"I come from Detrot where it's cold, rough, and I aint a smooth talker."

Detrot. I read about it one time back in Stable 37 along with other cities like Canterlot, Hoofington, and Cloudsdale that played an important role in the Equestrian government before the bombs fell. Canterlot, obviously, was where the princesses lived and ruled over the Earth Ponies, Unicorns, and Pegasi and was where all of the major democratic decisions were made. It was also a massive hub for many of the cultural aspects of pony life all throughout Equestria. Hoofington was basically an equipment stockade and weapons manufacturing center. That, along with it supposedly having a divine hatred for the zebras that transcended all other cities in Equestria combined, made them one of the most important cities in the country. Cloudsdale was without a doubt important because it was the main home of the pegasus. They lived, worked, played, and trained here before it was cleaned off of the chess board by a megaspell. After that, the pegasi bailed out of the fight and closed the sky up. It's been that way for the past two hundred years and the pegasi haven't showed up yet after their constant promise of their return. At least, that is what the book I got from the loading dock says.

So I guess it was fair that seeing a pegasus like me walking around the Wasteland was a bit strange but it was not something to be worried about too much in my honest opinion. Waking up from an uneventful sleep did not do much for my brain as it still ached from all of the events that transpired yesterday. The constant, low ring in my ears where the concussive force of multiple grenades took their toll on my eardrums did not help the situation either. Dried blood matted in thin streaks that ran from my ears to my neck signifying multiple eardrum ruptures that were fixed only by multiple Healing Potions and dumb luck that I seemed to have pulled together every now and then.

As I sit in front of the bookcase in what I assumed was a library, I skimmed through the copy of The Wasteland Survival Guide - Detrot Edition that was hidden back at the Raider nest. Honestly I had no idea why or how a book like this would end up there so I put that on the list of The Things I Will Not Question About the Wasteland and went back to the read. It was very organized and detailed with every fact and bits of knowledge I would need to know about this new land. It had many interesting articles and chapters talking about the ins and outs of Detrot and many places around it. While I was reading, a section with a bright red header read Bridges - It's a bad idea. I let out a sigh of relief. Now I could finally get a proper explanation of why everyone told me to avoid the bridges in Detrot. My dark sapphire blue eyes ran back and forth across the slightly yellowing paper in not only curiosity, but horror.

In Detrot you might have noticed the abundance of bridges. It is the same way with places like Hoofington and Phillydelphia, but these ones are especially deadly. Sure, everything in the Wasteland is deadly, but these things are really, really bad. Hiding under these bridges is a creature simply known as a Aerico. Now you may ask, 'What is an Aerico?' Well, to put it simply, an Aerico is a special ghoul that wanders the Wasteland near Detrot and spreads disease. They are exceptionally rare, but as dangerous as a Feral Ghoul. They usually hide in dark places when it is daytime as any light drives a Aerico away. They hide under bridges and wait for nightfall so they can find anypony within range and spread their disease to them. The disease, its origin, and its cure is unknown making them one of the most dangerous things in the Wasteland. If a Aerico touches you, don't expect a Healing Potion to fix it. The disease is so powerful that it kills you within an hour and turns you into an Aerico within two. There have been some conflicting reports of a cure being developed by the Eggheads back in Hoofington, but little progress has been made. Until they can brew up a cure, stay as far away from bridges as possible. If you cant get around them, make sure you have a lot of missiles because Aericos are not only dangerous, but nearly impossible to kill."

The rest was filled with other creepy and dangerous things around Detrot like RadScorpions, Hell Hounds, and Alicorns. Nothing about those hit me as bad as the Aericos though. I could not imagine a walking bio-hazard waste basket that if it so much as touches you your dead. That gave me the shivers just thinking about it. No... wait, that was the white stuff still falling outside. It wasn't bad as before though as it probably slowed down a bit last night.

"Well," I said to myself as I looked down at my EFS and found no signs of any immediate threats, "I'm not getting anything done here."

