My legs finally fell out from under me, and I went rolling down the small hill we had been going down, sharp rocks scratching through my coat as I rolled, leaving me a scratched up mess at the bottom. I groaned, and called out to the now worried looking Rosey and Lotus, “I think we should rest for a bit, my legs are killing me,”

“Your right, it almost seems like your legs are trying to kill you!” Lotus squeaked, and I rolled my eyes at the olive colored filly. I rolled onto my stomach and checked to make sure none of the scratches were bad. “You should probably down a healing potion, even a small cut could get infected,” Rosey told me. “Hm, well how many healing potions do you two have?” I asked, checking my own saddlebags. Three healing potions clinked inside with my guns, and I frowned slightly. With all the combat that had been happening I had quickly drained the stash of healing potions my father had given me.

When Rosey and Lotus checked their bags, we emptied all of our healing potions out in front of us to see. It turned out Rosey and Lotus had been about in as low supplies as I had been, and all together we only had about seven healing potions, and so far we hadn’t found any place that held more. Sometimes it almost felt like the wasteland was trying to make things as hard as possible, and I wondered if I had been stupid not the check the rest of that raider barn. For all I had known they could have possessed a potion or two, but by now it was too late.

I sighed, and looked over too my steel ranger companion, asking, “Does your small amount of doctor experience tell you if we have a healthy supply or not?”

“Well I can tell we are lucky to have more than two or three, so let’s count that as a yes,” she responded, and I turned to the little pony in my head, who had by now become Onyx. “You have any doctoring experience considering your father was, well, a doctor?” I questioned, and she rolled her eyes. “You realize we share memories by now right? Just look in the past and see for yourself,”

“Good point,” I conceded, and looked back into my, or Onyx’s, past. I remembered way back watching my father mess with the many medical cabinets that had been in his office. He had also once told me it was always healthy to bring around ten healing potions and one super restoration, so by stable standards we were low. For wasteland standards we were pretty good, or at least I thought we were.

As Lotus and Rosey worked on collecting scrap would for a fire, I layed down where we were going to put the fire, relaxing and giving my legs a rest. I watched through my reptilian eyes as Rosey and Lotus began to drag would over to the spot, before slowing looking around at our surroundings, my eyes able to pick out the shapes of dead trees scattered around the area in clear focus as well as the far away imprint of gallops walk, about another mile away. As they continued to head over, I decided to put on DJ pony and listen to his broadcast.

Instead of the same masculine voice I had heard before though, a strong female voice came out of the speaker of the pipbuck, singing a song about a broken heart. By the time Rosey and Lotus got to me my eyes were closed and my head was waving slowly with the music, my voice softly following the lines of her own voice perfectly. Lotus poked me in the side, waking me from my song induced coma and I began to help set up the fire, using a lighter I had been given on my ninth birthday to light the wood up. I sighed as the song came to an end, and looked back down to my pipbuck as the same male voice I had heard began to come out.

“Ah, nothing better than good old sapphire shores, singing broken heart,” the buck said with a sigh of his own, and I noted with amusement how accurate the song name was to what the whole song had been about. “It seems we have ponies working in all parts of equestria now to help make it a better place, with the lightbringer and another mare working in the hoof I like to call the Security mare to now another mare working in the north old minefield we all call whinnysberg, and this message is dedicated to her,” at that I felt my cheeks turn a bit Rosey, but to avoid the blush teasing from Lotus I put my hoofs around my muzzle, getting me both a better listen and a good blush cover.

