Silence is not just a sound, but a tool.

Phantoms. There was a story told at Stable 37 about one such thing. Oh sure, it was a story that foals told to each other to see which one of their friends would wet the bed first but the purpose of those stories now began to make more and more sense the longer I am out wandering the Wasteland. Phantoms, according to most of those stories, were malevolent creatures that were stuck between the realm of living and the realm of the dead. They were usually depicted as emaciated beings with missing eyes, a few strands of hair left on their rotting skin, and having a taste for pony flesh. I didn't know if the members of Stable 37 knew a thing about ghouls but I had a strong feeling that they were talking about those instead. Then I met Phantom Wing and everything changed. He was not the terrifying ghoul creature that I though phantoms were supposed to be. He was just a griffin that was trying to get through life like any other sane creature in the Wasteland. It must be ironic that the most sane thing that I have met out here, aside from Iron Melody of course, was something that tried to shot me. If that was how the Wasteland works, then I would take it and not complain about it.

"You know," Phantom Wing said as I followed him while still trying to learn as much as I could about Detrot from The Wasteland Survival Guide, "I still questioned why you decided to set the entire group of RadSkinks on fire instead of running."

"Simple," I began still panting from the adventure he and I had a half hour ago, "If I would have told you, you would have stopped me. If it didn't work, you would have been all like 'What the fuck Quantum?' and I would be all like 'Well, that didn't go as planned' and then we would be screwed."

"My main question is why you would think that would work in the first place?"

"Just a guess."

The adrenaline that came with blowing up an entire pre-war power plant that was up to its ears with RadSkinks did not seem to fade off of Phantom face one bit. He was talking on and on about how my idiot plan actually worked and that I almost died pulling it off. Somehow I got the impression that he first took me as such an idiot when I tried to take on one of the griffin members of the Green Sign all on my own without backup or an steady set of firearms. I tried to ask him why it was so important, but he glared at me in such a way that I shut up and dropped the subject entirely. When he asked about all the things that I did back in Stable 37, I gave him the same glare and he shut up.

About an hour in our useless wandering we came across a large building with many narrow archways that towered up to its roof. The arches themselves had windows that were only slightly cracked which was a perfect contrast to the old style look of the building. The building had soot built up on the outer walls that gave it a dirty look that sent a chill of unease through my spine and I swore that I could have felt it in my tail. By the sound of it, these ponies did not seem happy about something. I could hear it through the walls. Now, I know that in itself was spooky, but any advantage in the Wasteland I could get was one that I would later deprive of my enemies. Its not wrong. Its only strategy.

Phantom and I trotted up to the two main doors and he knocked on them five times in a specific manner. After a few seconds, a small section of the wood slid away and two magenta eyes pierced down at us with obvious hate and disgust. The pony, or griffin, looked at me for only a few seconds and glared at Phantom.

"What is it you want? Trade, food, chems?" The voice said in boredom.

"I want to talk with the boss, Keeper. I found a fresh flier from a stable and I want to see what he thinks of him," Phantom Wing answered back completely ignoring any sounds of suspicion from the door keeper.

Keeper's eyes then looked down at me again. Their eyes rolled.

"Out of all the griffins, you had to end up with her?" Keeper groaned.

"Wait...," I said as I turned to look back at Phantom Wing, "Your a her?"

"Yeah I'm a her Quantum," Phantom Wing answered proudly as she pounded her chest in pride, "I'm the baddest griffin that ever came out of Green Fields up north. Only the finest of us make it to be a part of the Green Sign and fewer make it down here to spread the word. I'm the first female griffin to go and see the world!"

"What word?" I asked still confused on how I did not figure out that Phantom Wing was a girl sooner.

"The bird is the word kid," Keeper said back at me.

I blinked.

"Seriously. That's your very important message? The bird is the word. What the hell does that even mean?" I huffed as more and more weird stuff was being shoved into my head every passing second.

"Hey don't ask me what it means. I didn't come up with it," Phantom Wing shrugged in sympathy.

The little slot on the door slid shut and with a resounding creak the doors opened. A maroon earth pony with peach hair who I assumed was Keeper looked at us with distaste. She wore a strange devise that had two rifles strapped to her sides and a silver mouth bit that curled up to just bellow her chin that connected to the rifles themselves. The devise was strapped around her with heavy cloth and thick black and blue security barding that it covered her cutie mark and most of her body up to her neck. The only parts that were exposed was the place the helmet was supposed to go and, by the look of it, she didn't have one for that specific point of vulnerability. Still, she was dressed as a Security Pony and that alone made me tense up a bit. Ever since Security back in Stable 37 revolted, I have tried to keep my distance from any one of them. I hope that Keeper would not be added to the list of Ponies to Avoid. She cocked a grin showing slightly yellowed teeth and said coldly,

"Your a stable pony huh?"

Not knowing how to respond to somepony like her, I merely nodded in response.

"Which one? Sixteen? Twenty-two? Nineteen?" she asked curiously.

"Thirty-Seven," I answered quickly and clearly.

It was now Keeper's turn to blink in confusion.

