Fallout: Equestria - The Ranger of Seamane

“The Ministry of Peace was at the forefront of developing new ways of healing everyone, not just ponies but everyone. Beyond that, they were often attempting to find ways to end side conflicts that occurred during the war through peaceful methods. Peace above all else was the mindset of the ministry and its mare, Fluttershy.”

- Opening Ceremony Speech for the Dockland Central Fluttershy Medical Center

The last source of smoke wasn’t hard to find; the ponies outside the factory were a ragtag bunch and surprisingly non-hostile when we approached. They were being paid to try to take the building or, failing that, make it too costly to operate by needing more and more guards.

However, they were getting tired of having their friends die and it didn’t take much to push them to stop; some caps and chems looted from the raiders and they agreed to go back to scavenging. In return, we even got some more food, water, and ammo. I also got a scope that I could fit on my revolver rifle which should relieve a bit of my accuracy issues with it.

“You know I see now why you keep so many chems on you,” Sil said. “They’re really good for trading out here.”

I smiled at her, not wanting to admit to keeping them in case of another situation like Four Corners. “Yeah, you’ll find that the people who abuse them will buy them for a high price. Same reason I grab any ammo I find; someone can always use it.”

Sil giggled at that. “Oh that is for certain, and if not I could always make something that we can actually use.”

I kissed the smart mare on her forehead, closing my eyes to not let her reverse hawk get in my eyes. “One of the great many reasons I love you.”

Before we headed out, we swung by the safe house and dropped off our scavenged goods. No need to take everything with me into the hospital and lighter on my hooves meant I could drag more crap out. Sil and I regarded our salvage, picking out what to send back with her before deciding to take a detour from the clinic and returning to Pioneer. It was an extra hour but teleportation cut the trip time down a good deal.

As we stood in the square it finally set in how I was about to do something profoundly stupid. For her part, Sil instead ran a hoof along my face to guide me to look at her.

“Don’t get yourself killed, hun,” Sil said to me before kissing me on my forehead. I smiled back at her.

“I’ll try my best.” I replied by kissing her on the forehead in return. “See you as soon as I can and good luck with your research, hun.”

“I still wish I could wait for you outside of the heavily irradiated area in case you need help,” Sil sighed, the worry in her voice obvious.

Gently, I pressed my muzzle against hers. “If I thought it was an option I’d have you do that but you waiting for me somewhere less hot would leave you standing guard alone.”

“The radiation protects you from most people who would trouble you. I know.” She sighed again. “I’m going to work on some radios for us so we can keep in touch over long distances.”

“That would be very welcome to have. Just find us some way to plug into our ears. Don’t wanna have others overhear us sweet talking.” I teased her.

“Oh that’s a solved problem, earblooms are everywhere and pretty simple to make and repair.” She grinned. “I’ll also look into finding a way to track one another better. Would make it a lot easier if we could just send out a distress call and find one another even if we’re knocked out.”

I liked that idea. “Yeah, possibly a way to do so without the pipbuck zero’s on us, just in case we have to deal with technofetishists.”

Sil pondered that for a moment. “Good idea, and anything you want me to look for?”

Two thoughts hit me. “Enchantments and talismans; books on them, making them, casting them.” I went on. “I want to help make our equipment lighter or imbue some other spells into them. Maybe have them use our natural magic so Riptide and I don’t have to use our horns.”

Sil’s eyes widened and I could tell her mind was racing with ideas.

“Oh, I see you won’t be bored while I’m away.” I cooed before kissing her. “Be a good filly and stay safe.”

Sil flushed and nodded before moving away to get to work.

-=O=-

Testing my ability to teleport long distance, I pushed myself to reach out for the safe house rune. With a weird sensation, I opened my eyes and found myself at the destination, albeit a little singed and steaming, my horn lightly glowing as well. Then the nausea hit.

Okay so I can push myself further with teleporting. I’ll just feel like I went through an oven while getting my face bucked.

The pain took priority and as such I took some of the stronger painkillers I had kept a hold of. To further take my mind off of the pain, I turned my attention to what supplies I could salvage from something as expansive as the Clinic. In terms of things that would fit in the Safe House? Medical supplies, and lots of them. A good bit of medical equipment. Heck, there were also potential beds to get to, so long as they weren’t ruined by now.

With a list noted down in the pipbuck, I was ready to head out. The painkillers were doing their job, maybe a bit more. Sadly the label lacked prewar information on what was in it. Instead, it was just labeled as extra-strength painkillers. I squinted and thought I could see ‘one hundred percent certified as non-addictive by the Ministry of Morale’, which didn’t help my worry that these were addictive.

Then again I wasn’t hallucinating so it probably wasn’t those kinds of drugs at least.

-=O=-

The trek to the clinic campus wasn’t as bad as I imagined. The mist had rolled back in throughout the journey, the cool air keeping others inside. As I trotted down the old highway, the first of the Fluttershy Medical Clinic’s buildings emerged from the fog, appearing like the shadow of a fish close to the surface of the water. Though it was a full sprawling complex.

Now that I had a better view of the place, I could see that it was almost as big as the University, a light glow cast over the whole place. If I remember one of Sil’s lectures on radiation right, that was the glow of balefire radiation made easier to see by its interaction with the water in the air.

Another block closer and I was at the apex of the highway bridge, letting me see more of the campus’ layout even without the binoculars I craved.

