Fallout: Equestria - The Ranger of Seamane

“Family can be a lot of things, those who gave birth to you, those who raised you, those who you choose to be your family. However, family is one thing more important than any of those, family loves you and cares about you unconditionally.”

• Ministry of Peace Heartmenders Book

We followed Riptide as we made for the gate to the Waterfront Marina as we drew closer. I saw a sign saying Battleship Cascadia Memorial Marina. The memory of explaining the war to foals back home filtered into my mind. The distraction was short-lived as we drew closer and my eyes scanned the walls, the gates, and the open kill zones laid out on the approach to the marina.

As we slowed near the gates a few of the ponies stared at us more at Sil and me than at Riptide as if we had violated some unspoken rule. The weight of those gazes made me lag further behind Riptide. I felt unwelcome which didn’t help the whole ‘yay let’s meet Riptide’s surviving family’ thing.

“Hey, um, I know this is going to sound a bit out there, but, I’m Riptide,” Riptide said trying to hold back her glee to one of the guards as she barely managed to stand in place.

There was something magical in her words but I couldn’t capture what it was. But the hint of magic made me pause instead of facehoof at her words.

A breath after she finished I trotted up beside her and felt the other guard’s eyes drilling into me as he kept his guns trained on me and Sil beside me.

“I’m Moonlight, this is Silaha. We’ve been escorting her up from Saint Clover after there was an… Attack on Riptide and her family.” I explained, but the feeling of stupidity clung to me as well as the expectation of hearing safeties flick off.

Paranoid much? I mean we are returning a pony to them, not ransoming her. For fucks sake, relax.

“Just a second Riptide, it’s your first time here since you were a filly so we’re going to lay down some rules for you. One, family only, you know what that means.” The buck in front of Riptide said glaring over her shoulder at me making me wince. “Two, it is a time of mourning, we know about the attack, so more than usual, it’s just family inside the town. Third, while not a rule, you’re going to want to talk to your grandmother to sort out the rest of your family business, and your brother.”

Her brother? Wait, somepony else survived! That’s great news! That would explain how they knew of the attack. But, why do I still feel this terrible pit in my stomach?

I sighed and sat on my haunches as the two bucks opened the gate with their magic, I wasn’t going to be going in, I wasn’t allowed to, and I wasn’t family. Well, that last statement was something I disagreed with, then again we hadn’t been together that long. One could still label it as a fling instead of a long-term stable relationship.

Regardless, yay. Well, that solved that problem.

“Hey, Riptide... We’ll be back at Pioneer, I think I saw a spa being advertised there so when you’re free we can all go there and catch up. If you get there and we’re not there? Wait for us, we’re probably out doing some busy work.” I said emotionlessly.

I was fighting back everything within me to drag her back. To run after her. To just start crying. All the different options paralyzed me.

“Wait, she should be let in, she's my-.” Riptide paused as the guards shook their heads. “She’s my marefriend, damn it.” Riptide stomped looking angry for the first time I met her. “They both are!”

“Take it up with your grandmother. She’ll decide if she can or can’t right now. The zebra will stay out though.” The buck stated. I felt my guts twist. “And you heard her, she won’t be far away. So you’ll be able to go back to her soon enough.”

“THEY ARE BOTH MY PARTNERS.” Riptide barked, I could feel her trembling.

Gently and carefully I put a hoof on her shoulder.

“Hey, it’ll only be for a short while, hun,” I said, trying to smile but I knew it wasn’t convincing.

I caught a glimpse of Sil who looked devastated as well, and I could tell she was fighting just as hard as I was to put on a brave face, to not let her emotions command her and break down the wall Riptide’s family was putting up around her. Knowing her, she probably was figuring out how to demolish the walls swiftly and counting on me to figure out how best to neutralize the organic part of their security.

Instead, I just squeezed my eyes shut.

Celestia bless you for the rain, at least they couldn’t see the tears of pain. It hurt as I watched those gates close.

“Don’t you two have somewhere to be, outsiders?” The other buck said.

The comment made me twist myself to stop my magic from lighting and twisting the buck’s neck as hard as I could.

“Yeah, by Riptide as she grieves her family, her family I helped recover and bury at my home with friends I had buried before.” I spat glaring at him.

