Fallout Equestria Baltimare Rising

Chapters

Chapter One: Survivor
Chapter Two: Emergence
Chapter Three: Upbringing
Chapter Four: Differences
Chapter Five: Beginnings

Chapter One: Survivor

Fallout Equestria: Baltimare Rising
By DarklingRuby and StellaeNocte
Chapter 1: Survivor
“..to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”

War. A cruel and vile creature, a beast that consumes all that it sees. Happiness, comfort, hope. Yet, every creature is so quick to jump to war that it seems we never learn anything from our ancestors.

ooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooo

I remember what life was like before the war. It was stressful, to say the least. Alas, I was a young colt. Only thing I had to worry about was “keepin’ them damn zebras out o’ our land”. The propaganda was everywhere, plastered on every building, every street corner, even every box. “Beware the striped menace”. Yeah. Sure. The only menace to our society were the ponies leading us. It started with our coal reserves dwindling. Our striped neighbors however had an abundance of coal, they were willing to trade for gems.

However, after an incident between ponies and zebras resulted in Wonderbolts dying and the Kaiser being offended. Insulated by Equestria’s perceived attempt at doing his job the Kaiser forcefully took his coal back. Influenced by these actions and the uneducated pleas of nobility, Equestria declared war. War had not been seen in Equestria for more than a millennia but was not too uncommon in zebra tribes. War followed, raged and stole the lives of many. After the school attack Celestia abdicated and Luna ascended to power which caused the Zebras more rage due to her past escapades as Nightmare Moon. Then The Ministry of Arcane Technology created the mega spells, supposed pinnacles of warfare and arcane technology. The magic was supposed to turn the war in our favor, but they ended up being our own downfall. Once the zebras got their hooves on the matrix, they did not shy away from using them to destroy us.

I remember what happened the day the spells detonated, ravaging our lands, destroying our cities, and vaporizing our populace. I sat at the school grounds, happy to finally be done with my classes for the day. My friends jumped around, playful and cheery just like me, not a care in the world. We swung on the swings and spun on the merry-go-round. Soon, before I knew it, my mom was pulling me away so we could go home. Tan and orange mane and tail, with her main spiking off at some points, blue, and butterfly with a red cross for a cutie mark, her calling being a voluntary relief worker. She was a pretty mare, or that's what I was told at least. I thought everypony was beautiful, but that was the inborn kindness and willingness to make friends of a foal, foolish and hopeful. Then the Equestrian Military moved in. They started ushering us towards what they called “Stable 35”, saying it would protect us because they presumed there would be a zebra attack on our city.

“Quickly, ma’am! Up the hill!” A tall pony is scary armor said to my mom with urgency. I had seen that armor before. It was power armor, made by the Ministry of Wartime Technology. Ponies in that armor were the very face of Equestrian morale.

“Wait! Where’s my husband? I can’t go in without him!” My mother pleaded to the armored giant.

“He’s already been taken to the Stable, now you need to go!” We were already running to the safety of the structure. When we arrived to the large pad on top of the hill, various other ponies were already gathering there. Once we stood safely on the platform in the shape of a large cog, soldiers began to rush about as one of the higher ranking ones received a radio report.

“Every pony cover your eyes!” He screamed as a bright flash erupted to the east of the town. Even with my mother’s hoof over my eyes, I could tell the light would have blinded any pony dumb enough to look at it.

“I don't care if they're all not here! Send the damn platform down now!” The pony who I think was the officer from before was shouting at the soldier who was supposed to be operating the controls to the door. The platform suddenly lurched downwards as the sealing doors closed overhead, concealing us in total darkness. As the elevator carrying we few survivors continued to grind, light pierced through a metal grate. By the time we had regained our vision, the Stable’s platform had screeched to a halt as ponies in radiation suits stepped forward, scanning us for any trace of radiation.

“They're clean.” One of them proclaimed. As he said that, a brown earth pony stallion trotted forward to the edge of the catwalk in front of us.

“Greetings, everypony! I'm Paper Clip, Overstallion of Stable 35. Now, I understand that you're all very shaken and I'm sure that you have many questions, but please. For the moment, come up to the catwalk and provide attendance so that we may give you your standard issue Stable barding.” The stallion stood with an air of authority, but he radiated trust and care. There were cries for lost homes and mourns for dead family, but that didn't concern my mother. She just wanted to find dad. We rushed up the platform, frantically scanning every pony standing idly around. He stepped forward from where he was standing in his security armor. The deep red unicorn stallion with dark tan mane and blue eye was hard to miss. He'd lost his other eye in a battle with zebras not long ago. After recovering, he was sent back to spend time with us before being contracted to work security for Stable-Tec.

“Hope!” He called out to us, and my mom ran over to him, embracing and nuzzling him. Despite the attendance pony’s efforts, our family refused to part.

“Mare, stallion, colt. I guess that's them.” The attendance taker seemed to give up on getting our names. Mom didn't care, she was just happy to have our family together again. The annoying Overstallion didn't miss a beat.

“And look! One family, happy to be together within the safety of our fine Stable. I’m certain that the rest of you will adapt to life in your new home fairly well, as we have gone the extra mile to give you all every amenity possible so that you feel happy here!” The few survivors milled about aimlessly. Some putting their new barding immediately, others seeing what 35 had to offer.

Dad took us down to the living level where we put on our Stable bardings. They were blue and yellow, with 35 stitched in big letters on the back and on the collars. The outfits were pretty comfortable, too. I liked them, but mom seemed to disagree with them. She tugged and pulled at the barding, trying to find a spot where it didn't rub wrong.

“Honey, do we have to wear these ridiculous bardings?” She complained fruitlessly.

“Yes, they're part of Stable guidelines. ‘All Stable residents and staff must wear their standard issue barding at all times’. Just give them a chance. I’m sure you’ll like them.” He stated as he kissed her. From there, we traveled to the shower rooms and the rest rooms, then to the cafeteria. The shower rooms didn't offer very much privacy. Just 4 shower heads on one side and 4 more on the other. They were separated with dividers in between and curtains acting as a door, but the issue was that the curtains were partially transparent.
The cafeteria was nice though. An expansive kitchen complemented by large, grey serving counters and 5 table benches.

The next few months went by so slowly that they might as well have been entire years. Mom worked in the doctor’s office. While dad worked as the head of security, not that the security ponies were needed except for the occasional petty thief. The Stable ended up being really boring. Wake up, shower, eat, then go to school. Life did spice up slightly one month when a light yellow filly almost got hurt by a bunch of falling crates. Something in me snapped and I shoved her out of the way so that I got pinned by the crates. It only broke my rear right hoof, but it was enough for security to host a special reward ceremony in my honor. The filly became my friend, Sun Rose was her name. She loved hydroponics and flowers and I thought she was a really big nerd.

And oh if I thought school before the stable was boring, then Stable schooling was torture. The classes wouldn’t have been horrible, and the teacher was really nice. However, every day we had to spend an hour talking about our lives in the Stable and then discuss why the Overstallion was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I didn’t think it was necessary, but apparently it had something to do with the Stable-Tech guidelines. Then again, I hardly focused in the classes. My mind wandered a lot, mainly because math couldn’t hold my attention even if it was offering chocolate treats and juice.

I wondered what happened to the surface, and if any of my friends had survived the bombing. The security ponies said we had to stay underground because outside was completely destroyed by rolling waves of green flame and boiling radiation. It sounded absolutely ridiculous, because if the bombs moved as fast as they said, we would have died outside! I never believed them, I thought they were all liars.
Regardless, life carried on in the Stable, until one very fateful day that changed my life forever.

I was spending time in the auditorium with Sun Rose when a bunch of security ponies rushed past us towards the front entrance and said the Stable was in lockdown until further notice. Mom grabbed Rose and I, then pulled us off to the living level to hide. I struggled to ask mom what was going on over Rose’s whimpers, but she finally answered me after we got to our room.

“Ponies have gotten into the Stable. No pony knows how, but your Dad says we need to stay here where it’s safe while he and the other guards try to contain everything.” She had a look of worry in her eyes and a frightened edge to her voice. Rose asked where her parents were, but I could tell from how long it took mom to respond that it wasn't good.

Then the gunshots started. The pop pop pop resonated through the walls of the Stable like bangs from the world’s biggest and loudest drum. Rose was quivering and shaking, because she had never heard them before, but I had. Only because Dad wanted me to be confident around firearms. I barely finished my thoughts of my gun training when the speaker system crackled to life.

“Attention all Stable 35 residents! Please return to your living quarters immediately. Our home is under attack and you must hide while our security team moves to secure the Stable.” His broadcast was interrupted by a pony shouting something vulgar and then a gunshot.

“Listen up, asshole. You're gonna read what's on this paper, or I'm gonna blow your fucking brains out!” A different voice was being heard now. It was very gruff and unpleasant, he sounded like sandpaper would if it could speak. There was an audible grunt as something hit the desk.

“To all residents of Stable 35.” There's an audible pause. “This is my last act as Overstallion. I will not forsake you. Stay in your rooms. Security teams, protect the residents.” The gruff sounding pony shouts as three gunshots go off.

“Dumb motherfucker. I'm unlocking the doors. Have fun boys.” The sand paper pony’s voice returned over the intercom before the lock on our door unclicked and three ponies that had bits of metal and leather strapped to yellow radiation suits stepped through. Rose screamed as one of them grabbed and another tried to grab me. Unlike Rose, I had gumption to survive.

He held me under his chest with one hoof, so I began to kick and lash out in any way I could. My flailing hoof eventually caught the one thing every stallion can’t bear to lose, and he dropped me. I tried to run to mom, but that same pony pinned me down with his hoof. Thinking quickly, my body turned as my front right hoof swung into his face. He leaned back after I struck him a second time.
“That's it, you little shit! Try and hit me now!” He pinned my right forehoof down and pushed a stick with a chunk of metal on top of it with two holes on the end against my hoof and pulled the trigger with his unicorn magic. I don’t remember much after he did that. There was a lot of screaming, my own mixed with my mother’s, a lot of red stuff on the floor. Then my dad was in the room with us, helping mom up. Then mom was running towards the medical bay, while I saw dad shut the door behind us as bullets started to hit the walls around him, tears streaming down his face. For some reason, the world started to get really dark.

“Stay with me baby, please!” My mother pleaded through sobs of grief. There was a really weird ringing coming from everywhere. Then there were other doctors standing near me. They were doing something to my hoof. Mom was standing over me, tears streaming down her face. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I had been bawling as well. Suddenly, another one of the ponies in the yellow suits burst through the door with a pony in power armor. I thought the ponies in power armor were supposed be on our side, but apparently treachery runs within the hearts of even our greatest heroes. Bullets tore through two of the nurses as three wounded security team members rushed the attackers as mom scooped me into her grasp.

