A sound similar to Thunder sounded in Applelossa as the Trio appeared in the middle of the town with a flash, The town was a mess of destruction, several buildings where on their side and one set of house had fallen into each other and where now one single messy pile of a building, sounds could be heard coming from around the town, Only one building was still standing and it was down the street from the Trio, A Large Clock tower stood proud in the center of the town, the clock itself was long gone, but the tower still had an odd clicking sound occasionally emitting from it.

Angel was the first to break from the awestruck group and made her way to the combined building, she picked up a small rock and tossed it at the building, the rock flew into the rubble, hitting some of the beams and landed with a small echo emanating around the building. Angel stood in silence for a short while before waking into the rubble.

"Angel don't just walk..." Jamie started only for Angel to look back at her an cut her off

"No Mutants responded to my Rock, and the odd's of Raiders being here a little to none

"Hey, guys what mutants inhabit Applelossa again?" Iron suddenly asked getting her friends attention.

"I believe it was some Scorpion Pony hybrid, classified as scorponies, why do you ask?" Jamie said as she cast Angel a quick look to make sure she wasn't drawing unwanted attention to them.

"Because there's one right over there." Low and behold behind the remains of an old building was a pony, but not the same as Iron heart. No this mutant was walking around on all four of its legs with no arms to speak of. It's fur was a sandy brown but no one could tell if it was because it was from the sand around the place or if it was it's natural fur color. It's most striking feature was it's tail. It was a scorpion tail easily as long as Iron hearts sword and at the end, it had two pincers that open and closed like hinges on a door, it was about fifteen yards away. Iron pulled out her sword slowly. After all its better to be prepared in case things go south.

Angel had imediatly lost interest in the building and had decided to instead pull out her notebook and began writing the encounter. "Oh this is exciting!" She exclaimed. "They are notoriously shy around ponies."

"Any particular reason for that?" Jamie asked.

"Well, when marking this area for a Teleportation Station location the scorponies were curious about the newcomers and often caused a lot of setbacks, so the workers captured the leader and used said leader as a sort of barrier or fence," Angel explained.

"Wait wait wait are you telling me that there are mutants that are friendly?" Iron said in disbelief. "Jamie that sounds just as crazy to you as it does to me?"

"Yeah, that does sound pretty loopy Angel," Jamie said while nodding her head.

"Well, the leader keeps them safe from other mutants so they're typically docile unless provoked." Angel pulled out a bit of bread and started to slowly approach the scorpony. "Observe."

As Angel walked her friends were dumbfounded as they watched their friend walk up to the mutant
"Why aren't we stopping he?" Jamie asked.

"Because she's usually right about these things, remember that time some kids threw paint bombs at Braeburn and he went batshit crazy?" Iron heart didn't put her sword up but it was put at rest.

"Oh yeah, she calmed him down with cider and a cupcake." The pair went silent as Angel gave the piece of bread to the scorpony who ate the bread but was still very nervous and shown signs of agitation, it calmed down as Angel backed away from it.

Angel quickly returned to her friends. "See they aren't so bad. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a teleport pad here."

"How do you know so much about mutants?" Iron heart demanded as the group began moving again.

"Princess Twilight published a book about some of the better-known Mutants near teleporter sport for Adventurers" Angel replied simply

"oh," Iron heart said as she flattened her ears "I knew that, I was just testing you,"

"Sure, now let's move, the longer we stick around the more likely we are to piss the natives off," Angel said simply as she started walking to the clock tower.

"Hey, do you guys hear that buzzing?" Jamie asked as they reached the tower. Iron Heart and Angel looked around and lifted their ears, hearing nothing.

"Hide?"

"Hide." The trio quickly made its way inside the building. Soon the other two also heard the buzzing. not to longer after the buzzing became audible there was a lot of snarling followed by the sound of explosions,"

"What in Luna's name was that?" Jamie whispered. Angel looks through her journal as Iron went to peak.

"I think we just heard the scorponies leader," Angel said as she kept flipping through the book.

"Uh, guys you might wanna see this." Iron gestured. Her two friends looked out and Jamie began writing in her notes, down the street was a gigantic dead bee twice the size of a normal pony, around it the scorponies were either eating it or were on their way to get there share.

Iron watched in awe as Jamie took frantic notes, Angel carefully made her way out of the clock tower and approached the proverbial buffet.

What Angel witnessed was enough to make her curiosity skyrocket. She saw a smaller purple scorpony cutting pieces of the mutant bee with its tail and hoofing them out while saying absolute nonsense every time it gave a scorpony their share.

"This is so cool," Iron Heart said as she watched the Scorponies swarm their fallen foe turned food

Angel watched from the sideline, her interest only rising as the small purple one made its way around the bee, stopping others from getting seconds, while it was doing this some of the larger Scorponies seemed to be tearing pieces of the bee off after eating and began carrying them towards a collection of broken building parts, as Angel watched she confirmed her suspicions as the big ones came back out without the food and headed back to the bee to repeat the process.

Angel began sneaking back to her friends to relay what she had learned, unaware that as soon as she had turned her back and begun moving the eyes of the Purple one had snapped to her, It had noticed Angel a while ago but had pretended otherwise to test if she would attempt an attack or attempt to steal some of the bee.

"Fear down." She muttered, the words lacking any care or emotion behind them as she watched, the smaller Purple one flicked her tail towards the mess and at once the Bigger Scorponies switched tactics and began dragging the entire bee Caracas to the pile.

