Watch in awe!

"FINE?!" Phantom Wing yelled as she looked at me with the little pink orb in my wing as I explained what just happened.

She had every right to be pissed. I had jumped into a thing that the PipBuck called Project Purge Proposal Memory Orb and left her to deal with the mob of Raiders on the floors below without backup. The only reason why she really didn't give me an earful was the fact that she found me staring off into nothingness with my eyes glowing a bright blueish-white. She tried to move me but my body was as if it was stone and I felt nothing in terms of pain or other stimuli. When I returned back, I felt as if my brain was working five times as hard and was three sizes too big for my head. Despite all of those factors, she still decided to give me a little piece of her mind.

"Bullshit your fine! I found you and your as dead as a door nail. Then a minute later, you were on the verge of being sick and your telling me your fine?! What the fuck happened?!"

"This thing happened!" I yelled back as I held the Memory Orb in front of her in my wing.

"What the hell is that?"

"The hell if I know! If I did, then I probably wouldn't have gone into it in the first place!"

Phantom Wing took a long, slow breath. I could see the anger and adrenaline she had accumulated start to melt away and she looked at me with a sorry little smile.

"Sorry about that."

"No problem Phantom. It was an accident going into that thing in the first place," I answered as I slipped the orb into my saddlebags.

"I think I still left one or two Raiders for you Quantum. You might want to get more used to your gun before we go out and really start doing stupid shit," the griffin suggested as she pointed her bloody energy pistol over to a staircase.

"Good idea," I answered as I buttoned up the first two buttons on my black coat and floated the shotgun in my purple magical field in front of me.

Phantom was right about one thing. No more going into Memory Orbs for me for a while.

***

KABANG!

KABANG!

The Raider who was charging at me only a moment ago fell and came to a rest at my hooves. The first shot somehow missed despite the tight spread and the assistance of SATS but the second one tore his chest open revealing the near liquefied organs that were used to power this pony less than ten seconds ago. If my mind wasn't already occupied on finding the other Raider, I would have probably thrown up another mess of glowing vomit. Just like my glowing red blood that seamed to coat the exposed bits of my hide from the Raiders' gunshots.

The shotgun broke open and two smoking shells popped out clattering to the floor. I followed up by shoving two more shells into the breach. Another Raider who flanked my right without me knowing or hearing him started to fire a shotgun of his own. Hot lead pellets punched through my already shredded copper threaded barding and overcoat, through my wing, and only coming to a stop in my chest. With all of the strength I could muster up I swung my shotgun to him and pulled both of the two triggers and the barrels ignited sending return fire at him with a dazzling show of fire and smoke. He fell only later as he resembled something like a sponge with all of the little pellets leaving great bloody holes in his chest and forehooves.

"Stupid sonsofbitches," I chuckled as I chugged down another one of the Healing Potions that Phantom and I got from the Steel Rangers.

As good as a Healing Potion was right now, I could really use a tailor. I remember seeing one back at Foxes but he charged an insane amount of caps for a simple patch-up and full barding repair was out of the question in terms of pricing. Maybe I should learn how to sew? It's not that different from wiring right? You take your thread (the wires) and you weave it through the fabric (your mainframe) until it makes a strong seal (your complete circuit) and the fabric is able to be worn again. Dealing with real wires was bad enough but dealing with copper woven fabric was probably a different story entirely.

Oi Vey. Maybe I should just leave the work to the professionals.

Some of the things on the Raiders were very useful in repairing my shotgun and Whinnychester. For instance, the shotgun Raider had a rubber recoil pad on the back of his gun that I gladly took and wonderglued onto the but end of the gun. Sure I could just float it in front of me in my artificial telekinetic field or mount it to a Battle Saddle but if I needed to hold the gun in my wings I wanted to be prepared to do just that. The charging Raider had a box of three small metal rings that were cut in a way that made no sense to me. They were mostly round but had six indentations that must have made them a strange gear of a throwing weapon like a Throwing Star. My PipBuck beeped and confirmed, more or less, of my suspicions of what it is buy naming it a Moon Clip.