He looked sympathetic for a moment before shifting back to a placid and uncaring expression.

And that tells me something more is going on, damn it. Damn it! FUCK.

“Come on Moony, let’s get going. There’s always something to fix, even if it isn’t what we want to fix.” She muttered.

She looked worried I couldn’t blame her. I knew she saw through the rain that I was crying. She quietly fell in beside me as we trotted off away from the marina. After a minute that trot broke into a canter as I couldn’t contain my emotions as they boiled over. The maelstrom of conflicting feelings, of pain and anger, sorrow and frustration. The need to burn out that energy however could become overwhelming.

By the Princesses damn them, damn Riptide’s family, if it weren’t for those turrets I would have tried to beat some sense into them with words or hooves.

Another part of me boiled at how they had treated Sil, I knew she wasn’t in a better mental state than I, and also desired to end that shitty guard.

Instead of stopping though, I kept going along the road south not thinking. After a few minutes, I slowed and stopped then sat down on my haunches and sniffled as I felt my heart pound and my chest hurt. I stopped blocking my emotions and instead let myself feel the hurt, I let the feeling flow out of me like the rain washed down my figure, my tears down my muzzle. Sil’s hoof brushed my mane, I could hear her lightly breathing from chasing after me. I was glad she wasn’t saying anything though. She knew I needed to process things that words tended to make me react irrationally when I was in a state like this.

I also knew she was dealing with it her own way and it hurt knowing I was making it worse with my foalish actions, with making her have to deal with my crap. I just felt myself tremble.

I knew I had sat there for minutes but I had been a fool to not hear them. I felt it, a nudge from Sil. and then a few more urgent ones.

“Dumb bitches don’t know to get out of the rain.” Some buck said as my emotions drained out of me, washed away with the need to deal with something.

The words broke my inward concentration, and I felt something snap in me, coldness spread. A growing need to see fear, to instill it, and harm in the interloper grew. Tendencies once thought buried bubbled up again after years of dormancy. The talons flexed and unraveled demanding blood. To pounce and bury my beak into their throat and rip out their trachea.

A cold emotionless state reclaimed me as a task was at my hooves to be dealt with. Sil had been trying to warn me of the impending threat; the number of ponies was too many for her to shoot on her own with that battle saddle. I had to help somehow now though running wasn’t an option given we had guns trained on us. It wasn’t a standoff, it was a hold-up.

“Caps, food, water, and chems.” A mare said behind me through the grip of her gun.

“Bandits?” I asked as I tapped my left saddlebag which held what they wanted.

“Bandits? Fuck no, Pythons.” The buck laughed, I eyed him, earth pony, grey mane, brown coat, shotgun holster on his left foreleg, loose barding, covered his rump, mix of rain gear and protective plates. “I think these bitches are new to town. Let’s give them a bit of information since they're payin’. Raiders are rare, it's gang warfare up here.”

I nodded. “Yeah only been here for an hour, already had a friend stolen away from me and now I am being robbed. Good start for my first day in the city.” I admitted but it only earned me more laughter and ridicule.

So instead I seized the moment and grabbed the knowledge of the teleportation spell.

I flashed behind the mare who was holding me up and unleashed an arcane blast into the back of her skull sending her eyes out the front of it. The buck moved to pull his shotgun out, I did the same. We stared at one another for a moment, the mare’s shattered head leaking out onto the wet shattered pavement in ever weaker pulses. Sil stood ready to shoot him if he fired.

“I’m not in a good mood,” I explained looking at him as the feeling of exhaustion hit me and annoyance replaced anything I had been feeling. “Put the gun away and you can take your friend’s body.”

Sil cycled her battle saddle shotgun to punctuate my point, good thing it was a pump shotgun or that would be a shell we’d have to collect.

“You’re crazy. I ain’t going to try to fight crazy. Don’t blame me if more Pythons come for you because of this you don’t get away with killin’ Pythons.” He said spitting the sawed-off back into his leg holster. “Consider yourself warned gangs don’t take it lightly when you kill their own.”

“I’ll worry about it later,” I said dryly and left wandering westward into the city ruins away from the Willmanemette.

