Fallout Equestria: Wandering Woes

Chapters

Chapter 1: Academy Days
Chapter 2: Bars and Brawls
Chapter 3: Where the Junk Falls
Chapter 4: Fantastically Fictional Fun
Chapter 5: Click
Chapter 6: Dreaming Melody
Chapter 7: Long Time Coming
Chapter 8: Ships and Stories
Chapter 10: Leaving Home
Chapter 11: Reunion
Chapter 12: The Frozen Path
Prologue: Monsters and Machines
Chapter 9: Old Pains Never Fade

Chapter 1: Academy Days

Chapter 1: Academy Days
(Vision)

Growling deep in my throat, I lean forwards and slam my hoof into the stallion’s jaw, grinning as I can hear his bones crack from the force. The stallion’s body hits the ground with a loud thump before I stand up with a growl shouting at him.

“If you say another damned thing about my family, I’m going to be breaking a lot more than your jaw, you bastard!”

He lets out a groan as he stands back up, looking me dead in the eyes, “You and your damned family. A spoiled little brat who’s been here far too long. This academy is far too good for the likes of you!” He punctuated that last word by spitting out a chunk of blood.

I give out a sharp laugh as I look up at him, considering my rather tall but semi thin stature. He was quite a bit larger in size and height, although my speed more than made up for the difference. “My father may be the commanding officer here, but I got into this academy by my own right! As illustrated by how hard I just kicked your ass.” I grin as he takes another swing at me, a rather wide swing at that, but one I was easily able to dodge. My response kick punctuating my words.

At this point I noticed a rather large crowd appearing around us. “Ha, seems we got a crowd to watch you get destroyed, Stone. Too bad this is gonna be my last day here; it’s always fun pounding you into the ground.”

He once again gets up, and this time tries slamming his body into me, smart move considering our difference in size; however, he again didn’t take into account how fast I am. Once more I simply side stepped him, and this time slammed a hoof into his gut, using his own momentum against him. This time, he didn’t choose to get back up.

“Just think, Stone; tomorrow I finally graduate from this hellhole and get to go below. Don’t miss me too much, you hear?”

“VISION WAVE!” I hear from across the room. Whoops, seems like my little fisticuffs got noticed. Looking behind me, I noticed Ms. Sureshot with Firestorm hot on her heels. I assume the hothead called her after the fight started; not the most popular kid, and started from the lowest class you could possibly imagine, and is only here because of her raw fighting ability. She’s probably trying to get into whatever good graces she could find.

“Would you like to tell me the meaning of this?!” Ms. Sureshot practically shouted at me; honestly not sure why she was making such a big deal out of all this.

“Well you see, Ms. Sureshot, Stone here,” I gesture to the stallion groaning on the floor, currently leaking blood all over it, huh, I wonder if I pulled out a tooth. “said my mother was a whore and I was only allowed in because I’m Daddy’s special little boy. I decided to put his words where his mouth was, and then replace those words with my hoof; as you can see, it didn’t quite fit in there.”

She gives a deep sigh, gesturing Fire to clean up the mess as she starts walking, pulling me with her, “Look, Vision, I get that you don’t like ponies commenting on your family; but you are the son of the highest ranked member in the entire encampment. That kind of rank comes with both privileges,” she guides me out of the academy and starts walking with me through the town, obviously leading me back home, “and many, many difficulties.”

I follow her and look around the encampment; being a bit east of New Cloudsdale also had these perks and faults, it would appear. The entire encampment was exactly as you would expect from the military; simple houses built from the clouds, all almost exactly the same color, shape, and size. The only one that had any difference to it was mine; the Sergeant's house. I sigh knowing what my Dad would say.

She continues after a moment of looking at me. “I know your excited for your first mission down below, and I know you’re pumped up because it was your 19th birthday a few days ago; but you have to learn every action has a consequence. Your father is going to be greatly irritated by this.”

Finally we reach the steps to my house, and she knocks on the door. After a few moments, it opens up to one of the largest ponies in the entire encampment; my father, Blackened Skies. Easily towering over me and Ms. Sureshot, he stood at around 7 feet tall with a shaggy shoulder-length mane, and his coat was black as night. He weighed so much the ground shook when he moved, and he was so strong that he could easily snap even the toughest weapon we have on the base in half without even breaking a sweat.

“What?” He said, with his usual straight to the point attitude; it has not won him many favors, but there’s a reason he’s been leader of this encampment for over 30 years now. Ms. Sureshot, to her credit, is not even phased by this.

“Your son started yet another fight; this is starting to become an issue,”

He looks me up and down for just a moment before he asks, “Did he win?”

She looks irritated for a moment before answering, “Well, yes, but-”

He holds up his hoof before she can go any further, stopping her mid sentence, “If he won, there is nothing more to be said; next time. the other student will learn how to win, or he will be beaten again. I do not raise failures. Boy, go see your mother. She wanted to take you out on your new mission; you may take Rogue with you as well. His rank may be a little low for such a mission, but he has trained beside you for long enough. If he survives, you have learned well; if he does not, learn from it.”

I grin as he says this; not only can I go down to the world below with Mom, but I also get to take Rogue? This is looking to be an amazing day. I’ve been friends with Rogue for as long as I can remember; I think his Dad was friends with mine before his Dad died, and we have trained in that academy for the last decade together. Technically, you’re only allowed to go on ground missions once you reach 19, and Rogue was a few months younger than me. However, my Dad is trusting me to keep him safe, and make sure the mission goes smoothly. So that is what I shall do.

I immediately headed to my mother, assuming she was in the living room as she tends to be, and I was correct as I saw her standing there. For all the problems that my Dad had, my mother, Sun Wave, was the opposite. She was much smaller than he was, around 4 and a half feet tall, a bit taller than the rest of us. She had a long flowing mane the color of a brilliant orange sunset sitting on the horizon, and a coat as golden as the sun in the summertime. She was caring, sweet, and beautiful. Standing there, she looked as pristine and regal as a goddess; however, from personal experience, if you get her truly angry it’s like a raging demon from hell. Giving a small shudder at the thought, I approach her.

“Hey Mom, Dad told me I needed to come find you; is everything ready?” I’m practically hopping as I say this, with excitement flaring in my eyes.

She gives me a small smile as she starts walking outside. Once we got there, I saw Rogue standing at attention, with a smile on his face mimicking my own, “Haha, yes little one, everything is ready for our little adventure. Now get suited up, and always remember,” she gave me a stern look as the mood shifted slightly. “The world down there is much more dangerous than the world up here; be careful, keep watch, and keep your partners safe. As this is your first mission, your brother shall be joining us.” She straightened up as she said this, the mood seeming to shift back as my brother, Stormy Skies, came into view as he left the house.

“Hey, little brother, I see you’re being as childish as ever.” He takes a swipe at me, I barely dodge it as I growl at him.

“Ugh, why does he have to come with us? We can do this without him!” I move quickly over to Rogue, my mother looking less than pleased.

“He is coming with us for, well, protection’s sake. This is your first mission and he is currently a senior officer to you; therefore, he is responsible for you.” She turns around and waves one golden wing as she starts walking towards the nearest checkpoint; we all follow in line.

“Fine, fine, but if he messes up the mission, I don’t want to take the fall for it,” I leer at my brother, me and him have never been on very good terms. He tends to take more from our Dad’s side, rougher, tougher, and just all around unpleasant half the time. He is about 2 years older than me, but has risen many ranks above me from sheer skill and talent; people often compare me to him, so it’s a bit of an issue.

“If the mission goes wrong, I will take the fall for it, little brother; but this mission shouldn’t be too hard. We’re to go down to the forest below, and check out the radiation levels, check out the wildlife and flora, and if we find any pony inhabitants, we must eradicate them.”

We finally get to the checkpoint as he states this, the guard on watch seeming to just go through the motions; with how quiet it’s been lately, I’m not surprised he seems to be lax. Getting through the checkpoint was fairly simple; having the second in command of the entire base be walking through tends to make it go that way.

Once we got geared up for the radiation, we finally headed out the main gate to see the outside world. It was an amazing sight to behold, with clouds going miles and miles in every direction, peering off as far as the eye could see. The sun’s rays were blasting down onto the clouds, making it all shimmer and shake like I would imagine waves on the sea would.

We started heading down through the clouds and it was insane; in almost complete silence we jumped in formation, my mother in the front, my brother in the back, with me and Rogue holding the middle. The cloud layer practically split as my mother goes through it, and as my brother passes it, the clouds seal back up. This left us in an odd tunnel of wind, water, and darkness. Thankfully, our helmets had night vision in them; that left everything with an odd green tint, however.

Finally, we got through the cloud layer; and what I saw, I can’t really explain it too well. Instead of the rolling clouds above, we had dirt, and trees, forests everywhere and lots of barren ground. I could see structures, both ruined and some that look almost new, in the distance. That odd green tint had only grown stronger, which made me think my helmet was on the fritz. I didn’t mention anything, however, considering this was my first mission, and I didn’t want to seem like a noob. Rogue seemed to have a very similar reaction to everything, and after a moment, he refocused on the ground we were about to land on.

Once we hit the ground, I hear my mother through the radio, “Vision and Stormy, head to the west; me and Rogue will take the east. Spread out, watch each other’s backs, and kill any ponies you see. Most around here have been turned insane, and will very likely try to kill you.”

“Roger,” Comes out from all of us in response. Getting to spend my first mission with with my brother. Oh joy.

For the next couple of hours, nothing particularly interesting happens; mostly I just see a lot of plants and creatures. Observing them is very strange, and is making me incredibly tense; my hoof is on the trigger for my sniper rifle the entire time. My brother on the other hand, has been constantly checking his sensors to, most likely, see something about the air. I didn’t spend much time listening to the science classes, why would I, when the gun classes were so much more interesting?

A single loud bang shook me out of my thinking; gritting my teeth, I turned towards the source of the noise, and start making my way towards it, as more smaller bangs start to ring out; though these were much faster. It sounded like a sniper and an assault rifle; coming from the west side of the forest, where Mom and Rogue are.

My worry is increasing every second I’m running and I grip my sniper rifle harder; my brother immediately sprints in my direction.

Mom uses a sniper rifle and Rogue uses an assault rifle, listening closer, I realize only the assault rifle has been shooting this entire time. If Rogue is laying down suppressive fire, and Mom stopped shooting, they must be in danger,

Growling, I finally got to a clearing near where the bangs came from, and the sight before me broke my heart. Looking into the clearing I see Rogue standing over my mother’s body that’s riddled with holes; blood and gunpowder is covering Rogue’s hooves as he looks up at me with broken eyes. Upon seeing me, he throws his gun to the side, empty and still smoking. I was so lost in my pain that I didn’t even notice the sound of rustling in the distance, my brother on the other hand, immediately slams into me taking me to the ground as the sniper rifle’s shot rang out. Groaning from the impact, I feel a sharp burning sensation along my neck, “Are you okay?” Stormy asks with haste, I simply nod, unable to form words.

He stands up with a groan and looks at Rogue with cold eyes, “Step away from her body,” His voice sounds like iron; Rogue immediately moves back with his head lowered, looking like he was about to cry. Stormy looked at his still smoking assault rifle and my mother’s body. She had a large hole where her heart should’ve been.

“Command, this is Private First Class Stormy Skies, I request backup at my position, we have a traitor among us and...we have a leader down. I repeat… leader down.” Tears started to form in Stormy’s eyes before he stood up and looked in the direction of where the bullet had come from, the rustling sound long gone.

Within minutes, although it felt like hours with the silence surrounding us, the clouds above us parted and down came a rather large party of pegasi. In the front...was my father. Inside of his armor, he looked even more dangerous. He always chose to leave his helmet off so his mane was flowing behind him from the sheer speed of his descent, with his armor adding at least another 100 lb to his already gigantic frame. When he hit the ground the sound was similar to a blacksmith hitting an anvil, shaking the very earth itself.

Blackened Skies wasted no time in getting over to his wife, her looking like a filly in his arms. After a few moments of looking over her body and the bullet wounds, he lifts her up, looks at the discarded rifle on the ground, and then looks at Rogue, “You. We will make an example out of you, traitor,” With that, 4 guards moved around Rogue, cuffing him and starting to ascend to the clouds once more. My brother and I followed as my father looked back to me for a second, “Let this be a lesson for you boy; sometimes those closest to you will betray you, and sometimes no matter how easy the mission is... you can still lose everything.”