"Moon what?" I mumbled swirling the flat metal disks in my magic, "These look nothing like moons."

But they costed fifty caps each?! Other than the basic Bottle Cap, this "Moon Clip" was the most expensive single piece of stamped metal that I have ever seen. I wonder why.

Putting that mystery on the back-burner for later I continued my search of relatively worthwhile looking stuff. Like... another Memory Orb that was inside an office desk along with a few caps and a single .44 Hollow Point. Other than that, the third and second floors were pretty boring for an Research and Development Center.

Then I made it to the first floor... and all hell broke loose.

The large spider bot hovered up beside me when my guard was down and started to spew hot white and yellow flames from a devise on one of its several metal appendages. I only heard the faint sound of the Levitation Talisman a few seconds too late as the fire sprayed from its nozzle and lighting my tail on fire. Not knowing whether to take the robot out or to ignore it for now, I ran across the catwalk not realizing that something like it would probably not hold...

Then the catwalk crumpled like tin foil below my hooves and I was sent falling. I landed on top of a metal skeleton of a machine, groaning as I stood back up. At least Celestia was kind enough to put the fire out while I was falling. My PipBuck alerted me that a certain white pegasus had a significant chest injury, a few broken wing bones, and a fractured pelvic bone. I tried to stand back up but the pain that exploded in my body was enough to send my stumbling back to the floor.

"Bloody hell," I mouthed as I pulled the HYDRA syringe from my saddle bags and jammed it into my foreleg just above my PipBuck and injected the medicine in me.

Instantly I felt a few popping sensations in my back and several warm points in other places all over my body where the injuries were the most prominent. The odd sensation of bone fusion and muscle reformation spread from ears to hooves as the chems did whatever it did. When the little pony diagram on my PipBuck was not as torn apart as before, I got back up onto my hooves and sneezed some rainbow colored sludge from out of my noose and mouth and leaving a slightly burning feeling in my throat. The crown on my head seemed to glow a little more.

"Ow...," I moaned as I wiped the salty blue tears from my eyes.

Sweet Celestia do all of my body fluids glow? First my phlegm, then my blood, soon after my vomit, and now my tears glow a faint blue. At this rate I'll turn into a an artist's paint pallet.

I am thankful to mention that the little spider robot was not following me or did not have the protocols active that would make it want to follow me. The floor below the catwalk was drowned in a fog-like layer of dust that accumulated with every step and breath I took. There were many boxes of miscellaneous stuff that I probably wouldn't know the first thing about. I'm an electrician not a gunsmith damnit!

The few things that I found that could have been useful at this exact moment were a few locked ammo boxes. I fought to keep my wings from going into my bag and pulling the Angle Grinder out as that would probably do nothing but attract more robots so I instead plucked out a feather from my wing and grabbed the little key hole with my magic and floated the feather inside. Phantom Wing told me that the trick to lock picking is being patient and listening very closely. I could do both. The feather moved from side to side as I could hear the little mechanisms move and wiggle into place with each stroke the feather made. Then I used a bit of magic to turn the lock.

Slowly...

Slowly...

Click!

The locked box was now an unlocked box! Putting the feather in between the metal of the crown, I threw the box open to find...

An entire box of .44 Hollow Points! And... another Moon Ring with a belt that looked like it could hold the rings in place. On the underside of the lid was a small piece of folded paper. Levitating it to eye level, I read the bold black letters of:

IRONSHOD FIREARMS

How do you like them apples?

I think I got the joke...

Ignoring that for now I open up the little note and it was full of warranty information and subscription signups that wouldn't do me or anypony else any good. The paper stapled to the back was all the more interesting.

Thank you for purchasing at Ironshod Firearms!

Our goal here is to make your family safer and the war easier to win! Your purchase of four(4) Moon Ring(s) and one(1) Moon Belt greatly supports not only our troops, but our cause! Our customized Moon Rings are made to make reloading your guns easier for anypony that cant use magic. Don't be outgunned when your trying to reload and you used a Moon Clip already! Our custom Moon Belts are made to hold up to eight(8) Moon Rings so that you always have enough ammo to get the job done! From the Battlefront to the Homefront, we at Ironshod Firearms will always be there!

