Baleville) I had made an enemy in that Radstorm, the night before I got to Baleville. But at the time I was none the wiser. Instead, I was focused on my long awaited arrival at an actual, civilized settlement, the post-war town of Baleville.

Entry 6: My stomach felt like shit all morning. I tried to open one of the equipment lockers in the garage, but they were all locked. Great.

I pounded on the metal, “come on!”.

“Whats up?”, Claw asked, trotting out from the other side of the large metal fire fighting wagon.

“Nothing, just a pre-war obsesion with locking everything”, I said sourly.

“Hey, it means there’s still stuff in there”, Claw said.

She had a good point, the firestation had been almost completely cleared out. I hadn’t been able to find any worthwhile supplies. Still…

“That doesn’t do us any good if we can't get to the stuff”, I said.

She rolled her eyes and stepped forward, “just think of it like a can”. She reared up with her claw and slashed the metal twice around the lock, rending the the metal apart like a knife to tissue paper and separating the lock from the door. “You just need a can opener”, she said stepping back.

I threw open the locker door with a small smile, happy to have finally defeated a lock (even if I needed a little help to do it). Inside was a full set of a firefighter’s turnout gear, a fire axe, and a breathing apparatus to prevent smoke inhalation.

I nicked the jacket and a left foreleg boot, then took off my bag and armor. I put them on, happy to see the baggy sleeves and left foreleg boot completely hide my pipBuck. Plus the jacket didn’t look half bad either.

“How do I look?”, I said after putting my armor, shell bandolier, and bag back on.

“Like an asshole”, she said brightly, “you’ll fit right in”.

“Thanks”, I said. I took a look back at the locker. The rest of the equipment could still be valuable, and there were a couple more lockers that hadn’t been opened yet.

I grabbed the fire axe with the intent to break my way into the other lockers, “alright, how about we load up with the rest of the gear and sell it all when we get to town?”. I started hacking away at the next locker.

“Uhh, how are we gonna carry it all?”, Claw asked.

“Why don't we load up that firewagon and pull it there?”, I suggested, “we could probably loot some of the heavier furniture too”.

She balked, “you want to pull a firehauler Shepherd!? Are you nuts!”.

“Firehauler? What the fuck is a hauler?”, I asked confused.

She groaned and facehoofed, “do you even know what a roller is?”.

“No”, I deadpanned.

“Alright, come with me”, said flying over to hover in front of the large red vehicle. She continued when I joined her, “Rollers, are self pulling carts that were made before the war. You can tell the difference between a wagon and a roller by the front. If it has reigns to hitch a pony up, it's a wagon. But if it has an engine and a passenger compartment with controls, its a roller”.

I looked back at the Firehauler and I saw her point, there wasn’t a way to hitch a pony to the front. The fact it was self pulling made a lot of sense too, the thing was so big. “But how does it pull itself?”

She pulled open a panel under the front windshield, inside was a large engine, “the engine stupid. Most of them run off of flammable gas, like what’s in that tank back there”, she said pointing to a large rusty tank in the back of the room. It was labeled ‘Flux Enhanced Kerosene Fuel. HIGHLY FLAMMABLE’. “But some, like most of the old military ones, are electric, and run on magical energy. You gotta be careful for those, if you shoot the engine on one it blows up in this big magical explosion”, she said quickly spreading her forelegs out wide for emphasis.

She flew up to the side of the passenger compartment and opened the door. I trotted over and looked in.

“A pony would sit in the driver’s seat behind all the controls”, she said pointing to all the pedals and wheels on the left side of the compartment, “the pedals are supposed to control how fast you go, the wheel turns you, and that lever in the middle controls your direction. At least… that's what I’ve been told”, she shrugged, “I don't know how to drive one of these deathtraps”.

Wow, I was impressed, this was earth pony engineering at its best. I would’ve loved to get a closer look at how this thing worked, but we were running out of supplies and were so close to Baleville.

“Alright, how about we grab a shopping cart from the grocery store across the street then. We could still use some of this stuff to trade for supplies”, I said.

“Now that makes more sense”, Claw said.

We set to work cutting open the lockers and piling the axes, turnout gear, and other equipment in a pile.

Afterward, I dropped the axe and trotted over to the fire station’s main hall ready to go get the cart from across the street.

I stopped when I saw three red bars pop up on my EFS.

Claw swooped through the doorway behind me, I spun around, “shh!”

She stopped confused, I motioned for her to follow me upstairs.

We peeked through the broken blinds of a second floor window down to the street below. There was a heavily armored van sitting out front with its engine going, multicolored smoke was billowing from its tailpipe. A pony was sitting in a makeshift rotating turret on the top, slowly scanning the street ahead with a large, belt fed mounted machine gun.

The engine died and two ponies exited the vehicle, trotting around to stand in front of the armored roller and look out at the bridge. The were both wearing battle saddles and armored leather jackets. They weren’t raiders, that was for sure.

“I can't believe we got assigned fucking guard duty while the others get to party it up in Baleville”, a mare spat.

“What do you expect? We fucked up that delivery at the Iron and that mare died, we’re lucky Nugget didn’t burn half our faces off”, a stallion replied.

“Will you both shut up!”, the mare in the turret said, “Just watch the fucking road, the Marauders have been getting pretty bold lately, they might try to cross the border”.

“What should we do?”, Claw whispered to me.

As much as I wanted some firepower like that turret, I didn’t like our odds. “Let's wait it out”.

Claw sighed disappointedly.

“If they don’t leave after an hour or two, then we’ll do something”, I said, “I just don't want to be on the business end of that machine gun if I can help it”.

“Fine”, Claw whispered, “what now?”.

We continued to search the building, scrounging what little scraps we could find. But just about anything of value that wasn’t locked away was taken. That meant the only things we had found were inside those storage lockers in the garage.

I entered the bathroom and tried the sink, amazed to see it still working. “They sure did build things to last before the war didn’t they?”, I mused to myself. I filled up my canteen, it made my pipBuck click, but it was better than nothing.

I was just stepping away when I was hit with a wave of nausea, I fell onto the toilette and puked up my dinner from last night. When I was finished I checked my medical scanner, ‘Minor Radiation Sickness: -1 END, Nausea’.

Oh great. “Claw! I have radiation poisoning!”, I called out into the hall.

She trotted into the bathroom, “Yeah I think I got it too, my stomach’s been killing me all morning. Who knows how many rads we soaked up yesterday in that damn storm”.

I checked my pipBuck, “about 237”.

She cocked her head, “how do you know?”.