Chapter 2: Bars and Brawls

Chapter 2: Bars and Brawls
(Vision)

I opened my eyes to a scene I’m not used to; a bar full of ponies laughing and drinking to their heart’s content. The barkeep is keeping a watchful eye on everypony as I look over to Rogue, he seemed nervous and jittery; had been ever since we came down here.

I murmur to myself, “Huh, so this is what the wasteland is truly like; both rough and tumble, but joyful at the same time. It’s strange to think the Megaspells fell here so long ago, and yet life keeps thriving. Reminds me of life back up above the clouds; man, that feels like a distant dream now.”

I notice a new stallion, a unicorn, coming in through the door. He has a blue mane, a brown overcoat with a blue jumpsuit under it, a saddlebag, and a pipbuck, also an eyepatch over one eye. One of the stranger things I’ve seen in my time here, but not the strangest; that would be a mare pouring honey all over herself, and then running around a bunch of Bloatsprites she managed to find somewhere, and then ran through town. It was a less than pleasant experience.

The new stallion sits down and the bartender starts pouring him a drink, seems like the stallion’s a regular around here, although he looks rather stiff.

Rogue patted me on the shoulder as sound starts coming back to me, “Hey dude, you alright?” He asks with a worried look. I look back at him and gave a confirming nod, “Yeah, just got a bit focused. Sorry.”

Every so often during the talk between me and Rogue, I would look around the room, being a sniper up top meant I got rather used to getting a feel for a room and the ones inside of it; made me lose a lot less fights that way. Around the bar, I noticed most of the patrons have been giving the new guy a rather wide berth, though it seems kinda odd for so many ponies that have been roughhousing for hours now, sometimes playfully, and other times... well, one of them tried to pick a fight. The window next to us has had a rather large hole in it since. They hardly noticed when me and Rogue had walked in, which makes them giving him a wide berth rather strange considering we’re both pegasi. I assume this is from him being a regular, maybe one that was rather violent if provoked; better be cautious around this one.

I look at Rogue for a moment, “Hey, see that new guy over there? He seems like he might be top dog round here; I’m gonna go say hi,” with a concerned look, Rogue states, “You sure, dude? We have quite a lot of heat on our backs; burdening them with a fight here...might not be the best idea.”

I laugh as I stand up, bringing a bit of attention upon myself, “Ha, we’ve been through worse; a little dude like this ain’t gonna bring us down.” Rogue gives a sigh before taking a rather long drink and leaning back. Considering everyone in the bar was now looking at me, except for the new guy, Rogue was rather easily blending in “Heh, your funeral, dude.”

I give another of my signature grins over my shoulder and start walking. To the stallion’s credit, he doesn’t even look in my direction as I sit down next to him, either he’s an idiot or he has a lot on his mind. I’m going to go with both.

“Hey barkeep, give me one of whatever he got.” The barkeep looks at me and says the same thing he did when we arrived. “I only serve one drink here, bucky; applewhisky, same as my name.” I give him a slightly irritated look, second verse same as the first it would appear. “Alright then, give me some applewhisky, I guess,” I tap the new dude on the shoulder, “Can’t believe this dude only serves one kind of drink, eh, Cyclops?”

He sighs a bit, “Great, another one that calls me that? Man, that name is going to follow me forever,” He takes another swig from his bottle, and Whisky pulls out another one in front of me. Like he said, it was the same he gave everyone. I pour it into a glass and get some sip, I vaguely feel weirded out, but I ignore it.

“So what’s with the eyepatch, eh? Seems like you’ve gotten quite a rep around here,” I say to him as I finish off my glass, feeling the effects wash over me slightly; damn, that’s smooth. He looks at me particularly irritated; probably because I’m disrupting him getting him some sip. “What’s with the scar on your neck? Couldn’t pay the whore?” The pony shoots back as he begins to collect himself and stand.

I narrow my eyes, Rogue immediately standing up with his hoof on his gun, every pony in the entire bar gets quiet as all eyes are on us. The glass in my hoof cracks with how hard I am squeezing it, “What did you say?”

The stranger turns to look at me, grinning as he sees the effect that statement had, “Oh, I’m sorry, did mama not let you finish before she died?”

The air seems to grow cold for a moment, all patrons in the bar immediately dive for their weapons; Rogue has readied his towards the stranger, and the bartender just lets out a deep sigh. As I lunge forwards, intent on making this bastard’s stomach come out of his throat, the entire bar is rattled by the doors swinging open with so much force, I’m amazed they didn’t just come off.

“WHISKEY! WHERE IN CELESTIA’S GOOD GRAVE IS DITZY?” A dark green pony, who’s almost as big as my dad, walks through the open doors, wearing a mishmash of clothes and armor. The few parts of him that aren’t covered are scarred to the point that I could barely tell his coat was originally green. He looks like someone woke him up out of his grave, on the wrong side of the coffin, and then pissed in the water he calls coffee.

Whiskey puts down whatever he was holding behind the bar, and pulls out a glass, proceeding to dry it, the rest of the bar seems to relax but all eyes stay on me, Rogue, and these two strangers. “She went travelin’, ya idjit, haven’t you heard back from her?”

The new stranger seems slightly panicked, but other than that, he seemed mostly pissed, “Look, she was supposed to be back a week ago and I haven’t heard anything.”

Whiskey sighs once more, seemingly tired of this; maybe it was a regular occurrence. “Well, Tolson, if you are really that worried, you know there are some raider camps around the area; Ponyville to the east, Old Appleloosa to the South. If I remember correctly, she was heading to Ponyville; but these days, you could be dragged anywhere in a week. Been hearing tales of a lone wanderer, seems to be a thief from what we have heard. They might’ve taken her; however, considering Derpy, she probably just made a new friend.”

I see this Tolson figure giving off a visible sigh before he starts to point around the bar, he appears to be recruiting ponies. However, I think his eyesight was a bit lacking, ‘cause he kept pointing in between ponies or even at walls. One of the patrons in the bar shouts out, “Why in the seven hells of Tartarus would we go with you? We know everypony you’re around tends to die somehow; not like we would know.” Tolson takes a look around the bar, I assume he’s trying to pinpoint the stallion; he proceeds to take the door he just freshly cracked and throws what parts he could at the fellow. The hole in the window grew two sizes that day. After that, he finally managed to actually point at the pony he was referring to, which so happened to be the bastard in front of me.

“Hey, Cyclops, you can take anything we find as your reward from me, so long as we get Ditzy, I could care less what you find or who you kill.” The asshole glares at him, clearly irritated from previous events as well as current ones; probably the lack of a drink in his system. “My name is Roasted, jackass...”

“I couldn’t care less what your name is, Mister Roasted Jackass; I just care that you help me or you get out of my way. I’m sure Whiskey would prefer that hole in the wall not to grow any more.”

Roasted glares and uses his magic to pull his saddlebags onto his back, “Whatever, I’ll come with, just because it’s probably gonna be a library; I swear if even a single book gets damaged by you, I will rip off that shotgun off your back and feed it to you.”

Tolson looks at him with a goofy smile, “My friend, if you touch this here Airsupport,” he taps the gun on his back, “It’ll be so far up your rear end, you’ll be spitting out her shells for a week.”

As I’m staring at this smiling, psychopathic...guard? He looks like one at least. I feel a hoof on my shoulder as Rogue calms me down and speaks up, “As much as this bar fight would be an interesting time, to say the least, you said earlier you were looking for volunteers to find your friend?”

Tolson looks at Rogue for a second, well, I assume he is, his eyes are focused on the wall at the moment. He then speaks up with the same, rather disturbing smile, “Yup, gotta find Ms. Ditzy and her assistant; you can just call her Ma. They may be at a local raider camp to the east near a little town called Ponyville. They haven’t been back for a couple days, and although this is rather common considering Ms. Ditzy’s… habits, I suppose you could say, it’s still rather worrying cause her trips don’t usually take a week; more like 2 days, tops.”

I reach over and grab a shot of the name brand of this tavern, Whisky’s Whisky Whisky. Odd name, but for here, it seems kind of normal. As I down the drink and slam it on the bar, I look up; intending to decline Rogue’s original offer, before he pats me once more on the shoulder and whispers to me, “Vision, we are running low on supplies and have been for a while, and this could be a promising venture for us. I think we should take him up on this; who knows, we might also be able to use him to help solve our own little problem.”

I took another shot; it’s surprisingly smooth, although I may be drunk. Either way, thinking about it, Rogue is right,.This psychopath and this Roasted Jackass may be a difficult group to control, but at least we wouldn’t be sitting ducks in a barrel that’s on fire begging to be shot. Well, not the first to die in there anyways, that’s the cannon fodder’s job.

“Say we do go along with you, what’d we get out of it? I would rather not waste my life, nor my ammo, on a worthless endeavor just to find a pony. For one thing, I don’t know, or care, much about this pony. For a second thing, you said she was in a raider camp? She’s probably dead by now in that case, and I personally don’t like shooting corpses, thank you.”

This pony, who I didn’t realize was even capable of looking at me, started to walk up to me. The odd thing was his hazy, clear green eyes focused entirely on me, and me alone, and I could practically taste the amount of putrid bloodlust coming off of him. Even Whiskey seems on edge with a hoof on whatever is behind that bar. My focus returns to Tolson as he attempts to speak, clearer then he had previously, no gruffness to his voice as it rumbles through the bar. “Boy, no one would be alive if that were so. If you even think about shooting them, your head will be rolling across the ground so fast, you’ll see your own body fall.”

He punctuated those last words with a step closer to me, the glare from his eyes felt like daggers dragging themselves across my skin, and for just a second, they glanced at Rogue.

He takes a moment and sighs before stepping back “Look, you can have anything you want from that camp, considering it’s a raider camp, I imagine they have plenty of supplies. Celestia knows they have stolen plenty from here, at least, I think so. Not quite the best at seeing them do it.” He looks at a wall again for a moment then gives a goofy grin, “Now mister, uh, Chicken Wings? Are you comin’, or stayin’?”

I am not entirely sure if this dude is high, a psychopath, completely bat shit crazy, or just an asshole, I’ll just go with all of them. That being said, he sounds like a really nice person...to throw at people if they bother me. One less bullet in me, one more scar within his side; fair trade. “Ya know what, buddy, I think we’ll take you up on that offer, getting supplies would be nice, and seeing some bullets slapping you like your terrible ex marefriend, would be hilarious.”

He looks at a chair with a very confused face, “What’s a marefriend? I am friends with quite a few mares and they are all wonderful company; wait until ya meet Ma.” He looks at another chair near the bar, “Oh uh, Cyclopes… say, did you get smaller? Oh, never mind that, are you coming or are you gonna be useless while I journey with Wing 1 and Wing 2?”

Mister Roasted Jackass over here looks at Tolson for a second, probably confused on where he was looking, seems to be a common trait now. Before getting up, slamming down some Whiskey’s Whiskey Whiskey and muttering, “Again, it’s Roasted Cashew, not Cyclopes; but yes, I’ll go with you and these two, uh, chicken wings, if you’re so hellbent on finding them. What makes you so certain that they haven't been eaten yet anyways? Considering most raiders are cannibals.”

Tolson actually looks at Roasted, the chair, possibly, forgotten. “Look, they have skills the raiders wouldn’t kill them for. Namely Ma, plus raiders aren’t that stupid. They’re stupid, but they ain’t that stupid. Also the day you piss off Ma, is the day they become you, Mister Roasted Nutless; she’s one scary lady.”

Considering how much bloodlust I could feel from Tolson earlier, anyone that can scare him so much he calls them scary, I don’t think is going to die easily by just some raiders. Well, in any case, this shouldn’t be too difficult of a journey and we should be able to get back somewhat quickly, and I can get back to drowning myself in Whiskey’s Whiskey Whiskey.

Chapter 3: Where the Junk Falls

Chapter 3: Where the Junk Falls
(Vision)

As we head out from Whiskey’s Bar, the atmosphere switches from being combative, yet calm to a very eerie silence. Taking a deep breath, we approach the gates of this shithole that these ponies call New Appleloosa; I finally have a moment to see the area around us. I see the odd mix of green from the forest in the distance, the gray of the mountains to either side, and the putrid browns of the ground below us. All in all, it looks about as crappy as I imagined it would from up above; also smells like someone beat us with fish, or maybe rotting corpses?