"Wednesday Pie" She decided as her troops b-lined back to their home, she waited till she was alone, then zipped off towards the shadows before going to the clock tower where she had watched Angel go.

"This is amazing," Angel said, Iron Heart giving her her full attention while Jamie squinted at Angel in silence before opening her bag, she proceeded to start flipping through her vials of potion's and began mixing something together while muttering to herself. "Iron Heart we're going to have to delay our trip to Ponyville." Iron Heart stared at Angel for a moment.

"You suck you know that?" Iron Heart responded.

"No, I actually have a good reason this time." Angel responded pointing out the door "I heard one of the Scorponies talking" Iron Heart's demeanor changed in a snap.

"Which one?" She demanded

"It's the..." Angel stuck her head out the door and was met with the sight of an empty street. "...the Purple one leading the charge." She groaned. "It's probably in their nest or..." Angel jumped back in shock as the Purple Scorponies tale slammed down where her head had been a moment before, immediately is shot out of sight and movement sounded from all around them. "...oh my lost one..." Angel said in shock as she fell to the floor and rubbed her neck and looked at the open doorway " I almost died...all this time training, and I almost died the most embarrassing death." Angel sat dumbfounded as Iron Heart looked around, she had drawn her sword and was now in attack and defend mode, She grabbed Angel's shoulder and pulled her father into the building, Jamie was still mixing potions as Iron Heart put Angel next to her.

"Hi," Jamie said numbly as she looked at one of her vials, waiting for a reaction.

"Hi," Angel said, still staring at the door in shock at how close she'd been to her own death. Iron Heart looked around the room, thanks to years of training her keen hearing helped her keep the general location of their attacker in her sights, Scratching could be heard from the wall as the Scorponie climbed around the outside of the old building.

"Alright, get cozy." Iron Heart said as she moved in time with the noises, making sure to take frequent glances at the door in case this was a team attack and the noise was just a distraction "We're going to be spending a fair amount of time here." Outside several Scorponies watched their leader moved around the tower, using her tail to give the impression she was high on the wall instead of walking on the ground as she looked for a good point of entry. She looked over at her followers and said loudly

"Power Hammer They." At once the smaller ones moved out of the way and A rather large Scorponie moved it, it moved near the door and took a moment, its tail began glowing as it put in the doorway, Venomous spike's rocketed off its tail and filled the room. Iron Heart grabbed Angel and Jamie, who had finished what she had been doing and had just put her bag back on, and proceeded to throw both of them out of the way before covering her face with her arms as the spike's hit, her armor took most of the damage, though it still knocked the breath out off her as she hit the floor. Breathing hard Iron Heart tapped a small button on the side of her shoulder armor and a helmet Digi-structured itself on her head.

Iron Heart look forward at the large Scorpony who seemed confused why something was still moving when it was full of its poison spikes, Iron Heart raised her sword and moved at full speed, the Scorpony moved just as the sword hit the ground where it had been, at once the sword moved and was swung at it again. The Scorpony attempted to move out of the way and almost did, with a slice and a screech the Scorpony ran away, now missing half of its right ear. Iron Heart turned just as the Purple one's tail clamped down on her middle and flung her up before slamming her into the ground, before raising and slamming Iron Heart back and forth, Iron Heart's sword flew from her grip and impaled itself into a wall, The Scorpony stopped after a few times and lowered Iron Heart to her eye level when a battle cry made her look back, Angel charged forward coated inflamed and charged at the Scorpony.

"Bling!" The Scorpony screamed out as she lashed out in a flash and hammer's Angel into the ground with Iron Heart, before pulling her back up and repeatedly smashing Angel with Iron Heart,

"Hey." A voice sounded behind it and the Creature turned, Jamie shot out of a hole in the ground and stuck a rag over the Scorponies muzzle.

"Food North Do-" The Mutant managed to scream into the rag before its eyes rolled up into its head and it collapsed on the ground, with a loud thud Iron Heart landed on Angel. The Second she went down all the other Scorponies scattered.

"I wish I'd thought that plan through better." Angel said with a groan "I got my shit handed to me." Iron Heart's helmet disappeared and she got up, looking dizzy and with a fair number of bruises.

"That was awesome!" She cheered as she walked wobbly and extracted her sword from the wall it had been stuck in "I kinda wanna do it again." Jamie ignored her friends and pulled out a fair amount of rope.

"Help me tie her up." She called to them "There's bound to be enough scrap around to build a sled or cart to pull her around on once she's secured." Iron Heart picked up its tail and after some work said tail was tied to its front legs, its leg's were all tied to each other, as they did this Angel managed to pull out a mostly intact cart from the wreckage, granted it was missing the entirety of it's front, but it could still be used.

"Alright, lets-" the sound of hissing, scratching, and creaking suddenly sounded at the end of the road and the trio turned as a hoard of Scorponies began emerging from their hive, they weren't attacking yet, but that was more than likely because their leader was down, once they managed to find a temporary leader they'd probably begin pursuing the trio. "-get the fuck out of Applelossa" Jamie decided as they loaded the Mutant into the broken cart and working together pushed and pulled it as fast as they could to the old Trian station.

Author's Note

said mutants mentioned in this chapter all belong to Viper pit they also helped wright some of this chapter