“Moonlight?” Sil called to me as she trotted up to me.

After a minute I replied. “Sorry.”

She shook her head. “I’m not looking for an apology. What are we doing?” She asked.

“I don’t know. I just need to move.” I replied.

“Okay.” She said as she kept following me.

Guilt dragged at me for dragging her through this mood swing but she had been there for me when things went south with Winter. She wanted to be here with me because she was a good mare. I just needed to make certain I returned the favor. For fucks sake she wasn’t just a good mare, she was MY mare, and I felt like shit for treating her like this. Now she likely was worried about me as well as Riptide and having her feelings all messed up due to being told to fuck off until her stripes fall off.

And it all just made me angrier, I wanted to stomp, kick, and punch something until it was dust. I needed to burn out the energy these emotions were making me feel.

We wandered around aimlessly for a good hour. We eventually took cover from the rain in the entryway of a building. I tried to enter to only find a magical barrier. Looking inside I didn’t see anypony alive, or signs of ghouls. I thought back to the fight and the teleportation spell. It was a short jump, I could do it.

“Hey, Sil, can you stand next to me?” I asked.

“Sure, what for?” Sil asked as she trotted up.

I put my hoof on her shoulder before I closed my eyes and focused on the spot I wanted to go to inside the building past the barrier. Then with what felt like being squeezed through a straw and wrung out like a wet towel we were inside the building.

My insides didn’t agree with me on how impressive it was to teleport through a spell barrier or be teleported at all. Instead, my insides reminded me I was mortal and what I did was stupid. To emphasize this I became a weeping mess as my body reminded me of how many ways it could make a mess. Without a doubt, my body was empty of what it could expel within a minute. On the upside, if I ever was constipated or stuffed up again I had a terrible solution, but it worked.

Sil had fared equally as poorly and upon recovering slugged me. “Next time warn me.” She hissed.

I rubbed my shoulder where she had hit me. It wasn’t intended to hurt but to state her frustration.

“One, I didn’t know going through a barrier would do that. Two, next time we teleport I will warn you.” I explained. “Honestly good policy to warn before doing that.”

“Good.” Sil nodded. “Are you okay? I think… we might need to.” She grimaced looking around us.

“I’ll deal with it, just focus on taking care of yourself,” I replied, I felt a tint of a smile on my muzzle at her discomfort.

That wasn’t something I liked feeling and it wasn’t a good sign either, which gave me far more reason to give these emotions a strong kick to the head. The desire to return to a comfortable level of numbness and stay there grew, it was far more preferable than taking pleasure in the pain of those I love. Still, I felt like my fur was bristling, or… feathers?

The fuck? I shoved the confusing thought out of my head, I was a unicorn, not something else.

A quick scan of the lobby showed that it wasn’t as drab as it had looked from the outside. The barrier must have discolored the image of the inside. Once I had cleaned us up we set about refilling ourselves and drinking in the architecture of the lobby. The lobby was spectacularly designed as a feast of color coordination, designs, and architecture.

Then my eyes landed upon the name “Ministry of Image” and it clicked. While I would never forgive the Ministry for its sin of destroying and censoring books I could admire the taste that the Ministry had in design. I trotted around the antechamber looking around and marveling at how well-preserved the place was. There wasn’t a single body here. I halted remembering the shield.

Why weren't there any bodies here?

There wasn’t anything in here but us and wartime decorations. Not even a layer of dust was on the front desk.

I joined Sil behind the front desk to take a look at what was on it. Looking over it I found a dead terminal, it didn’t respond to Sil when she poked the power button. No safe nor chair either, I guessed that would ruin the Image now, wouldn’t it? A quick dig through the desk and nothing usable turned up, no files, no clutter. It was eerie how clean the place was, it made my mane crawl. Taking a moment to check the elevators produced nothing. Pressing the buttons the lights failed to light up, dead. Opening the door I found the elevators were a few floors below me, the cables were still intact.

“No power. Guess we’re taking the stairs today. But…” I looked at the emergency hatch on the elevator below me. “But, let’s do this logically.” I popped the hatch of the elevator open and hopped onto its roof.

“Moonlight!” Sil cried out as I hopped down.