Our new ‘friend’ Tolson has clammed up now that we are underway, which is rather odd considering how talkative he was earlier, and how aggressive he seemed with Mister Roasted Jackass over to our side. Speaking of the nutless bastard, he was also keeping silent for the most part with small unintelligible mutterings. I would have listened closer, but I don’t tend to listen to stupid; however, with Rogue’s tendency to stay quiet and observant of our surroundings, conversations were rather lacking in this group in the first place.

After hours of following the train tracks towards the raider camp that Tolson had previously talked about; whether or not it was an actual camp or a hollowed out tree, I’m not too sure about. Either way, following this blind bastard was definitely not helping the general mood. On top of this, it was starting to get dark, and I’m not thrilled to find out what kind of monsters are lurking in the darkness. Considering we’ve got a blind pony, a half blind nutless idiot, and Rogue on our team, I don’t fancy our chances of fighting whatever’s out there. Especially without shelter.

As the last rays of sunlight set over the mountains on the horizon, Rogue drops down next to the group, stretching his wings from his earlier scouting. He finally breaks the silence while looking over all of us, “Hey guys, we should probably set up camp; I’d rather not cross this bridge in the dark. Unless you all want to burn it to light our way?”

I give a soft chuckle at this, and notice Roasted flinching slightly at the wording; weird, but alright. I look over at Tolson, who is still walking and was about to hit the bridge, “Hey, Asshat, you sure you wanna cross that at night?”

He stops for a moment, looks over his shoulder and gives a goofy grin, saying, “It’s night? Eh, whatever.” He steps to the side of the bridge and leans against some of the rock, likely waiting for the rest of us to either walk across or sit down.

I was about to make a comment on his, uh, strange tone, but before I could Rogue gives a shout, “Hey guys, we got a problem.”

I snap around as Roasted turns with me, his horn glowing a fiery red; huh, wonder where that came from. We look past Rogue as we see a large shadow move behind a much larger rock; however, the Jackass’ flaming fiddlestick causes the random rocks and debris around him to cast shadows that dance across the surrounding boulders, which makes it hard to focus on just one. Could be a trick of the eyes, but Rogue doesn’t miss much. “What’s up Rogue? Some shadows spookin ya?”

Rogue leans closer to me, his rifle trained on the rock; it’s hard to see in the darkness, but there is definitely something there. I lift my sniper and look through the scope as Rogue whispers, “I saw something move over there, we’re near that raider outpost, so it might be a scout. There could be something worse in these wastelands though; we don’t see as much above as they do down here.”

As the darkness envelops my scope, I follow the trail of light from Roasted’s horn. The light keeps flickering back and forth; it’s starting to irritate me. Roasted pipes up, “We are close to hellhound territory guys; although, if it was one of them, I doubt we would still be talking right now.”

I shrug for a moment, my reticle never wavering from the rock as I motion Rogue to move closer to the bridge; I’d prefer a quicker route out, but that will do if something really is a danger here. Before Rogue could even take a step, a gigantic figure steps out from behind the rock; easily the second biggest pony I’ve ever seen. As this figure approaches, it starts flailing as if it’s charging, “Incoming! Get across the bridge!” I shout as I immediately holster my sniper and slam into Roasted, getting him moving.

As we step onto the bridge proper, Tolson finally notices everyone moving; at least I think he did, since his eyes were completely focused on me. The next thing I felt was falling off the bridge underneath Tolson’s front legs with Roasted pressed to his other side; Rogue quickly changed direction and started freefalling next to us. I assume Tolson was saying something to Rogue, but being squished against Tolson’s chest and seeing the creature above us looking… worried? Either way, that made paying attention to them rather difficult considering with the ground coming up very quickly upon us, and my wings are bound.

Before we hit the ground and went splat in a pancake-esque fashion, Rogue grabbed Tolson and slowed our descent; although the landing didn’t kill us, it still hurt like a son of a bitch. Groaning, I stand up and look at Tolson; my eyes widen as I see him currently being held above the ground by a thick metal rod going through his right foreleg and out through his hoof, “Tolson, are you alright?” I mutter as I start checking his leg to see if it can pull it out safely, or if it is beyond saving.

Roasted, to our side, gags a bit as this crazy bastard begins to try shimmying his way off the pole. Without as much as a flinch, a curse, or even a groan, he rips his hoof off the pole with a look of calm annoyance. His hoof starts bleeding profusely as he rips it out, and he quickly wraps it up to heal. I wonder how many times this has happened to him given his lack of emotion or self care.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, we hear a new voice from up above us, “WOW, I was not expecting you guys to just jump off the bridge like that!” Then there is a thunderous kaboom as the hulking shadow lands and we see a mammoth of a pony staring at us, with what I can only describe as a childlike smile. It’s honestly quite disturbing, considering his size.

“That gives me a new idea though, I can make, like, a slide that goes from up there to down here! I can’t believe I never thought of this before.” The behemoth starts rambling to himself, listing idea after idea and pointing all around this… uh., well now that I got a good look at it, I notice the area is actually rather bright; candles of all shapes and sizes have been thrown every which way, and there is even a sign. It’s not a good sign, but it’s a sign.

“Junker’s Junkyard Fortress, Where it All Falls don!” I read aloud, shocked that he managed to spell this stuff correctly. Aside from the ‘down’ part; I think the junk that was holding that up got…. squished? Most of that sign had gotten hit with more junk then we have. Looking closer, I realize the W that was misplaced was actually the pole that ran through Tolson’s hoof.

The monster of a pony pipes up again, “So what brings you guys out this way? I don’t get a lot of travelers...well aside from Martha.” He grows a giant grin and pulls out, a, uh… giant ball of metal. It appears to have the word “Martha” taped onto it, superglued, and welded onto the ball. After looking at our confused faces, he spins it around to show off what is quite possibly the most horrifying impersonation of a mare’s face that I have ever seen. Which is saying something.

I was about to ask what he meant, before he lifts up this… Martha, and says in a rather high pitched voice, “So, Junker, who are your new friends? I really like the look of the white one. I just love a pony in uniform. Wink, wink,” He appears to mutter the word ‘wink’ rather than actually saying it; I honestly don’t know which would have been worse.

“Oh, they are probably some kind of angels, they fell out of the sky after all; although one may be a devil, considering he got rammed.” He gives Tolson an odd look, for a moment. Then, he throws Martha over one of the walls and acts like nothing happened. Roasted steps forwards, either trying to process this, or trying to bleach it out of his brain. Hopefully with the fire coming out of his horn; although he may want to remove it from his ass first. “Well, good pony, we are attempting to get to the raider camp just west of us. I must ask, however, what are you doing down here? And what, pray tell, are those contraptions that are laying on the table?”

Roasted points towards one of the tables closer to the entrance to this Clown House, and on top of it are a variety of random pieces of… junk. Ah, fitting. Most of them don't look like much; one of them looked like he took two rockets and shoved them together. At this point, Tolson began to look at the rockets and pull out a notebook, which he began to sketch in. I wasn’t aware a blind idjit could even read or write, but apparently his hooves work like his brain; dented.

Another one on the table kind of looks like a train car that was violently torn apart and then possibly put back together, and seemingly forgotten about halfway through fixing. The giant clown of a pony beams before running into his fun house, causing most of the walls and fences to shake and shiver. He must weigh more than my dad, which makes sense, considering he’s an earth pony and seems to be wearing power armor as if they were normal clothes..

“Oh boy, I forgot about these when I went to go follow all of y’all, see I ‘found’ this new rocket; twice the power, twice the boom!” He holds up the rocket I noticed earlier, and he throws it. It doesn’t actually go very far considering the engine was off, and it hits the ground with a thud. Tolson then mutters, “Well, that was anticlimactic.” The big guy’s smile frowns a bit, “It’s uh… still in progress.” Then he downs some pills and his smile returns.

I frown a bit, having a drug addict following us does not typically spell anything other than disaster. Better to get out of here as fast as possible than stick around with him; for all we know, he could hug us and break us. “Oh, I also have my latest creation! I call it “The Wazer Wifle!” All of a sudden, it fires off a deep red laser that very nearly fries my tail off. “Sorry about that, its got a hair trigger.”

I was outraged by this massive idiot of a clown here, and was about to shove my hoof so far down his throat, it’d meet his over sized asshole. Unfortunately, just as I’m about to rip into him, Roasted pipes up, “How the hell did you figure out laser technology!? I’ve been working on that for months now, and I don’t even have a working prototype!” I stop halfway to this hulking monstrosity, and just stare at Roasted. So old nutless here is an egghead? Just my luck, I remember back at the academy beating the shit out on guys like that. If you want to go to war you need more than just brains.

“I found this pretty looking crystal that bends light in an odd way, so I just thought it would be cool if I could somehow focus it.” Lasers are cool and all, but a bullet will work anyday. Roasted, on the other hoof, has his jaw slamming into the floor. In the corner of my eye, I can see that Tolson fucker looking at the rocket; he pokes it a little and then picks it up.

“You do know it’s not turned on, right?” Tolson asks the psycho pony. Considering how he’s fiddling with it, he must know his way around some explosives. Either that, or he’s as stupid as he is blind. Junker look confused by this as he walks over and looks at it.

“Hmm…well, I don’t really understand things that go boom all that well; I like things that go ‘pew pew!’, but mostly things that smash other things HARD. You can have it if you want; I have like, 10 of them. I like to get up close when I fight anyway.” Those could come in handy if we needed to blow a hole in a wall or blow someone up; however, while it’s nice to know that he isn’t going to kill us and all, I think it’s time that we moved on now.

“Look, Junker is it? It’s been fun and all, but we need to get going now. Got a raider camp to… raid.” As I shake my head at how bad my joke was, I turned to walk away as Tolson shoved one of the rockets into his bag with a grin. I hear Junker next to him make one of the worst noises ever…a loud squeak-like squeal. He jumps up and down all happy about something, what that is though is beyond me.

“You guys are looking to get to the camp? I can take you there! I know a shortcut…uh, probably short, maybe, hopefully, possibly...not really. Made it myself though; follow me!” He runs off deeper into the junkyard; I look to Rogue on his opinion as to if we should follow, and he gives me a shrug for the most part. Thanks a lot, Rogue; that was so helpful. I hear Junker’s voice echoing as he calls back, “I get to show ponies my awesome hole! Don’t worry, you guys can all fit!”

With a sigh, I start walking in his direction, the other ponies following behind. Tolson appears to be picking up, well, everything he can hold, really. We follow Junker’s voice to a wall of scrap metal; with the push of a button, an engine roars to life and it’s moved to the side to reveal a tunnel leading down into the ground. Junker stands up on his hind legs and ‘presents’ it to us with a big smile over his shoulder. It’s still just as creepy as it was before. “I love my hole, it’s one of my greatest achievements, well, aside from my massive ‘sword’ anyways!”

The group looks at him in minor confusion, some horror, and I think Tolson is staring at a tree, as Junker goes back onto all four legs, and runs into…his house? I think you could call it that. He comes back out with what I can only describe as a massive hunk of metal that looks like he ripped it off a bank wall, and then beat it with a rock into the shape of a sword.

“Uh, that’s…a sword? I’ve seen many swords and that doesn’t really look like one,” I muttered as I look back at the hole in the wall “So, this is the way to the outpost? Because it looks like a giant death trap to me.” I poke a part of the wall, and parts of the ceiling fall with a loud clang.

“If by outpost, you mean the camp, then sure! Also, Betty is as safe as a newborn Hellhound,” He grins at me before swinging his massive sword at the hole, burying it in the wall, and somehow not causing the entire thing to crash on us. Huh, I guess it is safe, technically.

Welp, we’re not going anywhere by standing here, well, unless we starve, “Alright group, and… new friend? Time to-” Junker interrupts me by slamming his entire body uncomfortably close and staring me right in the eyes, “Did you just say friend? We’re friends!? Yay!”

I blink as I attempt to regain some kind of composure. Tolson then lifts Junker away from me; I’m surprised he can even move Junker at this point with his hoof injured. Somehow, this is still not the weirdest day of my life. Junker pipes up with a look of sadness, “My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.” He then slams down some more pills before practically hopping towards his massive gaping hole with a grin. “Welp, no matter, off we go to fortune, glory, and candy! Whatever that tastes like!”

I groan as the group starts walking into this hellhole, which is somehow worse than the hellhole outside. Today is going to be a very long day.

Chapter 4: Fantastically Fictional Fun

Chapter 4: Fantastically Fictional Fun
(Tolson)

I sigh as the group starts walking down the Big Guy’s shortcut, listening to him talk about something called a Hellhound and his ability to tame one can only interest a pony for so long. On the plus side, it’s better than Ol’ White monologuing about his crappy life for the 20th time today. On the other hoof, Soldier Boy and Cyclops are doing their best to keep quiet and move on; if I didn’t dislike this group so much, I would like it.

