The wall was much larger than I imagined. It was made of a mix of several metals, concrete and whatever else they could use to build a huge wall and rose nearly 20 feet tall. Much too big than necessary doors sat at the front,menacingly looking down on me. There was a small technological device near the left side of the doors. It had a small camera on the face of it and several small holes for a speaker and microphone. The tower was hardly visible this close to the wall that wrapped around the menacing monolith. Each visible crack was large, probably enough to compromise its integrity if you knew what you were doing. If you were planning to attack Tenpony Tower, you knew what you were doing.

Vetta pulled away from my side to move toward the small intercom box at the side of the door. When she left, my side got rather cold. She pressed what appeared to be a small button at the bottom and waited. “Better not be you got-damn ghouls again, I told the sentries they could shoot ya if you came back y’know.” A small crease broke Vetta’s lips from their indifferent expression.

“No, I was unaware. I’ll make sure to tell Hickory when I get the chance.” She spoke clearly. This meant nothing to me but maybe I could learn a few names as they bickered.

“H-hey Vendetta, you’re back already? Really, Hickory don’t need to know ‘bout this here encounter she’d have my arse. How’s about I let ya in free of charge? No big deal at all, nothing happened and we’re square. Right?” He sounded flustered and spoke quickly.

“That seems fair to me, but remember, I’ve got other blackmail on you. I always do.” I assumed these two were well associated.

“‘Course.” He sounded rather defeated. The loud screech of the gates pulling open drew my attention from the dirt. The heavy doors shifted slowly inward pulling dirt with them inside the large walls.

The place was huge. You wouldn’t think it from the walls, but inside was very clean. The ponies walking through the courtyard from shop to shop were mostly engaged in small talk. Everything was clean and tidy, then there was me. I felt bad bleeding all over the place and spreading dirt to the cleaner fractions of ceramic left.

The tower was so much larger up close. Just looking to the top gave me a sense of vertigo. I couldn’t imagine having to look out of the windows up at the top, I would probably pass out. The guard from earlier interrupted my thoughts.

“Alright you know the deal,” I didn’t. “hand over yer bullets and you can be on yer way.” The place seemed safe enough, everypony was proper and swanky so I figured they wouldn’t carry around weapons I couldn’t handle. It took me about 2 minutes to deposit my small armoury of bullets into two buckets, with each different case the guard gave me an incredulous look.

Vetta carried only two cases of 10 mm bullets, so she was much quicker to rid of her ammunition. It confused me why they took bullets and not weapons, perhaps there was a repair vendor? It would be much quicker to take weapons probably safer too. Aristocrat logic.

“We should probably get to a doctor soon, so give me your junk to sell. No offense but you don’t seem very… charismatic.” I gave her an angry look that was mostly feigned and handed over nearly 30 pounds of odds and ends. “You should look around a bit, get situated. We probably won’t be here long but we may come back eventually. I like to check in on my family every now and again.” I nod and we both turn to walk our separate ways.

I was still wobbling quite a bit, it wasn’t easy maneuvering with a faulty leg that has been overexerted for the past day or so. But I got a better look around the place, mostly from leaning against ice cold walls.

There were a few small shops from where I sat against the wall. There was a repair shop but it didn’t look very equipped for weapon maintenance, more like it was for watches or gearbox run objects. There was a cheese shop, which was weird, who had access to cheese nowadays? To the peculiar store’s left sat a clothing store loaded with beautiful tuxes and dresses for your average aristocrat. The prices in the windows were off the chain expensive, so I assumed these ponies had the most out of the wasteland to be able to blow 140 caps on clothing that wouldn’t protect you from a splinter.

There was a small eatery, which seemed to just have fancified wasteland food for 4 times the price you would find at a trading post. Most of the ponies wore simple dresses or neat suits, you could see the occasional wastelander selling things or picking on the residents. They wore metal armor or leather jackets to show off their gang insignia.

I sat on a rather comfortable bench and waited for Vetta to find me. I’m fairly sure I took a small nap because when Vetta showed up she was poking me. “Not so fun, is it?” She taunted. I smiled and rolled my eyes at her. “Well, I got about 700 caps for everything you had on you. Hopefully that is more than enough but I haven’t been here in awhile so I don’t know for sure.”

When I was poked awake it was fairly late in the afternoon and the sky was a darker red than usual. That meant it was probably going to rain soon, and the rain seems to never stop after it starts. Vetta broke my upward looking trance by nudging me in the side. “Ready to go then?” I stood on my hooves and stretched giving her a nod.