"Stable 37? I thought that one was situated near Appleoosa in the middle of the friggin' desert. Are you sure?"

"Look, if I knew where Appleoosa was in the first place, I would tell you. I walked out of a big metal door with the numbers three and seven in that particular order painted in bright yellow paint so don't go and ask me where I'm from like I'm some sort of filly," I snapped back at her.

Keeper chuckled a little bit.

"So I guess that DJ-Pon3 was telling the truth about you over the radio when she mentioned a new stable pony with a short fuse."

"DJ-Ponwho?" I asked tilting my head a bit and was rewarded by a release of pressure in my jaw bone that usually came with cracking it.

Phantom Wing put her fingers to her eyes and tried to pinch them closed from the amount of blatant stupidity that was nearly dripping off of me right now. Keeper just snickered. Her expression turned a touch warmer as she smiled and told me to go see the rest of the building while Phantom Wing got some fresh ammunition. I couldn't really call it a bad idea. I have been out here for three days and I have already faced Slavers, Raiders, deadly griffin assassins, and RadSkinks. That concludes it, I have made a terrible decision.

***

This place, according to my PipBuck, was called Fox Theatre. It was more massive and elegantly decorated the farther in you go and the best part was that there were ponies everywhere from all different places. They had separate booths set up for different goods ranging from pre-war food to magical gem devices that could be used as drills. I looked at one of the machines called an "Auto-Axe" and looked back at my angle grinder. So this is what my cutting tool would look like when it was all grown up? The unicorn mare with a pink coat, blue eyes, and bright red hair looked at me and I swore I saw little cap signs on her eyes. She grinned and asked,

"Are you in the mood for something, cu'z I could get it to you lickity split!"

"Nah. I'm just wandering around," I answered as I put the grinder back into my saddle bag.

"M'name's Cherry Bud," the pink mare grinned eagerly holding her hoof out, "And welcome to Tools of the Talented"

"Quantum," I answered holding out my hoof to shake hers back.

Cherry's eyes then fell upon my PipBuck and widened. She nearly flew out from behind her counter to look down at the little arcane device locked onto my leg and let out a long and high pitched whistle that made my ear ring a bit.

"Well damn! Ah haven't seen one a those around here on a livin' pony since ah first ahrived here at Fox. Sure it was broken, but still. Where are you from stranger?" she asked raising her eyebrow.

Why does everypony want to know where I came from? Is it that important to everyone?

"I'm from Stable 37," I answered preparing for another long whistle.

Cherry bit down on her lip for a bit and a light bulb must have turned on in her head as she said,

"Yer the one who got rid of all those Raiders near the Docks?!"

I nodded. Another long whistle came from Cherry that was somehow longer and louder than the first one.

"Well shit. Been waitin' for somepony to go and take care of that. Never imagined no stable pony to do that kinda work and bring back a few kids with 'im."

"I went in there just to see what was in there. Scavenging mostly. I never expected to find those fillies and colts there. I was just doing what any normal pony would do in that situation. That's just that," I answered as I tried to avoid any sort of sentence that would spur on another round of whistling.

"Well, its a damn good thing to know that there is at least one more of those heroes that DJ-Pon3 keeps talkin' about. At this point I expected another unicorn mare, but instead we got a pegasus buck who..."

"Wait, wait, wait... no," I interrupted stopping Cherry's thought entirely, "I am no hero alright. I'm just doing what's right that's all. Any normal pony would have done the same. That doesn't make me special."

Cherry just sighed a bit.

"And a humble one too."

I facehoofed. Damnit, why would she not understand? It was simple. I did the right thing, that's all. I shouldn't get a reward or recognition for it. I'm just a pony with a gun that in a dramatic chain of events not only got rid of some Raiders, killed seven RadSkinks by collapsing a power plant on them, and also saved the lives of some fillies and colts from a possibly gruesome end. I was getting praised for something I would have done anyways. This was not okay in my book. I was no hero.

"Somethin' the matter?" the pink unicorn asked in concern.

"Nothing. Nothing at all," I answered sheepishly.

"Well alright. If ya never need anythin', talk to me. I know the ins and outs of this place and I would not mind giving you a tour," Cherry added with a small, sympathetic smile.

I tapped my hoof to my chin for a moment in thought. Maybe she could help me with something.

"Um, Cherry," I murmured, "Do you know where the living quarters are?"

"Well Quantum, they're everywhere. Just pick a spot to lay your head and sleep. Not too much thinkin' involved. My advise is that you don't sleep on stage or in the middle of the hallways. That's just askin' for your shit to be stolen. Trust me, don't do it."

"I'll keep that in mind."