Four buildings in the shape of Flutteryshy’s cutiemark made up the main part of the campus; Emergency Room, Urgent Care, Long Term Care and Outpatient, with the latter being the shortest at only a few stories and Long Term Care itself far taller. Each building seemed to be connected through the remains of sky bridges to leave more green space between the buildings. Given the glow, I ascertained that the radiation source was between the main four buildings.

In a partial ring around the main buildings were smaller facilities that I guessed were various administrative buildings; from groundskeeping to greenhouses, physical therapy gyms, and just other smaller individual practices that had rented out space.

Trotting towards the shrouded, glowing ruins my pipbuck started clicking, alerting me to the presence of the radiation in the air. I could see why previous attempts were so limited in success. Such a large facility required a large amount of time to search and with radiation like this most ponies could only do so for a couple of hours. For me? I had two or three days with my supplies before I needed to leave. Now where was that radiation coming from?

The rate of clicks from my pipbuck was increasing faster than I expected. Something told me I had forgotten how density changes with distance in a three-dimensional volume, which Sil could explain to me if she was here. Regardless, unless the radiation was lower in the buildings this was going to start eating up my anti-radiation supplies, even factoring in my mutations.

“Okay, so it’s far too hot for most ponies to stay long and anyone here will probably hoof it at seeing someone else show up.” I rationalized to myself as I trotted towards the Outpatient building.

One thing I did notice was that many windows were still intact; cracked but not gone, a curious trend I was now realizing in the more important buildings throughout the city. This made two ministry buildings and several newer ones I had seen. It must have been due to a difference in materials used in the periods when the buildings were built.

The front door for Outpatient lay open, the metal frame forced inward long ago. I doubted it would ever close. I quickly scanned the lobby and realized, like the Ministry of Image, that the lobby was cavernous. Here though there was a practical forest and this time none of the plants were fake based on the moisture in the air, the damage on the leaves, and how the air tasted.

This would take some getting used to. I didn’t hear the sounds of an HVAC system at least which would make hearing things on other floors easier, at least in this building.

I stared back at the gnarled and twisted plant life. They weren’t exactly textbook examples but most were well-preserved samples of pre-war plant life, with few mutations.

I trotted to the front desk to inspect the terminal even as my pipbuck continued to alert me to the everpresent radiation. Sadly, the terminal was well and truly shot, which, given the signs of corrosion on the outside of it I would have placed my bet on water damage. There was little doubt the atrium’s shattered glass ceiling was the cause of it, the lichen on the walls a good indicator of how wet the building tended to stay.

I rummaged around in the front desk’s drawers and found a still working respirator. That worried me. While I would have understood a medical mask, was there something pre-war that had happened that required ponies at the front desk to have a respirator? Let’s find answers later when I have access to notes or a database.

For now though, I put the respirator on; there was bound to be black mold here, if not worse things in the air including one less vector for radiation. I paused after slipping it over my muzzle, breathing deep to get used to the more restricted airflow. Why was this still here? I wondered then shrugged. Ponies probably just expected the front desk to already be looted in the first place and never checked, but that seemed silly given everything else seemed cleared out.

I looked around the lobby and kept clear of the plants. While they were mostly normal, I didn’t want to disturb whatever lived within this secluded grove, not wanting to risk something venomous or worse created by time and radiation.

Nope, I’m not thinking about pony-eating plants with grasping tentacles.

I spotted elevators amongst the plant life, looking like platforms in glass tubes. Those would be useless to me, their bases lost to the overgrowth.

More stairs then and more working on getting a sick pair of legs and flanks that nopony can ignore. Not that I needed more attention than I was getting from Sil. I thought in an attempt to encourage myself. Plus it’s only six floors for this building? Not bad.

Then it hit me. This was one building, a general practitioner building from the front, not emergency or urgent care. Not long-term care, or research, this was just where ponies came for their standard medical care, probably with some administrative stuff higher. I shook my mane and pushed on, moving up a stairwell that went higher.

The second floor wasn’t much better than the first; debris, dust, more overgrown flora, waiting room chairs toppled over, the works.

The radiation levels also hadn’t dropped, something I had expected to drop a little by going up a good twelve feet which was a bit worrying. I pushed myself to go faster, realizing I was on a tighter clock than I had thought. I need to find what the source of the radiation is. Once I do, hopefully, I’ll know where the worst of the radiation is going to be.

The second floor didn’t take long to clear considering it was long looted of medical supplies. However, there were plentiful medical tools, which was nice. If I was going to have a medical suite in my base of operations I would need them.

The radiation levels on the third floor was a bit higher, which I suspected came from the big open side of the atrium and made me wonder if somehow the plants were the ones emitting the radiation. Here I started to find where ponies had failed to fully pick through the building, either from running out of time or filling up their bags. I started finding supplies to treat mundane scrapes and bruises alongside healing bandages, doctor bags, first aid kits, and healing potions.

Many locked doors as well, most of which were pretty hard to pick. Sadly behind the secure doors I mostly found useless items like expired vaccines and other medical equipment like empty needles and towels. Oh! But one closet did contain painkillers and some Buck, which I grabbed. While not the super strong stuff it was not as addictive and better than nothing.

The fourth floor looked to be more of the same; a few more bottles of buck and painkillers, some antibiotics which looked to be expired but I snatched them all the same.

The fifth floor was almost pristine. The transition was almost stark to me and made me slow my pace, though I found, to my dismay, nothing of real importance, at least in terms of what I could take with me. The floor was a mix of offices, x-ray machines, and other machines to emulate what a unicorn could do with her horn. Smart, meant no pony had to wait for a unicorn who knew a certain spell to be free.

