Before leaving the slaver's camp I ransacked it for anything useful. Ammo, parts for my new carbine, food, water, more bottlecaps for some reason, and luckily a few healing potions! I happily chugged a bottle of the fruity purple liquid and watched the hole in my leg seal up as I stuffed everything else in my inventory. None of the slaver's clothes fit me, unfortunately. I was too tall for the pony barding and too skinny for any of the griffin armor to be usable. I ripped the barding into strips to use as bandages and summoned my spare combat vest and slipped it on, it wasn’t actually made for combat, but it did make me feel a little safer.

After all of that was taken care of, I checked out my pipbuck. The old stallion, -whose name was Keyhole- had reset the pipbuck and downloaded all the stuff from my recorder onto it as well, even the audio file from the shack. I noticed a section labelled "saddlebags" and opened it in curiosity. Inside was a list of everything in my inventory! all nice and organized too. Huh. Scrolling down I pressed on one of the items and a healing potion materialized in my talon as if I had summoned it! Does this mean anyone can get into my inventory? I detached the pipbuck from my arm and tried to open the section, but this time, the list was empty. weird. These pipbucks sure do have some serious magic laced in them. I thought as I strapped the device back on.

Keyhole had told me there was a community of friendly merchants on the northeast side of town, on Marebon Street. And that if I was looking for someone, they would have probably made their way there. Unfortunately, to get to Marebon Street I have to pass through Coltson Square, which is teeming with creatures called ghouls. Undead beings born of radiation. While most of them were decent people these ghouls were feral, mindless cannibals.

As I walked towards Coltson Square I decided to play the audio file I found in that terminal. My new E.F.S, Eyes Forward Sparkle, showed no signs of any hostiles nearby. So it seemed to be a good way to pass the time. When I pressed play, A young mare's voice came from the pipbuck. It seemed to be a recording of a phone call.

"Hello? Stormy, you there?"

"Yeah Crystal, I'm here. What's goin on down in the Big Easy?"

"Nothing good. The military is here! They’ve sent a whole company of steel rangers, and now they patrol the streets all the time!"

"That doesn’t sound good, do you know why?"

"Something about zebra traitors in the Treme area. But I don't know why they’ve taken over the whole town if the enemy is in only one neighbourhood."

"Do you think they found out about your experiments?"

"No. If they had found out about that, they would have sent the M.o.M to quietly whisk me away. This is bigger. Could you come back from Hoofington for a week to help me move some assets? Just cause they aren’t here for me doesn’t mean they won’t arrest me if they find something."

"Okay. It’ll take a few days to get to you though. if I left right away the higher-ups would want to know why."

"That's all right, I don’t want you to compromise your work just for me."

"I'll get to you as soon as possible, so don’t get into too much trouble before I get there! I don't want to miss out!"

"Gotcha! I'll be safe. Bye Stormy."

"Bye Crystal."

Hmm, interesting. I wondered what sort of experiments this Crystal was performing that she had to hide it from the government? Now however was not the time for contemplating the actions of long-dead equines. I had made it to Coltson Square.

The place used to be a park, a big one at that. Now it only contained burnt out bushes and trees, the ground covered in deteriorating pathways and long-dead grass. At the north side of the square was a large white cathedral with its spires toppled and most of its stained glass windows shattered. I wondered what ponies had worshipped two hundred years ago, the Princesses maybe? Us hippogriffs had no gods, for we have our Queen. We don't treat her like a god though, it just makes sense to put your faith in someone real than a higher being that might not exist.

In the centre of the park was a large, surprisingly un-ravaged statue of whom I supposed was Coltson himself. I could only guess how the guy had earned a whole park in his name, he didn’t look like the hero type.

Scattered all over were hundreds of ghouls. Ugliest motherfuckers I had ever seen. Decayed corpses, their bones and innards exposed, yet somehow still able to stand and walk, making unearthly moans and grunts.

There were WAY too many of these things to just blast my way through. Flying over was out of the question, they’d see me instantly and I’d have a whole horde of zombies after me.

There was enough cover in the way of dead plant life and ruined architecture that if I was careful I could stealth my way through. It took almost an hour, but I finally made it to the cathedral. Those ghouls weren’t the smartest and probably shortsighted or deaf.

Quietly flying through a broken stained glass window of whom I thought might be Princess Celestia I landed in an office. Looting the area rewarded me with more caps, healing potions, a bottle of Applejack Daniels, and a few packages of sugar apple bombs. Curious, I opened one of the two-hundred-year-old boxes and ate a handful of the cereal. ooooooooo Sweet, Sugary, probably very unhealthy goodness! I shook my head. Focus Blitz, we need to find a back door.

Stepping out into the main room produced a sound of awe from me. It was essentially a large hallway with balconies on either side, and rows upon rows of rotting wooden pews. The curved ceiling once displaying beautiful paintings now yellowed and peeling off. On the railing of the balconies spaced at intervals were decaying flags of long-dead countries, there was even a flag of Mount Eris hanging up. From the ceiling hung broken chandeliers no longer lit. The tainted lighting came instead from the shattered stained glass windows I had seen from outside. The altar at the front of the room was flanked by two crumbling statues, saints long forgotten.