I held up my pipBuck, she took it between her forehooves and looked at the screen. “Huh, this doohickey tells you how much radiation you have in you? What else can it do?”.

“All kinds of stuff, it has an automap feature, can sort your inventory, pick up radio signals, an EFS which spots friendly and hostile creatures around me, and it has SATS, a spell that can help me aim in a pinch”, I said.

“Wow, no wonder the Authority doesn’t want ponies having these”, she said.

Putting my boot back on I decided to take a look in the mirror, wow.

I finally got a good look at the scar I got from that exploding rock. It was pretty deep, like somepony had branded me above the left side of my left eye. It looked… strange, I’m not sure how to describe it.

“You having fun staring at yourself?”, Claw said.

“Sorry, I just haven’t gotten a chance to see my scar yet”, I said flustering.

“It fucked up your face pretty good, I hope you didn’t care about your looks”, she said.

I was about to retort something about it looking cool or something when we both heard screaming and gunfire outside.

We ran back to the window and saw what was happening. A raider was on the roof of the grocery store throwing glass bottles, full of flammable liquid with burning rags tied to their tops, down onto the bandits where they shattered into explosions of flame. They had already hit the roller’s turret and burned the guner to death. The other two were forced to take cover, which left them unable to defend the bridge when a large group of raiders ran across it.

They killed the stallion outright, the other was tackled to the ground by a raider. A couple others joined in and they started beating the crap out of her. It didn’t take long for them to rip off all of her equipment. I turned around as one moved to mount her while she screamed for help, I didn’t need to watch that, I didn’t want to watch that either.

I looked to Claw and she was just staring at them as they continued to (I assumed from the mare’s screaming) rape and beat the mare. Claw just had this blank stare like she wasn’t fully there anymore.

“Claw? Claw?”, I asked quietly, waving my hoof in her face the second time I asked.

She snapped out of it and swatted my hoof away. She glanced back down with a look of disgust before turning and trotting down the hall, “I can’t fucking watch this”.

We had waited for about an hour until the raiders had left. When we stepped out to grab the cart the bandit mare was dead on the side of the road, with blood covering her hindquarters and mouth, and a bullet hole in her head. The van was torched, and the machine gun was missing from the turret.

We had been careful to stick to back alleys and avoid packs of raiders and bandits as we made our way to Baleville. Which wasn’t too hard since they seemed to be focusing on fighting each other.

We trotted up to the front gate of the building, all of the windows and doors on the first three levels had been boarded up and barricaded. It was a twenty story tall stone building with a large sign on the front side that read ‘Roseluck Pest Solutions’ in big steel letters. Below it, above the front gate, a new sign had been built and painted in green letters, ‘BALEVILLE’.

We had finally made it to a real town.

We approached the front gate and a giffin holding a makeshift rifle aimed it at me, “what’s your business here!”.

“Trading!”, I yelled gesturing to our cart full of turnout gear and fire axes.

“Alright, come on in!”, he yelled.

I heard the groaning of motors and the gate slid up, we stepped into the barricaded entrance hall and it slid shut behind us. There was a second gate at the other end of the hall, but it wasn’t open yet. The griffin flew down next to us, he was wearing some old faded and patched security guard barding. It put me on edge, I didn’t want to start a fight with this security enforcer, not after finally reaching a town.

“You two new here?”, I nodded a bit tensely. He gave us a small smile, “well uh, welcome to town! Sorry, I’m not really good at greeting newcomers. Uhh, I’m officer Weld, I watch the gate. We’ll open the inner one for you in a second, but first I need to go over some rules with you. Um, first, no starting fights or killing, if you draw a weapon we’ll kill you, if you draw in self defense, we’ll help you. Second, no stealing, we’re a market town and we take theft very seriously. Third, no touching the bomb, ever”.

I nodded very carefully, “you okay man?”, he said concerned, “you seem tense”.

“Just... making sure I don’t offend you officer, the security enforces from back where I’m from would beat you for just looking at them funny”, I answered honestly, hoping he was the type that appreciated that kind of thing.

He looked shocked at that, “security enforcer? Sir, I’m a guard! I’m here to protect you and the merchants. I wouldn’t beat you up unless you tried to hurt someone else”.

“Wait what?”, I was confused, protect me? That was his job!?

“Yeah, if you get attacked and one of us are around we’ll protect you. You should stay out of the warehouse district though, it’s the slums built into the large underground warehouse below the building. We dont send many patrols down that way, so you’d be on your own down there”, he said.

I wasn’t sure what to say, the whole concept of security protecting others was new to me, “Well uh, thanks for the advice”.

“No problem”, he said. Then he waved to a pony in similar security guard armor next to a small electrical panel, “open it up!”.

He nodded and flipped a switch, a motor groaned and the second gate slid up, revealing a crowd of ponies and voices all going from place to place as they crossed the lobby.

I also noticed a large fucking bomb half buried in the center of the lobby, with glowing green light flowing out of an open hatch on the side.

“What. the fuck. is that!?”, I demanded, pointing at it.

“Oh, thats the bomb”, Weld said brightly like that was normal.

“What, kind, of bomb?”, I asked slowly.

“A balefire one”, he replied.

I looked to Claw and thankfully saw a similar look of horror. I turned back to Weld, “and why, exactly, did you put a balefire bomb in the center of town?”, I asked slowly.

“We didn't put it there, it was just here when the founders of this place moved into the building”, he responded.

“And you dont think maybe you should, I don’t know, disarm the damn thing!?”, I exclaimed. What the actual fuck was wrong with these people!? Who builds a town around an active bomb!

“And what, blow us all up messing with it? We have no idea how it works! It’s perfectly safe anyways. As long as nobody messes with it, we’re fine”, he said with confidence.

I just stood with my mouth hanging open for a minute before I just shook my head, “alright, if you say so. Come on Claw, lets go sell this shit”.

We stepped into the crowded ‘ground floor plaza’ and took in the sights. The lobby extended upwards all the way to a set of large skylights at the top of the building (and a large hole in the ceiling from when a bomb fell through it). The walls of the big central shaft were covered with interior windows that ringed each floor of office space. The entire shaft was filled with shacks and balconies that were protruding out of the side walls and connected by rope bridges and catwalks. These shacks were all the shops and businesses of Baleville, and filled the shaft from ground level all the way to the roof.

The Plaza had a large shack with a sign reading ‘Church of the Glow’, a doctor’s office, a newstand with a filly shouting over the crowd about picking up their latest issue, the mayor’s office, a general store, and of course, the weapon of mass destruction sitting crashed smack in the middle. The ponies in the plaza seemed to be ignoring it, but I also noticed that they made a point of not getting too close either, and left a big empty space around the bomb, so at least they still seemed to mildly acknowledge it was dangerous.