She laid me down in a bed. Oddly not a regular bed, because I had heard mom arguing with a doctor pony over this kind of bed. Stable-Tec wanted to put some new born fillies in these pods so they could study what happened with long term exposure to the talismans in the pods. What was currently happening in the room flooded back to me like a burst dam as mom kissed my cheek and closed the lid on the chamber I now lay in. The bite of cold shook me from my daze as the glass began to frost over.

“Momma..” Was the last word I was able to mutter before the cryogenic talisman overtook my consciousness as I witnessed a bullet pierce my mother’s neck.

Author's Note

I’d like to give huge thanks to Kkat for both inspiring me to write this as well as give me permission to write this story, not to forget my co-author/editor Stellae, since he's been such a monumental help in this writing so far.

Chapter Two: Emergence

Chapter 2: Emergence

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

I awoke from my slumber with a jolt as the lid on the pod slid open, breathing stale and musty air into my body. Slowly, I rose out of the pod and landed on the ground. The stump that used to form my hoof ached and throbbed as I observed the decay of the ponies on the floor. The bodies were entirely decomposed, which meant I had been asleep for at least a year. I vomited at the sight and smell before regaining my composure.

“Momma.. I'm so sorry, Momma. I’ll find the ponies that did this.” I whispered somberly to myself. I don't know how or when, but what happened to my home won't go unpunished. I unhooked the necklace Dad and I got her some years ago and slipped it over my neck. I wanted something to remember her by. As I stepped into the decrepit hallway it was apparent I missed a lot. The rusted and broken walls along with the grime covered floor paired with the hardly functional lights told me one thing for sure. I was unconscious for much longer than one year. My brain swam with various probing questions. Why had those ponies broken into the Stable? How did they get in? Why were they so focused on taking us alive?

With my mind swarmed with uncertainties, one thing was certain: I needed something to protect myself, I scoured the room in search of a weapon or anything that would help me. There was nothing, and my throat had a significant lump of dread in it at the prospect of walking down the hallway to the door where Dad should lay. I slowly and unwillingly dragged myself forwards and lifted the door with my magic. The skeleton of a pony lay just at the bottom of the door, a lot of spent casings laying around him. He went out fighting.

My eyes widened to the size of melons at the battlefield that used to be our cafeteria. Most of the tables had been overturned to serve as makeshift barriers, and the metal was surprisingly good at catching bullets. However, whatever made those clean holes with the burn marks around them was much less assuring. Upon examining the shots, I noticed that the metal had melted and warped around the holes, and the exit was the same size as the entry. These were no ordinary weapons, of that I was certain.

I peeked behind the ramshackle barrier and saw 4 dead ponies, shredded security armor still wrapped around their skeletons. The gear wouldn't benefit me at all, just hinder my movement, and with already being down one hoof, I decidedly ignored the armor. The pistol, however, would prove to be quite useful. I levitated the weapon into the air and cleared the chamber as well as checked the magazine. Figured it would be empty.

I know Dad always stored a gun and extra ammunition in our room. I just had to hope it hadn't been taken or used in the gunfight. My three limbs fought when they had to carry on, obviously unused to the imbalance that came with only three hooves. As I stumbled towards my family’s room, something occurred to me that hadn’t before: how was I going to get out of the Stable? Surely those ponies got in and left somehow. I was getting ahead of myself, I needed to focus on the task at hoof. Upon opening the door to our quarters, I was shocked to find it relatively untouched.

Naturally, it had been ransacked, but given the state of the cafeteria, our room looked like paradise. I rushed over to the closet that belonged to Mom and Dad, and pulled the box out from the corner. In the container sat the 10mm pistol and a box of ammunition, as well as a holotape. The tape had “Play me” written on it. I loaded the gun and put the holotape, bullets, and spare medical supplies in the saddlebags I had. Next stop: the Pip-buck technician’s room.

The Pip-buck was an amazing binding of technology with the arcane realm, a sturdy device capable of automatically listing locations on a map, giving you vital readings, and even inventory management. They had a built in holotape player, and I needed some way to listen to Dad’s tape. And the hardened casing around the Pip-buck would be extremely beneficial if I had to bash something over the head. As I continued down the hallway, I took note of an odd skittering sound in the ceiling. The sign in the hallway indicated that I was close to the technician’s room.

Some steps later, I opened the door and was greeted with a grisly sight. The technician’s skeleton was laid back agaisnt her work table, her legs spread open. The worst part yet was the fact that her upper skull was missing and there was a lot of dried, semi-red material all over the workbench. However; all the Pip-bucks seemed to be strangely untouched. Guess murdering, raping marauders aren’t interested in them. I looked through each of Pip-buck, all varying in model and condition. After each of them failed to peak my interest, I noticed the blown open safe in the corner of the room. Inside was a Pip-buck that looked nicer than any others I had seen before. It had to be a new model.

I attached the contraption to my only forehoof, and was surprised to see something in my eyes. I audibly screamed but caught myself after a bunch of little red dots appeared in the center of my vision above what I thought was a compass. The dots scrambled for a bit before slowly moving in a solid line. Then I heard the skittering again.

Suddenly, the air vent in the roof of the room crashed to the floor as four exceedingly large bugs dropped from the ceiling and jumped towards me. The first one bit into my side, the stinging pain from its mandibles almost outdoing the seething pain from my severed hoof. The gun completely leaving my mind, my magic wrapped around one of the nearby Pip-bucks as I slammed it into the bug twice. A second bug advanced and I smashed the device into this one as well. I continued to pummel each mutant until all that was left of each one was a crushed exoskeleton and lots of green goop. I had to give the designer of the Pip-buck props for making such a hardy device. With the red dots gone, I looked through what the Pip-buck I had on my hoof. One healing potion, a bandage, one 10mm pistol, 17 spare rounds, and the holotape. I needed to leave this place before something else shows up.

I had made a terrifying discovery within the timekeeping feature on the Pip-buck. I had been asleep for almost 200 years! No wonder why the entire Stable was in such an awful condition. At that moment, all I wanted was to lay down and go to sleep, and hopefully wake up to find my mom looking over me, watching as a guardian angel over my fitful rest, to wake up from this dreadful nightmare. However, some part of me knew that this was all very real. I needed to do is leave before I became part of this museum of bones.

I followed the signs towards the entry room of our Stable and found the large, cog like door that separated the Stable from the elevator still sitting open. Apparently, our attackers decided to leave the door open and our home exposed just to pour salt into the wound. The open, rose colored wound the Stable had suffered. Oh Celestia, poor Rose. I couldn’t even be angry, not like the ponies who had killed her, Mom, and Dad and everypony else were still alive. Nopony lived for 200 years. Unless they were as unlucky as me.

My eyes fixed on the terminal that was sitting in the entry room. I trotted over to it only to find that it was password protected. I was disappointed until I remembered Dad’s holotape. I pressed the tape into my Pip-buck and listened to the recording intently.

“Topaz, Hope, if either of you two are listening to this, then something has happened to me or the situation in the Stable has escalated completely out of control.” My dad’s gruff yet caring voice perforated the silence that had overtaken everything. “I have a list here of all the codes that you’ll need to find safety, and if necessary, leave the Stable. The entry code for the security armory is ‘5B43U’, the password to the Overstallion’s office is ‘K73S7V’, and the override for the terminal controlling both Stable doors, 1UN4. Take care, both of you. I love you.” As the audio cut out, I wiped the tears from my eyes and typed the password into the terminal. I was granted access with a resounding beep! I selected the option to send the Stable elevator, and heard the gears grind to life.

As I began to walk out onto the platform that would bring me to the surface, I turned towards the Stable that I had called my home for the past 200 years. I wished this was all just an awful nightmare. I wished that once those doors that seal the elevator off from the outside open, I’ll just be looking up at my mother with that motherly gaze of hers. However, my longing was ceased as the jolt of the platform beginning its ascent pulled me back to reality. The structure that was my home slowly descended from my view, and I turned to gaze upon the gap above me as the doors opened.

The first real light that my eyes had experienced in two centuries blinded them temporarily. Unfortunately, once they had adjusted, I was immensely disappointed to find that the entire world was overcast with grey, gloomy clouds. Where was the sunlight, the singing birds, the pegasi? It was all missing. I felt like I had emerged into an alien planet. The landscape was completely barren, broken and crumbling buildings all around, any semblance of happiness gone from the world. Which surprised me when I saw a stallion walking around at the base of the hill.

I slowly crept towards him, wary of ponies due to those ones in the yellow suits that had turned my life onto its head. Once I was close enough, it sounded like he was speaking to somepony. I hid behind a crate that was within 10 steps of him, and could finally make out what he was saying.

“No, Zara. We are not going to look in the stable. Stable-tec conducted awful experiments on the ponies unfortunate to live in these things. We have no way of knowing what could be there.” The stallion was a deep cherry red, with cyan eyes and a sun yellow mane and tail. He had a scar on his nose that arced towards his left eye. His voice was soft, and had a caring tone to it. He spoke with compassion and overprotectiveness to this Zara pony.

“Come now, hun. What’s the sheer possibility that this stable is full of bad things? It could be one of the ones where they didn’t experiment on anything? Even if it’s something as tame as teaching that mares aren’t as important as stallions.” I’m sure this was Zara speaking now. She sounded as if she genuinely cared about seeing if there was life in there. There was something strange about the way she talked though. Was it the weird ‘r’ rolling? I didn’t know. I stood up quickly with the intent of walking somewhere else, but as I did so, I scraped my nub of a hoof along the box and screamed out in pain.

“Did you hear that?” Zara asked in a worried tone.

“Yes, we need to get going. Come on” The stallion calmly responded.

“But it sounded like a little filly! What if they’re hurt?”

“Raiders and slavers use foals as bait, Zara. We’re leaving.”

“Eulogy, we are not going to leave a poor filly to suffer!”

So his name was Eulogy. I contemplated running as he resigned from his argument and began to walk towards where I was hidden, but I chose to stay. He poked his head over the box and laid his eyes on me, a mangy, blood soaked, stable dwelling colt, quivering more than a filly on their first Nightmare Night.

“You really are just a foal. What happened to you?” I just shook as he spoke to me, unsure of what to do. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. Come here, I need to see your hoof.” He stepped forward and scooped me up with his left forehoof, cradling me against his side as he walked back to where he stood originally, finally allowing me to see Zara.

“Zebra! There’s a zebra!” I started screaming and squirming, which caused Eulogy to drop me. I was so frightened at the sight of her that I hid underneath the stallion.

“This is what I was afraid of. The stable dweller still has racist fears against zebras.” Eulogy sighed. I looked up at him and back at the zebra. She kept her distance, but she didn’t gaze to me with the barbarism and brutality that had been taught in our schools. Instead she looked to me with care and understanding. She didn’t hate me like we had been taught all zebras did.

Regardless, she was still a zebra! This one must have been lying to try and make me foolishly trust her. I tried to levitate the pistol out of my saddlebags so that I could put down this striped menace. However, before I could do anything, Eulogy pinned my head against the ground beneath his hoof while his other forehoof held the gun down. I could hear him audibly growling as I continued to squirm against his weight.