***

What's worse than sleeping on a wooden floor? No, its not sleeping on tile or marble. It's sleeping in a broom closet because of a little mental thing called paranoia. Sure it would prevent any chance of my stuff getting stolen from ponies with sticky hooves, but it was uncomfortable as hell. Now if my ears weren't so big I wouldn't have mind but, because Celestia herself had to give me that particular genetic mutation to me out of all ponies, it was just as bad as sleeping on top of an active steam generator. The flashing lights on my EFS did not help much either as yellow dot after yellow dot passed by me with every minute I tried to catch some sleep. It was about five minutes after I executed my genius plan that I realized that sleep was not going to be an option. Instead, I turned to my PipBuck and scrolled through the radio signals trying to find something good to hear. Most of the channels were static which made me want to break the speaker on the devise entirely. Others were warped messages on loop from ponies probably long dead, like one about a father asking for help into a stable after his son ate a poisoned apple from one of those "damned apple trees". Then a radio signal labeled "MOM HUB #10" appeared and I selected it.

It fizzled for a bit and then, as clear as day, music appeared. It was smooth and silky without mistakes or hesitation. The mare's voice let out every note with so much feeling and soul that I swore that the music itself was going to materialize in front of me and sing to me in this closet. It was strange, for a second, I felt the closet and Fox Theater fall away from me and I was now in some other places. Some better place.

... From the seas to the west and the seas to the east,

My heart will never skip a beat.

From the towns to the hills,

The factories and the mills,

I will always be there with open hooves.

The mare that was singing to me must have been a unicorn at one point and enchanted the song itself as it was trying to tear my heart out. All the images I put in that closet in the back of my head were coming back with a vengeance. The Slavers, the Raiders with their nest, the poor and innocent foals, ... Iron Melody. Just before I started crying though, the song cut off and a male voice called out and demanded my attention.

Alright! That is the kind of music I love listening to! That was Sweetie Belle with "West to East" for all of ya'! Gooood evening everypony this is DJ-Pon3 coming out for you all over the Wasteland! Now I know you have been hearing good things from out all over the south both I need not forget about all of you loyal listeners up north. I've got some special news for you all. Remember about that Stable Dweller who took out that Raiders nest and freed the author of The Wasteland Survival Guide and several other captured ponies? Well, if I'm reading this right, it turns out you have one of those Stable Dwellers too! Yes-ere a pony branding big yellow thirty-sevens on his collar went to the rescue and took out all of the Raiders that were hunkered up at the docks leading to the lakes farther north! Not only that, he's a pegasus! Yes, you heard me right, a pegasus. The Unmarked Dashite has come to help all you ponies up in Detrot ponies so give him a wave when you see him and tell him that DJ-Pon3 is rooting for ya! Now back to Sapphire Shores singing about the one horrible truth about the Wasteland...

I turned off the PipBuck radio so fast that my brain did not even have a chance to tell my hoof to shut it off. In the middle of my excursion with the Raiders I have somehow gotten myself a new name. The Unmarked Dashite? What the hell does that even mean? I'm still marked right? I looked down at my flank and was relieved to still see the big blue dot with a smaller black dot in the center with two jets of red and orange color shooting directly opposite from each side so that the symbol looked more like a compass needle than what it was supposed to be. The only reason why it would still be a pulsar was the two little slivers of blue light that were completely separate from the black and blue dot entirely. I was still marked, so why did the DJ say I was unmarked?

Ugh. Sometimes I hated being smart because it made me a bit oblivious to illogical situations like a name that makes no sense. Then as I began to mentally process what a Dashite was, I heard my stomach groan a bit. Oh yeah, it was two days since I ate, or drank, anything and constantly running and throwing up did not help the situation one bit. A minute of fumbling later I turned the door knob and followed the signs all hanging on the wall to the cafeteria. Okay, it was more of a semi-clean sub-basement that was converted into a kitchen. Most importantly though were the machines that made the food. They themselves took up about half the room itself and it let out a constant, low rumble. I stepped in line and was automatically greeted by mixed emotions of either hatred or praise. The line seemed to moved faster than I thought possible and soon I was up to take my food. It was handed to me by a big blue earth pony with a black mane and tail with a cog for a cutie mark. Somehow the metal tray of little green and yellowish chip things did not seem appetizing at all but, in the end, it was better than nothing right?

***

I would have rather starved. One bite from the green food made me gag and made my stomach begin to complain. Sure the food was free but when I went to ask the blue buck how the food was made and what it was made with he answered simply with,

"Don't think about it."

I swore my stomach wanted to crawl out of my body and beg for mercy after hearing that. Screw having anymore of whatever that food was. I value my life over food. When nopony was looking, I threw the food away and trotted back to where I was sitting and pulled out some pre-war cake. It was dusty and old, bit it was infinitely better than the food chips that the blue cog pony was passing out. Was he trying to poison everypony? It looked like even he ate the stuff. That fact also furthered my suspicion on his diabolical plans of murdering everyone in Foxes then taking all of their stuff and leaving them to rot. Before I could think deeper into his nefarious plans, Phantom Wing landed next to me with a metal tray with some strange red stuff on it. It was not like one of those chip things. It was more solid and it was sizzling.

"Foxes food not agreeing with ya'?" She asked taking a seat next to me.

"No. That blue pony with the cog on his flank must be planning to kill everypony stupid enough to eat his food and take their stuff in the middle of the night," I answered looking back at the blue pony with a sharp glare.

