FO:E - Tidal Flow

Chapters

Ch. 1
Ch. 2
Ch. 4
Ch. 5
Ch. 3

Ch. 1

(( In case Gdocs is easier for anypony; https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BRJM19WHFodJkFiCyX4m-1g1YW5QQde5NtaktbKOdeU/edit?hl=en_US ))

Odyssey, years in the making,
No faking, the fear
No flaking,
Bow breaking,
Floor shaking,
Clock clicking, ticking,

Blood trickling,
Strange itching,
Now familiar,
Breath on the tongue of a liar,

In her heart there is a fire;
A song in her heart,
Louder than the cry of the crier,
Swifter than the flow of every river,
Yet still she does waver,

Because upon her heart,
There is a stain,
Like the tinkling of the acid rain,
And it causes her a pain,
A pain that is plain,

Plain as the light outside her window pane,
Yet she has never seen the light,
Blinded by her dark blight,
Constantly, she puts up a fight,
On into the night,

Now the question does remain,
Will she see the daylight again,
Through all of her pain,
And clear her heart of that awful, awful stain?

Where I am going, I do not know. Where I am, I have only a semblance of knowing. Where I have been, I have the curse of remembering. When you’ve been through hell, back again, then been dragged back in, fought back out for a second time, and then decided it was a lovely place to live and moved back; you are going to be pretty fucked up.

Once upon a time, not really that long ago, I was a school teacher, and a writer, living in the sparkling steel halls of Stable 33, of course, that all changed, otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you about it. My entire fucked up and overly violent odyssey began on what seemed like a regular day in the halls of Stable 33.

“Curly Cake, it’s your turn.” I called, watching as the sweet little unicorn filly jumped up and came over, demonstrating the few spells that the Overmare actually required the unicorn fillies and colts to learn, three of the four weren’t even spells, just demonstrations of a loose grasp on levitation; putting a ball through hoops and such, and the only actual spell was a simple spell to alight the end of your horn a tad, giving off a bit of light. Supposedly it was because the lights on the lower maintenance levels where broken, and went out at random intervals, and every unicorn in the stable was forced to learn the spell in case they were assigned work down there, or got lost, (as if you could get lost in the Stable.)

She passed, and I called up the next filly, and the next, and then a colt, and then another filly, until I got to the Overmare’s daughter, a filly named Sparkle Swirl. She stepped up when I called her name, demonstrated the levitation easy enough, but when the time came for her to demonstrate the light spell, something happened.

She started nice and easy, a soft glow forming on the tip of her horn like it was suppose to, and then something that wasn’t supposed to happen, happened. A visible arc of electricity sparked across her horn, and then another, and another. A few of the other children backed away in fright, and some of the others got closer out of curiosity.

Sparkle Swirl was standing still, her legs trembling and her eyes screwed shut. The glow on her horn was becoming brighter and brighter, something more akin to the blinding glow of a welder’s torch than the soft light that was supposed to illuminate from her horn. The electricity began arcing off of the horn itself, zapping the air around it, filling the school room with a low hum that was gradually building, the sound making it seem as if the entire room where vibrating.

I called the filly’s name, but she couldn’t have stopped even if she’d wanted to. The magic she had managed to take control of was something not even her mother, the Overmare, the most talented unicorn magician to have graced the halls of Stable 33 in years, (or so her reputation and ego would suggest) could have achieved. I started to push and shove the students out toward the door, my actions seeming slow and sluggish even under the Nirvana-like effects of the adrenaline surging through my veins.

We’d barely made it out the door of the school room when a cranium splitting explosion rocked the entire stable. You could feel the energy of the bang through your bones and vibrating through the floor when it hit, I jumped when it happened, tripping and hitting my head on a wall hard enough that I was seeing stars and my ears where ringing; partly from hitting my head and partly because the bang had metaphorically torn me a new one.

I was shaking, the children were shaking, some of them where crying, though I couldn’t hear it over the ringing in my ears. I remember saying something about going inside to see if she was alright, but I don’t remember hearing myself speak. I turned away from them and opened the door to the school room.

The room was filled with a bit of smoke, and Sparkle Swirl was lying in the middle of a charred circle on the floor. The room itself was a mess, desks where flung over and books and papers where everywhere. Sparkle Swirl’s mane and tail a pair of huge puffs of hair lying on the floor with her in between. I rushed over, putting a hoof to her neck frantically.

“I swear to Celestia if you are fucking dead…” I thought, silently cursing the little filly’s magical talent and my own horrid luck, and then I felt a pulse, noticing her chest rise and fall right afterward.

“Ho-lee shit, she was alive!” By Celestia she’d survived that! I could’ve jumped up and down in glee right then and there.

Rather than letting loose a whoop of glee that I wouldn’t have heard, I wrapped a field of levitation around her as best I could, but unfortunately I was not much of a lifter, so the best I could do was carry her slowly, a few inches off the floor in front of me as I turned and walked back out of the classroom.

A pair of bucks from Stable security had showed up. One was doing his best to get the kids to calm down, but they were fairly shaken, and the other immediately started asking me questions, but I still couldn’t hear anything for shit. I tried to say as much, but I don’t think it came out right, because before I knew what was happening, he was dragging me down the halls, being mutely frustrated at how I managed to trip over everything and nothing, quite literally.

We arrived at the Overmare’s office shortly, just as I began to regain some semblance of hearing in one ear. I could tell that there where voices, and make out hoofsteps, (If vaguely) but I didn’t know what anyone was saying. From my end, everything that everypony was saying sounded like a kind of ‘Wob’ noise, or some variation thereof, and sounded very distant, even though the conversation I was hearing was little more than a step or two away.

“Wobwubwabwobwob,” The Overmare was talking to the security buck that’d dragged me here, “Wobwubwabwabwubwubwob.” The buck shook his head, looked at me, and then looked back at her, shaking his head again.

“Somehow, some way, this is going to be my fault.” I thought sourly, frowning at a tile with a chip in it. I didn’t know how, or why, or when, but this was going to end up pinned on me, because that was just my luck.

I shifted my weight and managed to slide on the Overmare’s office floor, falling flat on my side. Only I could manage to slide hooves over tile, but I wasn’t overly surprised, I was a klutz, and I’d done more astounding things and gotten hurt before, so I couldn’t say this was unusual.

The security buck snickered, sauntering over to help me up. I stood, without his help, shooting him a look for laughing at me, and then I grinned, I’d heard him snicker at me!

I could hear again! Yay!

In about ten seconds flat, I was sitting in a chair in the Overmare’s office, being yelled at.

“Tumble Flow, what in Equestria just happened in my Stable?!” The Overmare was asking, rather unnecessarily loudly, considering I’d only recently regained hearing after quite the traumatic experience, followed promptly by a self-inflicted head injury.

I could hear again! Fuck.

“Well?! What do you have to say for yourself Miss Flow? Do you have any idea what kind of damage that shockwave of energy could’ve caused to the Stable’s systems? Not to mention what could have become of my poor daughter or the other children! Why did you not intervene?!” She went on, but I didn’t hear her. Not that I couldn’t hear her, just that I quit paying attention. The Overmare had not been happy when I’d been appointed to the position of teaching the younger children, partly because that meant I was her daughter’s teacher, and she never approves of anyone having anything to do with that kid except herself or her husband, and also partly because she hated me.

I’d learned to tune her out while she was on these little rants when I was a kid and used to run around with a bunch of older bucks and get into trouble all the time. One of them, Olive, had taught me how to pick a lock with a bobby-pin and a screwdriver, and I’d gotten pretty good at it once upon a time. I recalled a time when the pair of us had broken into this very office to put a bunch of dirt from irrigation in her coffee beans, we hadn’t gotten caught for that one, but I still found it funny that she’d used the entire can of coffee mix and wondered why it tasted so awful and hadn’t once thought to actually look inside.

“What in Equestria am I going to do with you Tumble?” She asked. I’d tuned back in just in time to catch the end of her rant; the things where like clockwork with her, if I’d had a stopwatch a couple of these times, I’m sure that they would’ve matched up perfectly every time.

“I-I’m sure th’ you’ll find-d something.” I stammered, grinning a little. I’d never been a good talker, which is really ironic because I write poetry, and a sure tongue is usually needed to properly read poetry aloud, due to the tongue-twisting nature of a lot of the rhymes, especially the things I tended to write at the time. Needless to say, I could not and cannot read my own work aloud.

“Someday Tumble, someday.” She said grimly, and motioned with a forehoof for me to exit the office, her horn alighting and lifting a pen as she turned back to work.

I walked down the familiar clean halls, off toward the medical clinic.

I found Sparkle Swirl asleep on one of the hospital beds. Somepony had taken the time to brush her mane and tail back into their normal states, and she looked relatively unharmed. There was no point in feeling responsible for what’d happened, but I still did.

None of the medical staff seemed to be on scene, so I just took the liberty of reading her chart myself. She hadn’t been run through any tests yet, though she’d complained of a headache, but apparently she’d been complaining about them for a few days, so that ruled out a concussion. It looked like they were worried about damage to her ear drums; hell, if that was the case, why weren’t I and all of the other children in these hospital beds?

I shook my head, putting Sparkle Swirl’s chart back where I’d found it, turning and walking back out of the clinic, heading back down the hallways and down a flight of stairs to Living Quarters C. I pulled my keycard out of a pocket in my stable barding, and slid it through the reader on my room door. I walked in and closed the door, watching it slide down mechanically, flopping into bed. I fell asleep quickly, tired from the day’s excitement. I also neglected to set my alarm clock.

I awoke to a rather annoying droning noise that I blamed on the events of the previous day that almost certainly damaged my ears, as well as the sound of running water, as if all of the toilets in the bathroom down the hall had been flushed at once, (The pipes ran through the ceiling of my room.) I yawned, and tried to get out of bed slowly, placing a hoof on a stray pillow rather than the tile floor, and slipped, falling out of bed and knocking my head on the base of my nightstand.

I sighed, getting up off the floor carefully, slipping again but catching myself. I was used to falling down all the time, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating. I was all wet from landing on the floor.

“Wait, what the fuck?” Why was the floor wet?

I looked down, and sure as hell, the floor was covered in water up past my hooves, the pillow I’d stepped on was floating. I frowned at the floor, and splashed over to my room’s door, and opened it.

Immediately, the low, annoying droning noise transformed into the loud wail of the emergency siren, closely followed by a wall of water falling into my room, sweeping me off of my hooves and back into my room. Now, I’d never had to swim before, but I’d read books that mentioned it and knew basically how to do it, which was all fine and dandy in theory, however when it came to applying that, I didn’t have the slightest of clues.

Fortunately, I’d had the good sense to suck in a breath before being overtaken by water. I opened my eyes underwater, and then squinted immediately after, regretting the decision. Celestia’s fiery flank; that burned! I could see well enough to make out the door underwater, and kicked toward it, my movements in the water sluggish and clumsy. (Big surprise there)

My lungs burned in protest, I wanted so badly to let go of the breath I was holding, but I knew that if I did, I’d drown, and so I kicked harder against the water flowing into my chambers. Squeezing my eyes shut I kicked and kicked my hooves as hard as I could, my lungs practically screaming at me to let them exhale.

I broke the surface, and promptly bashed my horn into the ceiling of the hallway. Pain like no other flared through my body as I attempted to fight through the pain and tread water for the first time, at the same time. The wailing of the emergency siren was ever-present and even more obnoxious out here, and I barely had room in the hallway for my head to be out of the water.

Slowly, I paddled my way down the hallway, swallowing water and getting it up my nose and coughing and trying desperately not to drown. I made it to the end of the hallway, where it turned to the left, and led up the stairs, I pushed off the wall and clambered onto the stairs, which were still dry for the time being.

I was shaking, adrenaline surging through my veins. I panted, grateful to have solid ground underneath my hooves for the time being, even if I was soaking wet. I was silently grateful that I had never liked to wear my mane long like most other mares I knew; it would be extremely inconvenient right now.

I scrambled up the steps and fell, yet again, getting back up and doing my best as clumsy as I was, to run down the hallways. I noticed all of the rooms on this level had been left open, and where all empty, I galloped past the clinic; that was empty too. How late had I slept in?

I fell up another bunch of stairs, and made my way to the Overmare’s office, the door was locked and nopony answered when I knocked or yelled.

“Where the hell did everypony go?” I wondered, and ran to the security station.
The place was a wreck. Papers and books all over the place, desks thrown over, some of the lockers had been pried open with crowbars, and the rest where just hanging open. Someone had also left a radio on; I heard the emergency broadcast starting over again as came up to it, and I stopped to listen;

“Attention residents of Stable 33, this is your Overmare. The magical shockwave that occurred yesterday in the school wing of the Stable has damaged the water talisman, believed to have caused the widespread flooding throughout most of the lower levels of the stable, including maintenance, agriculture, and Living Quarters C. The Stable’s emergency locks have activated on all of the restrooms, maintenance, and the agriculture chambers, in an attempt to slow the progress of the flooding. All living residents are to report to the Atrium. I repeat; all living residents report to the Atrium immediately.”

Well, fuck.

I went into the back room of the security station, and quickly found what I was looking for; a screwdriver. I also I telekinetically fumbled around in my short mane, quickly finding a single bobby pin; I must’ve fallen asleep without taking them out, but it was still a miracle that it’d stayed in even after I’d been underwater. I grinned at my atypical luck, dashing off in the opposite direction I had been going, back toward the Overmare’s office.

I remembered as a filly, breaking in there with Olive, we’d found slots in the floor, like the floor could move or something, not just the regular lines in a tile floor. With any luck, it’d be open, or I could find a way to open it. If it even opened at all would be a gift from Celestia herself.

I skidded to a stop, too late, and slid right into the door. Ignoring my fumble, I levitated out the screwdriver and bobby-pin. I’d unlocked this door dozens of times this way, there was no way I was going to break the stupid bobby pi- Snap.

Celestia. Fucking. Damn it.

I cursed some more and thwacked the door with a hoof, and then looked back down the hallway, toward the stairs leading to Living Quarters B, thinking about going back and rummaging through someone’s stuff, looking for another bobby pin.

“Fuck it,” I muttered under my breath and jammed the screwdriver into the key-hole, (Thank Celestia the Overmare had the only fucking door in the Stable without a keycard type lock) twisting it as hard as I could and pushing on the door. It didn’t work, but that left me with one option. I turned around and positioned myself like I’d seen the applebuckers do once or twice, and threw a two-hoofed kick at the door.