Terminals up here were locked and probing them left me with little more than medical data, logs looked to have been purged or require a personal login and not a root admin login. Higher security than I had expected for a hospital but it made a small part of me happy to see.

The final floor looked to be offices for the doctors who worked in this building. Going through desks and offices left me with a few Mint-als and some of the stronger, addictive painkillers. The radiation up here was also markedly worse than on the ground floor. Radiation must be released from something above. Damn, that is going to make it hard as fuck to loot things.

I took a break then to have a snack and some water while I looked at a map of the facility. The stairwell I came up with connected to a basement that led to the other buildings. According to what I was looking at, the buildings were connected in sequence of ER, Long Term Care and Urgent care by sky bridges. Long Term Care seemed to be the largest of them at around fifteen stories, even sporting the now darkened Ministry’s symbol on it, while ER and Urgent were both nine-story buildings.

Considering ER was the furthest from me the plan was to take the passage at the bottom of the stairwell to Urgent Care, then Long term and then on to ER. From there drop off the stuff I wanted to keep at my base then take the rest to Pioneer to give my report.

“Huh, I am probably going to need to write out what I find here.” I shuddered remembering that Pioneer was built next to the Ministry of Morale and having heard the rumors of less fun things there from the other guests at breakfast the other day. The idea of having memories ripped from your head, what the hell did a ministry focused on keeping ponies happy have to do with that? That seemed more of a thing for the Ministry of Peace, removing painful memories, not copying them. No wonder the Elements abandoned us and their Bearers.

I shoved the thoughts out of my head and politely deposited my snack wrapper in a waste bin before heading back down the stairwell. I flicked my EFS back on and saw no bars on it. No friendlies, no hostiles, just how I liked it.

The bottom of the stairs ended in a dark hallway, which didn’t surprise me. I was thankful for the open-air design of the Atrium that at least let some natural light in. Now though I needed to switch on my pipbuck light as I trotted into the gloom that led to Urgent Care.

My hoofsteps echoed ahead and behind me as I walked, my pipbuck light only illuminating what felt like a few feet around me. It wasn’t long before I felt myself adrift in an abyss where only the green spotlight around me existed. Thick pipes along the ceiling to my left, small pipes along the floor to my right, brackets that held them every twenty feet… If not for the readout of time in my vision I would have thought I had been lost in some horrific void between spaces.

My hoofsteps sounded off and I felt myself fidget then flick my ears, my own sounds somehow feeling wrong. My entire body felt off but my pipbuck said I was getting minimal radiation exposure. I shook my mane and pushed to get to the end a bit faster, thoroughly unnerved.

A door suddenly showed up in front of me and my heart stopped for a moment out of surprise. Relief washed over me as I approached it and I felt all the stress in my back drain when I tried the handle on the door and it swung open.

“Thank the Sisters.” I thanked the doorway.

I didn’t think I had a fear of small places, not after growing up in Saint Clover but that felt like something else. Like something had reached out and I had barely managed to elude whatever had been down there. That was a terrifying concept, spaces that could just snatch a pony away from reality. I shook my head to get the thoughts out of it.

I spared a glance at the tunnel and swore I saw claw marks on the walls and my hoofprints tracked over by something else’s for half a second. What the fuck? Then the moment passed and my vision corrected itself, leaving me alone fighting my brain’s paranoia

Quickly ascending the stairs, my pipbuck started to click angrily again as radiation picked back up. Interesting. The passage seemed to be deep enough that it kept out surface radiation.

I carefully peek through the door leading into Urgent Care’s lobby and saw red on my EFS. That was a bad start. I looked around for movement and saw it: what looked like a mix of mechanized stretchers and floating spiders, lightly armored and seemingly equipped to assist in dealing with medical tasks. These ‘robostretchers’ were probably altered from standard roboponies, turning their backs into a bed.

I was wondering if I could take one with me to carry loot when one suddenly turned towards me.

“Patients aren’t allowed outside of their rooms, Miss -bzzt- Grimoire.” A polite tinny robotic voice echoed out across the lobby.

Okay, that's totally not creepy. Why the fuck does that robot know my name? I haven't said it, or interacted with any tech.

Before I could finish my thought, I felt a dart slam into my chest. Looking down, I saw that it was full of some fluid that was draining into the kevlar behind the ceramic plates. Whatever it was, it was viscous.

It also was a good sign for me to get going again.

For what it was worth the Robopony seemed to glare at me as if annoyed that its trick had failed.
"So I think that counts as poor bedside manners?" I joked before moving to run.

The slower Robopony seemed to be equipped with the syringe launcher and grasping mechanical tentacles. The weird Spiderbot that was now hovering towards me instead had its graspers, surgical implements, medical scanners, and some kind of spiked appendages whirring to life.

Why did they give medical robots weapons?

Unfortunately, that question would remain unanswered for only the Princesses knew how long. My attempt to flee triggered the Spider’s spikes to launch out and jab into my neck.

"What the-" Was all I managed before electricity coursed through me and robbed me of my autonomy.

Another dart hit me, this time in the side of my neck. Mercifully the electricity stopped then and I crumpled to the floor, gasping as my body twitched. As I struggled to move, I noticed my EFS was gone and no amount of willing it back made it return, likely shorted from the electrical shock.

