We slowly walked into Bucklemare, our heads turning from left to right as well looked for signs of pony life. We could see lights coming out of the small homes surrounding us, but there was no pony inside. Infact I couldn’t even see a single pony shadow inside the lit homes. Either this place was abandoned, or we were being shunned for some unknown reason. Either or I felt completely uneasy in this ghost town. Well, at least I considered it a ghost town until I felt a bottle hit the back of my head.

“Ouch,” I yelled, and looked around angrily for the source of the bottle. My eyes locked onto the sight of a hoof darting back into a cracked open door, incoherent yelling coming from inside the home. My anger quickly faded, being replaced by confusion and concern. These ponies didn’t seem like raiders, but they did seem hostile, or at least scared. Why the heck were they scared of just me and my steel ranger companion?

Confused, I walked into the middle of the town where a decaying garden stood, and flopped onto one of the rotting wooden benches, the wood creaking under me. I didn’t care if I woke up with a drawn on “kick me” message on my flank as long as I got sleep. I was exhausted, and I planned to sleep for atleast an hour. “What are you doing?” Rosey asked, seeming to not understand the universal signs of “i’m tired” radiating from my body. “I need sleep,” I mumbled, putting my forehoofs out in front of me and laying my head down on them.

“Here? In a seemingly hostile town?”

“My EFS says only about half are hostile, i’m guessing most are afraid or curious for some reason, “ I answered, and her face seemed to become even more worried. Okay, her worry made me worry, and now I couldn’t close my damn eyes. After a minute of her staring at me awkwardly, I sighed, loud and long, before flopping off of the bench and onto the ground, standing back up on all four hoofs. “Does this place have a sheriff or something like that?” I asked her, holding back a yawn. She nodded, and began to head towards the closest structure too the garden.

It turned out that the sheriff’s home was the only one that did not have a pony in it. After 5 minutes of knocking and hollered hellos, not a single light had turned on in the dark building. This seemed to worry Rosey even more, but I was just confused. I couldn’t decide what this place was all about, if they were scared raiders, an actual town, or just refugees taking, well refuge, in some runes of an old city. Whatever it was, we needed answers, or there would be no chance of helping these ponies at all.

Finally some pony decided to step out of their home and approach us, well timidly approach us but it was better than not being approached at all. I opened my muzzle to let out a friendly hello, but before I could even utter a word Rosey stepped forward towards the pony and questioned, “Hello, where is your sheriff of this town?”

“Did you come all the way here just to ask us a question you already know the answer too you sick bastards,” he spat, taking both me and Rosey by surprise. Wait what? Did this whole bucking town have us mixed up? If so, what did they mean we already knew the answers? My turn to step forwards, I attempted to explain, “Sir I believe you have us mixed up, we are just travelling and heard of a safe town along our path, and had stopped by to request respite and shelter for a few nights,”

With those words I could see the light showing from the fire in his eyes dim, but not extinguish. He was still clearly not believing a single word I said, or at least not yet. Quickly thinking, I added “My name is Onyx Leaf, and this is my friend Rosey, we want to help but first we need some kind of explanation to what's going on,”

“And how do I know I, or the rest of this small town, can trust you?” he barked at us, and I flinched taking a step back. I could see he wanted to believe it, but he still couldn’t. Damnit how could I convince such a hard headed buck? “Because, if my thoughts are right we are the only hope you have of getting back your sheriff,” Rosey said cooly, and I saw the fire go out. I hesitated, looking at Rosey as she looked straight at the buck, her stance non-threatening.

“I promise we will help, but could you tell us what in the name of Celestia is going on?” I put in, and he seemed to relax, and Rosey shot me a small look of triumph. The buck hollered out to the rest of the town, and within moments ponies were coming out of the houses, all seeming cautious as would be expected, but willing. I wondered how many times ponies had come through to try and hurt these ponies. Maybe that's why they had been so scared. That or me and Rosey had bad breath. I assumed the former.

Suddenly all the townponies pressed in around us, all talking at once, the voices turning into a loud chatter that a single word couldn’t be taken out of. This wasn’t going to work, we needed just one pony with most of the info to say. But how could me or Rosey raise our voices over this many ponies talking at once. I grimaced internally as I imagined the time I had tried volunteering for the school a year back, and when I had to talk over a classroom of first graders. I had lost my voice for three days after that, and I expected loosing my voice in this environment would have a lot worse effects on our chance of survival.

As if my weapons could sense my discomfort with the situation, they began to whine a loud, high tune that was close to a sound only dogs could hear. Everypony suddenly stopped talking to instead clutch at their ears, including Rosey. Strangely though I seemed immune to the sound they were emitting, instead the whine sounding like a tune, my feelings put into musical notes. As my distress faded so did the whining, until it was at a normal soft hum. But it didn’t help my distress at all as the eyes of every pony suddenly focused on my forehoofs, and the sound inducing bracelets on them.