Officer weld’s words, and the townsponie’s confidence around the bomb didn’t change the fact that I was still completely, barding wettingly, terrified to be as close to it as I was! But I swallowed those feelings as best as I could. I wanted civilization, and this was the best I was going to get.

A guard asked Claw to put her weapon away as he passed by. She didn’t have any saddlebags, and her shorts had no pockets, so she had me put it in my messenger bag for safekeeping.

We headed for the general store first. The sign above the door read, ‘Baleville General Supplies’. There was also a smaller sign right next to the door that read ‘We don’t serve changelings!’, whatever that meant.

We stepped into the store, a little bell tingled as I opened the door. I heard a startled mare and a bunch of boxes fall down upstairs.

“Uhh, hello?”, I called out.

“I am coming!”, a mare in a funny accent called down.

A side door opened and an aged zebra mare stepped out, she took one look at us and her eyes went wide in terror. “Who are you!?”, she yelled in shock.

I took a step back in surprise, “uh, I’m Shepherd, and this is Claw”, I said gesturing to my partner, who gave an awkward little wave, “we were hoping to sell off this turnout gear and buy some supplies”.

“Ok, ‘Shepherd’, answer me a question then, are you really who you say you are?”, she asked suspiciously.

“No, I’m the reincarnation of Celestia here to cast judgement upon the wasteland”, I said sarcastically, “what the hell do you think?”.

“I knew it! You are dodging the question just like what a changeling would do! I will not do business with your kind!”, she said dropping into a battle stance.

Wait what!? “Woah, hold on! I was joking! I’m no-”, I said before getting cut off as she started shoving me.

“Out! Out out out out!”, she screamed as she shoved both of us and our cart out of the door. The moment we cleared the doorframe she slammed the door shut and locked it.

We both stood there stunned for a minute. Before I could speak Claw smacked me on the back of my head, hard.

“Ow! What the fuck was that for!?”, I said rubbing the back of my head.

“For being a fucking dumbass!”, she said. “No, I’m the reincarnation of Celestia here to cast judgement upon the wasteland“, she said in a mocking, stupid tone, “the crazy bitch was scared shitless about changelings, and your first response is to mess with her, great fucking idea”.

“You should be scared too!”, a filly said out of nowhere from between us.

We both jumped from being startled, “where the fuck did you come from!?”, I said.

“The newstand”, she said nodding her head to the newstand she was yelling from earlier, “I couldn’t help but notice two new and uninformed ponies were in town!”.

“Alright… and why exactly should we be worried?”, I asked.

“That is an excellent question! One that can be answered in our latest issue!”, she said brightly.

“Uhh, I don't have any money”, I said.

“Do you think I’m blind mister? You have a whole bunch on your chest”, she said.

“What?”, I looked at my chest, but all I had was my bandolier of shotgun shells.

Claw whispered in my ear, “we use ammo as money out here”.

Huh, that actually made a lot of sense, in a somewhat morbid way, ammo was valuable and easy to carry. “How much for a paper kid?”, I asked.

“Three shells”, she said. I hoofed over the ammo and she gave me a paper.

Publick Occurrences

The Changing Truth

August 1, 2117 By Pepper

Noodles. We all eat them. We all love them. And Baleville’s Power Noodles in the Warehouse District has supplied this sustenance for the past fifteen years. From the stilted mechanical cadence of Takahashi's programmed Japanese, to the fragrant steam that wafts from each bowl, to the scalding tang of each delicious mouthful - the ordering and eating of noodles is but one of many shared equine experiences. Or is it?

I was struck by this very question as I sat at the counter of Power Noodles last Wednesday night, just after 5:00 pm, enjoying a dinner I had so many times before. That's when I noticed our very own Mayor McDoughnut sidle up to a stool, and engage in the very same ritual. Right hoof extending. Mouth opening. Teeth chewing. Yes, eating noodles. The shared experience of almost every Baleville resident.

But just one week ago late at night this was also the place of a terrifying incident. One of the ponies who survived the incident was brave enough to give me this interview. For her safety, against those in power who wish to keep us in the dark, I will keep her anonymous.

"Oh, I was there all right. Sitting right at the bar, sure as you're sitting in front of me know, and just looking to have a good time. I was safe inside the building - we all were as long as you didn’t get in the Tunnel Snake’s or Savior’s way - so what was the harm? And let me tell you, that Mr. Carver made it easy. He came into town earlier that day, said he was from the coast out west somewhere. It didn't really matter. What did matter was his smile, and his laugh, and the way he'd make everyone feel at ease. That night, at the bar, we all just sort of crowded around him. Everyone wanted to exchange a word, or hear about the state of the wasteland. And Mr. Carver, he was all too happy to oblige. It was just so wonderful. Until it wasn't."

She continued her account of that evening, and the moment when things turned sinister, when the truth about Mr. Carver was revealed.

"We'd been drinking, and carrying on, must have been three hours. Mr. Carver had four or five drinks in that time. He seemed a bit drunk, I guess, like the rest of us. Then something just sort of happened. He was smiling, but the smile sort of went from his face, all in an instant. And then his cheek started twitching, kind of funny. The bartender noticed too, he asked him what was wrong with his face. And I remember watching him, clear as if it happened just yesterday. He reached inside his coat, took out a revolver, and then 'Blam!'- He shot the barpony, right in the head. Didn't hesitate, didn't show any emotion- Mr. Carver killed the bartender as casually as if he were paying him for a drink. But his cheek never did stop twitching. Let me tell you, all Hell broke loose after that."

"After he shot the bartender, that Mr. Carver shot three or four other ponies, too. Like I said, all Hell broke loose. The guards came running, they opened fire, and Mr. Carver he kept shooting, and throwing ponies around left and right. Finally, those guards put him down. But as they did we all knew something was wrong, he started bleeding green, and his body started changing, at one point he had a griffon claw instead of a foreleg! When he finally dropped dead he changed one last time, and what we saw was this disgusting body of a black, pony shaped bug! Its shell all shot to hell, and bleeding disgusting green blood everywhere!”

What she described, and what everypony has heard about, is a changeling. A creature that disguises itself as a pony and infiltrates our numbers. Over time they kidnap and replace our closest loved ones, our friends, our family, and feed off of their emotions for the rest of their lives.

