiders body, then we headed off towards the tumble-down ruin of what must have been the farmhouse once upon a time. The raiders had obviously been using it as a base, at least, based upon the pony-part themed decorations. The kid took it much better this time, though I wasn't sure if he was starting to get used to the things the wasteland was throwing at him, or if he just didn't have anything left to puke up. We looted the house, the kid heading first towards the kitchen, myself looting everything of value from the rest of the house.

When we left and finally began moving on, I looked over at the kid. "Hey, how the crap did you move that fast back there?" I asked.
He looked confused, then, comprehension dawned across his expression. "Oh, in the fight, that was SATS." He said simply. Seeing my obvious confusion, he elaborated. "SATS is stable-tech assisted targeting system. Its a spell that comes with the pipboy that lets me speed up my personal time field, making everything else look in slow-motion and target enemies for a little while."

I stared. Seriously, he could speed up time for himself? I really needed to get one of those pipbuck things. If only they weren't so dang expensive, when I could find them for sale at all. "What else does that thing do?" I asked in curiosity. Sure, I had seen former vault dwellers with one, but as far as I knew, it was just a small terminal strapped to their hooves, and I wasn't good enough with terminals to know much of what they did.

"Well, I can manage inventory, check my health, store data, map the area, it has a light, and..." He looked startled, and started fiddling with the pipuck. After a moment, music started blaring out of it. "Radio!" He exclaimed.

"Shut that off!" I barked, and he hurried to comply. "Seriously kid, were still in raider territory, and we don't know if we got them all. So, no radio, no noise, ok?"

He nodded, learning, and we set off again. A couple hours later, well away from the raider base, I started to relax. The kid apparently noticed this, and took a chance to speak up.

"So I get to ask you a question now." The kid said with a grin. I looked down at him.

"Actually, you asked me why I didn't sell you into slavery, and if we could talk to raiders, so no, were even." I replied with a bit of a smirk. That sent the kid into another sputtering fit. I could tell he wanted to ask something about that, but didn't have a question of mine to leverage. For a while longer, we traveled in silence.

After a little while though, I kept seeing the kid glancing at me. The third time he did, he got me glowering back. That didn't stop it though, and I finally barked out "What?!"

The kid looked over, smirking, and I realized I had just asked him a question. Crap, yet again, conned by a colt.

"Oh, I was just wondering how you fired stuff out of your saddle-bag... things." he said, still grinning.

I had to work very hard not to facehoof at the one. Seriously, the kid didn't even know what a pack saddle was. "Its not a saddle-bag thing, its a pack saddle." I sighed. "And that's Practicality that fires things." I saw his look of confusion, and, seeing as he had done the same, explained. "Its a weapon I built from plans I got from this ghoul pegasus trader." I could see him mouthing the words "Ghoul pegasus trader?" but ignored him. "Work on some sort of magic built into a gem, causes any object put inside to get fired out at high speed. Modified it a bit to suit me. Built the ammo hold into my pack saddle. Its the ammo can on my left. As long as I load any junk I find in that one, I never have to buy ammo. And I can even load rocks in a pinch. That's why I call it Practicality"

This seemed to satisfy the colt. Or at least, he didn't have another way to get me to answer his questions on hoof. We walked on, until it began to get dark. Soon enough, rain started, and I started looking for shelter. Wasn't much of anything in this area, just mostly bare hills with the dried skeletons of trees. Finally though, I found a large boulder sticking out of the hillside, forming a sort of shallow cave just big enough to give us shelter from the rain. We bedded down for the night, looking out at the rain, eating our respective canned food. The kid finally remembered his pipbuck, and turned on the radio again. He looked at me to make sure it was ok.

"Just keep the volume low." I murmured, moving to set up the protection mines so I could sleep. The radio burst forth with music, a sapphire shores song I remembered hearing often when I was near a radio. Something about the sun not hiding forever. I only half listened as I finished setting up the mines and lay back down. I was about to tell the kid to turn it off, when the voice of DJ Pon-3 rang out.
I listened, waiting to see if any of the news was about the area we were headed. Nothing of course, DJ Pon-3 didn't give out news of this far corner of equestria often. The local radio station acted both as a booster for DJ Pon-3's signal, but would occasionally break in to give out local news. But the area must be relatively quit for now, which suited me fine. I told the kid to turn the thing off, and slept.

Level Up!
New Perk Added: Bloody Mess. Any character and creature you encounter has a higher chance of exploding in a gory mess. You also do 5% more damage to everything. Because you really need to get covered in gore more often.

Author's Note

Yay, new chapter! Still working on a cover image and decent summary, but I figured I needed to get this out first. Look for a cover image in a few days.

Chapter 3: Follow that trail!

It was several days journey to where the storage site was approximately located. It rained the whole way there. I had made some modifications to the rain boots I had bought, so they now fit well, and kept my hooves dry. But the ground became increasingly muddy, slowing progress. I had brought rain gear with me, but the kid ended up spending most of his time wet and shivering. By the time we finally trotted into view of the temporary storage site, he was looking a bit under the weather. The supposed storage site wasn't much to look at. It was a fenced compound, located at what had been a crossroad between two rail lines. Inside, various buildings, all sharing the same prefabricated design, were scattered amidst rows of rusting rail cars. If I hadn't been led here by the documents we had found, I would have simply assumed it to be just another rail car storage facility. The place didn't even have any signs or markings proclaiming what it was. Which, when I thought about it, was strange. I had seen places like this, several had been converted into towns as boxcars made good pre-made homes. But most had some sort of indication of what they were called, even it it was just "rail yard 7".

Come to think of it, the last building hadn't ether, it had just been an office building, the only reason I had gone in was because I had the address from the papers I found. I had just figured that, since it was half ruined, whatever name it had was long gone. But the one thing this site and that had in common was a complete lack of any identifying markings. It was odd really. It wasn't like storage sites. even those for prewar weapons or confiscated zebra gear, were that huge of a secret. I'd been in several myself, unfortunately long after they had already been looted. They always proclaimed that they belong to one ministry or another. I wondered what made this one so different. Were they both just to new to have signs made yet? Maybe to many ministries were involved with this place to proclaim them all? But both these places were practically made to be inconspicuous. It was like the only thing to be noticed about them was how little there was to notice.

The fence around the rail yard was rusting away, and it was simple enough to get in through a large hole in one side. Of course, the documents had only told us that things were shipped to this facility, not where inside they were stored. Which meant we were going to have to check everything. Thankfully, the many generations of wasteland ponies had actually helped us here. The boxcars sitting around the rail yard were all standing with open doors, anything of value long since looted. I ignored them. Instead, I began to weave my way through the boxcars, heading for the largest of the prefab buildings. Before I got halfway though, my ears perked up, swiveling to the left as they began to pick up a slight shifting of gravel under a light tread. I silently sank into the crouch, dimly aware of the kid, eyes wide, mimicking me.

Down at this level, it was easy to peer under the boxcars, searching out who or what was moving our way. I glimpsed paws and tensed, until I saw they were much to small for a hellhound. Just a common feral dog. Not particularly dangerous to an armed pony, unless.... I looked, and spotted another set of paws further out. And another, and another. Great, some pack obviously had taken up the boxcars as some sort of den. And now they probably thought diner was delivering itself to them. Even as I watched, the nearest set of paws stepped up into a run. I moved, leaping up into the nearest boxcar, letting the walls keep the dogs from getting at my sides. From up here, I can see several of the feral dogs racing through the boxcars towards me. I pull out the bit, aim, and fire. The nearest dog goes down, face crumpling in around a tin can. A second flips end over end, a clipboard sticking out of its rib cage. The rest are between boxcars, out of my sights. I check behind me, but none are coming at me from there. I look back just in time for one to come out from under the nearest car and leap for me, I fire wildly, and several cups fly past it before a pencil punctures its throat. I still hear paws scrambling in the gravel nearby, but none enter the car. Then, I hear the kid squealing beneath me.

I leap down, and see the kid. He apparently had tried hiding under the boxcar, and now a pair of hounds had him, one grabbing his tail, the other chewing on the kids foreleg, but only managing to scratch the paint on the pipbuck. I fired. several rocks impacted the hounds, crushing ribs on one, snapping the neck of the other. They dropped, and I turned, ears swiveling. No more sounds reached my ears, apparently, that was all of them, at least in this area. The kid was still lying their, trembling, staring at the pair of dogs that, if it wasn't for their poor choice of holds, could have torn him to bits. He was lucky to get out of it with only a scratched pipbuck. Well, that wasn't quit all. I tried pulling him out from under the car, but the feral dogs corpse refused to let go of his tail. I just pulled harder, leaving half the kids tail hair in the hounds mouth.

"Lucky it wasn't your head." I growl, when the kid squeals in pain. "Next time remember your gun."

I kept moving, entering the largest building. Its door opened easily with the push of a hoof. Obviously, it had already been looted numerous times. Still, I went through every desk and cabinet. Nothing worth anything, but when you could use old tins as ammo, it didn't really matter. I chucked all the old junk I found into the ammo can that fed Practicality. It took a little while a while to search the largest building, but there was nothing here. Desks and junk yes, treasure, no. Still, it was odd, still no identification on anything, not even in a few papers I found. everything here was the same generic items in any office. I moved to the next largest building, and found much the same. Nothing I wouldn't have found in a dozen places, no identification of anything. No indication that anything of value was ever kept here. I trotted out and looked around. There were several buildings left. Which one to search next? I would have thought anything of value would be in the largest building. But it was empty. So then, where would I hide something I really didn't want someone to find?

I looked around, and spotted it. It was barely a building. Small, square, with one door and no windows. Something I usually found full of old junction boxes and pipes. The kind of place no one would notice, or search, at least, before the bombs. The kind of place you might try and hide something if you were smart about it. I headed over. The walls were thick concrete, the door heavy steel, with the usual warnings about electricity. Nothing too unusual, except the door was still locked. Finally, a good sign. It took a bit, the lock was surprisingly well made for what was supposed to be an electrical facility, but I finally managed it. Inside was... electrical junction boxes and pipes. And a large hatch set into the floor, with a terminal. I turned to order the kid to hack it, and realized he wasn't there. With a sigh, I went to find him.

I found him in what looked to be some kind of break room, back in the largest building, devouring cram. I ushered him to the terminal and set him to work. It took a little while, enabling me to scour the room for tools, which I packed away. Tools were hard to make, and fetched a decent price. Finally though, the door swung open, revealing dusty steps leading down into the earth. I cautiously moved down, keeping an eye out for additional defenses. Anyplace this secret had to have a few. And I was right. As soon as I put a hoof into the room lightning arched down from the ceiling, striking were my hoof would have been if I hadn't already pulled it back. I backed away swiftly. I knew this kind of trap, though, judging by the sever scorching it was leaving, and how my fur was standing on end, this had quit a bit more juice behind it then average. But it couldn't pump out that kind of juice for long, and after a moment, it shorted out. I cautiously stepped into the room.

It was an office. Underground, hidden by layers upon layers of secrecy, was a normal looking office. Desks lined up in rows, broken terminals, even a break room I could spot through a side door. The only thing that set it apart from every other abandoned office I had encountered was the large steel reinforced door set in the far wall, next to a still functioning terminal. The kid got to work, and I began sorting through papers at nearby desks, seeing if they had anything of interest. Really though, something felt... off. It was to easy. The place was abandoned, no raider, no monsters, just an empty building with a locked door. True, it was really well hidden, and had a good trap for intruders, but things in the wasteland were never this easy.

That feeling was confirmed when the kid suddenly started yelling at the terminal.

"Whats wrong?" I sighed, prepared for the worst.

"It locked me out!" He exclaimed, angrily. "I was so certain I had it, but it just locked me out! Now I can't get in at all!'"

Well, I had thought this was to easy. "Ok kid, time to try my way." I said. "Get upstairs and wait there."

The kid looked confused, but headed upstairs. It only took a minute for me to set the charge. I raced back upstairs, passing the kid, who had only gone as far as the stair door. When he saw me move clear across the room and behind some heavy metal pipes however, he followed, finding his own cover. A few seconds later, a deafening "Blam!" filled the air, sending dust shifting down from the ceiling. I waited another couple of minutes, then made my way back down to the basement, the kid following. The door still stood, but the locking mechanism was toast. Papers now littered the room, blown around from the blast. Making sure the kid wasn't in the way, I placed my shoulders against the door and shoved, and after a moments effort, the whole thing fell over with a deafening clang. I poked by head into the room. Dust and papers were strewn about everywhere, but the only damage here would have been from the shock wave.

Inside the sealed room, shelves upon shelves greeted my eyes. I still stepping in cautiously, not wanting a hidden turret to ruin my day. There were none in the vault,apparently this was a lower priority then the vault back in Seaddle. But there seemed to be a good reason for that. The room was full of large shelves. Large empty shelves. Nearly the entire room was empty. And, judging by the dust, had been that way for a long time. I growled, but moved forwards, towards the only thing of interest, the last row of shelves, far in the back, were filled with boxes.

Opening one, I gazed inside at a collection of grey cloaks with gemstone clasps, and my mood immediately improved. Zebra stealth cloaks, rare, and valuable. Best yet, they conferred invisibility to the wearer, making my job of sneaking through ruins in hostile areas much easier. Or would have anyway. The gemstones of the clasps were all cracked, ruining the cloaks for invisibility. Unless I could find a zebra or unicorn that could enchant new gemstones, the cloaks were only useful as, well, cloaks.

I turned, and saw the kid was chest-deep in a footlocker, pulling out pistol after pistol. I figured he had earned some of the goods, and left him to his loot. Only this shelf had anything on it, but the wall also had rows of lockers. So hopefully I could get something out of this. Finally, after about an hour, we had gone through the room. 3 crates of weapons, including the pistols kid had found, 2 more boxes of ruined zebra stealth cloaks, and 1 box of explosives. The rest of it was research papers and other worthless paper. Still, a half decent haul. Nothing that would break the bank... well, if equestria still had banks, but enough to get by comfortably on for a couple months, if I bartered well. Then, we got to work on the papers.

Redacted, redacted, everything was redacted. It didn't make much sense. Yes, most of this stuff was confiscated zebra gear, but nothing really rare, nothing I could think of that needed this level of secrecy. Even the research was mostly dead ends, papers stored on failed projects that went no where. I kept seeing the names of different ministries on these, but the names never came up on the other, non-project papers. Or, if it had been, it was now redacted. But I wanted to get to the bottom of this. Whatever had been taken from here had to have been removed prewar. No one looting afterwards would have bothered locking up after themselves, or leave the rest of this. So this trail of clues could still be leading somewhere, if only I could pick it up again.

We set up camp in the vault. I figured if it had held off being looted for two hundred years, it would be the safest place to stay the night, even with the door laying face down outside. I left the kid to read through more papers, seeing as he was managing to get through them twice as fast as I was. I went outside and got to work on the dogs. No use letting the meat and hides go to waste after all. It took over an hour to skin and get the choice cuts from each dog, since I couldn't carry all the meat. I took them back inside and used papers we had already read through to make a small fire, to warm the basement and cook the meat. I was spitting a cut of dog when the kid wandered over, took one look at what I was preparing, and went pale.
"But... that's meat!" He squeaked. I almost laughed.

"Its food." I said, rolling my eyes. "You want to keep living, you take what you can get." He looked even more pale now, if that was possible. "Plenty left on the carcasses, if you don't mind the poorer cuts. Might even get some good sausage if you use the guts."

That was to much for the kid, he bolted up the stairs and outside, where I could hear him heaving. I shrugged, and went back to cooking my dinner. The kid came back, but he didn't seem to have much of an appetite.

After I ate, I went through the two boxes of weapons I had found and claimed, taking them apart, cleaning them, and swapping parts around.

"What are you doing?" The kid asked, looking up from more papers he had been reading to study what I did. When I raised an eyebrow, he simply said "You asked what was wrong."

I rolled my eyes, but answered. "I'm finding all the best parts, and putting them together into one gun to make that one worth the most. I'm also cleaning them. You should probably do the same with yours." He looked confused, then looked over to the box of pistols he had opened first. Apparently it had never occurred to him that finders rights still applied. He perked up and went over to the box, pulling out all the small pistols inside. He did his best, but it was obvious he had little idea what he was doing. Well, I wasn't his teacher, I was... What exactly? Traveling partner? Guide? Bodyguard? Well, it didn't mater anyway. I set up the landmines, then settled down for sleep.

....

The next day was spent going through more papers. Well, mostly the kid went through them while I scavenged my way through the entire facility. Besides the vault, not much was worth taking, except as ammo for practicality. Hours past until we got something to go on. A barrel full of documents someone had tried to torch before leaving. They had done a really poor job, most just being singed. One listed that a load of... redacted, had been shipped to... oh no, no, the universe could not be that cruel. But of course it was. We checked every other document, but their were no other leads. If I wanted to follow this trail to the end, the next stop was in the last corner of Equestria that I ever wanted to visit. Fillydelphia.

I suppressed a shudder. The home of that slaving bastard, and the largest slave... well, outpost didn't really do it justice. Fortress? Kingdom? In Equestria. There was no getting in, except in chains, and no getting out except possibly in a mass grave. I had never been in Red-Eyes fortress, and never wanted to set hoof inside, unless it was to shove a grenade up that bastards tail hole. But the stories that filtered out... well, lets just say if I got captured their, my best option was to set off all the explosives and hope I took a few of them with me. True, judging by the location given, this storage facility was located in a section of Fillydelphia far from the slaver fortress, which was in what had been the industrial center of the city. Still, the brotherhood of steel was nearby, though they weren't that hostile, if you carried nothing that interested them. But slavers were a constant threat, along with the deadly creatures found everywhere in Equestria. The air, while not as bad as near the slaver fortress, as still mildly toxic, and radiation was also higher then average.

Of course, I could end this quest, call it quits, and just keep going from ruin to ruin, finding junk to trade in for a good meal, and maybe some stimpacks on a good day. Yeah, great option that. Spent half my life doing it, and got nothing more then a packsaddle of junk to show for it. Screw it, I had a chance for once to make some decent caps, and I was going for it. And, well, lets face it, and this point, I just had to know what in Equestria needed this many levels of secrecy to hide. That decided, I began packing everything of value into my pack saddle.

"We're leaving?" The kid asked, looking up from more papers he was going through.

"Yup." was my slightly tense reply.

"Where are we going?" He asked.

"Fillydelphia" I sighed.

Level Up! New perk added: Explosive Safe cracker, level 2: Lock to tricky? Terminal unhackable? Just blow it up! Using explosives on a door or safe now has a 20% lower chance of destroying all valuables inside.

Author's Note

Yes, promised a cover. Good news it, I made one. Bad news is my scanner wont connect to my computer, so I can't upload it at the moment. Hopefully I'll figure out something soon.

Chapter 4: Old Friends

It was one thing to say we were going to Fillydelphia, quit another to actually get there. The main problem was quit simple, the facility we were starting out from was nearly on the other side of Equestria from Fillydelphia. So yeah, we had several weeks of travel ahead of us, and and the end, out destination was almost literally on the doorstep of the closest thing to taurtarus. Heck, I'm pretty sure taurtarus was getting off easy compared to Filly. We were going to have to pick up more supplies somewhere, probably a couple places. I catched essentials along my frequent trade routes, but I had never been foolish enough to try and trade with Filly. And I couldn't carry enough supplies to get us across Equestria all at once. Thankfully, we now had a decent stock of goods to trade for essentials, but it was still going to be a long hard road.
I had spent the evening putting everything of value in my pack saddle, then sorting out the cheaper items by priority. Food and water all came, but I had to leave a bit of junk that I would have normally loaded into Practicality. I needed the space for essentials, and I really did prefer avoiding danger rather then shooting through it. Plus I could always just chuck rocks into it if I ran out of my current limited supply of junk. That morning, we set out, in yet another wet miserable day. Thankfully the storage facility was far enough from any settlements or main trade routes that the next few days were uneventful. Not a pony crossed out path, and the only wildlife we encountered was smart enough to stay out of our way. However, we had to get into more "civilized" areas eventually, and I altered our coarse, heading towards a settlement for a supply run.

It was a little farming settlement called furrow. I had only been here once, a couple years ago, but they had a half decent market. Unfortunately, they also didn't remember me. Which left to the usual ritual of me standing very still with a lot of guns shoved in my face.

"We don't need any stinking raiders here!" Snarled a female earth pony, pointing a double barreled shotgun smack in my face.

"I'm a trader, not a raider." I growled, rolling my eyes.

"I only seen manes like that on raiders." She glowered. "An' I don't like them stripes. What are you, some sort of half-zebra raider spawn?!"

"I'm a DONKEY!" I said, doing my best to keep the growl out of my voice. I wanted into the place after all. "Look, big ears, tufty tail, just got a few stripes to. NOT part zebra."

She paced around me, looking me all over, carefully. Finally, she stopped. "Fine." She said, semi-resentfully. "We might need a few thing. But I got my eye on you. So keep any weapons holstered or we will blow you ta' kingdom come."

With that, she turned and motioned for me to proceed. Which I did. I even managed to avoid rolling my eyes until she couldn't see. See, polite as anything. The kid followed, seeming quite a bit more rattled by the whole experience, if the stuttering was anything to judge by.

"Th-th-they p-pointed guns at us!" He squeaked.

"Yup" I intoned.

""J-just for walking up!"

"Uh-huh."

"WHY?!"

"Because they're stupid ignorant ponies who shoot anything that looks different than them." Was what I thought. What I said was. "Just be glad they didn't shoot us at first sight, happens a lot to me."

He stopped in his tracks, looking ether shocked or frightened, I wasn't sure which, but by then, we had reached the market, and I had other things to do. I headed for the nicest looking stall, but froze for just an instant when I saw a well-muscled dull-grey unicorn with the cutie mark of a rifle finishing business. For a moment, a look of rage crossed my face, before it fell away and was replaced with a carefully neutral expression, and I resumed moving. The kid had noticed, but he wasn't asking yet.

"Got trade goods." I said, trotting up to silver earth pony mare behind the wooden counter as she finished counting out coins to the unicorn.
"Yeah, let me finish with..." She started to say, before she was interrupted.

"Scrounger!" The unicorn exclaimed, sounded a little surprised and happy. The shopkeeper looked confused. Especially when I failed to react at all and just started placing out goods.

"Uh, Scrounger?" The unicorn said, tapping me with a hoof. Still no reaction. "Oh come on, your still holding that against us?"

"Hey Ready Fire, whats up?' A mares voice inquired. A soft orange unicorn wandered over from the next stall, drawn by the others words. He motioned at my still unresponsive form, and she brightened up. "Hey, Scrounger!" She called happily. "Good to know your still kicking!" Again, I didn't react. She looked from me to the stallion. "Really, still?"

"Apparently." He sighed. Meanwhile, the shopkeeper decided to just ignore all this as well and start examining my goods. A large green earth pony stallion moved over from where he had been guarding a heavily loaded brahmin and also caught sight of me. He started to call out, but the others just shook their heads, rolling their eyes.

"Um, whats going on?" The kid asked. Apparently, the others hadn't noticed him behind me, and they crainned their heads to look, causing him to duck back nervously.

"Holy crap, she stole a kid." I heard the earth pony mutter.

"Trading." I grunted, starting to haggle with the shopkeeper for caps and goods.

"But... who are they?" He asked, motioning to the others.

I made a great show of looking around. "No one here kid." I said after a moment, then got back to haggling. The kid just looked confused.

"Oh, don't bother kid." Ready Fire said. "She won't acknowledge we exist. But I'm Ready Fire, this is Dawning Light, and the earth pony is Heavy Load."

"Um, hi." The kid said, stepping away from me. "Uh, why won't Scrounger look at you?"

"Long story kid." Ready Fire said. "Lets sit down were miss PRISSY HOOVES over there can hear and I'll tell you. "

They moved off, but of course stayed where I could hear as they talked.