“Eulogy, don’t hurt him! He’ll never trust either of us if you keep him pinned like that.” I couldn’t see the zebra, but she was somewhere close to me. If only Eulogy would move his hoof.

“He’s trying to shoot you! Are you saying that I should just let him kill you, the one mare who I would give everything I have for?” Why was he saying these things? Why wouldn’t he let me kill her?

“Let him stand up, but keep the gun down. I can earn his trust without you threatening him.” I felt the pressure on my skull lift off as I looked to the zebra mare standing in front of me. She held her hoof out, and as I stood to face her, she once more didn’t look to me with hatred or seething rage or an urge to slaughter me. Rather, I received a look that only certain ponies were able to give. A mother’s gaze.

I stepped out from under Eulogy and sat in front of him as I reached my only forehoof towards Zara, connecting mine to hers. I found myself smiling as she smiled back to me. The mare picked me up and sat me on her back as she nuzzled Eulogy.

“What’s your name, little pony?” Zara questioned as she and Eulogy both turned to me.

“My name’s Topaz. It was my mom’s favorite gemstone.” I choked up as I said the last piece.

“Where’s your mom?” Zara asked, her voice full of concern. I said nothing.

“Where are your parents, Topaz?” Eulogy pressed. I didn’t want to go over the awful details of the past 200 years.

“My..” Tears began to well up in my eyes. “My parents were killed after these ponies in the yellow radiation suits attacked our stable. Both of them died so that I could be kept alive.” I motioned to my cut off hoof.

“Sweet Celestia..” Zara used the expression as if it was entirely native to her.

“How long ago did this happen?” Eulogy looked as if her legitimately cared about two century old dead ponies.

“Two.. Hundred years ago. My mom put me in this pod thing before she died. The talisman burnt out and I only thawed out just a few hours ago.” Both of them stared at me with shock and surprise.

“You’re older than most of the ponies around!” Zara stated in awe.

“My home is gone, my family is gone..” I sniffed as I looked at Zara and Eulogy. “Can I live with you?” They both turned to each other before looking back to me.

“Of course you can, Topaz. We need somepony else for our family.” Zara explained. “Hun, does that pony with the cybernetics still owe you for that one time?” Eulogy gave a reassuring nod. A large smile began to creep across my face.

“Then” Zara paused to look at me. “Let’s go home.”

Author's Note

Level up! Cryostasis adaptance - Due to time spend in a cryogenic freezer, you are now more resistant to cryogenics and energy attacks! Take 20% less damage from cryogenics and 15% less damage from energy attacks.

Massive thanks to Kkat for inspiring me to write as well as giving me permission to write this story, Stellae for helping make sure this is all correct as well as making it all something worth reading, and all my awesome friends. I love you guys so much!

Chapter Three: Upbringing

Chapter 3: Upbringing
“The most oblivious people are often the happiest”

14 years later…

My adolescence passed with surprising ease, as I adapted to post-war Equestria quite well. It was really different though. The rulers were all long dead, killed by the bombs that were unleashed upon Canterlot, and now many independent factions controlled different pieces of the wastes. The Steel Rangers were an order of ponies who had a large stockpile of guns, ammo, and power armor. They were the alleged good ones, but they were so caught up in attempting to hoard technology and bullets “for the good of the wasteland” that were sort of regarded as thieves, but they wouldn’t murder or rape ponies who were in their way. Eulogy, or Dad as I called him after some months. He and Zara both became my adopted parents.

The real menace to the surviving ponies were the raiders and slavers. These ponies were all divided into a bunch of little groups and outlets, but the biggest one was lead by a pony named Red Eye, and most of the groups were linked to him in some way. He is described as being so evil and cruel that if he had an aura, it was be darker than the night. He worked ponies to death in mines and in mills, all while having an army that competed with the Rangers.

Perhaps scariest of all was the “Goddess”. The rumors were that she was an all powerful being, stronger than Celestia and Luna combined. She sends “fake alicorns”, ponies that had both wings and a horn, to do her bidding, They captured unicorns who were foolish enough to wander alone, and no pony sees them again. But these are all rumors, as no pony in the Baltimare ruins has seen this “Goddess”, and her goons are an incredibly rare sight.

Lastly, of those worth mentioning, is the Enclave. They are situated in the clouds, of which permanently cover the wasteland. The weather controlling pegasi closed off the skies when the zebras launched their megaspells against us, and they hadn’t opened them in over 200 years. The lived in secrecy, rarely coming to the surface, and they're far from friendly.

However, I had very little interaction with any of them, except for raiders on a few occasions. Most of my time was spent scavenging with my new dad and mom. Dad used to be a Steel Ranger, but retired after meeting Zara. However, he still had friends in the Rangers, and they gave me my cybernetic hoof, which was attached right where my old hoof ended. It was mostly bulletproof, it was what my battle staff was stored, it had the hitting power of a pony in power armor, and had little extendable hooves at the bottom, which made grabbing things really easy.

Dad trained me in the use of power armor, as he had found and fixed an old set, but we never used it. He also showed me how to shoot from a battle saddle as well as a gun from my mouth, which is how most were made, even though I preferred to use my telekinesis. I was also shown how to hack into a terminal and repair weapons and armor from items in the field.

Mom taught me zebra potion crafting as well as some of their hoof-to-hoof skills on top of how to fight with a staff. I actually really liked these zebra skills, they were fun for me to do, and she even helped me understand the zebra side of the conflict between ponies and zebras. The interesting aspect of it all was that I called this zebra mare my mother, but she really was. She was kind and understanding, always taking the time to talk to me and ask how I felt about things.

Scavenging was actually fun, because it was like that nature of a really young pony to grab and collect random things. The only real difference was that we sold most of what we found. One thing that always came off weird to me was how everypony used Sparkle-Cola bottle caps as currency now. Our little family lived in a quaint yet cozy shack on the outskirts of the ruined Baltimare. However, scavenging meant we were all over the equestrian wasteland, far North and to the deep South, so we weren’t exactly sitting around our home for long periods of time. When we did stay there, we trained and recovered, built contraptions from the junk we scrounged up, and just talked. They started showing signs of illness during one of our breaks at home.

Mom was coughing and sputtering horribly, and her voice was becoming increasingly raspier, all while Dad was becoming weaker by the day, hardly able to support the weight of his saddle bags when full. I was continuously instructing them to rest as much as they could, that I could handle the responsibilities of the house.

“I may be sick, but I am not a frail elderly pony, Topaz. You’re going to age faster than we are if you continue with all of this worry.” Mom assured me. I didn’t care, as I just wished for her to be well again.

“Please, Topaz. Stop fussing over me so much.” Dad asked as I set a bowl of a special healing brew I made in front of him. His mane had streaks of grey in it now, his age finally catching up to him.

“No, I refuse to just let you two being sick while I know I’m capable of helping you. Now drink your broth try to sleep, or I’ll make you.” I flashed a caring smile towards them to show that I was joking about the last part. I may have grown much taller than Mom, but I was still scared of that mare like nothing else. Point a gun in my face, I won’t even break a sweat. Threaten me with death and I could care less. Yet, when Dad had that look in his eye, and Mom had her staff, I quivered in my hooves.

“You’re going to make a mare very happy someday, Topaz. I know you will.” Mom always wanted me to have offspring of my own, but that was my last concern right now. I could find a mare later, because what did it all matter if M0m wasn’t alive to meet her.

“I’ll worry about that later, Mom. I need to go do some trading, I should be back within a few hours. Please, don’t wait up worrying about me.” I slipped my saddlebags on and looked to her before I stepped out the door and set off for town. On my way off of the property, I waved to our helper, the ghoul Moonlight Lily. Ghouls were ponies who were exposed to too much radiation, which caused their fur to rot off, their manes to fall out, and their minds to waste away. However, some don’t go insane immediately, if at all, and Lily was one of the lucky ones. She worked for us after we freed her from slavers, and took care of the house while we were away, but she was especially helpful with Mom and Dad sick. She waved back and I continued on my way to the nearest trading post.

As I trotted down the road, the distinct clanking of my metal hoof eliminating any chance of silence, I wondered if what Mom and Dad were stricken with was something normal. I was hopeful that it was, although I had never seen nor read about anything such as this. Even Mom’s recipes had no remedy for awful coughs, constant unrest, and no need to sleep. They must have contracted it two weeks ago, when they went scavenging in some abandoned town near an old mine without me. However, the fact that I hadn’t also become ill is what perplexed me. Was it spore based? If so, then why hadn’t it infected Lily and I? This sickness left me dismayed on multiple levels.

As I came up to the outer wall of the trading post, an expansive settlement constructed around an ancient Equestrian monument, I took note of the extra menacing ponies all standing outside the gate. Upon moving closer, it was easier to tell that they were mercenaries. Better armor, weapons in exceptional condition, and they most likely didn’t reek of death. Probably hired to move with a caravan, but the only ones who made enough money to afford that kind of protection were slave traders, and they always put ponies on edge, which made bartering difficult.

“What’s your reason for bein’ here?” The gatekeeper questioned as I walked up to the entrance.

“Same as everypony else. Trading.” It wasn’t megaspell brewing, especially since I showed up with saddlebags full of miscellaneous wares.

“The slavers are here. Ya sure you want to trade?”

“I’ve walked through coals before, they don’t have shit on me. Now are you going to let me in or am I going to have to kick your precious gate down?”

“Well I’m not gonna buy you back if’n they nab ya.” He fruitlessly volunteered. His accent irritated me. The front gate swung inwards as two earth ponies pulled it open. The twin doors creaked and moaned, their weight bearing down upon the hinges on which they sat. I rushed in, not wanting to strain the earth ponies any longer and nodded to each of them. Their entire lives were opened shutting this gate, so I hoped I could help them feel a little better.

I turned to walk over to a nearby stall. Only to be greeted by the barrel of a large caliber rifle pointed at my head. I stared down the barrel and to the owner, a bright fuschia unicorn mare with a scarred face, pink eyes, a light green mane with vibrant yellow highlights and a “don’t fuck with me” look to her.

“Stay right where I can see you, scaver. Don’t try anything, I’d hate for these settlers to have to scrape your brains off the walls.” She spoke with a confidence that I hadn’t heard in many ponies, and judging by the scars on her face, she’s been through a few shit storms in her life. Which meant she had actions and skills to back her words.

“Okay, alright. I’m no thief, just wanting to do some trading for my family.” I had no reason to lie.

“Why isn’t your family doing their own trading?” She jabbed.

“Because they’re both terribly ill with something I’ve never experienced before, so I want to purchase supplies to attempt to remedy whatever has befallen them, even if I must sell my own hoof.” A look of compunction flashed in her eyes as. Her gaze held for a few more moments before lowering her gun and letting me move past her. I began with bartering with the weapons stall, able to sell three 10mm pistols and the ammo for them for a quaint 280 caps. After transitioning from vendor to vendor, I wound up at the stall that mare with the rifle was at: the medicine salespony. As I trotted up, I was greeting by a look of disgust on the pony’s face. I walked away with three fresh bandage wraps, supplies for more medicinal brews, and some stitching needles and salve. My disappointment was from the fact that the stallion refused to sell me some prickly cactus fruits, which were used to make some of my remedies, despite his crate of them being in full view.