The courtyard was nearly barren now. Each pony returned to their beds resting the day away, a luxury not many were capable of enjoying in the harsh outside world. They would sit and complain that their hooves hurt while slaves were still working, only allowed 4 hours of sleep if they did their daily workload. While each pony sits in bed wondering if tonight is the night they get murdered in their sleep. All those suffer while they rest their eyes peacefully.

“What do you think of Tenpony?” I sigh, knowing that I would have to use the last piece of chalk to write a response for her.

‘Tolerable’ I use as little chalk as possible by pressing lightly.

“Well I suppose you haven’t had a field day what with your wounded leg being in the way. We’ll have fun tomorrow, promise.” I would hold her to that.

The ‘Hospital’ approached and we stepped inside the light(for once) doors. Immediately the smell of rotting flesh and medicine hit us on the way in. The walls were once stark white but now a faded greyish color. A rather petite mare approached and asked a simple question.

“Injury?” I felt that the bandages covering my leg wouldn’t help with letting her know what was wrong.

“She has a rather large bullet wound on her left foreleg, it has gone untreated for nearly a day and has had no changes in the bandages.” Vetta replied for me. I would thank her later for that.

“Why isn’t she answering?” The nurse spoke and I decided the floor was more interesting than the conversation.

“She’s mute. Is that an issue?” Vetta sounded slightly nervous with her question.

“Nah, just makes it easier. This’ll run ya about 500 depending on the severity of the wound, that work for ya?” We both nodded and she pointed to a room down the hall. As we walked Vetta’s hooves clacked loudly while mine would be heard only by trained ears. The room was bland and had a patient table sitting alone in the middle of it. The table was held up by slim bars of metal, ascending toward a metal support for a mattress.

I took off my recon suit and shoved it in my bags. We simply stood for a few minutes before a stallion walked in. “Hello ladies, what seems to be the issue?” His voice was tender and well practiced. His voice matched his rather young and educated appearance. A wild-fire orange spread across his hide similar to.. Well, a fire. The scraggly mess upon his head and rump was dark brown. He looked similar to a forest set ablaze.

“Squishy here has a crater in her leg.” She was smiling any time she got to mess with me, I wasn’t smiling however.

“Well, I’m Forest Fire but please call me Forest. I plan to help with your predicament as well as my abilities will allow.” I guess his name made sense. “I’ll have you step out if you will Vendetta. This may take a while so go get some rest.” My companion seemed rather well known here, said companion nodded and stepped out.

“Let’s get a look, shall we?” I hoped he wouldn’t talk to himself the whole time.

He pulled away the bandages with his magic, and tsked at the state of the wound. “You know this isn’t healthy right? Annoyed at his obvious statement, I nod. “You should take better care of yourself out there, a wound like this could be fatal if you don't treat it in time. How long have you had it?”

‘Walked on it’ ‘for about a day’ ‘overall’ He cringed slightly at how poorly I treated my wounds.

“That really isn’t good for it. It could get infected or spread and then you’d die.” I rolled my eyes, I knew this already I was trying to get healed not lectured. “All right I’ll see what I can do”

He poked it. Why the fuck did he poke it? After prodding me several times, he pulled a small washcloth out of a nearby drawer and got it wet. He dabbed the wound carefully, and pulled a small jar with pink fluid in it out of his coat pocket. He poured the fluid onto the crater directly and watched it seal up slightly. After all this he pulled out a bandage and wrapped it around my leg twice.

“Try not to rely on it too much, and don’t mess with it very often, it needs time to heal. Otherwise you should be good to go.” I nod to him in thanks and walk out after donning my recon suit, I felt weird not having it on.

Vetta was sitting in the waiting room with her muzzle in a book. She was pretty cute like that. As I walked the clean bandage chafed against my leg, it was annoying but I would live. She looked up when she heard the slight ‘whoosh’ of the door closing. When she saw me she smiled widely.

“Better?” As if you were instantly better after getting medical attention. I nod anyway. “Good. Nothing better than a little rest to help your wounds, right? So let’s get some rest.” She wasn’t actually asking me so I followed her as she made her way to the nurse. They bickered over price and settled on 430, which was really steep for a simple healing potion and wrapping.

We made our way out of the building slowly. I probably didn’t need to lean on Vetta so much, but it was nice. It was colder outside than I remembered earlier. There were slight pats all around us before they erupted into a constant stream of rain hitting the ground. Rain sucked.

