Chapter 1: Welcome to the Wasteland

“Rise and shine little one… It’s time to wake up and smell the ashes… Come now, breathe…”
/.|-\_=-]_______________________________[-=-]

{When the bombs fell} Air.

We all need it. You just can’t live without it. Heck, some ponies just can’t get enough of the stuff.

I was lying on my back with eyes held shut against harsh sunlight having a coughing fit. The air was dank and musty as high hell but I’m taking what I can get. I could finally breathe again. Felt like vomiting all over the floor from the extreme pain in my chest and it felt like my brain implants have been tore out with some vice grips but still. What the fuck happened? How did I get here? Wasn’t I just in a crash? Oh no. No, no, no! What happened to Molly? Did I really see what I thought I saw? And what was that voice just now?

*Aw damn, I can’t feel your leg. I think its offline. You might wanna check on that or somethin’.*

What? I tried to shade my eyes with the Omni-hoof but only saw my limp sleeve with the stumpy little joke of a foreleg inside. Luna-dammit. That was one-of-a-kind, super customized piece of hardware from the war! If somepony stole my leg they’re going to get the ass beating of a lifetime. There are some things you just don’t steal from another pony. Like the hat off their head, or in this case their body parts. I guess the only valuable thing about it is the war bayonet made of diamond reinforced with steel. My internal rant was interrupted by something moving around just outside of my peripheral vision. Obviously I reacted by instinctively turning my head to see what threat lie before me. It was a large buzzard cocking his head towards the side and looking at me. Beady black eyes full of hunger stared into mine, and I was acutely aware of the bird’s intentions.

“Ah! I’m still alive!” I found that it was quite hard to move my remaining foreleg to shoo the nasty little scavenger away. The reason that bird was so close to me in the first place was probably because I’ve been here a while.

The large black bird screeched at me before it unfurled his wings and flew up and out of the hole in the ceiling. There was something funny going on with my good leg. First off, there was a television strapped to it pushing my jacket sleeve up. Secondly, I couldn’t take it off. It wouldn’t budge, but it didn’t feel like there was anything that should have prevented me from taking it off. The damn thing simply wouldn’t move.

I thought that it was the best thing to take my jacket off so I could investigate this mysterious device further. Because of my physical limitations it took a while, and got a little stuck on the thing on my leg. Oh, that’s better.

Pushing the buttons with my stump did nothing, and turning the dials was just as useless. With stylized letters engraved on the devices frame it read PipBuck 3000. It might as well have been a big paperweight glommed onto his leg. What kind of idiot made this? Oh ‘Stable-Tec’, huh? That’s weird. Never heard of a company called that. It must have been a subsidiary of Flimflam Improvements or something. Still, whoever put this thing on me had to have a good reason, right? Ponies aren’t just giving free leg TVs to everypony in a car wreck are they? Oh, what the hell happened to Molly? Fluttershy’s gonna kill me.

I rolled over onto my stomach and used my good foreleg to push myself up to a seated position. Okay, this place could use some renovations. It seemed to be some kind of abandoned office building as evidenced by the over abundance of ruined desks scattered around forgotten cubicles. Wow, how old was this place? What was left of the ceiling was sagging and peeling like crazy. Now I’m no architect but when the ceiling bows like that it’s probably best not to be anywhere near the building. It was a good thing I couldn’t tell whether I was on the first or fiftieth floor since the windows were coated with so much dust and grime that only a bit of light shone through them.

I turned my head to see some kind of metal statue of a pony just standing in the middle of the floor covered in several layers of dirt, rust, and chipped paint. He spun around on his rump so he could get a better look at the oddly placed pony statue. Faded, scratched up letters were engraved onto its chest. MoT.

“The hell is a MAS?” I poked at the statue with my good leg, accidently pushing it over. With a loud crash it slammed into a desk, causing something in the other part of the room to make a startled scuttling sound. I still wasn’t alone, even more so seeing what happens next.

The statue’s head, which was a big light bulb like structure, shuttered on. Was beginning to think that it wasn’t a statue after all. Especially since it got back up and started talking to me.

“REEBOOTING. LOADING DAILY SCHEDULE. *ERROR* RUNNING OFFICE PROTOCOLS. *ERROR* RUNNING PATROL PARAMATERS. *ACCEPTED* HELLO SIR OR MADAME, HOW ARE YOU TODAY?”

Sweet Celestia it sounded like a cheerful Dalek, that was also female. I didn’t think that was possible!

I really don’t know what to say. The heartless automaton just stood there. Was it actually waiting for a response?

“I um… good I guess? Maybe?” Come on, I could have done better than that.

“ALERT! UNRECOGNIZED VOICE FORMAT. PLEASE PRESENT VALID ID BADGE OR YOU WILL BE VACATED FROM THE PREMISES.”

That didn’t sound good at all. Robots aren’t very well known for their gentle, caring nature. I don’t have any kind of badge, do I? Aw damn, the robot had started counting down from five while raising a hoof with a glowing red tip. I knew what that meant.

“Oh crap,” There was a cubicle wall that was perfect for hiding from evil death robots nearby.

As I dove behind the wall a pink laser singed my pant leg. Aw damn, I was beginning to feel the extent of my bruises.

pZAP pZAP pZAP! pZAP pZAP pZAP!

This thing really doesn’t give up does it? More beams traveled in my general direction, blasting through more flaky, peeling cubicle walls. One of them even caught on fire! Poking my head around the cubical wall seemed like a good idea at the time. Even more pink beams of light pierced through the weak material like it was nothing, each one zooming ever closer to Tellis’s head. He planted a forepaw on an overturned desk and pushed himself up onto my hind legs so I could gain some more mobility in this unbalanced state. I need my leg.

It slowly clunked around the bend as I nearly tripped over what looked like a simple computer that was smashed on the ground. I pretty much fell behind a cubical wall, exhausted. Did I mention how much this sucks?

The robot calmly requested that I leave the building as it fired more laser beams in an attempt to permanently remove me from the premises. There was some kind of laminated card on the desk I was hiding next to and through the grime coating it you could see the picture of a little earth pony filly name of River Berry. Cute name. Cute kid.