"Its like this, back when we were younger, we were all in a caravan together. Scrounger must have been just a few years older then you, but she's so short, who knows. Anyway, we had been traveling together for a while..."
.....
Equestrian Wasteland, 11 years previously

I huffed, panting slightly in the heat, the heavy saddlebags at my sides rubbing away at my back. Still, I was doing better then a lot of the ponies here. Ready Fire, Dawning Light, and Heavy Load were all suffering from the heat more then I was, and I still had more water in my canteen. Sometimes being a donkey had its advantages, like being more adapted for the heat, for one. True, my legs had to take three steps to their two, but I had plenty of growing left to do. They may be a few years older then me, but I hoped they always wouldn't tower over me.
Hard Trail held up a hoof ahead, signaling us to take a break. A dark brown unicorn, he was Ready Fire and Dawning Light's father, and the one who had finally given me a job. Found me hauling a load of scrap nearly my own weight to sell for a enough to get some food for once, and offered me a job hauling for his caravan. At the time I had nearly idolized him for being to kind. Now... well, the old skin-flint had probably just found another dirt-cheap source of labor. Come on, his work-pool was made up of three teenagers and a dumb brahmin for a reason. But at the time all I cared about was that I actually got to eat every day, and all I had to do was carry a pack around with me. Yeah, I seemed to get a bit less, but I was small, I couldn't do as much. At least, that's what I told myself.

After a couple of years, I sort of began thinking of us as some weird sort of family, traveling the wastes together, searching for "treasure" to sell and seeing the world. All the time with jokes and fun had by all. Yeah, the jokes were on me, a lot, ok, all of them were. But hey, families did that... right? As we sat and drank, I got another little "Joke" In which my canteen got tossed around and everyone else got a drink. But they finally tossed it back to me, Hard Trail signaled us to get moving, and we were on our way.

It was still blisteringly hot, and the sand underfoot made for slow going. but the road to New Pegasus, biggest settlement in this part of equestria, ran through this desert, so cross it we would. As hours passed, I was right behind Hard Trail, while the others were starting to lag. I figured we were due to stop soon. We had passed a massive old sky wagon a few minutes before, but an old fuel station was just in sight, and we were heading for that. Then, as we past a massive sand dune, it seemed to explode.

Sand flew everywhere as three massive black forms leaped out from the remains of the dunes. We drew guns and fired. I just had a little pistol made out of rusty parts and a bit of pipe. It did nothing, just seemed to make the radscorpions even angrier. They charged in, and as the others also realized their rounds were doing little damage, we bolted. I was nearest the creatures, and the shortest, but, as a donkey, my legs were even shorter then pony legs. I was not built for sprinting. The others were swiftly outpacing me, heading strait for the sky wagon. I called out desperate, wanted them to slow down, to help me. They didn't even look back. Meanwhile, the radscorpions were right on my tail, and I was already tired from a long days travel. My legs and lungs were already starting to burn. But if I could just hold on until I got to the sky wagon with the others. Far ahead, the others were jumping into the wagon. I did my best to speed up, but my legs had no more speed left in them. Then, I heard them close the wagon doors.

Shocked, I missed a step, and tumbled to the ground. The radscropions were instantly upon me. Only shear luck saved me. The had been running to fast to stop and get me. Instead, they ran right over me, multi-jointed legs falling on all sides of me. They swept over me, and started to turn. I rolled to my feet and staggered into a run as the radscorpions came after me again. I couldn't keep this up long, I needed shelter, NOW. But their was nothing, except the fuel station, which was to far to reach, and sand in every direction. So I just kept running. I headed for the distant station, hoping against hope that I could make it. I knew I wouldn't, but it was the only hope I had. Then, I spotted the pipe. It was small, dark, sticking out of a sand bank, and I had no idea where it went, but I had nothing else. I went for it.

I dove into the narrow inlet, and as my head and shoulder cleared, I thought I was home free. Then I stuck tight, my hindquarters sticking out into the wasteland. I knew the problem, the saddlebags. I squirmed, desperate to break loose. A pincer caught my hind leg, and started dragging me out, and I fought it to no avail. Dragged back out of the pipe, I screamed in sheer terror as one of the radscorpions tail barbs swung down... and ripped through the saddlebags. I couldn't believe the luck. But I wasn't going to stay and question it. Now able to see my foe, I put a hoof into the radscorpions eye, and it released me. I leaped into the pipe, and crawled in as fast as I could manage. To my horror, after only a moment, my nose hit sand. It was a dead end.

The pipe wasn't even big enough for me to turn around in, so all I could do was sit and wait to be hauled out. But several long moments passed and nothing reached in. Instead I simply heard a lot of scraping outside the pipe. Then, I realized the giants claws were far to big to actually fit in the pipe. As long as they couldn't break through, I was safe. And so began the waiting game. They kept up outside for a long time, and, exhausted, I finally fell into sleep.

When I awoke, I heard movement outside the pipe. I listened hard, but it wasn't radscorpions, it was hooves. And voices.

"Got her saddlebags." I heard Hard Trail say. "Must have got her. Lucky for us they left the bag, so its not much loss."

I saw red. Really, for all they new, I was in twenty pieces right now, but as long as they had my loot, it wasn't an issue? I backed out the pipe as fast as I could, coming flying out in the middle of them all. They jumped back, surprised, and I clambered to my feet.

""Not much of a loss!" I screamed, red faced and practically vibrating in hate. "I worked for you, helped you, and I'm not much of a loss!"
"Now look.." He started. But I interrupted. By shoving my pipe pistol in his mouth.

"SHUT! UP!" I screamed, eyes tearing. "I trusted you people, and you left me to flipping die!" By this point, the others were pointing their own guns as me, but I didn't care. I held his head in place with one hoof and leaned in. "You are all dead to me." I growled. With that I released him and lowered my pistol. The others were yelling commands for me to stop, to drop the gun, anything. I didn't react. They were dead now. They no longer existed for me.
.....
"And she just walked off" Ready Fire finished. "No canteen, saddlebags, or anything but that pistol. Just walked off into the desert. Thought she had lost it. Didn't expect her to survive. But ran into her a year of so latter. Never has spoken to us though. Heck, wont even look at us."
"You left her to die." The kid spoke up. He looked upset. I didn't blame him.

"Hey, it was her or us." Ready Fire said with a dismissive wave of a hoof. "Really, you don't think she'll do the same to you if it comes down to it?"

"Hey kid, time to go." I said, as I finished storing away the goods. The kid, startled, climbed back to his feet and followed me out of town. He didn't say anything, not that he had to. As we passed out of town, I simply turned breifly and simply said. "No, I wont." And with that, we headed out again.

Level up!

New Perk Added: The Power of Backstory! Level 1: Your companion understands you better now. Companion combat efficiency is now raised 5%. Just think, you could level this perk up if you actually start interacting with that colt.

Chapter 5: Two Steps Forwards

The rest of the road to Filly was long and deceptively uneventful. I wasn't fooled. Yes, we had just crossed half of Equestria to get here, without a lot of trouble, but I could figure why. At first it was simply the fact we kept to unpopulated areas, avoiding settlements and the well-traveled routes that raiders preyed upon. But, as we got within a weeks travel or so of Filly, we saw no sign of a living pony. Just burned-out settlements and well-worn trails. No one lived near Filly any more. The smart ones had run. The rest were in Filly itself. The city that would save Equestria if you listened to Red-Eye. Always wondered how a place built on so many corpses could save anyone. The slavers had been depopulating Filly's surrounding settlements for years now, so now if you met anyone within a weeks trot of Filly, you knew to shoot even before you saw the chains and collars they carried. I wondered sometimes if Red-Eye ever looked out at the deserted waste around his city and wondered what would happen first, he got his utopia, or he simply ran out of ponies to enslave.

We avoided that few slaver patrols we glimpsed as we approached the city. The only other life we saw on our route surprised me, a whole mess of steel rangers heading east, no idea where to, but we avoided them easily enough. Heck, I had heard that clanking armor long before they would have been in sight. A full day before the city itself came into sight, I could see its glow off the cloud layer, the red glow that, even in the daytime gave the place a sinister feeling. But that was nothing compared to when we crested a final hill and the city came into view.
Fillydelphia, once a capital of commerce and industry, was now a nightmare settled down on earth. A huge ruin of a city, crumbling buildings filled the horizon. Walls of a massive size surrounded its center, all the better to keep the poor dying souls trapped in their hell. The glow from the pit lit up the area around it a sickly green, contrasting the molten red glow from the factories and refineries under the control of the great slave lord red eye. So, this was the great Utopia he kept promising ponies over the radio? Great job Red Eye, you really captured paradise.
We moved cautiously into the city, moving through back alleys and ruined buildings, keeping out of sight as much as possible. I kept my eyes and ears open, monitoring not only the streets, but the sky. After all, I knew red eye had plenty of griffins in his pay. Dang mercs always would work for anyone with caps, no matter how vile. We took a long circuitous route around the city, staying well away from red eyes compound. This took a while, but better safe then caught. The streets, like the miles around Filly, were deserted. Not just of ponies, but of nearly all life. Nothing could live long in the toxic air of Filly. Even the slavers had expiration dates.

As we crept, we passed patrol after patrol of slavers, either on the lookout for anypony that had escaped the compound, or looking for anyone they could bring in. It was nerve-racking and tedious to the extreme, moving across the city this way. It was almost a relief when I spotted our first steel ranger patrol. Only two, and not looking our way, thankfully, as we snuck past. Normally I wouldn't bother sneaking past, I didn't usually carry anything a steel ranger would want. But they might decide to take the kids pipbuck, and I would prefer avoiding that. Dang thing was useful after all. It did make me wonder where the group that had left were going. Were the steel rangers finally abandoning Filly, like anything with sense had done years ago?

Finally though, we reached the storage facility. This one, again, was unmarked, appearing as just another warehouse, albeit now a ruined one. This was getting really odd, three locations, all linked by a paper trail, all without any indication they were anything other then whatever buildings were common in the area. Someone had really been trying hard to hide something, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what that was. Nothing we had recovered seemed worth all this. It better be worth a lot though, to make this trip worthwhile.

We entered the warehouse. It was full of large shelves of crates, stretching on for quit a distance. Several had been opened by other looters, this was a busy area after all. I only hoped whatever we were looking for had been well hidden. All opened crates were empty, but when I took the time to pry open another crate, I found it was empty as well. I couldn't figure it out, had someone taken the time to reseal a looted crate? And why were their still intact crates in here, everything should have been looted years back. So, I opened another crate, and it to was empty. I moved down a row, tapping sealed crates with a hoof. All echoed hollowly. All empty. Now all the unopened crates in a warehouse open to the wastes made sense. The whole place was full of empty crates. Seriously, someone had built an entire warehouse in the middle of Filly and filled it with nothing? What in Tartarus?

I finally found a door that was still locked. It had taken a while to find, being behind a stack of empty crates, which in reality, were themselves hinged to the wall. This one took some time for me, they had invested in this lock, and no key was left in the lock this time. But my skill with a my lock picks won out, and it swung open. Inside was a staircase, covered in two hundred years of dust, leading down. I couldn't have been more pleased to see not a single hoof prints in that dust. With luck, nothing down here had been disturbed for 200 years. I motioned the kid to stay back as I cautiously made my way down. Poking my head through the door at the bottom, I hurriedly drew it back when a barrage of turret fire made me draw it straight back. I pulled out the bit from my hidden rock-it launcher out, and jumped around the corner. A barrage of coffee cups and clipboards took out the two turrets inside the door. I took a moment to pick up my "Ammo", and looked around. Just a small room with another large unmarked door and terminal, like the first two.

I went back and got the kid, setting him to work on the terminal. This one took him far longer then the others, he kept having to back out and start again. I sorted through turret wreckage as I waited, actually managing to find a few usable parts. Finally though, the kid announce "There!" and the door started rolling open. I moved up, hoping I would finally find the big haul that the original papers had indicated, all those pre-war weapons would set me up nicely for a good long while. But when the door finally rolled open, the kids pipbuck illuminated... An office?

I stepped in with caution. No ways all this led to just an office. But for all appearances, it was an office. Desks stood in rows across a large room, each with a terminal. None glowed. They weren't even military grade, and rust had done them all in long ago. If it wasn't for its location, nothing would really set this office apart from dozens I had looted in the past. Well, except for the large steel door at the far end, with the words "Armory" stenciled on it, with a terminal, this one military grade and working, set in the wall beside it. I motioned for the kid to get to work on it, while I went to rummage in the desks.

The desks were all locked, and while the kid hacked to door, I got picking. The first desk rewarded me with papers. As did the next, and the next. I loaded up on a few coffee cups that had been left lying around, and glanced through the papers. The first was a report on "Suspect 201878", who apparently lived in Canterlot and was suspected of... Bah, boring. The next was about "Agent 34", who was close to getting a private audience with "The Big Cheese". I tossed the papers away. really, what was all this junk?

"Got it!" The kid called out as the armory door opened. I stepped inside and froze. A sentrybot stood with its minigun pointed straight at my face. My heart stopped beating for a long moment before I realized that it wasn't activated. Kid must not have tripped an alarm. Oh, but the room. Several racks of rifles and pistols, all in pristine condition, a whole stack of ammo cans, and, oh my, was that seriously a minigun? Oh yes, it was. I was busy running my hooves over it, inspecting it for any damage the last 200 years had caused when the kid managed to knock several rifles off their racks.

"Hey, watch the goods!" I snapped. He leaped in surprise, and knocked over an ammo can on his way down. "Go inventory the office." I sighed. "I'll take care of this."

The kid dutifully headed out to go inventory whatever was left in the office. Really, I couldn't care less about anything out there. Oh, this whole stupid treasure hunt had finally paid off. If I could just get all this out of here I could make enough to get myself properly set up. Hire a Brahmin and a couple guards, get a real trade route set up once I had enough protection. Heck, if I played my cards right, I could have a decent trading company set up out of this.

The kids head popped back into the armory. 'Do you want me to hack the main terminal?"

"Sure" I said, not really caring. I was busy dumping everything but a few basic necessities out of my pack saddle to make room for the first load. This was going to be problematic. I could simply carry as much as I could strap on, but I needed to be able to sneak out of here. So I couldn't just load myself up and crawl along. But I didn't want to leave to much. Someone might find this place before I could get back, and regardless, I wanted to make as few trips into Filly as possible. Even one was practically suicide, but it would take a dozen to get all this out.
But the kids appearance did make me realize I still had to deal with him. Well, I didn't need him any more. I could just leave him, but no way was I leaving a foal anywhere near Filly. Even an annoying little stable-dweller unicorn. Plus, he could help me carry this load. What was he up to anyway? I hadn't noticed a terminal still working out in that office. Well, I would check on that in a minute. I had loading to do.

The next half hour was spent working rifles into the pack saddle, then loading ammo in around them until I was sure I hadn't left an inch of available space inside. It was odd, I had seen weapons similar to these before, but never with this strange black and purple paint job. Plus there was some sort of lightning bolt symbol on many of them, and a large version on the wall. But it wasn't until I opened a set of lockers on the far wall that I got the big surprise.

The first contained several sets of pre-war armored barding. Like I had seen for security guards, except this barding, while black and webbed, didn't say security, and the black was intermixed with purple. The next however, contained a weapon I had only ever seen once, in the posession of a slightly crazed group of ponies inside an old military base way down south. They called it their "self defense gun". Unless they were planning to defend against red-eyes army or a whole pack of hellhounds, it was overkill. Sitting in the locker was a freaking balefire egg launcher. Which meant the small case next to it held... yup, a balefire egg. Holy freaking sunrise, what on earth were these ponies expecting to be fighting?

I pulled a rifle and a bit of ammo out of the pack saddle, and, after wrapping it in some barding, carefully to placed the egg inside, making sure not to load it in Practicality by mistake. Then I strapped the launcher on top of the pack saddle. The rest of the armory would need to wait for future trips. Well, except whatever I loaded onto the kid for his cut. Come to think of it, he was taking a while. I headed back into the office, and didn't see the kid anywhere. Then, I saw another door in the opposite side of the room from the armory, this one an expensive looking wooden variety. However, when I walked up, I saw the wood was just a veneer over a thick steel plate. I guessed it must not have been locked, or the kid probably wouldn't have gotten in.

Inside was a nice looking office. Well, it had been nice. But the carpet in the middle of the floor had a large stain surrounding the skull of a unicorn in the remains of a nice suit. Looks like I knew why the obviously secure door had been left open. Someone took the easy way out, judging by the neat hole seared clean through the skull. The kid was seated at the desk in front of a massive terminal. A small laser pistol was next to him, some kind I wasn't familiar with. He was working at the terminal, so I sat back and waited. And waited, and waited. Seriously? Finally I spoke up. "Seriously kid, how long to break into that thing?"

"Oh, I already got into the terminal." He said, working away. "I'm just trying to get through to the hidden stuff."

"Hidden stuff?" I asked, confused. Come on, he was past the password, didn't that mean he could access everything?

"Yeah, this thing looked to empty when I got in, so I ran a search for encrypted items." He said, in what might as well have been ancient equestrian to me. "I found some hidden file, and I'm trying to get in... Oh, here we go!" He Bent forward to look, as did I. The only thing displayed was a map of Equestria with a small blinking dot in the southeast. And that was when the alarms sounded.

Me and the kid jumped in surprise as klaxons blared all around us and lights started flashing. Then, the terminal went dark and I heard whirring and hissing starting up. I knew that sound far to well. The sentrybot was activating.

"Run!" I screamed.

The kid paused only long enough to grab the laser gun in his magic as we ran to the door. The sentry bot was already exiting the armory, and we barely cleared the doorway before it the sentrybot shot a missile through it. The terminal behind us exploded along with the desk, and much of the ceiling caved under the explosion. We raced for the door, which was grinding shut, its powering mechanism choked with the grim of 200 years, which saved our flanks. We managed to get through it with time to spare, but the much larger sentrybot couldn't follow. Not that it was giving up. An arm shoved through the closing gap and bullets pinged around us as it fired its minigun.

We ducked down the warehouse aisles as wooden crates were chewed to pieces. Several rounds pinged off my saddlebags before we manged to make it out of sight. Alarms were sounding all over the warehouse, and a few unbroken lights were pulsing out light. Oh no. Oh no no no. Everyone in Filly was going to be alerted to something like this. We ran out the door, which had a large steel shutter attempting to close over it, but rubble from the collapsed building next door held it open.

We raced flat out for blocks, until I could no longer see the warehouse. I moved into a ruin, and we crept from there on. Only minutes later, the first griffon swooped overhead. More were to follow. A slave-pulled wagon moved down a street as we crouched among two hundred year old garbage. We put a few more blocks between us and the warehouse when the first of the steel rangers moved past our hiding place in a ruined house. Minutes later, war broke out somewhere behind us as the two forces met. I didn't know who would come out on top, I didn't care. I just wanted as much distance between us and the two forces as possible. Night fell, and we kept moving, sticking to the darkest and most deserted areas of the city. Dawn, such as it was under permanent cloud cover, was rolling in before we finally cleared the city. Our nerves were both shot from avoiding patrols for the entire night. We hadn't dared even speak since our run from the warehouse. Still, we kept moving, moving along through exhaustion, simply placing one hoof in front of the other. Then, the kid simply fell face down in the earth, asleep before hitting the ground. I didn't stop, I just swung him on top of my pack saddle and kept moving. Hours later, the city had disappeared behind the hills, and I found an old skywagon crashed into the hill, its roof still intact enough to give cover. I dumped the kid and, with the last of my energy set up a mine. Then, I stumbled back inside and fell asleep, I think after I hit the ground, but I wasn't sure.

.....

It was daylight when I awoke, which likely meant I had lost the rest of the day and a night to sleep. The kid was already up, and doing a little dance in front of me.

"I have to GOOO!" He wailed, eyes screwing up. I was about to ask why he didn't just go when I remembered the mine. I went out and disarmed it, and he raced out of sight behind the skywagon. I could hear him sigh loudly in relief. That was when I realized I needed the same.
A few minutes later, and we were eating a breakfast of tinned food when the kid finally asked. "Um, how did we get here anyway."
"We ran, you fell, I carried you." I said shortly, concentrating on getting more fuel into me.

"Oh." Was his response. He seemed to pause in thought for a long moment, before speaking up again. "So... what do we do now?"
"Get far away from Filly." Was my reply. I began stretching tired muscles. Everything ached from our flight, and sleeping in my pack saddle hadn't helped.

"But, where are we going?" He asked. "I didn't download any coordinates from the terminal before it blew up. We don't know where to go next."
He had a point. By all appearances, the trail to whatever was at the end of this insane treasure hunt was lost. Worse, with the limited goods I managed to haul out with me, I wasn't exactly going to be setting up a trade empire any time soon. So for all appearances, this was it. Except...

"Its in the badlands." I sighed.

The kid blinked. 'Wait.... how.... what?"

"You showed me the screen." I said, rolling my eyes. "I know where it is."

"How can you remember a map you only saw for a second?" He demanded.

"Because donkey's are smarter then ponies." I said, ruffling his mane.

He rolled his eyes. "Oh don't be an ass-"

That was as far as the kid got before the stress of the previous day and the frustration of continuing this trek all found focus in a ball of rage directed at him. I struck out, smashing him to the ground with my hooves. He gave a terrified squeak and tried to cover his face with his hooves, but I was holding him down to well. "If you EVER use that term as an insult, I will PERSONALLY make sure puberty isn't an issue for you!" I snarled. Then I smacked the kid just once across the muzzle and let him up. He hiccuped out a few sobs, stumbling to his feet and fleeing the skywagon. I took several deep breaths, calming myself. Yes, I had gone to far, but after all I had just been through, hearing the kid use my species as a slur was just... to much. Especially with where we were going.

Speaking of which, we needed to move. I had no idea if anyone would be searching out this far for us, but I didn't want to stay anywhere near Filly. And it was going to be a long journey to the badlands. And for once, I wasn't wondering if I should turn back. After all this mystery and secrecy, I needed to know what was so important to hide that it would take a journey clear across the Equestrian wasteland to find. Someone had been desperate to hide something. I had only come across it by luck, a paper that started a trail to facilities without names hidden in plain sight. And the last place.... I had thought the trial led to the armory, but now, thinking back, I realized the armory had just been there to guard that terminal. Even the sentrybot hadn't been activated until we messed with the terminal. And I had realized it had been aiming for the terminal, not us, when it fired. The entire place had tried to shut down around us when we left. The only reason we got out was no one thought to make it work trough a balefire bomb and 200 years of no maintenance. So, what was worth all this to guard? Hey, maybe for once I would get lucky and find a vault of gold bars. That could happen, right?

I stepped out, scanning the area for pursuit before beginning to move out. The kid squeaked and hid behind his hooves when he saw me. I sighed. "Come on kid, we need to go before someone comes looking."

The kid didn't seem to relieved at my words, but I guess I was still better then slavers in his eyes, because he grabbed his saddlebags and followed behind me. Though he seemed to be careful to stay out of my hoof range. Well, worked for me.

We headed off, making for the badlands. I hadn't told the kid the whole truth. Yeah, my memory was pretty good, especially by pony standards. But the real reason I could remember the location was that I already knew it. Which was why I wasn't going to turn back. This mystery had been drawing me in, even before I began to follow the paper trail. And now it looked like I was going to solve this puzzle at last. And in the last place I would have thought.

Home.

End Chapter

Perk Lost: The Power of Backstory! Level 1: Congratulations, you just lost the little trust you had earned from your companion. Nice job.

New Perk Added: Determination, Level 1: Looks like you have found a reason to stay the course. +1 to endurance.

Chapter 6: Princess's

Days past as we slowly moved away from Fillydelphia. It took longer then getting there, as we strove to move stealthily and leave no trace, while dodging slaver patrols. We had moved into the city with stealth, but since we had managed to alert everyone in the city to our presence, we had to be doubly cautious to get away. The twisted route we took sent us through the worst terrian, winding through small canyons, moving from clump of wizened vegetation to ruin, to rock pile, keeping a careful eye on the sky all the while in case one of Red Eye's griffons chanced to be near.