“I’ll catch you,” I called up to her. “Magic’s working and all that.”

Sil hopped down and I steadied her fall with my magic.

“That wasn't what I expected when you said catch,” Sil replied.

“Less strain. Who knows how much magic we might need here.” I explained I had no clue what lay ahead of us.

What in the name of the Sisters am I doing? I'm just putting us at risk. And for what?

I groused at myself as I let go of my frustrations. They would only serve to put us in danger if I held onto them. Leaving was an option but killing time to lose any tail was invaluable plus it let me, hopefully, burn out these emotions without causing more harm or causing more trouble.

The inside of the elevator was dark. There wasn't a working light source inside. I lit my horn and saw the car was empty save a bit of dust. I shoved my hooves into the Elevator door and pried it open with a mix of might and magic.

“When did you get this strong?” Sil asked as she climbed through the opening of the doors.

“Don't know. Guess all this has been a bit of strength training.” I snorted as the door's emergency release was released. “Or maybe this trip I'm just starting to actually exert myself.”

A dumb grin found itself on my muzzle as Sil looked back at me.

Sil snorted in return. “So you're finally working more than your brain?”

“More like my hooves. You know as well as I do that guard work wasn't the most stimulating.” I replied as I observed our surroundings.

Sil made a… strange face at me, a small part of me told me she was trying to flirt and found something I said to be amusing or arousing. But it was unsafe to do stuff like that until we secured the building. So my attention went away from Sil’s backside to her underside, then back to the building.

Clear one so I can enjoy the other. This is the way.

The basement, unlike the entry floor, was, well, a basement. It wasn’t fancy, it was functional. Functionality wasn’t overwhelming, it was welcoming to me, at least I knew what everything did. Onward we delved as we began to pick through the basement on the lookout for anything of use.

“I mean, I told you before, Sil. Most of the time if they didn’t stick me wandering the dunes or watching some stretch of dirt I was standing by a door or watching supplies. I learned how to pick locks with my magic out of boredom and we weren’t allowed to carry lockpicks.” I smirked at her as I popped open the weak locks on some drawers with my magic.

“Yeah, I remember. That and gut feelings about ponies. Not like you had EFS to check if ponies were who they said they were.” Sil replied while she opened the drawers.

The basement had a few supplies, some unopened bottles of wonderglue, turpentine, and other industrial cleaners. Nothing surprising, I guessed the place had been put in effective stasis after evacuation. Though I was interested in how that stasis was still going, given the lack of magic taste in my head the source of the shield spell wasn’t down here. So the spark generators had to be at the top of the building.

“Pretty much. Familiarity with who was supposed to be where. Gut feelings, it bred intuition I guess that’s what’s kept me going for so long was that intuition.” I snorted. “Then again, my intuition was to run towards the mortars since I was trapped on the other side of the wall in Four Corners. Had to do it, I didn't know how long if at all when someone else would be sent to deal with the threat. Ended up eating a few walls for it.”

“What exactly happened out there?” Sil asked as she finished pilfering the long abandoned supplies.

“Well, I shot a few ponies. I broke contact and went around the main body of forces so I could get to the mortars as quickly as I could. Got to them, the raider boss was there. Tried to do some diplomacy that failed, explosively so. Naturally, that led to us getting into a fight, he was… one hell of an earth pony.” I explained.

I paused in my quick recitation of events to rub my horn. “He had a special hatred for unicorns. So he came after me when I took cover. Our guns ended up not working. He took a ton of chems. Smashed me through a few walls. Almost broke my horn, and as you know the spirals are gone from excessive heat as well as ending up bent as you can see.” I continued as I checked a few toolboxes. “I took most of his leg for that. After that, we both were pretty much on our last legs so I threw one of my remaining knives at him and shot him with my pistol. I was lucky all the damn explosions, bullets, and impacts didn’t break it.”

Sil trotted up to me and looked at my horn and then nuzzled me. I could feel her wordless worry and care for me. I hugged her in return. She didn't know exactly what I had thrown myself into but she knew the trip out with the Buckshots, the giant wasp, being stuck on the wrong side of the wall in Four Corners, and being bait for the hydra. They had all been at best narrow escapes for me, but never attempted to die.