"Thank you for your compliance Ms. Grimoire." The Spiderbot cheerfully chimed.

The cheerfulness of it made me desire to stomp the fucker into a chromium pancake. Unfortunately, my body still refused to work and seemed to be weakening, some kind of sedative if I had to guess as my heart pounding made it spread faster.

I didn’t lay there for long as the machines quickly collected me and ferried me off to a dark room, sliding me off the back of the extended robopony and onto a bed. At this point, the spikes and syringe were removed.

I whimpered, struggling to not fall asleep in the irradiated hospital for who knew how long.

-=O=-

I woke up when I heard my EFS go off. I blearily opened my eyes to see a stylized version of myself waking up, again.

Right, that notification. Yes, I am somehow well-rested by a tranquilizer induced sleep, ignoring the headache or how it still hurts from being electrocuted. Ugh did the pipbuck reboot itself? Actually, that would make some sense.

I stopped my mental grousing and scanned my surroundings. The room I was in was dark and checking my EFS showed a lot of green bars which, given that they were overlapping, I couldn’t get a good count of. Given my prior encounter, likely more robots, currently non-hostile.

Electricity would be the best option for neutralization. Unfortunately, that meant magic. Not the quietest method though a fair bit quieter than a forty-four caliber rifle. I mean sure my nine millimeter could do the job in theory but I wanted to minimize the window of retaliation.

At least the bed felt nice, clean, safe, and warm. The room itself though was dark, quiet, and still. Given how long I had been awake with my eyes open I knew that there weren't any sources of light, even from the outside. I instinctively went to fill my horn with magic and felt something stop it. I gasped for air and instead turned on my pipbuck light, finally bathing the small examination room in green light.

I pulled the sheet off of myself, thankful that I wasn’t restrained despite my non-compliance. I don’t want to think about how many scav’s got that fate. I sighed. Oh why hadn’t I studied illusion magic, it would be handy right about now.

The thought of being tied down to a bed made me wince as I tried to stand, the feeling that my body was a lot more wrong than I had previously thought suddenly washing over me. My chin smacked into the side of the bed frame and I saw white dots in my vision spiraling.

Fuck.

My eyes watered and I felt exhaustion grip me, fighting the burning bile clawing at my throat. Fumbling for something to eat or drink, I realized my ability to move properly was completely shot.

With a grunt I tried to move myself back onto the bed while demanding my pipbuck tell me what was going on. I winced, staring at the warning that whatever I had been injected with contained both hallucinogenic and tranquilizing properties. Given what I understood of medicine, the only thing that made sense was that the tranquilizer had degraded into a hallucinogenic.

Trying to stay in the here and now failed as pain ran through me then, ran through where I kept getting hurt and hit.

Then I heard the ocean, smelled it, and felt like I was suddenly deep underwater as darkness and silence took me. The radiation clicks grew more drawn out, longer, quieter, as if I was sinking away from them and time itself was distorting.

-=O=-

“Hey Moonlight,” Emil greeted me, standing over me.

The gryphon rooster stood over me, looking down at me with striking brown eyes and a body that was a mix of a red-tailed hawk and mountain lion.

I blinked and flexed my talons as I stood up from the floor of Saint Clover. “The hell did you put in that drink?” I asked him as he offered me his claw to pull myself up with.

“Well, this will make the year a lot easier; no having to carry you or slowly walk in the open to scout things out.” He said to himself before explaining. “You did say you’d love to fly with your own wings, and I just so happened to have the solution. Though I expected the process to take longer, I still managed to modify your barding for those fantastic new wings of yours, even if they look like pigeon wings.”

I blinked then looked myself over. What the fuck?

“We’ll also need to give you a more gryphon-like name.” He mused as I took his claw and got up. “Ah, I know a good one, Rayna.”

This made me cock my head at him. “Well, I guess that is better than no cover name.”

He chuckled. “Your head tilts are adorable.”

And that made me flush.

-=O=-

With a groan, I pushed myself up. For a moment, I thought I was back in the hospital bed but I felt waves rolling around and over me. Then I opened my eyes.

The world was black with its edges defined by gold. The edges of the waves sparkled and traced with the selfsame gold. I was lying on some beach, somewhere. Rocks poked through the pitch-black water, their shapes looked like what I had seen of coral in books. Slowly my eyes drifted to the horizon and for a moment I couldn’t process it.

The ‘moon’ was half the size of the horizon itself but it looked to be made of true darkness, a shimmering golden wind flowing around it, spiraling into its surface at the edges.

I was in awe and terrified. Where am I? What is this? I tried to stand again but my body refused to work, as if held down. Then I stared down at myself and found a good bit of it under the surface of the water.

-=O=-

The clicks of radiation came back to me as I gasped for air. EFS popped up and showed my heart rate was elevated, respiration was low, and I was very much still poisoned. Thankfully the slow rate the radiation was building inside me wasn’t going to kill me this year but whatever I was injected with was very much not doing me any favors.

Even in the extremely dim light behind the blackout curtains, my eyes stung from the illumination from the EFS itself. My mind struggled to parse what I had just seen.

Then I gasped as I felt pain in my gut again. Looking down, I saw the scars from my recent impalement, an ache from the shots I had taken lingering in my mind, the sensitivity to reality jacked up to eleven. I wanted to pass out again.

-=O=-

The ocean lapping at me was what I felt first, then a deep seeping cold in my stomach. I felt the thump of a landing and managed to open my eyes. Emil was terrified, his claws pressing into my stomach. There was blood on him. His or mine? I couldn’t tell.