“ Ah yes the mare of the north, now children you may have remembered me calling her the musician, but I believe she has earned herself a new title of sound shark, and I know many of you are probably going “But DJ pony, she is just a normal everyday pony like you and me right?” well ponies that is both true and false now, for she now has the gaze of a radigators and the gills of a shark, but even despite these disturbing features it hasn’t stopped her from helping the wasteland, helping a small town named bucklemare out and in the process also clearing a slaver town, managing to blow down the gate protecting those bastards with nothing but her own hooves and even managing to convince more than half of the slavers to take a hike and get a new path in life, and I have hope many of them will do just that,” how the heck did he always get this much info? I looked around the darkening wasteland, but all I could make out was the usual dead trees and a large, black spire peaking out of the trees to the west. My gaze lingered on it for a second, before my attention turned back to DJ pony.

“Also for all those ponies out there afraid of the ghost stories of the hanging trees don’t be, because the sound shark washed in and cleared out the family of raiders behind it. Sorry to rain on the parade of any pony believing there were vengeful spirits there hanging all that came through, but your theories are debunked,” The bucks voice finished, and I shot a surprised look towards Rosey who returned it. I hadn’t even known we had cleared out a place ghost story worthy, although with all the hanging ponies I could imagine how it could have become one. “So ponies, if you ever see green reptilian eyes staring at you from the darkness, call out friend instead of monster,” the bucks voice finished, and I sighed in relief. I had personally been afraid that I would get shot at because of the now slightly monstrous look I carried, but it seemed that DJ pony had me covered on that. Heck I almost wanted to kiss him just for that, and also for other reasons. Crap hide the blush now.

That time I was too late, and I groaned as both Lotus and Rosey did the “ooooooooh”. I expected that from Lotus, not Rosey as well. “S-shush!” I squeaked indignantly, and that only made them laugh. I humphed, then curled up turning the radio off and laying my head down on my hooves. “I guess i’ll take first watch,” Rosey murmured, and I opened my eyes to look at her. “Thanks, wake me up when you can’t keep your eyes open,” I said, before closing my eyes and slowly dozing off to sleep.

Instead of the pleasant dream I had been hoping for, in sleep a nightmare instead decided to greet me. I watched from the clouds as large lights began to rain from the sky, at least five of them, descending havoc upon equestria. My eyes widened in horror as I watched the lights hit the towns and cities of equestria, seeming to flicker out of existence. I let out a “no!” as the lights suddenly came back on, except this time they came back on in large booming explosions of magic and radiation.

I felt tears at the edges of my eyes as I watched the surface become clouded in a magical light, the world under hidden from sight as if it had vanished off the map. I felt a coldness beginning to numb my hooves, and I tore my gaze away from the sight of equestria’s falling to see the bracelets around my hooves glowing a bit, ice edging out from the bases of my hooves to stretch out onto the cloud I was laying on, and reaching out my mind to it crawled back towards the bracelets, being absorbed back into my hooves.

I heard a soft clicking, and looked with wet eyes to the pipbuck attached to my forehoof, the radiation meter ticking up slowly. A tear fell from my eye as I looked back to the now ruined equestria, the only city still standing being canterlot, a purple bubble of magic surrounding the city, protecting the ponies inside from the radiation. I watched more lights hit the wall of the shield, exploding in a magical burst on impact. The shield held, to my relief, and I watched for a bit longer, tears now free falling from my eyes as I watched the city defend itself from the zebra’s megaspells.

My heart skipped a beat as a pink cloud quickly began to fill the bubble of magic, and within minutes all I could see was a pink orb, the transparency of the magic gone, hidden under the pink cloud. I sniffed, and tried to wipe my leaking eyes with a hoof and clean away the tear marks that now lead from my eyes down my white fur. “And so the last city below the clouds falls,”I choked out, before flapping my wings, gaining air. Then I joined the other pegasi in putting down the cloud cover, unsure what to do. It seemed now all there was left was the pegasi, and maybe some of the ground ponies in vaults.

I awoke with a gasp, feeling the same wet streaks from my eyes as I had in my dream, and looked around wildly. I stopped at the surprised look on Rosey’s face, which quickly turned to one of concern. “Hey you alright? You were tossing and whimpering in sleep like you were having a heart attack, “ Rosey whispered, and with a shaky breath I nodded.