The mayor wants us to believe this was a “contained incident”, but we know better. Ponies have been going missing without a trace for the last month, some after a brief period of “weird behavior”. The mayor has forbade security from investigating missing pony cases in order to “avoid any panic or incidents”, just like how he has forbade security from putting an end to the Tunnel Snake gang for years.

Which brings us to noodles. Specifically, the noodles consumed by Mayor McDoughnut last Wednesday night, in the same spot that Mr. Carver changeling went crazy, and mercilessly killed several people - after spending hours sharing an experience the people of Baleville assumed was reserved for members of an equine race. They were wrong.

Are we?

“Wait, these things can shapeshift!?”, I said to Claw in disbelief.

“Yeah, changelings are bad news, they like to build nests near settlements, then kidnap and feed off of ponies like the parasites they are”, she said, “they’re pretty rare though, I’ve never actually seen one before”, she said.

“We’ll have to keep an eye out then”, I said dropping the paper on the ground (my pipBuck had already scanned it into its memory, so if I ever needed it again I could just pull it up). I looked at our cart of gear, “now where the hell are we going to sell all this shit?”.

“I dunno Celestia, you just got us banned from the general store, maybe you could cast judgement on the dirty stripe and force her to trade with us?”, she sneered.

I scowled at her, “oh ha, ha. Very funny”.

“Perhaps I could be of assistance”, an old buck said as he trotted up to us, he was a dirty earth pony with a big faded white beard and mane. “Forgive my intrusion”, he said putting a hoof to his chest, “but I couldn’t help but notice that you two were new, and cast out by the owner of this establishment”.

“Uhh, yeah, something like that”, I said.

He sighed, “poor Xanthe, she really is a good zebra once you get to know her, but she’s been terrified of the rumors of changelings in the city”. He shook his head, “But that hardly concerns the both of you. You hoped to sell your goods, I am hoping you would be willing to sell them to me instead”.

“And you are?”, I asked.

“Confessor Cornflake of The Children of the Glow, the fireproof nature of this turnout gear would prove quite useful to us, and any extra equipment we could sell to raise funds for our cause”, he said.

“Don’t you crazies worship radiation or some shit?”, Claw said.

“Wait what?”, I turned back to Cornflake, “you ponies worship radiation? Don't you know what that stuff does to you?”.

He chuckled, “you do not understand, the Glow is everywhere now, he is a god that was created from the death of the war. He rose and washed over this land, casting judgement over us all. Those he deemed unworthy he killed, those that had to repent for their sins he turned into ghouls, and those he deems worthy he passes over. I myself have been deemed as worthy, I have walked on many of the hallowed grounds without protection, grounds that are so heavily irradiated you would perish in mere moments!”.

Wait, was he saying he was immune to radiation? If that was true it would be incredible!

He was also completely insane. There's no way something like ‘The Glow’ actually exists. This was a cult, a bunch of nutbags who are buying into this crap to feel special or some shit.

“And uh… what exactly are you doing here in town?”, I asked.

“I am here preaching the word of the Glow and safeguarding this gift from those that would abuse, or worse, destroy it”, he said gesturing to the bomb, “the Glow did not allow this weapon of war to detonate when it was intended to, meaning it is destined to be activated by our messiah on a later day”.

“Your… messiah?”, I asked, wondering who the hell that could be.

“Why the Lightbringer of course! She unleashed the Glow’s power upon the wasteland, and it grew to become what is now called the... ‘Dead Zone’ ”, he said the name with disgust, “what an awful name, spread by those who are unworthy. The ‘Dead Zone’ is full of life that has been touched by the Glow in its most powerful form! and while none of us chosen children have been deemed worthy to enter the Glow’s garden, one day, the lightbringer will return and open wide its gates! She will grant us access to paradise, and wipe clean the remainder of the land!”, he said passionately.

Ok, a bunch of radical cultists with a doomsday prophecy, great! Claw mirrored my feelings, but voiced them a little differently.

“Bull-SHIT!”, Claw yelled jamming a hoof into his chest, “The Lightbringer was a badass! Not some radiation nutbag like you! she did that to blow the Goddess sky high!”.

“The Goddess was a demon, who stole the Glow’s power for her own evil deeds. The Lightbringer was enacting the Glow’s will”, he said calmly, not at all offended.

Claw looked like she was about to blow a gasket. I quickly separated them and changed the subject, “so you said you wanted to purchase our gear right?”.

“Oh of course! You two might have been deemed unworthy by the Glow, but we will gladly accept support and trade from all who wish to help the cause”, he said, “we also offer free radiation purges at the church, I believe you two would appreciate it”.

“Wait, how do you know we have radiation sickness? And why are the purges free? I thought you worshipped radiation”, I asked.

“I can feel it, the Glow knows you two are not worthy, and is slowly killing you as punishment. As for the purges, we normally charge a tithe for them to support the church, but one of the two conditions for our acceptance into the community was that we make them free here”, he said.

“And what's the second condition?”, I asked a little apprehensively.

“That we do not kill every one of you unworthy infidels for not giving this device of the Glow’s glory the respect and awe it deserves”, he deadpanned.

Violent, radical cultists with a doomsday prophecy and a willingness to kill ponies who don't buy into their bullshit, even better!

I cleared my throat and gave him a (slightly nervous) smile, “well I would be more than happy to accept the purges and support such a… righteous cause”.

“I fucking hate those nutjobs”, Claw said as we followed the rope bridges and catwalks between the different stores. The height was a bit of a problem for me, so we stuck to the cluster of stores by the first and second stories for now.

I was never getting another radiation purge from those nutjobs again. There was something chilling and sinister about that dark church, with many followers praying and humming these chilling hymns. The ritual itself involved a unicorn follower (whose coat was discolored, with large bald patches of skin where the hairs of her coat and mane had fallen out from radiation exposure like most of the other Children) performing a spell that pulled the radiation within me into a glowing green ball of energy that was then placed in a bottle.

The entire process felt… dirty, like some magical tentacle was rooting through my body as it ripped out the radiation. Claw barely held her shit together the entire time, she was much more… vocal, about the disgusting feelings of the ritual, as well as her anger over their beliefs on the Lightbringer. I was just happy to clear out of that place as fast as we could when it was over and we had sold our goods.

I was trying to think of where we should go next, we needed supplies for sure, but after that? I was drawing a blank. The problem was I didn’t really have any direction in my life at the moment. It's not like I had some big important quest that prompted me to leave my stable and go on some long, world changing journey. We could leave back into the wasteland, but where would we go?