I wasn’t suicidal, no matter what others might think.

I nuzzled her in return as I realized I probably left her scared of her choice to open her heart to me. That I would likely one day not return. Maybe that was why she was sticking so close to me now, so if I went, so did she.

In all honesty, my hope was that Sil wasn’t that fatalistic. Preferably as little fatalistic as possible, because that mindset can really mess up a person and their life.

We returned to the main floor. I stopped and pondered as we looked over the building floor plan.

Was I really in the mindset to do this? Did I want to do this right now? It wasn’t like anypony else really had ease of access to the building to loot it anymore.

Pondering this my haunches were again plopped onto the abandoned tile floor as I let myself feel out how I felt. It wasn’t that I hurt and was running from it, the major feeling in me was numbness. Behind that though was the thought telling me I was past where I had to stop and rest. There is something to say about when your body tells you to fucking stop, it generally is best to heed that, unless it meant dying. Right now I just felt like I had been shot, but it was all emotional trauma, no first aid kit or doctor’s bag would heal that.

As I sat there letting myself rest Sil plopped down beside me and leaned against me. Her foreleg went around my shoulder and I leaned back against her as we both took a moment. And a mental note formed to talk to Sil about how she was doing, they had directly said no to her on account of her stripes. She couldn’t be handling it any better than I.

My stomach broke me out of my state. Because of that the Sugar Apple bombs and Sparkle-Cola were broken out, and the extreme sugar flavor made me wince.

Was everything pre-war so over-saturated with sugar? At least the Sparkle-Cola didn’t taste like someone didn’t know how to measure sugar when cooking.

“So… I’m pretty certain heat doesn’t make bones smooth out and flex.” Sil commented looking at my horn.

“I…” I paused. “Well I don’t know what else it could have been.

“Yeah, maybe due to it was magic it kinda became pliable as you overcharged it. As in you put so much magic into it the form of your horn became pliable like raw magic?” She offered.

That was a better theory. “Maybe? I don’t know, and I doubt we’ll ever know.” I sighed. “At least it isn’t like I’m not used to having a slight curve to my horn, but this is…”

“Decidedly more wicked, yeah.” She nodded, and I nodded with her.

I shook my mane and put away the empty bottle and left the empty box on the floor. I had no reason to keep it with me and there wasn’t an obvious trash receptacle.

“Well, fuck it, I’m going to get my flank fucking toned or die trying,” I said to myself regarding the building layout again.

What lay ahead was going to be a lot of stairs, and my flank wasn’t that bad, my stomach was just pudgy and I had no idea what to do for that, though really having extra body fat was a blessing in the wastes. Given I was well away from home where I knew food wasn’t in short supply.

Sil giggled at my exclamation. “Really now?”

I felt my face flush.

“You can enjoy the view.” I fired back as I stood up.

The lack of barding meant teasing while going ahead of Sil on the stairs would be easy. Finally, some payback.

I found the stairs and began moving up floor by floor. Annoyingly the first six floors all had locked doors and the lockpicks were too tough for me to do. Forethought said to bypass the lower floors and start at the top and work our way down.

To my dismay, we didn’t, as I reached the fourteenth floor. My legs burned from all the stairs. The notion of using up my bobby pins on such few doors with unknown payoff was a bad call, however, I could see through gaps in doors and a few even through the keyway. With work, I could see past the door and determine if it was safe to teleport to the other side.

Another few minutes went by and after shifting the door a little on its hinges I could see in the reflection of the tile of the stairway that the other side was clear.

“I’ll get the door, just hang tight, hun,” I told Sil. With a pop I was on the other side, this time I didn’t feel like I went through a straw.

Instead, I felt like I suddenly stopped running and had momentum to me that I couldn’t process. I bent my legs to catch myself and recover. After a moment I looked around. This floor was filled with large offices, one caught my attention though. It must have been for the director of this branch. I opened the door to the stairs first so Sil could rejoin me before I began to check offices.

“Useful. Though I don’t think that will work on safes.” Sil teased.

“Yeah, really won’t help if a safe has a dial instead of a keyhole.” I chortled. “Need to break out some medical equipment for that.”

“Listen to the heart of the machine to find your way.” Sil recited.