The almost two-hundred year old wood splintered apart under my hooves, but the door didn’t open. I kicked a few more times, and had kicked a sizeable hole in the door itself. I rolled my eyes, not enjoying jarring my legs smashing this door down. I turned again and after kicking a few more times, I’d made a hole big enough to squeeze through, (Which, admittedly, was a pretty big hole.)

I crouched down and wriggled myself through the hole in the door, and immediately cursed yet again; the floor-door thingy wasn’t open, and I didn’t know if I could get it open, or if it even existed. I might as well try now that I was inside though. I stepped over to the Overmare’s terminal; it was off. I flipped the ‘On’ switch and then was promptly bored as I waited for it to start up. I looked around the Overmare’s office; it was unusually messy, but not like the security station had been, though the three lockers here where also hanging open, their contents missing as well.

I looked back to the terminal; it’d finished booting up, and was now prompting me for a password. I got it on the first guess; Magic. A list of options loaded onto the screen.

>Stable-Tec Orders

>Overmare’s Log

>Stable 33 Population Data

>Stable 33 System Status Information

>Unlock Safe

>Open Passage

Safe? I looked around the room, and sure enough, tucked between another desk and a wall was a safe, nestled nicely in between the wall and the desk, it seemed like it was made to fit right there, which it probably was. I clicked the unlock option, even though below it I spotted what I’d been looking for, my curiosity had gotten the best of me.

I got up from the desk and went over to the safe, telekinetically pulling it open. Inside was a cardboard box with no top, and inside that was a trio of smaller boxes, and a pistol. I pulled the box out and closed the safe, walking back over to the terminal, I downloaded the Overmare’s Log and Stable-Tec data onto my PipBuck for future reading material, (I’d always wanted to know what made this place tick) and finally I clicked the >Open Passage option, and instantly saw the results, along with what I’d been praying was not just a faulty childhood memory.

There was a loud hiss, followed by a creaking sound as the floor literally slid apart, revealing stairs down into a poorly lit room. Levitating the box with me, though I’m not sure why, I made my way carefully down the stairs. The room itself was completely empty, but directly across from the staircase was a button on the wall, identical to the ones used to open the living quarter’s doors, only without a keycard slot.

I crossed the room and pressed the button, I jumped at the resulting second loud hiss, and the wall rose up in front of me. The wall rising revealed that the passageway lead right to the door of Stable 33, and revealed the Overmare, leaning over the controls to the door, flanked by a pair of security ponies, with a hoof-full more security ponies. They all were turned toward me and looked like they were ready to go to war; the guards carried machine guns and the Overmare had a pistol strapped on, all of them were wearing Stable security barding.

“Tumble!” The Overmare called, abandoning the controls and running over to me. I hadn’t even noticed until then, but the siren had shut off when I’d accessed the Overmare’s terminal.

“How in Equestria did you come through there? Are you alright? Did you find any others?” She asked several other questions, but the answer to all of them was me shaking my head no. She didn’t ask about my blatant and rather obvious theft of her possessions any more than I cared to wonder, (at the time) why she’d left them there in the first place.

“Damn it…” She looked down at her hooves for a moment, and then back up, “Looks like we’re all that’s left.”

“W-what th’ hell is guh-going on?” I asked, I’d heard the security announcement, but I’d expected more ponies to be here than this; this was a pittance in comparison to how many ponies were living in the stable. With an emphasis on ‘were’.

“Almost everypony in the Stable was either working downstairs in maintenance or agriculture, and those areas sealed up almost immediately… Almost all of the ponies in the stable have drowned. The security ponies here, Doctor Silver, the two nurses, and the few colts and fillies are all that’s left.” The Overmare looked on the verge of tears for a moment, and I knew she was thinking about her husband who was the manager on the maintenance level, but she composed herself, and went on, “I’ve decided our only hope for survival is to get out of the Stable entirely, which means braving whatever is out there.” She said solemnly, looking toward the huge steel door marked with a yellow 33.

“Tumble,” she said, turning back toward me, “Go and get some security barding, one of the nurses should be taking care of the supplies, and load that gun.” She ordered. So she had noticed I’d made a theft of her belongings; though she didn’t seem to care, for now at least. “We don’t know what’ll be out there, and we need every able body we can get in case the shit hits the fan; well, any more than it already has.” She added, jerking her head toward the door leading into the Atrium.

I did as she asked, and Nurse Sweet Breeze found me some security barding that fit, (It was a Colt’s Medium, which made me blush noticeably in frustration, but grey fur hides it pretty well) and a holster for the gun, as well as a pair of saddlebags, (Also a Colt’s Medium)

“Th-thanks Nurse.” I mumbled, trying to talk and telekinetically roll up the sleeve of the barding up over my PipBuck at the same time. I finished and then fiddled with the straps of the pistol’s holster.

Nurse Sweet Breeze had taken one of the boxes out of the box I’d taken out of the safe; it’d been filled with bullets for the pistol. She’d shown me how to click the bullets into the magazine, and then chamber the first round on into the gun itself, as well as flip the safety switch. How she’d known how to do all that was beyond me, though I expected that one of the security bucks had given her a crash course earlier. She’d also dug around in the supplies and came back up with four more magazines and a couple more boxes of bullets. She and I had filled the magazines and slid them into pockets on the front of the barding that’d apparently been made to hold them.

She just nodded at my thanks, and put the rest of the contents of the box I’d taken, and the other box of bullets, as well as a few healing potions, into my saddlebags. She’d never talked much; I couldn’t expect her to now after all that’d happened.

I thanked her again and then turned toward Nurse Evening Gale, and Doctor Silver, who where tending to the children. I plodded over to them slowly, smiling as all of my little students crowded around me, asking questions and pouring over my new getup.

“Miss Flow, you look like a soldier!”

“Miss Flow, what’s gonna happen now?”

“Miss Flow, are we really leaving the Stable?”

“Miss Flow, where are my mommy and daddy?”

Miss Flow this, Miss Flow that, I loved these little ones and their naivety, it was so heartbreakingly adorable. Soon enough they’d find out their parents where dead, well, save for the few whose parents were present already, and all of their hope and cuteness would just crumble into depression; I know that’s how it was when my parents died when I was just a filly. I sighed, answering their questions as best I could, though carefully dodging around the questions about their parents or what was outside.

“N-now, you’ve ah-all, got-gotta promise me that you’ll b-be good fillies and c-colts, okay? Mi-Iss Tumble has to go help the security p-ponies, okay?” I smiled down at them, feeling on the verge of tears myself as I realized that we all very well could die, depending on what was out there, and that this could be the last time I saw all my little kiddoes alive and well.

“Miss Tumble?” I looked toward the voice; Sparkle Swirl had spoken up, “We want you to have something, so if something bad happens, you don’t forget about us.” Ah shit, now I really did think I was going to cry. Sparkle Swirl floated a notebook out of a cardboard box with her belongings in it.

“We know you write poetry; it’s your cutie mark after all, and you lived in Quarters C, so all of your writing stuff is gone,” Sparkle said, and I almost started crying right there. “So Peachy Keen gave us his notebook, and we signed all our names on one page, so you could still write poetry outside, and you wouldn’t forget about us.” She finished, levitating the little notebook out for me to take.

I took the spiral notebook in my own field of levitation, and smiled at it, opening it up to the page where they’d all signed their names, all eleven of them, and the first of the tears came, but I sniffed them back and did my best not to cry in front of my kiddoes; I had to be the strong one, for them; for the kids.

“Th-thank you.” I murmured; my voice barely a whisper as I somehow managed to not burst out sobbing and hug the life out of every one of their little adorable selves.

I tucked the notebook away in my saddlebags, safely underneath my bullets, and buckled them shut, bending down and giving all of my kids one last big hug.

“Oh-Okay, Miss Flow’s gotta go now, you all be guh-good for Doctor Silver and Nurse Eh-Evening Gale, okay?” I sniffed again, and they all nodded. I looked up at the aforementioned Doctor and Nurse, whom where smiling at me as I had my little moment with the children.

“Be brave.” One of them said as I turned away, I don’t know who said it, but I just nodded, mostly to myself, smiling and walking back toward the door out of the Atrium. I wiped the tears from my eyes and swallowed, and then plodded over to where the Overmare was waiting, talking with the head of security.

“Are we ready?” I asked.

“If you are.” the Overmare responded, looking me over.

I nodded, and the Overmare turned back toward the head of security, a buck whose name I remembered to be Jackhammer. I looked at him as she did, an eyebrow raised in curiosity, the tears of earlier momentarily held back behind the floodgates.

“As I was telling the Overmare; a pair of the bucks think they can hear explosions on the other side of the door. That’s why we’re all dressed up in our body armor with automatic weapons. We believe there may still be a war going on outside.” Jackhammer spoke, filling me in with his extremely deep voice. This explained quite a bit; having ‘The Overmare’s word is law.’ Drilled into your head a thousand times a day for several years kind of makes you think that you shouldn’t ask her questions she doesn’t give you the answer to in the first place. This is ironic, because I used to get into trouble all the time just so I could piss her off.

“Fall in line everypony.” she commanded, stepping back up to the door controls. I had no idea what that meant, but all of the security ponies lined up, so that answered my question. I took a place at one end of the line.

“We have no idea who or what is outside of that door, however, what we do know, is that we cannot stay here. No matter what is on the other side of the door, I want you all to know that it has been an honor serving as your Overmare.” She turned back toward the controls after that rather grim message, and pressed a few switches. One of the buttons that had been red turned green.

Not crying had become extremely difficult at this point, and I just decided to silently say ‘Fuck it.’ and let them come quietly. I stood there with the rest of the security ponies possibly about to embark into the very bowels of pony hell itself, in a uniform line, taking orders from an authority figure that I was sure somewhere secretly wished I’d drowned in my sleep.

But, on the brink of devastation; in the aftermath of chaos and death, we where Equestrian, and we would persevere until the last shot is fired, and our hooves are chipped and broken, and our homes burned, (or where completely submerged, as the case may be) because Equestrian perseverance and determination saved our entire race once; and it would lead us through this disaster wholeheartedly, as an unwavering martyr of all that is good and righteous in the world. Or something like that.

“Active Eyes Forward Sparkle.” The Overmare ordered; snapping my attention partially back to reality. Everypony including herself pressed the button on their PipBucks. Instantly my vision was filled with green tick marks, as well as a compass. Fun fact; currently, we were facing east.

The Overmare’s voice seemed extremely distant, yet still rang sharp, the sound of it cutting through the tension in the air like a swift blade. I looked at her, and then at the other ponies lined up; they all looked so calm, so ready, and here I was crying.

“Draw weapons.” She commanded; and everypony followed suit. I unsnapped the strap on my holster holding my gun in place, and levitated it out in front of my face, pulling the slide back and watching through the shell ejection port as the first round in the magazine was chambered. I sniffed back my tears, and wiped my face with a hoof.

“Let’s fucking do this.” I thought readily, the adrenaline starting to flow through my veins, making me feel like a super hero rather than the pathetic sniveling hunk of intellectual meat I actually was.

“Weapons hot.” The Overmare said mysteriously, and there was a series of clicks echoing through the chamber in response, the sound telling me that I was supposed to flip off the safety now; I tried, and then looked at the side of my gun; it was already off. I tried to stop from chuckling as I fucked up yet again, and pointed the thing forward and low, ready for whatever was outside that door.

“Brace yourselves.” She finished, and as there was no response from us, she pressed her hoof down on the green button.

Level up!
Science has increased to 30 (from 15)
New Perk – Swimming (1 of 5): You now possess the ability to swim and can swim farther and hold your breath longer than most ponies. (5%)

Ch. 2

(( In case Gdocs is easier for anypony; https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g9mUHJR5qNV8NtQappI8arg2qjnpY-AU8hXE5ZpvLlM/edit?hl=en_US ))

Wind whips my nerves,
Tests the reserves,
Of my sanity,
Can’t comprehend outside’s majesty,
Can’t even fit it inside this rhapsody,
Actually, rationally, I might devise a strategy,
Make an attempt to practically, magically, avoid agony,

Spend a night sleepin’ on upholstery,
Next day, tapestry was revealed to me,
How could this be? Why me?
Suddenly afraid to commit blasphemy,
Yet cannot commit to this pageantry, handsomely,

Feels more like fantasy, than real life,
In a place filled with strife,
Expected to improve the quality of life,
The fuck do I look like? A fuckin’ pallete knife?

Apparently, his majesty and his tapestry,
Want me to scrape shit off,
Start anew again; Pfft, makes me scoff,
But he sends me outa the trough with a word,
Whole thing seems fairly absurd,
Very much would’ve preferred, that the siren had remained unheard,
Wait, let me reword,
I am unable to be spurred, instead try an’ make it deferred,

Until one day,
I hear a young mare say;
“Will Mama be okay?”
An’ the doctor replies,
“Radioactive decay, is taking her away,
Her death is already underway, though maybe we can save her, we just may,
If the master of pages wades through the dark ages and completes the sages’,
One-way, power-play; we just may.”

My breathing stops, my heartbeat drops,
Thunder pops, ignites a flame,
To go, make a claim to critical acclaim,
Let’s play your war game.
I won’t have shame nor take the blame, because I am the same;

Master of pages,
Savior of the ages,
Right from the sage’s, prophecy
Appointee to falsely agree,
To clear debris,
But I guarantee, my label goin’ on one-eighty,
Years old still has a valid life-time warranty,

Heart beat throb, no time to,
Grieve or sob, ‘cuz I got a job,
To do, now let’s go, legs go,
Let’s start this show, with my horn aglow,
And although, I know,
I forgo, my freedom,
It’s worth it, to cure the glum,
That this community has been forced to succumb
To, an’ as a rule of thumb, I’m a mare of my word,
And I’ll face whatever may come, with some,
Hot lead, and a rhyme in my head,
Pull the trigger, stop fuckers dead,
Thoroughbred, to make ‘em dread,
The instant that I see red,

Blap blap, balla-dap,
Thunder crack, whack, pack,
Neck snap, an’ if I may recap;
I slap in a clip and make my gun clap,
Bullet closes the gap, hooves cannot,

Better hope, you don’t get caught,
‘Cause I’m a long shot, drop shot,
Right through the polka dots ya’ mama bought,
Bitch, don’t trip, I found my niche,
Saftey latch unhitch, trigger twitch,

BLAM

The first thing that happened when the Overmare pressed the button was a siren, a lower pitch and much less obnoxious one than the emergency siren I’d accidently on purpose managed to shut off by hacking her computer, followed by a robotic voice calmly warning us away from the opening steel door and wishing us a lovely day. I would’ve laughed because it was so… just so out of place, after all that we’d already gone through that to be wished a lovely day by a computer voice was downright funny. I would’ve laughed, except you know, kind of busy crying.