“Y-yah I’m fine, it was just a nightmare,” I replied, forcing a smile onto my lips. Damnit let her not see my body shaking. With a soft cue of understanding, she reached out a hoof and placed it on my shoulder, smiling. “In the morning just say if you want to talk about it, okay?”

I nodded, and she layed down, her eyes closing slowly. After a minute her breathing grew slower and her mouth opened slightly, the tell tale signs of sleep. With a couple shaky deep breaths I tried to steady my own breathing, my heart feeling like it was about to rip out of my chest. It took a couple seconds, but finally my breathing went back to normal. Most of my dreams left me as soon as I had them, especially the nightmares, but the nightmare stuck in my head like a memory, the scene of equestria being covered in destructive magic playing over and over in my mind.

With a jolt, I realized that in the nightmare I had not been myself, despite the same magical bracelets I had seen around my hooves. Thinking back I had been a pegasus buck, remembering the cool white fur on my hooves in the nightmare and the feeling of wings on my back as well as a weight between my - okay done thinking about that now. I shook my head rapidly, and looked back out across the wasteland, Onyx helping by taking the previous thought and locking it in a steel cage. Then covering the cage with chains. Then throwing the cage into the void.

The night went on from their without troubles, and in the morning the three of us put out the fire before continuing to head on to gallops walk. The nightmare continued to play over and over in my head as we trotted on, as if it was a black tar plaguing my mind. Before long though the nightmare was put into the corner of my mind, leaving room for the new arrival that took all my focus. We had finally reached gallops walk, and to my surprise it was in fairly good shape, for a place out in the fallout anyway.

It was a large building made of steel, decorated in brilliant colors that had over time dulled and chipped off the metal, and along the ground leading to it laid a broken stone trail, rusted metal ponies standing on both sides of the path, seeming to be in mid trot. Despite the rust and chipping paint though some spots seemed more vibrant than others, and the metal ponies seemed to have a strange shine to them, as if they had been recently cleaned. A speaker crackled to life as we walked down the path, startling me and my two other companions. “Welcome to gallops walk, the only place you can find history on our glorious city whinneysberg!”

“I highly doubt it’s the “only” place,”I grumbled to myself quietly. Rosey looked back at me with a look that silenced my grumbling, but not the eyeroll that soon came as the speaker called out, “ Gallop walk contains some quotes from the most recognized figures in all of equestria, including the ministry mares and celestia herself!”

“Celestia actually came to this place? It seems pretty small for a princesses presence,” Lotus questioned, and I chuckled. Knowing celestia from the visits she paid my own small town every once and a while, I knew that wouldn’t stop her from going. “Wait, who are the ministry mares?” I asked, and now it was Rosey’s turn to roll her eyes.

“How do you not know who the ministry mares were? You were raised in a stable where they teach that kind of thing weren’t you?”

After a second of thought, I responded, “Actually when I was a filly all they taught us was how reproduction worked and how we had to keep the stable alive and healthy with new colts and fillies,”

This caught a surprised look from both Rosey and Lotus, and I turned my head questioningly. I myself was surprised at the things Onyx had been taught. Looking back at my own past I remembered learning about multiplication and division while she had been learning what goes where. “Well, after Luna had taken charge of the kingdom when celestia stepped down, she called upon the elements of harmony to help her lead her new kingdom,” Rosey began, and I sighed. Sitting down on my rump, I prepared myself for the upcoming history lecture. Lotus pulled up next to me, and two sets of eyes turned to Rosey as she continued on talking. “The elements of harmony each took a role in helping, and so the six ministries of equestria were born. I don’t recall the names of all six, but the three I know best is the ministry that formed the steel rangers in the first place,” at this her chest puffed out a bit, and a smile teased the corners of my mouth. “The ministry of wartime technology, made by ministry mare applejack, who led the research on weapons to help us defeat the zebra forces. Another was the ministry of arcane science, or MAS, lead by -”