“I mean who the fuck do those assholes think they are? Butchering the Lightbringer’s name like that. ‘Messiah’”, she spat in disgust, “she was a badass who was always two steps ahead of everypony. Not some crazy who wanted to cook her body in radiation every chance she got. Hey Shepherd, are you listening? Shepherd?”.

I shook my head, “yeah, I’m just… I don't know what to do now, where we should go next. Do you have any ideas?”.

“Sorry man, I’ve got nothing”, she shrugged as she hovered next to the catwalk I was on.

My stomach grumbled and I looked around, spotting a bar across the gap from us, “why don’t we get something to eat! I’m starving, we can throw ideas around over dinner”, I said.

The front door and wall of the bar were built into three of the interior third floor windows, the adjacent hallways had been blocked by makeshift walls, and the hallway walls directly behind the windows had been knocked down, making a nice big rectangular room that was filled with tables and a bar in the back.

The ‘Second Chance Bar’ had a hooffull of patrons eating, a small group playing cards in the corner, and a pony wearing a leather jacket, that read ‘Tunnel Snakes’ on the back, laying face down drunk on the bar counter. Me and Claw took seats at the bar and I rang the bell. When I heard no response I rang it again.

“I’m coming! Hold on!”, a growling voice called out from the back.

I looked at an old poster hanging on a side wall. It featured a pony encased in a large suit of steel armor, with a glowing headlamp on its head, rearing up over a pile of dead zebras.

I read the tagline on the bottom out loud as I heard someone step out of the back room to the counter, “‘You too can be a Steel Ranger!’ Huh, he looks like a walking tank, how the fuck were you supposed to move in all that armor?”.

The growling voice, now behind the counter, answered my question, “The armor does the lifting for you, and then some. Even the weakest pony in Equestria would be as strong as Big Macintosh himself in one of those”.

I turned to the bartender, “wow, that sounds awe-GAH!”, I yelled as I fell back out of my stool. Zombie! The was a griffin Zombie behind the bar!.

“Uhh”, the thing said confused. Perfect it was confused! I could… wait. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”, it asked.

“Uhh, um, well… aren’t you a zombie?”, I asked.

He sighed and rolled his eyes, “great, bigot”.

What? I stood up, “No, I didn’t mean it like that, I’m sure you’re a really nice zombie! I just haven’t met a nice one of your kind yet”, I said giving a nervous smile.

He just raised an eyebrow, “haven't met a nice one of my kind yet?”.

I was about to respond when claw shoved her hoof in my muzzle, “I think what he’s trying to say is he’s never met a ghoul before. He’s uhh… from a really isolated tribe! New to the whole ‘wasteland’ thing”, Claw said quickly as she tried to cover up my ignorance and identity as a stable dweller.

He just sized us both up for a minute with his milky eyes, “so you really don’t know what a ghoul is?”, he asked me. I shook my head and he explained, “Ghouls, are sentient creatures who got heavily irradiated and mutated. We don't eat, breathe, or age anymore, but if we dont keep our wits together we go feral and pretty much turn into zombies. I’m guessing you’ve had run ins with ferals before?”.

“Yeah actually”, I said retaking my seat, “so... are we cool? Misunderstanding dealt with?”.

“Yeah, sure”, he shrugged.

“so you were saying how power armor made a pony stronger?”, I said.

“Yeah, it's got hydraulics and servos built in that makes it carry itself, as well as do any manual labor you need done, like crushing skulls or breaking through walls. The armor itself will shrug off small arms. It's also got an air filtration system, medical injectors, and a self repair talisman that keeps the armor going as long as you feed it scrap metal”, he said.

“Wow, now I want a suit”, I could only imagine the kind of havok I could wreak with hardware like that.

“Good luck finding one, they’re pretty rare”, he said, crushing my dreams in the process. “Now are you two actually going to order anything?”.

“Oh yeah, what do you have?”, I asked.

“Drinks and whatever slop I have in the stewpot”, he said.

“I guess I’ll take a bowl of slop”, I turned to Claw, “what do you want?”.

“I’ll take some slop and rum”, she said.

The slop tasted like crap, and I was pretty sure it was just a bunch of junk food and scraps of meat boiled in a pot, but it was warm and filling. Me and Claw were discussing our options going forward.

“I’ve got years of experience in maintenance, we might be able to get jobs fixing stuff around town”, I suggested before taking a sip of my carroty cola. (whoever came up with this ‘Sparkle Cola’ drink deserved a lot better than a wall of balefire incinerating them to death, that was for sure, because this stuff is delicious!).

Claw blew a raspberry, “Yeah right, my way of fixing something broken is to hit it until it works again. Besides, I want to do something with a bit more excitement involved”.

“And what kind of excitement are you looking for exactly?”, I asked raising an eyebrow.

“Shepherd, I’m a girl of simple tastes. I like my hooves bloody, my blood pumping, and my pockets full of rounds”, she said with a smirk.

“I’ll admit, I do like the idea of doing something more exciting”, I said with a grin, “Maybe we can get some jobs as guards”.

“Too boring, all they do is guard crap. I want to go to where the fight is, not wait for it to come to me!”, she said. Her eyes lit up, “ooh! We could be bounty hunters! Track down some asshole, kick his teeth in, and get paid to do it! Perfect for two hard fuckers like us”.

“Not much work for inexperienced bounty hunters around here, might want to look for another career path”, the bartender (whose name, as I found out, was Carrion) chimed in without looking up from the glass he was cleaning.

“How about we be mercenaries and try to pick up only more… aggressive jobs. That way we would have more kinds of work open to us”, I suggested.

“That could work”, Claw said.

“Now that would be more doable. Ponies are always putting up flyers on the job board for help, most pay like crap but every now and then something good comes up”, Carrion said.

The drunk pony laying on the bar sat up and leaned towards Claw, “I could give you some excitement baby”, he said as he groped her ass with a forehoof.

Claw froze for a second and her eyes went wide. They then ignited in anger as she spun around and hit him with a left hook across the muzzle. Then she grabbed him by his shoulders and smashed his head into the bar. She launched off of her chair into a hover as he fell to the floor, blood shooting out of his nose.

“Who the FUCK do you think you are!”, she screamed as she shook in anger.

He cradled his broken nose in his hooves as he screamed in pain. “You fucking cunt! You broke my nose! You broke my fucking nose!”.

“You’re lucky that's all she did!”, I said as I got off my stool and kicked him hard in the mouth with one of my hind legs.

He recoiled hard and let out an even louder scream. He spit out a bloody tooth as he continued to cradle his broken, bloody muzzle and scream in pain.