Let’s hope this works.

“I’m here with my daddy, honest!” I hate to say it but that was pretty good. Thank the goddesses that my special talent isn’t talking like a little filly. What would that even look like?

“RECOGNIZED VOICE FORMAT. PLEASE PRESENT VALID DAY PASS YOUNG FILLY OR YOU WILL BE REMOVED FROM THE PREMISES.”

Day pass? Aw shit, should have known. Either way, this still might actually work somehow. I picked up the little card with my teeth and hobbled over to the robot to show proof positive that I was a little filly just visiting with daddy for bring your daughter to work day or whatever reason this card was made.

“EXPIRED DAY PASS! PLEASE PRESENT VALID ID OR YOU WILL BE REMOVED FROM THE PREMISES.”

Well, at least I tried.

The deadly machine guarding over nothing started to count down again. This was my chance. This thing was really slow, right?

“Will you stop saying that?!”

I tackled the robot as a pink laser singed the top of my mane. The damn thing was like a turtle. Its simple legs just didn’t have the flexibility to jump back up. It still had a freaking laser that was aiming towards me.

Damn that was close. There was a crackling sound coming from the floor. Oh what now? Where the robot was squabbling on the ground, the floor beneath it began to sag.

I saw where this was going from a mile away. The ground finally gave way, taking the robot and most of the cubicle in front of me with it. When the dust cleared there was a robot with a smashed head and rusted rebar impaling its midsection, did I just win?

Yeah, I think I won. I totally killed a robot without any help from the old gang and I did it all while missing a leg! Alright, alright, alright, I gotta focus. Now that I’m not in any immediate danger I can make a plan, set some goals, all that good stuff.

Let’s make a to-do list while I retrieve my jacket so I can tie it around my waist or something.

1. Find my leg. Not getting anywhere fast without it. At least find something for a temporary replacement.

2. FIND MOLLY. For the love of Celestia, find Molly. I assumed responsibility for her the second I let her come with me. It’s my job to ensure her safety and I was failing.

3. Figure out what the hell this PipBuck thing is, maybe turn it on somehow. You know what? I’m going to do this first. Maybe it can help me. I mean it’s there for a reason right?

Let’s see here…

It looked like a TV, and that reminded me of when I had to program the remote for one when I first set up the loft. Had to hold down a power button for a few seconds so it would connect with the signal thing on the TV, I think. Only there were three unlabeled buttons and some others with acronyms that didn’t make any sense to me at the time. Inaction is the worst kind of action, so I held down the middle orange button underneath the screen with my short leg.

I’ll be damned, it actually worked! PipBuck shone brightly in the dilapidated and grimy office space that smelled like it was chock-full of mold. This place was disgusting. It started to get darker and with a quick look to the ceiling hole I saw that there were a lot more clouds than before. I think I could hear thunder. I don’t remember a storm being in the forecast this week. The PipBuck is way more interesting than some stupid clouds, so I looked back down to see some words on screen.

**…INITIATING BOOT SECQUENCE…**

A veritable flood of data surged across the screen for a time until it stopped and there was a little box in the middle with the head of a smiling cartoon unicorn mare that had a question for me.

*Enable voice?*

Well that was cool. I pushed the orange button with the word ‘Yes’ above it and the little box disappeared. You know, I should be trying to find a way out of here while going through this tutorial.

The mare’s voice sounded happy, really happy. It came from the little speaker on the side of the PipBuck as a mildly animated unicorn wearing some kind of strange barding appeared on screen.

“Hi! I’m the Stable Mare, and today is your special day!”

Lucky me.

“That’s right! Today is the day you get your very own Personal Information Processor or PipBuck for short. This baby manages just about every bit of data about you as possible. That isn’t all this can do, no siree bob!”

What the hell does that mean? I don’t even think that my mom talked like this.

“There are all sorts of things! I can tell you how much what you’re carrying weighs, and show you what condition whatever it is in. I can assist you in administering medical supplies, and even interact with most terminals. Please contact your local maintenance team for information on the decryption devices.” Stable Mare was talking to another mare that looked exactly like her before the image changed back to the one pony. I barely understood any of that.

“A very useful feature of the PipBuck 3000 is the Eyes Forward Sparkle entity detection and Heads-Up Display spell. I’ll bring up the E.F.S for you so you can see it for yourself.”

Holy crap! You know what it’s like to have bug fly into your eye? It was like that, but it completely covered both of my eyes with invisible flies. I fell out of my chair onto the rotten, unstable floor and writhed in more surprise than agony until my eyes adjusted to this bizarre tingling. Some rectangular shapes faded into the corners of my vision and Stable Mare started talking to me again.

“The area on the left of the E.F.S contains your general level of overall health (Which was about halfway full, yay.) and a compass. On the right is your immediate weapon condition meter, ammunition counter, and your AP meter. We’ll talk about AP in a moment.”

What the hell? Ammunition counter and weapon what’s it now? AP? Just what is this thing for, exactly?

Stable Mare continued her lesson, talking to me as if I were ten years old, “Remember if you don’t need to use the E.F.S you can always turn this on or off with just a stamp of your hoof. Okay, now try turning your head and if there is somepony near you they will appear as a small dash. Now whether or not you took their cupcake will determine if they’re hostile towards you and show up as a red dash. Hahaha! Oh look, there’s one now!”

Stable Mare was right, there was a red dash moving around on the compass thing. She just kept on talking as I got up from the floor so I could see this hostile entity before it saw me. Or the other way around. I didn’t want to get ambushed.