After the kind robotic voiced finished its message, the siren cut out, and there was a large metal arm the size of a pony, (though admittedly smaller than me) that reached down from the ceiling, and attached itself to the door, then a very loud sound, which sounded to me a lot like the tumblers in a lock clicking, only amplified, followed by the most horrendous screeching noise I had ever heard in my life, along with a shower of sparks from the prongs of the gear shaped door.

The screeching and sparks only lasted a moment or two, and then the door was pulled out of its locking position completely, and rolled, rather quietly, to the side where it came to a stop softly; or well, as softly and quietly as a gargantuan steel door can stop.

The Overmare stepped down off of the control panel and lit up her horn with the same spell she’d required every unicorn pony in the stable to learn; prompting myself and a few of the security ponies who could to do the same, illuminating the door chamber and the small bit of the outside that was visible through the door. Our PipBuck’s didn’t have the ability to be lamps; We’d started running low on them years ago, and so had rationed them off to only earth ponies; and even then only ones who worked in maintenance. Most ponies in the stable, including all of those present, had a PipBuck 1000; a much earlier model.

She stepped forward slowly, moving up the small ramp and out into the outside chamber around the door into what looked like a cave. Everypony followed suite, moving as quietly as we could into our first encounter with the outside world.

The scene outside wasn’t gruesome, but it was definitely up there between outright horrifying and strikingly morbid somewhere. There must’ve been dozens; I’m going to go out on a limb and say two dozen, (no way in Pony hell was I going to take the time to look at them enough to count) skeletons all about the outside chamber. What made it even worse is that they seemed to be arranged in mounds of some sort, with the pony skulls resting on top. Fillies and colts and unicorns and earth ponies and I even think I saw a few wing bones of a pegasus in one pile, but I sure as hell wasn’t about to look close enough to be certain. Most of them still had bits of fur and several still had rotting hunks of flesh in the pile somewhere.

The horrid sight caused the hair on the nape of my neck to stand on end, the slight bit of adrenaline pumping through my veins unable to warm my body against the cold, damp air of the tunnel outside. It stank of water and of a putrid odor, much like rotten food; I filed the horribly pungent smell away in my memory as ‘Rotting Flesh’ smell. I got the feeling I would become very much accustomed to the smell in the near future.

The Overmare swallowed, clearly shaken by this grisly display of clearly intentional horror. She waved us on, pointing her head and horn down a passageway toward our right; and then she gasped; her weapon whipping up in front of her like it was an extension of her body rather than controlled by her mind magic.

Everypony else including myself jumped at the gasp, and leveled our weapons down the hallway, shining a bit more light that way as well.

The Overmare chuckled at herself, “It’s just another skeleton everypony…” She reassured us, and we took a closer look, pointing our weapons away; though carefully avoiding aiming at each other on accident. I flicked the safety switch telekinetically again; making sure my gun was actually ready to fire should I need to.

I looked on down the hallway, - standing almost a head taller than quite a few other mares had its advantages every now and again,- what I saw disturbed me quite a bit more than I would’ve thought possible, given the circumstances and how not-really-that-bad it was in reality.

The skeleton of an Earth Pony stood, lashed together haphazardly, looking like it was about to fall over at any time, in a corner where the tunnel itself turned, leading off in a different direction. The skeleton held, or rather, had tied to his hooves, a sign, inscribed with a message in a language I recognized as vaguely familiar; though I couldn’t place why.

The skeleton’s grim message read; “Pul’ali Koa Kanu’ana Hakahaka.” The message was simple; that much I could tell; written in Equestrian letters in a language foreign yet somehow still recognizable to me.

The Overmare stepped forward gingerly again as it clicked. I knew where I’d heard words like that before.

Once upon a time, when I was a filly, growing up in Stable 33 and hanging around with Olive and his buddies, we used to spend a lot of time with Olive’s grandpa because he was cool. (No really, that was our reason) and he used to spout random babble, and Olive would nod, and spout babble back. It was a long time ago, though I vaguely recall at least something in their conversations consisting of gibberish to at least somewhat resemble what I was reading on that sign. I also recalled something about it being a language, from a long, long time before the war that Olive’s grandpa had learned from his grandpa, and on like that.

As we stepped carefully around the corner in the dark tunnel, I felt a wrenching in my gut as I realized that I’d never see any of my old friends again; the memory aforementioned stirring up emotions inside myself. I didn’t want to cry anymore, but I did anyway. I’d just be quiet, I resolved as we moved on through the cold, dark, and smelly hallways.

I remembered where all of them had been working; Olive in maintenance. “One dead.” Sparks in maintenance with him. “Two dead.” Crinkles worked in agriculture. “Three.” Maple had been a tech pony working upstairs; but she lived in Quarters C. “Four.” All of my old friends where dead; what a cheery thought.

We advanced slowly down the hallway for probably several minutes before we came to an odd barrier of sorts that managed to distract me from my grieving.

“What do you think it is?” Jackhammer asked nopony in particular, stepping up next to The Overmare to inspect the odd thing blocking the hallway.

Almost instantly at his words, a flurry of hoofsteps from out of nowhere echoed dully through the hallway, as if we’d startled someone and they’d run off; but we were the only ones in this dead end tunnel.

“The fuck…?” One of the security ponies breathed, voicing everyone’s reaction fairly accurately.

“It must be some kind of door!” Another offered.

“That’s stupid; it’s clearly a solid object.” Yet another interjected.

“You’re stupid.” The first one retaliated.

The Overmare, Jackhammer, and I sighed as the three of them went on like that. We’d left the other two ponies to hang back with the Doc, nurses, and the kids while we went out and explored; this too had been decided prior to my arrival, and I only knew because they hadn’t come with us to begin with.

“For the love of all that Celestia ever stood for I will fucking pull your tongues out if you do not stop talking; this. Instant.” I’d meant to think that, but I’d muttered it aloud, actually, pretty loudly, and they shut up pretty quick. The comment earned me worried looks from The Overmare and Jackhammer.

With the sudden silence I continued; bullshitting my way through an otherwise awkward silence, “Clearly this is a door of a sort we aren’t familiar with. Therefore, we merely need to figure out how to open it. I don’t see an open or close button embedded in the damned rock wall, so it stands to reason that it is also not automated in any way for the same reason there isn’t an open and close button conveniently available. Thusly, this is clearly a manual door; like the Overmare’s office kind of… except there’s no handle to open it with.” I frowned sullenly at the ‘door’ thingy, internally grinning at how I’d completely pulled that out of my ass and it’d made sense; and been a fairly observant annotation of sorts, too.

“Well, smarty-hooves,” The Overmare said sarcastically, “Why don’t you explain the hoofsteps we heard?” She asked, an eyebrow raised at me in question.

Just as I opened my mouth to answer, the ‘door’ thingy parted, flooding the dimly magically lit hallway with a, (comparatively) very bright light. A unicorn filly who looked barely old enough to have her cutie mark was standing, or bouncing rather, next to a very… large, stallion who looked very stern and serious in contrast with the young mare’s clearly ecstatic demeanor.

“Nana Lani Ikaiki’anu’u! Nana!” The filly chirped in what I assumed to be the same gibberish language that I’d seen on the skeleton’s sign. “A’u ho’ike’oe! A’u ho’ike’oe!” She went on, skipping about the little chamber that our tunnel had opened into. A dark colored cloth was draped around her like a cloak, though in the uncertain light of the torches lining the walls I couldn’t have been able to tell what color it actually was other than dark. Because of it, I was unable to see what her cutie mark might’ve been; or if she even had one.

Of course, her excitement was short lived, as opening that ‘door’ thingamajig had scared the living fuck out of all of us Stable ponies and everyone whipped out their guns and leveled them at the pair of ponies; though thankfully nopony pulled the trigger.

“Ikaiki’anu’u!” the little filly screamed more babble, jumping and hiding behind the behemoth of a stallion. He was almost exactly the same height as I was, (IE; he towered over everyone but me) and wore ate-something-bad-and-had-awful-diarrhea green clothing, with stitches all over the thing, like he’d repeatedly stabbed holes in it and then sewed them up. He stood staring down the barrels of six different firearms and smiled like he was greeting old friends.

“Peace bruttahs. I am Chief Strong Step. Welcome to Hema Lae; South Point.” He spoke with a thick accent I had, (unsurprisingly) never come across before. His voice was deep and at his words the little filly seemed to be not quite as frightened. It had the same effect on us Stable ponies; we all lowered our guns and the three annoying security ponies flipped on their safeties.

The Overmare stepped forward, “Pleasure to meet your acquaintance sir. I am Twinkle Spree; Overmare of Stable number thirty-three.” It vaguely occurred to me that this was the first time I’d actually heard her real name before now, but before I could make anything of it she continued, “These,” she said, gesturing with a hoof towards us, “are the brave souls who have chosen to accompany me in the first expedition out of Stable 33 since its closing; though clearly the guns were a tad unnecessary.” She added the last bit with a slight grin, attempting to add humor to a business conversation; softening this stern individual to make him relax. She was a clever pony.

Chief Strong Step nodded as if he’d heard it a hundred times before; which struck me as almost as odd as his next comment. “I know who ya’ are ponies. ‘Da Oracle foretold of your arrival years ago.” He explained. (Though I use explain as a loose term here)

“Yes, well, “- The Overmare paused mid-sentence and frowned, that hadn’t been the answer she was expecting. “Beg pardon?” she asked instead, tilting her head to the side, a look of confusion on her face.

Chief Strong Step chuckled, a low, almost thudding sound, and shook his head. “All will be explained in due time. Come; we’ve been expecting you.” He turned then toward the little filly who’d stood up to stand obediently to his left side, but then back to The Overmare as if he’d forgotten something. “Are ‘d’ere any o’ders?” he asked, looking at the six of us rather warily.

The Overmare nodded, replying in as monotone of a tone as she could manage after being abruptly reminded about the hundreds of soaked through corpses through the rock nearby, “Yes, though unfortunately there’s been a horrid accident; the only ponies left alive are those here, our doctor, two of the nurses, two more security ponies, and eleven foals.” She moved her neck like she was going to bow her head, but thought better of it. Clever pony; knowing that subconsciously any stranger would interpret that automatically as a sign of weakness. Or maybe I was crazy, and had read up too much on psychology. I dunno.

Now Chief Strong Step turned toward the filly, “Return with one of the ponies to them, bring them back.” He ordered.

The little filly stood straight up, not even reaching half of the Chief’s height, and placed her right hoof over her heart in salute, and turned toward The Overmare, addressing her in a rather grown up manner for a filly that looked to be as young as she did.

“Ma’am, I require the assistance of one of your valiant ponies. I request you assign one or more of them to aid in my task.” She spoke with the same accent as her superior (or what I assumed to be her superior) though not quite as thick, and seemed to struggle with pronouncing all of the words correctly; she was clearly used to butchering the language, or not using it at all.

The Overmare was unhindered by the filly’s polite and adult mannerisms; I knew for a fact that it was her opinion all children should at least attempt to act grown up. I’d argued with her nearly once a week about it for the past ten years.

“Absolutely,” she replied, and of-fucking-course, she turned to me. “Tumble, assist this young mare with whatever she might need while the two of you are fetching the others.” It was her turn to order somepony.

“Yes ma’am.” I replied externally, “Fuck yourself.” I replied internally. I turned and followed the filly into the tunnel again, while the others followed Chief Strong Step off to wherever else in the cave. I silently pondered why it was that I had such random onsets of hatred for that mare at the drop of a hat.

“Stop.” The filly, whose name I still didn’t know, ordered.

Of course, my reply was a muddled “Wha-?” before I fell over something trying to come to a sudden stop. We hadn’t even been moving quickly, this was pathetic!

“Whee~” Faceplant.

I could feel the filly frowning at me in the dark as my magic imploded and the light went out. I stood back up, rubbing my face, and lit my horn up again to find I was right; she was frowning at me; like a disappointed teacher looks at a foal that hasn’t done their homework. (Trust me, I know that look well.)

I just looked at her, waiting for her to say something, and then she turned her head back down the hallway, but didn’t walk forward anymore. I followed her gaze to find we’d stopped in front of the skeleton with the sign that everypony had almost shot earlier.

“’Olelo kanaka Hawai’i?” the filly said in that gibberish language from earlier. I frowned at the sign; that wasn’t what it said at all.

I shook my head, “Wha-Whatever that lan-language is; I d-don’t speak it.” I replied sullenly; slightly embarrassed at my stutter being revealed to a stranger.

She chuckled, turning back to look at me, “You must speak it a little, because that’s what I asked you; whether you spoke it or not.” I was thankful she didn’t comment on my speech impediment.

“Oh…” I replied simply, and she looked back at the sign.

She spoke again, translating I assumed, “Warrior Hero’s Burial Chambers. This is where the heroes of our people lay to rest.”

“Oh.” The gruesome display made a hell of a lot more sense now. Well, kinda.

“I see.” Was all I said aloud in reply, along with a nod; I didn’t want to seem rude but I didn’t know what else to say.

I could’ve sworn that I’d heard a tremendous bang almost akin to the bang from yesterday from somewhere really far off, echoing down the cave. But I brushed it off as imagination and nothing important.

We continued onward, as she passed closer to the sign she muttered something in that gibberish language that I assumed to be a prayer of some sort; this was more than likely an extremely holy place to whatever group of people this filly and Chief Strong Step belonged to. I assume odd things.

We stepped carefully over the graves. I even managed to not knock anything over for a second time in there; which was a miracle in itself. Though the fact that everything in the room was horribly disgusting, not to mention that I had enough respect to try my damnedest not to disturb this place now that I knew what it was probably helped me in not touching anything.