Finally, we managed to get beyond the borders of the depopulated zone surrounding Filly. We stopped seeing any sign of slaver patrols, and, when I spotted the former city of Baltimare in the distance, I knew that we were likely safe now from slaver patrols. The citizens of Baltimare had learned long ago how to repel slaver groups. They had to, otherwise their probably wouldn't be a pony left here. Still, sooner or later Red Eye would have to set his sights on this place if he wanted to keep up his steady supply of slaves. We headed into the crumbling former suburbs around baltimare. We weren't going into the city itself, just as far as it took to unload a few guns for supplies, get a nights rest, and move on. Still, we had to be careful. I knew a few folks in these parts had decided the best way to avoid enslavement by Red Eye was to be useful to him. They'd act normal, but if they had the numbers on you, they'd capture you and send you off to Filly.

I hadn't been here for quit a while, but I knew of one trustworthy place to stop. A small trading post had been set up where the old highway led into town, mainly to trade with caravans that wandered by. He was still where I remembered, trading fish and dried seaweed. I traded in a gun for enough seaweed to last a while, along with an old healing potion and some caps. Seriously, I was getting to many, and the jingling was going to ruin my stealth. I was going to need to cache some soon. Normally I would have simply gone deeper to trade with others with more appetizing supplies, but I didn't want the spend the day in the round trip. Instead, we simply camped the night out in what remained of an old house, the kid complaining about the taste of seaweed, which he had traded a pack of gum for, but seeming to enjoy his first look at the ocean.

.....

Morning came, and as the kid went out to take care of "business", I stretched out my limbs and munched on a chewy green chunk of seaweed. As I began to slip on my pack saddle, my ears picked up a startled gasp from the kid outside. I turned towards the sound as he spoke again.
"Luna?" I heard him gasp out. Really, on his own for two minutes and now the kid was seeing prewar ali... oh flipping sunspots. I slipped on my packsaddle in record time and ran out the door. Only to skid to a halt in front of a pair of Alicorns standing in the crumbling road. The kid was walking back around the corner, seemingly in awe of the blue Alicorn that proceeded him.

"Its Luna!" he exclaimed to me, before seeming to notice the other two Alicorns. His face brightened in apparent awe before falling to to confusion as he gazed from Green to Blue to Purple Alicorn. "But... what?" he muttered. Yeah, no idea how his philosophy would hold up with three apparent princess's, but right now, I had other worries.

The blue alicorn turned to me and glared. "What are you?" She asked coldly. "You have stripes, but are not Zebra."

I had already begun to slowly back into the house, but a shield of energy jumped into existence behind me. Apparently I was not going to be allowed to leave. "I'm a freaking alicorn princess" I snorted. "I'm a donkey." , what's it to you?"

"A... donkey." The blue alicorn said, almost as if mulling the word. Her gaze went vacant for a moment before she turned it back to me. "We have no recollection of your kind. But we have no use to us. Go. The colt will follow us."

"Luna wants me to go with her and... the others." The kid spoke up. And he actually looked happy that they wanted him. Even though he still seemed confused on the overabundance of "princess's".

"Its not Luna." I muttered at the kid from the corner of my mouth, keeping an eye on he alicorns, who seemed content to just watch us for the moment.

"But... she said she's the Goddess, she said I can join her in Unity." The kid said, now sounding more confused then ever.

"Kid, I don't know what they told you, but these alicorns all call themselves the goddess, anypony they take, they never come back." I hissed to the kid. "Wake up, you see a cutie mark on any of them? You see Celestia? These aren't the Alicorns your thinking of."

"Enough!" Thundered the blue alicorn. "We were sent by the Goddess to find more unicorns to join unity, and this foal has agreed. You are of no use to us Donkey, go. But we shall bring the foal to unity." With that, the shield behind me vanished, and another surrounded the alicorns and the kid.

The kid apparently had gotten suspicious enough that this sudden move caused him to panic.

"No! I changed my mind, let me go!" I could hear him shout through the barrier as he began to thump it with his hooves. I knew I didn't have much time. These freaking bitches weren't getting the kid. After all, I was probably going to need him later when we got the the end of this trail. I pulled out the balefire egg launcher, loaded the egg... and realized that even if I could breach the shield, kid would be blown to pieces. There was nothing I could do. Wordlessly, I raged at them, pounding my hooves on the shield as they simply smirked at me, the purple one gathering magic to her horn. Then, in my mindless fury, I did something I hadn't in years. I opened by mouth to expel a stream of obscenities at the alicorns, and instead, let out a deafening bray.

The shield dropped as the alicorns jerked in shock, the purple ones magic imploding in a flash of brilliant light. When it faded, the alicorns were gone, but the kid sat, shaking. "What happened?" He asked, clearly in awe, and a bit confused.

"I have no idea." I said, not quit believing it myself. "Um, we should probably run before they come back." We moved, heading south out of baltimare, out into the wastes.

....

That night in camp, I explained what I knew about alicorns to the kid.

"Yeah, they started showing up about ten years ago." I explained. "At first, folks thought it was the return of the princess's or some crap like that." The kid looked offended, but I just continued. He needed to know this stuff after all. "From what I heard, they started out asking ponies to "join them in unity" or something. Except nopony ever came back from that. Folks started getting hostile after that. Especially the griffins, since the alicorns had always been hostile to them. Apparently they weren't fit for unity or something. And the alicorns stopped asking and just dragged unicorns off. A couple of settlements they just wiped out. So now everyone knows that if you see an alicorn, you ether shoot or run, no other option."

The kid seemed to take his time thinking this over, then asked "S how did you surprise the alicorns?"

I could only shrug.

"I just brayed at them. Don't know why that worked." I said. Seriously though, I really hadn't expected that to work at all, much less as well as it did. "Heck, they just vanished."

"I've never heard one before." The kid admitted. "It made me jump." He paused for a moment, in thought. "I think you interupted a teleportation spell."

"Huh?"

"A teleportation spell." He explained. "Teleports you instantly anywhere. Really wish I could do one. Mom..." His voice broke for a moment, before he managed to continue. "She said wait until I was older before trying it. If you can't concentrate on where you are going, you can end up anywhere."

"So... I brayed, the alicorn couldn't concentrate, and teleported randomly?" I asked. Well, I guessed it made sense. If magic ever made sense.

The kid nodded. "Where did you learn to bray like that?" He asked eagerly.

I facehooved. "Kid, I'm a freaking donkey. We just can. Now get to sleep." I kicked dirt over the fire until it went out, then I turned in for the night.

End chapter

Level up!

New Perk Added: Brave Sir Robin: You've gotten a lot of practice running away lately. +1 agility.

Chapter 8: And I Have Become Death

Its all secrets and lies with you!

I sat, staring at a room full of death and suffering. Everything, all Equestria was and could have been, all the potential of the world had fallen to weapons like these. And yet, even after destroying everything, nearly scouring the world clean, they still had so many left. Each one of these weapons could have leveled a city, and I had just gotten my hooves on at least 50 of them. Oh burning sun above, had the ponies been so mad to think they would need so many? Were they so focused on destroying the zebra that they would not dare to leave even one alive? And were they so foolish not to think of what would happen if even one of these went off? Then again, Bray was a donkey town, as if we ever mattered to ponies.

I just sat still, staring around the room, not quit daring to move. I really didn't want to find out what it took to set one of these off. So of course that was when the kid reached out a hoof and began tapping on a balefire bomb on a low shelf.

To be fair, my flying tackle probably wasn't the best option, but I wasn't really thinking of his feelings at the time. "W-What did I..." He stuttered from the floor beneath me, tears beginning to fill his eyes.

"Kid, they're balefire bombs. Don't. Flipping. Touch." I said tensely, climbing off the kid. He stayed on the ground, eyes growing incredibly wide at the realization of what he had been doing. I left him there and began carefully moving around the room. I needed to see everything in this place before I did anything more. Who knows how well this place was bobby-trapped, or what else this place held. I could see another door straight across from the one we entered by, but when I looked out it, I saw a hallway identical to the one we entered from. Apparently, it was where the other hallway went. There were two more doors, one each the remaining two walls. I cautiously ventured through the nearest door to find a short hallway with three doors, on each on the right and left, the last straight ahead. I poked my head in the first door. A decent sized room greeted me, with a couple of desks piled high with books, along with a massive row of filing cabinets along 3 walls. What really caught my eyes was the massive terminal covering the entire back wall. Well, that was something for the kid to look at. The room across the hall was an armory.

Oh, such an armory. This room held enough munitions to outfit a couple battalions, and all of it looked in perfect condition. My hooves itched to go inventory, but I still had one last room to check. Hopefully not, this many megaspells going off at once would... well, I wasn't exactly sure, but it really wouldn't be good. Though if it happened while I was here, at least I would never know. The door at the end of the hall had a terminal to unlock it, but it had never been locked down. I guess Crabapple just though his descendants would give a nags horn about his wishes. The door opened easily at my hoof, and I looked in at an... empty room. It was an odd room, with pure white walls inset with various carved symbols. But still, it was just an empty room. Who would lock up an empty room? I guess they must have taken whatever was important here out before everything went down.

I turned, and, seeing the kid entering the hallway, motioned him into the room with the massive terminal. Then I went to inventory the armory. Oh glorious golden day, what a treasure trove. Racks of rifles, cabinets full of pistols, a multitude of ammo crates, and even a little storage cage of various grenades, mines, and other explosives. Oh, but the best was yet to come. At the very back of the room, charging, but deactivated, were several sentinel robots. And yes, their terminal was unlocked, I heard of other scavengers reprogramming them to ignore set ponies, but blast the crap out of anyone else. Another thing to get the kid on. A slow burning rage which had been building since I read the first terminal kept building in my chest. That traitorous ancestor of mine had CHOSEN to lock this all away. Leave us all to toil and suffer while all this power was right under our hooves. That stinking turncoat had chosen to side with what some princess had probably ordered, rather then help his own kind. Well, he was rotted away in the grave, and all that power was resting at my hooves.

First thing first through, I had to figure out a plan to deal with the megaspells. Couldn't make much use of the place if it turned into a magically radioactive crater leaking pink cloud. So, that left the other door across the megaspell room. This one led to a staircase that led straight down into the earth. the lower I got, I reaches a small landing with two doors on each walls. I turned left, and found what I guessed was a barracks. Or would have been. Metal bunks were lined up in rows, but the rows stopped halfway down the room. A stack of mattresses was in a corner, but not enough for the bunks. Footlockers were stacked by the mattress's, but a quick look showed they were empty. Across the hall was what looked to be a kitchen and dining hall, but only half complete, and with not a can of food in stock. I wouldn't have thought much of that if it wasn't for an empty box labeled "Sparkle Cola" left against the empty fridge.

I remembered the old story, the dark days following THE day. Those in hiding in the depths, desperate, the hero bringing them food he had stored away for just these darkest hours. And it was all a load of pony piles. He had just walked in here and packed it all away. And still saw fit to leave his family and friends cowering in caves while he had this retreat that would have kept us all safe. All this power at our hooves could have made Bray the greatest force in the wasteland. It would have been unstoppable if that thrice cursed ancestor of mine had enough loyalty to his own kind to fill a teacup. But I could deal with my feelings later, I still had more of this place to search.

The staircase kept leading down, until the metal walls ran out, and gave way to solid stone behind unfinished supports. Then I came to a large doorway, much like the one was had opened to get in here, but this one stood open. In fact, it looked like it was missing several parts needed to shut and lock. Through the massive doorway was a large natural looking cave. However, a large concrete platform had been set into the floor, and a set of rails leading up to it. It was a train station of sorts, bare, but it must have been functional once. They must have brought the megaspells in by rail, probably from a tunnel deep under the mountains. But now the whole back wall of the cave had collapsed, burying that way in under tons of mountain. But for me, there was nothing left of interest.

I went to go see what the kid was up to, but before I could even open the door to the terminal room, I could hear him whimpering. I carefully opened the door and peeked in. Last thing I needed now that I hit the motherload was find I hadn't deactivated a security bot or something. There was nothing, just the kid sitting in front of the terminal, papers scattered around him, indicating he had been reading before he went to the terminal. It was the look on the kids face though that gave me pause. He was staring at the screen with a look of pure terror, scrolling down page after page of text with eyes that couldn't open wider. I tapped him with a hoof to get his attention, and he shrieked before he saw it was me.

"Whats wrong?" I asked, peering at the terminal screen to try and figure what had him so wound up. It was just an inventory of what was here.
"This place, its... its full of megaspells." The kid whimpered, eyes seeming to stare right through me. "Goddess's, this place could take out most of Equestria."

"Yeah, kind of noticed that on the way in." I said. Seriously, the place was full of them, had the kid not realized this?

"Its not just those." The kid whimpered. "This place was built to store megaspells, not just those ones. The papers, the terminal. Its copied data. Everything old Equestira knew about megaspells. It's all here, some sort of backup. If this place got into the wrong hooves..." He looked up at me, the fear evident in his face. "We have to destroy this place."

I snorted. "Kid, do you happen to know how to do that without setting everything in here off? Cause I don't."

The kid looked crestfallen at that. I could guess what he was feeling, after all, these things had destroyed Equestria. To find a whole storage facility of them left intact, yeah, it could be an unparalleled disaster if the wrong ponies got their hooves on them. Heck, my ancestor had locked this place up and kept silent about its existence for this very reason. But even he, the one that apparently helped set up this place, didn't have a safe way to destroy it. Which meant that wasn't an option. Kind of a good thing, weren't going to be any caps in just blowing the place off the map. Let face it, every megaspell in here was got to be worth a small fortune to the right group.

"Just... see if this stuff says anything about moving them safely, or something." I said, letting the kid work. Right now, I needed a plan. A fortune had just fallen at my hooves, and I wasn't about to let it go to waste. First though, I needed to know exactly how much of a fortune I had. Time for inventory. I walked the armory, taking note of every weapon, opening every ammo can and locker, making sure I knew everything in it. Then, I went and looked at the megaspells. There were a lot. And if appearance was any indication, there were several types. I wasn't sure if it meant a different effect, or just a different strength. Everything was just labeled as "MS-42" or the like. Maybe the colt could find something in the terminal to help. When I came one section though, I didn't need his help. There were small megaspells, maybe half the size of normal, in pairs, connected by a harness clearly meant to be worn by a pony. I just stared. Really? Somepony was expected to deliver a freaking megaspell by hoof? Yeah, I saw timers stored with them, but seriously, who thought they could outrun a megaspell? Though these might just get me a nice payload. No worries about how to move them after all. If only the kid was big enough to carry one...

Well, now that I had some clue what was here, I needed a plan. I could practically see the heaps of bottle caps this haul would bring in. Forget settle up a little trading company. With this haul, I could set up my own empire. Heck, I could probably afford the whole of tenpony tower, with the whole of manehatten thrown in. That is, I could find a buyer for any of it. Yes, un-detonated megaspells were more then worth their weight in bottle caps. After all, I hadn't heard of one being found in a generation. And the power owning just one would give a group...
The problem was, though I could think of a dozen groups who would love to get their hooves on a megaspell, the ones that wouldn't just murder me after to save caps were few and far between. Then there was the problem of me not trusting most of those groups with said megaspells. And I could think of a few communities that might like to have a megaspell as a threat deterant, but few of them could afford the caps these were worth. So, who would have the caps to buy a cache of megaspells, even just a one at a time, wouldn't kill me for them, and wouldn't just use them on anyone and everyone that opposed them. Red eye would afford it, and not kill me, so long as I was still useful, but I knew to well what that sorry son of a goat would use them for. The steel rangers would love to get their hooves on one, but they weren't exactly known for buying tech. They preferred to simply take at gunpoint. That left... Tenpony tower. Made sense, a bunch of rich ponies that could afford to buy a few megaspells at a time from me, setting me up long-term. Plus, they weren't exactly the genocidal type, heck, if anything, they would just make sure Red Eye would never threaten them again. Good, now I had a plan. Assuming the kid could figure out how to move them safely.

"Hey kid, give me a hoof here!" I called out.I went back to the armory with him following. "Ok, help with with these straps." Together, we removed my pack saddle, which took a couple minutes. It was rather firmly attached to keep me from losing it after all. I did have an emergency quick release, but I only used that when necessary. When it was off, I unloaded everything not necessary for the journey into a pile. The kids expression was priceless when the pile quickly grew larger then me. apparently storage expansion spells weren't a thing in his stable.

I sent him back to work on the documents, then I sorted things out, taking out a small supply of preserved pre-war food and leaving it in a locker, which I emptied of ammo. This place would make a good cache, and maybe a base whenever I was in the south. Wasn't going to set up house here, not with the room of dangerous megaspells, but a camp, or a retreat if needed, would work. First though, I dragged a mattress up from the half finished barracks. Sure, I could have just slept down there, but if anything actually got in, I wanted to be in the armory.

Once I had set up the armory as best I could for a fallback position, I went back to the terminal room. Well, I didn't have anything better to do while the kid worked on the terminal, I got to reading. A lot if it was just technical mumbo-jumbo that I shoved aside for the kid to look at later. Hey, he had a fancy stable education, he could do the technical stuff. Once I started chucking papers that looked to technical in the first paragraph, I was left with... not much. I ended up with a bunch of logs about this places founding. Apparently, later in the war, they had megaspells stored all over Equestria in different facilities, including the two we visited. Well, that explained the paper trail that eventually led us here. Then the higher ups decided that having megaspells scattered all over Equestria, especially with at least one under a semi-major city, was a bad idea. So someone proposed building one big storage facility to keep them all in until they were ether used, or the war ended. And since this was all happening when a proposed donkey resettlement town was being built in the middle of nowhere... Yeah, someone made the link. So this place had been built in utmost secrecy, and a trusted donkey scientist placed in charge of monitoring and maintaining the facility until it was complete and most megaspells were in place. Looks like everything went down before everything was complete. Heck, I even found a printout saying that a megaspell was to be shipped here by rail the day the megaspells came down. So this place technically wasn't even fully stocked. It had a fully stocked armory for troops that never arrived, and and the facility was only half finished when the megaspells came and blasted most of Equestria, except this bare little corner, into oblivion.

I kept reading into the evening, the kid doing the same at the terminal. Finally, we stopped for the night and to compare notes. The kid had found out quit a bit about how to move a megaspell safely, it had to have been done dozens of times to get them here after all. The only problem was that it had been done via railroad to the badlands, then by special sky-chariots at night. The railroad was gone, and sky-chariots cost a lot. Talons weren't cheap to hire after all. Well, would just have to figure that into the price. And the Talons wouldn't disclose the location of this place if the contract said they couldn't.

The kid also figured out that that strange white room I had found was this places megaspell chamber. At first, he though it was a shield to protect from megaspell detonations, like tenpony tower had before the megaspells knocked it out, but that turned out to be powered by a bunch of generators built into the cliffs. These apparently were still working perfectly, after all, no megaspells had been directed here. So they had just sat unused for 200 years. So then, what was the megaspell chamber for? The terminal seemed to contain more, but the kid couldn't make it give up the secret.

"Come on kid, just hack past it!" I said after he told me he had run into more security when he tried to access any records on the megaspell chamber.

"I can't!" He replied, tapping away at the keyboard. "Its way to advanced for me."

"Come on, you hacked your way out of a stable!"

"I'm just a colt!" He half-exploded in my face. "That was practically an accident! I can't hack security of this level!"

"Fine, then magic it." I retorted.

The look on his face spoke volumes. "Magic it?"

"Yeah, do some unicorn magic stuff." I said, waving a hoof. Really, what was the problem here? "Make it work."

"You really don't know how magic works, do you?" He asked, rubbing his face with a hoof.

"Your horn lights up and crap happens." I said. "Its freaking magic. Just make it happen!"

So, the kid lit up his horn... and picked up a bottle of sparkle cola and got to work reading documents. Really, I didn't get it. Unicorns did all kinds of impossible crap, was he just being lazy? But I couldn't even get him to try.

...

We spent several days in the storage facility, spending the nights in the armory. It turned out that no, the kid could not in fact reprogram the security sentinel bots to ignore us if activated. And again he just rolled his eyes when I told him to just magic it. So once I had determined all the best stuff to sell first from the armory, and the kid seemed to have found out all he was going to in a few days, we needed to move on. I hadn't planned on spending any length of time here, and if I was going to be able to leave emergency supplies here, and still have enough to get to the next trading post, I was going to have to get moving. I stocked up on everything I could carry in my saddlebag, and the kid loaded up some technical papers to study on the way, and we got moving. At the door, I let the kid through and was about to turn back on the shield, when I had an idea. I left the shield down, and instead just instructed the kid to shut the door and record the proper password to open it again.

"Why didn't you put the shield up?" The kid asked as I carried him down the barely-existent trail from the cavern.

"Because." I said simply. At the foot of the cliff, I let him down. Well, it was more bucking him off, but he got onto the ground at any case. "Now lets get moving, we have a long ways to go before resupply."

Level up!

New perk added: Fortune Finder. Experience finding hidden treasures now means you gain more caps from random encounters and from scavenging.

Chapter 9: A Light in Darkness

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow hearts the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there would find me
'Til then I'll walk alone....

We walked, heading northwest. Tenpony tower was our ultimate goal, but we needed to resupply first, and make another little stop. A couple of days later and we were strolling into the town of Dodge. According to the signs around the place, it had been called Dodge City before the war, but lets face it, when you could probably fit the entire town population into a single large building, there wasn't much use calling it a city. The locals still liked to call it Dodge City, but that seemed mainly so newbies to the caravan might make trips here to see the "City". I didn't bother, it was just Dodge to me. I came here semi-regulary during scavaging runs. It was the best place in these parts to trade, especially since the alternative was Old Appleloosa. It wasn't much, just a collection of old buildings from before the war, all in a style called "western", for some reason. All were in various stages of decay, being held together by random scrap. roads through town had all been barricaded to keep out raiders except the one we headed in on.

"Hi Chestnut, hi Tiller." I said with a nod to the two ponies on guard detail at the small checkpoint on the road into town.
"Hey Scrounger," Said Chestnut, a, well, chestnut colored earth pony stallion. Tiller, a grey unicorn stallion, merely waved and kept his gaze towards the wasteland. "So, get any good hauls this time?"

"Eh, might have." I said, passing them and heading into town. "You'll find out if you got the caps."

Chestnut rolled his eyes. "Guess I shouldn't have spent so many last night at Tappers huh? Don't suppose your up for a drink later?"

I raised an eyebrow. "You know I don't drink anymore." I replied.

"Right, since you got so drunk you bedded a hellhound." He said, rolling his eyes. "You know, you really need to tell me the real reason you stopped sometime.

I just rolled my eyes, and headed into town. I passed Tappers, the local bar, and instead headed into Quick Deals trading post. Inside, junk of all flavors was stacked with no particular order on the shelves. Guns were piled with golf clubs, toys with grenades. I rolled my eyes and sorted the few grenades out of the toy chest and put them onto the top shelf, hopefully out of reach of any foals. Seriously, Quick Deal was a bit odd, but this one took the cake. I spotted the cluttered counter at the back, quick deal, a dull purple unicorn stallion with a dark blue mane, was in the middle of taking appart a vaccum cleaner. With a hacksaw and blowtorch.

"Hey Quick Deal!" I called out. "Set fire to yourself later, I got trade."