“This might be the perfect time to try out one of the coolest things about the PipBuck 3000! The Stable-Tec Assisted Targeting Spell! Need a little help kicking that hoofball? Just can’t get a bullseye on that dart board? Why not use S.A.T.S? It’s neat. It’s just… it’s just neat. Try activating S.A.T.S now! It’s really easy.” I saw a bug over in the patch of fading light being rained on through the large hole in the ceiling. It wasn’t just any bug, oh no. It was an enormous, horrifying creature that looked a bit like a cross between a small dog and a… a…

Aw shit! It was right in my face! Hold on a second, what’s with it being all highlighted in that amber? Did I just do that S.A.T.S thing? That was easy. There was a little box labeled with 87% next to the oversized cockroach. ‘Radroach’ the PipBuck called it. How did this thing know what that was called? Are these common enough that they’ve been documented and catalogued into the PipBuck’s memory? That didn’t explain how it knew what I was looking at. I guess it is a targeting spell, after all.

“That’s your chance to hit whatever you’re targeting! Your PipBuck calculates the exact probabilities for it and everything. If you really want to, select your target and give that bully a big wallop! Now this will cost you AP, or Action Points. When those are spent you have to let the PipBuck recharge before using it again. Some ponies can squeeze out a little more S.A.T.S time than others before running out.”

That’s easy to remember. What even powers this thing anyways?

I weighed my options, leave it alone and have the possibility of it attacking me or kill it to death?

The answer was pretty obvious.

Aw, this was mind-blowing! It was like I drank happiness and then stuck an adrenaline needle into my neck. For a few seconds, I felt what it must have been like to fly. Truly fly. My wings were going crazy with excitement!

Instead of ruining my clothes by doing something as stupid as killing a humongous insect with my bare hooves I lifted up an old smashed in computer with what was left of my forelegs. Then I slammed it down onto the radroach. Popped him good, splattering foul-smelling juices all over the floor. Some bug guts got on my pants, which was rubbed up against the nearest desk to scrape the nasty stuff off. It’s not like I wanted to smell like roach spleen all day. Or whatever that is, I can’t tell.

“Wowie wow-wow! What a shot. With that kind of accuracy you’re a horseshoe-in for a position on the security team. (There are no words to describe how confused I am.) What do you say we move onto the other areas of your PipBuck? Push any of the three section buttons so I can tell you more.”

I can do that in a moment. The rain was starting to pick up and I don’t know how much longer this building could take the abuse being thrown at it. At least I now know this thing is some kind of magic gauntlet that gives you superpowers. This is totally awesome. I can’t wait to tell Molly about this.

I made my way over to a door in the corner of the large room as Stable Mare advised me that I could activate a lantern spell on my PipBuck. Neat. Now if it could just find my leg for me I’d be golden.

The door stuck a bit before the dust, rust, and other things holding it there gave way. A drooling maw of rebar and concrete presented me with a great vantage point of the utter devastation set before me. It was a city, a whole city that had been broken and twisted beyond recognition. Once monolithic skyscrapers that now sat crooked and full of holes or lied flat on the ground, burying smaller buildings underneath their decayed ruins. What was left of a highway created a pathway of T-shaped towers to who knows where. Sweet Celestia how long was I out?

It looked like the building I was currently in was built onto a hill, which was good. I don’t think I have the time or energy to go all the way down a skyscraper. Looking back in the large room I saw a pair of elevator doors. One was forced open by something or somepony. There was a long drop that went down about seven or eight stories. Hmm, the controls next to it seemed to be active. I stood up on my hind legs so I could call the lift to me without falling on my face.

The whole building shuddered, and I saw some more buzzards that were still sticking around fly past the giant hole in the stairwell. Then the elevator car began to ascend from the lower levels with an eerie scraping sound. There was nothing to do now but listen to the sound of the motor on the roof be almost drowned out by the howling wind and rain hammering down on the building.

I untied my jacket from my waist and checked its deep pockets. Inside was a broken I-Pony with the earbloom wrapped around it, a pack of gum, a couple spare bits, and a picture of the Doc, Ditzy, and me when I still had all my legs. When I looked down from the picture I could see the top of the elevator, it had stopped right before it could make it to my level. You could see inside if you got down low and then shone your PipBuck inside. There was a rusted pry bar lying next to a dented emergency access hatch and some kind of large battery wired into the elevator controls. I guess that’s why it’s operational.

I put my jacket back on. With my many months of fruitless Wonderbolt training tucked behind my ears I attempted to drop down inside the car. I am an idiot, seeing as how I tried to grab at the edge of the emergency hatch with a whole lot of nothing when trying not to fall in.

Luckily my ass broke my fall.

Even though it felt like I went three rounds one-on-one with a Minotaur I had to get up and push that button and go to the ground floor. At one point this elevator car had red carpeting, oak rails along the sides of the silvery mirror-like walls, and a working electronic display. Now it’s a big box of rusted panels and ruined carpet. The elevator was moving at a snail’s pace which gave me time to learn more about the PipBuck’s features.

Maybe there’s some more stuff tucked in there that might help me find Molly in this blasted out, extremely hostile land with crazy robots, giant bugs, and more questions than answers. Maybe pushing the button for the Stats section might answer some questions.

An image of Stable Mare splayed and not wearing that barding of hers appeared on the screen. Gee whiz!

“Reconfiguring for new user, please wait for just a moment.”

After a few seconds Stable Mare was replaced by a pegasus pony version of herself. She explained to me that this was supposed to represent me. I’ll say, since the smiling pony’s wings were crippled and she had a prosthetic adapter on the end of her stumpy left foreleg. Wait, what? It’s counting my prosthetic as an actual limb? Okay, I’m just going to let this one go. Stop adding so many questions to the pile, you know?

Little meters with percentages in them were next to her limbs, head, and torso. The one with the gear symbol next to it was empty, as were the ones near the wings. The torso and head meters were about halfway full. I wish it went into a little more detail than that, because brain damage is something I’d like to know about.

I continued to listen to Stable Mare ramble on about the different parts of the Stats section of the PipBuck. The General section caught my eye because it had my name there and a title for me with Stable Mare giving a thumbs up with the Snakeoil and having her other leg on her haunch.

Tellis Argonis – Wasteland Newbie

Wasteland?! Okay, I needed answers NOW. This-this can’t- no, it just can’t be. Wasteland? I have to find somepony, anypony at all that knows what’s going on here. No, Molly first, then I get answers.