We’d gotten in, gathered everypony up, explained things as best we could, though miss Filly-Still-Without-A-Name insisted upon answering every question with ‘In due time.’ Go figure. We’d gotten saddlebags packed and everyone ready in about an hour; pretty good time if you ask me considering we had quite a bit of supplies to pack up. Miss Filly-Without-A-Name also insisted upon helping us pack up the supplies we’d managed to save from everything, taking great interest in what was working and what medicines we’d saved and how much food we had and things like that. She did have the brilliant idea to blindfold the foals and levitate them across the graveyard-slash-chamber thingy. Doctor Silver and one of the security ponies did it; I still couldn’t pick them up that far, and I doubted I probably ever would be able to.

Currently, we were walking down the hallway I’d walked down an hour ago with The Overmare and the rest of the security ponies. Just as we rounded the corner to the large torch lit hallway, I and the mysterious unicorn filly leading the way, I gave up and finally asked the filly her name.

She replied with a sigh at first, and then answered, “I do not have a name.” She went on, seeing as I was just about to ask another question, “I am known as Ho’ola Kahu to my people; or simply Kahu.” She said, answering the question I’d been about to ask.

“P-Pleasure to mee-eet you, uh, K-Kahoo.” I said, smiling pleasantly at her monotone expression.

“It is Kahu; not Kahoo. Kah-oo. Not Ka-hoo. I am not a sneeze.” She corrected me, not even bothering to smile at her own joke as we ventured on down the hallway.

I giggled, “I’ll remememember that.” I said, over-pronouncing the word, much to my halfhearted disdain at my speech impediment. It really did get old.

She turned forward again, remaining silent as we walked.

“She’s just a little bundle of fun, isn’t she?” I thought to myself sourly; I hoped everyone in this little group that she apparently belonged to wasn’t quite this uptight.

I mulled over what she’d said people call her as we walked; Was it a nickname, was it a label, or a job title? Maybe a brand of some sort by judgmental peers? I wracked my brain attempting to remember anything about that old language I’d only heard a handful of times for anything vaguely resembling what she’d said; ‘Ho’ola Kahu’ The first part sounded vaguely familiar, but whether it was because I’d heard another word or two resembling it, (or possibly the same one, I couldn’t remember) in the last hour or because I actually remembered was beyond me.

Just as I thought maybe I’d snagged a sliver of memory from my brain, we came to another corner, this one leading right up to another door; I could see more light on the other side, as well as movement through the cracks in the wooden slats, but any kind of detail was indiscernible from here. Kahu called for everypony to stop, and then let them all gather around the pair of us; I could feel eyes on me like I was supposed to say something, which made me nervous. Kahu started talking though, which thankfully took the eyes off of me.

“Inside here is the main chamber and home of my people. I politely request that all of you remain on your best behavior, leave any weapons holstered, and do not stare if you can resist.” She announced, looking at the group of ponies who were mostly only a year or so younger than she was.

“What’s in there that we would be so tempted to stare at?” The other security pony, the earth pony, asked.

Kahu sighed before answering (it seemed to be a running them with this girl; possibly some psychological condition causing her to have some sense of superiority? Again; I’ve probably read too many books.) As if it where the dumbest question she’d ever been asked, “There are Zebras living amongst us.” She stated flatly; awaiting the inevitable response.

Level Up.
Speech has increased to 10 (from 5)
New Perk – Analytical (1 of 2): You’ve got quite the eye, and you notice all the tiny details. From a hoofprint in the mud to a single shell casing at the scene of the crime; nothing slips by you. You’ve gained a bonus to your critical chance. (Level/10)

Ch. 4

(( In case anypony likes Gdocs better; https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tG4xXGhZiLI0I3IiLY5mlF44uXDTP23-gWYCrTDjZ40/edit?hl=en_US ))

We walked and followed the same path that The Overmare had led me in on for a bit, and crossed the chamber, taking a detour around a bend in the river through a small passageway, which led to more walking down a path; quietly too, I noticed. Not many ponies seemed to be around, toward another passage, this one forking off immediately after you enter the doorway. Kahu directed us to the left, and in a few steps and through a few curves that I was sure I would get lost in eventually; we came to another weird door; which, upon my questioning, Kahu identified as properly named a ‘Curtian.’

“Wait here until I call for you, please.” Kahu asked me politely, sliding through a fold in the curtain without waiting for me to ask why or how long she would be gone.

I frowned at the curtain, wishing my PipBuck had a light; though the black-and-white texture illuminated a little better than the green-on-green one, I noticed. I sat down with my back to a wall, anxious not to get my clean white shirt dirty, and must’ve sat there, playing with my tie, fiddling with the straps on my holster, and being lonely for half an hour before I heard Kahu call for me.

I pushed my way through the curtain, and of course, tripped over it and fell face first through the doorway into a candle-lit chamber.

It was adorned with things silly and macabre at the same time; Skulls, bones, random bloodstains, pointy things, teddy bears, a very nice sofa with a bundle of pink and purple blankets at one end, a smiley faced pillow on the other. And then, leading up a smallish slope that I was fairly sure I would fall down, stood Kahu; erect as she had been when she’d saluted Chief Strong Step yesterday, next to the most disgusting thing I had ever seen in my life.

The thing I stared up at from the floor was a grotesque monster of pus and what looked to be flesh that had…. Melted… It’s body vaguely resembled that of a pony; looking shaped to have once been a Stallion in life, though whatever had done this to… uh, him, had also melted the flesh almost completely off of his muzzle, leaving only teeth looking equally as fucked up as his flesh and facial tendons that looked to be, (no pun intended) hanging on by a thread. He had no mane; however a fairly healthy looking and long white tail flowed from behind him. I tried my best not to let my mouth hang agape as I picked myself up off the floor and brushed the curtains from my flank, stepping into the room a little farther.

As I gingerly stepped forward, a very smooth voice escaped what I had previously assumed to be a possible corpse display again, causing me to nearly tramp over half of the candles in surprise.

“Good evening, Miss. Please, have a seat. We’ve much to discuss; you and I.” It said as I made sure the candles I’d managed to avoid where fine, I looked up to find the… thing, gesturing toward the sofa.

Not wanting to offend the polite creature, I took a place on the sofa; my dark fur and the lighting of the room hiding my blush when the furniture creaked under my weight.

Kahu remained vigilant, her eyes pointed straight forward toward the door. Her demeanor made me want to go poke her to make her move; she looked like a statue, but the thing speaking tore my thoughts away from this.

“First order of business then; I wouldn’t rightfully reckon that you have ever encountered a ghoul before, have you?” the thing inquired, looking at me with eyes that where colored as if they might be blind; though I didn’t really think he was, considering he was staring into my fucking soul.

I shook my head no, and he continued, “I didn’t think so,” that proved he wasn’t blind, “You see, ghouls are creatures created after a pony has been exposed to flesh melting levels of radiation; and hasn’t had the good fortune to die.” The ghoul told me, as I assumed that is what he was, which would explain the relevancy of this part of the conversation.

I nodded my understanding and he continued anew, “I am a ghoul,” Called it, “However in not dying due to my extremely high levels of radiation exposure I have had the good fortune of being gifted my dear.” I tilted my head to one side, intent on listening; the mention of the gift plus the odd… ‘decorations’ reasoned that this was the Oracle everypony spoke of.

“I discovered these caves soon after the megaspell went off in Hooflou; the capitol city of what was once the Equestrian Islands. The radiation exposure has gifted me not only an extremely long life, but also, sight beyond mere sight.” He went on, and the parts about ghouls made me interested; science was good.

“Apparently they were a hideout for Zebra drug smugglers; and several had taken refuge down here, escaping most of the radiation from outside. I managed to befriend them, and numerous ponies arrived too late for the Stable’s closing, and thus this small colony here was founded. After the passing due to natural causes of the leader of the Zebra smugglers, I assumed the role of our leader, and soon found myself experiencing the first touches of my newfound power.” I resisted the urge to yawn; not out of boredom, just that I needed to yawn, and kept on listening.

“Eventually the better part of the radioactive fallout cleared up; about the same time the first generation of Hema Lae reached adulthood, actually. We built shelters, irrigation, farmed edible fungi down in lower parts of the cavern; we had, and have, quite the life for ourselves here. I decided to teach the old language of these islands to my people, and it soon overtook Equestrian as our language; however I knew nothing of the written version of the old one, and therefore we adopted Equestrian letters instead, as both where phonetic in nature. My newfound sight had told me it would be so, and therefore it was, you see.” This time I resisted the urge to roll my eyes; supernatural powers were a tad beyond my beliefs, maybe if this… ghoul, had been or previously had been a unicorn, I might believe it; maybe.

The ghoul pony turned away and continued talking, placing a hoof over his chest as if he felt extremely important, “I blame my gifts on two things; the extreme amounts of radiation that melted my horn into my eyes, and the drugs that the Zebra smugglers had with them in these caves. One in particular; something we call Rage. The combination of this and my eyes allows me to see past what is current reality; and into the future itself!” the ghoul, whom I now was pretty sure was the Oracle, finished, turning around to face me again, seeming very proud of the combination of being horribly scarred for several life times and being a drug addict at the same time. I also found it odd that I had guessed the cause, (or part of it, anyway) of his powers right off the bat.

I wasn’t sure what to say, and hesitated, and the Oracle continued; and here I’d thought he was done. “On to our second order of business; the reason you are in this room, which I am sure you are curious about.” He paused and looked at me, and I nodded, prompting him to continue.

“You see, about two or three years after my powers manifested themselves, a tremendous vision came into my mind, of a united Equestrian Islands; the first united nation of the Wastelands, forming together under a common flag and a leader. A master of pages leading the peoples of the Islands to a victory like no other set before it, and the journey which they would have to endure in order to reach such heights. The vision eventually led my mind to the door of Stable 33, and I knew that the master of pages would come from there, and because of what I had seen prior to that, I knew what would occur after they came to us and what they would need to find. Thus, the prophecy was born, foretelling the arrival of the Master of Pages to venture forth and lead the Islands to prosperity.” He paused again, more than likely for a perceived dramatic effect, “We believe that your arrival is the opening of the door, and that you, Miss Tumble, are the foretold Master of Pages.”

Hearing it the second time didn’t make it any better, and I was still awestruck. My lower jaw wasn’t on the floor this time, but I was still fairly surprised to be hearing it straight from somepony, or something, who earnestly believed it; let alone the very same one who’d conceived the idea in the first place.

“Your Cutie Mark tells us so, and The Overmare has told me of your talents as a writer and a poet, and also of your work as the school teacher; nopony else would fit the bill as perfectly. Unfortunately, with my mind currently unenlightened by lack of Rage, I am unable to define specifically whether or not it ‘tis you that I and my people have been waiting for, however even in this state I can rightfully say that you are almost without a doubt the pony we are looking for; as far as logic would deem fit.” His tone seemed as if he was attempting to convince me, albeit he was, I still found it almost comical that he expected me to believe that he had some kind of power derived from drugs, psychosis, extreme physical scarring, and that my destiny had been predetermined and that in reality, I had no free will of my own; the only thing that existed was his word, governing over all of life itself. What a crock of shit.

In the span of a few seconds, I had moved from a free soul in an open world full of possibilities, to being enslaved by this fucking lunatic’s drug induced… musings! Musings that hundreds of ponies and zebra’s had been foolish enough to fucking give in to and… accept as fact? What the flying fucking fuck did this asshole think I was? Some kind of mother fucking puppet he had some kind of control over? I’d show this prick just how much control he had!

“Ah-and wh-what if I-I-I d-don’t wanna be-ee p-part of yuh-yuh-your… ‘divine p-plan?’ ” I started off politely; wouldn’t want to throw a hissy fit instantaneously like some hormone crazed hussy. Besides, maybe I could get out of this; I may not be a good talker, but I’m not a dimwit, and there was no way in hell I was going to be some zombie’s puppet.

The Oracle frowned, or rather, the disfigured remnants of flesh on his face wiggled downward, like he was trying to frown, and he sat back on his haunches; he blinked at me a few times before replying.

“Well, you don’t really have much of a choice, sugar.” He said, putting verbal sugar on the word itself; which was extremely creepy considering what had just called me sugar. I literally shuddered, though not too violently and I don’t think either Kahu or the Oracle noticed. Not that Kahu was noticing much other than the spoken words because she was still staring at the door as if her life depended on it.

“S-says who?” I retorted. Ah, gotta love challenging authority; even false authority, always so much fun.

“Well… me, of course. It’s been foretold, there isn’t much you can do about it now.” He said, looking at me like he didn’t quite understand what was going on or why I was having trouble seeing it his way.

“We’ll see about that.” I said, hopping off of the sofa and somehow managing to not fall as I turned tail, with my nose in the air, and walked out with a quiet ‘Hmph!’

I heard him say something else, in that gibberish language, and Kahu respond.

I’d show him. I’d get the fuck out of here, away from the ponies that’d lost their families, away from the reminders of Olive and away from all of the crazy ponies in this little town! I struck off back down the hallway, remembering most of the way back to the little alcove where the Stable ponies where living, to gather up my shit and get the fuck out of here; any prophet and-or perpetually prophecy crazy pony, zebra, or ghoul with a problem could shove it.

I somehow managed to not get lost, or have any mishaps on the way back and for that, life just decided it had to fuck me over.

I returned to find all of the Stable ponies up, standing around, and yelling; loudly.

Yay.

“It’s her fucking fault all of our families are dead!” Somepony yelled, pointing a hoof at Sparkle Swirl, who was cowering next to her mother. It seemed like the majority of the ponies shared the opinion, and they’d gathered around the Overmare and her daughter to… throw accusations back and forth, apparently.

“Maybe if somepony had been monitoring the Stable’s systems like they should’ve been, instead of fucking clopping again while on the job, everypony would’ve lived!” The Overmare spat back, turning the small group against the colt who’d made the latest accusation. He turned apple red under his white coat and his ears flattened against his head in embarrassment.

I really didn’t need this right now; not only was I intending on an escape from a crazed zealot driven society, I was also going to have to slip around a very large group of pissed off ponies.

Of fucking course, somepony just had to turn toward me.

“It’s her fault; if she would’ve stopped Sparkle when she had a chance then this never would’ve happened!” Some mare that I remembered used to work sanitation yelled. She was maybe half of my height, and was apparently not very bright, (ha; that rhymed) because she walked right up to me, where I was standing quietly, and proceeded to scream all manner of curses and accusations at me, going so far as to stand up on her hind hooves with her front ones braced on my chest to yell at me face-to-face.