The group playing cards in the corner got up and started trotting towards us, and it was only then that I realized they all wore Tunnel Snake jackets as well. “Hey! What the fuck do you think you’re doin!”, the big one at the front yelled at us.

“What? You all want some too!”, Claw yelled back.

“What my partner means to say is that your friend here grabbed her ass, we were just educating him as to why that’s a bad fucking idea”, I said to the group of three.

The lead asshole pointed his hoof at me and wore a shit eating smirk, “Oh yeah? Well let me educate you twos. You see? my pal there is a Tunnel Snake, and we’re Tunnel Snakes, we rule this town. So if he wants to grab her ass, he gets to grab her ass, and there ain't a damn thing neither of ya’s gonna do about it. Ain't that right boys!?”, he said turning back and nodding to his friends, who all laughed and nodded in agreement.

When he turned back at me I was already halfway through swinging my barstool at his head.

The old wood broke against his thick skull and he fell to the side. Before he had a chance to get up I jumped on top of him and started punching him over and over in the face.

A pair of hooves grabbed my shoulders from behind before being ripped away a split second later. I glanced the side and saw Claw fighting another Tunnel Snake, dodging every punch and kick, and returning the attacks with a bunch of her own.

The third Tunnel Snake shoved me off of his friend and onto the floor, but I quickly got back on my hooves. He helped his buddy up, who then spit out a little blood as he gave me a murderous look.

The lead Tunnel Snake reached into his jacket and flicked out a switchblade. “You’re gonna phucking phay phor that!”, he said around the blade in his mouth.

I was about to activate my power hoof when a loud gunshot from behind me grabbed everypony's attention. Carrion was holding a makeshift double barrel shotgun pointed at the ceiling, with a barrel smoking from just being fired.

“Get the fuck out of my bar you Tunnel Snake pricks!”, he yelled in anger.

The two tunnel snakes that weren't beaten up helped their injured friends out the door. The leader put away his switchblade and slowly trotted to the door, the pony whose muzzle we broke was dripping a small trail of blood. The leader stopped in the doorway, “you're gonna learn some respect real soon you old barbecued buzzard. The Tunnel Snakes rule this town!”, and with that he left.

We both just watched the door for a minute before Carrion sighed in disgust, opened his shotgun, and removed the spent shell.

I looked over at Claw. “are you okay?”, I asked.

She looked back at the door in anger before sighing, “yeah im fine… fucking pissed off, but fine”, she looked at Carrion, “hey you got a bathroom? I need to take a shit”. Carrion pointed to a door behind him and she trotted over to it.

I pulled over a new stool and sat back down. Carrion was rooting around behind the bar for something. “Who were those guys?”, I asked him.

“Tunnel Snakes”, he said without looking up from behind the bar, “they’re a gang of ponies who weren’t tough enough to join the Saviors, a bunch of washouts and punks who the mayor refuses to do anything about”.

He finally found a box of shotgun shells and reloaded his shotgun and placed it back behind the bar.

I paid him for the damaged stool and for our food, then went about finishing my slop.

A couple minutes later a pudgy cream colored pony, wearing a patched three piece suit and a trilby hat, trotted in and went to the bar. “Good morning Carrion, not causing any… trouble I hope”, he said to Carrion.

“Just kicking out a couple of Tunnel Snakes picking fights in my bar Mr Mayor”, Carrion said.

“Well since you dealt with the unfortunate situation yourself, there's no need to bother security”, the Mayor said.

“I wouldn’t have to deal with it myself if you just had security get rid of them already”, he said irritated, “they’re all going to be gathered up at their warehouse tonight, all it would take is a team going in and sweeping them all out”.

The mayor’s expression quickly switched to anger, “For the millionth time no! I'm not going to cause trouble around town by provoking a street gang!”.

“Uhh, if all of the Tunnel Snakes are at the warehouse, why not take them all out?”, I asked the mayor.

He looked at me in shock for a moment before quickly putting on a nervous smile, “oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring you into this argument sir, this is just a… professional squabble me and old Carrion here have had for quite some time. I actually came to welcome you and your friend to town!”.

“Really? And why exactly are you doing that?”, I said.

“Why to put Baleville’s best hoof forward of course!”, he says with another nervous smile, “I take pride in personally welcoming every newcomer to town!”.

Claw trotted out of the bathroom, “Who the hell is this?”, she says taking a seat at the bar.

“Ahh, you must be his friend!”, the mayor said, “I’m mayor McDoughnut, elected leader of this settlement by the merchant guild for seven years running! I would personally like to welcome both of you to town with open hooves! And if you don’t mind, may I inquire as to who you are and what business you two have here in our fine city?”.

“I’m Shepherd, and this is my partner Claw, we’re uh…”, I glanced at Claw for a moment, “Mercenaries. We came here looking for work and a place to stay”.

“Well, Baleville is a town of opportunity! And you two seem like…”, he glanced at Claw for a moment, “prime Baleville material! Looking back, you'll find that coming here was the best decision you've ever made for yourselves. Why, this is the safest place in all of Apple Hills! With the strongest community, and highest standards of living available”, he said with pride.

“Yeah, except for the fucking street gang that ‘rules this town’. The one that molests and attacks ponies”, Claw deadpanned.

The mayor visibly bristled at the statement, but held his (now much more nervous) smile, “oh you must be talking about the Tunnel Snakes. Yes, those ruffians do cause trouble, but no city is completely free of crime, and the Tunnel Snakes are a tolerable nuisance so long as they stay placated”.

“Yeah but for how long?”, Carrion said, “they keep getting bolder and bolder lately. We can't keep rolling over to them. Come on McDoughnut, if now isn’t the right time to get rid of them, I don't know when is”.

“How many times do I have to say it, I am not going to stir trouble in the streets!”, McDoughnut snapped at Carrion, “and the holder of your contract agrees with me as well!”.

They both kinda went loose on each other after that, yelling back in forth in anger as they argued over all kinds of stuff that went a bit over our heads. Me and Claw decided to take our leave at that point.

We trotted out the front door of the Second Chance Bar. “now what?”, Claw asked.

“...how do you feel about doing a little… violent community service?”, I asked her.

She looked at me with a sly grin, “I like the violent part, what did you have in mind?”.

I had a couple of things in mind. The Tunnel Snakes had personally fucked with me and my partner. I wanted payback, and I wasn’t going to wait for these pricks to pick another fight in town either, I was going to hit them first.

But that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to take them down. If our meeting with the mayor (and Carrion’s comments) were anything to go by, then the mayor was a spineless coward who refused to risk trouble to get rid of a growing threat to the town. The Tunnel Snakes were one such threat, and I figured taking them down would also make Baleville a lot safer.