I began to walk away when I heard the fuschia mare ask the pony for some cactus fruits, to which he happily obliged. She immediately looked to me and asked the stallion why he wouldn’t sell me the fruits, to which he responded by saying “He looks like a scavenger. Probably wanted the things for drugs.” She simply scoffed at him before saying he should sell to anypony who wants to purchase something if he wanted to stay in business.

The mare walked over and gave me the cactus fruits before apologizing for the pony’s rude behavior. I wasn’t interested in her sympathy, as she had just waved the barrel of a gun around in my face for the exact reason the salespony refused to sell my the fruits. I gave a quick “thanks” before continuing on my way. I looked around the other stalls that were stationed around the settlement, but took note of one new one away from the others. The mare behind the stall counter only had one eye, but a short cropped mane and an exceptionally mean look to her. She had two guards standing on either side of her, one in power armor that seemed to be a combination of the armor that belonged on the suit and makeshift replacement limbs, while the other pony had a grenade launcher battle saddle and a rather nasty Ironpony shotgun leaned against the wall. Along the back wall of the shop sat four beaten and chained mares, while outside the shop two cages had anywhere from five to seven foals and fillies in them. There was a tent near the cages with “Trials - 100 caps” written in crude red paint on the side above a bucket presumably full of caps. I could hear a mare crying inside and noticed the guard with the shotgun eyeing up that mare with the rifle as she walked besides me, her attempted conversation suddenly becoming relevant.

“...hate these fuckers. If it wasn’t for my own experience with it, I wouldn’t believe that ponies are able to do that to each other.” She was quiet for a moment. “And if that pony doesn’t quit staring at me, I’m going to shove my rifle up his ass.” I was starting to like this mare.

“Then why don’t you wage a one mare war against them?” I figured it was a legitimate question.

“You’re a scavenger, and you’re probably around my age. So you tell me why I’m not waging a war against Red Eye or any others.” She sensed my stare and just averted her gaze, seemingly uncomfortable now. This mare was certainly odd. She carried herself with confidence, but shriveled under a pony’s direct gaze. She spoke with a certainty but a good portion of her words seemed to not have her spine behind them. However, she was intelligent, which was obvious due to the way she calculated every mannerism and observed nearly everything going on in the settlement around her.

“Hey, what’s your name?” She seemed lost in her thoughts, oblivious to my question. “Hey, Taffy!” I said as I nudged her. She looked to me with a face of genuine fear, which caused me to ask her what was wrong. She said nothing and turned away, after which I carried on my way. I suppose calling her “taffy” set her off, which is an odd thing to get triggered by, but I had my own problems without taking her into account as well.

My thoughts were interrupted by a loud mrrrraaaaaahhhhh of the bombing siren the town used as an attack siren. Ponies quickly began to run into homes or to defensive positions along the perimeter wall. Then the mare who ran the slave stall was running around, shouting incoherently to different ponies.

“The fuck is going on?” She questioned menacingly to the gate keeper.

“Raiders are attacking! It’s the fire-” His response was cut short as a bullet from a rifle took the top half of his head off, showering the mare in red and bits of gate keeper.

“What’s the play boss?” Her guard in power armor advanced towards her.

“It’s the fuckin Firewalkers. We’re gonna stay here and kick their asses, show ‘em to not encroach on Chainlink territory!” She spat.

“With pleasure.” He and Shotgun rapidly ascended the battlements, opening fire upon the approaching raiders. I began to scale another set of battlements when one of the guards screamed “Get down!” right before that portion of the wall exploded, raining wood and flaming debris over everything.

“They’ve got a fuckin’ sentinel! Run for ya lives!” One of the guards jumped from his post and began running before being shot by Chainlink.

“No pony runs or you die! You’ve got the numbers here, you can beat these Firewalkers!” Her attempt at rallying the defenders worked surprisingly well. I moved onto the ruined battlements and shot at who I could with my pistol. I still had the one Dad had hidden away in the closet, and it still proved effective against any raiders that moved within range. Of course, it was hard to land every shot when I was getting shot at as well. A bullet hit my cybernetic hoof as I looked upward towards a griffin with a battle saddle flying down towards me, firing rapidly. This was it. No way the beast could miss as he closed the distance, and my gun was out of bullets.

BANG! The griffin was ripped out of the as I turned towards the source of the sound. That fuschia mare stood at the bottom of the battlements, the scope of her rifle hovering not far from her eye.

“H.. holy shit!” I stammered. I couldn’t believe she landed that hit.

“Best shot East of Manehattan! You’re welcome, asshole.” There was that cocky attitude again. I turned back to deal with the advancing raider threat. The mass must have been 50 ponies strong, enough to take this settlement if it wasn’t for the extra guards from Chainlink. I didn’t like that mare for her business practices, but she was helpful. I was scanning the battlements to see how many defenders were still standing when the barricade I stood on was suddenly engulfed in flames, followed by a Robronco Sentinel plowing through the wall and knocking me down. The robot was covered in all kinds of welded on metal plates, then painted to look like flames were rising up the machine’s body from its dual arm mounted flamethrowers. It began to raise one of its legs to crush me, however, my hoof was quicker, smashing into the leg actuator before it could fall, rendering the limb useless. To my disappointment, this didn’t slow the bot at all. The contraption swung its arm into me, throwing me 15 steps away with ease.

I landed with a thud, luckily nothing breaking in the process. I attempted to stand before the machine batted me aside again. How did this thing move so quickly? I rolled over in time to glimpse the mare with the rifle line up a shot at the fuel line of the flamethrower aimed at me. The round hit the hose as the flames began to spew from the weaponized dragon, spraying the fuel onto the light at the nozzle, causing the weapon itself to explode in a fireball.

Sadly, again, this barely hindered the Sentinel. It turned its heavily armored torso to her as she fired again, the round ricocheting off and grazing the side of the slaver guard with the shotgun.

“You stupid cunt! Watch what you’s shootin’ at, bitch!” He screamed out in pain. She fired at the bot again, gaining the machine’s full attention now. I used the opportunity to observe the opening in the back of the contraption, which was beginning to glow red hot as the battle progressed. This machine wasn’t created by Robronco. It instead was a crude construct built by this Firewalker raider clan. That explained why the flame weapons used fuel instead of a talisman, like most of it’s type did. Dad taught me a lot about weapons and robots. This machine’s core was becoming hot and unstable, which meant it had a weakness.

I stood quickly, ejecting my battle staff from its folded and stored position on my hoof, and jammed the end into the opening on the Sentinel, while simultaneously pulling two grenades off of a nearby pony’s corpse. I pulled the pin on each with my hoof by standing on the pins and pulling on the grenades with my magic, then jammed each one into the exposed motor of the machine. I screamed “Get clear!” as I pulled my staff back and jumped behind an overturned cart stall for cover.

BOOM! I peaked over the cart to see the machine begin to shake violently as it turned further red hot.

“It’s going to explode! Let’s throw it back!” The fuschia mare ordered. Collectively, her, I, and three other unicorns lifted the overheating robot and heaved it into the onslaught of raiders being kept outside the ruined wall by the power armored pony’s machine gun fire. The machine erupted into a grand fireball, incinerating any raiders within 10 hoof prints of it. Next, the ensuing expansion of the explosion killed or wounded many more. When the fireball cleared, the once mounting force of 50 raiders was reduced to 12, with those who didn’t immediately surrender becoming subject to a hail of bullets from the victorious defenders.

After looting the dead attackers and cleaning up the bodies, I noticed the fuschia mare oddly missing from the victory festivities. Shotgun pony was missing too. When I was certain that Power Armor and Chainlink were accounted for, I broke from the crowds and made my way towards the slaver stall. With my staff deployed, I peaked into the “trials” tent and was greeted with a rank smell but no pink pony or slaver. I looked around the back of the tent to see the mare tied down, muzzled, and stripped of her armor. With Shotgun about to mount her.

“Gonna make ya pay for hitting me with that bullet during the fight. I got plenty of scars, don’t need stupid whores like you giving me more.” He spat onto her face as he rose to mount her. However, my staff connecting to his skull first sent him rolling quite a few steps. He frantically and angrily searched for his shotgun, only to witness me smash it in half with my hoof.

Using the tip of the staff, I propped his chin up to look at me as I closed the distance. “Look at me. See my face. Remember my face. If I see you near another mare again, I remove some.. Choice bits.” Satisfied with the fear in his eyes, he was knocked out with one quick bash from my staff. I removed his armored leather coat and wrapped it around the mare as I freed her from the restraints. After giving her back her gear and making sure she was okay, she thanked me.

“What’s your name?” She asked in demeanor worryingly calm for a pony who was almost raped.

“Topaz. Mind if I ask yours?” I replied as I sat beside her.

“Sparktrail. ‘Best shot East of Manehattan’.”

“Huh. I believe that, too. Never seen a pony snipe a diving griffin out of the air.”

“Well, I’m the best for a reason. I’m good at shooting things, much better than anypony else. It’s basically my job. At least it was, until the caravan I was supposed to protect got shot to pieces. Now all I have is my rifle. What was is again that you were here for?”

I thought briefly about what she was saying. She had no job now, I had a saved her life and her insides, so now she wanted to help me with my mission. She hated having debts owed, therefore she wanted to work off her debt to me.

“I’m looking for medicine for my sick parents. They’ve contracted something that not even our doctor friends know how to combat. I was purchasing supplies to make more special brews, as it seems to be the only thing slowing the progression of this disease.” I wondered how long I had been gone. Surely they heard the gunfight and must be worried.

“Hold up. The way you speak, the staff, the way you walk, special brews.. Are your parents zebras?” It shocked me that she had narrowed it down so easily.

“One of them. My mother. They adopted me after mine were killed..” I trailed off towards the end. I realized how long it had been since I remembered my real parents.

“Sorry to hear. I understand if you say no, being that we just met and all, but could I travel with you as ya look for some sort of medicine for your folks?” She was incredibly desperate to pay off this debt she thought she owed. Truthfully, I didn’t feel she owed me anything. She saved my life just as much as I’d saved hers.

“You feel like you owe me, don’t you?” I quizzed her.

“I don’t owe you anything. If any pony owes something, you owe me for saving your flank back there!” She angrily contested. “I just want to do something else than stand around here all day waiting for my boss to tear my head off. I hoped I could go with you and watch your back, help you around the ruins, what not. Maybe you’d find something valuable to give me as payment.” I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t admit it, but I suppose I’d play her game.

“Alright, fine. You can tag along. Just try to not get in my way” She visibly perked up as I said, but tried to disguise it as “somepony stepping on her tail”.

“Where to next?” She buzzed. Something really was odd about her.

“First, I need to go check on my parents. They no doubt heard the battle and are probably worried about me.” I responded.