Now, normally, I would’ve just taken it like a big girl. Maybe pushed her off and went back to my room to be angry in solitude, but the current circumstances did not fall under my definition of ‘normal.’ The weight of it all; the Stable’s flooding, the mass watery grave beneath our hooves, my never getting another chance with Olive, the fact that these psychotic ponies who lived here thought I was some kind of fucking deity, years of torment at the hooves of my peers, the shame and the humility of fucking existing, and now the survivors from a place I had called my home now turning against one another, cracking from the strain like a thin branch in a storm. It all came crashing down on me. The emotional pain, the physical, the pure strain of it all; the stress, the indecision, the primal fear, came down on me like a thousand tons of bricks.

In as swift of a motion as I could muster, (which didn’t seem all that fast to me) I shoved her down to being on all fours again, reared up, and brought a hoof down on her head; hard.

I knew I shouldn’t have done it as soon as I did; the entire world was in slow motion as the adrenaline moving through my veins put me into a state of nirvana. I could feel the bones crack as my hoof connected with the earth pony’s skull. I could feel them crunch even farther as her head was crushed between my hoof and the rock floor. Blood flowed from the malformed remains of the mare’s skull, and the entire world was set back into proper rhythm in a blur of horror and motion, the entire scene came back to life full-force.

“What the fuck!?”

“Look what Tumble did!”

“Nooo!”

“Murderer!”

“That’s what she gets!”

“Get her!”

“Hang her!”

“Traitor!”

“Monster!”

“Why?!”

All manner of crying and screaming erupted from the group of ponies before me, and I didn’t really want to deal with that either, frankly. Somepony ran forward to try and confront me, or something stupid like that; I shoved him off, hard. I felt one, or possibly more, of his ribs crack. I didn’t care at the moment; I’d gone over the edge, there wasn’t any fucking stopping me now. I unlatched the snap on my holster and floated out my pistol and unhitched the safety catch, pulling the slide back and letting it snap forward to chamber the first round, the inscription on it coming to mind briefly.

Rise and Rise again, until Lions become Lambs.

…I wasn’t quite sure how that fit here…

BLAZZAP!

I fired straight up in the air, and the shot echoed throughout the hall. All you could’ve heard was the small tinkling noise of the smoking cartridge as it tapped on the stone floor. I waited for it to stop before moving. I kept my gun out, barrel up and ready for anypony to try and come near me. The crowd wisely parted for me, and I descended the short path back to my room, and slammed the door shut behind me, making the frame splinter a bit.

I went over to my saddlebags on the mannequin, loaded up my gun again with more bullets, stuck it back in the holster, and snapped the snap shut again. I floated the bags off of the mannequin and buckled them on, loading a couple shirts, a brush, and another tie into them. I looked at myself in the mirror; there were tears running down my face, and one of my sleeves had come partially unrolled. I fixed the sleeves and ignored the figure quietly sitting on my bed. I walked to the wall, pulled the curtain off from over it, and kicked a hole clean through the thin jury-rigged wall. I ripped down enough telekinetically for me to get through, and walked into the Overmare’s room. She cowered near the bed, trying to hide Sparkle Swirl from my seeming rage. I dragged them both out from under the bed emotionlessly toward me. (That was new; when had I been able to actually drag a pony?) I pulled them both up to face me, and I leaned forward and hugged them. They stopped screaming, though they were both still crying.

“I’m sorry.” I whispered, letting go of them before they had a chance to respond or otherwise. I walked back out the hole I’d smashed, threw the curtain halfheartedly back over the hole, even though it didn’t cover the whole thing, I did anyway. I opened my door and just left it open; I wouldn’t be coming back. The cloaked figure hopped off of my bed quietly and followed me as I walked between the isles of living cubicles full of stunned silent ponies, and stepped around the pool of blood and corpse I had put there.

Of course I’d expected this, but not quite this many. I’d walked around forever, not even bothering to care why nopony was around, until I followed a ramp upward toward another passage to a different part of the cave. Reasoning that up meant out, I kept on up a spiral of stone, which lead into another large chamber…

… Completely filled with ponies, zebras, and numerous ghouls, all armed with every manner of weaponry.

Fuck.

The Oracle stepped forward, wearing a large, sagging robe, (I assumed) and spoke, his voice echoing in the large chamber.

“Tumble Flow; do you now see the power of the prophecy? Do you now see the powers the universe has set into place here?”

He kept on talking, but I’d tuned him out. I felt the eyes of what must’ve been hundreds of ponies on me, and I was shaking worse than Maple that time we’d accidently locked him in the mess hall freezer for three hours when a prank went wrong. I felt like I was going to throw up; violently. Without the adrenaline pumping through my veins, all of the attention and tension in the air felt like a much more literal thousand tons of bricks. I glanced up briefly, and caught sight of a bit of light shining through what looked like another door. It must lead outside. If I could pull myself together enough to get out of this, I was right next to the exit. I went back to paying attention to the Oracle.

“I have gathered these souls here to stop you, as I foresaw you would attempt escape.” He said. Maybe all of these egotistical rants where like clockwork, damn; I’d timed that perfectly. I spoke up before he had a chance to continue.

“Y-you s-s-s-s-s-s-eee, Oracle, I-i-ititit wasas not-ot m-my escay-scay-scape fuh-fuh-from-um y-you, you force-foresaw,” I decided to play into these ponies’ zealotry, using their beliefs as leverage for my argument. “Wha-wha-what y-you f-f-f-foresaw-aw, wa-wa-was m-my esc-esc-escape f-from my p-peers,” That had been the easy part, if you call stuttering excessively and being strangled by anxiety in front of upwards of two-hundred ponies easy. Luckily, Kahu either believed me, or decided to help me out, and spoke up from the place she’d taken quietly at my side; she’d been following me since I walked out of meeting the Oracle. I made a mental note to hug the shit out of her later.

“‘Tis true, oh great Oracle; there was a conflict within the Stable ponies’ den; they where accusing one another of numerous things, and upon Tumble’s arrival, they turned their accusations upon her. When one of her peers decided to make the conflict physical, Tumble bested her, putting her to death swiftly.” I winced, probably noticeably, at how Kahu spoke of the fucking murder I’d just committed as being... well, being right, of all things.

“She then fired her weapon toward the ceiling, causing everypony else to be struck silent, and returned to her quarters, to arrange an escape from them, rather than us. Thusly, she is standing before our people, looking for an escape from ponies who find her execution wrongfully appalling, more than likely planning retribution.” She went on, deeming me some form of hero. It almost made me sicker than the hundreds of pairs of eyes on me.

“Is this true, Tumble?” The Oracle seemed taken aback, surprised at this turn of events; so much for his so called sight. I could only nod in response, the anxiety of everybody looking at me was making my insides churn; not to mention the fact that they almost all now certainly believed I was some kind of hero for fucking murdering somepony.

“Hmm,” He tapped a hoof on his chin, or what was left of it, and then turned toward the large crowd, “Brothers, sisters! There are ponies down there that are not under the influence of my teachings! They could be razing our homes in rage as we speak!” He said, and everybody cheered or yelled, or made some kind of noise, and charged toward us. Kahu didn’t need to push me to tell me to get the fuck out of their way. We dashed off to the side and the crowd surged past us, waving weapons and screaming all manner of things in several languages.

The entire crowd of ponies, zebras, and the occasional ghoul, were gone faster than I would’ve thought possible, leaving I and Kahu alone in the room. I looked toward the door, and grinned, and then promptly rushed to shove my head in a corner between a pair of large rocks; finally throwing up after the anxiety of the crowd’s eyes had wracked my nerves beyond belief.

There hadn’t been much to throw up; I hadn’t eaten in forever, but I would worry about that later. I strode off toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Kahu asked, her little hooves plodding along behind me.

“I am getting the fuck out of here.” I said, managing not to stutter; I think I was becoming more comfortable around just Kahu, I never used to stutter around my old friends in the stable either.

Kahu didn’t say anything, she just trotted along quietly behind me, and as I drew closer to the door, I felt more alive than I had in years. I had freedom; nopony was over me now, not the Overmare, not some fucking drug-addicted Oracle, nopony. I was going to enjoy this; whatever it was out there, I made a mental note to make sure I enjoyed it.

I took one last breath, and yanked at the door to throw it open.

Locked.

I turned around slowly with a sigh to kick it open like I had the Overmare’s door, but Kahu levitated out a little key, and slid it into the padlock, catching it as it fell.

She locked the lock on the chain links it had been attached to again, and slid it around her neck, and floated the little key back to wherever it had come from under her cloak. I asked her why, and she replied;

“Might be useful.”

I shrugged, and threw open the door.

Footnote;
Level Up!
Unarmed skill has increased to 25. (From 15)
New Perk – Telekinesis (3 of 10): You can now lift heavier objects with your basic Unicorn levitation. (More than Telekinesis (2 of 10))

Ch. 5

I was staring up at... big.

Big being a noun here, because the sky, the ceiling of the outside itself, was… immense. Before the last few moments, I couldn’t have imagined anything bigger than Stable 33’s Apple Orchard, now… my perception of just how fucking big everything outside was had made me kinda start to think about how small I was in comparison, which was kind of a sad train of thought until I noticed that high above me, the cloud cover with faint little bits of sunlight streaming through, something previously I had only read about, was moving. I now understood the meaning of the phrase; ‘Rolling cloud cover’ that seemed to be a pretty accurate description of what I was seeing. Well, that and big.

Kahu let me sit there staring up at the sky with my mouth slightly agape until she chuckled, and pushed my head downward with her magic to look horizontally.

What I saw was something almost equally as big as the parts overhead. My vision swam from staring vertical for so long and suddenly changing though and I stumbled and plopped dully into a substance on the ground that I recognized from photographs and from various books as sand. As my vision righted itself, I looked over what I supposed a beach looked like in real life, at what I could only guess was the ocean. I brought up my PipBuck briefly to flip on my Eyes Forward Sparkle; I was facing east, which meant I was facing mainland Equestria, and from what I remembered about teaching geography, (which was a fair bit) the Equestrian Islands, where we were, were only a short distance from the mainland of Equestiral however, I still could not see even the faintest outline of it, which perplexed me. If it was there at all, it was obscured by some kind of haze over the water.

“Is it just me, or can you see that smoky looking haze over the water, too?” I asked Kahu, who was waiting patiently to my side while I lay in the sand.

“That is called fog, Tumble.” She responded with a tone that seemed a tad exasperated.

I stood up out of the sand and brushed myself off, looking at Kahu who looked up at me a moment, grinned, shook her head, and struck off down the beach in a north-northwest direction. I followed her.

We walked for a really, really long time.

We walked off the beach pretty fast, moving through a thin brush and onto what looked like a very, very worn road. Kahu told me it was leftover from before the war and the elements had put it into the state it was today. I knew from books and pictures that at one point bridges had connected several of the islands; I wondered if any of them were still intact enough to use, though considering the varying state of this road; from something akin to pristine all the way to mangled, I doubted it.

We’d been walking a while, and the sunlight poking through the gray cloud cover hadn’t diminished, so I assumed it was probably mid-afternoon. I looked ahead down the road; it was curving, leading us back toward the beach. Lovely; I could stare at the ocean some more. The immenseness had become less mind-numbing and more fascinating. I’d been staring at the sky as I walked, but Kahu told me that not only could the sunlight damage your eyes beyond repair, the isle wastes were also not apparently very safe; so I decided I could stare at the sky later.

The trees, which where green and alive... ish, and a dark unpleasant color, thinned out gradually as we walked on, and the road stopped gradually as well, seeming to slide under the sand of the beach. The beach itself was narrower here, squeezed between the tree line and the tide. We’d almost made it to the point where the road started to appear again, when Kahu’s ears snapped up and she stopped moving altogether, one hoof raised mid-step.

I froze as well, straining to hear. Everything seemed quiet for a moment, and then I heard it; a droning kind of noise.

“Oh shit…” Kahu muttered under her breath, she turned tail toward the waves, staring daggers out into the haze.

“What?” I asked, turning to follow her gaze, or try to.

“Turn your safety off.” She said, not bothering to address the question in any way. I couldn’t say that was all that surprising.

“Why?” I asked as I magically flipped the aforementioned switch and unsnapped the snap on my holster.

“Your about to find out” she said, “Look.” she finished and pointed a hoof out into the haze.

I followed her fairly vague direction and at first I didn’t see anything, but then I saw it. As the droning sound got louder, I could see a murky dark shape out in the water. It surprised me that any boats were still running almost two hundred years after the bombs fell, though it didn’t in a few moments.

There must’ve been a deep drop-off immediately offshore, or the boat had a particularly flat bottom akin to landing craft, (which it might’ve) because it emerged from the fog down the beach from us, tearing up the coast and coming to a rather abrupt stop maybe two ponies’ lengths from the shore.

The machine idling in the water was quite the piece of work. I recognized what was left of the original shape as an Equestrian Coast Guard patrol boat; I recognized it from several patriotic posters, though it had clearly been severely modified. The hull was patched up with various pieces of metal, welded together with what must’ve been some level of expertise, considering the boat wasn’t at the bottom of the ocean. The rear of it had a rim of metal plating standing vertical around the edge of the deck, and I could see burlap through a few holes in the plated guardrail. Only toward the back however, which probably meant they served a dual purpose of keeping the vessel balanced and protection. Mounted in the rear of the craft was a severely large gun, (that had definitely not been in the photos) with a bandolier of excessively large shells leading out of a port on the side down below my field of vision into what I assumed was a crate filled with more ammunition. The glass of the cab had probably been broken or fallen out years ago, and the sides were replaced with more heavy steel; though not enough to impair peripheral vision, I noted. The vessel was manned by five ponies; three mares and two stallions. Two in the cab, two on the front stern, and one, a particularly burly stallion, in the gunner position of the mounted gun. To top it off, everything on the ship was riddled with bullet holes and dents the size of bullet holes, though the ponies aboard looked fit and ready, and ironically friendly, considering they were on a makeshift warship that looked like it’d been through hell and back. On the bow was the vessel's name; Kila wikiwiki'Kala ke'oke'o. Painted on with what looked like black spray paint in sloppy letters.

“Nana Switch, kela’ekahi kela mau ponies mai Hema Lae!” One of the stallions called, looking at one of the mares and pointing at Kahu.