***

It was not as cold as last night when I walked out of the library with a bit more ammunition than when I entered it. A fine sheet of white stuff covered the ground and it made every step I took in it left behind a distinct hoof print in its wake. The Wasteland Survival guide said that it was called "snow" and I immediately was surprised about what it actually was. When I read about snow back in 37, it depicted a elegant show of finely crafted flakes that were made by the pegasi back in Cloudsdale before the bombs went off. These however were nothing like it. It was harsher. Is that even a word? If it is, that is what this snow is. It wasn't soft and fluffy where you could pack it together and make a snowball that you could throw at somepony else. This snow was hard and sharp like little knives falling from the sky in a sideways wind that felt like they were going to cut bloody lacerations across your bare coat and face. Maybe it was just me though. I never felt the sting of the cold quite like this so I am probably exaggerating a bit. Out of dumb curiosity, I picked up some of the snow in my wings and tried to pack it together to see if it could make something. What did I get out of it? A ball of glass shards that did not want to stick to itself in any shape or form.

The stuff that did want to stick though... was harder than a diamond. Once packed into itself, it solidified from the cold and made a solid chunk of ice that easily broke the one window in front of a Hardware Store that I came across. Sure I could have used the door, but that would have required me to move about a ton of rubble away from it and throwing a rock at something made me feel a little bit better about what I did back in the Raider's Alcove.

I killed three Slavers. In self defense of course. They shot me in the wing first so that automatically counts as defending myself right? They shot first.

Then I killed five Raiders. Oddly enough, I felt no shame in that fact. They raped young fillies and colts, were probably cannibalistic, and they probably wouldn't stop doing the things they were doing until they were dead. I had to take the resistors out of the circuit in order to make the current run smother.

Did I just make an electricians joke about Raiders? Oh sweet Celestia I need help right now. Right, the fuck, now.

***

Over the better part of a few hours I got a very crude idea of the layout of Detrot. The EFS and AutoMap helped out a lot but it was though lots of roaming and detail oriented searching of some of the major buildings both on the ground and in the air. I earned a fight with a small band of Raiders that resulted in bullet wound to my left fetlock just below my PipBuck and a broken knife jammed into my right leg just above my knee. Three healing potions later I was up and moving again as I tried to ignore the burning pain the two injuries. A dose of MedX helped a bit but the real pain relief came from a tablet of Buck from a bottle that one of the Raiders had. The tablet tasted like rotting death and it didn't smell any better. The reason for that, I concluded, was because they were in the Raider's pockets along with their guns and other disgusting trophies of their victories from other groups they came across. The Scientific Method comes to save the day again! As for bullets... they didn't have shit.

I came across one of the bridges while I was scouting around too. They were deserted and no Aericos hiding under it like a bridge troll in story books. Sure there were a few RadRoaches but that was the extent of what was living there. I guess that Aericos did not live under every bridge like I originally though and they only lived in a small hoof full of them instead. After crushing a RadRoach and a small green rat that made my PipBuck click in warning and finding nothing but bones and rotting cloths, I left the bridge and made a mental note to not go near it at night. Then I took that mental note, sprayed it in glow-in-the-dark paint, hammered it to a bright red wall, and spray painted a big blue circle around the note with a blue arrow pointed at it on the mental floor. Then, just in case, I placed a cup of tea on the line of paint on the floor as bait for my own brain.

I didn't have enough time to make sure that there was enough sugar in my mental tea cup before the streaks of magical bullets whizzed by me so close that I could feel the disruption of super-heated air and crackling energy on the tips of my ears and wings. A second later, the loud bang of a gunshot slammed into my eardrums as the sound threatened to break my concentration and send me tumbling to the ground. A slight updraft that came up from absolute nowhere caught the underside of my wings and sent me higher into the air and gave me a better idea of what exactly was shooting at me. A pegasus like thing with long arms and powerful legs was perched on top of a low-lying cloud with a high powered rifle aimed at me and finely adjusted the white scope and blue rifle to compensate every slight change in direction that I made. The grey creature fired bullet after magic bullet only stopping to reload after the sixth shot. After bullet number twelve that he shot at me, I realized that he was not going to stop until I was a red goop that was flowing from the two century year old asphalt into the old and probably rusted storm drains in the street below. I had better things to do than be turned to red goop.