This didn’t feel right, the way they were staring. They stared as if they had suddenly realized I was their savior, the thing that would make everything okay. I tilted my head slightly at all of them, completely confused of why they seemed to now be looking at me like this. As if one of them sensed my confusion, they reached forward, and after a quick exchange of “may I,”s and “okay?”s he touched the last button on my pipbuck, the screen switching from a status report to a radio of some sorts. The pony then proceeded to make the radio go backwards in recording, and a voice suddenly started spouting out of both my pipbuck and the two bracelets secured to my hoofs.

“Goood evening children of the wasteland, DJ pony is here to tell you all about the recent news,” the voice said smoothly, sounding like a charismatic male. If i was honest with myself he sounded pretty enticing, but I had Riptide. Wait but Onyx technically had nopony with her… Snapping out of it I went back to listening too “DJ pony”s audiocast.

“Recently in equestria we have a lot of heros going around, and if you all remember not too long ago I told you all about the stable dweller, clearing out the raider town known as ponyville,” the voice said, and I found myself going wide eyed at the mention of some other pony also clearing out “raider towns”. “Now then towards the north of equestria we have heard word of a new heroine stepping up and helping clear the wasteland of raiders. Somepony I personally like to call the musician, who also recently came out of a stable like our stable dweller, found a town you all may know as friendly neighborhood. It turns out that the place was actually a raider town, luring ponies in with the friendly name only to be tortured and killed. This little mare though was able to take down the whole town single hoofedly, and even walked out with one of the raiders captives. From me too you, thank you Musician,” was I actually hearing this? How the heck did this pony know who the heck I was and what I did? For that matter how did he know I came from a stable?

As I tried to control the rampage of questions storming in my head, the same pony who had turned on the radio turned it off, and my pipbuck went back to showing my health. Looking towards the ponies clustered around, and the hope I could see glimmering in their eyes, I knew I would have to try and help. Somehow I would have too, even if it killed me. First though I needed sleep before I dropped asleep in the middle of a fight. That wouldn’t end well for anypony. As I said this, the pony who had originally confronted us, who said his name was red willow, showed us to his house to rest.

Conveniently there were already a couple beds on the ground scattered, which looked mildly comfy. Or atleast it would be more comfy than sleeping on the ground. Although laying on it I expected the bench outside would probably be softer… although a lot more open. Eh I couldn’t get picky, sleep now.

I woke up to feeling a poking in my side, and I groaned groggily, getting up and off of the… couch? “Little sun get up! You have work!” a slightly panicked male voice said. I opened my eyes all the way to see Riptide standing infront of me, poking my side with his hoof frantically. Oh wait thats right I had work today and the next day! I scrambled to get off the couch and out the door, on the way grabbing a wheat bagel in my muzzle. Needed some kind of food in my stomach for work after all!

Five hours later I trotted back into my house and flopped down on the couch, smiling a bit. It had been a fairly good day, most of the people who had come in had been friendly and in a good mood. I had even seen my friends there come by again, the nice buck and zebra. Thinking of them brought my memories back to the very first party I ever threw, with them atleast, and how fun at it in. Sighing, I knew that fun would soon probably be washed away with blood as I re-entered the strange world of the equestria of the future.

I woke up for the second time that day, blinking and slowly looking around, seeing my steel ranger friend sleeping next to me. Her mouth was slightly parted open in sleep and her limbs were twitching, as if she were having a dream about running. I silently prayed to celestia it wasn’t a nightmare about running away from the Radsnake. Looking at her, I felt the corners of my lips curl into a small smile. She was actually pretty cute while she slept, not that I would ever tell her that. Add that to the secret little section of my brain of “don’t think about often,” section. I had the feeling it wouldn’t stay there long.

Reaching out a hoof and gently shook her side, hearing her grown and turn away from me, her tail now towards me. I rubbed her back and pressed gently, trying to wake her up sing songing “Come on Rosey, its time to get uuppp~”

“Nooo, I don’t want to go to training yet,” she grumbled groggily, and I blinked. Oh thats right, she probably had to do training for her illusion spells. Man, that didn’t sound like much fun, which probably meant she was starting to wake up. I smirked a bit as I thought of one time when I had been dreaming about having to do office reports in a dead end job. The smirk vanished and turned into a genuine smile though when her eyes finally opened, a bit blurry from sleep. “Hey sleepy head, I think we have enough sleep now,” I chided jokingly, and she rolled her eyes, seeming to take it more seriously.

“Your lucky we even got to sleep, out here in the wasteland you can go days on end with no sleep,” she snapped, and I flinched back, startled. Was she serious? How could there not be a chance somewhere in the wasteland for sleep? The answer came to me almost instantly though, and now I understood why what was a joke to me was so important to her. I was used to sleeping every night, but she was used to nights awake out of fear for being attacked.

“Wait a minute, you said you went to friendly neighborhood for trade, but your only a scribe,” I questioned, and she nodded seeming confused. “Why would they send a scribe all on her own to a camp? Didn’t you say the steel rangers had armor or something?”

“What i’m wearing is cloth armor,” she said defensively, before seeming to deflate a bit. “They sent to knights to guard me on the way, but half way on the trip -” she suddenly clammed up, shutting her mouth and darting her eyes back and forth across the room nervously. Now it was my turn to be confused. I looked around the whole room and even the windows, but nopony was there, so she couldn’t be afraid of someone listening in. “what happened halfway on the trip?” I intoned, and she shook her head clenching her eyes shut, almost as if she was refusing to take some medicine.