“Aloha, makamaka” Kahu responded, “wai’olu mahana makani.” She finished; this tribal language was making my head hurt; excessive use of the m pronunciation and repetition in words meant I was going to have a hell of a time learning it, which I intended to do because not understanding these conversations was irritating me to no end.

“Eo makamaka. Aha ho mai’oukou I waho keia la?” The mare that the stallion had been addressing earlier said, pronouncing it as if it were a question; or at least, I thought she was, but what the hell did I know about a language older than dirt?

“Ia.” Kahu responded, nodding her head toward me, flipping her mane back out of her eyes on the return. I frowned at her, wondering why I was being mentioned in their conversation, but it continued anyway.

“Hiki ku?!” The mare gasped, her eyes widening and her reaction being mirrored by her crew-mates, “Kela hope loa lo’ohia?” She finished, turning her wide eyes on me; I suddenly felt very nauseous, as all her other crew-mates did the same.

Kahu nodded, and the mare immediately turned toward one of her crewmares, barking an order in that same tribal language. The pony darted across the deck and kicked open a gate at the rear of the boat; I hadn’t even noticed the hinges until now. She also threw a long length of wood partially overboard, propping herself up on the heavily reinforced guardrail and gesturing for us to come aboard via the makeshift ramp.

I didn’t really like the idea of getting into or onto a vehicle that looked like it had been completely re-purposed for waging nautical warfare, but I supposed I didn’t really have much choice in the matter, and my hooves kind of hurt from carrying my fat-flank around for several hours, anyway.

Kahu pretty much vanished to sitting in the cab with the captain and navigator, one of being the pony one of the crew members had addressed as Switch. The large stallion gunner looked very content with carving a very detailed design onto the mounted gun; spiraling vines and intricate leaves and flowers. It was very pretty, and I saw his cutie mark resembled a recolored version of whatever tool he was using to doodle. The weapon was clearly a half finished work, and the bottom portion was covered in the intricate designs, while the upper parts, including most of the actual weapon itself, were void of any artwork. I only interrupted him to ask what Kahu might be doing, he just said 'seasick.' It was a good enough answer for me. The other two crew members where up on the bow talking quietly and looking excited about something, occasionally they'd throw a glance back my direction, stop talking, and then look back at each other and keep on talking like a pair of giddy fillies; which, they kind of where, fillies at least.

I forgot all about the logs I'd downloaded into my PipBuck that I could've read to occupy my mind, and sat quietly instead, watching the waves and thinking; not really a smart move on my part.

Eventually, my drifting thoughts came to the mare from... was it really earlier today? Had I really murdered somepony that same day? It felt like longer, it also kind of surprised me that I hadn't been pondering this event while Kahu and I had been walking, but I suppose the sky and thoughts of it had occupied most of that time.

Somepony even set a can of sweet potatoes and a Sparkle-Cola next to me at some point, and I didn't touch them; my thoughts had become much too busy attempting to console my conscience that somehow, some way, the fact that I'd literally turned somepony's head into a bloody smear on the floor was okay.

It wasn't. This would never be okay; I remembered her name now, it had been Ratchet. Her cutie mark had been the tool she was named after. She'd worked in sanitation technically, but her position might as well have been maintenance of sanitation. She worked on all the pipes and stuff, and made sure all the drains lead down to maintenance instead of rusting out and draining into a wall. I'd had her twin colts in my class a few years before, they'd went on to the older kid's class, and her husband had worked in the orchard. Her family was dead, and she'd been an emotional train-wreck, fucking with another emotional train-wreck that was quite a bit bigger than she was. I tried to tell myself it was okay, and that I'd been defending myself... but I hadn't been. I could've easily just pushed her away gently; she was much to small to have posed any kind of threat, and I just said 'Nope fuck that!' and smashed her head into a pink paste all over the promontory.

I laid down, leaning against the sandbags, (That's what the burlap sacks I'd barely made out were) and put my head on my hooves, trying not to cry and bother the lithography pony and distract him from his work; I wasn't sure how he did it as an earth pony, but he managed to be extremely dextrous with that little tool of his. It was pretty impressive, and watching him work distracted my scatterbrain from my moral ailments for a few moments before I got bored and went back to staring at the floor.

What the hell was I going to do? I was a killer; in cold blood. In cold blood I'd taken the life of another pony; I mean, it'd be different if it had actually been self defense in some shape or form, and I probably would feel less mortified if I didn't have the sensation of somepony's skull crunching underhoof permanently embedded into my mind for the rest of eternity, but fuck's sake; I'd murdered somepony! That was.... Bad! Right? That was still bad out here in this back-ass-wards place where ponies got melted by radiation and boats had guns bigger than me mounted on them; right? I sighed; no it was probably perfectly acceptable, now that I thought about it.

I poked the can of sweet potatoes with a hoof and was briefly entertained watching it wobble back into place.

As my fixation on can wobbles waned, somepony called my name and I looked up to find one of the sailor ponies (Were they still sailors if the boat had no sail?) beckoning me toward the cabin; I stood up groggily and was rewarded for the slight bit of effort by the boat shifting on the surf, and my hooves sliding over the deck; throwing me down face-first with a nice little slide to land right in front of the pony who'd called for me. I looked up to find her face-hoofing, and blushing under my darker coat I stood back up. She shook her head a little and moved aside, making room for me in the fairly small cabin; the pony who'd been addressed as Switch was sitting next to the helm, sitting quietly next to her was Kahu, and the white pony who'd lead me in to Switch's right. I sat down in front of them, because that's where I fit, and looked expectantly at them; waiting for whatever they had to say.

There was a pregnant silence as Switch very clearly looked me over, and then she sighed, and spoke,

“A master of pages from the land beyond 33's door,

Through pain and strain, they'll conquer all before,

Unknown four, will land upon their own door;

The first longs to be free,

The second remains in owing,

The third rides the sea, ever so easily,

The fourth will take wing,

And incur, bring, about,

Something, not seen,

Nor that has been,

Since O'er in time,

Before the grime,

However, prior,

To their lighting,

Of the fire,

Of ire clash,

To ignite the spark,

A'night; a'dark,

In stark manner,

Ere banner fly,

The things I speak,

Remain what you seek;

A blade, a bell, a pair of whistles.

A book, a break, a board,

And well-nigh,

Exigent,

Utmost untime spent;

A cure; to your,

Most motley uhn' clean,

Serene, misery.”

My jaw had decided it was no longer attached to the rest of my face and had found a lovely resting place on the floor about halfway through her spiel; it remained there when she finished, and she giggled at what must've been a horridly embarrassing expression on my face. That'd been absolutely stunning literary genius. It took me several moments to actually process the fact that that was more than likely the very prophecy I was meant to represent, spoken aloud. Though it did irk me quite a bit that I was still dealing with all this prophecy mumbo-jumbo.

Kahu looked at Switch with a smug look on her face, “That was pathetic.” She said, her voice sounding very quiet and strained.

“What was? The fact that I have it memorized?” Switch asked, looking at Kahu a bit abashed.

“That'd be what I meant; yeah,” Kahu said, nodding, “Though at least you remembered it all.” she finished, and I was briefly reminded of teaching about constructive criticism for whatever reason.

I managed to re-hinge my jaw enough to stammer out, “Th-tha, wha-? Buh- uh-muh?” Strange; I hadn't been talking like a month-old filly the last time I'd checked, well, I had been kind of, but this was worse.

“Yes; that was about you Tumble.” Kahu said, turning her grin into a flat line and facing me. I just blinked at her in response.

“I'm so excited!” Switch said, jumping up and down, “This'll show the boss that all our talk about this prophecy isn't just tribal nonsense!” She was practically ecstatic; kind of odd for a pony with a switchblade knife for a cutie mark and fur that was probably the drabbest gray I could ever imagine seeing. Her crew mate was face-hoofing again; so far that mare seemed perpetually exasperated.

“Speaking of which,” she said, immediately serious, “You two should probably hit the sack, along with everypony else.” She finished, intentionally making the last half of the sentence louder for everypony else on the vessel to hear.

I looked out the windows; I couldn't really tell a difference between the semi-stormy cloud cover and the lack of sunlight filtering through, though they did seem a tad tinged orange.

Apparently hitting the sack on the boat was literally that; hitting the sack.

Everypony pretty much just laid down curled up against the sandbags, and the one person on guard made sure everything was in the right order with the anchor and whatnot, and they cycled through the crew members as the night wore on. First up was Cream, (The face-hoof pony). I laid down to sleep, casually blowing Kahu's tail out of my face, and briefly wondering why you needed a guard on duty in the middle of the ocean. I fell asleep in a timely manner; the deck wasn't actually as unforgivingly hard to sleep on as you'd think it was.

The still night over the ocean was torn apart by an unforgiving ear-splitting screech.

It jolted me awake and I was on my hooves right behind the crew members and Kahu. I jumped up to find the deck being swamped with sopping wet ponies of some sort. The only light had been a candle-lit lantern in the cabin and that was lying on the deck as Cream wrestled with one of the things, and three more advanced on her, while the rest were fast approaching the rest of us. In the flickering dance of the light I vaguely made out what they where; grotesque creatures vaguely pony shaped, similar to the ghouls I'd seen but not quite the same, all wielding some form of a blade weapon in their mouths or with a sickly colored levitation.

Before I could even unsnap my holster Kahu jumped forward, sliding across the wet deck and into their legs, knocking a pair of them forward, and running forward to help Cream, who was being mauled by four of the damn things.

Switch and the other crew members each met one of the monsters with force of some form or another; the lithography pony slammed a forehoof into a face, disarming the thing and jumping into a flurried melee with hooves against it. Switch herself met blade to blade skillfully deflecting with a small blade I assumed was her namesake and talent at work. I stepped forward and promptly re-lived crushing Ratchet's head as I stomped the life out of one of the things, I knew what the other two crew member's fate's had been as a scream followed by a sickly retching sound reached my ears.

One of the crew members had made a beeline straight for Cream, and had gotten a terrible gash through her throat as she tried to run by one of the abominations; she was already dead. The other had been tangling unarmed with one of the few unicorn-like ghouls and had just been skewered in the middle of the breast; a scream, followed by her retching up blood, were the last sounds she made prior to the sickening snap-pop of a blade being pulled from flesh and bone being heard as her killer turned toward Switch, the Lithography pony, and I.

Rage. Just... Pure, hatred, seethed through my very bones. It wasn't fair. They hadn't deserved to die! Just hours ago they'd been giggling like school-fillies because I'd shown up and given them something. I'd given them the gift of hope that things like this wouldn't fucking happen anymore. I'd come into their lives and for a moment, even if briefly, they'd had a chance to stop and think, 'Hey; tomorrow might actually be better.' because I was supposedly the key to this prophecy they all believed so wholeheartedly in.

All I could think about as my adrenaline-surged world seemed to slow to a crawl was how much I wanted that thing to die. Just. Fucking. Die. Fire; I somehow got fire from die, and went with it. I hardly knew any spells, let alone any about fire, but I'll be damned if a silly thing like logic was going to try and fucking stop me. Fire. Fire, fire, fire. Burning, explosions. Flames. Smoke. I felt the sensation of magic building at the base of my horn and I closed my eyes, letting the concentration and emotion pour into whatever the fuck was happening right there. My thoughts flickered over to the overturned candle lantern for a split second, and then a roar ripped through the air, and the pressure I'd built in my horn was immediately expended.

In the scuffle at the other end of the ship between Cream, Kahu, and the four other monstrosities, something or somepony had kicked the lantern right to the hooves of the one who'd just killed Switch's crew member. I'd somehow managed to make that thing pop like a balloon, sending the energy of the burning carbon of the candle exploding all at once into the freakish thing, sending it sailing in flames off the port side. I didn't really have time to marvel at how in the fuck I'd done that, and I was still pretty up-in-arms with emotion and whatnot.

I swept up a pair of the sharp whatevers that the creature's where assaulting everypony with; they looked like hunks of pipe, flattened and sharpened. Crude and dangerous. I didn't really give a fuck what I was using as weapons right now though. I charged forward toward the three things still fighting with Kahu and Cream and the one climbing back aboard (They'd knocked one off, I guessed).

I slammed a blade down as hard as I could on the single grotesque hoof gripping the guardrail and it gave way a lot easier than I thought it would; my weapon slid right through it and slammed into the guardrail itself, jarring itself out of my levitation and whacking the creature's hoof clean off at the same time.

I still didn't give a fuck; I kept on, I thrusted my last remaining blade-thing into one of their backs, and snatched his out of the air as it fell, managing to slam the one to my left in the face with it; this one was just a piece of pipe. Still didn't care; I kept swinging, bashing one of the ghoulish creature's eyes out of his head, and kept on swinging. The last one got wise fast however, and turned toward me, swinging his blade at my flank, giving me a lovely gash right across my cutie mark on my right side.

At that point, I decided the disgusting thing with his eyes bashed out of his face had had enough and had been turning around to face the other. I wailed as my cutie mark of all things was injured, the sudden surge of pain breaking my hold on my weapon. I bucked as he came down for another swing and his weapon cut again down my right side this time just as my hooves connected and he was thrown against the cabin's outer wall, dropping his own weapon.

I grabbed his weapon off the deck smeared with different colors of bloodstains, and whipped the thing around, through the air, letting go midway so it connected with full force of impact as the ghoul-thing tried to stand again after I'd bucked it into the cabin wall. The crude weapon slid right through the soft flesh of it's neck and lodged itself in the cabin itself, sticking the corpse to the wall in a half upright position.

Everything was really quiet all of the sudden. Save for the little fiery spot where I'd made a lantern pop like a cork from a champagne bottle somehow, (I still didn't really want to question that) and the sound of the water slapping against the side of the ship. It was also really dark now; the light had almost entirely gone out, except that little bit of fire.

I was also suddenly very groggy as my adrenaline wore off and my wounds began to throb excessively in time with my heart beating a thousand times a fucking second. I really, really just wanted to go back to fucking sleep. There was a tapping sound and a gurgle from the port side, and I plodded over purposefully, unsnapping my gun and flicking off the safety; there was just enough light I could see the little monster flopping around in the water, the same one I'd chopped a hoof off of. He hissed at me as I peeked over the side, and I leveled my gun with his face, pulled the trigger, and was rewarded with the water sparking with blue arcs of electrical energy for a moment, not to mention a lovely burst of gore, before the corpse vanished into the waves silently.