Letting out a growl of annoyance at the fact that this was the second time I was shot at today, I pulled out one of the grenades that I was saving from the Docks and activated SATS after pulling the pin. Honestly, I did not expect the spell to work with a grenade. I just wanted to see if it could. Thankfully I was rewarded with an arch that was pointed at the cloud and the approximate fuse time of the bomb before it exploded. It required all of my Spell Charge, but I was going to put it all to good use with this one attack. The spell was released and time resumed as I saw with shocking clarity the grenade spinning and rolling though the air, bursting into hot fragments with a yellow and orange fireball midflight. The cloud that the pegasus thing was positioned on soon evaporated in a puff and little droplets of water trickled out of the sky leaving the confused creature plummeting to the ground as he fumbled over his rifle and trying to open his wings at the same time. If he did not figure out what went where in time, it was going to lead to him being everywhere.

Just as he was about to leave the land of the living in a bloody heap, my hooves and mouth grabbed at the light blue armor and the creature wrapped his rifle in desperation. Honestly, he valued his rifle over his own life? He looked up at me with a pair of emerald green eyes and a symbol around his eye in the same color that made me roll mine in response. I, literally, could not say anything on the subject. His... beak, let out a slight chuckle and an even slighter smile as he said in a raspy, torn voice,

"I never expected a member of the Enclave to be here, let alone one that would want to deal with a griffin."

"Ernclerve? Werts ern Ernclerve?" I groaned in confusion around the collar of the griffin's barding.

"Wait," the griffin said in comprehension and continued with, "Your not Enclave?"

With as much strength I could sacrifice in this particular moment, I shook my head. I could see the gears turning, and failing to work correctly, in the griffin's head. With another chuckle, he asked,

"Are you going to put me down anytime soon?"

***

Flying in of itself is relatively easy for a pegasus who was given the natural gift of flight. Same thing applies to griffins. Flying while carrying something in your mouth and hooves that is about twice your weight was a whole different story in of its own. According to the Wasteland Survival Guide, griffins were notoriously prominent around Detrot as they are attracted to shinny things of high value; a instinctual behavior that dated back long before the end of the world. The fact that Detrot was full of riches untouched by Radiation and many other ponies proved to be a nice ground for griffin scavenging. It was not until twenty or so years ago that the Steel Rangers managed to weave their way up here and began to take technology that they thought was theirs to begin with. After learning that from the griffin Phantom Wing, I concluded that Steel Rangers were another thing to add to the avoid list just under Aericos and other nasty things like it.

I set Phantom Wing down on top of a semi-intact building and landed on the other side of the building away from him, but still within earshot and view. My lungs gasped for air as the exhausted organs tried to suck in the stale oxygen from the area and tried to make the sharp, surging pain dull down in my wings and mouth. After taking a few gulps of air, I turned to look at Phantom Wing to see how he was doing. He just stood there like a living gargoyle and stared at me with uncertainty. His eyes looked from my combed down mane to the little yellow 37 on both sides of my collar sewn in both forward and reverse so everypony knew I was from Stable 37 when I was back in Stable 37. That and the fact that the specific style of embroidery used on the numbers signified that I was a maintenance pony who worked in areas all over the stable like the dreaded "Level 5 - Corridor C".

When his eyes pointed at my PipBuck though...

"No. Your not getting it so don't get any dumb ideas," I choked through gritted teeth.

The griffin stiffened a bit and pulled out the rifle pointing the octagonal barrel in my direction.

"I wasn't going to ask for it," Phantom Wing said coldly.

I turned to look back at him in genuine disgust. What the hell was this griffin's problem? I saved his life and how he turns on me with a rifle and asks for my PipBuck? There had to be something wrong here.

"You want my stuff?" I asked back as I took off my saddlebags and set them in front of the griffin, "Take it. I don't have much so I am ok with starting over again."

"I don't want that either!" the grey feathered griffin barked.

"Then what...?"

"I want you."