Quick deal looked up, flipping off the welders mask he was wearing and grinning widely. "Hey Scrounger!" He said happily. "Just let me clear you a space." He shooved everything off the counter. Including the blowtorch. It was still lit. As the shelf behind him caught fire, he motioned for me to place my goods on the counter. I motioned to the blow torch with a raised eyebrow, then started piling my goods on the counter. Quick Deal looked surprised to see it setting things on fire, and finally turned it off. Then we got to bartering. Finally, we settled on a pile of caps and supplies for me, and a rifle and several boxes of ammo for him. I had to give it to the stallion, he may be... odd, but in bartering, he knew what he was doing. I waited a bit as the kid bartered his own goods for some food and radaway, then turned to go. As we left, the kid had his eyes on Quick Deal, who was grinning as he got back to using the blowtorch on the vacuum.

"I don't think he's all there." He said once we were outside the door. It wasn't a question, but I could hear the question in his voice. Smart, not actually asking me. I decided to answer anyway.

"Eh, he's harmless enough." I said, smirking a little. "Decent enough at barter at any rate. And occasionally he figures something decent out of his tinkering." I looked back, seeing flames spreading inside again. I hoped he had remembered to refill the emergency water bucket. "When he doesn't just set his shop on fire."

We hadn't gotten more then a few steps though when Quick deal came trotting out after us. "Oh, Scrounger, almost forgot, some folks are looking for you two." He called out.

I stopped, wondering who in Equestria would be looking for me. Wait, us two? Ok, that was even odder. And he said folk, not ponies. So, griffens? But I hadn't ticked off any talons lately, and not after I got kid... "What folk?" I asked, after realizing Quick Deal was waiting for me to say something.

"Oh uh...." He tapped a hoof, looking deep in tought. "Right!" He said, brightening. "All of them."

.....

We got the buck out of Dodge. I didn't want to spend a single moment in any pony settlement now. Not after what Quick Deal had told me. He had a hoof-full of posters with a few bad scetches of me and and kid on them, each from a different mercenary group. Apparently they had been delivering to any large trade center. I had been an idiot. The kid had told me that the computer had sent out some sort of alarm. I just figured it meant to every ministry hub in Filly got a message. No, it was every hub. Every, nag-nipping freaking hub with a functional terminal still conected to that one had gotten a message. A message with our picture.

I guess it made sense, considering just what was hidden in the location we hacked out of that terminal, I would have wanted some major security on it. But now I had a serious problem on my hooves. Quick Deal hadn't been kidding, everyone was after us. Red-Eye, the Steel Rangers, several Talon companies, and various other groups were all after us. The good news was, they wanted me alive. The bad news was a bunch of really nasty groups wanted me alive.From what I found out later, jist of the message was that we had stolen top level classified information. No details on what of course, hense why we were wanted alive. A sudden message to hundreds of terminals across equestria saying we stole info? Yeah, a lot of folk were going to want to know what we had. We had to get scarce, fast.

So, we headed out into the plains around dodge, heading north. We stuck to areas with as much scrubby brush as possible, obscuring the sight of us at a distance. Well, me at least. The kids colors made blending in a bit of a problem for him. As evening turned to dusk, we had entered a series of low hills, and set about to making camp before it got dark. As I ate, I pondered the question of what to do with the kid. I didn't really need him anymore. The door was open, and I knew I could get someone else to both help move the megaspells and guard the place. He was good with terminals, well, better then me anyway, but I could find someone even better. Heck, he couldn't even reprogram robots. I really didn't need a foal around, slowing me down and, lets face it, he was near useless in a firefight. Heck, he couldn't even carry enough gear to be useful for pack work. But at the same time, I couldn't get rid of him. It wasn't just that he was dead if I just dumped him in the wasteland. Hey, I wanted him off my hooves, but he didn't deserve to end up as a slave, or worse. But he knew where the megaspells were, and how to get in. If someone caught him and got the info from him... Well, that wasn't going to happen. Like it or not, I was stuck with him.

As I looked at the posters however, I knew I had to do something about him. The scetches on each poster were bad. I was thankful for the lack of ability to reproduce images. I ended up pictured as ether a horribly mutated pony, a zebra, and in one case, a brahmin. Only one poster, that from the steel rangers, looked like me. The kid however, was recognizable. If only by his coloration and stable barding. I was going to have to do something about that. I looked over at the kid, who was reading papers taken from the megaspell facility. His navy blue coat was ok, it could blend in, at least in a dark area, but his mane was far to bright, and of coarse, that stable gear had to go. Just then, he looked up at me.

"I know why they had balefire bombs!" He half exclaimed.

I stared. "Kid, they had a war. Kind of used a lot of them."

He actually rolled his eyes at this. "No, ZEBRAS used balefire bombs. Our megaspells were cast." He looked thoughtfull. "Well, they were suposed to."

"Huh?" was my brilliant response.

He sighed. "I was told we could cast the spells in special chambers, like we found. But zebras had inferior magic that had to be bound to an object, hence the balefire bombs or missiles." He paused, then continued. "So I couldn't figure out why then, we had a stockpile of zebra-type megaspells. I just found that out."

Meanwhile, I had just figured out a plan. "Sure, fine kid. Tell me. Just hold still, your getting a manecut."

He raised a fuss about that. Especially when he realized I was just going to hack it off with my gauntlet blades. But a bit of threatening got him to hold still and talk while I worked.

"Equestria realized that megaspell chambers would be a big target if the war got bad enough the zebras decided to use theirs." He explained as I hacked away, trying not to cut him with the rediculously sharp blades. "Something called the ministry of arcane sciences figured out that the zebras would try to destroy as many megaspell chambers as possible, and even assassinate any unicorn assigned to one so that the spell couldn't be cast. So they made a plan to develope megaspells that didn't require a megaspell chamber or unicorn to cast, and would be portable. They had a few captured zebra megaspells, and had been studying them. They managed to recreate a few, and figured since zebras could use them, then that meant that even earth ponies and pegasi could to." He winced as I nicked an ear, but kept talking. "They figured they could manufacture the megaspells and keep them all over Equestria, so that if they ever had to be used, zebra spies couldn't take them all out."

"But we found them all in one place." I interrupted.

"Yeah, it turns out a couple of officials decided later that having megaspells that a zebra could set off already inside major cities all over Equestria was a bad idea. So they started moving them to storage sites further away, but then they worried about sabotage. So finally somepony named Crabapple came up with a plan to put them all together in a place kept incredibly secret, staffed with just enough ponies to launch them if needed. Since they weren't unicorns, no one would be able to figure out they were guarding megaspells. But everything was destroyed before they even got all of the megaspells in place."

I blinked. Seriously, everything in there, all that power, and they weren't even done stocking it? It boggled the mind. And before you ask, yeah, I made what the kid said a lot briefer and les sciencey. Hey, I didn't even understand half of what he said. But I had gotten the jist of it. And I had to grit my teeth over that mention of my thrice-cursed ancestor. So, it had been his idea all along. Made since, he had settled Bray. He would have known just how out of the way it was, how unlikely to be hit. And he had used us all to shield weapons of mass destructions from the world, never telling anyone that the power to remake a world lay under their hooves. Even after everything, he had chosen to obey two dead princesses over the loyalty he owed his own kind.

I finished hacking away at the kids mane and tail. I didn't entirely shave him, I couldn't without risking scalping him, sharp as the blades were. Instead, he had a short raggedly cut mane that stood up frizzily on end. His tail had been cut short as well, and I even left a tuft at the end. So now, if one was really drunk, or had the intelligence I found in most wastelanders, they might actually think he was my foal. Plus, cutting his mane and tail so short that the bright colors were a lot less pronounced, and his navy blue hide would do well enough blending in. I would have to do something to replace his stable grab though. It was to bright. But that would have to wait until I coulod get my hooves on some material to make foal-sized barding with. But for now, we needed to rest and get moving in the morning.

....

Hours later, something awoke me. I wasn't sure what it was, but suddenly I was awake, and looking around. Nothing seemed to be stirring around the camp, at least, nothing my limited night vision could pick up. Still, something had awoken me, so I got to my feet. The campfire was still completely out, even the ashes were cold. I walked the perimeter of the camp, peering out into the darkness. Nothing, the land seemed empty, and even my hearing wasn't picking up anything. I turned around to go to sleep when just the faintest sound reached my ears. A slight clink of metal on metal as, somewhere in the unknown dark, someone moved. I headed back to where the kid slept, trying to act like I had heard nothing. Someone was out there, trying to keep quiet, likely as they snuck up on us. I had slept in my pack saddle, as was my habit when out amoung the waste. So I was armed, but the kid was fast asleep, and we didn't have the best cover from a firefight here. If I woke the kid, they would know something was up, and move in fast. However...

I lay down by the kid, snuggling against him. I nuzzled him, looking for all the world like a caring friend, or possibly adoptive mother. In reality, the kid awoke, looking really confused at my sudden caring. "Kid, we are surrounded." I whispered in his ear, still faking a nuzzle. "Act natural, keep quiet, and get out your gun."

I never should have expected the kid to be able to do this. Once more, his uselessness was demonstrated by him peering up at me blearily and asking "Huh?" Before peering around. "I don't see anyone..." And no, he wasn't whispering.

I heared movement, hooves moving in, fast. I growled and sprang to my feet, shoving the kid out of the way and diving for the cover the nearest boulder would provide. I had just pulled myself behind its cover when the first pony came into sight. Unfortionately for him, he hadn't spotted the gray rocks in the darkness, the ones I used to hide the mines when I set up camp. The earth pony made the mistake of pausing when he heard the first beep. He tried to run, but with a loud "Fwomp!" Most of him was sent flying through the camp, aside from a limb or two. Unfortionatly, that blast had cleared a way into the camp. A dark green earth pony rushed in, a revolver in his mouth, heading for the kid. He never saw me behind the boulder. With a "Crack!" the cup I fired smashed into his jaw. The raider roared in pain as several teeth flew, and the gun dropped. I figured his jaw had been broken, judging by the blood spewing from his mouth. But he wasn't stopping. He turned, lunging at me, weaponless but enraged. A rubber duck fired out the muzzle, heading straight into his open mouth. Wait, when had I loaded that? I was going to fire again to finish him off when he dropped, droll and blood gurgling out his ruined jaw as he gasped for air, the duck firmly wedged down his throat, squeaking loudly as he tried to inhale.

I ignored the rapidly axphixiating raider to look for new threats. I saw no one. Wait, I saw no one. Where the heck had that kid gotten to? I listened, and heard frightened whimpering from behind the other boulder. Great, kid was probably having a panic attack of something. I stepped out from the boulder to check on him, and froze as another pony, the black shape of a unicorn stepped out from the shadows, the kid dangling in red-tinged magic at his side, steel colar around his neck and chain dangling to the unicorns hoof. "I got the colt." He sneered, raising the kid in front of him to block any possible shot. "Now kick off that battle saddle or I start breaking limbs."

I had a choice, fire, probably hit the kid at least once before I downed this buck, or do as he said and hope we could escape from an obvious slaver. I glared, and took careful aim. Then my ears perked, and caught the sounds of several other ponies I heard moving in on multiple sides. Great, even if I took him out, I was surrounded, and practical as my choice in weaponry was, it wasn't meant to take out this many enemies in open combat. With a growl, I unstrapped myself from my pack saddle, letting it fall heavily to the ground next to me. I could make out the unicorn grinning, and several more unicorns and earth ponies moved in, all bearing the typical slaver armor, with chains and collars at the ready. "Get us some light to look at our prizes." The unicorn, obviously their leader, ordered. Someone lit a lantern, and the unicorn, who I could see was black, with a dark green mane, perfect for sneaking up on somepony, came into full view.

When he saw me clearly for the first time, his eyes widened in surprise. Mine did to at his reaction. Yeah, most ponies had never seen a donkey before me, but seriously, most just though I was an unusually ugly earth pony, or a near-stripeless zebra. With eyes wide and a smirk begining to play across his face, this buck was acting like he had just found the haul of a lifetime.

"Oh, I just earn myself a bonus!" The buck half shouted, practically dancing in glee. "Oh, careful with the little mare boys, boss has standing orders, not a hair touched." He glared at a few who did not seem at all happy about this. My coat tried to get up and crawl away at the though of what they probably had planned before this order. "You got that?" The stallion barked. The other slavers glared, but nodded, trotting about to their various tasks. Two earth ponies trotted into the darkness and returned, pulling a large cart with a rusted cage made from various wire and metal scrap to the camp. "Now my mare, would you kindly step inside?" The stallion asked with a bit of a grin. "The boss would like us to be civil, after all." I glared at him, and he raised an eyebrow, raising the kid again by the chain. The kid chocked and kicked as he was raised only by the collar. "Or we can see how many bones of the foal I can break until you do." He sneered. "Oh, and get out of that barding, I don't want any surprises."

"I'm a jenny you piece of manure" I growled under my breath.

I kept up my glare as I stripped, taking off everything, even the gauntlets. Then I stepped up and into the cart. It felt a bit odd, I was never this naked, except to bath. Yeah, us equines didn't normally wear cloths once, but in the wasteland, protection was nessesary. The buck swung the kid in next to me, uncaring of harming him. The kid tumbled, chocking, drawing in several harsh breaths as the tension on his neck was released. The unicorn used the padlock on the cage door to both secure the door and the end of the kids chain, then barked out for the earth ponies pulling the cart to get moving. They grunted, pulling the cart as the whole group began moving east. The kid tried to brace himself as the cart jounced and jostled, but the walls were jagged and kept scrapping his hide. I had better luck due to my higher weight, but even I had to simply stay lying down in the center of the cage and try to predict the bumps.

I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen to us. Like Quick Deal had said, everyone was after us, and they all had wanted us alive. Obvously this buck's leader was out for a reward on us. As they were slavers, we were probably heading straight for Red-Eyes for "Questioning". At least, that was what I assumed until, instead of heading north, we turned south.

The journey took two days. The kid and I resorted to bracing against each other in the center of the cage, both for warmth at night and a slightly more comfortable ride. They fed us. Well, they fed me. They seemed content with giving the kid water so he didn't die on the way, but they made no effort to feed him. I got tired of his rumbling stomach keeping me up at night, so I spared him a bit of my rations the second day. The food sucked anyway, slavers didn't make the best cooks. I kept glaring at the earth pony mare who had been tasked with carrying my pack saddle. Oh, she was going to pay if I didn't get that back.

On the evening of the second day, we entered the hayseed swamps. The slavers were following a track that winded through the grey moss-covered trees, around pools of deep murky water. Every once in a while I heard splashing around us in the water, and several times I saw yellow eyes peering out at us from the brush. The slavers showed no fear, they obviously came by this way often. The few times I heard anything big near us, the slavers simply fired rounds in its direction, and whatever it was would flee. A couple hours into the swamp, we came to what could only be described as a moat. A large trench had been dug into the ground, running to the east and west until trees blocked my view. Swamp water had naturally filled it, and I could see several radigators scurrying away in the water. On the other side of the moat, a truely inpressive wall of every kind of scrap was set, complete with a drawbridge that I was guessing would span the moat when lowered. I could see other slavers peering over the fortress wall at our approaching party. The drawbridge lowered at our approach, and we entered the fortress.

Inside, I could see that a truely massive area was enclosed behind the walls. I could see several barracks set up near the gate campfires burning in front, along with a reinforced little building I assumed to be an arsenal. Off to the side were several large pens made of mesh wire with a few tumble down shelters inside. I didn't need to see the thin and hopeless looking ponies inside to realize these were the slave pens. Around the pens and taking up most of the rest of the space inside the fence, were fields. Someone had taken a lot of time to set up a center of agriculture in the middle of the swamp. I now realized that the moat wasn't just for defense, it was to drain the water from this island of agriculture. I could see dozens of slaves tending the fields, carefully watched over by slaver guards. Great, a slaver with a bigger plan then just buying and selling ponies, wonderful. Like the wasteland needed another red-eye, even in miniature. However, the building that dominated the compound was a small fortress unto itself. Three stories high, it was constructed like everything else, with various scrap, but this one had been reinforced, covered in metal, its windows barred. A balcony extended from the thirs floor, allowing whoever was up there to look down on the whole complex. It likely was the home of whoever was in charge here. And we were being taken right to it.

The wagon stopped right in front of the small fortress, and the unicorn buck opened the cage door, grabbing the kids chain. "Would you kindly come with me?" He said. "The boss is waiting." He smirked. "Or we have fun with the kid."

I glared, but stepped down from the cage. He opened the door, and we trotted into the building. Inside the door, several guns were aimed at us from outside a large cage set around the door. Outside the cage, several gun emplacements had been set up and maned by slavers, guarding the door. The unicorn waved at the guards, and they lowered the guns. The cage door opened, and we moved further into the building. We wound through the building until we reached a large metal door set on sturdy hinges. The unicorn nocked, and a slit opened in it, eyes peering back. It shut, and the door opened to a smaller guard point at the foot of a set of stairs. We were again waved through, and went upstairs. Upstairs was like an entirely different world. Instead of gun emplacements and slavers, we entered a large study, with bookshelves on every wall, and several large comfortable chairs and sofa's scattered about the room. A large fireplace dominated one wall, though no fire was set in it. The slaver yanked the kid along as he went to a sturdy wooden door at the other side of the room. An intercom was set next to the door, and he pressed it before speaking in.

"Boss, could you come down to the study, we have a special order that's come in."

"I'll be right down Shade." A voice responded. The unicorn, Shade apparently, turned away from the intercom and trotted to a highbacked chair, seating himself. The kid cowered next to it, restricted by the chain, looking like nothing so much as a beaten puppy.

"Would you kindly take a seat?" Shade asked, guesturing to a plush, though somewhat faded sofa with a hoof. "The boss will be down in a minute." I just glared, turning my back to him. I looked around the room, hoping for a weapon or possible escape route. There was nothing, no weapons helpfully sitting out, no other doors. The only way out was down through several guard posts, or up past a slaver lord. Neither was a good option. Behind me, I heard the heavy door open, and began to turn.

"Alright Shade, what is this special delivery?" I heard a masuline voice ask. We both saw each other at the same time. He stared, I stared. There, in front of me, was the first living donkey I had seen in over fifteen years.

Level Up!

New Perk Added: A long road. You done much, seen much, and kept going. +1 to endurance.

New Trait: Hope Arises. You have found the rarest thing in all the wastes. Hope. +1 to all stats, so long as you can keep it.

Chapter 10: Flickers of Hope

We stared at each other, each as surprised at the others sudden appearance. My knees wabbled, and I suddenly found my hindquarter on the floor. Here, after over fifteen years or wandering the wastes, I had finally found another of my own species. He stood before me, staring, jaw hanging open. His coat was brown, unlike my gray, but lightened around his eyes and muzzle to a light tan. I could see a few scars on the back of his neck, and another across the bridge of his nose. His mane had been slicked back, something I knew from experience took a lot of effort to get into any shape then our species typical moehawk. He was dressed in a pre-war suit of dark blue, a green and black striped tie around his neck.

"Oh my sweet Celestia, you found one." He said, in a voice so low I was pretty sure only I heard.

I sat, staring, trembling, not quit believing my eyes. I... I wasn't alone. There really was another left. And then, I was abruptly shoved out of that brief moment of happiness.

Abruptly, the Jack before me wiped the look of shock from his face, adopting a more haughty, distant expresion. "Good, good." He said smoothly, turning to Shade. "You've earned yourself quit the bonus." His gaze drifted down to where the kid was shackled at Shade's feet.
At his questioning look, Shade responded "He's with her." Shade said with a shrug. "Went along to protect him." Well, not really, but I guess it must have looked that way. Well, at least that might work in the kids favor.

The Jack glared. "You didn't harm ether of them, correct?" He said in a low, menacing tone.

"Hey, I know the orders." Shade said, rising from the chair. "Don't harm donkey's or any foals with them. They're fine." Oh great, apparently I could have just bolted, and he would have done nothing. Well, maybe not, it would have been my word against his if the kid got hurt after all. Or no word at all, if he had just shot me.

"Leave us." The jack ordered. "I'll see to your reward later."

"But boss if she..." Shade started to say.

"Out!" The jack barked. "And unchain the foal!"

Shade did as comanded, unchaining kid and heading back downstairs, glowering back at me as he went. I matched him glare for glare until he disapeared out the door. The kid raced behind me, cowering againt my legs. Finally, my mind caught up with everything happening, and I found my voice at last.

"Ok, who the flipping feathers are you, and why do you want me?" I demanded, stamping a hoof. I pretty much had the "why" figured out, but I needed to hear it myself. His response though surprised me.

At my words, the jacks eyebrows lifted in surprise, and his jaw dropped once more. "Scrounger?" He asked.

My jaw dropped as well, and I backed away a step in shock. "Ok, how in Tartarus do you know my name?" I demanded. What the crap was going on here?

The jack raised an eyebrow. "There's only one Jenny I know who couldn't even say Fu-" He glanced over to the kid. "Well, those words. Seriously, you never overcame that?"

"Who the crap are you, how do you know me?" I snarled. I was trembling slightly. How did he know me, was he...

"Really, you don't remember me at all?" He asked, looking a little hurt. "Well, it has been quit a while. And you never did have much time for the little colt who kept dipping your tail in paste."

I blinked. If my hindquarters hadn't already been on the floor, they would have fallen there again. I looked at him, and suddenly instead of a slave lord, I saw a small brown fuzzy-headed colt that indeed, had glued my tail to the floor on several occasions. "Forge?"

"Well, about time you remembered!" He exclaimed, lunging forward. I had already brought a hoof up to strike back before I realized he was hugging me. My whole body tensed, unused to this close contact, and he drew back, looking almost perplexed. He came to the completely wrong reason why. "Oh, right. No worries, your not going to be a slave." He said, waving a hoof dismissively.

That brought it back, I blinked, and stared at him. "What the fudgebucket are you doing here Forge?!" I shouted, jerking to my feet. He backed off a step, and even the kid cowered closer to the forge. "I've been looking for anyone since Bray fell, spending years out there in the wastes, and I find you in a fricking fortress leading a bunch of slavers? What is wrong with you! Look what they did to us! And you put a bounty out on your own kind!?" Before my rant could continue, Forge interrupted.

"Whoa, its not what you think." He said in a tone meant to be calming, holding up a hoof to stop me. "I was looking for others. I couldn't just wander the wastes at random, but with the ponies at my disposal, I took the option I had. And you heard Shade, I had orders none could be harmed."

I paused, taking that in. That still left so many questions unanswered, but before I could ask them, the door Forge had come in through slowly swung open. A small pink head peered into the room from beyond the door. "Daddy, who's yelling?"

I froze, staring. It was a filly, pale pink in color, with the legs and body shape of a pony, but with large ears and a bright pink Mohawk. It had been a while, and I had only met the one, but I still knew what a mule looked like.

"Gem, I told you to stay upstairs." Forge said, with more exasperation then actual anger. Then, he looked to kid, and smiled. "Hey little guy." He said, lowering his head. "I want to talk to your friend here, want to go play upstairs with Gem?"

Kid looked to me, and I nodded. Anywhere Forge kept his... holy crap, he had a daughter? Well, it would be safe enough. Kid trotted over to Gem, who happily trotted upstairs with him, chatting happily. I noticed that while Shade had unchained him, the steel collar still bound his neck. I would have to see about that.

Once the two foals were out of hearing, I turned back to Forge. "So, you're with a pony now?" I asked, a little more coolly then I had intended.
He looked at me, and I could see a little anger in his eyes. "So, you have a problem with my daughters parentage?"

"No," I sighed. "I'm not like the elders. Mules can't help that they can't... well, continue the lines." I glared at him. "But for someone so happy to see another donkey, I wasn't expecting you to... be with someone."

This time, he sighed. He looked back, making sure the kids weren't at the door. "I'm not. Gem's mother... She was the slaver who... owned me."

I flinched, realizing I had just accidentally torn open some very deep wounds. Oh holy cheese, if he had a child with his slave owner, that meant...

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize..." I said, trying to back away from the subject.

"No, you need to understand." He said, firmly, though I could still see the pain in his eyes. "You need to know why I've done... all this, become what I am." He sighed again. "How much do you know about what happened to Bray?"