Shuf... Shuf... Creeeeeek...

The fuck was that? I looked around frantically trying to locate the source of the sound.

Shuf... Creeeeeeeek... Shuf...

Wait, By the altar! What is that thing?! It looked like a unicorn ghoul, except for the disgusting, oily, pink goo oozing from holes all over the thing's body. The elongated horn on its head twisted and bent. The only noises it made was the sound of its Decayed hooves against the floor. The thing's head slowly twisted and turn its empty, leaking eye sockets right at me. And then it screamed. I couldn’t just hear the demented screech out loud, I felt as if I could hear it with my soul, the sound ripping me apart from the inside. I had to run, get away from the horrific noise before it tore my soul from my body! Not able to think straight, I ran for the big set of double doors at the back of the room. Making it to the doors in record time I threw them open and looked at my surroundings.

Coltson Square

Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit

Half the ghouls turned to stare at me with their cloudy, unblinking eyes. But did not attack, almost as if they were waiting for something. Then the thing behind me screamed again. Every ghoul in Coltson Square turned towards me and ran. No choice but to fight. I stood on my hind legs and summoned my carbine in one talon and my battle scythe in the other. Using my magic to coat the scythe in a red aura I manipulated it to carve a path through the ghouls and blasted any who got too close to me as I fought to get away from the screaming monster controlling them. This was not a battle I could win. There were too many of these desiccated beings! All too soon my carbine made sad clicking noises letting me know I was out of ammo. Hastily stashing it back in my inventory I grabbed my scythe and twirled in my talons. This was not the way I wanted to go down, but at least it wasn’t an extremely pathetic death.

Then the ghoul's heads started blowing up. I looked around, only now noticing that I could hear gunshots nearby. To my left, there was a jet black unicorn with the biggest revolver I had ever seen in my life! He was wearing a large black wide-brim hat and matching duster. His eyes were covered by blood-red aviators. He wore a large manic grin on his face as his horn glowed red, holding aloft his gun. He yelled across the Square at me.

"Come on then! I'm not going to finish them off myself!"

We fought for almost an hour fending off the neverending horde. Me swinging my battle scythe in large arcs of death as the black stallion blasted away, rotten brain matter and blood flying in his wake. Eventually, the only red bar on my E.F.S was the screeching ghoul. It focused itself on the stallion for some reason, ignoring me. The high pitched nails on chalkboard sound making my nose and eyes bleed. Even the unicorn’s massive revolver seemed to have little effect on the thing.

Time for plan B. While my sister was good at healing magic, my speciality was hippogriff combat magic. Putting my scythe in my inventory, I flew up above the distracted creature and hovered. I summoned a glowing blue circle covered with runes in both Talons. Pulling them together to create one big circle. When I pulled my arm back a giant ethereal arrow began to appear in the center of the rune circle. It felt like I was drawing a bow the size of a building, which I kinda was. In just a few seconds the arrow was fully formed, but I was already sweating profusely and my wings and arms were about to give out. Just when I thought I couldn’t hold it any longer the arrow glowed a vibrant blue and shot right at the monster's head. The thing had time to look up at the big FWOOSH noise the arrow made before it decimated the creature's skull and the better part of its midsection. I then promptly passed out. I mean come on, I had just cast a Spirit arrow, one of the most complex combat spells out there! I think I deserved a small nap.

I awoke to find myself on the back of the Black Stallion as he carried me away from Coltson Square. I jumped off his back and gave him a wary look.

"Wait, who are you? Where were you taking me?" He chuckled as he turned to face me.

"Well, though there are far more sane ways to get there, it looked like you were heading towards Marebon Street. Besides, it was the safest place for someone unconscious like you were for the last half hour or so. As for what I'm called, names are powerful things, why should I trust you with mine?"

Hmm, good question.

"Umm, well I'll trust you with my name, It's Blitz. And yes, I was heading to Marebon Street."

He seemed pleased with my answer and nodded. "Very well. People call me Shadow." He turned back around and gestured for me to follow him. "This way to Marbon, whatever you're looking for you'll find it there."

Footnote:

New perk unlocked: Witch Hunter 1. You’ve killed your first witch! whoopdee fucking doo. You now deal 15% more damage to Witches and their ghouls.

New perk unlocked: Kombat Wizard 5. You’re getting pretty good at this magicky stuff! You now are 25% more proficient at casting combat spells.

Author's Note

-January 2020: revised.

As usual, A big thank ye kindly to Kkat and Somber for inspiration, and you all for giving me a chance.

Please note that as I get better with my writing skills I will come back and polish earlier chapters, so how you see it now may not be how it will look when I'm done with this story.

Anyone willing to help me with this project is much appreciated. this story deserves more than just my pathetic writing skills.