“Cool. Let’s go before that stallion wakes up and tries to get the one in power armor involved.” That wouldn’t happen, but I appreciated her worry. As we made our way out of the settlement, I noticed that she kept up that same cocky demeanor all while walking uncomfortably close to me. We made good time, considering we didn’t have to duck and hide from any raiders or slavers on the way there.

“I suppose I should mention that my parents get really.. Enthusiastic whenever I drag another pony around. Just don’t freak out on them, okay?” I commented.

“You act like I’m a heartless bitch.” She scoffed.

“You shot a diving griffin out of the air. I am completely terrified of you and the rifle.”

“What’s your point?”

“Just saying.”

“I hate raiders and slavers, and will kill them on sight. But I don’t shoot innocent ponies.” I hoped she didn’t, but those scars all over her face weren’t assuring. There was something so off about her, but I couldn’t quite put my hoof on it.

“Topaz! You’re okay!” My thoughts were interrupted by Lily as she sprinted up to me and hugged me, the geiger counter on my Pip-buck ticking slightly due to her ghoulishness. “We heard shooting and then a bunch of explosions, so we feared the worst! Eulogy tried getting up to go look for you, but he can’t even stand now, and these weird boils have been forming on Zara. Hurry, they’ll feel better knowing you’re alive and well.” She ushered me forth into the house.

The sight before me was disheartening. Mom was curled up on her side of their old bed, shivering so violently that it shook the old screws and bolts that barely held their bedframe together. Dark purple boils covered her body now, and her eyes, once she opened them to look at me, seemed much more grey than their usual emerald green. Dad looked physically weaker, despite me being gone for barely two hours. His mane was matted with sweat, and he struggled to lift his head, let alone get out of bed. Dark purple spots were beginning to appear on him as well.

I stumbled over to Mom as she lifted her head to see me. Seeing her so weak and powerless like this.. It angered me. She was my mother, and she was horribly sick, but I could do nothing, which replaced any other emotions with a seething hatred.

“T-topaz? I-is that you?” Her teeth chattered as she shook. I got my blanket off my bed and wrapped her it around her.

“We heard the shooting and the explosions, we were so scared.” Dad managed. He seemed to be having opposite effects from whatever plagued them, but he could at least speak. “What happened to you? There’s dried blood on your face.”

“Firewalker raiders attacked the settlement while I was trading. They had built a Sentinel which they used to assault the barrier. It beat me around for a bit before Sparktrail over there saved my hide.” I explained, motioning to her as she meekly waved at Dad and Mom. “But we were able to beat the raiders, and she wants to help me find something to help you two.”

“S-so you w-wait until we’re d-dying to bring a m-mare around?” Mom asked jokingly through her spasms. I absolutely had to find something to help them.

“Don’t say that, Mom. I’ll find something to help you, I promise.” I pleaded with her.

“What’s the plan, son?” Dad wanted to know.

“I’m going to search for a cure for whatever you have, and I’m not stopping until I have it.” I declared. I wasn’t actually sure how I would accomplish that.

“If you’re running off into the wastes, take the armor. Neither of us can use it, and you’ll need everything you can get if you’re gonna survive.” I didn’t want to take it, but he was right. I leaned down and nuzzled Mom before wiping a tear from her eye and saying goodbye.

About an hour later, the power armor had been loaded with gear such as food, ammo, and bedrolls. I also loaded the weapons mounted to the armor, a slow firing large caliber machine gun designed to hurt ponies and robots, and the missile launcher which we had salvaged. The gun had standard ammunition while the launcher was loaded with high explosive missiles. I stepped into the armor, told Lily bye, and with a confirming nod from Sparktrail, set off to find a cure for my parents.

Author's Note

Level up! Toughness - your long time as a scavenger in the wastes has toughened your body and mind, giving you a 10% damage resistance increase.

Massive thanks again to Kkat for inspiring me to write! I also want to thank and notice my 6 close friends who have been helping immensely with this project, from making sure I used proper grammar to creating characters and even tweaking and planning an end for this story. You all making this possible by being the backbone of this whole story. Thank you so much!

Chapter Four: Differences

Chapter Four: Differences
“..Knowing the difference between what you have the right to do and what is right to do.”

We set off into the wasteland to find my parents a cure. The two of us walked through the downpour that had begun while we were inside, the rain streaking down my power armor. I looked over to Sparktrail, who’s wet mane draped her face as her leather overcoat went from grey to a deep ebony color from the water, the rain making the plating of her armor shine. Besides the loud clanking footsteps my armor made, we walked in silence for quite some time, which allowed me to take in key details about Sparktrail. When she walked, her rear right hoof moved like it was stiff, causing her to limp slightly, most likely the result of a broken leg that healed improperly. She carried herself highly, and her eyes delivered a steely gaze to anything that crossed her path. The scars that covered her face told an interesting story, one that I am interested in hearing at a campfire some night. Her rifle was a specially crafted and modified semi-automatic, it was dark grey with a silvery gunmetal finish underneath where the wear and tear showed. She had etched “Thread Cutter” into the side of the barrel, and the scope was sitting on a side mount rather than on the top rail to accommodate for the way she held her rifle in her magic when firing. The rain began to get worse, and Sparktrail levitated out a clear rain cap and draped it over her head, then offered a spare to me, of which I happily accepted.

“Hey, what happened to your hoof?” She asked.

“Well then I would have to explain a lot of things. How old are you?” I responded

“Relatively young. That’s as far as I’m willing to tell you.”

“Well what if I told you that I was actually older than my parents?”

“I’d ask you to share whatever you’re on.” I went on to explain how I was alive before the war, how I went into the Stable, how the raiders attacked and my hoof as well as my parents. The whole story left her in awe once I lifted my head from the sadness that had overtaken me upon talking about my real parents.

“You are . . . very hardcore for a Stable-dweller.” The one chance to say something genuine and nice, and this is how she used it.

“What do you mean?” I was completely confused by her statement.

“Well Stable-dweller are usually stereotyped to be soft and squishy little bitches.” I had no idea this was a legitimate thing. “But not long ago, you walked right into a settlement full of slavers, got beat around by flame spewing Sentinel, and then told a slaver who had powerful friends that if you ever saw him near a mare again, you would chop his cock off. You’re no squishy dweller.” I honestly hadn’t anticipated a compliment from her.

“Thanks, I guess. Not many ponies know about that, so that’s probably why I never heard of that stereotype.” I looked over to see her grow visibly sadder. “Want to share some stuff about you?” She didn’t respond to the question, and looked away when I turned towards her.

“How did you get your mark?” She finally asked after we resumed walking.

“In the Stable, one of my friends almost got hurt by a falling stack of crates. I pushed her out of the way and took the hit myself. When I was pulled from under the mess, I had my mark. Everypony figured that I was meant to shield others from danger, which they found odd when I wanted to pursue medicine like my Mom rather than join the security force like my Dad. They of course still enrolled me in the security training programs, but they hadn’t started when those raiders attacked.”

“Ever wanted to hunt those bastards down?”

“That was over two centuries ago. No way they’re alive.” I explained, again. I guess she only payed attention when I was discussing what happened to my hoof, which to be fair, was the only thing she cared about in the first place. “What about your mark?”

“Shooting . . . things. With a laser weapon.” I’d seen her proficiency with a rifle, so there was no debating that “shooting things” played a pretty major role in her destiny. However, the pause indicated something much more troubling in her story behind her mark.

“Is that it?”

“Yup. Nothing else. Just shooting things.” She didn’t want to open up at all. She must have had an awful upbringing. Never have I met such a stubborn mare before her. After some more dreadful silence, we trotted slowly up a hill. The rain made the ground soft and muddy, which caused the armor to sink into the dirt. Upon reaching the top of the hill, five figures appeared into view near the bottom. Using the binoculars I had stored away, I examined them from a distance.

“They look like they’re..”

“Slavers.” She finished my sentence for me as she took aim with her rifle. I quickly stepped in front of her, blocking her view.

“Fuck are you doing, dumbass?” She grew agitated when I continued to move with her to disrupt her line of sight.

“There’s a filly with them!” I argued.

“I don’t care! A slaver is a slaver, don’t matter their age.”

“No, you’re not killing them. We’re going to walk by them, and hopefully they’ll be decent about it. If not, shoot away. But please don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

“You have too much faith in ponies. Whatever, but if they plant one between your eyes, I’m not dragging your corpse back to your parents.” Fine with me. They looked starved and disheveled, so hopefully they would be intimidated by the armor and wouldn’t try something stupid. I descended down the hill and was soon walking close to the slavers, they however no doubt heard the obnoxious clanking of my armor. Yet they didn’t react aggressively, only seeming to attempt to look smaller, lowering their heads and looking away from me. At least the rain had stopped.

“It’s just one of them. What do we do?” I heard one of their group ask, a light red stallion with scrap metal for armor and ratty black mane.

“Doesn’t matter. A Ranger is a Ranger, and even one is incredibly dangerous. Let’s just hope he leaves us alone.” Another one, a yellow green stallion with a red, short cropped mane responded. Without warning, the filly traveling with them heaved a large puddle of yellow liquid with quite a bit of blood in it before almost collapsing into it. One of their group caught and picked up the filly before she could fall completely over.

“Is she okay?” I asked aloud as they began to huddle around the sick filly.

“What do you care?” Responded the yellow-green one.

“Because I’d hate to see a young pony die like that.” They all turned to look at me, but were convinced by the expression of genuine care and worry on my face.

“No, she ain’t. Got rad poisonin’, and we’re trying to find something to help her. Don’t s’pose you got anything in that fancy armor of yours?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t. But I’ll find some for you.” The pony who had picked up the filly, a tan mare with a blue mane, probably her armor, with bags under her eyes and a malnourished look in her eyes, stepped forward. She must have been the filly’s mother.

“You would seriously risk your hide just for a lowly filly? Didn’t think you Rangers actually gave a fuck about anything other than your damn technology. There’s an old clinic not far from here, and far as we know, only thing there is a pathetic little raider gang. We were hoping to sneak in once they all got sleepy and stole something from the stores the place must have.” She explained. I observed the condition of their entire group. Some had no armor or weapons at all, others seemed starved, and one had a broken hoof. No way things would go well for them if they caught the attention of less kind souls.

“I’ll go ahead and clear them out, then bring you anything I find. You all should stay situated here and rest.” I began to turn and walk ahead, before remembering I brought one of my general purpose healing brews. Stronger than a potion, more readily available ingredients. “Here, give this to her. Should stabilize her until we get back.” I floated out the bottle and gave it to them before heading off towards where they were walking.

“Mind explaining just what the fuck you’re doing?” Sparktrail demanded.

“Helping.” I stated plainly.

“Helping how? By getting medicine for a group of murdering, raping, slave trading jackasses?”

“I could give a shit less what they are. They have a dying filly with them, and I refuse to let her die.”

“How do we know that’s even one of theirs?”