We finally reach the end of the tunnel after a few long, grueling hours of feeling like these two are stabbing me violently with Cyclops’ horn. Once we reach the exit of the Tunnel of Hell, Big Guy pushes a large rock out of the way and we finally see the town of Hope.

I watch as Ol’ White stretches out his wings, each feather seeming to pop away from the other; some of them look cut, some look like there are patches missing, and other spots are just scar tissue. After a few moments, he takes to the skies once more looking over the town. “Hey, guys, I think I see a few camps set up in there. Around the center of town, there are quite a few ponies, and also some cages.”

I look up at Ol’ White ‘n Ugly as I pull out my saddlebags. “How many future corpses are out there?” I yell up as I count my shells. Only 12? Dang, I should have bought more when I was in town; oh well, Airsupport shall do what she can.

Ol’ White looked down at me with a grin, “There are 24 that I can count at the moment; however, there are likely more in that broken down building in the middle of town. Why? You going to try to kill more than me?”

I look up at him with a slanted grin, “I need to try? I don’t have to over compensate, that’s your job.”

Big Guy leans forwards over my shoulder, practically his entire upper body towering over me.“I only see two guys right now, they seem to be guarding that big door over there!”

I lean forwards and squint my eyes, “Where? All I see are two fuzzy things.”

As I say that, the Big Guy gives off a laugh, starts walking forwards and raises his hoof upwards as he starts to get more and more blurry. After a certain point, there’s not a lot I can see of him… although, I do hear the telltale sound of his hoof meeting his face with a loud thunk as he groans out “Oh right, hooves...”

I give off a sigh before grabbing my saddlebags and Airsupport, “Ah, what a great day to die... probably.” I start clicking my tongue as I walk forwards. The rest of the group mostly looks confused at the situation as the Big Guy gets hit with the butt of the left one’s shotgun. The cracking of bones could be heard even at this distance, and the shotgun sounded like it had a wooden stock; good, means it’s easy to break. The one on the right starts to yell that they are gonna eat good tonight for bringing in the dumb giant.

As I keep walking forwards, I hear the distinct sound of a laser rifle go off behind me. I turn around and strain my eyes to see what it was, as I doubt these idjits are capable of not shooting me in the back. Because of this, the burning sensation I get every time I focus my eyes starts to flare up once more, and I see Cyclops fire his gun into the air for no apparent reason; I’m not entirely sure where the blast was aiming either.

“Why!? There was no point in doing that, you just wasted your charge, you one eyed freak!” As I say that, I hear the guy to the right of Big Guy screaming as he falls to the ground and starts to disintegrate. Huh, I could have sworn that the laser shot penetrated his skull and hit his brain first; how did he get that scream off?

Another loud crack is heard as the guy on the left hits Big Guy again, this time a lot more angry at the loss of his friend. “Damnit! Willhelm, my gay lover! Why did you have to die?! I, Big Johnson, will avenge you!!!”

I pause for a second, looking at this scene as I click again. I don’t really understand what they are saying. As I look back, the rest of the group reached me now., they all look confused, or concerned in Rogue’s case. Oh good, I'm not the only one... oh wait, I'm not the only one. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Eh, I’ll ask Ma later what that is.

With another crack from the barrel of... Johnson’s, shotgun, I decided I might as well help Big Guy and I begin to repeat to myself, “Ignore the blood. Focus on the friendly face. Mercy before murder, mercy before murder” and before I knew it, I was covered in the blood of Big Johnson. “Well… crap,” I mutter as I sit down next to Big Guy. I sigh as I grab Airsupport looking at the corpse of Big Johnson. Now I’m down 2 shells..

“Where did Big Johnson go? He seemed nice…” Big Guy looks at me with a slightly confused face as Ol’ White n Ugly pipes up from behind me, “Damn, two down and I haven’t even gotten off a single shot yet.”

Soldier Boy gives off a sigh as he approaches the entrance to the camp, “If we are going to save your friends, we better move quickly. Considering how loud your gun is, I’m sure we’ll have plenty of company for you two to measure your dicks with.”

I look up at Soldier Boy as I’m eating my pancakes and looting the bodies, I managed to find 6 shells on them. “ Really? That’s it? Darn cheapskates.” I muttered under my breath as I noticed everyone looking at me. “What?”

Big Guy stares at me and starts drooling on the ground. “PwaanCakes!!!!”

I look concerned as I wrap my hooves around my meal. “No. Mine.” The rest of them were looking at us, dumbfounded at our conversation, I think they saw two sea eagles; at least, I think that’s what Miss Ditzy called them. Shrugging to myself, I stand up and shove the rest of my food into my bag as we began to enter the encampment.

The smells in the area are heavy of blood, excrement, and desperation; it reminds me of home. As we pass the gates and move around the side of a building, we see across us, are two more buildings; one covered in blood and guts, with several skulls and other body parts lining the walls. The other building has a large, neon flashing sign labeled “Gay Lovers Club” and occasionally it would spark at random moments. Around us, we see several dozen ponies all armed to the teeth and on high alert.

Soldier Boy stops us with a hoof raised and speaks as Ol’ White drops to the ground. “Alright guys, there are a lot more ponies then we are likely going to be able to take out easily. Vision, you should get to the top of the building and start to give us cover, I’ll provide flanking, Roasted can provide healing and general support. Junker, we can use you as a decoy. And Tolson... try to be stealthy, if you can. I imagine you have the most skills in terms of quick kills..”

I look at Soldier Boy and cock my head to the side. “...Try to be what now?”

He gives me an odd look for a second as Big Guy next to me starts to practically vibrate “Have you… never done stealth before? Ever?”

I sigh and look at him “I’m a guard, not a backstabbing lowlife information-gathering pig,” I pull Airsupport off my back once more, “How about we walk in, start shooting, and once we run out of bullets, we’ll use Big Guy’s skull; should be dense enough.”

As I step forwards, I hear Big Guy behind me start to punch the ground as he starts to say, “Guys, I can be stealthy! I dig real good!” True to his word, he digs real good, and makes a tunnel downwards. I’m not entirely sure how he does so with his hooves; on the other hoof, he doesn’t seem to have everything there in the first place so this isn’t too odd. I look at the rest of the group, none of which seem content to dive down the hole as well, so I shrug and jump down.

It’s....dark. Not that it matters anyway, I can hear that Big Guy is just up ahead and I’d rather not see his defined rumpus.

So there I was, following an oversized carebear in a hole underneath a bunch of ponies, whose medical disadvantages they would have after their timely demise I should’ve been learning about. Instead, I was listening to… whatever Big Guy was doing to the earth. He shouts slightly as he thumps against something. From the sounds of it, he hit the base of a building,

Ah, smart plan; go down under the earth and pop up in the middle of that building we saw earlier with the body parts. Shockingly, Big Guy decided to actually have a good plan; clearly, that is their base of operations, and the best place to strike. Color me impressed... until I wasn’t. We popped up in the middle of what he called, a gay circle, I think; they were crying and hugging each other. I was confused to say the least when we got out of the circle and the first thing that escaped my mouth was; well I’m not proud of what I said... I could have done better. “Well, look at this ogle of queers!”

Big Guy looks at me and puts his hoof on my shoulder. “This, my bruda, is not...whatever that word you just said was. This... is gay.” I saw him wave his other hoof in the air like something was there or he just didn’t care.

Needless to say, I am even more confused than I was before. “What does that even mean? Clearly this is queer; look at that guy over there!” I point to two ponies in chairs, curled up against each other, like they were going 2 feet deep and 5 feet down.

“They are clearly just REALLY good friends that are helping themselves feel better about this horrible life.” One of the ponies in the circle pipes up at this, “Uh, actually, we’re uh... The Gay Lovers club.” As soon as this poor defenseless fool stopped talking, I just looked at Big Guy and took a breath, realizing I hadn't been breathing this entire time. As I smelled more blood and semen, I realized why. I then shook my head for a moment, stopped joking around for a second, and took a closer look around us.

The reality of everything comes to the forefront. This was not a ‘happy’ place. Around us was trails of blood, bodies hung around the room, and a massive trail of blood leading into a room with a closed door. In one corner, I could see a poor mare being beaten as she was hung upside down, and a poor mare in the back who was nothing but holes and… Well, you get the picture; poor thing was still alive, too.

After a few moments, Big Guy soon seemed to realize that we weren't in a moment where we needed to be joking anymore; we begin to do the world a favor and kill these sick freaks. However, just as I pulled out a molotov and was about to throw it, I paused and walked over to the hanging mare. The rest of the ponies surrounding us started scrambling around, trying to grab their weapons as the Big Guy started beating the weapons away from the raiders. I put the molotov down next to her and looked at her; I could see the broken soul in her eyes, and gently put my hoof on her head before turning around and grabbing the flaming bottle. I saw no tears as I stood back up; she seemed oddly ok with this end.

“Mercy before mur… isn’t it time for you to go home, my dear child?” I hear the words ring in my head before I start to click rapidly; almost like an engine beginning to start. The front door swings open as Soldier Boy and Cyclops walk in; they look fairly okay, no major wounds on them, but their guns smoking and their coats are covered in blood. From the outside, I can hear Ol’ White providing cover, but the heavy sounds and smells of those dropping like flies outside make me realize I got some catching up to do to Ol’ White for his murder game.

No... This is no game; this is life.

Chapter 5: Click

Chapter 5: Click
(Tolson)

As I’m clicking, the sound echoes through the room and reverberates in my head; a scene starts to play out before me. Something big is trampling everything under it; wood, ponies, guns... although it seems to be doing it by accident.

The smell of smoke starts to fill the room; I can sense those around me starting to panic even more. I can feel the skin around my face start to wrinkle as I start counting my shells, 16 in total. Would that be enough for the town?

As I’m counting, I can feel something bump up against me; it was shorter than me and too close to use my shotgun effectively, so instead, my left arm reacted to it and I heard the crack of its skull fracturing in multiple pieces from the butt of my shotgun hitting it.

It seemed that it was still standing, my teeth grinded together in irritation. My Magnum, Sasha, had 6 shots left; the body hit the floor as the first shot rang out. 5 shots left in her cylinder,

“5.”

As the clicking continues, I can see another body at my 12 o’clock, another at my 4 and 7. I could link both 12 and 4 o’clock together, but 7 will be harder unless I get enough momentum to spin. Around 20% is all that should be needed.

Within moments, I can feel the recoil from Sasha blasting out; the first bullet rang out true. The shot left my jaw cracking as it slams into the pony’s eyes. Blood and gore exploded out of the ponies and onto my coat and the surrounding area as the bullet leaves 12’s head and enters 4’s throat,

“4.”

Unfortunately, 7 managed to catch up to me as I turned and I feel a sharp pain enter my side. The 6 inch knife 7 held in his mouth digging just under my rib. The knife slowed down the spin. Darn; now 30% will be needed.

As I continue my spin, forcing more power into it, I can feel his neck popping against my hoof as I slam it into the hard concrete floor. Blood must have erupted from the pony, since I feel hot liquid slamming onto my body. My side is burning, and my face feels cold as I rip the knife out.

A pony flies over my head, and I hear a squelching sound as the pony seems to stick on the wall, blood dripping onto the ground as I hear a rapid fire of 16 shots. An assault rifle? Or perhaps a fast trigger hoof?

The shots ring out from my 3 o’clock, my clicking accelerates as I sense a unicorn and a pegasus about 15 feet away from me working together as the giant starts swinging something big and heavy around, the wind from it bashing against me.

The smell of smoke starts to become overbearing, the ponies around me coughing as I crouch down further. More shots ring out as the other ponies start to clear the stragglers; the unicorn cutting through several of them with his katana. I scream out “Wall!” to the giant pony; he halters for a moment, before he starts to run headfirst towards the wall, the sheer force of his shoulder bash causes the wall to crumble under him. The splat sound makes me think there was a pony in the way.

Running after the mammoth of a pony, I can hear him crash through another wall, breaking it down as the new building shakes around us; pony after pony gets crushed under the titan of a creature, as he seems to be attempting to stop, but his momentum swings him through tables and chairs. The sheer force of him hitting the wall causes body parts, guts, and ponies to careen through the air.