Um... what? This could either mean that he required my assistance or that he was going to find a way to get me in bed with him. I really, really hope that it was the first thought.

"For what? Want me for what?" I asked skeptically with only a slight rasp from my tired lungs.

"Your not Enclave and your not a ghoul. I have never seen a pegasus down here who wasn't a Dashite so you must have come from somewhere else and I want to know where you came from and who you are. Who knows, maybe you could fetch me a nice price and fill my contract in one go."

The green eyes the griffin had seemed to shine like polished mirrors at his demand for information. A few hairs on my mane stood on end. Faking a grin, I trotted up to the gun wielding griffin and he demanded me to stop before he shot me. My grin grew only colder as my dark blue eyes stared at his green ones. His claws were shaking a bit and I swore that he would drop the light blue rifle entirely. I got about two feet from him before the hammer on the gun swung down and struck the firing pin. A blue light flickered from the gun's muzzle and died just as quickly as it appeared.

"I told you not to do anything dumb," I told the griffin as he fumbled to open the gun's... revolving cylinder and grabbed a hoof full of glowing bullets, "While you were shooting I observed a pattern in your firing times. After every sixth shot, you would have to stop and reload. I did not throw that grenade when I did because I was lucky. I did it because I knew that you would not have the chance to shoot me again until you finished reloading. The only thing that was luck was when the grenade exploded exactly where I needed it to be at."

The griffin hissed and slung his rifle over his shoulder, pulling out a grey boxy thing with two spark batteries plugged into each side as if the gun itself had wings. Now, I knew even less about what that thing was, but the fact that it had two spark batteries, a high powered storage unit designed to hold a concentrated amount of magical energy, rather than standard bullets, I could only imagine that it would hurt in a completely different way. He was fast. I was fast. Just as he aimed the strange box-like gun at me, I drew my shotgun and dove into the time manipulation of SATS. I toggled two attacks. Not to him, but at the gun. I flipped my shotgun around, grabbed it in my forehooves, and swung the barrel at him like a baseball bat while simultaneously releasing the spell. The first attack sent the hard wood end of my gun into his right hand where I could hear small bones shatter and break and I hoped that strike was enough to loosen his grip a bit. The second attack swung the but of the gun at the center of the gun effectively disarming the griffin and sending the gun skittering across the roof like a big, grey RadRoach. I spun the gun around again and pointed the silver barrel at his beak beak making his eyes grow wide in surprise. The griffin then seemed to relax.

"Well, damn. I definitely did not plan for this," Phantom Wing murmured under his breath.

"Expect what?" I snarled through gritted teeth.

The griffin took a black and silver scarf from his bag and wrapped it around its neck. It was elegantly crafted with probably as much care as his guns and covered his entire neck from the base of his shoulders to just under his chin. He adjusted the blue coat he wore and said slowly,

"I yield. You can do with me as you please."

I felt a few wires fizzle and pop in my brain. Was it just me or did my mouth fall open without my consensus? Oh... wait, it did. Pulling the gun away from the griffin and holstering it, I gave a puzzled look and maybe a wandering eye. The griffin must have read the expression as confused and began to gave me an explanation.

"Are you stupid or something? I yield. You know, surrender. My contract is broken and now I am your slave as my ties with the Green Sign are now severed. What is it you want me to do?"

"Uh...," I stammered trying to fix my several triggered breakers in my head, "um... I have no idea what you are talking about. I don't want a slave, I just want answers."

The griffin let out a puff of air from his nose in utter annoyance.

"The Green Sign! You must know about that right?"

"Um... no. No I don't. I'm kind of new around here so can you give me a crash course on griffin behavior?"

He rolled his eyes as the annoyance level built up in him enough that I had to keep checking my PipBuck's EFS in order to make sure that the little yellow dot that Phantom Wing was did not suddenly turn to red. Thankfully, it was still yellow but I don't think that it would stay that way for long.

"Where are you from? Phillidelphia? Ponyville? Hoofington?" he asked sourly.

"Stable 37," I answered blandly.

Phantom Wing blinked twice.