Rain was warm and unpleasant. It hit hard and stung slightly, this happening several times a second added up to quite the painful experience. I was fairly used to it by now, but it still hurt. Mom told me, rain was Celestia crying for her causing so much pain to ponies but I never really believed it. How would Celestia still be alive if her whole world was engulfed in fires of hatred? Luna however, was clever. The Goddess of Shadows would know that things were wrong and hide. That was my belief, however most ponies seemed to think it was Luna’s fault for the fighting.

“Not scared of heights are you? My room is on the twelfth floor, so I hope not.” I shook my head, although I hadn’t ever been high up to truly know if I was or not. “Good. You can meet my family tomorrow, after we’ve had baths. Does that sound okay?” I still couldn’t understand why she was asking my opinion, I always just agree with her anyway. One nod later we continue our walk to the tall tower.

We push open the doors and step inside. The lobby was rather nice, even after nearly 200 years of apocalypse. White granite walls reach to the ceiling, marking the start of another floor. The floor consisted of cracked light orange tiles, some of them were just replaced by stone or metal. It was a large room, with lounging chairs that were chewed on by whatever small critter could get to, placed methodically around. One probably wouldn’t even know it was in the wasteland without context. A relic of the old world preserved in time.

We moved over to a large elevator, It was torn apart to make repair easy and you could see the simple counterweight and pulley system through the open ceiling panel. When one elevated the other descended. We went up, while the speaker in the corner crackled broken notes that was once music. As we approached the floor, I could hear Vetta humming again. She either didn’t care or did it out of habit, but it was as beautiful as the first day I heard it. The elegant rise and fall of notes, matched perfectly like a puzzle piece to the tempo.

The elevator stopped and so did she. I was a little sda that she had stopped, I would listen to her until the end of time. If I could protect one thing, it would be her. “I just thought that didn’t I?”

The floors were originally the same as the lobby, but had a red rug placed over the tile. Each door had a gold tag on it that read ‘241’, ‘242’ and so on. We stopped at 253 and Vetta rummaged through her bags for a key. She eventually unlocked the door and waved me in.

“Home sweet home, I guess. Make yourself comfortable, I get the shower first since it’s my room.” I nod and she enters the bathroom. The room was nearly Identical to the room at the other casino, other than the furniture being moved around in a different pattern.

I didn’t want to get her room too dirty, so I just lay on the floor patiently. After about 2 minutes Vetta shouts to me.

“Squishy, could you grab me a towel! They are in the closet!” I moved over to the closet and pulled open the shutters. There wasn’t just towels in the closet but the most beautiful rifle I had ever seen.

It leaned against the wall longingly, waiting for it’s owner to care for it. It was a large hunting rifle with several enchantment gems along the barrel. It had an engraving in the stock of the word “Petite” surrounded by curvy waves of gold trim. The receiver was painted solid gold, they wouldn’t be stupid enough to make it out of gold, it would break after two shots. It had a 6 round mag sticking out of the rifle. I was slightly aroused. Vetta was going to pay for not telling me of this beauty.

Speak of the draconequus, Vetta stepped out of the bathroom with a towel on her head to see me ogling at her rifle. “So you’ve met Petite, huh? What do you think?” I sat with my mouth agape just staring at it.

‘Beautiful’ Was the simple answer.

“The gems on the barrel make the bullets go faster and hit harder,” I looked carefully at the barrel and saw at the end was a threaded piece of metal for a suppressor to screw on. The rifling on the inside of the barrel was hard to make out in the dark, but it was obviously threaded to maximize the velocity of each bullet. It was beautiful, aesthetically and technologically. “I have a suppressor around here somewhere as well, but I’m not sure where. Well the shower is yours, you can have some alone time with my rifle later. I wish you would look at me like you do Petite.” She said poutily, I felt a little bad but went on anyway to the shower.

***

I stepped out of the bathroom, and stepped over to Vetta who was on the bed holding her rifle in her lap. “My weapon has a name, does yours? You seem way too attached not to give it a name.” I felt a little awkward sitting so close to Vetta without my recon suit on.

‘The Cure’ I answered simply, letting her figure it out.

“Cure for what exactly? I don’t unde- Ohhh. I see. Well picked I suppose, rather dark don’t you think? The end all is just a bullet?” I supposed she was right.

‘I like dark things’ She gave a strange sound, somewhere between understanding and confusion.