This was the first time she had ever done this. I looked at her for a couple more seconds before sighing, resigning to the loss of possible knowledge and saying, “Lets go help these town ponies, then after that i think we are going to have too move on tooo..,”

“Maybe we should head to tenpony tower? We are a bit far away but as soon as we are there we might actually be able to take a load off,” Rosey put in, her body language changing drastically. Okay, she was definitely hiding something, but what? Knowing how it would go if I asked, I simply nodded, and we collected our gear to get ready for the soon coming battle.

As we left for the slaver town, the townponies gathered around, looking at us with hopefully expressions as we passed by. Damn, this was making me feel uncomfortable. It was as if each pair of eyes weighed a hundred pounds, threatening to squish me with their combined looks if I couldn’t pull this off. How the heck did Riptide handle this sometimes? This was just making me even more nervous for the fight ahead. I heard a voice from the crowd suddenly call out, “ Lotus get back here!”, as a filly suddenly ran out of the crowd coming right for at top speed. Before I could realize what the green blob running at us even was it tackled into me, my hoofs loosing balance and causing me to fall onto my back with an “oomph”

I looked up at the bright and hopeful face of a green filly, her eyes wide with a wide smile to match. “Miss, can I please come with you? Please please please I want to get my daddy back!” she begged, and my mind seemed to stutter at the word “daddy”. This little filly was the sheriffs daughter? Like my brain my voice came out stuttering, saying, “u-uh no, sorry hun but y-you need to stay here where its safe,”

“But here is boorring, and I want to help!” she countered, and I stared into her bright and hopeful eyes, unsure of what to say. Knowing how fillys worked and how I had been at her age, she would most likely come charging after us even if I said no, which would be worse than her coming with. But if she came with us she would be in the middle of the conflict with the two of us…

“Maybe you can come.. But you have to promise that if they start shooting at you you will run back here okay” I reasoned, and she nodded fervently.

“I pinkie promise!”

“You pinkie what now?” asked Rosey, clearly confused. I was also confused, but not because I didn’t know what it was. I had heard of Pinkie’s special way of promising something, but how did this filly know about it? She was a unicorn I could see from the small horn on her head, but that wouldn’t make her able to know things from 200 years ago, right? Either way, I had to see if she actually knew it. Before I could though, the mother of Lotus came charging out of the crowd straight at us, and I knew I was about to be into a motherly talk down. Yah I knew how many of those I had to go through as a filly, this child was not about to get one for making her own decision.

“I’m going to take your daughter to the place her father and your husband has been taken, and she might be able to even help in rescuing him, so I’m going to need her. I will make sure to bring her back in one piece,” I quickly spouted, and the words that were about to tumble out of the mare's mouth seemed to suddenly dissapear. She seemed to be considering, but with a look to her filly’s now beaming face she sulked back into the crowd, and I turned back to Lotus, smiling a bit. “Now then, its time for this!”

“Cross my heart hope to fly stick a cupcake in my eye,” we both chanted, even going through the motions. I nearly hit out my own eye, but Lotus did it perfectly, not even out of breath from the fast singing and actions. How did a filly in the wasteland know it even better then a full grown mare in the normal equestria? Staring at her, I knew I probably wasn’t going to get an answer to that.

As lotus gave some final goodbyes to her friends and mother, the three of us headed off, heading in the direction the one buck had said the slaver town was. I still wasn’t sure how a pony could be so messed up to get to slavery, but in this wasteland where so much was already messed up it wasn’t too hard to believe. I sent a quick prayer to celestia, hoping slavery would never actually start in pony kind. If it did I don’t think I would be able to live with it.

The pony said it was about an hour’s trot from their own town, and that felt like the longest hour in my life. Even with the sleep the night before I was already yawning after the halfway mark, my body not used to doing something so trivial for so long. My hoofs once again ached to a steady throb. The sad thing on my end was that even Lotus was going at a steady trot with seeming no problems, her hoofs almost prancing along the rocky ground.

The plan was to clear the town and take all slaves back with us to find them shelter. The main problem was we had no easy transport, and Rosey had noted the fact many of them would be in bad condition. “Some of them may even be too wounded or too sick to move,” she warned.

“Well then we will just have to carry them on our backs!” Lotus squeaked, and a smile teased the edges of my mouth. If nothing else Lotus was much needed cuteness and comic relief, and as we continued to walk I became more and more glad for bringing her along.

We were beginning to near the last stretch, the slaver town outlined in the dim light as we slowly got closer and closer to it. I was honestly a bit scared of what would happen when we got to the gate. Would they try and communicate? Would they immediately start shooting? I grimaced as I knew the ladder was more likely. Damn the wasteland and its open hostility.

Slowly, we neared the entrance, each step feeling like we were going uphill. My breathing slowed down as we began to crawl towards it, staying low to the ground. Then everything went black as something hit the back of my head.

Author's Note

sorry for the long wait! I lost a bit of motivation and school has been taking more of my time, but I hope this makes up for it, and sorry for all those who dislike cliff hangers