"You mean Worm Gear? Yeah, most ponies say that about his food. He uses recycling talismans instead of actually making food. Some ponies might agree with you, but no one has found any dirt on him about that yet."

Worm Gear? His name was Worm Gear? Now that name made my guts scream and my bowels want to shut down entirely.

"Oh sweet Celestia," I mumbled under my breath.

"Aw common Quantum," Phantom Wing teased as she punched me in the shoulder just below my left wing and taking a bite from her red colored food, "It ain't that bad if you ignore the fact that its probably another ponies' recycled clothing or something your eating."

All right. That's it. I got rid of all of the food that I ate in a chunky pile of vomit just below my hooves. Wiping the tears from my eyes and the acidic gunk from my mouth, I stared back at the grey feathered griffin with a look of imminent revenge. Not now, not today, and probably not tomorrow. It still was going to come around and bite her in the ass one day or another and I was going to make sure I was there to see it and laugh just as she did. With me probably being the pony with the most dignity in the room, and the fact that the janitors were two centuries dead, I bought a coal shovel from the Tools of the Talented stand for twenty caps and scooped up my expelled food and tossed it out the nearest window. Goddesses damn me to the deepest parts of hell if I dropped my position as electrician and become a janitor because I left my stable.

***

A little while later Phantom Wing, Keeper, and I were standing outside of a wooden door with a brass metal plate with "DIRECTOR" stamped in it with fading black letters. Keeper looked back at me and, every time she did so, gave me a smug grin when she saw me shaking like a bush. Phantom Wing was a bit more serious about the subject than I would have originally guessed. Me? I was preparing to meet another Overmare and, to be honest, I hated the Overmare back at Stable 37. She was a total basket case who mostly worried about how well the Security ponies were armed and if the maintenance levels were breaking. It was all fine and good for all of the maintenance ponies like myself, but was an absolute nightmare when we had to work in the upper levels. It was basically organized chaos. The worst organized chaos ever conceived. It was only a matter of time before the Security ponies snapped and started shooting. Unfortunately being in the crossfire did not do wonders for me as a bullet punched clean through both of my haunches and it only earned me a two week supply of MedX and multiple trips to medical to have it fixed. Right now, if she was worrying where one of her electrical ponies went and they needed a generator fixed it would just be icing on the pre-war cake... only it would taste better.

"Com'on!" Keeper yelled as she pounded on the door a third time, "I know your in there Nescolt! We have somepony you would like to meet!"

"Fuck off," a voice groaned through the wood.

"Nescolt stop being a sack of shit and get out here! We have the new flier!" Phantom Wing added.

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" the voice of Nescolt moaned.

There was a moment of silence before the door swung in and a pale brown earth pony with dark brown hair and a few streaks of white through it. He had dark chocolate eyes with darker blotches of brown underneath his eyelids. Maybe he needed some sleep but his mane looked particularly frizzled and in dire need of attention. His teeth were a piss yellow and seemed like they themselves were going to fall out of his mouth right in front of me.

"You both have a lot of nerve coming here right now. Coco Beans and I are having our own little problem so I say again. Fuck. OFF!"

The door swung shut in front of us with such a force that I was convinced that the little "DIRECTOR" plate was going to fall right off. Keeper let out an annoyed sigh.

"We should come back later Quantum. I forgot that those two lost their son to the Wasteland a few days ago," the brownish-red earth pony said.

"What happened? How did he die?" I asked in genuine curiosity and sympathy.

Wow, did I really just ask that? I have been out here for like... two days and I'm already asking how ponies have died. What the hell was going on in that cluster of nerves in my head called a brain?

"Beanie didn't die," Phantom Wing began, "He just up and vanished into thin air. Yeah he was a unicorn but none of us knew that he could teleport or something like that. He hasn't been anywhere but here and a few runs to fetch food and medical supplies but that was when it was only Nescolt and Coco Beans living here about nineteen years ago. Some ponies think that he was picked up by griffins but when I went to ask, we came up empty clawed."

"Why would he want to, you know, leave?" I added.

Keeper just shrugged.

"Some ponies say that he wanted to see the world," Phantom chuckled, "can you imagine? Who would want to leave their nice and comfortable home just to go and see what kind of hellscape Equestira in now?"

I glared at Phantom Wing in disgust. In response, she raised her claws in defense.

"Don't give me that look Quantum. I already knew that Equestria went to shit so I wanted to go and make a fortune. What about you? Why did you leave your stable?"

"To go and see the world," I answered flatly.

Before Phantom nor Keeper could go any further on the subject my hooves connected to the door and the wooden barrier swung inwards with a mighty crash that nearly broke it off of its hinges. It was at this point of time that I was astounded that neither one of them asked the simple question of why I did that. Good. I did not have time for questions at the moment. Plus, I really didn't know why I did that either.

"NESCOLT!" I yelled as I trotted into the office.