"We were attacked, I hid, everyone ether died or was carried away." I said simply. In my mind, I could still hear the screams, here my mother telling me to run, coming back to a town turned to a ruin overnight. "I followed the tracks after I ran out of food. Tracked for a couple days before they vanished. Took me years to find out what happened to them. Found out a whole slaver caravan full of donkeys got ambushed near Baltimore by raiders, and no one survived.

Forge gave a sad nod. "Yes, the whole caravan had been sent north for auction, but they never made it." He sighed. "What you don't know is that this was the slaver outpost responsible for taking Bray." Seeing my expression, he quickly elaborated. "None of the slavers responsible are... here anymore. I made sure of that when I took over."

"Why did you take over a freaking slaver compound?!" I demanded. "You were a slave! How can you do this, working with the kind of ponies that destroyed our home, nearly destroyed our species!?"

He held up a hoof, stopping me again. "Please, I will explain, but you need to know everything first." I glared, but nodded. I didn't understand this, couldn't. But if he was going to try and explain, I would listen. "First, I was captured with the others during the assault on Bray." He began, eyes growing distant in memory. "My mother had been killed trying to let me escape, but they caught me anyway. We were all taken here, to this fortress. Would have been sold off one by one except a big slave auction was going on up north shortly after and the boss at the time thought he'd get a better price there. I was... "Fortunate" enough that one of the slavers thought I was cute, and wanted a "Pet". My father objected. They shot him."

He went quiet for a moment, and I couldn't make up my mind to try and comfort him or not when he began to speak again. "Everyone else was dragged off in the caravan. Didn't even know what happened to them until I heard the boss complaining about all the lost caps from the slaves being massacred. My... Master spent the next years dragging me around on a leash, ordering me to do whatever she pleased, treating me like a dumb animal." He sighed. "I guess I owe her a little thanks, she liked to use me as an example of a "good slave". Kept me fed better, and since I was her pet, I didn't do hard labor. Didn't end up with malnutrition and feeble limbs like a lot of the slaves that were here. But then, after several years, the boss died on a raid, and my master managed to seize control of this place, and everything changed."

"My master didn't want a pet anymore, she wanted a plaything, in every sense of the word." He shuddered visibly, and I did as well. Oh my word, year of... that. It was a wonder he was still sane. "Then, she got pregnant with Gem. Never thought she would keep her. But... she thought she could use her, get even more control of me. It was like I was some sort of obsession with her, she wanted me to be a total slave to her, never questioning, always obeying, never even thinking. She waited until Gem was just a toddler when she threatened her life in front of me the first time. I don't really remember what happened after that, but when I came back to myself, my master was dead... very, very dead. I was only lucky enough to be alone with her when it happened. Then i realized I had a choice, escape into the wasteland and try to survive, caring for a toddler, without any skills or family to turn to. Or..."

He gestured around him. "I had a hard choice to make, and I choose to do what I could for my daughter. I had been allowed many times to move about on my masters orders, so I did the only thing that would keep my daughter safe. I armed the slaves, smuggled guns and ammo out of the armory and told the slaves that anyone who fought for me would go free, as would their family if they died. It only took a few hours after I killed my master to put me in charge of the compound. The slaves always had outnumbered the slavers, and an army of them put the few who still fought down. I kept my promise and freed most of the slaves. But that left me with a lot of freed slaves and a bunch of surrendered slavers, and a large compound to care for. I let the former slave choose, they could stay, and help guard the compound and grow food, or they could leave. Most left. So I had a few slaves who hadn't tried to earn freedom, a few freed slaves, and many unhappy slavers. I know you will think what I choose makes me a monster, but I had to try and give my daughter a good life. I had to take the one chance to give me more then a daily struggle just to live. So I choose to run this place the only way I could. I sent most of the slavers out to get more stock, put the few slaves back to work, and let the free slaves choose their duties. I've run this place ever since."

I just sat, staring at him. He had faced things I couldn't even begin to comprehend, such evil had been done to him, yet when given a choice, he choose to let this place continue doing this to others. He choose slavery when he could have freed them, choose to continue this blight of the wasteland. I wish i could say I didn't understand, I grew up with this jack, how he could choose something so monstrous should have been beyond me. Heck, he even admitted I would find him monstrous for this. But... That was the wasteland. It took and took from you until nothing, not even your morality, was left. Unless you found a way out. Heck, I had spent my whole life trying to get out of the wastes. This haul was supposed to do that for me. Bring me into a life that was more then mere survival. And had he really done anything I wouldn't to save myself and my child?

Forge just stood for a long moment, looking at me, watching how I reacted. Then, he abruptly turned and motioned for the door he had sent the foals through. "I know, its a lot to process, and I'm no where near done explaining myself. But I assume you'll want to check in on your foal... friend?" He ended it as a question, and I slowly nodded, my brain still working to process everything I had heard from him.

"Yeah, he's... well, more of a traveling companion really. He's great getting into computers." I admitted.

"Ah, what's his name by the way?" He asked.

"Um..." I tried not to look to embarrassed. "I just call him kid." Forge was staring at me now, looking very confused. "Hey, found him fresh out of a stable and let him tag along. Thought he would have gotten himself killed doing something stupid right off." He stared even more. "Didn't want to get attached." I tried to explain. I really wasn't liking how he was staring at me. He was a freaking slave lord for gosh sakes, and he was acting like I was some sort of monster. Hey, I was just being practical.

We went upstairs. It was obviously a private residence. We entered into a larger room with comfortable looking furniture, maybe to entertain guests. I hadn't seen anyplace as nice since the last trading run to Tenpony. He led me to one of the many doors off this one, and I found myself looking into a fillys bedroom. Everything was brightly colored, or pastel shaded. Toys were scattered all over the floor, and I saw the foals playing in the corner with a dolls house. Kid was laughing as he chased Gem's toy pony around the house with a toy car, and I realized I hadn't seen him this happy since... well, never. It made me feel... bad actually. I hadn't made him happy the whole time he was with me. But that really wasn't my job to make him happy, right? Gem saw her dad watching and waved, grinning. Kid looked up, and my gut wrenched a little when I saw his smile drop a little as he saw us. I tried telling myself it was because of Forge, but I wasn't sure anymore.

"Hi pumpkin," Forge said to Gem. "Dinner will be ready soon, so pick up the toys, ok?"

"Yes daddy." She replied, smiling up at him.

We turned, and he led me to to a small dining area. "I would appreciate if we could keep to more... child friendly subject matter around the foals." He said, moving towards an intercom on the wall.

"What, you want me to make small talk or something?" I asked. Lets face it, speaking wasn't, and isn't, my biggest skill.

"If that's what you want." He replied, "Just keep slaves, death, and that kind of thing out of it." I was going to protest, but he raised a hoof. "I will speak to you again after we eat, but some things foals shouldn't know quit yet." He raised a hoof and pressed the intercom. "Two guests for dinner Chopping Block, a mare and a foal." I heard an affirmative, and he turned back to face me. "Sorry, Chopping Blocks a good pony, but he wouldn't know what to do if I said I had a Jenny for dinner."

"Found a slaver good at cooking?" I asked, a little pointedly.

"No, Chopping Block was one of the slaves I freed." He said, raising an eyebrow. "He choose to stay, and he cooks wonderfully." I didn't know what to say to that. I didn't understand how any slave would choose to remain in the place of his captivity. We stood there, both unable to think of what to say to the other until dinner finally arrived. The foals came in, and Forge sat us around the table which I noticed had seating for more then the four of us. Which was odd, since it was just the two of them here normally. Was he expecting more people here in the future, or had their been more here for past slave masters? Dinner turned out to be fresh vegetables from the fields outside. We tucked in, the kid and I more greedily then Forge and Gem, after all, they didn't have to face the feast or famine diet of the wasteland here.

As we ate, Forge turned, and spoke to Kid. "I'm sorry, but I never did get your name."

The kid swallowed the mouthful of corn he had been chewing, and replied. "I'm Flux." I saw his eyes glance over to me for a moment as I took it in. Fine, now I knew his name. Wasn't going to change anything now. I really couldn't figure why Forge cared.

"Well its nice to meet you Flux." Forge said. "Its nice for Gem to have someone to play with." The meal continued, while Forge and... Flux, made small talk. Gem spoke up a little, but most of the time she kept staring at me. It was a little disconcerting, but I burried my muzzle in the food and tried to ignore her. "So, I can see from your barding your from stable 56 right?" I heard Forge ask. Flux nodded. "Interesting, I hadn't heard of that stable, has it opened recently?"

I tried to give the kid a look, but he ether didn't see or ignored me. "No, I... um, hacked the door on a dare." He said, running a hoof through his mane. "Then they locked me out."

Forge looked confused. "Why would they do that?" He asked, looking concerned.

"They thought it was to radioactive to survive outside, so when I got out and didn't come right back, they locked me out so I wouldn't contaminate the stable."

Forge put on a puzzled look. "Why would they think its so radioactive out here?" He inquired.

I coughed lightly, giving the kid a look that said "Say nothing." I knew he saw it. The idiot ignored me.

"The exit was leading into the megaspell crater in Seaddle, so we got really high radiation readings on the door sensors." The kid said, loving the attention. I fought the urge to pound my head on the table. The prattling went on, the kid explaining how his "friends" had dared him to hack the door to get out, how he had gotten lost, and met me, explained most of our trip here before dinner ended. I was only gratefull that dinner ended before the story got to Bray.

"Why don't we move into the living room to talk?" Forge said. I nodded, and walked out with kid. We got through the door first, and before the others followed, I grabbed him and hissed in his ear. "If you say anything about us going to Bray, findind that facility, or megaspells, I will leave you here with the slavers." Then I stepped away and sat calmly on a sofa while he stared, eyes wide. Gem and Forge followed us in, and we all sat and talked aimlessly for a while. I made up a story that we had still been trying to find the end of the trail of facilities, and that it was somewhere between Dodge and Baltimare.

It was surprisingly hard for me to keep up the deciet. This was... nice. I hadn't had anything like this since I was younger then Flux. A safe place, plenty of food, others around who, if something happened, might actually shed a tear about me before looting my corpse. And I hadn't realized how much that kind of thing meant to me. I had been alone for so long, I had actually managed to make myself forget how much I needed things like this. Peace, hope... even family. I kept finding myself almost admitting the truth, telling Forge everything. But even with all this, the nice place, cute filly, great food and all, I couldn't quiet forget the cost. Especially when I looked to Flux and saw the steel collar still around his neck. But it was getting harder to remind myself that this place could never be home.

Then, something happened. Gem, who was stil staring at me disconcertingly, pipped up.

"So are you going to be my mommy?" She asked me, and I fell off the sofa in complete shock.

Forge stood up quickly. "Time for bed Gem." He said. He swiftly sent both the Foals to bed, Gem in her room, The kid... Flux, I really had to get used to that, set up in a guest room.

"What was that?" I snapped, the instant the foals were gone. He just shook his head. Then he ushered me out onto the balcony. We looked around at his operation, slaves in for the night, fires buring outside guard barracks.

"What do you see?" Forge asked me after a minute.

"Slavery, death, control." I said shortly.

"Really?" He asked, looking at me, expression a little sad. "Thats all?"

"All that matters." I replied.

He sighed "You don't understand." He said sadly. "Which I really can't blame you for. It's a lot to take in. And if I simply told you everything...." He paused, looking out over the railing for a moment before turning back. "You really think I'm a monster, dont you?"

I raised a brow at that. "Am I supposed to see something else?"

He sighed. "No, I suppose not, at this point." He seemed to think a moment before speaking. "I want you to sleep on this. And spend all the time you need in the next few days looking over the compound."

That did surprise me. But not enough to keep me from asking "So, I can't leave?"

"Oh, you can leave." He said. "But you need to give me a little warning. I need to have a team ready to escort you out of the swamp. There are... things out there that... well, lets just say their the reason no one has tried to settle the swamp before. Once you think you've gotten the lay of the land here, we'll talk some more."

I opened my mouth to protest. I needed answers. Heck, his filly thought I was going to be her mother! But he simply held up a hoof.
"I'll explain to Gem that your a friend, but not a mother for her." I could read the "yet" in his eyes. "I need you to really see what I've been working towards here. And it can't all be from my explanation. When you've seen enough for yourself, I'll tell you the rest."

With that, he turned and walked inside. I just sat there, overlooking what he had built. But he was wrong. I never said I just saw a monster. I understood far to well how much of your own morality the wasteland took from you, just to survive. That Forge had managed to escape slavery and build all this, horrible as it was, still impressed me. So no, I didn't see a pure monster. I saw a father desperate that his foal would have a real family. A Jack terrified that he was that last of his kind, and someone who had taken some of the worst fortune that the wasteland could spit out, and still managed to make a life for himself and his daughter. So no, I didn't see him as a monster. I just wished I was far enough from that darkness to still know what a monster was.

Level Up!

New Perk Added: Chipping Away: Careful, that mental armor you work so hard on is chipping. +1 to charisma.

Author's Note

Gah that took forever to write. Spent way to much time rewriting to try and make it perfect and still didn't even come close. Finally decided to just post. Hopefully I'll get chapters up more frequently now.

Chapter 11: Choices

A choice to make,
a chance to take,
the wheel of fate spins on.

Flux and I spent the night in a guest room. It didn't surprise me that Forge had several, considering what I knew of his plans for the future. Even with the oppulent furnishings, I had trouble getting to sleep. All the revalations of the day just buzzed around my head until I finaly drifted off. The next day Flux had gone by the time I awoke. I found him sitting with Gem in her room, helping her through some pre-war school books. I left them to it. Forge met me in the dining area.

"Feel free to request anything you would like on the intercom." He said. "I've given orders that you are to get what you like, except from the armory." He raised an eyebrow. I rolled my eyes. "Oh, and your things have been brought into the study. I even had the colts saddlebags brought up." With that, he surprised me by leaving me alone. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. He was so certain his way was the right one that he was sure that, if I just thought about it long enough, I would come over to his side. So, I ate a quick meal and wandered out into the fortress. I roamed around, taking everything in. That is to say, taking in guard patrol times and checking wall defenses. Hey, I wasn't stupid, I knew getting out of here might just really on some sort of daring escape. And I wasn't thinking about changing my mind about this place. But that wasn't really the problem was it?

Forge. I had known him, albeit not very well. Son of Bray's blacksmith, the colt I never paid much attention to except when he glued my tail to the floor in class. But... now he was it. I had spent the past 15 years of my life searching for him, well, donkeys, and now that I found one, I was considering running away. I didn't know what to do anymore. I finally had found another of my own species, and he had chosen to embody all the worst qualities of that species. And that was the problem. I had to face a choice, leave him, travel the wasteland again, search for more of my own kind, and maybe never find them, or stay, ignore the evil he did, and try to be happy with my own kind. And he knew that. It was probably why he was so confident I would come to accept what he did. Because my only other option was equally unthinkable.
So, I ended up doing what Forge intended. Exploring the compound, viewing his operation. I couldn't make any decisions, not quiet yet. Not until I could see everything Forge was doing with this place. As I wandered, I found myself... Impressed. I had been in a few slaver compounds before. I had snuck into a few in my youth, looking for others from Bray, and later gone into a few right after the locals had gotten sick of missing persons and taken the group out. Usually it was just a bunch of pens for the slaves, housing for the slavers, and some defenses. If it wasn't for the armed guards though, and a couple pens near the gate, this place could have simply been an extremely well fortified settlement. The only ponies in chains were a few in the pens, which I guessed were for sale. The others were working fields, not in chains, but under guard. A bench of small shacks lined one side of every field, which I guessed were slave quarters. They weren't much to look at, but nowhere near as bad as many I had seen. Heck, some places didn't even bother with shelters for slaves.

What really awed me was when I came around a building and came upon an actual playground. Foals were playing on various equipment that must have been brought in. And they were obviously the children of the slaves. After all, slaver foals didn't need a fence around the playground and a guard. Still, these foals were playing. I could see smiles, and hear laughter. Checking the fields, I saw no foals working. At least, no young ones. The youngest pony working had one of those cutie marks, so I guessed they could be considered mature. I couldn't believe that. Foals, allowed to simply be foals. Even the best slave compound I knew would have them doing some minor work. And, as I watched the fields, none of the adults seemed miserable. No, I couldn't say they seemed really happy. But, well, maybe content was the word. They worked, well, like it was their job.

Then, I heard a bell ring, and all work in the fields stopped. Everypony stopped work and moved as one to a large open area were a bunch of tables had been set up in rows. A pony stood by several large vats, which I assumed held food. I guessed it must be lunch. And then I got another surprise as first a couple slaver ponies got food, then the slaves. Everyone was getting the same thing. And, when I went up to have a look, I was simply handed a bowl of some sort of vegetable soup. So, they got much better food then the average slave to. Had to be, considering slave and slaver alike got it.

I sat away from everyone and watched them as I ate. I was getting curious looks from slave and slaver alike. Understandable, the only other donkey they had likely seen was Forge, and he was the boss. When they weren't staring at me though, the slaves talked and joked, some even swapping storied with slavers who sat a little ways off. Again, like a lot of settlements I had been to. After a time, lunch ended, and the slaves went back to the fields, and the foals from the playground came up for food. They got the same as the adults, plus a bit of mutfruit at the end.
I wandered until close to sunset, when another bell rang, and the fields cleared. The slaves got another meal, then went to their shacks, where the foals joined their parents and all spent some time outside talking, playing, and generally acting as a community would. Then, with the ringing of a bell, they went inside their shacks. Realizing it must be a curfew, I made my way back inside to Forge's rooms. Inside, he was putting Gem and Flux to bed, a new foal-sized bed having been set up in Gem's room.

"I hope you don't mind." He said, seeing me peering in. "Gem wanted Flux in with her, and I saw no problem with it."

"No, its fine." I replied, waiting while he tucked the foals in and turned off the light.

"So, how was your day?" He asked me as he closed the door.

"Um..." I said, trying to think as we walked down the hall. "Fine. It's just... different then I expected."

"Let me guess, you thought you'd find lots of chains and whip?" He asked. I nodded. "Yes, that was pretty much what it was like before I took over. When I came into power, I changed a lot. Unhappy, underfed and beaten slaves don't work hard, and try to escape more often. Well fed and cared for slaves work harder and don't often try escaping. You wouldn't have seen it, but the foals even attend classes two days a week, to learn reading and other skills. And I give them all a day of rest once a fortnight."

That made me pause, thinking. Then, I said the only thing that came to mind. "Why?"

"Excuse me?" He asked, looking thoroughly confused.

"Why do all this?' I said at last. "Your a Slaver. Who cares if you beat them and work them to death for a little more profit. It doesn't make it any better. If you wanted to be nice and kind you could have released everyone and started a farm, not all this. So, why bother?"

He glared at me. "Because I never wanted to be a slaver." He half growled. "I became one to keep myself and my daughter from starving in the wastes. But I saw opportunity, and I took it. I built farmland out of a swamp, reinforced the wall so that nothing short of an army could breach it, and improved the lives of everyone here. Most of the slaves here don't leave, they work the fields with their family. We sell more food then slaves, and make more. The few slaves we sell are cared for well while they are here, and I try to sell family members together."

"You say I could have been a farmer. Could one farmer have done half that? Could I have drained this much swampland? Built a sturdy wall? Kept my daughter alive even? No. I had no one that would have helped me, not without a stake of their own in it. Now, with all I put in place, think of the community I could build. Enough donkey's to work the land and there would be no slaves needed. This fortress could keep us safe from all but the worst foes, and with the food grown here, we buy as many allies as we need."

It took a moment for me to process this, and after a moment, I could only voice one protest. "But its all built on slaves."

He raised an eyebrow at that. "And if that is so wrong, why did you enslave that colt." I sputtered, but before I could protest, he continued. "Face it Scrounger, you've treated that foal worse then those I own. I had the whole day to speak to him. You know what he told me? You gave him no food when he was hungry, left him injured when you had medicine, drug him through radiation without a thought, and barely offered him companionship or protection. You didn't even bother learning his name. And he knows he has to follow you, because he wouldn't survive a day alone." He stepped up to me, staring me in the eyes. "So tell me, how isn't he your slave?"

I stood there, stunned, unable to speak. It wasn't true. I had just helped toughen him up. And yeah, I probably could have learned his name after his first week without dying but... but what really? I hadn't even considered it before but, hearing Forge now... had I really been that bad?
Seeing my stunned silence, Forge spoke up again. "Think about it, and get some sleep. We'll talk in the morning." And with that, he walked off.
He was wrong though. I didn't sleep that night.
....

The next morning dawned to my relief, and I rolled out of bed as the sun finally rose about the wall. I hadn't slept, my mind rolling over Forges words again and again. I dozed off only momentarily to dreams of Flux in chains, begging me for just a little food. I stumbled out into the dining area only to find Forge already there, waiting with cups of some sort of brown beverage that smelled foul. But when he handed me a cup, I drank it down anyway, and felt my head start to clear.

"I can see you had a lot to think about." Forge said calmly, sipping his own cup. I just glared blearily at him and kept drinking. "We'll, I thought today I could show you the firing range set up outside the wall." He continued. "Shade told me about that strange weapon you had built into your pack saddle, and I thought Flux could use some weapon training."

I just grunted, to tired to do much in the way of thinking or talking. I just waiting, drinking the strange tasting drink until Flux and Gem awoke and we ate breakfast. Then, Forge had Gem go play in her room while I got my pack saddle. Then we headed to the range. A couple slavers accompanied us out the gate and guarded the open space built up against the walls, watching the swamp for anything that might try and creep up on us. The range wasn't much, just a few targets set up in an open space between the wall and the swamp.

"We have to do shooting practice out here." Forge explained. "Inside a ricochet off a wall could be deadly. Now, could you show me that... weapon in action?' He asked, waving a hoof at my pack saddle.

I shrugged, readied Practicality, and fired, sending several pieces of copper pipe downrange to embed themselves in a target.

"impressive" Forge said, moving closer to examine Practicallity. "How in Equestria does this work?" I went over how Practicallity worked in general, and he seemed quiet interested. "Fascinating. I can see how practical a weapon this is for a scavenger. Any useless junk becomes an instant projectile."

I nodded, and Forge turned his attention to Flux, who had brought his saddlebags to the range, as he had nothing else to holster his pistol in. He first brought the old pistol out, and Forge talked him through getting shots downrange, a couple actually managing to hit the target. Then, Forge told him to reload, and turned to me.

"So, any thoughts about how long you plan on staying here?" he asked. I froze. I hadn't made any desision, I hadn't had the time. And Forge seemed to know that. "I'm not talking about forever." He said. "Just how long for now. I know you'll want to leave, think things over. But I thought I would ask. It would be nice to know how long to expect you."

I just stared, unable to think. Gah, it wasn't like I was deciding the rest of my life, but I knew, even with my sleep deprived brain, that he was asking for more. He wanted to know how far I was caving. The longer I stayed now, the more certain he would be that I would stay forever. But I wasn't ready to give in. Yes, his words had started to make it clear I wasn't the good person I had always assumed I was, but to live here, on the backs of slaves? No, I couldn't... could I? But I wasn't going to find that out. We had both turned our attention from Flux, who, instead of reloading his first gun, had pulled another, a semi-auto, from his saddlebags.

"Hey, how do I work this..." He started to ask. But as he turned, his magic levitated the gun with him. There were a great bang, and I watched in what seemed like slow motion as Flux's head snapped back and he crumbled to the ground, face frozen in one last expression of shock.

Trait Lost: Hope Rises

New Trait: No Hope: -5 to all stats

Chapter 12: Rekindling

I awoke lying on a dirty moss-covered floor, unable to remember how I got there. I was still in my pack saddle, and dried mud was caking me from my hooves to halfway up my chest. My entire body felt sore, and I could feel several long stinging wounds in my sides. I tried to think back, the last thing i remembered was... The shot, Forge rocking back, then slumping to the ground, blood pooling around his head. Guards shouting, me running. That was it. It kept replaying over and over in my head. I had just watched what might have been the only hope for my species die. I wasn't sure how long I lay their, trembling, lost to the horror and sadness of my thoughts. Finally though, the kid... Flux, he was Flux, came into sight. I turned my head to see a barely intact doorway to my side that he had entered through. He was looking at me with a great deal of concern, and looked like he had been dragged through half the wastes.