The rest of the letter was smudged from age and running ink. I levitated one of the Moon Rings and slid a .44 bullet into one of the groves. Amazingly enough, the bullet stayed in the metal ring as it held by its groves. Soon I found myself taking the other rings out and filling them with bullets and then hanging them on the new black and grey belt lined with shotgun shells that Phantom WIng got me. Along with that, the belt came with two side holsters and one of them had an exact copy of my other Whinnychester still hanging on the belt. I reloaded both guns and clipped the holsters on my belt. I probably just saved myself about seven hundred caps in the process. That, in my opinion, was a good deal.

Finally returning to the real problem, I looked around the lower floor to find a flight of stairs or an elevator. I was not going to risk flying again until I knew for a guaranteed fact that the spider robot thing was dead or whatever robots consider as death. My EFS indicated for me that there were very few hostile targets but one is more than zero in the end. The unopened boxes was going to be a later project, what I had to worry about now is more two hundred year old robots and death traps.

Oi vey... this is going to suck.

***

It did, in fact, suck. The robot from before was hot on my tail as I fired the two Whinnychesters in unison at the robots many long arms only to have the bullets spark off and make nothing more than a pretty light show. Even with the assistance of SATS, the robot continued to charge yelling things in its raspy and tinny voice like,

"BETTER WIPED THAN STRIPED!"

Like I said, it sucked. SATS went up and down so frequently that I burned through all of my charge faster than I could have ever imagined possible. Thank the goddesses that I found the Moon Rings when I did or else I would be a sitting duck when I tried to reload while running. Even reloading with magic is difficult under pressure. I had no idea how Slavers and Raiders did it!

The plan then hit me. If I couldn't take it down with pistol or shotgun, then maybe it could be taken down with the very same thing that powers it. Taking a sharp turn while making sure that the robot was still after me, I pulled up SATS and used the last few action points I had left to fire two shots from the guns at the ceiling. When the spell was released the the bluish hue of slowed time faded, the bullets spun upwards into the air and into a large, thick black cable. The hollow points mushroomed on impact and the electric cable was separated from its mountings. It swung down like a pendulum in a grandfather clock and, with an extra rearing buck, was sent flying into the spider bot and short circuiting its mainframe entirely. The robot jerked spasmodically for a moment before it clattered to the ground in a metal heap.

With a slight tingling in my legs and wings, I walked up to the robot and unloaded every last bullet I had in my Whinnychesters into the metal carcass. While I reloaded the guns and the Moon Clips I spat a glob of slightly glowing yellow phlegm at the robot and trotted away. Nopony was going to salvage any parts from that thing as long as I was around.

"Well," I said to myself still panting from exhaustion, "now that that moment of heart pounding terror is over, I guess I should look at the staircase I found while I was running for my life."

With only a few flaps of my wings I flew over to the staircase that eventually lead down into another storage room. Thankfully, the EFS was empty except for Phantom Wing doing whatever griffins do a few floors above me. The storage room was smaller than I would have originally thought with many wooden boxes and palates stacked to the ceiling. Most of the ammo boxes were empty and many of the good weapons were missing but salvaging the few good parts from all of the weapons and repairing mine was not beyond my ability. I could take apart a Model 8 Iota Series Electrical Regulator in seven minutes; a few rifles and pistols wasn't even a challenge.

Trotting around the room for a minute after resulted in me slipping on an aluminium rod and falling flat on my face. Pulling myself back up and fanning the dust off with my wings I realized that the metal rod was not a lonely metal rod. It was a part of a trail of parts. My magic held all of the pieces in the air as I followed the trail up to the overturned wooden box with fading blue and grey paint. The parts of a Mister Handy series unit. The best part, all of the parts seemed to be there.

"Thank you Wasteland!" I cheered as I jumped into the project without any second of hesitation.

***

After ten minutes, according to my PipBuck's clock, the Mister Handy was complete. It came with four arms instead of three and four eyes instead of three. It must've been a new model or upgrade that Ironshod was trying to get out before the war ended. At least, that was my best guess. Either way the more arms the robot had the better. Sure it was probably very hypocritical of me to make myself a robot when I just destroyed one but fuck it. Its a Mister Handy! I've wanted one since I was a little colt and my ears were too big for my head. Oh... right, my ears are still too big for my head.