The elevator doors opened to reveal a large lobby that looked in even worse condition than were I was before. It was really big. I think the first and second floors were combined to be part of the lobby or something, seeing as how there was a large set of stairs going down from the elevators. The skeleton of a unicorn pony was slumped over the reception desk. That is just nasty. Were those layers of paint and insulation hanging off the ceiling? You bet they are! Smashed glass doors are an improvement in my book, as well as that light fixture that once hung from the ceiling resting in a dried up fountain. My wings hated it.

There was a small safe-shaped hole blasted out of the large desk in the middle of the room which meant it was a really badass safe or that looter didn’t know how to pick a lock. And they had explosives.

I hit the Data button on my PipBuck to start Stable Mare’s lesson on the section while I explored this area to search for anything that could be useful.

Wow, whoever was here before me took pretty much everything that wasn’t nailed down and left. Though, I did find some candidates for temporary prosthetics. It was a choice between a pipe with a valve on the end or a pointy piece of rebar. They are both just the right size and length to cram into my leg but which one to take? Let’s go with the pipe, that valve makes it a bit heavier than the rebar but it also has a wider surface to walk on. Although the sharp rebar would be good if I ran into anything nasty.

[*Tink.. Whir-Tictictictictic. Click*
Like a glove. A long, pointy glove made out of metal.

“This is the Data Section of the PipBuck. Pretty much all the maps, notes, recordings and other things are stored here. There’s even a radio!

With my poor pony’s peg leg I trotted over to the doors. Glass crunched underhoof as I passed through the door and was soaked immediately. I did need to wash this blood off my face. I wouldn’t want to get to Molly looking like that, I have no idea how she’d react.

I see this in the corner of my E.F.S:

You have discovered:

Wicker

Doodle Insurance Firm

Okay, that was weird. I looked at my grand map on my PipBuck and there were a couple squares that weren’t there before. You know how I said I had too many questions about the PipBuck and didn’t want to add any more? Screw that noise! How the hell does it know where I am? What is this ‘Wicker’? The city? Probably.

I looked around the parking lot, destroyed wagons littered the area and the remnants of light posts that shared the same fate as the city were in various states of disrepair. Some blackened spikes that might have been trees adorned the sides of the entrance, and I could see more down the winding road that lead to the rest of the city. Molly could be anywhere. I have to start looking somewhere.

But where to go?

=-|\_._/|/-=

Obviously, I went to the wrong way. A barrage of automatic fire slammed into the concrete barrier I was hiding under as some psychopath with a gun in their mouth mumbled explicit threats that I couldn’t hear over her gunshots. The first pony I’ve seen in hours and they try and kill me! Something tells me that I should have trusted my E.F.S.

The red mare leapt over the road divider and in a panic I activated S.A.T.S. Smart move on my part, since this gives me time to plan a way to not die. This crazy bitch had a light violet mane that was hacked to pieces with knives except for two little pigtails in front of her ears. She was wearing armor made out of pretty much whatever was lying on the ground held together with bits of dirty duct tape and twine. Lastly, was that- was her Cutie Mark a skull with a kitchen knife driven through the top and poking out through the bottom? Holy hell.

You can pick specific body parts in S.A.T.S? Okay, plan of attack. Swipe the gun out of mouth with rebar then punch her in the throat. That’ll buy me some time to get away.

The mare reeled back as I shattered her flimsy auto-pistol with a metal stick, Gun parts scattered across the slick pavement as I made a break for it with a brand new hole in my body. Now I don’t know about you but being shot is a BITCH. The only thing stopping me from collapsing from the pain in my hind leg growing with burning intensity was me screaming, the adrenaline, momentum, and blinding fear.

“Oh you little cunt! Get back here so I can drive nails into your eyes!” Celestia! I- wow. Just wow. I don’t think anypony has threatened to do that to me before.

I must have looked ridiculous running away from this psycho shouting various threats (Like impaling me with my own leg and then parading through the streets waving me around like a flag.) as she chased me through the slippery streets. I had gotten up on my hind legs so I could run up to and climbed onto a crashed skywagon and dodge a knife hurled at me. My leg pierced through the roof of the vehicle and I was forced to disconnect from it in order to continue my flight.

Why was this happening? What is this pony’s problem? Her problem is that she’s trying to kill me and I’m still alive, that’s what! I dropped over a chain link fence onto a dumpster lid, and then rolled off onto the hard ground. You probably think being a pegasus pony means I can fall hundreds of feet without harm?

Wrong! Falling down two stories hurts a lot, especially for somepony like me. As you can see I’ve never really been able to deal that well with pain. Why do you think I try my best to not get hit with anything?

So anyways, you remember when I said losing my leg was the single most painful experience in my life? This is about number six on the list with one being losing my leg.

I rolled on my back to see Pigtails bashing on the fence, too far out of the earth pony’s reach. I’d tried to shout something really clever but all that came out of my mouth was, “Hah. Yough isht meanst or- uruh. Magm… tag ‘em!”

I had no idea what I tried to say.

“Just you wait until I get down there! Your mine, bitch! You hear me?!” Gee, I wonder what got up her ass. Also, I believe that she thinks that I am a mare.

Inheriting my mother’s lavender coat, amber eyes, and white mane really weren’t doing my any favors right now. Well, at bars if I play my cards right I can trick drunk idiots into buying me drinks so that’s a plus.

And there she goes to find an alternate route down to me so she could murder me. All the while watery bullets rained from the sky, pummeling me without mercy. I really needed to get out of the rain.

So here I am, soaked to the core, spilling more of my blood in hell, with three legs dragging my sorry hide through the streets past the smoldering, cannibalized wreckage of what appeared to be a double bladed gyrocopter. A bolt of electrified death struck one of the gyrocopter’s blades and caused it to fall near me.

Even inanimate objects are trying to kill me now.

Crawling around won’t get you anywhere anytime soon so I grabbed hold of the gyrocopter’s front side and pulled myself up. There were a couple bodies in there, one a pilot and the other… I don’t really know. The pilot wore a flight helmet that was, along with her face, was halfway torn away. She also wore some kind of dark colored military barding. The other pony looked like what I thought ponies saw me as, a monster made out of metal. (Or maybe a gang member.)