“I want to get payback on those Tunnel Snakes that attacked us earlier and put an end to their little gang. We get some revenge and the town is all the safer for it”, I said voicing my thoughts.

“A little bit of wasteland justice huh? I like it”, she said with a grin, “just one question, how’re we gonna find them?”.

I looked down at the catwalk, where a trail of blood went from the door of the bar to further down the catwalk. “We could follow the trail broken muzzle left us”.

We watched the warehouse from behind a dumpster across the street. The sun had just set by the time we had gotten there. The trail of blood had led us out of the front gate of Baleville and down a side street to a small storage warehouse. There were two tunnel snakes watching the front door, as well as light and the sounds of multiple voices pouring out of the small windows ringing the top of the walls.

“This looks like the place”, I said.

“Lets go get ‘em then!”, Claw said excitedly as she gave the sidewalk a small scrape of her hellhound claw.

I cranked Thunder twice, then shot the guard on the right side of the door. His jacket did little to stop the high speed metal bar my weapon fired from blowing a large hole in his chest.

Before his friend could react Claw pounced on him and ripped out his throat with her claw.

I ran towards the door, holstering Thunder and pulling out my double barrel shotgun. The voices inside had become much louder and more confused.

I kicked open the door and immediately took aim at the pony on the other side, filling him with two barrels of buckshot before he could fire his boxy rifle.

The inside of the warehouse was filled with rows of tall shelves all holding various different sized wood boxes, and various large appliances like fridges and stoves.

A different tunnel snake shot me in the side with a shotgun of his own while I reloaded, knocking me onto the floor next to his dead friend and causing me to drop my shotgun.

I swept up his dead friend's weapon and fired it at him.

CZZRK!

Rather than producing a muzzle flash and firing a bullet at the Tunnel Snake, the weapon instead fired a bright pink LASER that instantly burned a hole through the Tunnel Snake’s jacket and deep into his chest! He cried out in pain and dropped to the ground dead. This thing was awesome!

I realized I was in deep shit almost immediately, there were almost a dozen Tunnel Snakes in the warehouse, and they were all taking cover and pulling out their guns.

I jumped behind a rack of shelves next to the wall right before they all started firing, peppering my cover of large wooden crates with many different varieties of white hot death.

I took a quick look at my new weapon, it resembled a long (slightly rusted), metal box with a clamp and battery holder that held a yellow microspark cell, a power switch, a metal stock, and mouthgrip (that I’ll probably never use) all toward the rear of the weapon. My EFS said I still had 29 shots left, and I intended to make them count.

Claw was taking cover in the entrance, waiting for an opening to attack. Meanwhile, the Tunnel Snakes continued to pepper my cover with gunfire. We would never be able to make a move on them like this. I looked around trying to figure out what to do when I noticed the fuse box directly above me on the wall.

I telekinetically threw every switch I saw into the off position, deactivating all the lights and plunging the warehouse into a darkness. The only light coming from the now decreasing muzzle flashes from the Snakes. Claw took the opportunity and flew up towards the roof of the warehouse.

“Shit! Did one of you dumbasses hit the fuse box!”, a mare yelled into the dark. A moment later the same mare screamed out in pain.

“Shit there’s another one! Kill her!”, a stallion yelled before I heard him screamed in pain as well.

This caused all the Snakes to quit firing at me, and instead at my partner. A couple of them switched on headlamps to see. I rushed out of my cover and killed a snake with a headlamp with a couple of shots from my laser rifle.

The warehouse turned into a lightshow of death and confusion. A slowly decreasing number of headlamps swayed between Claw as she flew between the tops of shelves, occasionally swooping down and killing another snake, and me as I ran from cover to cover shooting them with my laser rifle. There were numerous yellow muzzle flashes from the snakes as they tried to kill us, and pink lasers flashed through the air as I fired my new weapon, each one leaving a floating trail of harmless fading light for a half second following each shot. This gave away my position, but it also drew gunfire and headlamps away from Claw.

Eventually, we killed the last pony wearing a headlamp and only had three Tunnel Snakes left. They tried to stop firing and hide, but they couldn’t hide from my EFS in the dark.

I killed two of them before finally running out of charge for the laser rifle. I holstered it on my back using the carrying strap the previous owner had so thoughtfully attached to it.

I fumbled with my shotgun, attempting to reload it in the dark, when that last surviving pony decided to switch on her headlamp and shot me in a hind leg with a rifle.

I cried out in pain and fell to the ground, but before she could attempt a follow up shot the dark silhouette of Claw dropped down from the roof and killed her.

“Fucking bitch”, I yelled standing up, “she hid until I had to reload, then shot me from behind! ow!”.

“Are you okay?”, Claw asked.

“Yeah I’m fine, I just need to bandage this leg”, I said. I didn’t mention that my side was killing me from the buckshot I got hit with when I came in.

“You got a light? Cuz I can't see shit in here”, Claw said.

I patted my bag and managed to find my lighter, I pulled it out with my magic, flicked it open, and lit it, lighting up our immediate surrounding in the soft yellow glow of the flame. “Better?”, I asked.

Claw took the headlamp off the mare she had eviscerated, strapped it onto my head, and flicked it on. “Better”, she said primly, “so do you think we got ‘em all?”.

I put away my lighter and looked around the warehouse watching my EFS compass. Sure enough, two more red bars showed up in the direction of an office, suspended above the warehouse in a far corner. All of its windows had been boarded up, so I couldn’t see inside. “Not yet”, I answered, “there's still two more inside the room up there”.

As soon as the words left my mouth the door to the office flung open. The first pony to walk out was the leader of the Tunnel Snakes from the bar, his face even more bruised than before. The second pony to walk out was different though, he was a pegasus wearing a different leather jacket from the tunnel snakes. It looked the same as the ones those ponies on the bridge were wearing, and it was similarly armored with pieces of scrap metal as well.

He was wearing a battle saddle with a rifle attached to it, he held the Tunnel Snake’s leader at gunpoint as they trotted out of the office and down to the warehouse floor.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here? Two new hotshots in town huh? I gotta say I’m impressed, it takes balls to pull off what you two just did”, he said, “a lot more balls than any of these ponies had”.

“C-come on man! What’re you doing?”, the Tunnel Snakes leader whimpered to the stranger.

I eyed the stranger skeptically, “and just who are you exactly? You dont look like a Tunnel Snake”.

“Me? I’m Nugget, and I think you two would make fine additions to our organization. After all, you did just kill all our rejects”, he said looking over all the corpses on the floor. “well , except for one”, he said before shooting the last Tunnel Snake in the back of the head.