I pull out Airsupport and fire 2 shots into the room. “15, 14,” The blood splatters and the screams verify that the bullets hit, as my hoof crashes into yet another pony. As I start to bludgeon the pony with my hooves, I can feel the blood seeping into my fur and coating my armor. Clicking once more, the room flares out before me. The titan of a pony finally manages to find a way to stop moving; the raiders around him try to hit him, but all their attacks don't even seem to faze the mountain of a creature, even as their bullets pierce his skin.

Standing up, I grab the bloody mess under me, and chuck it against another pony charging towards me, smashing them both into a wall. As I rush towards the big guy I start obliterating the ponies surrounding him, over the snapping of bones, I can hear outside sniper bullets raining down upon the town, fire exploding inside of the nearby buildings, and an assault rifle blasting through everything else. Today is a good day to die.

I put my hoof on the unicorn's neck under me, using my other hoof to rip off its horn before spinning around and using that momentum to throw it through several ponies, their insides quickly escaping them and spraying their blood all over the room. I take a deep breath, the smell of smoke combines with the smell of blood, guts, urine, and a million other mixtures created in this room, it sickens me.

I suddenly hear the wall next to us, seems to be one of the only untouched portions of this building, getting slammed into; I think the hulking mammoth is getting carried away with all the destruction around us.

Grabbing one of the ponies in my hooves, I throw him through the newest addition of a doorway in the wall, slamming him directly into the backside of the big guy, he doesn’t seem to notice as his backhoof drives through the pony’s skull.

Clicking rapidly I walk through the new door and start mapping out the surrounding area; it’s very fuzzy, so I open up my eyes once more, hearing and smelling the sounds of death surrounding us. The sting of my eyes practically burning a hole in my head, as I see most of the town on fire. The fire itself does not seem to do very much structural damage, but it is doing wonders for funneling them out of the buildings.

The white pegasus is flying through the sky, shooting the unicorns tossing spells at him, and providing support for the ground troops. Occasionally, he takes a pot shot at some earth ponies who try jumping at him, before they’re sent barreling into the ground from a bullet to the dome with a resounding thud. One such pony rolls next to me, a massive gaping hole in its temple with a trail of blood flooding the ground behind it.

Scanning around the area, I see a bar and I run towards it. I slam my shoulder into the doors and immediately firing Airsupport into the first pony, whose head pops out into range. ”13 shots left now,” The unicorn that’s traveling with me decided to follow, and disintegrated three ponies behind me. I run towards the stairs as I click rapidly, almost seeing him slice through another pony's throat with his horn showering him in blood.

A moment later, I register the existence of another pony behind the bar before I feel two rounds slam into my chestplate; unfortunately, these appear to be armor piercing rifle bullets so my armor does very little. Thankfully only one bullet grazed my chest from the frantic shooting of the pony ahead of me. Feeling the bullet pierce through my lungs; I start to vomit in my mouth as my right hoof slams into the pony’s chest frame, crushing through his ribs and pulverising his internal organs.

I fire three more shots at the ponies inside. “12, 11, 10,” I look behind me and see smoke rising off my back from a laser rifle burn as the unicorn ducks out of the building. The brown pegasus seems to have bitten off more than he can chew as the unicorn rushes to support him.

Ignoring the smell coming off my back, I start to run up the stairs, letting dynamite trail behind me. As I reach the top of the stairs, I dig into my bag and pull out a grenade, jumping out of the second floor window as several ponies shoot where I was. I throw the grenade through the window and crash-land onto the roof of the nearby building, slamming my back into it. The shockwave of the explosion slams into me like a ton of bricks, before the boom and the flash of the explosion shines through my closed eyes like a blazing sun.

The shrapnel from the broken building flies past me; tiles, concrete, chairs, wood... a kitchen sink; you name it, and it probably flew past my head or into my sides. From the looks of it, and how it feels, my left front hoof is certainly dislocated and likely broken from the large piece of shrapnel embedded inside of it.

I sit up after the initial explosion, a bullet falling out of my armor as I grab the shrapnel in my hoof and rip it out. Covered in blood, and my eyes on fire, I start counting my ammo as everyone around me is either screaming, crying, laughing, or dead. 4 shots in Sasha and 10 shots in Airsupport, 1 in the tubular and 1 in the chamber. “Better reload soon,” I muttered as I grab a few shells and shove them in; only 2 shells slide in before 6 more bullets whizzed by my head, one bullet slicing through my ear as blood drips down my face; the pegasus needed to work on covering his allies more.

Plopping the rest of the shells in my bag, I jump off the side of the roof and hit the ground as another pony tries to jump on my back. A moment before he can slam the blade he’s holding into my throat, his entire head explodes into a bloody mist from the pegasus’ rifle. He yells something snarky at me as he lands next to me with a loud thud, but I can’t make out any words.

The grin on his face turns to mild concern for a moment, as I start to turn to look behind me, only to get a 2x4 plank of wood snapped in half over my back; the half not being held flips over my head before my back leg slams into his windpipe. I flip over onto my back, and fire another shot from Airsupport into his chest frame, viscous blood spraying all over my coat and his buddy next to him, “9.”

His friend, maybe gay lover, did not take this well and began to mount me. His armored steel hoof guards pounding my face into the ground as the twisted metal starts digging into my flesh. The darker pegasus runs over to me as my eye starts to swell, blood tinting my vision red before a gun was shoved down the pony’s throat and quickly turned the pony into Swiss cheese.

I pushed off the now rather floppy body off of me as I stand up; the brown pegasus seemed to find this situation rather entertaining, as he grinned before nodding at me and flying back towards his companion. The town seems so much quieter with so many mutilated corpses scattered about the area; the ground itself seems to be soaking in the blood.

Ducking into the next building, I feel a large shot of pain as a pony with a broken forearm jumps at me. He slams his broken bones into my shoulder, ripping through my skin as I bring Airsupport up to his throat.

I shot into his chest frame, “8,” firing another shot into his throat, “7,” and finally a third time into his face, “6.” His blood, bones, brains, and organs splatter the ground and the wall behind him. Leaning down, I search his bloody body but he does not have any shells on him. Great; now I’m down 3 bullets.

Standing up from the bloody corpse, I look around the building as I start reloading Airsupport. The room itself seems to be a makeshift slaughterhouse. The burning in my eyes begins to intensify before I close them, letting them rest after the explosion from earlier as I start to click once more. The echo starts to map out the room as I walk around; it’s eerily quiet with the walls being thick enough to block out most of the gunfire from outside.

Around me are several tables, a few of them practically dripping blood as I brush my hoof along them; I feel several weapons and tools ranging from a scalpel, bonesaw, hammer, nails, and a few other things that even I didn’t recognize.

Suddenly my ear twitches as I hear a soft whimper from one of the corners of the room, halting my breath as I make a single loud click. Towards the source of the noise are a bunch of boxes in the corner, stacked up almost to the ceiling, next to a few cages. A small form appears to be surrounded by the boxes, pressed as far back against the wall as it can. Crouching my body almost to the ground, I cock Airsupport as I start slowly walking towards the form.

I feel several boxes slam into my body, one bashing into my shoulder, another hitting my side, and the last slams into my face. I can feel the blood dripping down my cheek as the boxes shatter. I slam my hoof through the boxes next to this small creature, blocking her way past me as I click once more.

The click mapped out the small unicorn in detail; it was about half my height, looked to be a lot cleaner than the rest of the raiders we’ve been fighting recently, and was shivering in fear holding what appeared to be a syringe in its mouth. I raise my hoof, intent on putting the unicorn out of its misery; however, as I try to force my hoof down it appears to get stuck in midair, and I can no longer move my body.

“Why am I not killing it?” I shout in my head, struggling to push my hoof down as my entire forearm strains against me; veins pulsing in it, as I open my eyes and stare at this creature, questioning what I see. In my head I see Him, the clean uncut unhurt creature, his iris and pupil non-existent, green slowly bleeding into the outer edges of the sclera, closer to the edge of the socket glowing. This… reflection, stares at me.”What does she look like to you?” he says coldly.

“A filly?” I murmur, “Not quite... Look again.” he laughs, I take a closer look at her, sharpening my eyes. She slowly looks up at me; probably terrifying the unicorn more, as she backs up further against the wall.

“She's not a filly; her eyes have seen too much, but how is she so small, then?” I begin to get more frustrated, “Reminds you of her, don’t it?” he screams the words at me, slamming his head into the glass, the cold chill runs down my spine as the words bring me out of my stupor.
“You’re more than you used to be, boy,” the voice was cold, yet warmly familiar, and I feel two hooves place themselves on my shoulders giving me my senses back.

The pain coursing through my body snaps me back into reality, as all my nerves starts to wake up, screaming at me to end it once again. My eyes feel like they are on fire and the feeling blazes throughout my brain, starting to make my head pound. I’ve broken multiple bones, fractured a few ribs, my left shoulder was dislocated and my left back hoof was at an odd angle.

My head twitches as I feel the hooves on my shoulders slap against them as the words ring out, “Why can't I kill her?!” I’m back in the room again, staring at the reflection.

He... It... That thing is slamming into the glass. Scars cover his face; the one on his throat seems to form a smile, the choker around his neck has a lock with the key broken inside of it, and those hurt, tiny pupils make his eyes seem intense and focused.

I rub my nose as I watch, blood leaking onto my hoof, “This place hurts,” I muttered as I glance around the room; the glass on my side is broken, and I hear him screaming, “Let me kill her! Let me kill her!” As he bashes his skull, time and time again into the mirror on his side; I see tears streaming down his face.

I looked at him, unable to move or talk, blood continuing to drip onto the broken glass littering the floor. A moment later, I feel another hoof hitting me; this time outside of the room. Opening my eyes once more, I see the terrified filly under me, before she smashed a hoof into my face; considering how much blood is dripping on her, it would appear she broke my nose earlier. She is nothing but scared.

Staring at her and seeing the blood drip onto her coat, the rage starts to boil inside of me. I raise my hoof up, intent on bringing it down upon her face; this time, my body didn’t refuse to. However, before I could force it down, I feel a large metal pole connect with the back of my neck; right between it and the base of my skull, throwing me into the darkness.

Once again, it was cold... and I was alone.

Chapter 6: Dreaming Melody

Chapter 6: Dreaming Melody
(Tolson)

Sitting in the darkness, I start to click; oddly enough, the darkness remains. So I instead opened my eyes; looking around, as the darkness slowly bleeds into stars, shining in the distance as I heard a voice behind me saying, “Well, bout time you got here.”

Turning around, I see Him once again. The mirror from before was gone and it was just Us... or I? Us? Eh, I’ll just use We for now. WE, are out cold harder then after Whiskey handed us a bottle of milk; turns out a 100 year old bottle of milk knocks you out harder then a boot to the head... Who knew?

“You ain’t gonna try and kill me?” I asked as I tilted my head, looking at Him quizzically.

“What’s the point? We’re out cold; it serves no real purpose if I kill you... won’t help me get out of here.” He always seemed angry for some reason; though his neck scar, the smiling one, was pulsating like he was holding himself back.

“Well… at least we have each oth- Ya know, who am I kidding? The only thing we ever do is fight,” I say as I give off a short bark of laughter, trying to be snarky. He doesn’t smile.

He opens up his mouth; I assume to say something, although he could just be trying to bite me. Before he can, however, the void around us starts to close in, shutting him up before words could escape his sharp toothed maw. A vision; no, a memory starts to play, blinding me for a short moment before my eyesight returns and we could walk around the memory. The memory itself appeared to be almost like a hologram; like we were watching the memory from a third person perspective, and nothing could see us. Scarface didn’t seem to want to comment on any of this.

“Howdy stranger, now before you go getting all huffy on me, care to tell me whatcha doin’ here?” A mare said to me, pointing a 6 shooter rifle down my face. The entire rifle was practically the length of my torso as the mare grins down at me. My body at the time was on the ground, I had been dragging myself through the mud and who knows what else for a week now with any gear in tow that I had scavenged. I couldn’t even speak back then, the wound on our neck was still somewhat fresh, and raw.

Looking at her past the barrel, I decided to open my jaw and clamp down on the barrel of the gun. Sadly, I was lacking any strength to even really dent the stupid thing, I think my jaw just popped as well... I wonder how many bones were broken in it.

“Huh, well ya ain’t a raider, that’s for sure; but yer also not very smart. You seem hungry, and tired. Get up.” She steps backwards and lifts the gun up with surprising strength, practically pulling me to my hooves; none of which support my weight so she’s practically just carrying me at the end of the gun as I hold onto it, determined to at least bend it. As she walked into town, I think we got a lot of weird looks; this mare had her gun pressed into her shoulder with my jaw locked on the other end making grunting noises as she hummed a cheerful tune, almost like she just bagged dinner.