“You saw that mare. Bags under her eyes, starving more than any of the others. She’s the mother, and you know it.”
“So what, you expect them to just quit dealing slaves after this one act of kindness?”

“Nope. Ponies have their nature, and I don’t expect them to just change on a whim. One of them had a cage for a mark, for Celestia’s sake.”

“Then why help them?”

“Because when those raiders attacked the Stable, they grabbed the friend I had earned my mark protecting. My destiny is to protect, and I couldn’t protect her!” Tears were starting to stream down my face at this point. “Not only that, but when Eulogy and Zara found me, they took a chance on me. I could have been a trick used by raiders to rob them. I could have been an ambush. Regardless, throwing their own safety aside, they took me under their care and brought me up to this. That’s why I’m helping those ponies. I need to cast aside my own concern and help those who genuinely need it. It’s the least I could do to start repaying the kindness I was showed so many years ago by Zara.” She had stopped walking with me, and just stood stationary. “So, Sparktrail, I honestly don’t give a fuck about your personal preference when it comes to helping those in need, but I’m going to aid every pony I possibly can. Even if it one day bites me in the ass.” With that, I allowed her to choose whether or not she followed me and continued blazing the trail laid ahead of me.

As I crossed into the outskirts of the ruins of Baltimare again, Sparktrail slowly caught up to me, eventually walking in stride with me. We walked passed a yellowing and peeling billboard, which somehow still was legible all this time after it was put up. The Ministry of Image left no room for imperfections, apparently, even in the middle of a war.

As we turned the corner to avoid walking through a collapsed building, a sign loomed into view. I was large and green, with “Clinic” and a big arrow pointing straight ahead plastered in white lettering on it. We were almost there. All we had to do was kill a dozen mildly well armed and drug crazed raiders, and break into the storage room of the clinic, all while praying that the raiders hadn’t gotten that idea first. How hard could it be?

We walked up to what my Pip-buck, further extended by my Eyes Forward Sparkle, labeled as the “Baltimare Lunar Clinic”. The outside of the building was decrepit, with broken windows and cracked walls where the foundation had settled over the years. Splayed and mutilated corpses were hung from and tied to the ancient light poles outside, some disturbingly fresh while others were rather old. Upon entering the missing front door, our noses were overwhelmed by the stench of decay, and the buzzing of flies was nearly deafening as we moved silently through the lobby. Most of the chairs and benches were missing, likely having been used as fuel for a fire by the survivors and the raiders living here, but some chairs remained, however with long dead skeletons still sitting in a few. The walls were a sickly brown combined with crimson, but bits of the original white wallpaper stuck through in areas.

We rounded a corner and were greeted by a pony sitting by a small fire and dining on some questionable meat. Quietly, Sparktrail crept behind the raider as she telekinetically held a combat knife. She plunged the blade into the stallion’s neck and yanked it out violently.

“Hey!” she whispered. “Look, this door says ‘Operating Room’. Maybe there will be supplies in there.” I nodded for her to try and open it. She nudged the door lightly with her hoof, only for the door to suddenly fall inwards and land on a trip wire that was rigged to a shotgun pointed directly at her.

“Watch out!” I hissed, but it was too late. The gun rang out, the pellets all crashing into the armor plating on her chest and sending her flying into a filing cabinet. I immediately rushed over to her and examined the damage. The armor plating had caught most of the pellets, but she’d live. I turned to face the door we had entered from as maniacal laughter began to resound through the hallways. Well, I suppose this was as good as a time as any to test how this machine gun worked.
The first raider appeared in the doorframe as I adjusted myself into S.A.T.S, or the Stable-Tec Assisted Targeting Spell, and targeted the chest of the pony in front of me. The gun let out a three round burst, blowing out the side of his chest cavity as it flung him against the wall.

“Ooh, a big gun for a big boy! I’m gonna fuck you with it!” Declared a mare in the hallway. Two more stallions walked into my field of vision next as I let the machine gun tear into the two. I could hear them shouting to each other as Sparktrail shakily stood up and levitated her rifle to shooting position, immediately killing a mare who had tried sneaking through the operating room. She nodded that she was okay, and I turned back towards the door. There were seven red dots slowly moving towards the center of the compass, so I decided to meet them in the middle.

Stepping out into the hallway, the raiders greeted me with a couple of rapid, inaccurate pot-shots as they dove for cover behind walls and counters.

“Are you fuckin’ kidding me? This fucker has power armor!” One of the raiders called out as he hid behind his would be barricade.

“So? Bigger target!” Another stated as he levitated his gun, a rusty and battered 10mm pistol around the corner and fired at me. I brought my hoof up to protect my face as one of the bullets impacted the armor’s chestplate, which it promptly crumbled and fell off as the automatic repair matrix kicked in.

“Above you!” Sparktrail warned as a nimble mare jumped from a hole in the ceiling that led to the second floor, rusty knife in mouth. I leaned forwards and brought my rear hooves up, bucking the mare into the wall as her body connected with the metal hooves of my armor.

“You mother fucker! You killed her!” a light yellow stallion turned the corner with a submachine gun and began spraying bullets down the hall madly. He was inaccurate and entirely blinded by rage, which made it easy to pop into S.A.T.S and let off a burst into the stallion. I advanced forwards and let the cannon on my side roar as it made easy work of the unlucky three currently in my sights. However, when I turned to address the last two, I was met with a chair to the face. The hit caused me to stagger backwards, but as the unicorn who had thrown the chair lined her gun, a rifle that seemed to be constructed out of pipes, wood, and scrap metal, up to my head, something ripped through the side of her head as a gunshot rang through the building.

“Well so much for the element of surprise. That cannon of yours is incredibly loud.” Sparktrail stated matter-of-factly.

“Don’t forget that you are the one who knocked the door down.” I responded, giving her a playful nudge. “How are you feeling after that, by the way? Are you hurt?”

“One of the pellets grazed the side of my neck. Nothing major.” She said as she peeled the neck of her coat down, revealing a centimeter large chunk missing out of the nape of her neck that was bleeding profusely. I made her move into the operating room, which luckily was used purely for the trap door and nothing else, where I stitched and bandaged the wound before making her drink a healing potion.

“Why are you so insistent on patching me up?” She complained.

“Well, mainly because I’ve lost track of the amount of times you’ve saved my ass, so it’s the least I could do. Plus, I have to protect every creature I come across to the best of my abilities.” I retorted. “Hey, my Pip-buck told me there was seven raiders in here. Did you kill another beside the one with the chair?”

“No, I didn’t. Just her and the one in that came at me from in here.” Her smirk disappeared and her eyes darted around. “Hopefully he just decided to run.”

I hoped he was sensible and decided to flee. We searched through the bottom floor, but found only blood stained beds, a kitchen full of skeletons, and a locked steel door. We agreed to clear the rest of the building before checking the room behind said door.

The upper floor of the clinic didn’t hold much hope for finding something better, but it was slightly cleaner than the first. This floor was mostly offices, with the odd examination room here and there. Most of the rooms were just full of smashed and broken desks, complemented with destroyed terminals and rusted and torn apart filing cabinets. The only items particularly of note within each room was the sterilized surgery equipment, which would sell for tidy sum of caps to any wasteland doctor worth their title. In the office which must have been the head doctor’s sat a safe which had been beaten and shot over and over, the raiders clearly attempting to break into it, but to no avail.

“You’re a scavenger. Open it.” Sparktrail demanded.

“You are incredibly bossy for a pony who looks like prewar taffy.” I said as I set to work picking the lock. Two of my bobby pins broke off due to excessive damage to the keyhole, but I eventually got it to turn over. Inside was a stack of folders, a paper which turned out to be the deed to the clinic, and a laser pistol, which was an odd discovery.

“Did doctors always carry, even before the war?” Sparktrail inquired.

“Some, but that was in the cities under constant threat. Dunno why the one in this quaint little clinic has something this advanced though.” I answered. She wasted no time floating the weapon into her saddlebags.

“Mind if I ask a question?”

“You just did.” I responded like a smartass. However, she wasted no time in jokingly smacking me with her rifle.

“Okay, jackass. As I was gonna say, the fuck is taffy?”

“It was a chewy treat that was super sweet and not at all good for you. The stuff came in a variety of colors, but my favorite was the kind that was purple and green, a combination of two different flavors. You happen to remind of that particular kind, hence why I call you ‘Taffy’ sometimes.”

She slightly blushed before putting on an angry face. “Well knock it off, cause you seem to forget that you don’t have a helmet and that I’m often standing behind you.” Was that a threat? Or maybe she was being playful.

We went back downstairs to the locked door only to find it unlocked and standing ajar. It let down into a basement, and there were rapid hoofprints descending the dusty stairs. I stepped in front of Sparktrail and slowly made my way down. Each board creaked and moaned loudly, and I feared that the weight of the armor would cause the two century old stairs to collapse. I landed the stone floor of the basement, and my companion followed not far behind. This basement clearly hadn’t been opened in the 200 years since it was locked, as the amount of dust that the pony hiding down here picked up made it incredibly easy to track them.

This main room in the basement was quite disappointing, with only washing machines, dryers, and spare blankets and sheets sitting on the shelves that covered the walls. There was one closed door that was in the opposite direction of the hoofprints, but I continued following the tracks as they led to the corner of the room.

“I can’t see shit down here, can you?” Sparktrail whispered.

“No. I don’t suppose you have a light or something, do you?” I asked. The light flooding through from the open door at the top of the stairs didn’t illuminate much past the base of the stairs.

“I’ve got a lighter, and I could probably tear a chunk off of these stairs.” I nodded to her, and she ripped a piece off of one of the steps before lighting it on fire with her lighter. She passed the torch over to me and picked up her rifle. I followed the prints in the dust over to a shivering mass huddled in the corner between two shelves. I physically had to push down the barrel of her rifle as she brought it level to the pony’s head. She looked at me quizzically as I mouthed “no” to her. I reached out and nudged the pony gently, however, right as I did, he spazzed out and turned to face us while beginning to blubber uncontrollably.

“I’m sorry my idiot friends tried to kill you and your friend! All we wanted was food, nothing ever comes by the clinic so we thought we could take you because we didn’t want to staaaarve.” He elongated the vowel as he began to sob. “Just please, don’t kill me!”

“If you want to live, get up and walk. Out of this basement, out of this building, and don’t stop until you are certain my friend can’t pick your head off with her rifle.” I ordered, looking over to Sparktrail as she began to smirk in an evil manner.

“Make it twice that.” She laughed maniacally. “After all, I’m incredibly precise with my lobotomy tool.” She shook her rifle menacingly as her pupils slowly began to narrow. The stallion immediately rose and bolted from the basement, crying in fear the whole way. She then turned to me, smiled, and walked towards the unopened door. This mare scared me more than Mom did.