"Your from a stable? You mean the one underneath the sewage systems?" he asked in curiosity.

I shook my head.

"The one at the foot of Ford's Hill?"

I shook my head again.

"What about the one near Toledo?"

How many stables were around Detrot?

"No. I'm from the one thats about seven miles that way," I answered as I pointed my hoof in the direction of where my stable was, "it was housed under a hill or something. The only way in or out was through a little wooden shack."

"There was a stable there?!" Phantom Wing said in surprise that was loud enough to make my left ear ring a bit.

"Correction," I groaned at I rubbed my throbbing ear, "there is a stable there. A very large one too. It has a population of about fifteen hundred give or take. And every one of them is smart enough to not come out here after me I guess."

"Why did you leave?"

"Curiosity I guess. That and the fact that I did now want to piss off the Overmare. She would likely have me hanged for it," I answered as I wrapped my front hooves around my neck as if I was actually hanging.

Phantom Wing laughed and I laughed too. I really did not know if he was trying to drop my guard or not but if he was then I would be playing right into his trap. My grip around the shotgun's trigger loosened and I slung it around my shoulder. I gave Phantom Wing back his guns and told him that he was free to go and do whatever kind of weird things griffins did. Instead, he said that he wanted to stay with me for a bit. Puzzled, I asked him why he would want to hang around what amounted to be a foal in the Wasteland and his only response was that he was bored. Nothing more about this "Green Sign" thing? Oh well, at least I had a possible companion to travel with now. Even if he may shot me in the back later, it was better than talking to inanimate objects and expecting an answer from them.

***

Oh how I'm thankful that Phantom Wing showed up when he did. Have you ever heard of a RadSkink? According to Phantom, they were small lizard things that liked to hang around water and fead off of small insects like locusts, mammals like mice, and some species of fish. They were completely harmless to ponies; in fact, some ponies kept skinks as pets. In fact, I would have wanted one too if I lived here before the war. Then the bombs fell and the land was soaked with magical radiation that funneled into the rivers around Detrot. The skinks that lived there absorbed all of the radiation like a sponge and soon mutated into other grotesque things. From the radiation, came the RadSkink, a big three headed carnivorous abomination of nature that had fangs that could cut through tough hide and venom that would paralyze you in a near instant. To make matters worse, they could swim and they were as silent as the wind. Coming across such a creature was not a very good idea unless you wanted a relatively good distraction but because Phantom and I did not want such a distraction, we decided the best way to solve the problem was to kill the problem with massive amounts of ammunition.

"Look at it this way," Phantom yelled as he flew over the massive maw of the creature as he reloaded his energy pistols for another attack, "this one is the smallest one I have seen in years."

"The smallest!?" I yelled back while hiding behind a rock and reloading the Whinnychester, "that thing has to be at least six feet tall!"

"Yeah it the smallest. These things usually don't come out of the water until they are fourteen feet tall."

What the... ugh! Damnit Quantum! No time for thinking right now. Shoot first, then ask questions later.

Phantom Wing landed next me and threw the two spark battery casings in his gun to the side. He was exhausted. I was exhausted. We have been at battle with this thing for about twenty minutes and nothing has changed but a shortage of bullets and the use of my last Healing Potion. We needed a plan before that thing ate us as a starter course. But of course, we didn't have one.

"Quantum, I hope you have any good ideas right about now, 'cause that thing wont be confused for long," Phantom said panting.

"I know, I know!" I snapped as I rubbed my hooves against my temples in hopes that Celestia would allow me to borrow some of her brain power and use it to get us out of this mess, "Skinks live in water right?"

"Yeah," Phantom answered.

"I have an idea."

I pulled Phantom back up to his feet and told him to run. Knowing that he was going to be somewhat safe for now, I turned towards the RadSkink and bellowed,

"Come and get me you big salamander!"