I looked away, not daring to look at him. I wasn't sure I could look at him right now without him seeing the hate I was starting to feel for him. He had just shot my last hope, my only hope. I had said it myself, I had given up a long time ago, resigned myself to being the last of my kind. I had gotten back hope, had hope for three days. If I had stayed... I could have had a home, a family. All it would have cost was... my soul. And then, I had lost all that hope in one shot.

But it wasn't the same this time. Last time I hadn't really given up, not really, I had just told myself I had. But somewhere I had kept the hope deep inside, the certainty that I couldn't be the last one. Except now, now I had seen hope die, and no matter how hard I kept telling myself that if there was one more, then there could be two more, that I could be alone, I didn't feel it. I felt so alone, more alone then I had felt since I had crept back into Bray and found everyone dead and gone. Since I had crawled between my parents cold forms and cried until I slept.
I felt cold, though it was warm out, and I couldn't stop the shivering. I was lost, I was alone, and I didn't know what to do anymore. Where do you go when you have lost everything, even hope? I just stood there, staring at a wall, lost inside my own mind. I might have gone on doing that forever, until I dropped from thirst or hunger, except a pair of hooves wrapped themselves around my neck.

I looked down to see Flux hugging me. I broke. I simply sank down and began to sob. For a moment, Flux simply held me, before he to broke down and cried. We lay there, holding each other as we let our despair overtake us. Finally though, we simply ran out of tears, and were left just lying there. I felt... better. Not great, but better.

"So, now what?" Flux finally asked. I thought about it. I honestly had no clue. up to this point I had just been trying to survive in the wastes. Now... I needed a reason to keep going. I was lost, in more ways then one. I needed something to guide me, some direction. Well, there was one place I knew that just may hold some answers for me.
"We're going to see an old friend." I said.

....

We headed north. I had apparently gotten as far as the northern edge of the swamp before I had collapsed into sleep. Flashes of memory of the flight had come back, the shot, a desperate grab for Flux, racing through a swamp with him on my back, and collapsing in a run down shack from exhaustion before, according to Flux, sleeping through an entire day. It took two days of steady walking,for us to reach a rocky ridge. The landscape around us was barren, pockmarked with holes. The kid gave me a startled look when I walked right past the sign warning us of landmines. I just kept going. We had barely spoken a word in the past two days. Yes, the cry-out had helped, but I couldn't help but ruminate on everything. I had nothing left to give. I had lost everything, I had no purpose, no reason to keep going. I was alive, with no reason to live. I just kept putting one hoof in front of another, keeping moving more via momentum then anything else. I kept trying to focus, to think of everything I still had, Heck, I was one deal away from being one of the richest people in the wastes, but everything just felt... empty.
Finally, we moved into a field of large boulders, and I led the kid on a path through them, until we came to a small shack nestled between two large boulders, completely out of sight. I reached a hoof up and knocked. After a minute, the door swung open, and a pair of glowering eyes stared out at us. With a step, a large bipedal form stepped into view. Light brown fur covered a vaguely canine form that stood on two leg. A strange rifle was held in one paw, and his lips pulled back into a snarl as he gave a loud growl. In front of us stood one of the most feared creatures in the wasteland, a hellhound.

"Hi Short Claws," I said, working to put as much cheer into my voice as I could. "Mind me dropping in?"

His expression didn't improve. Flux had already been at my side, but at the sight of a snarling hellhound, he did his best to vanish behind me.
"You brought pony to my home?" Short Claws asked, glowering.

"He's a friend." I sighed. Huh, had I actually just admitted that? "Can we come in or what?"

"Fine, bring little shaking pony, he look tasty." Short Claws said. The kid tried to shrink into the ground. I dragged him inside anyway. Inside wasn't much, just single room with a solitary bed, a hot plate, a workbench, and a scavenged set of lockers. However, the large tunnel by the bed indicated that this one room shack had, for lack of a better term, a rather extensive basement. Flux wasn't even looking around at any of it, his gaze just kept its lock on Short Claws, and his definitely not short claws.

I sighed. "Flux, this is Short Claws. He's a hellhound, and a friend. Short Claws, this is Flux, he's a mildly annoying Unicorn, and a friend." Short Claws raised an eyebrow, but nodded. Flux's eyes bugged out even further, if that was possible. Then he did the last thing I expected.

"You bedded him!?" He exclaimed rather loudly. I stared, turning rather brightly red. Short Claws jerked, hitting his head on a low roof beam.
"You told annoying unicorn?!" He half growled.

"No! How, but..." I sputtered. Then I remembered the guards back at Dodge, and my little joke to the shopkeep clear back in rain. Oh flying cheese blocks, the kid remembered that.

"How he know?" Short Claws demanded.

"I um, had to tell ponies why I stopped drinking, and um, I know they wouldn't believe me so.." I managed to sputter out.

Short Claws was silent for a minute before saying. "You quit drinking because of that? Didn't think I was that bad."

I fell over, sputtering, while Flux just looked confused. When I got my breath back, Short Claws just rolled his eyes and asked "So, why you bring pony to home?"

I sighed, the humor of the situation drifting away to leave me feeling cold and alone again. "Because I need you help." I sighed, then, remembering, I piped up "Oh, and I have a proposal for you."

"You wish get married?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. Thankfully, I hadn't gotten up last time I had fallen over, it saved time.

"Not that kind of proposal!" I said, face-hoofing. Seriously, since when had he tried this hard at humor? I sighed. "I... may have found a giant unoccupied underground base that MAY need someone to watch over it while I'm traveling." I looked up at him. "Interested?"

He looked at me hard. "Base not full of bad robots that try to kill dogs, and not full of stupid ponies?"

"Nope, completely empty." i said. "And it connects to a large system of caves you can tunnel through to your hearts content."

"Gem caves?" He asked, ears perking up.

"Nah, never seen any there." I replied.

He was still looking at me hard. "So what wrong with place?"

I blinked. "Nothing..." I said, unsure what he meant.

He shook his head. "No old place empty that long without having bad things in it."

"Oh." I said, understanding dawning. "It was a big secret, and we did have to shut down robots inside. But you can see if you can reprogram them to accept you." I sighed. "But, um... It is full of...uh, megaspells."

Short Claws eyes widened, and he growled. "Megaspells made dogs home bad, made dogs into hellhounds. What you do with megaspells?"
"Um..." Well, that wasn't the best response. "I, Uh, don't know yet." I decided it wasn't best to tell him I was still seriously considering selling them to the highest bidder. "But I need someone to guard them until I figure out how to dispose of them. And I figure its an upgrade from this shack."

Short claws took a long time thinking about it, then nodded. "I can guard this place for you. But was this the help you needed or the proposal?"

I looked over to the kid, and then to Short Claws. "Kid, stay here, don't touch his stuff." I ordered. Then I turned to Short Claws. "Can we talk outside. The Hellhound looked puzzled, but nodded, following me out after glaring at the kid.

"Why you not what pony to hear?" Short Claws asked.

"Because I don't want him to know he shot the only donkey I've met in fifteen years." I replied. Short Claws started to growl, but I stopped him. "It was an accident." I explained. "But I don't think the kid could take it if he realized what he did." I sighed. "I owe him that much for how I've apparently been treating him."

"So, why you need my help?" Short Claws asked.

"Well..." i desperately tried to find the words. "I don't know." I finally sighed. "But I don't have anyone else I can talk to about this, and last time I felt this bad, you helped."

Short claws blinked. "I do not remember this."

I sighed. "It was when we met."

Now he looked even more confused. "How did that help?"

"gave me hope." I answered with a shrug. "Figured if I was lucky enough to find a Hellhound that didn't kill me, I had to be lucky enough to find just one Jack." Well, I might have even taken it a sign from above even. I was a little desperate at the time.

"So then, how do you expect me to help now?" He asked.

I could only shrug. "I don't know really, I just didn't know what else to do." I admitted. "But, your alone out here, you can't go back to your own kind. What keeps you going?"

He thought about it. "I am not like you, I know I still have a kind." He grinned. "Plus I could just let them have your head, and they take me back." I just frowned at him. He sat back on the earth, appearing deep in thought. "Never really thought about it. I am Hellhound. I dig, I make territory, I look for gems. I make rifle better. I wait for you to bring me things. I wait for rest of pack to realize we not be able to fight pony forever, that packs must find new way, if packs to continue. To many ponies, to few dogs. I know others felt like this. I know I eventually see dogs and ponies friends." He looked at me. "So, why you keep going?"

I shrugged. "I... Don't know anymore. I just barely managed to keep going long enough to get here. I... I'm lost, and donkeys don't get lost. But what reason do I have to keep going?"

Short Claws seemed to think that over for a bit. "I don't think I can tell you that." He said at last. "You must know why you live. I not able to tell it to you."

I sighed. "Great."

"But," He said. "What you think happens to little pony if you go?"

I blinked, then sighed. "Heck, even he would probably be better off if I'm gone. I've been dragging him across half the wasteland without a thought. Heck, Forge treated him better then I did, and he was a slaver!"

Short Claws blinked. "I think you need to tell me this story."

So I did. In brief anyway, tell him how I had dragged the kid... Flux, literally across half the wasteland on this accursed treasure hunt, and how it took Forge pointing things out to me to realize I had been a complete jerk to him the whole time.

Short claws took it all in, thought for a moment, then spoke up. "You are really an ass."

Before I could kick him, he continued. "You remember we used to travel together. You always ass to ponies. Even nice ponies who not shoot us. Now you care, but I think only because other donkey not like it. Now you feel bad, but for you, not colt. I think you really care for colt, you make things better, not give up and die."

I stood, stunned, jaw opening and closing, unable to think of a response. Before I came even close to one, he spoke up again. "I think you no want die. You be dead if you want that. But if you that sad, I tell you, you have me as friend, you have colt that needs help. And you still alive. If other donkey's still out there, you not find them if you dead."

Then he stood. "I go in, make sure colt not breaking my stuff. You stay and think, come in when done."

I sat to think a while. Short claws may be right. Forge had started me questioning if I had really been the decent equine I always thought I was, but most of that was just based on me not being a pony. Heck, I had gone along treating the kid like little more then a slave, all the while confident in the fact that I was better then him. After all, I had grown up learning how ponies and zebras had destroyed everything, and donkeys had just had to endure, as always. But Forge had shown me where that thinking led, to someone who did what they wanted to others, still confident that their species was the better one. I wanted none of it. Heck, the only friend I had made in 15 years was a Hellhound outcast, even though I was around friendly ponies often enough. But was the Hellhound right? Could I simply be a better donkey, change how I worked just to be... better? How could I just change behavior that had been ingrained for years? And did I really want to live for the kid... Flux, dang it. Here I was again. If Flux had been a donkey, I would be his friend. Heck, if he was anything but a pony or zebra, I would have at least treated him different. Well, I could try, at least long enough to get him set up someplace decent. I guess I owed him that much.

I sighed, and entered the shack, and froze. The last sight I had expected to see met me when I opened the door. Short Claws and Flux were sitting at the work bench in front of Short Claws rifle, with Short Claws showing the unicorn colt how it had been modified to be claw fired. I just watched them for a while. Apparently Flux was better at making friends then I would ever be. When they finished, Flux turned and saw, and trotted over with a smile.

"So, do you know what we are doing yet?" He asked.

I blinked at him. "Huh?"

"Well, we came here when you didn't know what to do. Do you now?" He asked.

I thought for a moment. Well, I had given Short Claws a new place to stay, and if I was to give a try at making Flux's life better, I was going to need to get the haul I planned. "We need to head for manehatten again." I said. I peered outside. The sun was already beginning to set outside, and we weren't going to get much further tonight, even if we left now. "Mind if we stay the night?" I asked Short Claws.

"Ok. But only one bed." He answered, raising an eyebrow. I rolled my eyes and brought out my sleeping pad. We brought out our own dinners. Flux and I had pre-war goods, Short Claw brought out some sort of meat the he got from deeper in his tunnels. As we ate, we chatted, mostly going over everything that had happened to me and Flux so far, as Short Claws didn't know about most of it yet. After a while though, the kid pipped up.

"So, how did you meet a Hellhound anyway Scrounger?" He asked. "I've only heard about them from ponies talking, but they all made them sound scary and mean." At that, Short Claws growled, but I waved a hoof dismissively at him.

"Yeah, most ponies wouldn't know much about Hellhounds, they don't get along so well." I gave Short Claws a look, asking permission to tell the story. He nodded. Talking may not be my thing, but at least equestrian was my first language. "Well, several years ago I was out traveling when I ended up short cutting through Hellhound territory." I began. "I felt the ground shake, and before I knew it, I was surrounded by Hellhounds, including Short Claws here. I was lucky really, usually I would have been dead already. But it turned out Short Claws was just old enough for his first pony hunt. So instead of one of them just coming up from below and cutting me to pieces, they were going to let him do it alone." I raised an eyebrow. "But he wouldn't. I hadn't fired at any of them, and he refused to kill a "pony" that hadn't even fired back. Pack got real mad then, thought they were going to tear us both to pieces, but they ended up just barking something at him and headed off alone."
I shrugged. "He told me later they told him he couldn't come back into the pack until he brought them my head. Guess they figured it would only take him 10 minutes to take off my head and get back to the pack. Instead we tried traveling together. Worked for a little while, but folks kept trying to shoot him on sight. So I found him this shack, and I check in with him every once in a while and bring him trade goods."

"So your pack kicked you out because you wouldn't kill Scrounger?" Flux asked Short Claws, who nodded an affirmative. "But I don't understand, why didn't you fire?" He asked me. "You were surrounded."

I opened my mouth, shut it again, opened it, and shut it. My mind raced for a moment, before I finally managed to spit out. "Just out of ammo." The kid seemed to accept this. Later though, he had dozed off on a corner of my sleeping pad, and Short Claws spoke up in a low voice. "We both know you never run out with that thing, it even shoots rocks." He raised an eyebrow. "And I to have wondered why you not shoot dogs."

I sighed, but gave him a brief smile. "I told you before I owe you my life for that day."

"Yes, and I tell you that not killing you does not mean I save you." He replied.

"Yeah, but I never told you that wasn't why." I admitted. I sighed again. "Did you never wonder why I, someone who knew every trail in the area, picked the one that ran though hellhound territory, and everyone knew not to take?" I looked up at him. "I told you, you had already given me hope once after I lost it. Think about it."

He blinked, thinking back. Then his eyes widened in understanding. "You came to die." He said softly.

I nodded. "I had just followed my last lead on other donkeys halfway across Equestria. Just an old note about a few settling in a little nowhere town just before the war ended. Took me weeks to get there. All I found were bones and a few old logs. They only lived a week after the bombs fell, radiation got them. I just... couldn't take it anymore. I had spent half my life looking, and found no one. Even the most out of the way settlements hadn't survived the war. Got so bad that I just walked straight into hellhound territory and waited for your kind to take care of me. Then... well, everything happened." I shrugged. "Like I said, I owe you my life, you brought me hope again, and I can never repay that."
We didn't say anything more after that, I guess there wasn't anything more to say. We just sat until sleep came.

Level up!

New perk added: The magic of Friendship, level one: You have discovered the power of friends. +1 to all stats.

Chapter 13: Friends in Low Places

Next morning and we got ready to move. I reorganized my pack, leaving Short Claws a few items i thought he could use. He was going to take a day or two to pack up necessities, then head out for the storage facility. We on the other hand, had a couple days journey ahead of us. Thankfully, most of it was going to be though nowhere much, just empty wasteland. That should help keep us safer from most of the wastelands unfriendly denizens. Might encounter some wildlife, but not much else. We bid our goodbyes to Short Claws and headed for Manehatten. The first few hours of travel were uneventful and silent. I spent it in thought. I had a goal of sorts, try and be better. Forge had been right, I had spent most of our time together treating Flux no better then a tool, something to be used until you threw it away. And Short Claws was also right, the main reason I cared was because he did. And I should be better then that.

Now I was coming to realize that I knew practically nothing about this kid, just that he was a vault dweller and good with computers. All that time together, and I had just found out his name days ago. I didn't even know why he stuck with me. I had been a jerk since the moment we met. Heck, if the kid had anywhere else to go, he probably would have just left me, but he had been stuck with me of all equines. And thinking back, I realized how odd it was that the trip to Short Claws shack had been such a silent one. If I had been paying attention to it, I might have realized sooner how badly the kid had been hurting. I had not been such the good equine that I had thought, I had hurt those that I now tried to consider friends, and I didn't know how to go about fixing it. The only thing I could think to do was try.

"So, how are you doing kid." I sighed, looking back to where he trotted just behind me. He looked a bit surprised, after all, it wasn't like I had cared much how he fared before.

"Um, I'm OK. We haven't been moving to long." Was his reply.

"No, not that. How are you handling shooting... him." I finally said, not daring to remind the kid the Jack he shot was someone I knew.

He froze, and I had taken several steps forward before I stood to see what was wrong. He looked both scared and sad as he looked at me. "I'm so sorry." He whimpered.

i was caught completely off guard. Great, he did realize, at least a little, how much it affected me. But I couldn't let what he did to me affect him this much. "Its OK." I said, cautiously putting a hoof around him. I wasn't good at this. Heck, I was a loner by choice before it became... not so much by choice. But I had to be better, and this was part of being better.

"But.... I shot him." Flux whimpered, tears starting to leak down his cheeks. "I know you were excited to meet another donkey. You were so surprised when you met. And I liked Gem, she was nice... and I shot her dad." Tears coursed down his face. "I didn't mean to it just happened! But now he's dead."

"Look Flux." I sighed, moving to look him in the eye. "It was an accident. You didn't mean to. I don't blame you for it." Actually, I was starting to blame myself. If I had just instructed him better about firearms, Forge might still be alive.

"But, what about Gem? We left her behind, and she doesn't have a dad anymore." He asked.

I froze. I hadn't given the little filly a thought since we had to flee. Once again I was forced to realize how cold a person the wasteland had made me. I had left a defenseless filly in a slaver compound without a thought. Now, there was nothing we could do. She was probably off for sale already. But then, I was about to have plenty of caps, and a bright pink mule shouldn't be that hard to track. "We're gonna go get her." I told Flux. "As soon as we get back from Tenpony."

.....

We traveled on. The trip to Manehatten was rather uneventful. The kids face at seeing the massive ruins stretching out before us was priceless. Well, it was, by far, the largest city he had ever seen. Well, Fillydelphia might have been about as large, but when you spent most of your time trying to sneak through it, you didn't notice so much of the vast architecture. In Manehatten, we still moved with caution, but not nearly the level that had been necessary in Filly. Flux kept gazing up at the massive buildings in awe, despite the fact that most of them were swiftly crumbling ruins. We stopped in a few places to scrounge in the ruins, but before long we quit. We were to close to Tenpony, and everything useful had been taken long ago, likely for trade in the tower.

However, just as the tower came into sight, I had to grab the kid and dive into the half caved-in entrance to a nearby skyscraper. Overhead an Alicorn flew by, heading towards Tenpony. We stayed there, frozen for a long minute, before peering out. It had gone, but before we went any nearer the tower, I insisted on getting a better view of anything that may lay between us and the tower. I had never even heard of an Alicorn near tenpony before, and I was feeling a little spooked. We climbed around inside the tallest skyscaper ruin nearby, the inside so looted that I didn't bother. Finally, I found a set of barely-intact windows that gave a stunning view of tenpony. Or more accurately, what surrounded it. Red Eye had laid siege to Tenpony. I had no idea the buck thought he was powerful enough to take the place, but apparently he did. The place was surrounded by camps raising his banners. Worse, i spotted Alicorns flying in the sky above. Oh, ballerina bison, Red Eye had freaking alicorns on his side?

Well, we were not getting into Tenpony. Not now. We headed down the skyscraper and moved back the way we had come, moving with extreme caution. If Red Eye caught us now... We got away from the Tenpony area but darkness started to fall before we had left the city. We bunked down for the night in the second floor of a skyscraper, heading out again at dawn, focusing on putting distance between us and Red Eyes forces. We were leaving skyscrapers behind us by noon, swiftly approaching the vast stretches of what had once been suburbs. Then, we stopped to rest and think.

We needed someplace to lay low until Red-Eye either conquered Tenpony or was forced out. The later I thought more likely. Red-Eye was strong, and with Alicorn's on his side, it would be one huge mess of a fight, but Tenpony had the funds to hire most of the mercenaries in the wasteland, and enough tech to get even the steel rangers on their side. So hopefully I wouldn't have to find another buyer. But where could we hide when half the wasteland was probably looking for us? Best I could figure out was to find a place to lay low for a while, until ponies forgot about us. But where the heck would I do that? Somewhere far away from Red-Eyes, that was for certain. I would have gone back to the storage facility, but if someone spotted us anywhere near their, it could be bad. But I also needed somewhere relatively close, at least for now, until I could figure out what to do next. And I did know one place that might work...

"Well, ever been to Neighagra falls?" I asked the kid, changing course.

.....

Neighagra falls was located a few days walk east of Manehatten. Before the war, it was a tourist spot, and had a small hydroelectric plant that sent power back to Manehatten. No megaspell had been directly targeted here, but the aftershocks of nearby megaspells had damaged the hydroelectric plant, and the waters were radioactive. Some enterprising ponies had repaired parts of the plant, and a small community powered by it sat on the lip of the falls, surviving by selling riverlurk meat and ice cold beverages. Hey, it was the only refrigeration between here and the few working sparkle cola machines after all. But I wasn't headed to the village. It wasn't much, but the steel rangers came through from time to time, as tech that needed power to work often made its way there. Instead, I headed to the base of the falls. Flux followed, gaping at the view of the majestic waterfall above us.

The base of the falls was completely uninhabited. The spray from the falls was radioactive, and the rocks and earth around the falls had soaked it up over the years. As such, nopony could stay in the area for long periods of time. Me and fluxed dossed a rad-x, and headed into the mists at the base of the falls. Here, we were invisible, hidden my the mist and fog. But we couldn't stay here, even with rad-x a few hours would be fatal. No, we headed straight for the base of the waterfall. A few years ago I had been helping hunt mirelurks for a few caps, and had been shown this. It was a large pipe, set into the base of the falls. Apparently it was some sort of emergency release in case of an accident in the hydroelectric plant. Now though, it was an entrance into an unused portion of the plant.

Inside the pipe was damp, and covered in radioactive moss. I climbed up until I came to an access door. Inside we found the unrecoverable portion of the hydroelectric plant. It had flooded with radioactive water, and I had to check for loose mirelurks before I let Flux follow. The usable portion of the plant was up several floors. The only ponies that ever came down this low were looking for replacement parts for the one generator they got working. Down here was to much of a lost cause to bother with. Where we were headed though, was further in, and down several dank hallways. Finally, at the far back of the plant, we reached an old storage closet. Inside it, Flux's pipbuck finally stopped clicking with radiation, and I handed him a radaway.

"Where is this?" He asked as he gulped it down. We dripped radioactive water all over the dry floor, and I started toweling off with an old utility jumpsuit, then offered it to him.

"Just some closet." I told him. "Not sure why, but its the only part of the plant down here that's shielded from enough of the radiation to be habitable. Found it when helping the ponies here find some parts. Had a gigercounter at the time that let me know its safe in here."

"So... what are we doing here?" He asked.

"Well, I cached supplies here for a few weeks." I said. "Have several caches all over in case I ever need to dissapear for a while. No one knows were here, and with luck, after no one spots us for a while, they'll forget to look for us. Well, except those steel ranger idiots, they never forget crap like that."

"So, we are just going to sit around for a weeks and hope everything blows over?" He asked.