“And just what organization are we talking about here?”, I asked.

“Who cares? Let's just kill him already!”, Claw said dropping into a battle stance.

“Oh that is a very bad idea”, he said calmly, “y’see I’m a member of the Saviors, if you kill me, you’re as good as dead. Actually, if you don't accept my offer, you’re already as good as dead, since the Tunnel Snakes were still… associates of ours”.

“And let me guess… we’d already be dead because the Saviors own this town”, I said rolling my eyes, “give me a break! We literally just did this song and dance with your buddy you just killed. Thanks for the offer, but shove it up your ass”.

Without any hesitation, he bit down on the bit of his battle saddle. His rifle fired…

and everything went black.

I slowly woke up with a pounding headache, my eyes slowly blinked open to see Carrion, Claw, and the starry night sky above me.

“I think he’s coming too”, Claw said.

Carrion knelt down and started snapping a talon in front of my face.

I swatted the talon away and sat up, grunting and holding a hoof to my pounding (and apparently bandaged) head.

“yep , he’s awake”, he growled before standing up.

I stood up myself and nearly fell, but Claw quickly helped steady me. I looked around, but didn’t recognize the street. “Where the hell are we? And what happened?”.

“That Savior shot you in the head”, Claw said, “Carrion said it only grazed you, which is the only reason you’re still alive. After you went down Carrion burst into the warehouse and that fucker took off. We got you out and Carrion patched you up”.

I looked over my body, my side and hind leg had also been bandaged while I was out. “What about the Tunnel Snakes, did we get them all?”.

Carrion chuckled, “yeah, you got them alright. Of course you can’t loot the bodies now. The mayor sent in security shortly after the gunfire died down, and he’s probably going to make it look like they cleared out the Saviors”.

“What!?”, I exclaimed, “that’s bullshit!”.

“Its for the best”, he replied, “the mayor had made it absolutely clear that anypony who tried to wipe out the Tunnel Snakes would be kicked out of town for disturbing the peace. Getting you out before they arrived works out better for everyone. Now the mayor gets another feather in his cap for re-election, the Tunnel Snakes are gone, and nopony gets punished”.

I sighed and looked around. Yeah, it was probably for the best. It still sucked we wouldn’t be able to loot the corpses for stuff to sell though, or at least that that one pony’s other microspark cells. “so… what now?”, I asked.

“Well that depends, you planning to stick around town for a while?”, Carrion asked.

I looked up at the Baleville tower, “yeah, we don't have anywhere else to go, and this is probably the best place for us to make something of ourselves”.

“You got a place to stay?”, he asked in response.

I kicked the dirt, “no”.

“I'll tell you what”, Carrion said, “I’ve got an old house in the Warehouse District that I haven’t lived in for years. You did me, the holder of my contract, and this whole goddess damned town a service. How about we head back to my bar and I’ll give you the deed and the key? I know I’d sure as hell like to keep you around for a while”.

“Really?”, I said looking at the Griffin Ghoul in surprise, “I mean yes! That’d be great!”.

The subterranean warehouse underneath the building was a real shithole.

The entire space had been turned into a shantytown. With rusty sheet metal shacks filling almost the entire floor, and multiple shacks built haphazardly on top of those. There were two deep trenches that ran across the floor of the warehouse from the side with the main stairwell, where two large pipes gushed steady streams of dirty, soiled water into the trenches. The stream of water then flowed through those two trenches all the way to a large hole in the floor next to the opposite wall. This hole went all the way down into the old Apple Hills sewer system.

The trenches stank like hell, and were clearly where the residents down here dumped there trash and… bodily waste. The only two main paths through the shacks lined these trenches, with multiple thin alleyways and catwalks branching off from them. The warehouse was fairly dark, and the only light came from a couple steel drums filled with burning trash, and the occasional small lamp.

So much for ‘highest standards of living available’.

In one of the corners near the entrance was a large, round, two story structure with a Glowing sign that read ‘Power Noodles’. There was also a painted sign that said ‘DRUGS’, and had an arrow pointing down the left trench.

After receiving the key and deed, Carrion told me I just had to follow those drug signs. My new home would be the house directly next to the store.

I followed the signs down the left trench road. Even with it being almost midnight there were still a lot of ponies out and about. The ponies down here didn’t move with the same purpose as those up above though. Everypony down here was dirty, some ponies looked particularly… rough, and many gave me dirty or suspicious looks. Most of them were going about their daily lives, one was cooking some kind of stew, and another was hanging her laundry.

I came to another drug sign, this one pointing down a thin alleyway between two other shacks. We stepped out of the alleyway into a small courtyard that had the concrete side wall of the warehouse on one side, and the walls of other shacks as its other sides. Inside the concrete wall was a steel door with a drugs sign directly above it. Only one of the shack walls had a door on it.

I tried the handle and it was already unlocked. I tried my key, and sure enough it locked/unlocked. Me and Claw stepped inside, the place was a mess, there were empty syringes and scraps of paper all over the floor. The only furniture present was a couch in the larger front room, and a mattress with no blankets or pillows in the small back room. There was a single light bulb hanging from the roof in each room to provide light.

Home sweet home.

“Well this place is kind of sucks”, I said closing and locking the door.

“Meh, I’ve lived in worse...”, Claw said brushing some of the trash off of the couch, “much worse actually. All we gotta do is clear out some of the trash and get some nice stuff to fill it with”.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. It beats sleeping in a drainage pipe, that’s for sure”, I said. I yawned, even though it was only a plain, dirty mattress, it was still a soft place to sleep. “I’m going to get some sleep, goodnight Claw”, I said.

She flopped down onto the couch, rolled onto her back, crossed her hind legs, and crossed her forelegs behind her head, “G’night Shepherd”.

I closed my door and switched on the light. I took off my equipment, tossing it all into a corner.

Overall, I’d say this was a pretty good day. I got to a real town, helped said town deal with its gang problem, and got a free house out of it. I think things are going to turn out just fine going forward.

Although I should really look into getting a helmet, my head is killing me.

Footnote:
Level Up!
Level 4:
Perk added: Markspony (Level 1): Keep your distance long and your kill count high! Attacks with non-automatic rifles are 20% more accurate.

Author's Note

Author’s Note:
As always I’d like to thank KKat for writing Fallout Equestria, and thank Somber and Tofu for their contributions in expanding the Fallout Equestria universe. I’d also like to thank all of my readers as well for giving me motivation to keep going. Any constructive feedback is always encouraged and appreciated.