But this looked more like it was heavy armor that could probably withstand something like a gyrocopter crash.

That is if you weren’t impaled by a gyrocopter blade. I’ve seen my share of bodies with the Doc, so I’ve come to expect to see them in a situation like this. Although, it’s never been this bad with him. There was something vaguely familiar about these corpses, but I couldn’t quite put a hoof on it. Well neither of the pegasai looked like Molly so to hell with them. I had too many priorities and too many things trying to kill me to take the time to mourn two strangers.

Well, at least a little blessing to help them on their way. “May Celestia guide you to the Hereafter and beyond, my friends.” I stopped leaning on the glass and put my good hoof on the ground, ready to find shelter from this punishing rain.

I turned to see Pigtails in the distance with a couple other ponies that looked equally deranged. I hit S.A.T.S so I could get a better look at them. The dirty green colt(almost a stallion) to her left wore a helmet made out of pieces of scrap metal attached to a colander, flight goggles with broken lenses, part of a wagon wheel tied to his back, a necklace made from… teeth. There was a rusty light machete in his mouth and I don’t think he’s going bushwhacking with it in the traditional sense. Such a shame too, he seems like the kind of pony I’d go for. The orange unicorn mare to Pigtails’ right wasn’t wearing anything, but she had painted strange symbols on her coat. They were different colors of paint that must have been dry long before the rain had started to fall. Do something with that mane of yours and we’ll talk. Oh damn. She started to float a simple revolver out of a holster on her leg as I left S.A.T.S and I turned to be a coward some more.

A bullet flew past me as I limped around the gyrocopter to run into another alley on my hind legs again. It’s slower but you should try trotting on three legs. And I’m pretty good at it.

That is, when I don’t have a bullet wound.

My mane, slicked down with water, was getting into my eyes as I ran through the alley. Like an idiot I collided with some empty drums but pushed them aside with my good leg. There was a fence in the middle of the alley, which was a problem. The red brick building with a rounded corner next to me was mostly destroyed except for the fire escape that went over the tall fence. Didn’t take a genius to figure this one out. I clambered up onto a conveniently placed dumpster and wrapped a leg around a slippery rung and gradually climbed the ladder.

“Aw fuck no! That cunt’s tryin’ to make a break for it! What the fuck are you doin’, Splat? Shoot her ass!”

Splat sure is a lousy shot. The only bullet that tagged me hit my PipBuck and bounced away as I landed on a rotten, damaged crate. It shattered into pieces and a broken shard of wood went into the upper part of my good foreleg. The excruciating pain of the wooden spike caused tears to run down my face. The ponies trying to kill me shouted explicative after explicative at me from the other side of the fence. I think that Splat was out of bullets! Yay.

I was busy pulling the piece of wood jammed into me out with my teeth while they began to fight over getting onto the rusty old dumpster to climb the ladder. That green idiot with the teeth necklace slipped and fell, knocking his two comrades down with him to the ground.

That is a lot less blood than was expected. I think it’s because that piece of wood didn’t go in too deep or it missed an artery or something. I’m not a doctor. Either way I could really use a Miracle Tonic right now. Hey that board looks like it’ll fit into my leg. Heh, what do you know? *Thok. Whir-Tictictictictic. Click*

I reached the end of the alley and looked back. That painted pony named Splat fell from the fire escape and, with nothing on the ground to break her fall, broke a leg instead. I know this because she was shouting, “For fuck’s sake! My fucking leg is broke!” These guys sure say ‘fuck’ a lot. Do I hear music?

Anyways, this made her two friends think twice about going that way. She called out for her allies to help her as they climbed down from the dumpster and Pigtails silently glared daggers at me in the rain. I wasn’t a mind reader but I’m pretty sure she was promising that she’d be back to kill me. That was definitely music I’m hearing. An upbeat, brassy tune, something that would be in a parade or an advertisement for some miracle product the corporation is selling. I didn’t have enough time to figure out where it was coming from before it stopped.

Then the unmistakable zortchy crackle of a laser burst past me and towards the lightly-armed ponies on the other side of the fence. One of Pigtails’ pigtails was cut away by a beam, as well as part of her ear before she turned tail and ran away with Smiles as Splat angrily shouted for her former comrades to help her.

“Aw, screw this!”

A tinny, mechanical voice said loudly over the rain, “Yeah you better run! Are you okay miss?”

I didn’t know if the flying robot I was looking at meant me or Splat there on the ground. But with my track record, he probably means me. My internal smartass drive had kicked in and I said as I held up my plank to the little flying robot, “Never better. Now who the hell are you?”

“In a second, first you might want to pay attention to that Raider behind you.” It bobbed to the side as if it was looking past me over to Splat and I took the hint. I turned to see her raising a metal pipe with her magic, ready to bash my brains in with it.

Raising my PipBuck to deflect the blow as I activated S.A.T.S, I wondered what was going through Splat’s mind right now. Surely she wasn’t still trying to off me immediately after breaking a leg? Priorities, Splat! I targeted her head with the plank and swung with all my might, which considering what I’ve been through recently wasn’t that much.

Though it was in slow motion, I’m pretty sure that Splat had shouted, “Piss on your lungs!” before I made contact.

Seriously? The board broke? Great, now it’s too short, and it broke in a way that it wasn’t even pointy. I disconnected the plank from my leg and let it drop to the ground before turning back to the flying robot that looked a little bit like a parasprite.

I had to catch my breath before looking up to ask, “So yeah, back to what I was- Where’d you go?”

The little robot had flow in through a large broken window of a dingy old store and he called out to me, (Sounded like a he, but hey, I look like a she.) “Over here, thought you might want to get out of the rain!”

That thing did have a point. I painfully trotted across the street to the store with that pipe as my new temporary leg and went in through the front door. “So who the hell are you?”

“I’m a friend. Well, really more of a passing acquaintance.” It was almost as if he were pausing for dramatic effect before he finally said, “You should probably call me Watcher.”