"Yup." I confirmed. I went about setting up camp, which mainly consisted of shutting the door, rolling out the sleeping pad, and setting up a hot plate for warm food. Then I sat back to wait. And wait, and wait. "Well, this is boring." I finally admitted after an hour or so.

"No, really?" The kid asked from where he was practicing standing on his head against one wall.

I sighed. "Well..." I tried to think of something to do. I was comming up with nothing. Man, I really wasn't good at this waiting around, doing nothing stuff. "We could talk." I said at last.

Flux looked at me like I was losing my mind. Well, I was deviating a lot from my standard treatment of him in the past. "I don't have any questions from you saved up." He said suspiciously.

"Yeah," I sighed. "Enough, just... lets just talk, ok? No more question trading."

Now he was looking at me like I had two heads. "Are you... feeling alright?" he asked cautiously.

I sighed and put my head in my hooves. Great, now he thought I was going crazy. "Look, Forge..." I cringed as Flux flinched at his name. "He... called me out on how I was treating you worse then a slave." I saw Flux open his mouth to protest, and I held out a hoof. "Look, he was right. I've been a jerk to everypony I've met for years, and I saw where that leads. I don't want to be that kind of person anymore." I looked him in the eye. "So, no more question trading, no more treating you like dirt, ok?"

"Um, ok." He said, looking confused as heck. "Does... does this mean you want to be... friends?"I nodded, and his ears perked up a little. "Well, ok, if we are going to be friends, we have to get to know each other." He said a little to happily.

'Um, I guess." I said. This was all to knew to me. But the kid had been traveling with me for weeks, what could he still need to know?

"So, where are you from?" He asked curiously. "You already know where I'm from."

Oh, thats what he wanted to know. He must have known something was wrong from my face, as his smile began to fade. "Bray." I finally sighed. "I was from Bray."

"Oh." was all he said for a long moment. "What happened?" He finally asked after a while.

"Its a long story." I said softly.

"Well, we have time." He said. "But you don't have to..."

"Flux, its not a happy story." I said. "Look, I'll tell you sometime, but not now."

I couldn't tell him now. Telling him now meant talking about Forge. Flux didn't need to know about Forge, didn't need to know he might have been my last hope. The kid was dealing with enough knowing he killed someone. Knowing he might have been partially responsible for the death of an entire species... well, it would destroy him. So for a long while, we just sat in silence. After a bit, I just lay down to sleep. After a little while, I felt Flux curl himself up against me. For once, I didn't kick him away. I just lay there, waiting for sleep, trying to enjoy the feeling of, for once, not being so alone.

...

Next day, I enjoyed the luxury of simply sleeping as long as I wanted. I figure if we had to wait around, might as well treat it like... what was that pre-war word? Right, vacation. Even in the wasteland, I got up with the sun. Mainly so nothing snuck up on me. But we were in a secure room, in an abandoned area of an old power plant, far back in a maze of corridors, with a mine in front of the door. So for once I took the opportunity to sleep. However, eventually, I awoke, and after eating, had to find something else to do. For once, Flux wasn't asking any questions, and I finally got tired of reorganizing my pack saddle for the tenth time.

"So, what was your stable like?" I finally asked Flux. I really had been curious about this. Heck, I had heard tons of stories about the crazy experiments the stables had been built to carry out. True, he hadn't seemed to be aware of any experiments in his, but after living your whole life in one, how would you tell?

"Um..." Was the kids reply. He had to think about it for a while. "It was... safe." He finally said. "Um, well, you know, no one tried to kill me. I went to school, ate apples from our orchard, and..." His words drifted off, and he stared at the wall, trying to keep me from seeing the tears in his eyes.

"And had friends, family." I said, realizing what was wrong. I put a hoof around him. "Hey, its ok, you don't have to say any more."

"No." He shook his head. "You told me your story, you get to hear mine." He took a deep breath, and went on. "My dad was... is head of security. My mom's a nurse. We lived in the living quarters nearest the medical center. My best friend was Ion Storm, he got his cutie mark two weeks before I got out. He's the one who dared me to try and hack the stable door. I knew he thought I never would be able to do it. When it opened, he tried to tell me to just shut it, but I took Ice Dreams dare to go out." Seeing my look, he explained. "She's a year older then me, but no cutie mark. Always could make everypony do what she wants." He trailed off again, then muttered, "I guess I'll never... they think I'm dead. And I'm not going to see them again, am I?"

I turned his head to face me. "Kid, you managed to hack your way through some of the best security old equestria had. We've managed to get our way into one of the most secure facilities in the wasteland. Trust me kid, we can find a way to get you back into your stable."
"You really think so?" He asked, giving a half-hearted smile.

"Yeah. Hey, we can always blow the door off if nothing else." I said. Somehow, he didn't look relieved at this. I figured I should probably get his mind off the possibilities of ever seeing his family again. "So, do you know how to play poker?"

.....

A few days later, and I had taught the kid every card game I knew. He had actually seemed more impressed by my ability to play with cards, thanks to a strange device that strapped to my hoof I bought in New Pegas, then the games. Now, he was teaching me something called "Go Fish".

"Have any threes?" He asked.

"Go Fish."

"You lying! you took mine three turns ago!"

"You didn't say it was against the rules!"

"Of course it is!"

"Isn't"

"Is!"

"Isn't"

He stood and stamped a forefoot in frustration, and then kicked backwards at a lone mop bucket that we had used for... Business. Oddly enough, instead of falling over and making a mess, the bucket simply tilted to an impossible angle, halting with a "click". We stared, then turned as, with a series of clicks and a rusty groan, the metal shelf at the side wall swung back, revealing a staircase leading deeper into the plant. Me and the kid stared at each other in shock.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me." I groaned. Like I hadn't stumbled across enough old equestrian secrets that probably should have stayed buried. I knew I should leave it. This sort of thing had gotten me into enough trouble. I already had half the wasteland after us, and who knew what kind of deathtrap was waiting down there. But years of having to scavenge for every hard earned cap, along with a fair bit of natural curiosity, wouldn't just let me walk away, not yet. There could be anything down there, and I couldn't help but wonder how many caps that anything would be worth. It really wasn't much of a fight to abandon the idea of just leaving it. Heck, even Flux was already poking his head inside the hidden passage, peering into the dark.

With a sigh, I got up, put on the packsaddle, and stepped into the newly revealed hidden passage. The stairs winded down into darkness, turn after turn on the odd staircase. The kids pipbuck light showed us the way down. The first couple sets of stairs were clear of all but dust. Then we passed the first skeleton. It was dressed in a lab coat, and had a badge identifying it... him, as researcher Jolt. I took his badge and clipped it on. These things did tend to be useful. We passed a couple more skeletons, before reaching what would have been a locked door at the bottom of the stairs. It had a keypad next to it, I assume to open it. However, a skeleton was trapped in the doorway, preventing it from shutting. I carefully stepped over the remains, and through the door. Then froze. A sentinel bot whirled around, pointing a missile launcher at me. Its sensor scanning me over.

"Welcome back researcher Jolt." It buzzed, before turning away. Yup, always pick up the badges. I shakily began moving forwards again. Beyond the door, I entered what appeared to be... the color pink. I had to blink several times as Flux's pipbuck light illuminated what had to be the single pinkest room in Equestria. The walls, floor, and even ceiling were pink, along with all the furniture. If it wasn't so pink, I would have thought it to be a lab of some sort. The furnishings, while pink, where about what you would expect in a laboratory. Long counters with various electronic components lay about the room, and I could see several dead terminals, all pink. Several large terminal modems were along one wall, the others bearing posters that I had seen all over the wasteland, but now went a long way towards explaining this place. Pinkie pie was watching me, forever.

So, it was a ministry of morale... not hub, secret lab? Why on earth would the ministry of morale need a secret lab? We wandered into the room, passing the rows of counters full of electronics. I recognized a couple things as spritebot components, but they had been modified from what I was familiar with. Prototypes maybe? I found a very pink door at one end of the first room and cautiously stepped through. It was a kitchen. A massive kitchen, painted, what else, pink. Huge ovens dominated the rear wall, and I could see large doors for walk-in pantries and freezers hanging open, the food inside long rotted away. Although further inspection showed that a pantry had a whole shelf of canned goods. For now though, I wanted to clear this... whatever this place was before filling my pack saddle.

The door leading from the kitchen was locked. It was barely even an issue, a quick twist of a bobby pin and it popped open. Inside, Flux's light illuminated a wonder. The room had once been used for, apparently, creating different birthday cards. Card paper, ribbons, and various other crafting supplies were stacked on counters all around the room. However, you barely would notice them compared to the walls. They had once been the universal pink that dominated the facility. But someone with a lot of time and a fair bit of talent had changed that. The walls had all been turned into one giant art piece. Ponies frolicked on grass, buffalo roamed across a desert landscape, and deer hid among a stylized forest. I walked around the room, following the mural as it wound around the walls. Looking up, I realized that the mural even extended to the ceiling, where a smile Princess Celestia posed with the sun on the tip of her horn. The only piece of the room with the original pink paint was its single door.

through the door the murals continued across what was a very pink laboratory, different from the first, though I was so busy looking at the art it took me a moment to realize what was so different. Brains, organs, in jars all over the lab. A bunch of those brain bots I had occasionally had to fight to get good loot in places were scattered all over, some mostly disassembled on tables, others scattered about the room as if on guard, except they to were missing parts and only one was still functional. It tried to whirl to face us, but its motor functions had apparently been to damaged from missing parts. I just stayed out from range of any fire it might still be able to send our way, and continued through the room. The mural got darker, the pictures fading into night under the watchful gaze of Luna on the ceiling. Pony's slept and stargazed, batponies... were those a thing? flew and worked. But near the door out of this room, I noticed something odd. The paintings were loosing colors, some shades from earlier were missing completely, and I could see several parts where a ponies color had been changed, apparently when the original color ran out midway through painting it. I stepped through the next door, curious to where this would lead. The mural here was composed largely of reds and blacks. I saw the war. Ponies and zebra's fought, bled, and died. In the background, ponies marched into factories that belched black smoke into the sky. As we continued, more and more colors became missing, until we reached the final part, where a massive megaspell blast, finished in a charcoal scratching, annihilating everything. We looked at it, this history of what had been Equestria in mural form for a long moment. Then, behind us, someone spoke up.

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!" A voice thrilled out behind us. I jumped, spinning around. In the corner, blending in against the pink remaining in that wall, was a brainbot. However, it was unlike any brainbot I had ever seen. It was built much more ponylike then the others, and instead of treads, it had four almost equine legs. It was also the same pink as the rest of the facility, with a logo of three ballons where a cutie mark would be on a pony. Its brain was located on the top of a vaguely ponylike head, the voice emmiting from a speaker about where the mouth should be, shaped into a large grin. The whole thing was exceptionally creepy. But the weirdest thing was the fact it spoke. Brain bots could say a few programed commands, the animal brains they used incapable of more. But this one was off-script. It even had the voice of a mare, instead of the usual genderless computerized voice. Heck, it was almost like it was a pony... oh, no, they wouldn't....

The brainbot was literally leaping for joy. "Oh my gosh! We survived! I knew it!" It danced around us, and I kept my aim on it. This was wrong, this was so very wrong. Then, the brainbot picked me up in a hug, spinning me around in the air as I squealed in shock. "Oh I knew the megaspells couldn't have gotten everypony!" The brainbot squealed, releasing me to fall on my rump. I backed away quickly. "Oh, curse this emotional inhibitor, I could cry if I didn't need to be so cheerful!" The bot said, much to cheerfully.

"Are you a pony?" Flux asked curiously. He hadn't caught on yet obviously.

"Oh yes!" The bot said, bouncing in place. "Or, well, I was! Head Card Crafter Paint Splatter, at your service!" The brainbot, uh, Paint Splatter, gave a graceful bow before bouncing to its... hooves? What did you call metal limbs that bent in every direction? Heck, they looked like they had been made of the arm limbs, without the pincers or weaponry.

"I though they only used animal brains in brainbots." I said, feeling a bit sick. Oh sparkly alicorn farts, they couldn't have really...

"Oh they did!" Paint Splatter said cheerfully. "But I had an itty bitty accident with the rejected card shredder, so they took me and put me in this lovely brainbot!" Seriously, how could anypony be this cheerful about something like that. "Then miss Pinkie Pie said I could be there very special first prototype party brainbot! I even got fitted out with twin party cannon mounts!" Two large blue cannons extended out the side, and I hit the floor seconds before they fired. A huge cloud of confetti drifted down over me, and the remains of what two hundred years ago must have been a cake dripped down the far wall. "Oppsy! Can't always control that!" The bot said happily. "anyway, I had a few oppsies, and miss Pinkie sent me back here! That's were I got this lovely cheerfulness chip, keeps me nice and happy. Won't let me have any oppsies like crying, or asking to die!" Even Flux blanced at that. I couldn't blame him. No wonder she was so cheerful. She literally had no choice in the matter. "So, may I ask what you lovely ponies are doing here. I'm so happy to see anyone, but I'm programed to say that this is a secret facility, and unauthorized personnel must vacate. Of course, they forgot to program me not to tell you that I can't leave the area around this room, so if you wont stay I can't make you."

Well, this was probably a very bad idea, but no way was I leaving anyone in this hell. "Ok Paint Splatter, can you tell me how to access this um, cheerfulness chip?" I asked.

"Oh, I am sorry, but I can't divulge secrets about my construction or programming to anyone but a certified maintenance technician." She responded. I would swear if she didn't have to be so cheerful that she sounded sad about that.

"Oh, well Flux is a certified maintenance technician!" I lied, pushing the startled looking foal over.

The bot paused, apparently searching its programming to figure out what to do about this. "Hmm, they forgot to program in how I was to tell who is a certified maintenance technician." It said, seeming genuinely cheerful for once. Flux moved up to it, and the bot began instructing him in what panels to remove and where to plug in his pipbuck. It was compatible it seemed. While he worked on freeing the poor... well, pony I guess, I looked around at the room we were in. It appeared to be an office of some sort. A large pink desk sat in the middle of the room, with a still functional terminal. I checked out the desk first, and just found balloons and confetti, of all things. The terminal was locked, I would have to have Flux look at him when he was done with Paint Splatter.

It took about fifteen minutes, but finally Flux stopped working at its programming, and popped out a small chip from its side. "There, that should do it!" He called out to it.

The bot looked around, and its voice crackled to life again. "You blew it up, you blew it all up! You bastards!" It screamed. Flux jumped back, and I took aim. Yup, it really had been a bad idea. Before I could fire though, the bot started jumping around the room again, this time apparently really happy. "I can curse again! I can be unhappy again!" It, well, her, cried. My word, she really was a pony in there, wasn't she? She turned, quicker then any pony could, and gave both me and Flux a huge hug. "Oh thank you, thank you!" Putting us down, the lights on her brain dome, formally pink, turned blue. "Oh, but tell me, what happened? I haven't seen anypony for two hundred years. Did they... did they really fire the megaspells?" She asked. I could only nod. She seemed to practically deflate in front of me. "So, they really are all gone..." Her voice said lowly. I had a feeling that if she had a face, she would be crying about now. Two hundred years alone, never knowing what happened to everyone.... my word, it was a small miracle she was still sane.

"What is this place?" I asked her.

"Ministry of morale special project testing facility." She said automatically. "I worked here testing out card designs, before my... accident." Her speakers sighed. "Then they put my brain in this.. thing. Said I could still help give freaking "Joy to Equestria.". Couldn't understand when I told them they should have just let me die instead. So they sent me hear to "Fix" my attitude. Then something happened outside, guess that was the megaspells hitting. The ovens got damaged and released toxic gas, and everyone ran. I was stuck here. No one came back."

"And you did the murals?" I asked.

"Yes," She said, sounding slightly cheered at my interest. "After the first decade, I needed something to help keep me sane. I was an artist after all. I had plenty of spare parts I could scavenge from the other brainbots they were working on to keep me running, and am programed against self-termination, but even I knew if I just kept reorganizing the office for eternity, I would go crazy. The card creation lab had plenty of paints, so I started my mural. I had intended for it to show the entire history of Equestria since its founding, but when I realized no one was coming back... I decided to show what Equestria once was. The best and brightest moments, show what life had been like, not the huge events, but the everyday."

I looked around the room around us, at its dark tone, and its finality of the megaspell. She must have seen my gaze. "Yes. This room is different. I... I had to be cheerful. But... even with that I needed a way to express something more... negative. So I painted everything wrong, everything dark and evil in the world, I put it all on these walls." I could swear that she actually shuddered as she looked around the room. "Could we... maybe talk in one of the other rooms?" She said at last. I nodded, and we moved into the next lab. She put a metal limb to the end of the mural, where colors had apparently run out. "I only regret that the paints ran out before I could finish my masterpiece. Though I suppose no one will bother to come see it." Her head turned to face me. Well, I guess it did, the only thing I had to judge where she was facing was that mouthpiece after all. "So, what has become of Equestria in two hundred years?" she asked.

I thought for a moment about how to put it to her. She had been down here for two hundred years after all, she wouldn't have a clue what had happened. Heck, Equestria had still existed when she had been trapped down here. "Its... not like when you left it." I said at last. "The megaspells changed a lot. Radiation and taint have poisoned a lot of it, and after the pegasi closed the sky, we don't really get a lot of sun."
"Wait, closed off the sky?" She asked. I explained. If she would have had a face, she would have looked shocked. So was Flux. Come to think of it, we hadn't talked about that. "Wow, I knew the pegasi were angry about the war, but to just seal themselves off... I never would have thought.... Well, I expected radiation, but what is this... taint?"

"I wondered about that to." Flux pipped up. "I never heard of taint in the stable."

Well, taint is... well, no one really knows." I admitted. " But it spread all over after the war. Can't detect it, but stay far away from that stuff. Taint, well, taints things. Mutates everything it touches. Heck, its the reason the diamond dogs became hellhounds." That led to me explaining to Paint Splatter about Hellhounds.

"So, its dangerous out there?" Paint Splatter asked after some consideration.

"Um, yes, you could say that." I admitted. "You are probably going to need an upgrade on weaponry if you intend to go out for any length of time. Confetti and ancient cake wont cut it."

Paint Splatter paused for a while. I guessed she was thinking. It was rather hard to tell, due to the lack of face. "I would like to leave." She admitted. "Two hundred years is a long time to be stuck here. But... where would somepony like me go? My parents are long dead, I was fortunate enough to not be in a relationship when all this" she gestured at herself, "happened. What am I to do now?"

I didn't even have to think. "You can come with us." I said. Flux looked up at me, surprised. I assume Paint Splatter did the same, but again, I couldn't tell what she felt, though her brain lights turned white for a moment.

"Why would you want me?" She asked at last.

I shrugged. "Um... well..." I stuttered. "Uh, I guess, because you don't have anywhere to go." I sighed. "Look, its a long story, but the short version is that I'm a greedy jerk trying to be a better person. And you need help. So... you want to come?"

She seemed to take a moment to process this. "Where would we be going?" She asked at last.

"Um, not a clue." I admitted. "Until Tenpony isn't under siege, were mainly just trying to keep a low profile. She of course, asked about that, and I summed up. "Big tower, full of rich ponies we are going to sell... stuff to. Its under siege, and were waiting for them to win. Until then, bad ponies are kind of after us."

"Oh." Was all she said. She seemed to be thinking for a long moment. "My... sister." She said at last. "I know she's long dead, but... she only lived a short ways south. She was expecting just a few months after... my accident. They never told her what happened from what I can tell. Could we... I just want to see if anythings left."

Well, it wasn't like we had a better plan. "Ok, if you can wait a day or two, we'll go with you."

"Well, I would like to be out as soon as possible, but if you need the time, I will wait." She agreed.

Level Up!

Perk added: Getting out of your shell: Your newfound semi-openess grants you +1 charisma.

Companion Perk added: Robotics level 1: You now have a 25% chance to sucessfully hack robots. Hey, why should the main character be the only one to get a perk?

Chapter 14: Changes

We spent two more days in the secret facility. Flux had a look at the terminal. It turned out they had been seeing how Paint Splatter functioned, and, if they could get her "functioning reliably". Which is to say, acting like a freaking always-cheerful robot, they had planned to make more. Holy Brahmin, they intended to sell it as a way to extend the life of a pony. Yeah, life forever, just give up nearly everything that makes you a pony. Great deal. We headed out after the two days. I hoped it would be long enough for some of the heat to die down. I knew some would still be looking, but most of them would keep looking for to long for us to just wait it out here anyway. I had grabbed anything remotely useful, even a few more spare parts for Paint Splatter. When we exited the pipe and stepped outside, I almost though Paint Splatter's brain was going to explode from all the colors it shifted through. "Oh, oh my." She said, gazing up at the waterfall. Me and Flux couldn't wait, as we had to get out of the mist before we got rad poisoning. We waited outside the danger zone, and she followed a few minutes later. Her head swiveling around, taking in the wasteland. "Oh. Its... its really gone." her light had gone blue again. I considered putting a hoof around her, but I didn't know if she would even be able to feel it.

"Its pretty bad." I said. "But not all of it. Ponies are trying. They have several better settlements. And maybe the pegasi will actually open the sky one day." Even I could tell she didn't believe me.

We moved east. again. It turned out that Paint Splatter's sister lived in what had been a small town a couple days south. We made our way down to it, encountering no one along the way, thankfully. There wasn't much left. A few scattered ruins of houses along an old railroad track. Paint splatter walked up to one of the ruins, this one still half-standing, the first floor more or less intact, the second nothing but scrap. She tried to open the door, but it simply fell in at her feet. I wanted to warn her. I was pretty sure she would find nothing but skeletons inside, if anything at all. But how do you warn someone about something like that. And I was pretty sure she already knew what she would most likely find.

I followed her in as she walked into an open room with the ruins of a sofa and television. Thankfully, no skeletons sat on the sofa or lay on the floor. From this room I could see a kitchen and eating room, but from what I saw none of them had bones lying around. And the stairs leading to the ruin above was already falling to bits.

"They're.. not here." Paint Splatter said at last. "My sister and her husband. Or they were..." She didn't say more, simply looking up through a hole to were a second story would have been.

Then, I saw it, a recording left on a small table by the sofa, under a piece of paper that was totally unreadable with age. When Paint Splatter noticed my gaze, she leaped at it, jamming it into a slot in her side that I could see was labeled "Party Mix". Instantly, freaking speakers popped out and began playing.

"Sis, I hope you're getting this. No one will tell us what happened, just that you were in some sort of accident and are in critical care. I've been sending messages to every ministry official I can think of and no one will tell me anything. Now... now the sirens are going off and everyponies in a panic. We were given a spot in Stable 62" A male voice broke in "Honey, we have to go now!" "I'm coming! They're taking up by train. Follow the tracks, find us, I love you sis!" With that, the message ended.

We stood, looking at each other for a long moment, before Paint Splatter spoke up. "They... made it into a stable. They survived."
I tried to look happy for her. Flux didn't have any problem doing so, after all, he didn't seem to know what most stables were like. "Yeah! he said. They would have been just fine."

"If we follow the tracks... do you think we could find the stable?" Paint Splatter asked me.

I looked at her, wanting to give her hope, but I had to be honest. "Which way?" I said, waving a hoof. The tracks went north to south by the house, and at the edge of town, another went west to east. "We could try but, even if we find the stable.... they're gone."

"I know but.... may we at least try?" She said plaintively.

I sighed. Well, from the radio, Tenpony was still under siege so... "Fine." I said. We had come from the north, so I chose a direction at random, and we headed south.

....

"Okay, this is far enough." I said at last. We had been traveling far to long already on what I knew was a wild goose chase, but this went to far.
"But..." Both paint splatter and Flux started to say.

"No, we've spent to long at this, we are running low on food, and we are far to close to splendid valley! We stop here."