I look up as I am bouncing on this gun, the bones in my jaw creaking from the effort of holding onto it as she stops for a moment, and then slams her hoof into the door of this… building? Before taking a deep breath, smiling, muttering under her breath something, and then screaming out “WHISKEY” as she bashes the door open. The brown pony I learned later was named Apple Whiskey turned around, “What in the blue hell is that thing Sarabelle!” The mare holding the gun smiles at him; at least I assume she does, it’s hard to tell when all I can see is her back and all. “It’s my new catch of the day, kinda like a lost radscorpion. ‘Imma name him George, can I keep’m?”

Whiskey gave her a flat look before I grunted, bouncing against the end of the rifle, Serabelle looked up at me with a laugh. “Oh, you’re alive! So, not a George, eh? Well, we’ll find a name for ya, don’t ya worry; for now though, we’ll get you something better to chew on than my gun. Like some... hrm...”

She looks around the room for a minute, Whiskey raising his eyebrow before she gets a massive grin on her face as she slams me down onto one of the stools, my teeth clamped around her gun as she has Whiskey hold it. She then runs off into the backroom, the sounds of boxes being thrown around and crashing noises fill the air as Whiskey sighs, keeping the gun up as my legs more or less crumple on the stool. After a few minutes, she comes running back towards me with a box that she proceeds to slam onto the table hard enough to shake it before proclaiming loudly, “Found it! Pancakes, the food of the champions!”

I looked at her with my eyebrow raised, even while chomping on the gun the taste of blood and the radioactive tang in my mouth left much to be desired and I doubt whatever this, dust she has in that box would taste any better, if I could even taste it. She seems excited, though and I suppose it is better than this gun. I shrug and finally unlock my jaw, letting the gun out of my mouth. Just a moment passes before I remember my legs don’t work that well, and I feel the all too familiar crack of my head hitting the floor. She starts to laugh slightly as I sit there, more pissed than anything else; nevertheless she moves the tray of White Death down. I used my chin to draw closer to it and the more I think about it, the fact that no one has tried to kill me yet was amazing to me. I started eating, well, whatever you can call deepthroating food with gurgling and crying. Hmm, “What do you think we should call how we’re eating here?” I ask Scarface laughing a little bit. “Soft and pathetic,“ he growls back.

As the image begins to fade, a new one takes its place. Judging from the light, or what can be counted as light in this place, considering the masses of clouds above us constantly. My voice had returned and I was fit to fight once more; well, as fit as a scar covered mongrel can be, but I am fit to fight.

I spent most of that previous night learning about the town from Miss Serabelle, an odd lady to say the least, but she did have a knack for picking up anything living, everyone around the town seemed to enjoy her… spark, I guess it would be called. Her cheerful mood seemed to affect everyone around her; well, aside from me.

“Wake up, ya heap of meat, you got work to do!” Serabelle said, ripping me off the floor that I had been asleep on before smacking my face with her hoof and shoving a bottle of water into my open mouth.

Through the choking and gurgling of the water I started attempting to speak, all that came out was “hmpha mphwpher” Which vaguely translated to “What do you mean, work?” I’m not entirely sure how she understood me, considering I practically spewed water all over her and made about as much sense as a Bloatsprite. But she seemed to have a lot of experience with things that can’t talk properly.

“Well duh, ya think ya gonna sit on ya happy flank and just watch the clouds split open to have a shining rainbow of happiness and unicorns?”

“What is a cloud? What is a rainbow? And the last thing I remember, unicorn horns were used for… uh, nevermind” I spoke rather dryly though my throat, as I got to the end of my sentence, it started to close up, so I took another swig of water.

She practically slapped me for that comment, well, she did slap me; just on my back. Huh, I think she touched some of my exposed spine as well. After a moment, she sat down and pulled out that box from earlier as she tried to figure out a name to call me. She had ignored my previous statement altogether as she poured the dust into a bowl and added water. Why add water? The dust was acceptable by itself. “Hrm, Bob, Billy, Destroyer, Rampage, Murder Funtime, Jim-”

“No, no. you ain't callin me that. No, no, now that one isn't to bad... but your still not calling me that” I retorted with every name she put forwards, Jim sounds fitting but not quite what I want. As I’m watching her she pulled out a helmet and lights a fire under it, curious on why she was burning a helmet, I continue watching. Within a few moments, she smiles at me and says “Ya see… Uh, Bartholomule Citycatch, watch the magic happen” I was about to retort again at how purely stupid that name was before she started pouring the liquid on the helmet… It was now, hot liquid.

“What even is that name? Look, I appreciate you trying to find one, but I don't need a name, Miss Serabelle, why are you obsessed with giving me something I don't deserve, anyways?“ I ask as dryly as possible as she seems to get very quiet for a moment, slowly flipping the… pancake, I believe she called it.

“Billy Bob, when I told you about this town, what is the one thing we all have in common here? Aside from us being stuck in a wasteland of hell that seems hellbent on trying to murder us every day of our lives?”

“Guns, ammo, a distinct desire to kill and maim those who wish to kill, raid, and rape you. Maybe a sense of pure unadulterated despair and lack of hope for the existence we have.” I just blinked, saying that as I had been told it a thousand times.

Serabelle looked at me curiously for a moment before shoving this pancake creation onto what looked to be a grayish-white saucer before turning off the heat

“We are all either slaves or used to be slave owners. Every single person in this town with the exception of Miss Ditzy, was born with a number, not a name. We’re inside of a hellish wasteland where the only people that truly cares about us are counted on the hooves we have, and even then you can never be sure if they are helping you because they can, or if they want something out of it. So, we choose to do something about it, maybe not as big, or as flashy of a mark as murdering towns, but we made our mark but making sure our numbers hold no meaning, and our names held some kind of meaning. Giving you a name just feels… Like something you should hold near and dear to yourself, gives you a purpose, helps you fight against the wasteland, and make sure it doesn’t twist you into a monster like so many have become.”

I sat there for a minute, contemplating the concept she had thrown at me; in Philly, you were a number, didn't matter if you were a slave or slaver. “Toll son” I muttered.

“Pardon? What was that, hun; I couldn’t quite catch that.” She looked at me, dead in the eyes, as she moved a different, more pink, saucer towards me. This one with half of the pancake on it, the other half in front of her. “My name is Toll, Son. Miss Serabelle”

She smiles at me for a moment, taking a bit of the pancake and looking like she was thinking about something “Hrm, Toll Son huh, how about we call you Tolson; you’ll get less looks that way, and it’s a bit faster to say.”

“As long as it holds the same meaning, I couldn't care less how you say it, and long as you’re happy I don't much care.” I said, popping the pancake into my face, she raises her eyebrows for a moment before practically laughing her flank off and putting down her, saucer, before standing up “Haha, well, if that’s all it takes to get you a name, should’ve smiled a while ago; and you can stop callin me Miss Serabelle, makes me feel like an ol’ gal round these parts. Just call me Serabelle.”

Around that moment a small foal ran up to another mare outside and was saying Ma and Mommy as it was excited over something, I could not tell what they were blabbering about. “Miss Serabelle what is a ‘Ma’? Or ‘Mommy’? I don't understand what that foal is saying.‘ I was a bit confused, and more than a little angry at those words for reasons I simply could not remember.

Serabelle looked at me with what I can only imagine is a rather sad face, but one that seemed used to this as a bit of her pep was taken out of her step. “Well Tolson, Ma, or Mother, is usually someone that brings you into this world; but, especially in this world, it’s more often a mare that’ll take care of you, will risk everything for you, and do their damnedest to see you happy.”

I sat there looking at her, not sure if my face had made something she didn't like or if it was the topic, but we stayed there in silence for a bit, listening to the sounds of the town outside. Then I stood up, grabbed the gun I had with me, and looked at her.

“So Ma, what am I doing today?” I looked at her rather blankly as I said that, putting the gun against my shoulder as she stood up smiling, as cheery and as bubbly as ever, and the memory once again faded to black.

The next one didn’t pop up immediately, although at this point, neither me nor Scarface were talking, just watching silently. The gunfire and screams were all we heard, no visual; just voices.

“Did we win? Did we get the raider?” I screamed out, blinded by blood I think, probably why there's nothing here. I heard hooves walk up to me, I think 2 sets, one that slumped and another that ran up to me and slammed themselves on my shoulders.

“Son; you murdered everyone. Your companions, your enemies... that family you were supposed to be protecting. What in the Sam Hell is wrong with your boy, Serabelle? Is his nut wacker then a raider?! The male voice was angry and in a kind of pain I didn’t understand, “Did I lose?” I muttered, not quite comprehending exactly what had happened

“Son. Everyone is dead. It doesn't matter if you won or lost... if what you were fighting for is gone. If all a fight is to you is whether you killed them all, is it good? Is it a win to kill all those folks that wondered by?” the voice kept getting angrier and angrier.

“...Am I a monster?” I wanted to say, I wanted to scream those words, but my voice was gone. At that point I was scared, it was cold, and it was dark.

“Serabelle, get your bastardized child out of here before we all put a cap in him; find him a different job, One that doesn’t require him to differentiate which ponies need to die. Hell, kill him if you want to; I don't care just get him away from here!” The voice was demanding and it was ringing in my head

I heard Ma walk up to me and grab me before starting to lead me off; there weren’t words for a while, and I wasn't sure how far we were walking, either. All I knew was that she was mighty upset.

“Am I a monster?” The words finally came out but only half were my own, the other half were His.

“Mercy is a thing you give to those no matter who they are. If they spit in your face, turn away. If they try to kill you; that's when you take them down, but only if absolutely necessary, Tolson. Mercy always comes before murder; never, never, never, the other way around.” Ma was hurt, I could hear it in her voice, I wonder who died, I wonder if I will ever learn.

Scar and I just sat there for a while; neither of us talking. I don't think either of us could stomach another word; as always, this place hurts more than words can say.

As things on the outside began to fade in I heard the voice of a mare I wasn't familiar with, telling one of the others that I was alive, just out cold. Slowly but surely, I was dragged out of the cold and dark into the world once more.

As I opened my eyes for probably the first time in several hours, I try to move my limbs, make sure everything is functioning, but as I do so, I realize there is something holding me down. I sit up regardless before I feel a sharp sting across my face and see the small unicorn from before staring at me, it was almost… cute. Then she started talking. “If you continue moving, you’re going to rupture something inside of you, again; now I’m almost done fixing you up, but if you don’t want to be stuck here for yet another hour and waste even more of my resources, I would suggest you lay back down, and let me fix whatever this hellscape you call a non-functioning body is!”

I blankly look at the small mare as I sit up and stand, grabbing the bandages and wrapping up whatever was open with them before grabbing my gun “But it is my body, so I shall do what I must.”

She gives off a deep sigh before looking up at me, “Alright how about this, if you sit back down on the bloody table, you won’t head off, get the crap kicked out of you, and then make me have to save you anyways. Instead you can just let me heal you, then you can go and actually kill things without dying in the process. Who knows, you might actually help your allies if you let me heal you, rather than just being a hinderance. More efficient to be healed now anyways.”
I felt insulted by the mare, who’s the size of a stick, and just as crass as a viper. I sigh, walk over to her, pick her up, walk outside, and scream out to see who’s still alive of my group. “OY, MORONS, Y’ALL STILL ALIVE?!” the vibration in my throat told me this was not a good idea, but eh, this is normal.

I can feel the viper under my arm give off another sigh before I feel a needle slamming into my throat, a rather soothing feeling following it before a bullet slams into my shoulder. This resulted in a frustrated yell of the pony in my foreleg as a couple of sewing needles starts sewing it up, and the bullet is slowly pulled out of me. Several shots fill the air as my group seems to appear from the surrounding areas, most of the ponies seem no worse for wear with Cyclops being the only one with a lot more bullet holes then armor. I finally let go of the small pony as she finishes fixing up my foreleg before turning to the rest of my group “Urg, can I seriously not go two Celestia damned minutes without finding another pony with a bullet wound or drug addiction? Really? Is that so much to fuckin ask?”

“Aye, that language’ll get your mouth washed out by Ma if you ain’t careful.” I snap at her. She looks up at me like I just told her that I could make her fly. “Boy, how old do you think I am?”