Oh whatever. I had a Mister Handy! Now the question is, what do I call it? After putting on the last screw to the head plate a little option box appeared in my vision. It asked if I wanted to name my robot anything I wanted. I selected yes but my mind stopped right there. Over the years of being in Stable 37 I had come up with many names for one of these machines when I finally made one but I couldn't think of any of them to save my life. Then I looked at the robot's appendages. One was a grabby claw thingy (I didn't know what the real name was for it okay. I'm an electrician not a mechanic), another had a serrated saw blade, the third had a flame gun, and the fourth had another small weapon that I could not identify. Grabby thingy, saw, flame gun, other gun. Grabby thingy, saw... Saw... saws...

Then I looked back at the options box and typed "Sawbones" into it. After that, the robot whirred to life. Its orange eyes flickered on and the levitation talisman activated making the ball of aluminum float before me.

"Systems Check," it said moving all of its arms and tools in sequence, "Complete. Mister Handy, always ready to serve you."

"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!" I squealed like a filly prancing in place in front of my robot.

"Beginning identification analysis...," Sawbones said as he produced a thin orange line that swung back and forth across me, "Identification analysis complete. Quantum; Twenty-three years of age; Male; Pegasus; Place of origin unknown; Birth records unavailable."

If I had all of my brains together and was not fangasming over the fact that I had a Mister Handy, I probably would have asked how it could have possibly known any of that. The fact that it didn't know where I was from despite the fact that I had two yellow Thirty-Sevens on my collar made even less sense when I thought about it. Either way, I had a Mister Handy! Sawbones paused for a long second before he suddenly became more... frantic?

"Where are we?" he asked with a puzzled tone in his tinny and simulated voice.

"Ironshod R&D Center in Detrot," I answered flatly.

"What happened here?"

"The war happened."

"Who won?"

I wonder if you could break a robot's heart.

"Nopony did. Everyone has been dead for two hundred years."

Sawbones' four mechanical eyes dropped before he let out a sigh of defeat that was barely audible over his Levitation Talisman. From what I could deduce from his behavior I could only guess that he was some sort of special order for somepony with a fair amount of money nearing the end. When his eyes refocused on mine he said flatly,

"I was to be shipped out over to Hoofington's Ironshod R&D. I was put into production for a one Prince Goldenblood of the Canterlot Aristocracy. I guess that never happened."

"Sorry to hear that," I said as I walked out of the storage room with the robot floating at my side.

"There is no need for that. Due to the Canterlot Salvage Right Acts you are my new owner and I will be happy to be of your assistance."

Cool. Salvage Rights was now something that I put on my short list of Things That Were Awesome Before the End of the World.

***

"Quantum, where'd you get that?" Phantom Wing asked as I walked up the steps to the forth floor with Sawbones.

"I found him," I answered as I already began to put up my mental walls just in case another torment of Phantom's 'Quantum is an idiot' was going to happen.

Instead, the griffin grinned and I swore there were little red caps in her pupils as he looked up and down at Sawbones.

"And no you are not selling him for caps," I added before she got any dumb ideas.

"Why not?" she whined, "He would go for at least a thousand caps."

"The answer is no Phantom," I replied sharply.

I did not want to deal with this shit right now. She snorted and slung the bag over her shoulders and making sure that he wings weren't going to end up getting stuck underneath it. Glaring one more time at Sawbones, Phantom Wing looked back at me and said coolly,

"If your going to keep the robot as a pet, then he better be able to handle himself in a fight 'cause I am not wasting bullets to save a floating ball of scrap."

"You seemed all too keen to waste bullets trying to get the safe open back at the pink building," I answered grinning and enjoying seeing her face turn from grey to red in anger.

"Damn pegasus," she hissed to herself as she took off through the missing wall with her revolving-rifle thing drawn and scanning for any immediate threats.