I smirked. “Something like that. Come on, let's find out if there's anything useful left here.”

“Sure, thanks for the show. When we get back to Pioneer I’ll show my thanks.” Sil teased as she trotted ahead and brushed her tail along my jaw.

“Tease.” I fired back with a smile on my muzzle.

“It takes one to know one, love.” Sil giggled.

Each office was, of course, locked. Thankfully these locks were easy enough that I could just use my horn to unlock them. That locksmithing book had helped more than I imagined. A few more bobby pins would be only for when my magic would draw attention or be out of commission.

The contents though were uninteresting for each office. Most of what I saw were proposals for posters for other ministries, as well as for each of the princesses. There were also propaganda posters and leaflets that were called to be deployed to the zebras. Given the containers, it was an easy wager that they were to be air-dropped urging the zebras to surrender or call for a ceasefire. Most likely it was a joint project between M.o.I. and M.o.P., it made sense to me. Another office had a list of books to be reviewed for censorship and rewriting, which of course was promptly incinerated by my magic out of disgust.

The final office was the director’s office. It refused to unlock for me, but there was a window that was humorously clear so I just teleported in. I clicked the door open once again for Sil. The practice was going to be ingrained soon enough. Once we were able to focus on the room properly we found a scene of disarray. Clearly, the pony who had worked here wasn’t as neat as the others. Or neatness was a “do as I say, not as I do” statute here.

Regardless I sifted through the books, papers, dresses, uniforms, boxes, and assorted clutter. The upside was under none of it was a buried pony who died under this clutter. The downside was, well, there wasn’t much to loot, the dresses were nice, so I packed a few of them up, with a resizing spell I could make them fit any of us, not that dresses and the Wasteland cooperated. The uniforms lacked any armor value, purely formal wear for soldiers. The books were filled with designs for dresses, costumes, floats, posters, flags, and uniforms. Everything except for something useful in the wasteland.

I sighed and respectfully returned the books to the director's desk. “What a waste of time.”

“Not really. Though I’m glad that we didn’t see much anti-zebra propaganda.” Sil stated as she took the books full of outfit designs for herself. “What? I might be able to do something with them.”

“Fair, but yeah, I’m actually a bit surprised by that given you know it’s the Ministry of Propaganda and all that.” I replied remembering faded posters I had seen in the wastes about keeping an eye out for zebra infiltrators, how it was better to be ‘wiped than striped’, given how Sil treated me I feel most were missing out back then on how being ‘striped’ is. “Would have given them the same courtesy I gave to that list of books for censorship and rewriting.”

Sil let out a breath of relief. I hadn’t known she was worried about my view on the pre-war propaganda crap about zebras. We had grown up together plus I knew what was out there about her kin was at best-inflated bullshit about those fighting Equestria, at worse entirely made up. Not that domestically ponies likely differentiated between refugee zebras and those abroad fighting Equestria.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Sil said as she looked over one of the dresses. “Seems like this branch was a lot less about the negative side of the propaganda though.”

“Maybe, might have been Rarity wanted a personal touch to it, keep it from going too far or just far enough.” I gave a shake of my mane. “Can’t rightly pick her brain or you know go poke her terminal logs to find out.

“Fair enough that,” Sil replied as she looked at the former branch director. “Shame such pretty things were being made in conjunction with such awful things in such an awful time...”

I nodded. Though I lacked anything to add to that, the whole wartime was a horrible time, and worse it produced some of the most interesting books and tech. Still, the negatives massively outweighed anything gained, and it was hard to think anyone could disagree with how horrid life was now. It was sad to think that such marvels were made in the last few years of the Great War. However, it was in the shadow of the Great War and the war tainted everything that was made. Much like how radiation touched everything out in the wasteland now. Nothing was truly pure or untainted.

“Well, let’s get going. I’ll check a few doors as we go down but I think it’s getting late enough that we should head back to town.” I said checking my EFS to see if we had around an hour until sundown. “Didn’t check to see if there was a curfew or anything like that in Pioneer. Probably should have.”

“Something to ask about when we get back. Well, let’s hop to it.” Sil offered as she gave a playful tap to my rear to get me going.