“Old enough for raiders to rape you, young enough to make me look like an old stallion.” I say dryly ignoring the incoming fire. She sighs and sets to work on Roasted’s bullet wounds “I’m probably older than you are, and I’ve seen ponies do much worse than this little show y’all put on for this town. Although the amount of injury you have sustained makes me wonder how you are possibly even alive at this point.” She takes a look back at me as her needles fly around with the skill of one who’s been doing this for far too long. “Honestly, the fact that you are able to speak, much less move, much less kill something, is more of a miracle then I’ve seen in months, if, ya know, ever.”

“It’s not a miracle; it’s Ma’s cooking and Ma’s love keeping me going. She’s such a nice lady.” I pop back, somewhat smiling. Every single pony in the group just kinda stops and stares at me; the filly’s needles have even stopped moving. I feel like that’s dangerous. Oh well. “What?”

The filly shakes her head before pulling out her needles; she might be small, but she does impressive work at least. “If her cookin’ is all it takes to make a body better, I would be out of work. There's a little more to healing than just some good cooking and love; there’s medicine, surgery, bloody magic, ya numpty wombat; takes years of training to be able to heal some pony without using your potions, and even then, those can only save you for so long.” She gives off a deep sigh as she comes back to me, slowly looking over my body as her horn lights up, seeming almost to scan me, which was very unnerving.

She only gets about halfway through my body before she abruptly stops and stares at me, looking like a ghost that just got slapped by Ma. “What, in the fuck, is wrong with your body? How in any way, shape, or for-” I slam my hoof over her mouth and stare at her for a moment, the rest of the group looks on curiously, but none of them seem intent on interfering. “Again, Ma’s cooking is what keeps me alive... Ok?” I say, smiling. I think she took the hint not to try and question any further. Moving my hoof off her mouth I decide to switch the topic a bit “So, why are you healing us and not trying to kill us? I imagine those needles could make short work of any of us if you really wanted to.”

She looks like I just slapped her silly as she actively flinches at that statement. “I’m a medical pony. I do not kill, I heal. Regardless of the side you’re on, if you are wounded my job is to get you back on your feet for you to die another day. Sounds like a glamorous job, but it’s really not.” I look at her with a tilt of my head “You are a naive child if you think everyone should be healed.” She looks back and sighs before grabbing my backhoof with her magic and twisting it hard, snapping it back into place before she starts to continue.

“Look, being a medical pony wasn’t my first choice; in fact, I originally wanted to learn music. Hence why I’m called Melody.” She grabs her needles in her magic once more and starts sewing up bits she had missed previously, muttering something under her breath. “One day, this old pony came into town, nice fellow, name was Scrappy, he said I had an amazing talent for telekinesis, one that could be used to help many ponies. After a few days of debating, he decided to take me on as a medical pony; there have been many over the years, but we all follow the same code, a code that was created by the Ministry Mare Fluttershy of the Ministry of Peace herself.” She stops for a moment and digs through her bags, then she pulls out a statue of a yellow pegasus with pink hair. “He gave me this so I would always remember the code of the Medical Ponies.” She takes a deep breath and sits down before uttering out what had to have been this code she was talking about, long since memorized and likely over said.

I shall heal all those that come my way, whether they be to kill me, or to save me
I shall never kill, these blades cut infections out, these needles sew up wounds
My magic heals, never kills, saves, never harms, locates, never wanders.
To be a medical pony means you don’t choose sides, you only choose to save.

“So your mentor is dead, then, I take it?” As always I was dry in my delivery. She looked up once she was done with her code thing. “Yes, shockingly he is the only pony I’ve ever met that died of old age. A rarity in this world.”

I was about to retort to this by stating how unlikely that is before Big Guy runs forward between the two of us, to try to define the size difference between the two would be if a whale was looking at a radscorpion. “Oh, oh, I wanna be checked up, can I be checked up? I wanna see if I’m hurt. Do you think I’m hurt? How does being hurt feel? Is it when I poke myself? Cause I do that a lot.” This didn’t seem to phase the viper as she starts to check his body with a smile, a smile that very quickly faded once she looked at his eyes. “Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me? How many fucked up ponies do you have on your team?” She looked right at me as she said this. She proceeded to grab the massive mammoth by the snout and with strength you couldn’t fathom coming out of this filly she pulls him straight to the ground slamming him against it as she stares at him.

“What do you take, how much do you take, how many times do you take it, and how are you not dead? Why do I keep having to ask that question?” Big Guy seemed rather stunned by everything going on, but he just kinda tilts his head “Uh, well, scary lady. I don’t really know what I take, however it always makes me happy, here ya go.” The titan of a pony proceeds to shrug a bag off his back which falls to the ground a short way, it’s a rather large bag about twice the size of a normal saddlebag. The moment the viper looks inside of the bag, however, her face falls, she sighs, puts her head in her hooves, and starts beating her head against them. “Oh, why, Celestia; why did you have to torture me by putting me with this group of all groups? Give me a raider group or cannibals or even slavers, at least that wouldn’t be as painful!” As she picks herself up and starts throwing insults at the colossus and pulling most of his drug stash into her own saddle bags, the Big Guy just looks like a sad puppy that had his favorite toy taken away. She also started explaining to him how all of his drugs worked, he didn’t seem to register it though.

At this point, most of the group, having gotten a “You’re fine, don’t be such a foal.” from the tiny Viper, they started scavenging; searching for any ammo, tools, weapons, or money left behind as Soldier Boy walks up to me. “Hey, good to see you on your hooves again, you were out for a few hours, so we routed out most of the town. Any living ponies that were here have either fucked off somewhere or they are in the town hall over there.” He proceeds to jerk a wingtip to the massive area with gore and body parts adorning it. “They barricaded it pretty heavily, but with you and Junker awake and active, knocking down those doors shouldn’t be too much of an issue. That is of course if Melody stops torturing the poor stallion.”

I look over at the two as the Viper was practically beating the big guy off of the drugs with a stick, not sure where she got the stick but it looked hoofcrafted almost, rather old but very sturdy. Didn’t do much to the big guy but he seemed to understand the threat. “Hey, if you want this hulking stupid idiot to actually stay alive and not have a heart beat of over 150 BPM then I’m doing y’all a favor, now shut up and get him goin!”

“I’m gonna record all this later,” I sigh and mumble to myself as I begin to walk to the doorway of the giant “town hall” I think he called it. We still haven't found Ma or Miss Ditzy and I’m very, very angry right now, let's hope that they’re in here. Or Celestia and Luna, help these ponies; all of em. The sound of clicking can be heard as the recording stops playing. Static fills the air in the room.

Chapter 7: Long Time Coming

Chapter 7: Long Time Coming
(Roasted)

Sighing softly, I look over the surrounding area with my one good eye; it was a small town, maybe three square miles in total. In the near distance, there was a factory that sits just outside of town. In the further distance, there is a sort of solar array, I haven’t been out here too often in the past few years, so I’m not too sure what creatures inhabit the two areas, and I would rather not find out.

The town itself is a nice one, kinda homey I would say. Well, it would be if not for the rather significant quantity of dead bodies lining the roads which were bathed in blood, alongside the main road into town there were several small houses on the left and the right.

For the better part of the last hour, the rest of my merry band of travelers have been murdering those around us, waiting for Tolson to get back on his feet as he went into what appeared to be a butcher’s shop and got himself knocked out. The idiot should know when someone is behind him; thankfully, the medical pony in there decided to help out even though Tolson tried to kill her. She’s a sweet girl, but just a tad stupid.

During this last hour or so, she has been shouting inside the building about how many wounds Tolson had; I don’t know exactly why she cares, considering he tried to kill her, but oh well. I’ve spent my time fighting off a lot of ponies that the others in the group had missed, namely those fleeing. Every single one has committed unspeakable actions and therefore must be put down like the rodents they are; I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a bit fun to light them on fire and watch them slam into the others. Their screams did get rather irritating, however.

Cleansing these ponies from Equestria can get boring after a time, so I went to check up on the rest of the group after dispatching those still surviving around me. The first ones to appear were the Chicken Wings; my Eyes Forwards Sparkle alerted me to their presence with two little yellow dots, the earth pony in front of me being a red dot before his blood feeds the ground as my katana stabs into his skull.

“Hey, Jackass; see you’ve been goin on a murder spree of your own, eh? How many have you gotten under your flank?” Vision asked as he approached me, a rather large smile on his face with blood seeping into his wings. Rogue, of course, had a cold expression as he kept watch around the area. Kind of pointless, considering my E.F.S, but I suppose a soldier never changes, no matter where their home may lie.

“Only those who have passed you, which appears to be many, having trouble looking through that scope? Maybe a pegasus’ eyes aren’t quite what they are said to be,” I reply as I throw a fireball on yet another body, burning it to a cinder to make sure it doesn’t rise again. May whoever is watching take care of him in the afterlife.

Vision looked rather irritated at that comment before he pulled up his sniper and a bullet rang out, hitting one that was creeping up to Rogue. “My eyes are amazing, especially compared to one with only a single eye. Isn’t that right, Cyclops? ”

I growl as I turn back to him, a red marker appears behind me as I send my katana into it before sighing and walking past the flying equivalent of a radroach. “I have no desire to adhere to the petty comments of one whose brain is the size of a bullet, and is fired just as easily.”

Vision seemed unhappy with that comment but we have more murderers to dispatch and the city hall to storm. Considering how many were likely inside, knowing Vision’s ability to shoot, we would have to prepare for those inside, preferably having our entire group active. Junker, I imagine, could do some damage if we threw him in there like a bowling ball; however, I would prefer Tolson being active as well, otherwise we could sustain significant damage. Well the Chicken Wings would; I doubt they would make it to me quite as easily, and if they did, a fiery death would be awaiting.

Quite a bit of time passed before we heard the call from the small mare inside that Tolson was not dead, simply out cold. The idiot is wasting valuable time that could be better spent learning the insides and outs of a pony; instead, I am having to deal with the company of these insufferable morons. The job is not quite done yet, we still haven’t found the precious ponies he seems intent on helping; however, we have gotten quite a bit of caps from this adventure, which I suppose makes up for something. With how long he has been out, I severely doubt those two ponies he is looking for are still drawing breath. It would be a miracle if they were.

As I am pacing around the building finding bodies to burn I had missed, or that Vision had picked off in the meantime, I hear a sharp cry of “OY, MORONS, Y’ALL STILL ALIVE?!” and I swear, if he screamed any louder the ground would have shook under me. Looking around the building, I see Tolson standing there, with the medical pony under his arm as she stabs him in the throat with what looks to be Med-X. He doesn’t appear to notice, and I’m not entirely sure if he’s all there in the first place. A gunshot rings out from behind me as a bullet wizzes by my head. Looking behind me, I see a pony standing there with a smoking rifle; a few seconds later, and he is standing there without a head. Grabbing a cloth, I start wiping the blood off my katana as Vision appears to almost pout as I walk up.

The other members of the group have also started to gather around Tolson; little is said, however, except from the Medical pony whose name we learn is Melody. She then goes on a tangent about how many of us have bullet wounds or similar injuries while sewing up most of them; she may have quite a temper, but she appears to know her stuff. May prove to be a valuable asset in the future. She seems to have most of her brain intact... that is, of course, until she walked up to Junker, at which point, she looked into his bags and started beating her head into her hooves. Her intelligence is yet to be determined.

After a few minutes, Rogue walks up to Tolson and mutters a few words to him; I can’t quite hear it over Melody’s squabbling with Junker. After a few seconds, I see Tolson start to walk towards the town hall. As always, we wait an hour for him to get his stupid flank off the ground, and he waits five seconds. So fantastic to be around such a lovely party of ponies.

I give off a sigh before I walk behind him, grabbing Melody by the scruff of the neck before attempting to fling her at Tolson, I get her hoof slamming into my face instead. “Boy, haven’t you heard it’s rude to grab a lady? I may not be the biggest pony but that means I can hurt you so much more, so very easily,” She says this with a wink, but I think she would make very well on that threat; note to self, don’t touch her. She turns around and slaps Junker again as he attempts to grab his bag; for how small she is, her slaps make quite a resounding noise.

The Chicken Winged Duo appears to follow Tolson as Melody grabs the bag Junker dropped, and starts rushing towards Tolson; probably to fix whatever the idiot didn’t let her, or maybe to kill him. I hope it’s the latter.