The two ponies, one being Nescolt and the other I believed to be Coco Beans, were sitting on an old threadbare couch that still had the fading remains of floral patterns on it one holding a framed picture in his hooves and the other crying into her husband's chest. Somehow I found it rather amusing to see the mare having the same basic color pattern as Nescolt but in near reverse and having a noticeably darker coat than her stallion counterpart. Nescolt took his eyes off of Coco Beans for only a minute before he gave me a glare of certain and guaranteed death before he hissed the two words "Fuck" and "Off" at me again in that particular order before returning to comforting his wife. Now I may know more about the male and female ends of an extension cord than about actual love and parenthood, but what I could gather from this I could see that they were really hoof deep in grief while still trying to hold onto the small bits of hope that they have left for their son.

The mare who I assumed was Coco Beans looked up at me with red and teary eyes and an expression that turned from sour to a little sweet like that one bag of pre-war candy that I found on the librarian's desk when I was first starting to read The Wasteland Survival Guide. She gave a snotty sniff and gave me just a hint of a warm smile before asking,

"Are you the new flier that Phantom Wing was talking about?"

"Yes ma'm," I answered immediately.

She then started looking at me funny. Really funny. Damn... how long did she have to look at me before she realized that I was a pegasus?

Oh sweet Celestia she was eyeballing me. Eyeballing me in that kind of way. I suddenly became very, very uncomfortable and it got worse with every second I made eye contact with her. Why was she staring at me like that? Why won't she stop? Oh please make her stop looking at me like that.

"Good, good," Coco Beans murmured as she picked herself out of Nescolt's embrace and trotted towards me and held out a hoof.

"My name is Quantum ma'am. What is this I heard about your son going missing?"

"Well," she began as she tried to gather her thoughts and emotions, "Beanie has always been a wanderer of sorts. He liked to get himself into trouble around Foxes so we tried to keep him from leaving until we knew he was old enough to go out on his own. I guess that wasn't enough though. One night when business was slow and most of the guards were asleep, he just left without a trace. He took his hooded jacket, his saddlebags, a few days worth of food, some medicine and about three hundred caps from the reserves. Nopony knows what happened to him after that."

Coco Beans then handed me the framed picture she had clutched in her hooves just before this whole conversation started and I took a good long look at it. The glass itself was smudged up and old with some obvious scratches and chips in it that indicated that the picture has been through just as much as the family who owns the photo had. The wood however was oddly very new and it was the least worn part of the picture. On the photo itself was of Coco Beans and Nescolt holding a small colt in the air in their hooves while the colt was holding a rusty lunchbox with all of the paint peeling off and the lock nearly rusted off. The unicorn pony had an orange coat with a shaggy lime green mane with a pair of red eyes. Unfortunately that was all the photo gave me. It didn't even give me a cutie mark to look for. Still, how many orange unicorns have I came across so far? Honestly, I think this might be my first unless one of the Slavers/Raiders was orange and I simply wasn't paying attention. Now that I think about it, it would have been impossible to pay attention to that kind of thing because of the fact that I had bigger things to worry about like other Slavers and Raiders and... and...

"Damnit!" I yelled as I beat my head against the wall.

"Quantum, are you alright?" Phantom Wing asked as she swooped in and stopped me before I left a watermelon size hole in the plaster wall.

"Is he alright?" Keeper asked as she chimed into the conversation.

No. No I wasn't alright Keeper. It felt as if I was trampled by a herd of buffalo. Thanks for asking though.

"Sorry," I said as I got all of my thoughts put back in my head, "There is about a thousand things that I was thinking about and my brain was shutting down."

"So there is such thing as thinking yourself to death," Phantom added with a smug little smile.

"Anyways," I continued as I turned to look at Coco Beans and the now alert Nescolt, "I will help find your son. He could not have gone far in the Wasteland if he only travels by hoof. I could do a few fly-byes of the city and see if he is hiding somewhere around there. If I find him, you'll be the first ones to know."

Coco Beans sniffed again and ran towards me and jumped into a hug. Stunned, I looked at Phantom Wing and Keeper for support putting on a look that translated to "What the fuck do I say?" that I so desperately hoped that they would understand. The two only gave me a sly smirk.

Oi vey... females...

***

Since when did Phantom Wing find a Gatling Gun? A Gatling gun with a half inch caliber ammunition feed no less. We only met for about, what, a few hours and most of that time was spent either trying to kill each other or being chased by RadSkinks. She told me that she found it just before we met but I don't buy it. If her satchel can fit a gun that big, then it must me a magic satchel or something because it would be impossible to fit something of that size in a bag that small. The more disturbing part of it was the fact that it could be hooked up to a battle saddle. What did that mean for me? It meant that I was going to be the one who holds it while Phantom Wing does the scouting and reconnaissance. Being a grounded pegasus sucks. There was only one good thing about being on the ground all of the time though that Phantom Wing must have forgotten about.

First dips on the looting!