Once I joined Sparktrail by the door, I promptly turned and kicked it open. I was delighted as this appeared to be the storage room. The shelves were lined with rags, operating masks and suits, potions, surgery tools, and a large assortment of extra supplies. Against the wall sat two ice boxes, and once open, revealed stores of rad-away and old blood samples. I moved all the radiation purging medicine into a crate, tied it to the armor, and filled one of my saddlebags with potions and other miscellaneous supplies. After checking through the weapons of the raiders for ammunition and guns in decent condition, we stepped through the door and followed the path back to where I last saw the ponies with the filly.

Author's Note

Level up! Persuading personality - your good morals and hopeful outlook combine with your reassuring voice, tipping arguments in your favor. Ponies are now 20% easier to persuade.

Thanks again to Kkat for inspiring me to write this, and to all of my friends who have helped in many ways, from grammar to lore checking and even persuading me to continue writing. I owe you all so much!

Chapter Five: Beginnings

Chapter Five: Beginnings
“From small beginnings come great things”

“I still say we just take off with the medicine. A settlement doctor would have greater use for it, and they could pay us!” Sparktrail protested.

“No. We give the filly what she needs and then some, after that we can sell what’s left.” I responded. “And that’s final.”

As we passed over the hill, the slavers came into view. I quickened my pace as I realized they were all huddled around the filly again. We reached the group and I quickly undid the crate of rad-away, instructing them to make the filly drink one of the pouches. I also gave them some food as well as some water, mainly for the mother and the filly, all of it much to Sparktrail’s displeasure.

“Thank you for all of this. We talked and decided to give you what we had in caps.” The mother said, trying to give me a bag filled with caps. I promptly dumped half of it into a bundle of my own, gave that to Sparktrail, then floated the rest back to the group.

“I don’t want your money. My payment comes from knowing that filly will be okay.” This statement left half of the group dumbfounded, while the yellow-green one stepped towards me.

“You aren’t a Steel Ranger, are ya?” they asked.

“Nope. I’m just a pony who wants to help.” With that, I let the group think about what they did next and set off towards.

Some hours later, I was attempting to light a small fire while Sparktrail watched me struggle. We had walked in silence the whole way, and the only sound still was my occasional swearing as I attempted to get the still damp debris to light. Once the fire was lit, I sat awkwardly in front of it, the armor making actually sitting difficult, while she laid out a bed roll, not speaking the entire time. I had to break the silence before I went mad.

“The fuck are you so mad about?” I questioned, finally tired of the cold shoulder from her.

“First you offer to help a bunch of slavers with a sick filly, without even questioning if the filly was any of theirs. Then you give them the medicine they need and some of our food, only to turn down the money they try to pay you with.” She retorted.

“And? What’s your point?”

“My point is that you’re so blinded by a ‘need to help’ that you’re gonna get the both of us killed! I know you were raised into a life of scavenging, so why you would turn down money for services rendered is completely beyond me. You are either the dumbest or the kindest stallion I’ve ever met, but I’m leaning towards the former because of some of the shit you’ve pulled since I started travelling with you today alone!” So she was irritated that I refused the money from those ponies.

“Oh, well I’m sorry that I just wanted to help a dying filly, I guess I should have just let her die.” I said, and edge picking up in my voice.

“I don’t care that you helped the filly, I’m glad you did that, but I hate that you wouldn’t even let the pony-napping slavers pay you!”

“You’re upset that I helped out a group of ponies, no slaves in tow, who just so happened to by doing the right thing and trying to get medicine for a filly? That’s the most ignorant statement I’ve ever heard, and I’ve been around a lot of ponies racist towards zebras.”

“You could be helping good ponies instead of cozying up to murderers.”

“No shit. However, you weren’t out trying to help when I met you, instead you were guarding a caravan whose main purpose was to cheat ponies out of their money. Please, point me in the direction of the nearest settlement so that I can help them. But you can’t, because the only settlements you’ve been to are the ones where the caps roll and the fucking is good!” I yelled. I didn’t yell often, but she was seriously pissing me off. All I’ve done since leaving my home was try and help anypony I could. It didn’t matter to me who they were or what they looked like, because if they needed help, it was my duty to do so. The only thing Sparktrail had done so far was shoot things and then continue to shoot things, never once offering help and even trying to kill the ponies I was helping. Still, she had the nerve to criticize what I was doing, when I’m the only one actively aiding the inhabitants of the wasteland.

There was a long pause of silence, and I had thought Sparktrail had fallen asleep, as she was laying down facing away from the fire. However, I was soon aware of a quiet sniffling and . . . crying? It seemed that I had upset her with my blowup, which was incredibly odd, as she didn’t come off as the kind of pony who couldn’t handle being yelled at. I debated apologizing, but stopped as she quit making any noises, and her previous shaking slowed to a rhythmic breathing.

After drinking one of the brews for maintaining awareness, I noticed that Sparktrail slept fitfully. She jerked and whined often, waking up to even the slightest sound of something like the autocannon on my armor scraping against the side plating as I shifted around. Once an hour or two had passed, I figured out that I could make the armor sit in way when I was out of it that made it appear as if somepony was inside. With that settled and an alarm set on my Pip-buck, I attempted to sleep for a few hours.

I awoke some time after falling asleep to Sparktrail lightly smacking me in the face. She gestured to the beeping Pip-buck, of which I turned off and began to clean up our little camp. Breakfast was short and quick, then we were walking on the road again, hopefully towards a settlement that wouldn't get attacked when we showed up. At about mid-day, we were within the lower area of Baltimare, which the landscape was no longer tied together shops and businesses. The new area we found ourselves in seemed to be mostly suburbs, which one barely surviving town of settlers was situated.

The town consisted of seven run-down, barely standing pre-war homes. There were no walls, the only source of water was an irradiated pond, they subsisted on mutated plants, most of which barely grew on account of the nutrient dry soil, and the only form of defense was one ghoul earth pony who had laser weapon that was crank operated and looked as if it was cobbled together from a sprite-bot’s internal pieces.

“Excuse me mister, but can you help us?” A small grey colt with a light blue mane had silently moved close to me. He was half starved and had an infected cut along the side of his face.

“What’s wrong, little one?” I asked, lowering my head to see him.

“These really mean looking ponies came here a couple days ago and took our friends away.” He responded. So this was gonna be a rescue mission.

“Static, come back over here please. We don’t know them.” An elderly lime colored stallion with a bedraggled grey mane had walked into the doorway of one of the homes, and a small gathering of five ponies all had their eyes on us. I lifted my head to speak to the stallion in the doorframe, but before a single word left my mouth, he had begun to speak.

“I-it’s you! I’ve seen you before, a-and you’re finally here!” The pony stammered. I, however, had never met him before.

“I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t think we’ve ever met.” I responded. Their ghoul was slowly walking towards me, and I kept watch over the actions of the other.

“He has these. . . visions. Something we call the ‘prescience’. He’s able to see stuff before it happens.” The guard stated, with a gruff East coast accent.

“I’ve seen you before. You’re searching for something, but you just don’t know where to look.” The elderly stated. How in Luna’s starry flank did he know that? “You and your friend are destined to do great things, and your journey begins here.”

“What was that you said about my search? Can your visions help me?” I questioned.

“I cannot at this moment. I can tell you more, if you rescue our members and bring me a few select chems”

“Do you know where your friends are?”

“They are but workers to an evil pony, one who operates under the gaze of an eye of red. The captured ones are forced to create metal dug from the land and send it across the wastes.” Was all that he answered with. After talking to the ghoul and the other settlers, we were certain that the slavers were holed up inside of an old steel factory, under the command of who we believed was one of Red Eye’s most trusted lackey’s. The facility was just north of here, situated in the hill side.

This group happened to have power armor and flamers, and suburb situated around the steel plant was full of feral ghouls, so it was easy for them to move in once they secured the building. However, as the ghouls formed quite a threat to any pony that dared approach the facility from the ground, they didn’t need to exert extra forces into taking the town because nothing short of a group of well trained mercs could easily move into the ruins, but even then the raiders themselves were extremely ferocious, using the furnace within the plant as an initiation ritual. They apparently killed any who whined, whimpered, flinched, or even looked a different direction when undergoing the rituals, which resulted in only the toughest of the tough actually surviving.

“Well, how are we gonna do this? Should we sneak inside or just blow the front door open?” Sparktrail asked, but before I could answer a murmur erupted within the small gathering around us as an orange colored unicorn mare with bandages wrapped around her face, torso, and rear walked out from one of the nearby houses.

“What happened to her?” I questioned as she neared the crowd.

“She was one of their victims when those slavers last came through. Her and her coltfriend tried to stand up to them, and they shot the stallion and did just awful things to her.” The ghoul responded. The mare walked up to me with a look of determination and a yearning for revenge in her eyes.

“Are you going after the rest of our members?” The bandaged mare asked. There was no doubt about it.

“Yes, we most certainly are.” I responded.

“You understand that they’re dangerous and ruthless, right? I would leave her here.” she said, motioning to Sparktrail.

“I know the risks, and I can handle myself in a fight.” Sparktrail stated in that cocky manner.

“Then there is something I want to teach you.” The mare told me. “Do you already know shield spells?”

Half an hour later, we were making our way towards the Baltimare Steel Plant, with some extra potions, bandages, bullets, and a new spell. When I focused on it, I was able to cast an orange tinted bubble shield either entirely around me or in a much larger half circle in front of me, both of which would be extremely useful against flame spewing maniacs.

As we entered the outlying homes of the suburb, the steel plant looming overhead like monster about to pounce on its unwary prey, my E.F.S didn’t light up with dozens of red dots like I thought it would. Perhaps the slavers decided to clear out the town after all, which would mean they had numbers remaining inside the town itself to make sure it isn’t overrun again. Which meant their forces would be spread thinner than originally anticipated, or perhaps they got reinforcements.

As we made our way onto the mainstreet of this suburb, one red dot appeared in my E.F.S, and as I looked for the source of the danger, a terrifying sight befell my eyes. On the other end of the street sat two large, grey, four story office buildings that were connected by a tunnel between the tops of each building, and hung from this overpass were dozens of mutilated, bloody corpses. However, the most terrifying aspect of this nightmare scene was the earth pony standing in the overpass who had just flung a firebomb at me.

“Oh Celestia's sunlit ass!” I exclaimed as I attempted to focus on casting a shield in front of me, all while Sparktrail dived behind me for cover. Just as the protective barrier fully formed, the bomb impacted the shield, bursting into flames as the fuel inside sprayed over the ground and the shield. The heat was incredible, but at least I was alive. Sparktrail, not missing her chance, quickly fired a round directly into the pony’s skull.

As she did so, my E.F.S lit up with dozens of red enemy indicators, all of them seeming to come from all around us. There wasn’t anything out in the open yet, but I noticed a mass of blurred figures moving on the second floor of the left tower. Of course! They were all hiding within the buildings.

“Topaz, please tell me that missile launcher is actually loaded!” Sparktrail pleaded as she turned my attention to a horde of ghouls running through the streets behind us. I spun around and, using S.A.T.S, targeted one ghoul in the middle of the mass of shambling would be corpses, and fired. The missile tore through the soft part of that ghoul’s neck, striking a pegasus ghoul and exploding, raining blood and other entrails down around us. My E.F.S indicated about 15 more coming from the building on the left of us, and used another missile to blow the bottom level of that structure apart, causing the entire building to collapse into itself, eliminating most of the dots immediately.