Okay; now everything was nice and quiet. Switch and lithography pony had been joined by Cream in mourning their lost crew-mates, and Kahu was quietly looking herself over. Everypony who was still alive seemed a bit beaten and cut up, but living and not in immediate life-threatening danger; though I couldn’t say the same for the ones we’d lost. I stepped over toward the cabin, slipped on something wet, (could've been blood or water; or both) and thumped onto the deck, sliding slowly to rest with my belly against the base of the mounted gun, which had seen no action this battle, I noted.

Kahu padded over to me, and I didn't see any more 'cause I just sighed and closed my eyes.

The last thing I heard was something about Switch, potions, and ow.

What the hell was ow?

Footnote;

Level Up!

Melee skill has increased to 45. (From 20)

New Perk – Emotional: You are emotional. You cry at weddings, you cry at funerals, you laugh aloud at every joke, you get angry when appropriate, and your happy when you should be. Your emotions have a direct effect on your magic, and if you concentrate hard enough, you can focus that emotion into a spell you don't even know! You do not learn whatever you cast, and you also have twice the difficulty learning and performing new spells than everypony else.

Ch. 3

(( In case Gdocs is easier for anypony; https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pO7U2sdniVi5qC5B-15-vq9hCirUfRj2vkkjXbBpWUI/edit?hl=en_US ))

Everypony gasped. Even I looked down at her oddly.

“Again; please do not stare.” She said, turning quietly, her horn alighting and the door’s handle lighting similarly, swinging open without further discussion.

The door opened to reveal a kind of sandy dirt area, with a fairly wide swath of sickly colored water cutting through the middle of the chamber. The river flowed rather slowly, making a relaxing sound. It didn’t stink like anything particularly nasty inside; though it definitely smelled different. Of course when you’ve lived in a Stable your entire life you are obligated to think pretty much everything else is different, including smells. Directly in front of the door was a large ramp constructed of ragtag scraps of wood, metal, and rope. Held aloft by what looked like a fairly sturdy, (if unorthodox) looking construction of metal and wood. I suspected that the water was more than likely radioactive, and thus the walkways being so far from the water. I briefly imagined what it would be like to fall in.

There were ponies, (and zebras, I noted) milling about on the walkways; though they weren’t crowded. Most of the ponies wore clothing, and several zebras where wearing cloaks identical, (or pretty close) to what Kahu was wearing. I could see cube-shaped wooden rooms constructed and held aloft by more junk towers, which I assumed were ponies’ homes, as I was looking up a mare’s skirt currently. I peeled my eyes away from the, uh, ‘sights’ and paid attention to Kahu instead, who was leading the way up the ramp, instructing everypony to stay with her, and talking to a few of the bystanders,- whom apparently lived here- in her gibberish language. Instructing them to move out of the way I guessed, because most did.

I followed behind Kahu, being especially careful not to trip and fall off of this thing. We walked without incident halfway across the large chamber until my minimal luck ran out. I’d been marveling at the size of the chamber itself; it was huge! I looked down just in time to notice a board partly jutting upward, carefully avoiding tripping over it, I stepped over with my front hooves, and promptly returned to marveling at the chamber’s size, when I tripped forward face-first after a rear hoof caught on the board.

I was not a clever pony; though I most certainly was a clumsy pony.

“Oh Fu-“The rest of my cry was cut out by bashing my face through the floorboards. I came down close enough to Kahu’s rear end that her tail brushed my nose immediately before my fat flank smashed through a trio of what must’ve been particularly thin boards, (Or maybe I really was as fat as I used to get teased about…) and plummeted straight down into the water I’d imagined falling in earlier. Or, would’ve, except I flailed around and ended up laying flat in midair, which conveniently gave my neck just enough reach to bash my head on the shore before sliding into the water; unconscious.

Today was just not going my way.

I woke up I don’t know how much later with the most agonizing headache I had ever had in my life. My vision was blurry, and I was still fairly wet. Though I’d been pulled out of the river by somepony and there were several raggedy old towels wrapped around me and laid underneath me, which were also pretty soaked through. The room itself was located on the ground level; I could tell because the ground didn’t fall away from me when I looked over the edge of the bed-slash-mattress. I could vaguely hear someone snoring; which meant it was night, and I didn’t really observe much else as my horrendous headache drove me to lay my head back down on my hooves. The last thing I thought about, - or noticed, rather- before I drifted off to sleep again was that somepony had wrapped my head in bandages. Well, that and the fact that my PipBuck was horribly uncomfortable.

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was that my cranium splitting headache had subsided, and was now a slight residual throbbing that only managed to slightly annoy me. The next thing I noticed was that I was dry and warm, which was awesome. Somepony had either moved me to another bed, or this one had simply dried out, and the towels had been replaced with a pair of heavy blankets that looked a tad worse for wear but definitely did their jobs nonetheless. I didn’t really want to move; at all. A sense of horrid crippling depression had completely overtaken me, though it wasn’t until I wondered why for a few moments that I realized. I lay there with blankets over my head curled up into a little fat ball on the mattress thinking for a measure of time I didn’t bother to keep track of thinking about it. I surmised that I was grieving. The more I thought about it, the more that conjecture made sense. Hundreds of ponies I’d known and grown up with died yesterday, and I had very nearly been among them. I thought about all of them, remembering their faces and their voices and their laughter and their quirks and personalities. Well, the ones I could remember anyway.

My thoughts soon fell on Olive. I lie there, wrapped in blankets and fairly cozy, as a shiver ran down my spine. I remembered him the best; would remember him the best. I remembered the first time we’d met. The first time we’d laughed together, the first time we’d cried together. The first time we’d gotten into trouble together. The first time we’d played a prank on somepony. The first time we’d gotten punished together. The first time we’d been alone together. The first time we’d kissed-

My depression riddled train of thought was interrupted by the sound of hoofsteps and voices.

“Is she awake yet?” I heard a voice I recognized ask. It was The Overmare; what the fuck did she want? I was clearly busy being depressed, or sleeping, as far as she knew.

“No, ma’am. She still be sleepin’ methinks.” An unfamiliar male voice answered; I guessed this was probably the same individual whom I’d heard snoring that night when I’d woken up.

The Overmare sighed, “Where did the Doctor go?” She asked the stranger.

“I b’lieve ‘e said somet’ing about lunch. I was not payin’ attention; my apologies.” The foreign individual responded. Though it vaguely occurred to me that he probably lived here and we where the foreigners; I didn’t much care at the moment. I wanted to go back to wallowing in…. whatever it is ponies wallow in; pity? I think its pity.

“Not a problem, I need to speak with her immediately; did the Doctor say anything about that?” The Overmare asked, sounding rather impatiently annoyed but maintaining her polite demeanor. She was better at talking than me.

“Jess ma’am ‘e did. ‘E said ‘dat I should not let ‘er leave if she woke up.” The unfamiliar individual replied.

The Overmare sighed, and I could hear the tiniest of clicks as she facehoofed, “Well, tell him I took her.” She said, and there were more hoofsteps as she stepped over to the bed, and then she poked me lightly in the side.

“Tumble? Tumble, wake up.” She said, and I pretended to stir from being asleep, rather convincingly, I thought, but it was in vain.

I shifted a bit and lifted my head, the covers falling away and I looked at her. She was smiling at me softly, but her expression quickly changed to one of concern, and I frowned at her change of feature. We sat there looking at each other funny a moment or two before I gave up.

“What?” I asked, a bit irritated.

“Tumble, honey, is…. Are you alright?” she asked, her tone soft and motherly, to go with her look of concern. Not that I knew what that was like, I’d just heard her talk to her daughter like that before.

I’d thought I was fine. I creased my brow at her and then lifted a hoof up to my face, wiping and pulling away, looking at a bit of moisture on it; when the hell had I been crying? I looked back at her, confused. She didn’t say anything though; she just stood up on her hind legs and gave me a hug.

It was the nicest thing she’d ever done for me, by far, and at first I’d thought she was going to hurt me. When she didn’t bite me or snap my neck or anything else violent, I hesitantly returned the gesture, feeling more like crying now than I had earlier when I’d (apparently) been actually crying.

We held each other for a few moments, and for a little while, I felt like everything was going to be okay. For a little while, I felt like maybe she hadn’t really hated me, and I’d been the one in the wrong all of these years. It was an odd feeling.

She broke the embrace and wiped my other cheek gently, “Tumble, we need to talk.” She said mysteriously, stepping back onto all fours on the floor. It just then occurred to me that she’d really had to stretch to get her hooves around my neck to hug me.

I telekinetically pushed the blankets off of myself and gingerly stepped off of the bed. The random stranger, whom I now noticed, was a Zebra dressed in raggedy clothing and armed with an assault rifle, and he seemed to be standing guard. Guarding what I didn’t know, but he seemed to be respectfully ignoring our tender little display nonetheless. I was thankful for that.

The Overmare nodded toward the door (or door area) of the place we were in, which I assumed was some kind of medical ward because of the large amount of surgical equipment in one corner, sinks, numerous beds, and lots and lots of medical boxes marked with a trio of butterflies.

I followed her out, and we came into the large chamber from the day before, and then she led me down along a beaten path in the dirt leading toward another passageway that I could see immediately opened up into another chamber. I pulled off another miracle and managed to not fall into the river again while we were walking, (it was probably fifteen feet away, but I knew I could pull it off) but I hit my head on the entrance to the other chamber, which sent a lovely flare of pain through my head which had received what was more than likely major trauma the day before.

The chamber we’d walked in to was full of beds separated by large squares of metal, wood, and assorted junk, making living cubicles, and was populated with the remainder of the Stable 33 ponies. Everypony seemed to be extremely…. Quiet. They hardly moved, most just sat in their beds. This was the first time I’d seen any evidence of emotion out of the others; maybe I just hadn’t been paying attention, or maybe they’d managed their emotions better than I had. I wasn’t entirely sure.

I followed The Overmare down the aisle between all of the beds and down a bunch of logs pressed into the dirt as makeshift stairs into a smaller area, with only two rooms. I thought it odd that whoever these ponies were who’d let us stay here, they’d made preparations for our arrival, which seemed a tad creepy, almost as creepy as the comment Chief Strong Step had made yesterday regarding that very thing.

“I know who ya’ are ponies. ‘Da Oracle foretold of yer arrival years ago.” I remembered him saying mysteriously. Who or what was the Oracle? How had he-slash-it known about our arrival? My mental list of questions was interrupted by falling down the last two log steps. I caught myself but stumbled and thumped my flank audibly into the stone wall.

The Overmare didn’t laugh, thankfully; instead she stood still in front of the two rooms. I vaguely wondered why there were two down here and why they looked to be constructed better than the ones everypony else had gotten.

“Tumble, we’ve learned a lot of things from these ponies while you were out.” She said. I stepped over to her side and sat down, prompting her to continue.

“These ponies’ central worship has formed around the teachings of an Oracle.” She went on, “A pony that has, according to their local legends, been alive since the Megaspells went off. His longevity blamed on a condition they refer to as ‘The Radiation’s Blessing.’ Essentially he has been mutated to the point that he is horribly disfigured, and somehow that has resulted in an exceptionally long life.” She explained. I didn’t really see how any of this was relevant to us, or what was going on, but I nodded anyway.

“The central worship has been focused around a prophecy…. A prophecy foretelling a ‘Master of Pages’ who will come from beyond Stable 33’s door to bring prosperity to the Equestrian Islands; which is the area we are currently in, off the coast of mainland Equestria.” I nodded, slowly this time, the first part about a ‘Master of Pages’ made me nervous, but the second part about our location I’d already known.

“That is what Chief Strong Step was referring to yesterday when he mentioned the Oracle’s foretelling of our arrival.” I nodded, “And…” She looked down at her hooves and shifted on them oddly, looking nervous. I raised an eyebrow at her curiously as she continued, “The ponies here…. They’ve seen your Cutie Mark. And they believe that you are their prophesized hero….” She looked up at me, an expression on her face looking something akin to pleading; though pleading for what I don’t know.

I looked at her in disbelief, and almost laughed, “Wh-what?” I asked, and then begged, “Pl-please t-t-t-tell me th-that you’re k-kidding…”

She shook her head, “No, Tumble, these ponies are absolutely convinced that our coming from the Stable had been prophesized and that you are their savior. I’ve tried explaining to them that you’re a klutz, and horribly unfortunate. I even tried insulting you to make them see reason, but they are saying your Cutie Mark defies my ‘slander’ and that you will lead them and the rest of the Equestrian Islands to prosperity.”

I looked at her, and then at the pair of rooms, realizing what they were; living quarters for the Overmare…. and the prophesized savior….

Me.

I stared up at the ceiling, lying on my back on a very, very nice bed. (Nicer than the one I’d had in the Stable even) These ponies had made the most exquisite preparations possible for their alleged savior. I had this fantastic bed, two dressers, (one stocked with mare’s clothing, the other with colt’s) a vanity with a mirror that had a large crack down the middle, but was otherwise unharmed. There were three mannequins in the room too. One of them had my security barding on it, with the magazines taken out of the little pockets, this one had a hind leg snapped off and a bullet hole in the head that somepony had covered up with a pink band-aid adorned with a red heart shape. The second had my saddlebags, (I’d checked inside, all of my stuff was there, including the missing magazines.) and had all of the legs missing, and one ear off of its head. The third had nothing on it. I’d been snooping the in the dressers and found very, very expensive looking formal wear, but only one outfit per gender’s wardrobe, so I assumed this unharmed mannequin was meant to hold one of them, (I surmised that there was probably a ceremony of some sort for the supposed savior, and you’d think that they’d want to display that) but I didn’t fit into the dress and never would, and the tux’ was a Colt’s Small, so I wouldn’t fit into it either. It was very depressing to know you couldn’t wear almost all of the clothes that somepony had gifted you and had probably taken a lot of effort to pick out, gather, and probably clean.