“Go, we don’t have any healing potions.” I croaked at him, putting a talon on his chest.

He fumbled with his words, working up the courage to do something useful.

“Please, take them with you, let my family know, and don’t forget the map,” I told him, a smile creeping weakly across my beak.

His tears slipped free before he gave me his revolver, a three-fifty-seven. “I wish I could do more, I really do, Moonlight.”

“What happened to using a gryphon name for me?” I teased as I weakly grasped the pistol. “Go, before they get you as well. Let’s not let everything we did go to waste, alright?”

He nodded and I watched him leap into the air. I heard a shot then and, when he didn’t fall out of the air, traced it back to its shooter and placed a round into the fucker’s skull. At least I wouldn’t die unavenged.

-=O=-

I was crying, remembering the year I blocked out. Remembering the pain of why Winter and I couldn’t have foals, a pain I knew the source of for so long but refused to face. That my desires were to never be fulfilled, that all I had left was fulfilling the desires of others. Everything I had thought I would be growing up had long been stripped from me.

“I don’t want to be here right now.” I whimpered. “I don’t want to think about this anymore.”

The desire to curl up into a ball took over as I struggled to keep memories out of my head, that even that strange beach overlooking a black sun about to devour the world was preferable.

It didn’t happen and my mind slipped away again, the hallucinogenic forcing me to relive things I wanted to forever forget.

-=O=-

Confusion of an unknown source racked me as I woke up alive in a hospital bed, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. My body ached and a quick glance down showed that my lower half was heavily bandaged. There was also a tag on my right claw with some kind of barcode upon it. With no strength to do more, I just lay there, hoping weakly that Emil was safe, as was our clutch.

As I dozed on and off, a unicorn mare eventually entered my room, her coat white, mane red.

“Oh, our mysterious bird is awake.” She said.

“Rayna,” I replied, a year of being a gryphon had made me default to this new given name.

“Rayna, what a nice and very not-pony name.” She giggled. “I will be your attending physician, call me Brightheart.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Brightheart,” I replied, trying my hardest to be enthusiastic but the energy wasn’t there.

“Well, we weren’t certain we still had you when we found you. Few expected you to survive.” She informed me simply. “Honestly, we’re still surprised you recovered but you seemed to do better when we got you back to Seaddle.”

Back in this damn city.

“You look unhappy.” She said, and I didn’t like that I was being easy to read.

“I’m sorry, just, last time I was here I caught a tail that shot me,” I replied. “Ugh, speaking of which, the fuck was I shot with and what’s the damage?”

She frowned, either at the prognosis or, more likely, my cursing. Weirdo.

“You took a thirty-ought-six round to your… Okay you’re not a medical professional.” She sighed. “You caught a round to your gut. We saved what we could but it obliterated your reproductive organs.”

A twisting pain filled me where the uncomfortable cold numbness sat between my hind legs.

“I… how am I not dead?” I asked. I knew enough that that should have made me bleed out in minutes, if not go septic.

“We’re… not certain? We removed some kind of foam that was stuffed in your gut and when an emergency healing potion was used on you, well, your body regrew using that foam as raw materials. Never seen anything like it.” She replied, almost sounding impressed. “Most organs regrew with significant scar tissue but, even if you could afford it, I don’t think anyone could fix it all…”

I just got sterilized by high-velocity lead poisoning that should have been lethal.

She stood there for a minute before leaving as I curled up and cried.

-=O=-

Fuck this, no, I’m not slipping into this again. I buried this hell for a reason.

I forced myself upright and everything went spinning. With a gasp, I was on the floor again. I growled and slowly got onto all four hooves, even if everything continued to be wobbly. I glared at the EFS, which helpfully told me two hours had passed, while trying to parse where threats were. Unfortunately it lacked enough information on the relative height of a sensor return so all I could tell was that there were non-hostiles, just not whether they were on my floor or not.

Well, back on my talons agai--

I paused and looked at my hooves, groaning as my brain struggled to parse what I was.

Yeah, that’s not going to suck at all.

Magic failed me and I touched my horn to find a ring on it, one I was decidedly unhappy to be familiar with. I groaned. Of course, that’s what the spiderbot did. Okay, first things first, I need to restore my magic.

I looked around the room and found a mirror. With the light from my pipbuck, I managed to spot the magic suppression ring on my horn but, frustratingly, not a single quick release mechanism. Grabbing it with my hooves and pulling didn’t do anything but make my eyes water.

“Well, this is a minor problem.” I muttered to myself, my eyes drifting down. I briefly wondered why the robots had left my equipment intact before pulling out my knife, trying my best to try and pry it off. I whimpered again as I nicked myself. “Fucking damn it! Really could do with those talons right now.”

It eventually did give as, while trying to twist the ring, it ripped right off, eliciting a scream. I quickly dropped it on the table in front of me and felt blood run down my forehead from where a bit of coat had come off with the adhesive that had held the ring on.

“Ugh, damn it,” I swore as I looked down at the ring and then at my bloodied reflection in the mirror. I briefly lit my injured horn and winced a little from the effort.

The nicks on my horn made it hurt to use but grit my teeth and healed myself up. I checked myself in the mirror and, satisfied with the results, moved to sweep the ring into my saddlebag. It was always good to have a way to shut down a fellow unicorn.