“I suppose you’re right,” She sounded slightly sad for some reason. “We should be getting off to bed, My family will be expecting us in the morning. They have eyes everywhere, so I know they know I’m in town.” She turned more chipper and let a smile crack her sad expression. “There is only one bed, I guess we have to cuddle!” There was enough room to fit a couple of brahmin in the bed, but I figured I would humor her. She set Petite down with a caring gesture, leaning it against the dresser.

“G’night Squishy,” She said squeezing me tightly. “Hey, you never gave me a nickname!” Her sudden outburst surprised me and I stumbled to find my board in my magic, it was on the floor so I couldn’t see it at first. I got it and wrote something on it.

‘G’night... Hon?’ I hoped this would suffice. Although I usually called her Hon mentally, that was just an easy replacement for her name.

“Not good enough.” She sounded nearly angry.

‘StarShine’ I decided. I liked it, it matched my personality and her place in my life. She was the dim light that I needed to hold on to, the light in my darkness. Although that is pretty counterproductive of stealth, without light you wouldn’t be able to see. Also it’s funny because the sun is a star, so it’s like sunshine but, y’know starshine.

She pondered it a moment before nodding. “Perfect. Now, let the cuddling commence!”

***

I didn’t have a dream, and it was weird. Just peaceful darkness. So comforting and warm, oh wait that was the lovely mare holding me, throughout the night.

Vetta woke up on her own for once and poked me awake, this was going to become a ritual, wasn’t it? “Morning Squishy!” She pulled me away from the comfortable warm blanket and to the cold floor. I shivered from the sudden change of temperature and Vetta giggled at me.

“You’re so cute when you show your soft side.” I blushed and she teased me more. “There you go again!” I rolled my eyes and composed myself.

“I had the weirdest dream, wanna hear about it?” I nodded. “Well It was me you and my family, and someone asked you a question and you spoke in return. Isn’t that strange?”

“Weird.” I said, quickly and high pitched. The setup was just too perfect not to fuck with her. She took a second and reacted.

“Wh- hu- did you say something?” She stuttered, I responded my raising my eyebrows and looking at her like she was crazy. “I think I need more sleep. Anywho, my parent’s room is just down the hall. Ready?” I nodded and heard her mumble something along the lines of ‘I could’ve sworn’

We stepped out and she locked the door behind us. We moved down the hall to a room not far away. Right as Vetta knocked the door swung open and a thin mare wearing a beautiful white lounging gown hugged Vetta. “Oh, Vendetta how Nice to see you! Who is this with you?” She had an elegant accent practically the same as Vetta. Her coat was indigo, while her mane was the same light green as Vetta’s. Her cutie mark seemed to be a wave of sorts.

“This is Miss Fortune, but I call her Squishy.” I could see a bigger stallion approach the door so I withheld my blush, but nodded curtly.

“Nice to meet you, Miss Fortune I’m Indigo Seas, but call me Indigo. This here is Valiant Heart,” she said pointing to the pony behind her. I hold out my hoof, but she pulls me into a hug. It wasn’t weird with my recon suit on but it still was slightly awkward. Valiant holds out his hoof which is literally twice the size of mine and shakes it.

“Pleasure” He states gruffly, his voice sounded like sandpaper felt. He was dark red and had a brown mane. A heart with a sword crossing it sat on his flank.

“Come in, come in, we simply must catch up.” They moved out of the way to make a path for us to go through. Other than a few extra bits and bobs their room was identical to ours. Indigo Pointed at the sofa like chair and sat on the bed.

“How’ve you been darling?” She asked looking at Vetta.

“The usual, nothing new other than Squishy here,” She scoot closer to me on the small couch. “We are ‘together’ but taking it slow.” She seemed to add on the last part to make her mom satisfied. Her mom was smiling regardless.

“So tell me about yourself. If you plan to court my daughter I would like to know everything I can about you.” I nudged Vetta and she chuckled nervously.

“She, uhh. She’s mute. All I know is that she has a heart set for the good of others, and she is terrifying in the dark. Even the light for that matter she always seems to be just out of sight.” Her mom looked quite annoyed.

“You barely know her and you are in a relationship? Vetta sweetie, and no offense to you Miss Fortune, but you don’t know her she could be insane for all you know. Again no offense intended.” I nod, It wasn’t like I cared. I liked Valiant Heart, he was quiet but got his point across. He simply glared,

“That is why I will travel with her and get to know her. She has been helping ponies for no reason at all, and I want to get to know the mare behind the mask.” I got bored and started playing with my spell, flickering the light around me to hide my true figure. “Oh, stop that it’s rude.” I stopped and sat with a pout. Vetta just had to go and ruin my fun huh?