“Twilight sparkle,” I put in, and she gave an approving look. “She helped create many magically enhanced weapons and things many use today, including the pipbuck around your forehoof as well as stealth bucks,” at that I looked down at the metal contraption around my leg, and sure enough on the bottom saw the small sign, reading “MAS made,”

“The last one I can recall is the ministry of peace, who was lead by fluttershy. She worked on medicines and spells to help in healing and trying to end the war in peace,”

“Looks like that didn’t work out,” I mumbled sadly, and Rosey nodded solemnly. “You could say the time of the ministries was one of the most innovative times in pony history, and if you ask some of the sane ponies they will probably say that it was in fact too innovative,” she finished. Well, that certainly hadn’t been as boring as expected. But it had still taken time, and after a second we headed into the main center of gallops walk, the door squeaking behind us as we entered.

The inside was even bigger than the outside showed, the walls covered in small stalls, seeming to show moments in the history of whinnysberg. Like the outside though, the inside seemed strangely clean compared to most of the wasteland. I looked around uneasily before walking towards one of the first stalls, the portrayed image being a red buck with a large green apple in an army form, who I recognized as bigmac, jumping in front of princess celestia. I looked down to see a small pressure plate near the edge of the stall, and after a second pushed my hoof against it, once again getting startled as a speaker came to life to my left.

“After big mac bravely took a shot for celestia, Celestia had built the big mac memorial, planted near his hometown ponyville where he was buried. Shortly after that Celestia had made plans to build whinnysberg as a center for zebra magic study after one of her higher ranking officers was assassinated by a zebra using a stealth cloak and flesh bypass talisman. This Zebra was later identified as Yerzack. After a failed interrogation session Yerzack escaped to roam equestria,”

“So if this is a center for zebra magic study, why haven’t we seen any labs or anything?” I questioned.

“We are on the outskirts of the city, where there isn’t very much to see. Deeper in there is a lot more dangers, but also a lot more to discover,” Rosey informed me, and I gave a nodd. Walking down the stalls following that, I saw the scene it had talkin about, showing Yerzack, black and white stripes and all, escaping from one of those interrogation chairs you would see in a horror movie. With a small shudder, I moved onto the next pressure plate, this one in front of a picture of twilight sparkle holding a contraption that reminded me of a pipbuck. After a quick push of the plate, like before the speaker came back to life.

“Ministry mare twilight sparkle made the stealth buck in our great city, specifically in the arcane sciences lab, off of a zebra cloak taken from a zebra assassin. Later that year stealthbucks were made pipbuck compatible, and began selling equestria-wide,” with that the speaker cut out again, leaving is to the silence of the building once again. At least, it was silent until a primal scream tore through the building, the horrific sound echoing off the walls.

My head snapped towards the source of the sound, my gaze focusing on a cramped hallway leading away from the room we were currently in. The walls of the hallway had the usual wasteland look, the walls covered in blood and pornographic images, which had mostly likely been made by raiders. Out of it though, the thing that caught my attention the most was the red letters spelled in dried blood, thin trails leading from the two words that had been written before a pony died.

“They Lie”

The thing that disturbed me the most about this whole situation though, was there were no bones or bodies in the hall where the blood was. Infact, the entire area was picked clean of anything resembling a pony. “Help! Somepony Help me!”

“Just hold on a second were coming!” I called down the hallway, before heading down myself, all rational thoughts flying out of my head. I heard hoofsteps behind me as the three of us charged down the hallway, following the sound of the pony’s voice until we ended up in another large room, although this one was smaller than the previous. This place, unlike most of this place we had seen so far, was more than wasteland material. The walls were the same bright paint, but here you could see few places where the paint actually showed, instead of the new seeming red paint of dried blood, both fresh and old. Holes showed in the walls where it looked like long, jagged claws had punctured the soft and rotting wood. Pony carcasses were strewn across the place, their stomach cut open into jagged holes, exposing missing organs along with torn up intestines. The creepiest thing about all of this though was the fact every corpse in the room had no face, the bone exposed in a skeletal mask, all flesh and muscle there before gone.