Now came the next step, leaving the room, a prospect that I suspected would result in me being strapped down to a bed next time I was caught. This would likely mean a horrible, slow death even with my mutation given I’d have no ability to escape and no ability to treat my radiation.

That’s not happening.

I tested the door to find it was unlocked.

Yay.

Then my face kissed the ground again as my senses got fucky. I had gotten maybe five minutes of functionality before whatever was in me decided it was time to go back to trauma detention.

-=O=-

My eyes focused on the black hole ahead of me as the waves lapped at me, the water washing over my wings, my talons, and my beak. I tried to push myself up but started sinking instead, my own feet pressing against my body inversely pushing me under as if the water surface was a mirror. A low howl filled my ears.

-=O=-

I gasped for air and writhed as a pony stepped back from my view, a stethoscope and vials of my blood held in her magic. Somehow I knew there were reasons for this and relaxed, sinking into the bed as I lay on my side. My right wing slid off the bed and its impressive span meant it splayed out on the floor. My tail meanwhile hung off the foot of the bed as a pillow was moved between my right foreleg and head so I could rest.

My body was forever changed by this trip, becoming a gryphon being the first of those.

A blink and I was flying with Emil, having just left Saint Clover, the jarring transition making me pause for a moment before my overlapping persona sank back into the mind of the me who had once experienced this.

“Hey, Rayna, you alright?” Emil asked, gliding in closer to me.

“Sorry, still getting used to being a different species.” I admitted. “Like I get that our towns cooperate on this every, what, five years, but I never heard about one of ours being made a gryphon for the whole recon duty.”

He laughed at that. “Usually no but I’ll admit I’ve been looking for a mate, and over the past month we connected really well while I was busy figuring out who would join me.”

I cocked my head at him but kept my focus on the world around us as I instinctively locked my wings to glide.

“Still cute how you do that. Anyway, it was down to you or that zebra, Silaha?” He explained and I gave him a nod. Sil was my foalhood friend and basically cousin with how we had been raised together. “Well you and I connected better. Plus you mentioned wanting to fly, and well, you seemed down for being a couple.”

He wasn’t wrong. Unlike other flings I had in the past, he felt more right even if he wasn’t someone of my birth species. He made my heart flutter unlike anyone else had before.

But becoming a gryphon was a whole different story, though it simplified my questions on how we would satisfy my desire to have a family; two gryphons would have gryphons, easy. Of course that would have to wait until the end of this stint, giving us plenty of time to get close and decide if that was what we wanted.

“Now there are some ground rules for flight.” Emil went on. “First, stay well below the clouds. As much as you want to see the sky above, the Enclave are also up there.”

“Who the fuck are the Enclave?” I asked, making him laugh.

“Okay that’s simple, the remnants of the Equestrian military within the Pegasi population who have gone full nutjob.” He explained. “It is a full-on military dictatorship up there and they do not like anyone who isn’t Enclave. And if you’re not a pony with wings? They won’t even let you fall to your death.”

“Okay then, I guess going out to the ocean is the only option to see the sky.” I sighed. “Which, yes, is how I’ve seen it before.”

“Pretty much. Gryphons and the pegasi up top are not on good terms due to a difference in opinion in how many of the roosts we built during and after the war actually belonged to us and not the so-called Equestrian Government.” He continued. “Suffice to say, there was a war and we lost so we’re stuck on the other side of the clouds.”

That gave me some painful new insight into gryphon politics. “Understood, avoiding the clouds as much as we can.”

“Good girl.” He teased and I blinked at the praise.

“That’s a good girl.” Brightheart consoled me as she finished looking over me. I nodded. A few places still hurt but I was mostly healed, not that I wanted to really exist.

“Why are you helping me if I have no money?” I asked.

“Well, because you’re good practice. We need to know how to take care of creatures other than ponies.” She answered and I could tell she was genuine. “While yes we mostly care for other unicorns there are plenty of others in the wasteland and everyone needs help.”

“Then… when can I leave?” I asked again. It had been a month already.

She fidgeted at that question. “I… I don’t get to make that call.”

My feathers bristled as I glared at her, my talons gripping the edge of the bed in frustration.

“Rayna, there is no need for that, I’ll go ask, but you’re also a bit of a curiosity.” She explained. “I mean, how you healed was amazing, we all feared the worst.”

Why do you care? You just admitted unicorns take priority so what was another dead bird?

“And… your genetics came back weird.” She went on. “We’re trying to document all creatures we come across to better understand where we’ve all come from.”

That made me cock my head.

“Oh so you’re not familiar?” She asked.

“I’m uncertain what you mean.” I answered. Genetics was… not a topic I knew that well. All I knew were the broadest strokes, that it was what made you physically you and were a host of traits passed on from parents to children.

“You… well your family recently had ponies in it. If I didn’t know better, I would say your parents were both unicorns but you’re, well, a gryphon.” She explained. “Beyond that, there is just a general weirdness that we have yet to figure out, likely related to gryphon physiology.”

Ah, great, good thing they don’t know my real name. Fuck I need to get out of here, now.

“Your expression changed, what is it?”

“I… don’t like being a test subject. I would like my stuff back and to leave,” I explained.

She backed away as I looked at her like a cat, my tail flicking in annoyance.

“I won’t hurt anyone, I just want my stuff and to be shown to the door.” I continued. “Study my blood all you want but I’m done here.”