I should be on the ground more often if this kind of dumb luck keeps up. Not only did I find a huge load of caps that I was planning on spending later for weapons from Tools of the Talented that I was really looking at when Cherry Bud wasn't paying much attention. The piece I was looking for was a matching .44 Whinnychester for the one I already had. Fortunately it was in just as good a shape as the one I already owned. Unfortunately it was four hundred caps. To put it into better perspective, the Auto-Axe I was looking at was about one hundred and fifty caps. And that was apparently the cheap price. It was a good thing that Phantom Wing was in the air I guess. I did not want her hoarding my caps before I got a chance to get that gun. I knew that it was a bit selfish of me to say that but I wanted that gun. It was simple logic. If I could hold one pistol in one wing with no problem, then I should be able to hold another one in my other wing with no problem.

Hooray, once again, for the Scientific Method.

"You see anything?" I yelled as I looked up to Phantom Wing who was perched on top of a church like a living gargoyle.

"Nah," She answered with a agitated tone in her voice, "Either he's hiding from us or were really bad at this."

"I think it might be a combination of both," I added raising an eyebrow and trying to hide a chuckle.

Phantom Wing's green eyes then looked directly at me and she gave me a stare that somehow gave me a cold shoulder. After a few long seconds she returned to looking.

"What are the odds that we find him in this mess?" Phantom asked not taking her eyes off of the landscape.

"How big is the city and how many buildings are left intact?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"Lets say thirty or so miles then."

Thirty times the approximate number of still standing buildings plus the approximate number of ruined buildings minus the quantity of Raiders, Slavers, Ghouls, and Aericos. Oh wait, I forgot to add in the Detrot fog, the huge lake, the approximate size of Beanie, and how much time me and Phantom will actually put into trying to find him. That equals... fourish?

"We might have about a four-and-a-half percent chance of finding Beanie in these conditions," I answered simply.

"I thought you were an electrician, not a physicist," Phantom Wing groaned as she clenched her eyes together with her talons in exasperation.

"I thought you were a sniper, not a whiner. At least we have the four-and-a-half percent right?"

Phantom Wing rolled her eyes. I don't think she knew much in terms of odds and probability, but she probably figured out that four-and-a-half means nearly impossible.

"Hey would it comfort you a bit if I said that I rounded up to the nearest tenth?" I sneered.

Phantom Wing puffed out her chest feathers in petty annoyance. At least, that's what I think she was doing. It was really hard to tell if she was or not because of the sky blue hooded cloak with the small chainmail piece that covered her upper thighs. If I haven't already figured out that Phantom Wing was a female the metal skirt would have been a dead giveaway. With a flutter of her powerful wings she took off into the air, once more ignoring the fact that having a pegasus with a two hundred pound lift force who weighs one hundred and twenty pounds and is carrying a seventy pound gun with an extra forty pounds of reinforcements and twenty pounds of ammunition and other miscellaneous things is physically impossible for a creature with small wings. Oh well, more loot for me.

***

For a long few hours, nothing happened. Okay, a few Raiders happened and that was all. That and the fact that I learned how insane a Gatling Gun is when you don't plant your hooves in the ground well enough. About one hundred rounds later I was laying on the ground with a pool of Raider blood caking the soil, the gun, and myself. What did that mean for Phantom Wing who was so hell bent on taking the gun with her? She got to carry it for the rest of the trip. She also made a mental note to never let me use a gun as big as that ever again.

Ever.

Even if I had the weight of the gun off of my sides I still decided to stay on the ground and look for good stuff to loot. That means, more caps now and more caps later for stuff I will sell.

Then a bullet tore my right ear clean off. I must have lost consciousness for about two seconds when the ear ringing started up again and fell to the ground in a sprawled and shocked heap. I glanced to my left and saw the large white piece of hide, muscle, and cartilage across the street. Soon there was a storm of concussive blasts and flashing lights that would have done Sweetie Belle proud. Unable to hear, I yelled out to Phantom Wing to get me the hell out of here. My voice carried no sound though. At least, I think it carried no sound. Oh please let it still carry sound and I just couldn't hear it at the moment.

Phantom Wing landed to my side and the great metal behemoth strapped to his waist began to spin which lead way to a bright orange cone of fire that tore through everything in front of it. Whatever was in front of it at least. I really couldn't see what she was shooting at. All I really could see was what they were shooting at us with. Volley upon volley of metal apples were flung at us like they were quickly going out of style or something. For a barrage of targets that small, I was amazed to still see Phantom Wing take each one out with little problem or hesitation. Each apple exploded in the air sending hot metal bits of stuff everywhere and I swore that a few pieces gone into the gash that used to hold my ear to my head.

Phantom Wing picked me up in her one forelimbs and proceeded to carry my dazed body away while continuing to return fire. We got behind an overturned sky wagon and she gently set me down and ran to get my ear. If I had any sort of cognitive thought left that didn't get yanked out with my ear, I would have thrown up. Instead I sit there one eye open and the other abnormally lazy with a bridge of saliva dripping from my mouth. The ringing didn't help either. With one bullet... one bullet... I was reduced to a confused husk of a pegasus with pain being the only thing going through my head. Either that was the universe telling me to grow a set and deal with the fact that your in the Wasteland now or that it was the universe telling me that I was acting like a scared little bitch. Whatever the case may be, the universe won that battle for now. Now it was time to win the war.