With a box full of dresses on my back we returned to the stairs. I looked up at the access to floor fifteen, I had overlooked it as it was utility and not office space. I went up and tried the door for fifteen, but it wasn’t even locked. Strange. Opening the door I was hit with a wash of radiation that even my pipbuck crackled at and I saw my radiation exposure level increase for the first time in a while. I slammed the door closed.

“Nope, I’m resistant, not immune,” I said as I dug out a RadAway and sucked down the citrusy glowing fluid. I watched a bar showing my radiation exposure draining away back down to what were tolerable levels. “Okay, time to get the hell out of here.”

“The fuck was that,” Sil asked from the landing below.

“Whatever is powering this place is hot as fuck and I just ate a dose of radiation that would probably have made you into a glowing ghoul,” I informed her as I tossed the RadAway off the railing having emptied it. “Also, I have some resistance, but not immunity. The threshold is far lower than whatever the fuck level that was.”

“So if you start mutating again that’s normal, right?” She asked, I wasn’t certain if she was teasing or not as my mind was wracked with a mild amount of panic.

“You aren’t! Just teasing.” She stammered seeing my reaction.

With that, I took the stairs back down, when I reached the bottom floor I scanned to make certain everything was the way it was. Even the box I had discarded was where I had left it.

“Okay, Sil, looks like nothing managed to follow us in. Uh, ready to get sucked through a straw again?” I asked as I mentally braced myself.

“Yeah I don’t see anything in here, or waiting for us outside,” Sil replied then took a breath as she braced herself before putting a hoof on me. “I’m ready as I’ll ever be.”

This time I felt less like Luna and Celestia together had used their combined magical might to wring me out like a dishrag. Instead, I just felt like I was going to pop. I let out a bile-flavored belch that left my sinuses burning before casting a rejuvenation spell on myself just to be careful. It was no healing potion but it was something. For safety, I cast it on Sil as well who was dry heaving beside me. My pipbuck hasn't notified me of any major change in my health at either time.

Psychological? Whatever, we need to get going. Sadly the spell didn’t do us much good, I guessed teleporting through barriers just always sucked, good to know.

“You hanging in there, hun?” I asked Sil as I patted her on the shoulders.

“That wasn’t as bad as the first time. But, let’s try to do that as little as possible.” She said before she gave me a weak smile.

“Agreed. It’s not a fun experience. Well, let’s get to our new home.” I said looking north. “That feels weird to say that.”

“Yeah, I agree but, it is until after winter at least.” Sil nodded.

“Until we hit the trail again. Either for Saint Clover or for finding your mom.” I nodded in agreement as we started to trot north.

Pioneer wasn’t hard to get back to, it was one of the few electric light sources in the area. Plus the old city tram lines ran through it which made it easy to just pick a bit of rail in the ground and follow them. So we just followed the tram lines back and made our way inside. Once we were within the walls we headed for the old Ministry of Morale building. Once inside we quickly got our key for our room and left a note with reception about what to do if Riptide showed up. I wanted to be certain she wasn’t left sitting in the lobby for ages if we were out and about, so I made certain to fully describe how she looked.

With that done I took one key, and Sil took another. This was when we found out our room was on the seventh floor, and the elevators were long dead. Yay, more stairs. We went up and saw the room Winter had gotten us not a bedroom but an office. A large one but it was clearly repurposed. There wasn’t a bath of any kind in the room or attached to it, which meant using the rebuilt restrooms on this floor. It made more sense now that they had been called gendered bathrooms. I wagered showers, as well as other facilities, were available there.

For now, this was a fine room to have while it wasn’t ideal. It worked for me. I decided against a shower as I had gotten enough rain that all it would do was wash the water out of my fur with more water and I wasn’t keen on that. Also having been squeezed out by teleporting through a barrier I was good on the other side of things for a few more hours. So instead I laid down on the mattress as I lifted my bags off of my back and set them down. Stretched out on the bed and just relaxed and let my legs have a break. I noted in my EFS it was only six in the evening.

“I’ll be back in a bit, hun. I need to warm up and dry off.” Sil said she sounded like she was disappointed when I waved her off with a hoof.

Fuck it, I’m not in the mood to be awake, so this sulky pony is going to go to fall asleep alone.