-=O=-

The first thing I saw was the bloody ring on the floor as I squirmed to get up again. This time my EFS told me it had been another hour and my body was not happy with the position I had laid in for that entire time. My brain felt wrong on many levels as I sat up, flexing my nonexistent talons. The state of my brain approached scrambled as I checked for my wings and scowled before fishing for Emil’s revolver only to find my silenced pistol.

“This shit is fucking with my head far too heavily.” I sighed as my magic formed into talons over my hooves. Instinctively, I held my pistol like a gryphon would have. “That’s… I used to do this.”

The memories this shitty trip had returned to me were unwelcome but also made me feel more whole. I really needed to apologize to Winter and Ocean after this. It wasn’t their fault Winter couldn’t give me a foal. I had blocked so much out, that I didn’t even remember how I stopped being a gryphon or how I got back to Saint Clover.

Then the world wobbled and I threw up, gasping as another round of pain washed over me before evening out. I forced out a growl and had a magical talon slash at the door, popping the handle off. I felt all kinds of wrong but I needed to move before any more undesired trips down memory lane.

With my newfound freedom, I pondered where to go next as my pipbuck light illuminated the dark interior of the hospital hallway. What safe places would I as a ‘patient’ be allowed to be? Safety likely lay within other patient rooms as the machines here were set to knock us out and stuff us in them. I doubted they checked on us after that.

Us? I am pretty certain nobody else was alive here, at least not without being a ghoul.

I sighed as the passive markers in EFS stared back at me in my vision, inviting my curiosity.

There wasn’t much I could do honestly. Anyone or anything trapped like I was, was likely long dead or drugged out of their gourd and thus impossible to move. I turned my mind to the task at hand and looked up and down the hall. I couldn’t see anything moving but I did spot a bathroom labeled by a sign that hung from the ceiling.

Good, a place to hide. Given there weren’t any facilities in my room I wouldn’t be surprised if the robots considered it a safe space. I snorted at the term. Relative with the rads ticking away anyway. Would I die? Fuck how exactly was my body really reacting to all this radiation? Whatever, the upside is that the ‘resistance’ meant that I was taking way less compared to the normal person. I might need to pop the RadSafe or RadAway soon regardless.

Ugh, this is not going as planned. Focus Moony, task at hoof.

Time was a factor but thankfully a smaller one for me so it was safe to take it slow for now. Mental math gave me two days roughly at this exposure rate. To keep a small profile, I crouched down and slid the door nice and wide. With the door cleanly out of the way I slipped out into the hall and crept down the hall.

So long as I don’t slip into that drug-fueled hell I should be fine. EFS showed I was still poisoned but the levels showed it was significantly lower which is why I just felt hungover.

Toggling through the settings in the pipbuck EFS, I forced it and the auto mapper to stay up in my vision. Tracking threats and having an updated map was a very nice combination to have.

I need to talk to Sil about making the tracking work with that automapper, or at least a general distance and direction. The weird system this has is useless if multiple targets were along the same vector.

At the moment my options for escape were a stairwell along with an elevator shaft. The lobby below me likely still had the robots that knocked me out and I definitely didn’t want to deal with them.

Prying on other patient doors showed me a variety of scenes. A note of sorrow filled me when I saw the beds containing skeletons, my knowledge telling me these were pre-War patients, caught here when the bombs had fallen. They died coming here for help they never got. It hurt the pony in me that had been trained as a medic.

It hadn’t been safe in the hours and weeks after the bombs. The black rain, the radioactive snow, it would have been too hot to be outside. Here at least there would have been a chance with enough ways to purge radiation but the abnormal levels of radiation probably threw a wrench in that.

While most bodies had been clad in wartime dresses and suits, I saw a small number of pony skeletons in a mix of rain slicker and police riot gear which I liberated. Other ‘patients’, I realized, weren't pre-war and these wore barding that was more survivalistic in nature.

There was also some office space, likely for the nurses and technicians, but nothing that pointed to a medical supply room. After taking stock of my supplies, I proceed up the stairwell to the next floor.

“Patient.” I started and quickly faced a wandering robot just past the door. An electrical buzzing filled the air as it paused, searching for a name. “Moonlight Grimoire, your room is not on this floor. Please return to your floor for your safety until the lockdown is over.”

“I need a nurse,” I stated in the hopes that it would override its protocol and start looking for a nurse.

A brief electrical buzz filled the air again. “Your request has been filled, a nurse will be sent to your room when one is available. Now please return to your room and wait.”

I took a few more steps into the hallway and could see the floating spiderbot as well as a few open patient rooms around it. I couldn’t distract the damn thing, it had three eyestalks that covered every direction.

Choice time, fight or flight.

I focused my magic into an electrical arcane blast and unleashed it onto the spiderbot.

“Ms. Grimoire-” Was all it got out before it fell to the ground, deactivated.

My magic reached out as two disembodied talons, which made me flounder for a split second before I swiftly dragged the remains of the robot into an empty room. I quietly shut the door behind me and leaned against it while standing on my hind legs, panting as I waited to see if any EFS markers changed colors.

Thankfully no changes materialized, which made sense given this one hadn’t turned red before I took it out. I had no idea how long it would be out of commission so I started to pull the darn thing apart to make sure it stayed down.

The poor thing was fried, the better part of two centuries of work without maintenance had done a number on it. A few undamaged talismans were still of use at least. Though I didn’t have a way to make use of them for now, I had an idea to integrate the hover charm as a way to negate some weight in my packs. Aside from that, its darts were still good and I even found a small reservoir of healing potion, which I drained into a few empty potion bottles.