I pointed my pipe leg at him. “That is a cool name. I really appreciate you chasing Mean and Nasty away for me Watcher. By the way, I’m a dude, so yeah…”

“Woah! Oh, I mean uhh… hehe. Sorry dude.” For not being able to show emotion in his words, Watcher was doing rather well at sounding embarrassed. He cleared his ‘throat’ before continuing, “It was the least I could do sir.”

“Oh, there’s way more you can do for it to be the least you could do. Like helping me find a Miracle Tonic. I’m not appreciating this little hole those ‘Raiders’ as you called them gave me,” I said while pointing at the bloody hole in my pants with my good hoof as I sat in a chair. I know I was being a little rude to Watcher, but I had been shot. My polite-o-meter had officially run out by now.

The little robot floated over to me and said, “Well, I can see that you’re in pain, I think there’s a medical box over there in the back room. There might be a healing potion in there. I don’t know about any ‘Miracle Tonics’.”

All the way back there? I cringed at the thought of having to put more weight on my leg. But a pony’s gotta do what they gotta do right? Besides, the faster I heal myself, the sooner my pain goes away!

“Okay, here goes nothing.” I must have looked like an idiot hopping around on two good legs and a pipe to the back room, seeing as how Watcher was laughing his shiny, metaphorical ass off.

I came back with a yellow box adorned with three familiar-looking butterflies, which reminded me about Molly. Her mark wasn’t the same as her grandma’s like with Comet. I’m pretty sure it was a broken chain. Hey, it’s not like I stare at her flank all day! I mean she was pretty loud about when she got her Cutie Mark a couple weeks after her twelfth birthday. That was a few months ago, a lot of fireworks were involved, it was awesome.

Inside the box was some gauze, a bottle with some purple liquid in it my PipBuck labeled as a Healing Potion, and a dirty bottle of clean water. I pocketed the gauze and the water, and pulled the cork on the healing potion out with my teeth, spat it out, then drank the potion down.

Found that it worked exactly like a Miracle Tonic, if only with a slightly different taste and color. A soft, gentle glow emanated from my various wounds as I began to heal. I felt muscle tissue in my leg realign itself and zip back into its original position while new tissue grew to replace what was lost. The same thing happened with my shoulder. By the time I sat back down my small laser burns were disappearing and bruises from that nasty fall were as well. You have got to love magic.

I closed the box with my pipe leg. I needed to know some things from this robot. “Okay, I have some questions for you that need answering.”

“Shoot. But be quick about it, I don’t have that much time.”

“What are you? And don’t say robot, I’m not that stupid.”

“I never said you were stupid. But do you mean the sprite-bot? Oh, I’m not the bot. I’m controlling this one here from a remote location. Pretty neat, huh? I’ve been using them to communicate. And to look around, find ponies like you.”

“Don’t I feel special? So what was that music I heard? I did hear music right?”

“That noise? I cut that off the second I jump into a sprite-bot. It gets old. Fast.”

Now to more important questions like, “Have you seen a yellow pegasus filly anywhere around here? She has a pink mane with black highlights, and has this look in her eyes that makes you think she’s going to light something on fire.

Watcher was silent for a moment before he said, “Can’t say that I have, I’ll be sure to tell you if I do. There aren’t that many pegasus ponies around these parts. I’m guessing she’s somepony special to you?”

He chuckled, which was less disturbing than you’d expect.

“What? Oh no, she’s just a friend,” I looked at Watcher with a deadpan expression. “Who is twelve.”

“Oh. Sorry about that.” His happy chuckle sounded more nervous now, wrought with embarrassment. “Crap. I’m starting to run out of time. Like I just told this other pony, you’re going to need some things if you want to survive. A weapon or two, some armored barding, a little guidance, and… this is the important part, you need some friends.”

“Well it’ll be a bit hard to use weapons without my leg.”I held my pipe up to add to my point. “You don’t know where it is, do you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Is it about as long as that pipe, with fingers and stuff?”

Holy crap. “Yeah! Yeah it is. Can you tell me where?”

“Yes. And I think you’ll be killing two radroaches with one shot here. You like books, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” I scratched at my chest with a hoof.

“Okay. There’s this guidebook for people that want to travel through the Equestrian Wasteland. I think I saw the one that took your leg have a copy with them. They went to a garage deeper into town…there you go.” And lo, there was a marker on my map. “There’s a tag on your PipBuck on how to get there. I’d ask you how you got one but there isn’t any time.”

There’s that word again. “This really is some kind of apocalyptic shit going down, huh?”

“You don’t look it but you really don’t know what’s going on, do you kid?”

“Not really.”

“I wish I had more time to explain the situation more thoroughly, but I don’t. Good luck out there, and I’ll keep an eye out for your friend.”

I rested my pipe on the bobbing robot’s frame. “Thanks Watcher, you’re a real life saver.”

“You’re welcome. You sound much more appreciative of my help than this other pony I talked to earlier.”

My past self didn’t want to look like a pansy to this robot, or rather whoever was behind it. So I did what any rational crazy pony would do, make hollow and slightly cryptic threats. “But so help me Luna you better not be stiffing me.”

The sprite-bot floated backwards as if it were surprised. “What? Aw come on. And I thought you were genuinely sincere there for a moment.”

“I am, but my skepticism tells me that I shouldn’t fully trust you. Right away at least.”

“Why would I betray you? I mean what would I gain from it?”

I rubbed a hoof on my chin and said, “I don’t know, maybe you’re insane. Or maybe that’s me. Either way, I should get going.”

“Yeah, you sh-“Static cut Watcher off before the sprite-bot started to lazily float out of the window into the rainy wastes. A thought popped into my head while watching it leave. I wonder what makes it fly.

I now had a sense of direction, a path to follow in order to survive in this hostile land. Given to me by a robot controlled by a stranger, but hell I’ve taken directions from an oversized flower before.

=-|\_._/|/-=

I smelled the Raider camp before I could see it. The sickly sweet smell of death mixed with the unmistakable scent that has haunted my dreams for the past two years stuck to my lungs and I thought I was going to throw up what little was left in my stomach. You know what that particular aroma is? Burning pony flesh.