Both tried to argue, I hushed them. "Look, splendid valley is full of taint and unfriendly hellhounds. Even if their was a stable in it, there is no way anyone in it survived, we need to head back and...." My voice trail off as I stared behind my companions. There, over the ridge ahead where I new splendid valley to be, a huge cracking thundercloud seemed to be slowly falling towards the earth. But it wasn't a thundercloud. I could see metal platting, and saw massive engines keeping it aloft. It was a freaking ship of some sort. Many smaller cloud ships surrounded the first as it stopped falling from the clouds, hovering over the valley.

"Wha... what is that?" Flux asked in a hushed tone.
"Ether the pegasi decided to come back, or..."

"Or what?" He asked.

"Or we should run." I finished. There wasn't much doubt, we booked it. Now, for years, I got by via stealth. I couldn't outrun much, so I snuck by it. But now I was with a foal with bright mane and stable barding, and a flashy pink brainbot. So it wasn't really that surprising that we didn't get far.

"Stop!" The voice rang out from above us. We probably would have kept going if a bright beam of energy hadn't sprayed the ground in front of us for effect. We all skidded to a halt, looking up. Three pegasi were hovering in the air before us. One, a mare apparently, had the insect-like face plate of her helmet back, and was glaring at us. "You, freeze! She commanded, before pressing something at the side of her helmet with a hoof. "Steel wing reporting in. Tribals found at eastern patrol boundary. Reporting a donkey, a foal, and pink robot." She listened for a moment, then I heard a raised voice coming through a speaker in her helmet. Oh donkey hearing, wasn't that useful. Unfortunately, I couldn't quit make out what it was saying from this distance, but it made her eyes widen. "You two!" She shouted, pointing to me and Flux. "You are wanted for questioning about an incident at a Fillydelphia ministry site. You will be taken in for questioning, along with your robot." He weapons trained on us. "You will not resist."

We were trapped. Practicality was good, but it wasn't a match for three heavily armed pegasi. Flux didn't have the arms ether, and I hadn't even found a weapon Paint Splatter could work, what with the lack of a mouth or magic to hold and fire one with. We didn't have a choice. "We surrender." I said, sitting back and putting my hooves in the air. We would just have to think of something. Hopefully they would be stupid enough to leave us unguarded at some point, or maybe just put us in a cloud cell. Hey, there ships were made mostly of clouds after all. Then though, the pegasi started getting a lot of chatter in her radio. All the pegasi turned their heads to the valley, and I couldn't help but do the same. A large bubble had formed in the valley, over where I though that distant building must be. Oh, this couldn't be good. But we couldn't do anything about it. The pegasi were only mildly distracted, and kept their guns trained on us. For a long few minutes, the pegasi in front of us kept asking for orders. obviously, chaos reigned now. Then though, they came to a decision.

"March!" The mare, apparently Steel Wing, ordered, pointing her weapons at us. Great, now we had to walk back to a giant cloudship over splendid valley. I thought fast, and turned, heading back to the valley, but slow and obviously limping. "Are you injured!" The mare demanded overhead. I nodded.

"Twisted a hoof." I said seriously, grimacing in pain. The longer I could avoid being marched back, the better.

"You, robot, carry her." She ordered to Paint Splatter. Well, that was one idea down. I had to play along, letting myself be carried on Paint's back. We walked towards the airship, though I didn't know why the pegasi didn't just fly us up. Maybe we were to heavy? But then, how did they intend to get us up there? As it turned out, I was never to find out. Before we had traveled even half an hour, the valley still distant, light burst into the sky. I shielded by eyes as the most intense light I had ever seen seemed to burst out of the valley, when it abruptly faded, I looked out to see a wall of dirt smashing the cloudships, large and small, aside. And it headed for us. I had seconds. I leapt from paints back and grabbed flux, curling around him by pure instinct before the wall of hot air and displaced earth hit us, and I knew no more.

...

Pain radiated from every part of me. It felt like my coat had been lit on fire, then doused with freaking acid. My muscles ached, and it took everything I had to open my eyes. Grass. I was lying in grass. I winced as sunlight hit my eyes, and squeezed them shut again. So, I was dead. Sunlight, grass? definitely afterlife. But then, why did everything hurt so much? Did I make it through to the other place? Wait, no, that place definitely didn't have sunshine or grass. Finally, I opened my eyes again, squinting in the light. Yup, still saw grass and sun. I slowly tried to raise my head, wincing at the pain of stiff neck muscles adding to everything else.

"She's awake!" I heard Flux shouting. His hooved moved into view, and I could feel his hooves press against my side.

"You must stay down ma'am." I heard Paint Splatter say. A purple potion came into view as she shoved its open top into my muzzle, and I drank it greedily. "I didn't give you any potions while you were unconscious, as I feared you would choke, but you need several." She continued. True to her word, another healing potion followed the first, and I swiftly gulped that one down two before laying back and letting the magic do its work. By then, my eyes had adjusted, and I looked around. I was lying in grass in a small clearing, surrounded by trees. Overhead, the sun was shinning down on us through a gap in the clouds. As the potion healed what appeared to be burns all over my coat. Apparently, they had removed my barding and pack saddle to put on some bandages already. usually I would be enjoying the feeling of the sun on my coat as the burns healed and pain dwindled, if it wasn't for the suspicion that I knew where I was. I rolled, getting onto my belly so that I could easier raise my head and look around. More trees spread out in every direction, casting deep shade, even where the sun broke through several gaps in the cloud layer overhead.

"Um, guys, where are we?" I asked meekly, gazing around. I could see a crumpled form of a pegasus nearby, the mare, her armor looking scorched, her guns twisted into odd shapes.

"I grabbed you and Flux after the megaspell detonated." Paint Splatter said. Oh princesses, we had just been caught in a megaspell blast?! "Flux was saved from most harm by your body and pack saddle shielding him. You had serous burns to your face, neck, and limbs, though your pack saddle kept your back shielded. I found the pegasus mare as I was carrying you out of the blast zone. She was alive so I brought her with us. I spotted this forest in the distance, and though it would make the safest place to recover in." Oh crap.

I staggered to my feet, ignoring the wobbliness in my legs. I turned to her, seeing the blackened formerly pink paneling on one side of her. Thankfully, the container holding her brain seemed intact. "You should rest." She said worriedly.

"Not here I can't." I said. I spotted my pack saddle nearby. The cloth bags were beyond saving, but my metal ammo cans were intact, if at least a bit blackened. I managed to slip it on before guzzling another healing potion from inside. Flux moved over to me, his pipbuck clicking lightly when he neared the pack saddle. I downed a rad-x and radaway while I was at it. When we got to water, I was going to have to try and scrub as much radiation as I could off it.

"Whats wrong, why can't we stop here?" Flux asked, waving a hoof at the deceptively peaceful forest. "Its nice."

I looked to him, raising an eyebrow. "Kid, this is the everfree forest. Don't believe your eyes. Pretty much everything here is out to kill you. We need to get out, now."

I turned to ask Paint Splatter which way she had brought us in, as that was likely the safest route out, when I spotted the pegasus mare again. She was still unconscious. If we left her here, she was as good as dead. I sighed, and trotted over to her. "Can we help her?" I asked Paint Splatter.

"Possibly, I'm not a doctor, but first step would be to get her out of the armor to see how bad her injuries are." She said. We worked at this for several moments, and finally succeeded in getting it off her. It turned out her coat was a light blue, with a mane of a dark grey. The armor seemed to have protected her for the most part, but her helmet had been struck with something, bending it out of shape and leaving a bleeding wound on her head. I poured part of a healing potion on her head, and dripped it slowly into her muzzle until she started to awake. She opened her eyes, looking up at us, then she cursed and lunged back.

"Where have you taken me!" She demanded, looking around with anger and confusion. "Where are the others?"

"Your in the everfree forest" I said, keeping practicallity aimed at the hostile pegasus. "We moved you after that freaking megaspell blew your ship out of the sky, and you'd probably be dead without us, so your welcome."

She just glared at us. "Give me back my armor." She growled, pointing to were it lay at my feet.

"No, I don't think so." I responded. True, it was damaged, and the guns wouldn't likely work, but I wasn't giving her working armor while we were still here. "Tell you what, we go this way" I waved behind me. "And you stay here. You can take your armor once we are gone. Then you might want to get out of here, the forest isn't exactly friendly." Almost as if the forest was agreeing, several trees in the distance creaked and fell over as something big moved through them. She didn't seem happy, but nodded. I motioned for the others to move, and backed away, keeping my weapons aimed at the pegasus mare. Once the others were out of sight, I turned and quickly trotted away as I heard her rush to her armor. I joined the others, and we moved, following Paint Splatters directions towards the edge of the forest. Fortunately for us, she hadn't gone far into the forest. Probably the main reason we had lived this long. I could smell smoke in the air, and wondered how a fire had managed to get started here, and if it stood a chance against the forest.

When I saw the edge of the tree's before us, I quickened my gate. I wanted to get out of here as fast as possible. So I didn't notice the low noise in the earth until just to late. I leaped to the side, but a blue vine tore out of the earth right at my feet. Before my leap carried me out of reach, I felt it graze my leg.

Pain exploded in my back and head. I felt my ribs and skull were trying to push their way out of my body. I fell back to the ground, writhing and screaming as I bucked desperately at my saddlebags in panic. I was barely aware of Flux and Paint Splatter trying to approach, and had just enough power of mind to scream "Get back, poison!" before the pain completely wiped thought from my mind. Then, a metal limb grabbed me, pulling me away from the blue vines which tried to lash out, but couldn't quit reach. Apparently, Paint Splatter could extend her legs a good couple body lengths, and she simply pulled me away, plopped me on her back, and ran. We didn't get far. I was in to much agony to think properly, kicking wildly, and fell off. Then, my foot finally caught the quick release from my packsaddle, and the pain in my back started to die down.

I felt Paint Splatter grab me again, and I was aware enough now to gasp "Get us out of the forest." before grabbing the pack saddle in my hooves. Thankfully, she didn't question me, and in moments, we were out of the forest and heading into a freshly blasted waste. She kept going for a while, I'm not sure how long, but when my head finally started to clear, I told her to stop and put me down.

Shakily, I climbed to my legs. The pain was almost gone now, and I needed to know what the poison joke had done. I knew it's affects. Transformations, sick curses, instant death. I wasn't dead, but that left a lot of possibilities open. I felt each leg, still had four, I could see and hear, and, turning slightly, saw Flux staring openly, jaw hanging open. Paint Splatter also stood motionless, brain case flashing between colors fast. I stared at her. Or, more accurately, at my reflection in her dome. My head was wrong, something seemed to be growing out of it. I put a hoof up, and felt something hard. Trying hard to control my panic, I tore into my saddlebags and brought out an old compact from the junk side. The mirror was still mostly intact. I looked, and stared at the long curling horn now emerging from my head.

"I'm a bucking unicorn!" I half shouted. But, oddly, Flux, expression unchanged, shock his head. Confused, I turned the compact to view the rest of me. And saw two grey feathered wings growing out my back.

"Oh Fuck." Was all I could say. I was a freaking alicorn.

Level Up

New Perk Added: Your an Alicorn Scrounger: You have gained the atributes nessesary to use magic and fly. The downside? Most of the wasteland will shoot you on sight.

Author's Note

Happy April Fools Day!

Prologue

He sat, staring at the massive steel door set resolutely into one wall of the cavern. Even as he felt the cave walls tremble slightly around him, the massive door stood, firm and unmoved by the waves of chaos gripping the world. By all that was good in the world, he hoped this was thr right thing to do. He could have opened it, could have let them in. They would have understood, he hoped. Would have understood enough at least, to leave it alone again, once it was safe, bury it, let it be forgotten. But... he couldn't trust it. It was to dangerous, what was locked on the other side of this door. This place had been built to withstand anything. Even as barefire raged across the landscape, it would stand secure. And that was the problem wasn't it? He had a safe, secure place for him and his to ride out the apocalypse, if only he was willing to risk another by letting them know just what had been hidden here.

He couldn't risk it. Better to let them all risk death outside as barefire rained from the heavens then risk letting loose what they had secured here. He had done all he could to make this place safe. The threat couldn't be destroyed, so let it sleep here, forgotten, until the mountain crumbled into dust. No one but he could open the door, and no one but he even knew it was here. Even if someone stumbled across it, they couldn't open it. It had been built to withstand a megaspell, nothing they could try would ever let them enter. Finally decided in his course, he turned his back to the door one last time, heading back up the labyrinth of tunnels, back to wear the others had taken refuge from the balefire above. He had supplies to organize and an entire towns populace taking refugee above that needed his help. They would survive this, equestria may have fallen, but they would persist. Let the door remain shut, let it pass away, unremembered and undiscovered. His only real doubt about his course was the possibility that someone, someday, would find a way inside. All he could do was pray that they would be wise enough to let what was inside remain forgotten, or, if they didn't, that Equestria, or whatever was left of it, could survive it.
....
And thus, the door was shut, and remained so. Though it did not remain forgotten, as its ceiler had feared. It was discovered, a door, sealed shut, set inside a cave, deep under a mountain. A local curiosity was soon born. A door, hidden from the world, which none could open. Many tried. As the fallout blew and glowing snow fell, those who had taken refugee tried and failed to get into what appeared to be shelter. The radiation faded, and they left the caves, but still, foals and the foolish would return, trying to breach the unopenable door. Had the small community descended from those that escaped the apocalypse in the caves not been so remote, word would have spread, and a host would have come, following what had become a legend of an unopenable door, guarding treasure beyond compare. But few would ever come to this isolated community, set out of the way in a far corner of the wasteland that was once Equestria. Thus, the door stayed shut, keeping its secrets for over 200 years, until, at last, that poor fool the ceiler of the door had briefly foreseen, opened it.

Chapter 7: Badlands

We spent the next days heading southeast, skirting the edges of Hayseed swamp. After two days, I finally stopped looking over my shoulder for alicorn's on the horizon. Apparently, we had lost them. As we traveled, the already sparse and twisted vegetation of the wasteland got even rarer and more mutated, until it vanished into an expanse of grey sand that set the kids pipbuck clicking. When I could see the macintosh hills in the distance, I turned directly south, heading to a long ridge on the horizon. For nearly the whole journey towards it, the ridge appeared to be a solid wall of jagged rock, and the clicking of the pipbuck got louder and more insistent as we moved towards it. A dose of Rad-X took care of me, though the kid seemed worried. When we were nearly on to the foot of the ridge, a small gap came into sight near the top, along with a worn trail that appeared out of the deeply piled irradiated grey sand to wind up the ridge. As we walked up, it became obvious that it was once an old road, never paved, that had been slowly wearing away until all that was left were old wagon ruts and the pass carved into the ridge.

As we climbed, the kids pipbuck, which had been clicking loud and fast at the foot of the ridge where the sand piled up, began to slow. As we crested the ridge and left the sands behind us, it stopped altogether. Now, set out before us was as we crested the ridge and moved down was a veritable maze of high rock ridges and spires, cut by deep canyons, and broken up by twisted valleys of dull orange sand and sparse vegetation, and a few high flat platues. On every horizon, tall rock ridges or snow capped mountains rose, cutting this barren valley off from what had once been equestria.

We spent two days going deep into the badlands, the remains of the road we had folowed all but disapeared, only occasionally popping up here and there, but my hooves led us on. Then, on the second day, I could see the ruins of several ramshakle buildings rising in the distance. The kid, looking curious, sped up. My hoove however, just felt like I had lead shoes nailed onto them. It was everything I could do to place one hoof in front of the other as the ruins of what was once a pre-war town came fully into view. The buildings had been ransacked, many burned. The drifting sand filling open doorways and the lack of any fresh sign indicated to anyone interested that this had happened a long time ago. I looked at none of it, simply following the kid to the old sign that lay half-broken on the sand. The kid had shoved dust away, reading the sign, his face screwing up in obvious confusion.

The sign had said "Bray, Population: 213" but someone had crossed out the 213 to write a 0, followed by "Beware, deadly radiation.". The kid looked to his silent pipbuck, then back to the sign, clearly even more puzzled.

"Come on, I said simply, turning my back on the ruin. "We aren't stopping here."

"But..." The kid started, before I swung a hoof at him. He ducked, eye widening.

"I said, lets go." I growled. We left. The kid kept glacing from the town, to the sign, to me. He obviously had many questions. I had no answers for him. So, we just walked on. About an hour later, I led us off the path and into the cliffs beyond the town, climbing up narrow paths with barely a hoofhold. Not a problem for a hoof-sure donkey, but a problem for the kid. I tired of waiting on him, and unceremoniously swung him onto my back and carried him to where one of numerious caves dotted the cliff face. I dumped him inside the entrance and started walking deeper inside.

We followed the cave deep into the cliff face. Its tunnels split and rejoined many times, winding and twisting through the ridge of rock. my hooves led me where I knew we had to go, leading us through twists and turns until we came to a truelly massive door, like the others, but much, much larger, and again, no symbol or identification was painted on it, but this one was marked all over with dings, scratches and scorchmarks. Someone, or a lot of someones, had spent a lot of time trying to open this door. A terminal of a new sort stood by the door. It was covered in armor platting, its screen hidden behind a clear screen that was obviously bulletproof. Obviously because someone had shot it and it was still intact. Even here, panels had been attempted to be pried off to get at the guts of the terminal, but everything was intact, if banged up.

"Ok kid, see if you can get that terminal to open this thing." I said. The kid looked at me, so many questions obviously on his muzzle, but he turned away and went to the terminal. He obviously hadn't seen anything like it before, but he found some sort of port for his pipbuck that hadn't managed to be damaged by those who had tried to break into the terminal. He went to work. I sat, staring at the door, looking down, I saw a stick, small, barely more then a twig, still jammed where someone had tried to pry the door open with it, snapping the tiny thing easily. I pulled the tiny stick out, placing it down on the floor. The kid was having a hard time, I was actually seeing sweat pop up on his forehead as he frantically worked at the terminal. Again and again I watched him back out and try again. After a while, I wandered out the main room and down a separate passage. Before long, I was kneeling, sticking my head into a tiny burrow-like tunnel, looking in as a collection of old rags, an empty water bottle, and a small bundle of cloth. The last I pulled out with a hoof. It was an old child's toy, a small patchwork equine, badly frayed. I ran a hoof along a mane made from bits of an old broom, before tossing it back inside the hole. The past could stay in the past. Wandering back, I saw the kis still working, muttering to himself under his breath. I sat again to wait, pulling out my canteen to have a drink. Finally, after another 10 minutes, the kid pumped a hoof in the air, shouting a "Yes!" in victory.

I stood, watching with baited breath as the door began slowly and loudly rumbling open. Dust swirled in the air as vibrations shock the cavern, and a light flashed in a strobing pattern from behind the door. Finally, it rumbled back far enough to see... A small room, with a doorway at the far end, open, but sealed with a pink barrier, oh and another terminal. Ok, seriously? Even the kid winced, seeing he had yet more work to do. We both stepped into the small room, the kid plugging his pipbuck into the terminal and once again getting to work. I walked up to the barrier, trying to see into the room beyond. I could see nothing but darkness beyond the pink. This barrier, I had heard of such. Shields set so that only relatives of whoever they were set to let in 200 years ago could get in. And lets face it, I was noponies relative.

After pacing the small room for a while, waiting for the kid, I tried again to see what was beyond the barrier. I shifted forward a little more, cautiously trying to see what it was we were trying to get into. Then, my hoof abruptly lost all traction on the smooth metal floor. I caught myself before I could fall into the barrier, nose an inch from shimmering magical forces. That was close. I may have only heard about this in rumors, but they were said to range from just being a wall to vaporizing anyone who tried getting through.

I was starting to move away when I looked down and realized my hoof, the one that had slipped, was inside the barrier. I blinked, pulled it out, and tried to push on the barrier. My hoof tingled, but passed through like the barrier didn't exist. "Kid," I said, waving my hoof around in the barrier. "Uh, I think you can stop."

The kid looked up, jaw dropping. "But... how?"

"Must be broken." I said simply. "Not like I can be related to a ministry mare or anything." With that, I stepped through the barrier, my fur along my back standing on end at the tingle. The kid tried to follow, and smashed straight into the barrier. Wait, what? I tried pulling him through, but he just yelped like it hurt. I let him go. He said... something, but the sound was warped by the barrier. I shrugged, looking around. The space I was in was dark, I couldn't even get a sense of how large it was. However, a few feet away a terminal was set into the wall. Well, hopefully it wasn't locked. My luck, such as it was, held. The terminal had been left unlocked. I saw an option to disable the barricade and was about to select it, when I saw another file, marked "For my child.I opened it and began to read.

"Hello my child. Yes, I know its you. Oh, I know you may not be my son, or even his child, but to have gotten through the barrier I know you to be one of direct descent from me. Oh my child, I wish you had not opened that door. I though I had destroyed every trace of it in Bray, and vowed never to speak of this place, to let these secrets fade away and never trouble anyone again. If I could, I would have destroyed this place, and helped to further atone for what I helped the princess's do, but if you are reading this, then I must let you know what you have found.

I, Crabapple the donkey, established Bray, as you probably know. What you do not know is that it was established for the simple purpose of hiding the construction f this facility, and to allow me to guard it until completion. I kept careful watch over this place, even after... after it all ended. I was loyal to the princesses, but... I can't let this happen again. If anyone ever finds this place, it will happen again, I know it. So I'm shutting it down. I'm turning on the security and sealing the door. Let time take this place, let what's left of equestria forget. Please my child, let these secrets die.
-Crabapple

Wait, Crabapple? THE Crabapple? Well, yeah, I was a relative, half the town had been. But.. he was supposed to be a hero. He had saved us all. But... he knew how to get in the whole time? All that effort, all those stupid stories... and he had helped them the princess's, they had destroyed everything.All this time, Bray had just been... what, a distraction, camouflage for this? Crabapple hadn't been a hero. He had betrayed all of us. Well, I had no need to listen to traitors. I turned off the force-field, along with the security from the terminal. The kid trotted in.

"How did you do that?" He asked in amazement. "The force-field..."

"Doesn't matter." I said curtly. He obviously was about to ask more, but I headed him off." lets find out whats in here."

We trotted in, away from the terminal and a distant ancestors plee. That had been then, this was now. He may not want whatever was in this mountain found, but here in the wasteland, old secrets just meant caps. And that was all that really mattered.

The kids pipbuck illuminated the fact that we were standing in a large hallway that ended with a split further up. The split led to two separate corridors, identical, both leading in opposite directions. I turned right and followed the right hallway. It just kept going on and on until it turned a sharp left, then went on for another long ways, before dead ending at a door guarded by four deactivated turrets. The door had a small panel set into it, requiring a hoof print. I set my hoof into it, and it slowly slid open. Beyond was a space lit by shimmering light of of a multitude of strangely sickly looking colors. It was... kind of pretty, but at the same time, a wordless dread seemed to rise in my gut. I stepped into the room, the kid following, his pipbuck beginning to slick softly. What I saw when I looked around sent my hind legs out from under me, dumping my hindquarters to the ground.

A massive space was set out around me, stretching out large enough to accommodate the whole ruin of bray, and then some. Massive steel shelves ran along every wall, and several rows were set up through the room. Each shelf contained a strange geometrically shaped object that pulsed with the same sickly colors that lit the room. Each was about the size of a bushel of apples, and there must have been about 50 of them in the room. But I knew what they were. Everyone did. After all, one would be rather familiar with the weapons that nearly extinguished all life on your planet. Balefire Bombs. Freaking balefire bombs. Bray had been built to hide a stockpile of the weapons that destroyed Equestria.

Level up!

New perk added: Lead belly. Constant exposure to radiation has granted you partial immunity! You now take 50% less rads from food or drink.

Author's Note

Sorry this took so long to get out. I got a new job offer that required me to move to the other side of the country. As you can guess, a cross-country move tends to eat up your free time. But now that I'm moved in I'll hopefully get chapters out more regularly.