“Okay, well, talk about a restock.” I cheered to myself as I scooted the spiderbot to the side and paused to think about my situation.

The spiderbots, or as my pipbuck called them “Nurse Healy”, (Celestia, who named it that?) were a good source of resources but I needed more than healing potions. I also was in a good situation where the place didn’t seem to tag me immediately as hostile which meant if I just acted fast enough I could make it through this. I spared a glance out the small window at the door and caught sight of a floor map on the opposite wall.

“Progress,” I muttered as I studied the map more trying to divine where to go next. “Okay, those three rooms down the hall past the office area look to be different. Might be something useful there.”

I slowly swung the door back open with my telekinesis, which weirdly now looked like ghostly claws even if my horn still glowed from the effort. Looking up and down the hallway on either side revealed nothing out of the ordinary and I breathed a sigh of relief. Deciding I needed a way to orient myself in the dark, I then grabbed a broken panel from the Nurse Healy and cast a light spell on it before placing the softly glowing metal right next to the stairwell exit.

Wish I had a way to hide my horn glow though. Duh, that’s why so many unicorns wear hats! Shoot, why didn’t I think of that? I need a spiffy hat. Okay, that’s on the list for when I get back to Pioneer.

With that sorted, I banished the telekinesis talons, turned off my pipbuck light and started down the hall, feeling my way with my hooves. Having EFS up kept me a bit more relaxed as I at least had some measure of the layout. Thankfully the hall posed no challenge even if it did take far longer to maneuver than I would have liked.

Maybe Sil could make the EFS do a weak night vision spell so I could just see the edges of things. Kinda like… that blackhole sun beach… thing. What the fuck was that? Whatever, maybe that was the weird stuff Princess Luna saw in the space between dreams, assuming that was how things worked.

Yellow-pink intertwined light filtered through some ancient, partially closed blinds. Electric colored lights. I got to the window and sighed as I looked outside, seeing stray lights flicker to life as dusk settled over the city. Amazingly, centuries later, between war, weather and ponies being ponies, some of this district’s underground power grid still survived.

Wait, that meant something was powering the city. How and where? Pioneer also had power but I had assumed it was just something local. What if the grid was mostly okay? Interesting something to work on later. Huh, would you look at that; the yellow on the Ministry of Peace sign still worked, though the two of the three butterflies have burned out.

What did worry me was that while the floor I was on had no power, the main hospital and the lower floors of this building did. Something above me was causing circuits to fail.

Banishing the distractions, I started combing my surroundings in earnest before finding something very off about this floor; the staff areas had no bodies, only the patient rooms. If non-employees were shoved in patient rooms where were the staff? It nagged at me though. Where were the nurses, the doctors? Had they tried to leave to get help? Ugh, questions for a better time.

“Ma'am, please return to your-” I cut the robot that had appeared as if from thin air off with another blast of lightning, the blue light bathing the room I had entered. I panted in panic before nausea and a familiar pinprick hit me.

“Damn it, stupid tranquilizers.” I swore as I pulled a tranquilizer dart out of my neck, pushing onward urgently and using a wall to support myself. It would take a bit for the drug to take full effect so I had to hurry.

The closest room had nothing of use in it save for a large X-ray machine. The next was a bit more interesting since it seemed to store a limited supply of pharmaceuticals. I doubted many were good this long past the expiration date but there might be some that got stronger with time.

Unfortunately, there was another spiderbot in here.

“Excuse me ma’am only-” I cut it off with another spell, the strain making me fall onto my barrel as my hooves went out from under me.

“Damn it, come on Moony, get back on your hooves. There’s got to be an antidote in here.” I encouraged myself.

There was a terminal in here, hopefully with the information I needed, but just as I turned to close the door I let out a gasp and slipped again. I had hoped my liver would have processed the tranquilizer by now but I guess not.

Damn it.

I focused on the door, barely shutting and engaging its lock with the glowing talons of my telekinesis before the room blurred and my hind legs failed to carry their share of the load. I turned my head--

Mistake.

I was on the floor now, shaking like a leaf in a storm. I closed my eyes and just let it happen, let my body tremble and quake as I struggled to figure out what this was. I only had two doses of tranquilizer, there was no way this could be withdrawal already? No this is my body trying to fight it way too hard. Fuck.

It hurt as my muscles contorted and twitched on their own, almost like one giant spasm in every muscle I had been using since I got up. I tried to whimper but could only cry. It would be okay, I told myself, there wasn’t anything to fear. Not yet anyway. It was only a problem if it didn’t stop on its own.

My muscles burned when they finally fell under my control again. I was exhausted, physically and mentally. Not only was I exhausted on all fronts, I now felt like I had the hardest workout in my life. I slowly opened my eyes and found I could finally move. Instead of trying to push on I just put my foreleg under my head and let myself drift off as the chemicals took hold.

I just lay there on the cool tiles. Rest was the only option, as much as I hated sticking around somewhere as hot as this longer than I had to.

Okay so sleeping in an irradiated hospital, twice, may not be the best idea but with no way to move all I can do is sleep it off.

So I slept. It wasn’t going to be restful but at least it wasn’t chemically induced.It was also for the most part safe.

The robots don’t seem to patrol this area and, even if they did, I took out the one that was on duty for this room. The radiation here also wasn’t too bad and, Tartarus, it even feels like a slow healing potion was working on me instead of eating away my strength. Could be worse. Likely will be tomorrow but that’s future Moonlight’s problem.