“Well all that aside, and we aren't done talking about this just not with company, what took you so long to come back? Usually you are gone for a month or so, but a year?” Indigo sounded hurt.

“I didn't need to come back for any reason, until I needed Petite,” Valiant chuckled at Vetta. “to help Fortune with her quest.” Huh? What quest?

“I don’t know why you named that gun of yours Petite. It can cause some real pain.” I really liked Valiant. He knew when to talk, what to talk about and how. We would be good friends.

“I like naming things fun names, it makes them seem… fun.”

“What about us, don’t you like to visit? I know we allowed you to go out into the world, but what if you got hurt? We would never know.” Indigo said breaking up the fun.

“Indigo you let me leave, and so I decided to leave. You never said I had to return, but I figured you would get worried and bicker about it until I came back.” This was getting emotional, and I didn’t really want to be a part of it. I excused myself and Vetta agreed that it was probably better this way. I went back to the room and just sat around for a while.

I got bored and clicked on the radio.

“Morning my little ponies, now your pal DJ-Pon3 has been playing the same damn songs on a loop for years. Thanks to a special somepony, we have some new music! Can you believe it? I hardly can, so we’re just going to get right into it. Good luck out there, and stay safe.” A slow and sad tune started to roll out of the speaker. Long elegant notes were matched by the hum of a pony with nothing left to believe in, no solace to hold onto. They poured it all out into their music to make awe inspiring sound resonate to their listeners, to make them feel their hurt. It was beautiful.

All good things come to an end, as did the song. A song I had already heard started, but I just clicked off the radio. I didn’t want to listen to the old world crying out to find hope. It hurt.

The door clicked open and Vetta looked through it before seeing me sprawled out on the bed in an awkward position. It was comfortable but it sure didn’t look like it. She shook her head and smiled. “Why are you lying like that, It doesn’t look relatively comfortable.” I half shrugged and she just shook her head at me again. “I would like to leave soon, if that’s okay with you. My family and I need a break from each other.”

I just nodded again. She seemed to accept this as a valid answer and lay next to me. “We could leave after we eat, does that work?” I nodded again. “It’s settled then.”

While I was waiting for Vetta I stitched up my suit with a piece of rubber from something I didn’t know what did. My leg didn’t hurt anymore unless I poked it, which I did fairly often to see if it still hurt. I sucked at following doctor’s orders.

Vetta had her sexy rifle on her back. She didn’t need a battle saddle, she fired it by resting it on a ledge and sitting it against the inside of her shoulder. It swayed slightly from side to side as she strode forward.

We had food at a little store and left for our trip in the wastes again. The rain had let up but it was still sprinkling. When we got to the gate we were handed our ammo. Vetta only had the large .308’s in her bucket, and I took my sweet time organizing mine. After roughly 4 minutes I had my whole ammo supply organized.

The gates creaked open and we left the safety of Tenpony Tower behind.

The wastes never seemed different no matter where we were. Dirt and sand, the occasional destroyed building, traders. It was always the same, and I liked it that way. Change was terrifying. You get so used to something and you get the routine down, then the pattern changes and you get stuck trying to catch up again. I let go of the thought, I didn’t want to get lost again.

“You like to think, don’t you? You always have that same expression, like you are lost in thought.” Vetta seemed concerned. I was on my last piece of chalk now, so I just nodded. There were ponies out there doing so much to help, I heard stories on the radio of them working to stop the bad ones. There would always be an enemy to fight, there always had been and always will be.

“Tell me something about you, anything at all.” Vetta disturbed my thoughts again.

‘Favorite color’ ‘is purple’ She did say anything.

“Mine is gold. How about something else?” I figured, why not? I didn’t need chalk too much anyway. Other than to communicate, but you know that is pointless.

‘Watched my mom’ ‘get her head’ ‘blown off by’ ‘a sniper’ It felt important enough.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. That must’ve been terrible.” I didn't care anymore, I never really knew why it happened but I knew I couldn’t change the events, so why cry over something set in stone. “Erm, well. Uh… something else, perhaps less life alteringly horrible?” I appreciated her not wanting to force me to talk more about it. I would end up crying, I couldn’t change what happened but I still loved my mom. She was really nice, kinda like Vetta…

I held up the tiny sliver of chalk left and shook my head. She seemed to understand and turned back to the road. That was when we heard a shout from nearby. Several shouts actually.