I looked around for Phantom Wing to see if she was still alive or not. Thankfully she was but she was taking so much suppressive fire that it was impossible for her to get my ear back. Time to change the odds.

Another grenade then whizzed through the air in our direction. I grabbed for my shotgun and leaped right in front of the apple's arching trajectory and swung the gun like a bat and sent it flying in the reverse direction. With a dull thudding that I could only hear through my left ear the grenade went off and a cloud of grey and black smokescreen from out of nowhere and covered our position. I ran back to Phantom Wing half expecting to see her shot to hell but was immediately revealed to see her sucking down another healing potion as she watched her wounds heal. She must have taken at least three of those because some of those injuries did not want to close fully. Her arms took most of the damage though. That meant that I was the one left to the shooting. If I didn't have an EFS right now, we would have been one hundred different states of screwed.

She then handed me her blue rifle and a bag of ammo in shaking grip that indicated that she was on the verge of either death or unconsciousness. I gave her a determined nod and took the... revolver with a rifle length barrel? It was literally a revolver with a bigger barrel, a bigger butt and a bigger stalk. The gun itself was a light blue with some remnants of a once silver grey metal peering through the paint from some scratches that lined it from octagonal muzzle to... revolving chamber. It also boasted a high powered scope with a little black device just below the lens with a little blue button next to it. I've seen a few modified weapons out here but this was an entire different species of rifle entirely. No breach, no pump, no magazine, nor belt. Just an old fashioned revolver with a long ass barrel. The best thing about it was not the impressiveness of the design, but the fact that it took the same basic type of rifle rounds that came almost standard in the Wasteland. That made this gun even more convenient.

Peeling my eyes off of the craftsmanship of the rifle, I steadied if off of the piece of concrete that acted as cover and I was once again shocked at the guns ever unfolding surprises. Looking through the scope did not give me a photographic image like most rifle scopes. It instead gave me the distinct reds, yellows, and blues of a thermal signature of ten different targets. Not only does the gun look beautiful, it was probably the most dangerous weapon that I have ever seen because of its ability to still hit things in a smokescreen. This was a rifle for ninjas.

Cueing up SATS, I placed three shots at three of the enemies. I would have fired more, but the fact was that the gun required much more charge points than any other normal weapon that I used thus far. When time resumed to its normal pace, I saw the first magic bullet had already torn the head off of one of the targets. The second arched a strayed a bit to the left and missed my opponent's head but hit them in the shoulder. The third wrapped the third target in a blue glow that disintegrated him only a few seconds after impact. Then the pinging of dozens of low caliber bullets meeting metal rang out as a machine gun began to unload every projectile it had at us. They were large enough to make a very annoying ring in my one intact ear but still small enough to not puncture through the metal framework of the sky wagon and hit neither me or Phantom Wing. Good, I needed all the time I could get.

Glancing back at Phantom Wing made me see that she was at least back on her feet. She was covered in blood from multiple different sources and her one wing was missing a few of its grey feathers. All in all, she was alive. At that point, it was all I could have wished for.

"I'll get your ear Quantum. You give me cover," she mouthed makings sure that she exaggerated every word so I could read them correctly.

I nodded in response as I took the half-inch Gatling Gun off of her, strapped it to my back, and bit in the mouth trigger. My teeth clicked the safety pin for the gun and the motor gave a resounding beep and the little red indicator light on it turned to blue. I then placed my tongue on the firing plate and felt the motor start to spin the mechanized barrel in delight.

"LERTS REEERK!!!" I yelled over the mouth bit as I jumped out from behind cover and began to fire back with extreme prejudice.

SATS returned after what felt like an eternity and I cued it up. By now, most of the dust had settled and I could finally see what I was shooting at. The sight was one part confusing to two parts "What the fuck". The things shooting at me were made of solid metal with heavy glass visors. Next to the visors was a small floodlight that cut through most of the haze. They were completely encased in armor from head, to hoof. Even their manes and tails were covered in the same amount of metal that covered their entire body. They had machines mounted on their sides that were on par with the Gatling Gun mounted to my Battle Saddle. When they saw the gun, the shooting stopped. Like out of a book, there was fighting, then there was silence.

"Fall back," a voice of a mare said through the wind.

Immediately all of the iron clad warriors trotted back in like as their leader ordered. The pony who addressed them had a purple design on her armor that sharply contrasted her grayish green colored metal suit. On her one side was a grenade launcher that was nearly my length and half my size. On her other side where another gun should theoretically be, was an empty slot that would house a weapon about the same size as my Gatling Gun. She lifted her one hoof and tapped a little button behind her helmet. With a few puffs of air and the labored grinding of several gears the helmet unlocked itself enough that the mare lifted it off.

One second ago I was looking at a metal death machine that almost turned me, Phantom, and every other possible scavenger into red paint on the asphalt. Now I was looking at a charcoal black earth pony with a mane similar to my blue and black one and gunmetal blue eyes that looked back at me with no emotion. Despite having a metal that could stop about ten bullets before making a dent, her mane was still well maintained with only a few streaks of ageing grey. Somehow finding out that Steel Rangers were actual ponies underneath that suit of armor made them all the more intimidating. I don't know how or why that makes any sense, but it just does.