"Don't worry Sawbones," I said looking over to the robot, "she'll warm up to you soon enough."

"I hope so," he answered so softly that I almost didn't hear him.

***

The walk back to Foxes was always easier than leaving it for some reason. When somepony leaves there is an abundance of Raiders. When somepony comes back however the streets seem to be empty except for the occasional RadRoach or Bloatsprite. The walk gave me time to think about Sawbones and his story. He had told me that he was a custom order for somepony named Prince Goldenblood all the way in Hoofington. Now I did not know where exactly where Hoofington was relative to Detrot but I could deduce from DJ-Pon3 and his broadcasts is that Hoofington was down in the south-eastern part of the Wasteland. They, like the Stable Dweller in the west near a place called Tenpony Tower, had a stable pony of their own that goes by the name "Security". Some of her accomplishments were very fascinating as she managed to anger somepony named "Deus" so much that she now has a ten-thousand cap bounty on her head for the retrieval of her PipBuck and her head and that he would double that if he got her alive. I had to admit, with the kind of money like that, it would be possible that he could have ordered a Sawbones for himself.

Hearing about the ten-thousand cap bounty from my PipBuck, Phantom Wing almost orgasmed at the idea of going to Hoofington, getting Security, giving her to Deus, and getting the caps for herself. All it took was a cross look and a reminder about Beanie and she dumped the plan entirely and reserved herself from conversation. Especially conversation between me and her. What was her deal? We're not that desperate for caps right?

Sawbones seemed to be very adept at giving us directions around Detrot. Was it some sort of internal mapping program or was it something else? Either way, he was very good at navigating through the Detrot ruins to places where he thought were full of good salvage for caps. This fact made Phantom Wing warm up to the robot companion a little more as she greedily shoved spare parts and good junk into her bag. Me? I was fine with finding food (especially the ones of the sweet variety) and ammunition while extracting any bits of information from terminals and electronically locked safes. And, with the help of the wondrously wise PipBuck, all three of us had enough food to last us through winter and enough caps to repair everything we had and then some.

I was getting bored of Phantom Wing's vow of silence after looting the last building closest to Foxes. Time to see what her deal was.

"So... Phantom...," I said slowly trying to avoid a minefield.

"Hm?" She answered as she turned to me and raised an eyebrow.

"I was um... wondering why you are staying with me. I mean, you have no real ties to me or binding contract right?"

She sighed and pointed a claw at her silver and black scarf.

"I am bound to you. It is the Code of the Green Sign. If you cant defend yourself from anyone, griffin or otherwise, and you lose in a one on one duel then you are now property of the victor," she explained.

"I never challenged you to a duel," I answered tilting my head in comprehension.

"When we meet, was there someone to break the fight and intervene?"

I shook my head.

"Did you disarm all of my weapons that I had at the time and held me at gunpoint with yours?"

I nodded.

"Then you won the duel."

"But that wasn't a duel. That was self defense."

"Call it what you want Quantum. It is what it is."

Great. Now I felt like one of those Slaver Ponies Iron Melody told me about. The idea that Phantom Wing was here only because she was apparently my "property" twisted my stomach. I looked over at Sawbones who was watching us patiently and looked back at Phantom Wing.

"You don't need to be with me if you don't want to Phantom. You can leave at any time. Do you want to go?"

She looked away from me and I could imagine that there was conflicting emotions brewing in her head. Some of anger, some of joy, but most of incomprehension.

"Do you?" I repeated.

She gave the ghost of a nod. I trotted over to her and gave her a firm hug. I didn't know if that would help the situation for Phantom Wing but hugs always helped me in situations like this. Releasing her, I walked away with Sawbones leaving the griffin alone to think and possibly go back to her kind. A tear welled up in my one eye and Sawbones cut in and asked softly,

"Did you mean all of that?"

"If you care about someone that much, let them go," I answered and looked back at the spot where the griffin was sitting.

She was airborne now. She was going home to Griffinstone.

Author's Note

LEVEL UP

NEW PERK EARNED

ACTION STALLION LV. 2

You gain 15 more action points in SATS. Effects are cumulative.

SKILLS NOTE

Guns = 25%