We had been outside for nearly 20 minutes and already there was people to rescue. I shoved on my mask and headed toward the shout with Vetta in tow.

We were looking at a small ruined building with several raiders camped out inside. Their Gorey decorations gave the obvious hint that they were raiders. Heads on pikes and splayed ponies on the wall, nearly made me spill my insides as well. The pony I assumed the shout came from was sitting tied to the wall. They had several large gashes all over their body. A mottled dark green mane was coated in blood from head trauma, their once bright pink coat was covered in scars and lines of blood. He had the most wonderful jade eyes that you could just see the pain in, the years of torment.

The most notable thing however, was his wings. Sitting still at his side were wings with broken feathers and several cuts all over them. I turned to Vetta and she gave a nod. She lay oddly on the ground for a good handling position of her rifle, with her legs back and her head leaning against the stock.

I moved between shadows, without even giving them a hint I was there.

I didn’t care what happened, I just really wanted to save this pegasus. I had some questions that Vetta could ask. But I was almost out of chalk. Shit.

The first raider dropped with a thud. Another farther over to their left also took a shot to the head. I already had the main threat reduced, but raiders didn’t care about odds, they cared about what they would do to whoever was hunting them. It was a shame they had silent predators.

I noticed a raiders head explode bloodily from a large caliber round. Ohhh it was so beautiful, the rifle’s ability to explode a head from so far away made me quiver a little. Vetta was getting all the kisses later.

Refocusing on the task, I slid away from an approaching raider, another behind me swished his knife in his magic. Usually I would be screwed but I trusted my support. I shot the one in front of me and heard the one behind me explode. We danced with how perfectly we worked together, I would just know who to shoot when and so did Vetta.

Without a single scratch, we cleared out a small raider base of 8 and rescued a distraught pegasus. One who was obviously not from the clouds.

I moved quietly over to him and turned off my shadow spell. He looked surprised to see me appear out of nowhere but just shivered. “W-What do you want with m-me? You look professional who d-do you w-work for?” He was nervous and looked like he was wriggling out of his chains. Vetta was at my side panting softly.

“Hello, sorry for Squishy here she can be rather imposing. I’m Vendetta and this is Miss Fortune, we’re your saviours!” She sounded really prepared while saying that.

“So you’re the afamed ‘Miss Fortune’ then huh? Never thought I would see the day to be rescued by a ghost.” I was pretty well known.

“Well, here we are! I’m her new little entourage but still helpful. She worked alone for her title, but I’m her voice.”

“She doesn’t talk?” I shook my head. “That’s weird, I heard stories of you with catchphrases, like a true hero.” I nearly pinned him to the wall but Vetta held a hoof in front of me.

“Don’t call her a hero, she doesn’t like that.” Damn straight.

“Would you mind freeing me? Chains aren’t the most comfortable thing you know.” I went behind him and shot the chain. “You really are like a ghost, all silent and popping out of nowhere, this is so cool!” Apparently I had fans.

“Well that’s her schtick, best be on your way now before she accidently pins you to the wall.” He turned a little downcast.

“I- uh, don’t really have a place to stay. No-one wants a pegasus in their town, we’re bad luck.” They were sought after by all groups of ponies. Anyone wanted a threat from above on their side, or just a nice well cooked chicken dinner. I feared what I knew Vetta would say.

“You can come with us if you want!” I scowled at her. “Oh shush you, you need more friends.”

“I’m not so sure about this, she looks rabid. I wouldn’t want to intrude on your ragtag gang of ninjas.”

“Nonsense, I’ll keep her in line. Please?” She wouldn’t keep me in line, if I really wanted to I could kill her 30 different ways right now. But I loved her, so I guess that wouldn’t work too well huh?

“Alright, I’m Lightning Strike. Nice to meet you.” I knew that name from somewhere but I couldn’t quite place it.

And with our new companion with us, we walked. As we always did.

“So Strike, got any family?”

_______________________________________________________________
Level Up: (4)

Ghost: While under your shadow spell, you have a 20% higher chance of a successful Pickpocket.

Author's Note

It's short, but I have too much to do this week. They will probably be about this long until I can get everything together. This story probably won't last much longer, because I just don't feel this story very much. I will still get out a chapter a week, they will be shorter though.