There was a nice little vantage point from some tall, shady ruins overlooking the camp. Better yet the smoke from their fires was being held back by the rain so it didn’t blow into there. I didn’t want to think about who was being burned. Please, please, please dear Celestia let it not be Molly!

One advantage of all this damn rain is the gloomy ceiling of dark clouds wasn’t letting that much light through so it was relatively easy to sneak around. The U-bend on this pipe was really useful in climbing the sharp, rusty spines of rebar covering the ruins. This is a good hiding place, and dry too. Must be why there was somepony already up here. They hadn’t noticed me yet, thank the goddesses. But what can I say? Infiltration is sort of my thing.

Getting out is the hard part.

She was scratching at her dirty blue mane with a black hind hoof while sitting near her crudely mounted hunting rifle affixed with an Ill-fitting scope held on by mostly duct tape. Hey do you want to know how to really take a unicorn by surprise? Grab. Their. Horn.

This candy cane-shaped pipe is coming in pretty handy. Sniper never saw me coming. I yanked her head back with the pipe and covered her mouth with my PipBuck before she could shout. Sniper sure has a lot of fight in her. She actually tried to bite me while I wailed on the back of her head with my pipe!

I dropped Sniper’s unconscious body to the ground. At least, I hope I knocked her out. After I lost my leg I became a pony of peace, in the sense that I wouldn’t cause the death of another pony for as long as I lived. Vows of nonviolence, Shmows of nonshmilence.

After thoroughly robbing Sniper I was rewarded with several 9mm rounds, a belt with a knife in a stubborn sheath, half a healing potion, and a metal tin that all the paint on it had been scratched off and used as a container for bottle caps for some odd reason. That was tossed aside along with the empty box of chewing gum found in the pockets of Sniper’s ratty vest.

I was about to remove the rifle from its mount as a yellow earth pony stallion poked his head in through a concrete entranceway. My eyes widened as I saw his head reaching for the gun on his foreleg. I hit S.A.T.S and my heart racing in slow motion felt odd, but good. Leaping up from the ground to give him a nasty left hook, the barrel of his .32 pistol flashed and hit me in the chest. The bullet went past my ribs and out through my side into my foreleg. I fell over onto the pony, screaming bloody murder.

I’m sure nopony heard that.

Pressing down on his cheek with a hoof to squeeze the gun out of his mouth I slammed my forehead into his neck. I didn’t have anything else to hit him with! Instinctively he opened his mouth to breathe deep through a bruised windpipe. The gun clattered to the ground and was pushed away as a yellow hoof pushed upwards to push me away. I could feel the bullet buried inside my foreleg shift as he did so and I’m pretty sure that I wanted to murder this guy.

My vision blurred from the immense pain and tears welled up in my eyes. I brought my PipBuck across Yellow’s rage-filled face and a pipe into his receded stomach. I don’t think he’s just going to spring up from that so I crawled away from him over to his gun to have a chance to heal myself. Put the gun in my pocket, not the best place for that kind of thing, I know but now he can’t get it.

A familiar voice called out from the concrete halls and I wrapped my legs around Yellow to pull him into the room. I think it’s time for some James Bronco badassery. I pulled Sniper’s rolled up belt out of my pocket and opened the snap on the sheath with my teeth to get the knife from inside.

“Yo Bramble? Jade? You in here? I heard- OH FUCK ME!!” I had stabbed Pigtails hind leg as she came into the room. A tiny spatter of blood landed on my cheek as I let go of the knife to let Pigtails fall to the ground in agony. A pipe to the head stopped her from screaming any more death threats at me.

I’m really starting to like this pipe. Still, the Snakeoil beats this thing by a landslide. What is that… oh yeah, bullets. I’m so soaked I forgot that I was bleeding. The warm blood felt kind of nice after all that cold rain… What am I doing? Where’s that potion?

Okay, that postponed Mare Muerte’s final call for now. Healing always made my wings feel funny.

I left the knife in Pigtails’ leg, since that’s probably the only thing holding the blood inside her body. But who needs a knife when I have a gun? Wiping the bit on my jacket was useless, so I just stuck the weapon into my mouth.

I haven’t held a gun like this in a long while. Almost forgot what it felt like. The other Raiders are probably not going to immediately come up here, seeing how I took out their scout.

Apparently I was wrong. There was another dash moving erratically in a small space. Now I’m not sure but I think that means they’re pretty close to me. A pink unicorn mare and Smiles stepped in from the hall to investigate the violent noises coming from the concrete sniper nest as my S.A.T.S became ready for use again.

I selected a shot without even looking where I was aiming and fired. I hit the mare in the neck, causing her to fall to the ground and begin the process of bleeding to death.

Smiles got more bullets, but they were more directed towards his flank. Instead of falling over when dealt massive damage like all his other comrades Smiles tackled me to the ground. His machete got caught in the bend of my pipe and I used that as leverage to move my gun under his jaw.

=-|\_._/|/-=

I felt awful for what I’ve done but what I saw next made me take back every empathetic emotion I had for these motherfuckers. I had gotten a good long look at the Raider camp while removing the rifle from the mount. It was… oh I can’t even find a word bad enough to describe how horrible it was. Severed heads on pikes made from rebar and scaffolding poles, splayed torsos and headless corpses chained up on the corrugated metal walls, and everything covered in crude graffiti. Filled with righteous fury I felt a fiery need to avenge whoever those ponies were that these bastards have killed and use them to build a castle.

After taking all I could from the Raiders and hitting .32 pistol guy over the head with my pipe leg, I was ready to face whatever remaining forces that were holed up in the small fortress. According to my E.F.S there were only three hostiles left and… one non-hostile. Crap. That means I can’t just go in there guns blazing. Now I have to worry about the yellow fellow on my E.F.S as well as the dreaded reds.

There was a supply cache behind a nearly destroyed closet door with a couple healing potions, a capped syringe of something labeled “Med-X”, some duct tape, and a bottle of Sparkle-Cola. It looked like one of the classic bottles from when I was a colt. This is a weird place to find one of those.