"You've got a lot of nerve carrying around a weapon stolen from the Steel Rangers Detrot Contingent," the black pony said without any sign of unease.

"Stolen?" I asked in confusion, "We didn't steal anything miss..."

"Senior Paladin Double Blade."

"Right... Miss Blade we did not steal any weapon. We scavenged it fair and square. I will happily trade it for something you may have but unless I say otherwise, its ours."

Double Blade looked at me flatly. She was obviously unimpressed and undeterred by my statement. Just before I could reinforce my statement, she said coolly,

"Yesterday at eighteen hundred hours a small raiding party infiltrated our stronghold and stole one of our coveted M134 Mark 5 Miniguns and nearly two thousand caps worth of half inch armor penetrating ammunition belts. Not to mention the spare motor used to run the gun and all of the maintenance tools needed to clean and repair the weapon. Elder Radio Waves and the rest of the Reconnaissance team concluded that a pony did not steal the weapon," Double Blade explained as she gave a hard look at Phantom Wing.

"You think Phantom Wing did it?" I asked as I too looked at her with disapproval.

"Have you seen any other M134s around? If you have and we just missed them, then we will leave you alone."

Suddenly I felt a cold piece of flesh be stuck on the side of my head. Phantom Wing, completely ignoring the Steel Ranger in front of her, placed my ear near the correct spot on my head and poured a Healing Potion on it. Despite it working near instantly with the fleshy extension fusing to my head, I still could not hear well out of it and all of the other injuries I had did not want to heal and the two of us ran out of Healing Potions at that point. I let out a sigh.

"Look Double Blade," I began carefully as I began to unhook the Gatling Gun off of my Battle Saddle, "If this gun is truly yours, I'll give it back free of charge."

"Quantum!" Phantom Wing growled through gritted teeth but Double Blade and I glared at her and she shut up.

"Sorry that it went missing from you. If I knew that it was yours before this, you still would have those three Rangers."

"Three Rangers? The three you shot were just other Raiders," Double Blade answered to my stark relief.

"Either way," I continued as I slid the gun onto the hooks and mechanisms on the Magical Power Armor's empty gun port, "Here you go. I ask for only one thing in return."

After finishing the rewiring of the gun to Double Blade's armor and making sure the feed belts were secured to the ammo holds in her flanks, she tested the motor and granted us a small smile when she learned that the gun was still functioning. I also managed to get Phantom Wing to give the spare motor and every tool in the maintenance kit to the ranger with two auto-cannons. Upon seeing every stolen part being returned and giving them some caps as compensation for the bullets we used, the auto-cannon ranger named Ripple Effect gave us a few Healing Potions, a few syringes of Med-X, a full bottle of Rad-X, a packet of RadAway, and two injectors full of a greyish-red sludge labeled "HYDRA".

"You know," Double Blade said before finally trotting off, "For an Enclave pegasus, you are one of the more caring and more outgoing pegasi I've seen in a while."

"I'm not Enclave," I replied as I waved the Steel Rangers off, "I'm just your friendly neighborhood pegasus."

And with that, the Steel Rangers left. The day was almost over and Phantom Wing was apparently so pissed off at me that she didn't talk to me until we finished lighting the fire that we used to ward off any of the irradiated things that threatened us while we slept.

"You know that we could have taken every one of those Steel Fuckers out with that Gatling Gun right Quantum?" Phantom Wing scoffed.

"Maybe so, but you stole that very same Gatling Gun from them," I answered with a slightly sharper tone than what I normally use.

"Its called 'Looting' Quantum; look it up."

"Its not 'Looting' if the ponies your looting from are still alive Phantom!" I snapped back.

How could she think that stealing was the answer? It was their gun and Phantom Wing stole it unfairly. It was the only sensible thing to do. Sure we gave a possible enemy more ordinance to kill us with, but there was also the possibility that we gave an ally some extra firepower if we ever need it and they are in the same area as us. More backup in the Wasteland looked like a good idea from all angles and if I could make a coalition with the Steel Rangers, then we would have one less enemy to loot our stuff and one more way to win than before. If that was the case, why was Phantom Wing so angry with me over the subject?

I curled up into a little ball and let out a yawn. My coat that I got from Tools of the Talented acted as my blanket for the night. I hope that Phantom Wing will come to her senses tomorrow. The last thing I need is a pissy and uncooperative griffin following me around telling me what I think is right and wrong. I have bigger problems then that. Tomorrow we will continue our search for Beanie and return him to Coco Beans and Nescolt back at Fox Theatre. Then were going to get paid for it and be on our way to find something else to do to make more caps.

Oh who was I kidding? Nothing in the Wasteland was ever that easy Quantum.

Nothing.

Author's Note

75% UNTIL NEXT LEVEL

QUEST PERK ADDED

STRATEGIC PLANNING

You gain an extra 10% experience when you complete any mission or quest.