Somepony had even taken the time to rig up a spark battery to a lamp on the bedside stand so I had my own light in the room, and had draped a black cloth over the wall between The Overmare and my room. (It didn’t reach the ceiling) so the light didn’t leak through any cracks. I looked around the room, and then lay my head back down on the pillow, sighing and returned to the internal debate I’d been waging. To go with the flow and accept this ‘savior’ thing, and make everypony here happy, or deny any involvement, piss them off and probably either get killed or get myself and all of the other Stable ponies thrown out into the cold. I knew what I needed to do, and what I should do, but when you’ve been a failure your entire life, accepting a major responsibility doesn’t really come easy. Or maybe it did. I didn’t have the slightest fucking clue, and that irritated me to no end, because I liked to understand things of relevancy. Not to mention the fact that anything having to do with psychology as far as myself was concerned was completely guesswork at the moment because no ‘Self Help’ book had ever been written about what you’re supposed to do when you’re faced with the choice of being the prophesized savior of hundreds of ponies or being the fat slightly-depressed wreck you’d always been. I was extremely frustrated at the moment.

I turned my head and looked at my pistol in its holster lain on the bedside stand, vaguely wondering if it was still loaded; anything for a distraction from my current train of thought. I floated it out of the holster and over to me, holding it in front of my face, now was the first time I’d noticed, but it looked a lot different than The Overmare’s. For one thing, it wasn’t near as fat, and the holster had had to be adjusted to accommodate the skinny slide and mouthpiece. I recalled hearing somewhere before everything went to hell, maybe a book, that the pistol that she had was a standard issue security and police firearm and had been chambered in a… ten, something. Millimeter I think. I snapped on the safety and slid the magazine out of my pistol, and with a bit of fumbling, managed to get a round out of it to look at. I read the inscription at the bottom, .45 Colt. I didn’t know much about firearms, but I knew that the decimal number was the caliber, but I was fuzzy on what caliber was what size and what was big and what was small, so I couldn’t really make anything of that number. I laid the magazine down on the table and look at the pistol itself. The mouthpiece was white, and the slide was glossy chrome. It was an interesting piece of art, and etched into the mouthpiece I saw an inscription in calligraphy, and briefly wondered how old this gun was, because there hadn’t been laser engraving since pre-war, which is what this clearly was I decided, making the assumption based on the quality and detail. I also briefly wondered why it was that The Overmare had let me have this item, which was surely passed down through generations in her family while we were in the Stable. It was replaced in thoughts as I read the inscription.

“Rise and rise again until lambs become lions.” I grinned at the flowing lettering, untouched by time due to the chrome coating on the steel. I understood the wisdom, and I found it strikingly appropriate when placed on a firearm, to the point of a slight bit of humor. Made even more appropriate was that it was encouraging wording to see given the internal debate I was waging moments ago.

My depression and internal debate forgotten for the moment, I picked up the clip telekinetically and slid it back in, the slide snapping forward with a slap, but it made me jump and I squeezed my magical hold on the weapon, accidently squeezing the trigger.

BLAZZAP!

The sound scared the living fuck out of me and I damn near wet myself all over that really nice bed. The sound echoed through the chamber and I was sure everypony knew that’d been a gunshot. Though, regardless of the fact that I was clearly no firearms expert, I was pretty damn sure that guns weren’t supposed to sound like that. They go bang. That’s it, not the electrically charged crackling smack that the firearm had made when I’d accidently pulled the trigger just now. Not only had I just fired a gun indoors, (or, in-cave, rather) It had also kicked back so hard against my telekinetic grip that I’d dropped it, but I’d gotten lucky for once and it’d landed on the bed safely. The Overmare screamed and I forgot my own bit of pain and I jumped off of the bed and threw open my door, turning and barging into The Overmare’s room.

“Eh-Everypony Oh-“I was cut off in my attempt to assure that everypony was alright by The Overmare yelling at me; again.

“Tumble, what in Equestria just fucking happened? What did you do this time? You could’ve killed somepony!” She yelled at the top of her lungs; she was clearly (and unfortunately) fine. I looked over her and didn’t see Sparkle Swirl in the room, so I assumed she was hanging around the other foals in the rest of the chamber, which meant she was fine too. Then I noticed the wall.

Completely ignoring The Overmare now, I pushed right past her and my jaw dropped. The wall itself was sparking. Literally, blue electrical sparks where zapping across the surface of the rock. The bullet had imbedded itself in the wall rather than ricocheting off to cause further distress, and the hole around it seemed to be steaming slightly. A moment later, the steam stopped, and the sparks died away almost immediately after. I walked over to the wall, it seemed to be a tad moist, from condensation I guessed, and that explained why the electricity had been so…. Active. Though why a firearm that shot magically enhanced rounds of electrical enchantment, (or something like that) even existed was beyond me. Let alone why it had fallen into my hooves.

The Overmare had stopped yelling, grumbling instead, and pushed me out of her room, I didn’t think she’d seen the wall, being so busy screaming and all.

I’d gone back to my room and I’d immediately flipped the safety on the pistol to ‘On’ and returned it to my holster, and had had just enough time to get bored and go rifling through the drawers in the vanity, running a brush through my short mane for the first time in a decent while, brushing all of the knots out, before somepony knocked on my door. I knew somepony would come, I’d just shot a gun inside of a place that echoed, a lot. Everypony was probably wondering who was dead. Regardless of my prediction that somepony would come, I still jumped when the knock came, and I dropped the brush back into the drawer it’d been in, and closed it shut. I half-galloped for the door, not wanting to make anypony wait.

I opened it to find… nopony.

“The fuck?” I wondered, even going so far as to step out of the room and look around, spinning in a circle to see if they’d snuck in behind me. I frowned, had somepony really been so immature as to knock and then run away? I sighed, turning and walking back into my room, walking right back to the vanity to continue playing with my mane. I’d never been very girly, but it was still fun to play with, so fuck you. I pulled numerous random things out of the drawers to play with; brushes and combs and a little 200 year old makeup and several barrettes and headbands.

I must’ve played around looking at myself in the cracked mirror for an hour before I found something I genuinely liked; it was a pink, (I like pink, fuck you) headband that somehow managed to match my eyes as close to perfectly as I was going to find, and it was relatively unharmed, no bloodstains or anything and it wasn’t broken, as some of the others had been. I brushed my hair out nice and flat and put it into place, the tips of either side coming to rest just where my ears started. I looked at myself in the upper portion of the cracked vanity, smiling at myself. I thought I looked pretty… from the neck down, of course. I sighed at the depressing thought, putting everything back into the drawers I found them in. I looked up to see myself in the mirror one more time before taking the headband out. My horn glowed and so did it, and then I heard a voice.

“No, leave it; it looks nice.” It said.

I could’ve jumped ten feet in the air; it scared the living fuck out of me. I yelled all manner of unrepeatable and colorful curses and spun around faster than I thought I could move; to find Kahu sitting on my bed, grinning at me, (the first time I’d ever seen her smile) mischievously. She was still wearing her dark cloak, which in more stable light I noted went with her coat pretty nicely. I’d thought it was the light, but she was an orange coated unicorn, and it was a fairly bright color; her cloth thingy was a fitting contrast. She also had a patch of white down her neck and leading down her chest to what I assumed continued to her abdomen, but I couldn’t see under the dark cloak. It was an interesting color combination. As I noticed this in the span of a few seconds she gave up holding a straight face and chuckled at me; I’d been scowling at her fuming for the past few seconds as I absorbed in colors of all things. Yay randomness.

She didn’t laugh, she chuckled. I actually found it kind of creepy. She started talking though, and that took my thoughts away from what I’d been thinking about.

“I scared you, huh?” she said, smiling at me again. She had a cute little smile, she reminded me a lot of a colt I had a year or two ago (who was now deceased I presumed) and had moved on to the class where they teach all of the older kids, which was on Level C, the same level I’d lived on, only I’d been in the Living Quarters area. Kahu had the same smile; genuine. I sighed and nodded, responding with that and a muddled ‘Mhmm.’

“Good.” She giggled again.

“How’d y-you get in h-h-here?” I stammered.
Instead of responding aloud, she grinned, and her horn glowed, as did a flap of cloth on her draped clothing, which I now realized was a cloak and she was lifting a hood, as it fell over her face, and her very being shimmered, and then just… disappeared.

My jaw dropped like a sack of hammers, if it could’ve it would’ve hit the floor I’m sure. I looked around the room, spun around and around. She’d completely vanished into thin air. I wracked my brain for an explanation, and the only one that came to mind was that she’d somehow managed to convert the stealth spell from a StealthBuck into a castable spell and used that, but I’d only read about StealthBucks before and had never seen one used, or seen one at all for that matter, before. I heard her giggle, and I whipped around from my current position of looking at the bed again, to find her sitting on the floor next to me with her hood down again.

“Boo.” She said; which didn’t scare me at all as I was still too dumbfounded at her magical disappearance and reappearance. I stared at her gob smacked, and she just smiled at me, and then asked the question I’d expected whoever knocked on my door in the first place to ask.

“So, who got shot?” she asked, changing the subject. I closed my jaw and frowned at her, which only got me a raised eyebrow.

“Nopony.” I finally said with a sigh after trying to win a staring contest. I could tell she just thought my slight frustration was extremely funny, even if she wasn’t laughing.

“Lovely. Then tell me; do any of the clothes in the dressers fit? Or have you tried any on yet?” She stepped back over to the bed and hopped up on it, sitting down, making her more-or-less eye level with me.

I looked at the floor, “None of the clothes for my sex fit, at least.” It was utterly humiliating to have to say that aloud, and I prayed The Overmare was doing something or had wandered off and couldn’t hear me say it.

Kahu nodded thoughtfully, and then walked over to the dresser with all of the colt’s clothing in it, looking in the door. I hadn’t noticed it earlier when I’d briefly peeked inside, but the insides of the doors had numerous neckties hung on them, arranged in a rainbow on one side, and the other in a dull assortment of whites, grays, blacks, and dark blues.

Kahu’s horn lit up and she pulled a trio of pink ties out of the dresser. She fanned them out a bit and held them up to my face, I frowned at her; did she intend for me to wear a tie? Like a Colt? As I pondered this she put two of them away and quickly fastened one around my neck in what I assumed was the proper fashion to tie a necktie.

I attempted to protest, but she pushed, (or tried to push anyway) me toward the mirror again. I walked over and looked in, frowning at my reflection; I just knew I’d look stupid.

Unsurprisingly, I was wrong again. It actually looked decent, aside from the fact that it was crooked. I straightened it out and smiled at myself in the mirror; I looked okay; I guess.

I turned to look at Kahu, who was digging through the colt’s dresser again, and produced a stack of white shirts. She flipped through them, looking at the sizes printed on the collars, she stacked almost all of them back inside neatly, and then walked over to the security barding adorned mannequin with the only two that had apparently been large enough to fit me. As I watched she pulled the shirt out from under the armored part of the security barding without effort. It didn’t tear, so I assumed it wasn’t attached at all, which was something I honestly hadn’t known in all my years as a Stable pony. She slid in one of the white shirts, and then frowned at her creation, pulled it out, and then put the security barding and the Stable 33 blue garment back together and put them back on the mannequin. She floated a shirt over to me, and told me to try it on, and at this point I wasn’t going to question her; I might as well have been a filly again playing dress-up in Olive’s mom’s closet. (Though there wasn’t much to play dress-up with inside of a Stable mare’s closet) I was having fun.

I unbuttoned the shirt, and slid my hooves in, and buttoned it up without effort; something I’d not expected. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I tucked the tie under the collar of the shirt and folded it down the way it was supposed to be. Grey fur, white shirt, and a bright pink tie. I smiled at myself; I looked pretty nice, and just because I could, I tapped into my PipBuck’s options, setting the screen to a soft black-and-white color scheme rather than the typical green on green most ponies wore theirs as.

The PipBuck 1000 wasn’t the same kind of technology that a PipBuck 3000 was; the 1000 was meant for business and military officials; society’s upper class rather than the working class that the 3000 had been designed for. The 1000 sported a calculator, clock, and note taking capabilities, as well as quite a bit more storage for information files; almost double that of the 3000. However the 3000 had a better Radmeter and Geiger Counter; it was more accurate; up to single digits, whereas the 1000 was numbered by tens, and did not click at you when near radiation. Another flaw with the 1000 was that the Stable Assisted Targeting System on the 1000 was literally half as effective as the 3000’s much newer version; this meant that a pony could only use it half as long before it needed to recharge for double the amount of time that a pony with a model 3000 would. The PipBuck 1000 was also lighter and much more compact, the surface not jutting out near as far as that of the later 3000 model. Other than that, the medical evaluations and the inventory sorting spells where completely identical.

I sighed, remembering all of those days with Olive, (who had a model 3000 PipBuck) pouring over our (at the time) brand new PipBucks and comparing with one another to look at the differences and similarities. Back in reality, Kahu had decided a simple look was befitting me, without my input apparently, and was currently fastening on my pistol for me. I looked down at her, a bit confused as I hadn’t been paying enough attention to wonder when she’d started that.

“You weren’t paying attention, so I did it myself.” She responded when I asked her about it.

I shrugged. I guessed that was fair; I would’ve done it anyway, this was, if anything, only more convenient. Kahu pushed me in front of the mirror again, and I looked at myself. The pink tie and headband matching my eyes, the shirt looking surprisingly clean considering the condition of most of what I’d seen in the one dresser I’d actually inspected. It hung loosely, and the bright color made a lovely contrast with the grey and black of my fur and mane, respectively. This combined with my strikingly pretty chrome pistol sticking out of the black holster made for a pretty snazzy simple look, if I do say so myself. I reminded myself of a character from the cover of a book I’d read once about a super spy from before the war who traveled to all kinds of countries everywhere and saved the world from all kinds of bad guys. He’d been handsome and daring; I wondered if I looked half as handsome and daring.

Kahu stepped back and looked at me, and walked a couple circles around me, looking me over.

“Looks good to me; what do you think?” she asked, stepping back and looking up at me.

“I thi-think you’re h-hiding a c-c-cutie mark for fa-shion uh-under that c-cloak.” I said, grinning at her and at my own joke.

“Lovely,” she said, but didn’t seem like she thought my little joke was funny, “You like the look then?” she asked.

When I nodded she nodded in turn, “Great. Come with me.”

“Where are we going?” I asked, following her out the door and closing it behind me.

“Somepony wants to meet you.” She said vaguely, and I flicked the safety switch on my pistol to ‘On’ as a precaution; wouldn’t want another accident.

Footnote;
Level Up!
Guns skill has increased to 35. (From 20)
New Perk – Analytical (2 of 2): You’ve got quite the eye and notice all the tiny details. From a small facial scar to the direction somepony’s mane falls; nothing slips by you. You’ve gained a bonus to your critical chance. (Level/5)