Methinks my pipe leg needs an upgrade. With a little duct tape and some time, it now had a rusty machete attached to it.

Well back to kicking psycho pony ass. I went downstairs to a room that led to a tall ladder. This ladder went down onto a platform bridging the gap between the ruins and the construction site fort. But there was a much cooler way across. A cable attached to this building that lead right to the end of the platform caught my attention, and I looked at my hooked pipe.

As I slid down the cable, I almost dropped the hunting rifle while shooting at a Raider on one of the scaffolding towers with S.A.T.S. That would have been really cool if I had hit him. Untangling myself from where the cable met the fortress wall of sheet metal reinforced chain link and scaffold platform walls while being set upon by a knife-wielding maniac. Too bad hunting rifle beats knife.

It was really awkward to work the bolt action in my current state, but I made it work. I took aim at the guy in the scaffold while doing my best to dodge his and his other friends’ bullets and pushed the weapon forward with my left leg and pulled back slightly with a hoof.

A disappointing click was heard. Come on, only two bullets? This is ridiculous. Tossing the rifle down and ducking behind a large concrete slab seemed to be the right course of action at the time. Bullets pinged off of the grey shield while I fiddled with getting the .32 pistol out of my pocket. I forgot to reload it, didn’t I?

Four bullets in the cylinder (I dropped one) and I was ready to shoot some more ponies. Stony shrapnel bounced off my face as a bullet hit dangerously close to my head.

I’m really relying on my PipBuck to help me aim. I hit the raider with the duct tape wrapped .32 pistol in the chest and then the neck, dropping them.

A bullet from the scaffolding tower grazed my leg as I ran towards the pony with a small bolt action rifle that made a plinking noise every time it fired. After five shots the Raider had to reload his weapon, while I still had two bullets in my gun.

Only one of the bullets hit him, the other grazed his broken wagon wheel cutie mark. This hurt him enough to interrupt the unicorn’s reload, which bought me some time. I ran over to the raider I had just killed and retrieved his weapon from the muddy ground. According to my E.F.S, it had four rounds left.

Simply allowing the empty gun to fall out of my mouth I went over to an old forepony’s office in the middle of the camp. With bladed pipe raised and a hoof on the door’s handle, I pushed it open. There was some stuff lying around on tables that was overlooked in favor of the pile of orange hair on the dirty floor. Was that crying behind this door? It was locked, but not for long.

I had to disconnect yet another leg when my leg got caught in a large part of the broken door. I looked up to see a tan unicorn filly chained to a bed frame and lying on her stomach on a ruined mattress. Her teary eyes were shut tight and there were hoofmarks around her flank and blood underneath her tail, which had been cut.

I started to frantically search the room for a key or a saw or… this gun could work.

*BANG! BANG! BANGBANG! BANG!*

The broken chains were pulled away with my teeth and the pins on the rusty shackles were removed. I lifted the little filly off the bed, carried her into the main room and sat her on a couch.

“Hey drink this,” A healing potion was held up to the filly, who said nothing as tears ran down her face. Clearly I was going to have to do this some other way. With some potion soaked into the gauze to make some jerry-rigged medical bandages. I applied it to one of the filly’s forelegs to try to soothe where the shackles had cut into her. She was startled when I touched her with the medicated cloth, but then she calmed down when she knew what I was doing.

“Are you thirsty kid?”

She barely nodded her head before she wiped her eyes with a hoof. I pulled the sealed bottle of classic Sparkle-Cola from my pocket and curled my lip at the bottle cap. It mocked me with its stubbornness and I set the bottle on the cracked coffee table, “I’ll be right back. I need to get my leg.”

The pipe was ripped from the machete and I came back into the main room on all fours.

I pulled the bottle cap off with the pipe’s tip and held it up to the filly. “Here you go. So what’s your name?”

She lowered the almost empty bottle and exhaled shakily. “P-pin. My name’s Bobbi Pin.” There was a bag of hay chips on the counter and I ignored my growling stomach while giving Pin the food.

“Bobbi Pin, huh? I like it, makes you sound kind of mysterious.”

“I guess,” Pin said without a smile. I don’t think this kid is going to smile for a long, long time.

“So uh...Pin? How did you end up here?”

“I—I don’t want to talk about it.” She started to tear up again and I sat next to her on the couch. She picked the bag of chips up in her hooves and devoured the contents within a minute.

I rubbed at where the bullet had grazed me earlier and “Oh okay, I can understand that. I have to get going. Do you know where your parents are?”

"What?"

I thought it was obvious, but apparently I needed to explain the reasoning behind my goodwill. "Well I can't just leave you here."

“Oh, they- they’re waiting for me back home.” That tone wasn’t too reassuring.

“Oh okay, where’s your house? I’ll take you there.”I held out a hoof to her, bringing up the map on my screen. I don’t know what I was expecting, for Pin to know how to read a map maybe?

“I think it’s somewhere near that arrow?” She tapped where Watcher said the garage would be, and since I didn’t have any reason to call her out on it I took her word for it.

“Hey I was going that way anyways. Come on, we should get out of here. It’s raining but I have a feeling you want to get as far away from this place as possible.”

-=-______[|]|.,/=|oO.0l Stable-Tec|l[{/%/}]l|Stable-Tec l0.Oo|=\,.|/[|]_______-=-
Welcome to level two! (Apparently.)

Guns increased to 30
Unarmed increased to 25
Sneak increased to 30

New Perk!

Confirmed Bachelor:
“Gentleponies.” You do +10% damage to the same sex and gain access to unique dialogue options with certain ponies.

Author's Note

I want to thank Kkat for creating the Fallout Equestria universe and if she ever happens to see this I hope she likes it. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and the Fallout franchise is protected under copyright law and I do not claim to own any part of either. I want to give thanks to Regolit for encouraging me to continue the space/time displaced cyberpony’s quest for survival with his kind words and advice. Please, don’t forget to rate and comment on this story. It’ll only get better if you do.