With almost every ghoul dead, a task which proved to be much easier than initially thought, we were able to move through the streets up to the steel plant, where we got our first taste of what kind of maniacs and psychopaths were living here. We approached the front entrance, of which was hardly fortified, with the exception of a few guard platforms and watch towers. A slave drawn wagon was being pulled into an open bay door on the building, the driver whipping the poor ponies relentlessly as they struggled to pull the cart uphill into the facility.

“Shoot that fucker.” I demanded, to which Sparktrail promptly responded, placing a bullet right in the driver’s ear lobe before quickly dispatching the other four guards that sat out front.

“Now what? Still sticking to the original plan?” my companion asked.

“You saw what they were doing to those slaves. Of course we’re still kicking the door down.” I responded.

“Why not go through that open door over there?”

“That’s where most of the slaves will be. We’ll need to go through a different door if minimizing the chance of casualties is what we’re after. Draw the slavers to us and away from the ponies being forced to work.”

I moved towards the main door, taking a moment to take in the layout of the building as well as the outside. The outside of the steel factory was covered in faded prewar signs. Upon entering the facility, we were nearly deafened by the roar of furnaces and the clanging of metal. The walls and ceiling were covered in a heavy layer of rust, while the concrete floor was covered in blood, dust, and scrap metal. Catwalks hung from the ceiling, with guards constantly patrolling and watching the slaves work below them. I noticed that different work appliances had numbers on them, all ranging from one to seven. Area one appeared to load chunks of raw ore into cards, two pushed to the carts to three and helped one, three dumped the ore into one of the large smelting furnaces, four poured the smelted ore into various frames and shapes, five removed the barely cooled steel, six stacked the steel, and seven loaded it onto carts and wagons.

“Station four, pick up the slack or you get no rations, a whipping, and a night in the guards’ quarters.” A unicorn pony with a steel plate grafted onto his face shouted with an evil grin. The six starved and battered ponies at station four struggled to keep up with the work order, causing the other stations to que up around them. One pony, a frail mare that barely had enough meat on her to keep her skeleton from popping out of her skin, fell on the stairs when she tried to release the lock on the furnace bucket, and found herself unable to stand.

“Hey, get up!” Faceplate yelled as he levitated up a battered old hunting rifle and aimed it at the mare. Using S.A.T.S, I targeted the rifle, and with one quick burst of my autocannon, the gun was blown into three different pieces. The boom of my weapon caused silence throughout the entire building.

“Why don’t you get on the ground and help her!” Sparktrail yelled as she leveled her rifle, sending a round right into the eye of his faceplate.

“Kill those fuckers!” One of the guards ordered as I targeted two more slavers, allowing the cannon to roar as it ripped through my adversaries. Three more slavers appeared on the catwalks above us and started to fire, but ceased to be an issue as I fired a missile, taking the catwalk out with them and cutting off any possible reinforcements from above.

“Get one of the big guys in armor in there!” A pony in a nearby room screamed. Never fought a pony in power armor before. This should prove to be fun and destructive. The two things Sparktrail seemed to enjoy.

Suddenly, a pony in a full suit of power armor crashed through a nearby wall, sending rubble and other debris across the room. His armor, however, was unlike mine. It had only one weapon, a side mounted flamethrower, and presumably a large fuel tank encased in what I assumed was multiple layers of steel. The armor itself had thick plating on the front of the legs, chest, and head, but it lacked in thickness on the backside.

The pony began to spew flame in our direction, however the fire merely rolled off my shield, leaving Sparktrail and I unharmed. While holding the barrier, I simultaneously targeted the chest piece of the flame pony’s armor with S.A.T.S, the three rounds impacting the plating and causing the pony to stumble backwards slightly. I was surprised to find that the crumpled rounds didn’t fall out of the steel, they instead remained inside the dented chestplate. No wonder the armor plating was so thick, there was no repair matrix within the suit!

“His armor doesn’t repair itself!” I informed Sparktrail, but I was fairly sure she already had the same idea - shoot him until that armor can’t stop anything. She began to fire relentlessly at the pony’s head as I let the rounds from the autocannon continually impact his chest. After a couple dozen shots, the welding cracked on the plating, causing the largest one to fall off, giving Sparktrail the opportunity to fire a shot into the soft area his under armor mesh. He dropped instantly, much to Sparktrail’s delight.

“You’re in need of a heart transplant, and I’m the surgeon!” She declared with an insane grin. I should never piss her off. Eight more attackers had moved out from the hole in the wall, and three more were beginning to push through the rubble where the catwalk collapsed, all while another five moved through the door behind us. They slowly pushed us into the work floor of the plant, and all the workers were beginning to move behind me and my barrier in order to avoid the hellfire raining down on us. I was unable to stop every bullet that impacted the shield, and I was strained to maintain the barrier as it was, and the heat of the smelting furnace next to me wasn’t helping my increasing exhaustion.

Another round pierced the shield tore into Sparktrail’s front right hoof, causing her to buckle from pain. I moved and stood over her to protect her as more and more rounds made it through the barrier. One pierced the upper part of my left ear, tearing the tip off, and another grazed my cheek. I heard a pony scream behind me, and I turned to see that bullet had hit her flank, and like that, I was failing to protect ponies again. These slaves had gained hope when I literally kicked the door in, shot Faceplate’s gun, and blew the catwalk off of the ceiling. Now I was failing to protect them, as was what I came here to do, what I used this armor to do, what I was meant to do.

Slipping into S.A.T.S one last time, I targeted the rear hoof of a slaver who had steel grafted onto his front hooves, letting the rounds blow his leg apart and impact the casing on the fuel tank on the dead pony with power armor, tearing the plating open and exposing the container inside, then fired my final missile at the tank. I pushed all that I had left of my magical stamina into bolstering the shield as the fireball erupted, swallowing the the advancing slavers in the flames.

After the flames cleared, I helped Sparktrail stand up and bandaged her hoof, then went around bandaging and cleaning each of the slaves according to their condition. The poor ponies were from settlements all over the wasteland. Some were from the Tenpony Tower area, some were from Dodge City, Northern bits of the wasteland, Southern areas, all over, but most were from the suburb settlement that had sent us here. Perhaps the most interesting pony of them all was one named Brandy Bottle, a caramel brown mare with a dark brown mane, orange eyes, and a bottle as a mark. She looked interestingly close to Sparktrail, and said she wished there was “more ass-kicking ponies like you” when talking to me about a small settlement protecting army she had been in some years ago before a group of raiders slaughtered most of them.

Brandy offered to guide the liberated slaves back to the suburb, and Sparktrail and I moved to find the leader of this operation and shut it down for good. We moved through the hole in the wall and up a flight of stairs with “Offices” labeled on a sign next to them. We ascended the stairs, and heard a distinct shouting coming from the level above us.

“Steel Rangers, that bitch ass little militia group, nothing!” A stallion screamed. “Not one of those were able to make it past the front fucking door! Why is this dipshit and his stupid whore marefriend able to slaughter our entire force! You are an absolute failure!” A gunshot rang out from the upstairs, and I noticed that Sparktrail was grinding her teeth. We moved up another floor, and heard what I figured was a mare in the same room.

“M-master, maybe i-if you leave n-now, you can come b-back and take over again.” A meek sounding mare said. Wonderful, a pony who had been raped to the point she loved her captor.

“I’m going to kill that cock sucker by making him choke to death on his own dick!” Sparktrail angrily declared. At this point, I’d help her remove it. I had an odd sense of having been here before, and that was when I remembered the field trip my class had been on, to this very steel plant, in order to meet a pony in power armor.

Assuming the stallion thought we were outside shooting at his forces, I used the element of surprise to ram the door to his room in, and continued the charge in order to knock the stallion off his hooves, causing him to drop the revolver held in his mouth. He impacted the wall on the opposite side of the room, and I pressed my hoof onto his back to keep him from getting up. There was a mare and, strangely enough, a stallion chained to the nearby wall. I awaited Sparktrail’s dark humored joke or a quick quip or anything, but all I found was her standing in the doorway with a shellshocked expression on her face.

“Get off of… Oh my, how nice to see you again, my little slut.” The stallion said as he saw her. I immediately extended his front right hoof and stomped down on it as hard as I physically could. “Gah, fuck!” He exclaimed as I lifted my hoof off of his horribly bent and deformed limb. “What, can’t handle your marefriend getting called what she is? Seven different stallions in one day!” He jabbed, turning his attention to me. How dare he insult my friend, to call her a slut, to suggest she’s a whore, any of that.

“Shut up. I’m going to tell you that I have an excellent understanding of medicine, not to mention that I was raised by a zebra. Basically, I know how to cause you as much pain as possible without you passing out or dying.” I hissed. The slaver began to giggle maniacally, his blue eyes staring at me in a crazed manner. His deep blue body was covered in scars and markings, his black mane with streaks of deep crimson laid in a shaggy manner on his head.

Suddenly Sparktrail was beside me, a look in her eyes giving me the immediate indication that I should move now. She allowed the stallion to slowly stand before immediately spinning and bucking the stallion in his rear leg with a resounding crack!

“Yes, there was seven different ponies each day, but I was a filly!” She screamed as she kicked him in the face. “I bet you love to fuck fillies, don’t you, ya sick bastard!” She levitated out her knife, driving it directly into the downed pony’s eye. He began to scream from the pain, but he was silenced when she brought the stock of her rifle onto his muzzle with enough force to crack out four of his remaining teeth.

“You… were always a little bitch.” The stallion stated. “You cried if a stallion even looked at you!” My gaze wandered away from my companion as she beat who I assumed was a former tormentor of hers, and noticed that both the chained up mare and stallion had burn marks on them, except they weren’t burn marks. The burns were brands. Sparktrail looked to me and followed my gaze to the furnace in the corner of the room, with an already heated branding iron sitting in the coals. I looked back to her, then to the tied up mare, then back to Sparktrail, and I nodded to her.

“I’ll show you who’s the little bitch!” She growled, levitating the glowing steel rod over to her. She yanked the stallion’s tail away, and grinned as he began to whimper, and jammed the red-hot iron into his rear end. His scream echoed throughout the building, and I found myself cringing as Sparktrail smiled wider and twisted the rod left and right. His body eventually gave out from the shock, we released the chained slaves from the wall, and left the Baltimare Steel Plant.

Author's Note

Level up! - Destructive force - Due to your time and training with your power armor and its weapons, you now have an increase of up to 20% accuracy when targeting critical areas in S.A.T.S.

I want to take this moment to thank my readers, I appreciate you guys taking the time out of your lives in order to read my story. Seriously, you guys are the best! I also need to express my gratitude to my friend and editor Stellae, because not only did you convince me to write this story, but you’ve also pushed me onwards when I wanted to quit, not just the story but life itself.