The creature must have taken the bait as it turned and charged at me at full force. I took to the air and raced across miles of asphalt and broken concrete into a large warehouse that my PipBuck so helpfully labeled it as Conner's Creek Power and ran inside. There building itself was about twelve stories high with large tanks that were probably empty now. All that mattered was that the structural supports were faulty and already on the verge of collapse. I saw this building a few hours ago when I was originally hunting down Phantom and I knew that it was not going to stand for long. I found it funny that I was originally responsible for fixing and repairing anything electrical in Stable 37 and now I was going to destroy a building that was two-hundred and something years old that produced power just to kill one thing.

The monster then bulldozed into the massive building and let out a terrible screech. Or at least, I think it did. I didn't hear anything. It grumbled in a low, deep grumble and soon two more RadSkinks came plowing through the walls to meet up with the first. The building groaned in protest as the already damaged frame tried desperately to hold itself up. Two more of those creatures skittered into the group as they were literally dripping with river water that made my PipBuck's radiation meter flicker to the yellow-orange part of the dial. Any more of this and I would be a glowing heap of pegasus. My left eye twitched a bit. The only thing I could do was hope that this would work and the universe would grant me the odds that were good enough for me to pull this off.

I let out a battle cry and the skinks did too. They charged at me all at once and I took to the air and landed on a metal railing above the ground. The building did not like what I was doing to it but fuck it. It was going to fall over soon anyways right. So lets make good use of it. I ran out the glass window of the plant and found the natural gas pipes that lead into the factory. They were rusted and worn, but still intact. The same could be said about the terminal that controlled the flow of gas to the generators. I pulled out my RHT and plugged it into the terminal's data interface and immediately the little computer did its work. The monitor screen danced with lights and numbers as the RHT completely ignored the need for a password and tore through the memory banks of the computer with extreme prejudice. The screen then flickered to life with a resounding start up song. I threw my hooves onto the keyboard and told the device to open the gas reserves. A squeal of strained metal later, a progress bar on the screen appeared.

NATURAL GAS PIPES OPENING...

WARNING: DO NOT FORCE THE PIPES TO OPEN. THIS MAY RESULT IN PREMATURE FIRING AND A HIGH PROBABILITY OF ACCIDENTAL DETONATION.

OPTIMUM PRESSURE FOR REIGNITION IN THIRTY SECONDS

Again my hooves raced on the keys as it told every pipe to open all at once.

WARNING: PRESSURE EXCEEDING RECOMMENDED SAFETY LEVELS.

ACTIVATING EMERGENCY SHUT-DOWN ... ERROR

DO YOU WISH TO CONTINUE WITH PROCEDURE? Y_/N_

Furiously I tapped "Y" and turned away from the terminal. Just then, one of the significantly larger RadSkinks tackled me to the ground. It tore at my barding without hesitation and it tried bitting at me with those disgusting three heads. I kicked and squirmed trying to free myself but I could do nothing against the strength of that creature. This was it. I'm dead.

One loud gunshot later, I had a bit more hope about this plan. The RadSkink's head exploded in mildly radioactive blood that coated me from head to hoof making my radiation meter whine in alarm. I looked up to the sky and saw Phantom Wing was that stupid looking gun in his arms and that stupid looking expression on his face. He nodded and flew off away from the factory. I shoved the caracas of the killed RadSkink off of me and glided back down to the asphalt ground. I took one look at the group of RadSkinks in the building and pointed my Whinnychester at it firing my final round. It tore through the air and pinged off of a metal plate releasing a shower of sparks. Then, everything exploded in a plume of green fire and grey smoke.

Heh, so that was what a Balefire Bomb explosion looked like? Cool.

Suddenly something smacked me in the back of the head with enough force to send me into the ground. I looked up and saw Phantom Wing there with a disappointed look etched in his face. He looked back me and scowled,

"You did it all wrong!"

"What?" I asked back a little bit hurt at his statement, "What did I do wrong?"

He grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me straight into the eyes and said slowly making sure that he dramatized each word,

"Cool guys, don't look at explosions."

Author's Note

LEVEL UP

NEW PERK EARNED

ARIAL NAVIGATOR

While in flight, your chances of an opponent landing a Critical Hit is reduced by 20% and reduces the damage you take from a Critical Hit by 25%.