In the corner, the only living pony cowered, her head wrapped in her hooves wrapped around her head in a protective manner, her entire body shaking. “Are you alright?” I called out, slowly approaching the mare. Something didn’t quite feel right about this, and I continued my slow pace forwards, the hoofsteps behind me stopping at the entrance to the door. When I was about ten feet from her, the shaking of her limbs stopped, and she let out a low chuckle, a strange vibrative note entering her voice. I stopped walking forward, and instead began stumbling to get away as she revealed her face in a slow, dramatic matter. My eyes widened in horror as I saw her own eyes were nothing like mine. Instead, they were deep pools of blue, with a tiny green pupil in the center staring right at me. “You ponies are so easy too fool,” she drawled out, and I began to see the image of the mare begin to change.

Rosey screamed behind me, but I barely noticed the sound, my eyes locked on the shifting form of the thing in front of me. A dark, spiraling horn began to protrude from its head, the bone covered in small holes as if it wasn’t quite complete, and its face molded into that of bug like features, the snout shrinking back to be replaced by something resembling the snout that had just been replaced, except this one was more of two large mandibles, needle sharp black teeth shining like dark ebony in its mouth as it gave a too-sweet smile. Its hooves and legs began to mold into a black armored carapace, before it continued to stretch, the end slowly forming into a point sharp enough to go through a ponies skull like butter. I had the feeling that was exactly what this creature used it for aswell, as it rose onto the now eight legs protruding from its black twisted body, the entire thing covered in small holes. Its tail, no longer made of hair, turned into a long scorpion like tail, twisting over its head as a glimmer of green liquid shined at the tip, no doubt some deadly toxin waiting to kill me. Finally two wings protruded from its back, and I took in the full sight of the horror standing before me.

Without another thought I bolted, turning tail and sprinting towards the doorway that Lotus and Rosey had already abandoned, their hoofsteps echoing down the hallway as they ran for their lives. I on the other hoof didn’t have the head start they had, and before long I heard the sharp clicking of the horror’s legs hitting the ground getting closer and closer to my tail. My lungs began to burn from the extertion, and I silently cursed at myself that I should have worked out more.

A sharp pain suddenly rocketed up my left leg, and I felt something lodge itself into it, stopping me in my tracks while also making a blood curtling scream that I never knew I could produce come out. It fell it on me in an instant, each of its legs stabbing into the floor around me as my own blood pooled beneath my legs. I groaned, and tried to slowly drag myself forward, only to be stopped as one of the things legs stabbed down right next to my head. “You should have read the sign the other pony tried to make, although I guess all of you are too stupid to realize it when another is smart,”

With a dry chuckle, I jabbed back, “this how you treat all the boys you meet? No wonder your alone,”

“BE QUIET,” the thing hissed between clenched jaws, but if I was going to die why not go out comically. “I used to be alone too - “ I looked up to see Rosey aiming at the thing, her eye looking down the scope and the gun firmly in her telekinetic grip and the trigger slowly pulling back. With a bold smile, I finished “Then I got laied for the first time and swore to never get single again and also to never get ‘shot’ up,” with that I rolled forwards, and with a bang the thing jerked its head up to look at Rosey. Atleast she did look, until one of her blue pools of eyes exploded as if in slow motion the bullet charged straight through it and into her brain. It gave a shudder and a long hiss, almost like a bomb, before falling to the ground, green icker coming out of the wound. Luck, had been the thing that saved me. And I could not be happier that luck had taken the form of Rosey today.

Level up, new perk added - closer look: your perception has increased and you can see weakpoints easier

Author's Note

what is this strange new monster they have discovered? I guess we will find out at some point