A/N: I know this chapter is rough, practically unfinished at worst... But I just wanted to get it out there since I haven't been posting a lot...

I wandered aimlessly through the damp basement, the pipbuck's amber glow illuminating the moss and molds on the wall in an eerie way, similar to an old sci fi horror movie that the stable showed a few times in the atrium.

Its title was "Beyond Knowledge" and although the stable as a whole seemed to see the movie as bad, I liked it, The effects were good, and It had a good layered story...and even a couple sequels, I managed to put the movies on a few tapes to watch in my spare time, even though the screen on my pipbuck was monochromatic.

I shook myself from memory lane and returned to reality where I kept digging through the old basement...not much was down here, a few crates. maybe some archived tapes water damaged beyond repair. then I got to a heavy door on the far side of the room, the plastic sign beside the door read " Armory, Only personnel with class 5 security clearance or higher allowed" the door was unlocked so I gave it a shove, inside were a few remaining weapons, some still crated, along with a bit of ammo.

I looted what I could... Although none of the guns in the entry were there... Although I did save the data entry for future reference if any of them turned up.

I returned to the ground floor and began to search around for anything else useful.

I only found a few other things on the base... if it was evacuated 200 years ago I could assume that to be the reason for the lack of stuff to find.

The only thing of note besides some canned food was a Sprite-bot... cobbled together and patched up with old scraps of metal. It's little ball chassis had 4 long silvery wings and a Laser gun or at least it would have had 4 wings, one broke in half, It also seemed to have a few extra antennae than a normal sprite bot.

From what I could tell it was the hangar's radio and a makeshift security bot.

on its side an old license plate was used as a patch..It read 2ED-E59, the most ledgible of the letters Read ED-E

"ED-E.....Eddie...perfect name"

I stared at its little silvery wings for a sec to make sure that I could repair them. the answer was probably no

I hadn't seen many... if any sprite-bots on my journey. I might have caught a glimpse of one cruising along during my trek to the old airbase, but other than that I only knew what it was from the sprite-bots used as an extension of the PA system in the lower levels of the stable where the normal system didn't reach. So getting a wing may be hard.

Back in the hangar I began to formulate a plan for what I should do... repainting the Vert was easy, or unnecessary at best, but changing myself would be immensely hard...But If I pulled it off, I could say that I "Killed" the original pilot of the vert and took it as my own. Problem being I had no clue where I could find the equipment to do something even as simple as Dye my hair a different color.

I began to dig through the WSG for some answers,
It revealed very little about what I could do.

I had been brainstorming for hours about what to do, And I had a sliver of a plan.

In the end I decided to throw caution to the wind and just try to avoid the rangers and carry more ammo.

I Decided to Begin trying to fix "Eddie" as I had begun to call it.

Mechanically it was't hard to fix, most of the parts I needed I could take from the broken security robots littering the base.
Thank Luna they didn't still work.

The only real problem I found was getting a new wing to replace one that was broken in half

To allow me to still use the robot I removed the other 3 wings and carefully stowed them, That way it wouldn't be able to fly, so I could debug the code inside without it constantly wobbling around on 3 wings.

The code in the robot was very different from what it may have been originally, instead of just navigation and radio, this thing was loaded with security protocols, EFS, and even a basic AI...

In the survival guide I found out why.

Apparently Sprite-bots were popular with pre war hobbyists as platforms for projects because they were cheap and easy to work with. and many were fitted to be little robotic guard dogs... some still functioned well enough to still be capable of killing.

I strapped eddie to my back and carried him and the rest of my newfound loot to the vertibuck.

I loaded it all in, as I strapped the rest of my gear and suplies down I noticed the strange gun the dying griffon had shoved into my grasp before he died...

it was very peculiar to say the least, it looked like somepony cannibalized a train to make it... the barrel was a long piece of tubing inside of a large shroud that covered most of the outer barrel. '

below the barrel there was more piping, which was also encompassed by tubing.

the "reciever" was bulky and complex. it had many small intricate pipes and some moving parts, as well as a few faded old pressure and temperature guages.

And apparently the damn thing was steam powered.

the ammunition was probably the strangest part.

instead of railroad spikes like the rest of the similar rifles fired, this thing shot what looked to be long slender darts made of scrap aluminum and steel.

the rifle was configured more as a long range weapon, a strange scope sat on top, and the barrel was long, and posessed a bi-pod. But at least it had a hand grip rather than a mouth bit, so I could take advantage of my hands.

I slung it across my back and put the weapon I had there previously with the rest of the things in the cargo bay.

I made one last sweep of the base and scavenged what I could from the few remaining aircraft.

With newfound confidence in my ability to fend for myself I took my place at the helm of my beloved aircraft. with whirring clicks and the sounds of computers and engines firing up the wing bracers locked into place. I spooled the two massive engines and listened to the beautiful howling whine combined with buffeting of rotors,

Today was a good day to fly...

I took to the air and began my trek east once again... Hopefully to somewhere with less Steel rangers.

I flew up to just below the clouds and skimmed the thin barrier between me and.... the enclave above...maybe.

all went well until something scared the crap out of me...

From above me something fell... and hit the windscreen of my vertibuck... the thing that happened to be bestowed upon me by the pegasi up above... was a piece of shit... which was now splattered across the front of my vertibuck... nasty.

The clumpy greenish brown sludge was disgusting... I nearly threw up after I realised what it was.

The wipers on the vertibuck were... probably not what wipers should really ought to be... instead of a nice plyable rubber blade to squeegee things from the window, they were 200 years old, crusty, and brittle. This combined with the sludgey nasty mass on my window... the wipers did nothing to clean anything... instead it seemed content to paint a brownish green smear across the window... like a foal with the nastiest paint ever...

"Well celestia fuck me right up the ass, that's fucking nasty!" at least it wasn't a pony... or maybe it once was... I had no clue how the enclave worked... who knows, they could be highly organised flying cannibals...

I forced that image from my mind in favor of landing so I could remove the unsightly shit stains.

I settled on landing near a small creek.

I got out and looked at the horrifying mass of brown splattered across my aircraft... then I noticed the smell.

I almost puked at the ungodly stench of it, I ran to the cargo hold and grabbed an old gas mask.. I had no clue whether it still worked... but if it would keep me from smelling it I was happy.

I pulled it over my head and gave a cautionary breath... thank luna I only smelled rubber and whatever was in the filter.

I grabbed a broom I stole from the base (because...why not?) and dunked it into the at least somewhat clean stream.

with a few solid minutes of scrubbing, I finally removed the horrendous mess...

"That was disgusting" I said almost sarcastically as I tossed the ruined broom aside. Honestly it was far beyond any description of how disgusting it was... all I could say about it was that I was glad it was over.

With new determination I took off again and began my trek back eastward...

"hmm, I wonder how ponyville fared" I pondered.

Author's Note

yes, ED-E exists in my story...because he's awesome.

heres a picture of him as a sprite bot I found on deviantart

https://img10.deviantart.net/c835/i/2014/237/d/4/2ed_e59_by_sadlylover-d7wlzzb.png

This chapter is REALLY rough... I just shot it up to get another one posted after a whole lot of nothing.