We arrive at the building, which is about as pleasant as the inside of a radgator when a landmine is in its gut. In other words, it was horrible and smelled like shit. The city hall was rather large, especially when compared to the rest of the buildings surrounding it; also appeared to be more sturdy, being made out of stone rather than wood or brick like the rest of them. Adorning the balconies were various body parts, in various stages of decomposition, and many of them sliding down the pikes they were laid upon. The walls were painted red, slowly drying into a maroon, and the doors themselves were barricaded, had been for the last hour.

Then they weren’t.

I think Tolson broke his hoof as it slammed into the various objects behind the doors; at least that’s what Melody was screaming, “I just fixed you, stop breaking your damn hooves or I’ll break them for you!” At this comment Tolson looked at her and put his hoof on her head. I wonder if he has a death wish, or if he just liked to gamble. Melody appeared very flustered at this before jamming a needle into his hoof and slapping him.

As we begin to enter the building, our merry band of misfits seemed as confused at Tolson’s interaction as the rest of the ponies inside. Well some were confused, some were angry, one I think shit himself, at least I hope that’s the stain on the ground. Lastly, there was a very, very large pony in the middle of the room. His coat was an odd shade of green; almost like if you vomited on a pony’s coat rubbed it in, and had them vomit on themselves. His mane and tail were an even worse shade of green, but at least they were closer to radiation poisoning than vomit. His mane was spiky, although I doubt that’s from a gel, and his tail… was rather strange. It looked like he tried styling it like he was going to use his tail to fan himself; his intelligence is almost certainly lower than Junkers. Shockingly, he was also almost bigger than Junker; I wonder if there is a rampant mutation going around. Maybe I should check his blood work when he’s dead.

Before any fighting could begin, Melody decided to walk forwards; the entire building was in silence as this, what looked to be a filly, stepped into the middle of this battlefield and sat her flank down in front of the big stallion. Then she simply uttered a few words as she pulled out a… Wait, is that a stick? Huh, her intelligence I would put around Junker’s now. “My name is Melody, you killed my family, prepare to die,” Then she slapped him with the stick.

I was prepared to watch this small filly die this day, as the silence in the room almost grows, like the red mark on the stallion’s cheek. He proceeds to look back at her, not even a bruise forming on his cheek from the look of it, before he smiles, and grabs the handle of his sledgehammer on his back in his jaws and swings.

Now then, three things happen at the very same time. Firstly, I notice the sledgehammer is right about the same size as Melody; it would flatten her like a waffle. Secondly, I notice that Tolson is no longer next to me, and is next to Melody, shoving her out of the way. Thirdly, I notice that Vision has broken through the second story window and is in the rafters, and fired a bullet into a unicorn’s skull, making it explode violently against his friend’s coat.

At this point the battle started raging fully, an earth pony’s body is a wonder to behold when you truly look at them; strong, sturdy, and usually difficult to break. This stallion seemed intent on finding out how many bones Tolson could live without as the sledgehammer slams into his side, turning him into a U shape before he flew through the wall. As the dust settled, I also saw Melody rising from the bookshelf she was thrown against, screaming something about needing to fix every bloody wound.

At this point, I decide to get into the firefight as well, having to resort to my katana and fire, however, as one of these barbarians broke my laser rifle. Shockingly, one of them actually had good aim; he did not for very long once my blade went through his eyes and into the floor. Looking around the room, Vision seemed to provide adequate support, which is rather surprising. Rogue was running into the battle and slamming clip after clip into his assault rifle; a rather large waste of ammo, but it did the job. I raised my eyebrow as I watched him start to quadrisect a stallion with his rifle, amazing what bullets can do to one’s flesh and insides, especially when they are outside of your body.

Looking around me with my E.F.S to spot any stragglers, of which there appeared to be many, I heard behind me, “You big bully! You almost hit my drug dealer! I like my drug dealer... Oh, and that other guy.” I turned around to see Junker actually slug the other stallion; this leaves a much larger mark before the other one slugs Junker; it’s almost like watching a boxing match. If both ponies were blind, deaf, and stupid, well, they are already stupid. I look to my side as a red arrow appears, following a blade slicing down in front of me, nearly cutting some of my hair and my eyepatch, damn my lack of vision. I turn to him and bring my own sword to the ready, clashing against him over and over again. Oddly enough, this pony seems competent, I shall give him a painful death, but a fun one.

Stepping forwards, I slam my katana down into his own sword, it appears to be rather rusty and this pony had a rather crazed look in his eyes, a bloodthirsty one. I can only assume he has done much worse deeds then what I’ve seen so far.

The stallion in front of me twists his head, his sword in his mouth maneuvers under my katana causing it to slide across his blade as I backstep, his blade barely inches from my flesh as I hover my katana in the air, slicing into his back as he gives off a yell of pain. For the next few minutes, I backpedal as my katana slices into this pony over and over again while dodging his own blade, almost like we were in a dance... if the dance consisted of blood flying from every angle and my blade carving him into pieces.

I notice him start to waver, the clash of metal ringing out throughout the area as my eye starts to twitch slightly and I begin to grin. Bearing down upon the pony, I push my sword right up to his neck, causing him to pause momentarily as blood drips down his throat.

The manic grin that forms causes me to take yet another step backwards and his grin only grows larger as he leans down and bites my katana before charging at me… then he screams in pain as my fireball hits him in the eye, slowly consuming his skull and burning the flesh off of his face, before I rip my sword out of his smoking mouth and I swing it down upon him once more, slicing and dicing into his body over and over again as the flame consumes whatever I miss.

As I finally turn back to the rest of the room I start to wipe the blood off my coat with my cloth; hrm, I shall have to get a new one of these soon. I notice a shout from the other side of the room, near Junker and Melody, or, where she used to be. “Why did you kill Big Jimmy? He wasn’t even-” A loud squelching and popping noise could be heard past the broken wall as Junker gut punches the other stallion with a grin. A grin that quickly fades once he feels a sledgehammer hitting him across the room and into a couple of bookshelves, several of which fall on him. At this point, Tolson came out of the hole in the wall with two heads in his hooves, he’s… standing on his hind legs? Odd display, but if that’s what does it for him.

As he throws the heads into the area, a few of the ponies that are still standing, or breathing, look at him with a shocked look. One screams out, “Noooo, Long John the second, you cared for me for so very long, your head was so nice and now it’s gone!” I looked at this pony curiously, wondering if he knew he was stepping on the pieces of another one of his friends before shrugging as my blade goes through his leg; Tolson does not notice in the slightest, it would appear. Melody was right next to him grabbing several of his body parts and snapping them back into place with a rather loud pop or crack each time. Fascinating, I would have thought that sledgehammer would bring any ordinary pony, that’s not on a copious amount of drugs, to a bleeding pile of bones and blood. I wonder what kind of drug Melody has given him; considering the face she is making, now is not the time to ask. However, considering Tolson is there, now could be a perfect time to ask... Oh well, I shall do so later, this pony simply holds my attention more, along with my weapons.

After a few minutes, I light a few more ponies on fire; dead ones, sure, but their souls must move on somehow. The rest of the building has been cleared from our little group and Tolson seems to have done a fair deal. I wasn’t aware you could hold a jaw like that, nor was I aware a single pony could rip off an arm to that degree. However, I did learn today that earth pony arms are brilliant weapons if you rip them off first, not so much if they are still attached; they scream a lot more. Every now and again, Tolson would pull the gun off his back and slam it into another pony; he looks grumpy about something, but I’m not sure what it is. Melody looks more frustrated than she is injured as she stands next to him, shoving syringe after syringe into his side, which appears to have a rather large dent in it now. Interesting.

At this point the big stallion, whom, after several ponies have screamed his name, I have learned is called Backbreaker; fitting, considering what he did to Tolson, stands up and slams his sledgehammer into the ground causing the floor to shake. He looks at Tolson dead in the eyes, well, I assume Tolson, as Melody did not appear to do much to him, but maybe he just has a hated of fillies. “You, boy. How in the seven hells of tartarus are you still standing? Why don’t you move along now and let me get my hooves on your little filly friend, she made fun of me with her little stick so imma make sure it goes up her ass.”

“Bite me, you oversized foal, put your little hammer in a place where Celestia’s bright sun don’t-” Tolson put his hoof over her mouth as she glares daggers at him, raising a few needles as she does so; he doesn’t appear to care. “Where’s Ma and Miss Ditzy? I’m looking for them and don’t have the time, nor interest, to deal with you.” Huh, Tolson actually brings up a good point for once, and gets straight to it. I wonder how many of those drugs made his brain bigger, and which just made him stupid.

The rather large stallion puts his hoof on his sledgehammer before muttering, “Oh, those two whores? We haven’t done too much with them; figured you would come looking for them so we grabbed them up. Didn’t expect you to bring a whole posse with you, but if you want your friends to die too, who am I to judge? However, that being said, you did kill a lot of my ponies; Long John, Willhelm, Big Johnson, Little Johnson, George, all my little buddies are on the floor, and not like they usually are. So I think it’s time y’all pay some respect here... lay down on the floor, and embrace my lovely hammer inside of you.”

Tolson sighs and moves his hoof off of Melody’s mouth before grabbing his bent gun, not sure what he is planning on doing with, is he… bending his gun back? Wow, I didn’t realize his brain was that small, a gun like that shooting after being bent to that degree would be a miracle. He proceeds to walk up to the large stallion and slam his gun against his chest frame, “That doesn’t answer my question, Sir. Where, is, Ma? Glad you know who I’m talking about, CAUSE DARN, would that be a long drawn out explanation I don’t have the time, nor the crayons for.”

Backbreaker laughs for a moment before pressing his forehead into Tolson’s, almost pushing him down before Tolson pushes back up against him. “You will learn the answer to that question, Sir, over my cold, lifeless, limp ass body!” Tolson seems to take offense to this, well, I assume he does, but the only thing I can hear is the resounding blasts of his shells slamming into Backbreaker’s chest frame and Backbreaker hitting the shelf a good 10 feet away and coughing out blood Huh, it appears miracles like to follow Tolson as Vision yells out, “Woot woot! If you kill this guy, I’ll let you buy me a whiskey, Tolson!”

I sigh as Tolson doesn’t reply, this little party has gone on for long enough. He clearly isn’t going to tell us anything, and we could easily just search; unfortunately, this doesn’t click in any of their small brains so I start to levitate a gun behind Backbreaker. He’s currently spitting at Tolson as he stands up again; definitely must be a freak mutation, since the slugs didn’t even pierce through his body armor much less his freakishly toned chest frame. An earth pony’s body is a fascinating one, indeed, but even an idiot should know to aim for the head if you intend to kill. As I lift the gun behind his head he seems to be preparing to give Tolson another thrashing with his hammer while screaming out, “That was a nice shot, boy, it tickled me a little bit. Now let’s see you stand after my hammer has a rather personal meeting with your face!”

“Gun,” Tolson utters, looking at Backbreaker as he stops mid swing, completely confused at this sentence before I sigh and fire, his brain seems bigger on Tolson’s chest then it did while inside of his skull. As his body hits the ground, a bookshelf starts to move but my E.F.S registers it as yellow, so I decide not to grab another gun, throwing the one I have into the nearby pile as it’s rather disgusting in the first place. The other simple minded ponies all look at the bookshelf before Junker pops out of it screaming, “Whoo! I got you now bully, my hooves are gonna eat your face and you’re gonna feel the wrath, of Junker!” He takes a moment to look around the room “...Oh, uh… He’s dead... huh. That’s… Hey, Miss-Really-Mean-Lady, can I have my happy drugs?” Melody gives off a really deep sigh and proceeds to slam her head into Tolson’s arm; he once again doesn’t seem to notice as he seems more intent on looking around the room and… clicking? Huh, I wonder what his brain is like, I would love to take it apart one day.

As I was thinking about what I would find inside of that thick empty skull, Tolson, in his typical moronic fashion, started screaming out for this, Ma, character. After belting out her name several times, he gets a quick jab to the throat by Melody, who just gives a sigh as he frowns at her and then continues yelling. I’m amazed the roof doesn’t fall on us at this point. Melody proceeds to walk over to Junker for a few minutes, shoving in... who even knows how many drugs into his system, seeing the inside of him must be like a joyride that even a skeleton would throw up at.

After Melody presumably gives up on weaning Junker off his drugs, muttering under her breath, “I will get him off those one day even if it kills him,” We begin to actually search the building, I’m surprised most of the group has the brain power to realize there could be precious items lying around; unfortunately, none seem to realize books fall into this category. Looking for this Ma character is likely their priority, as it is what we came here for, and there is a second floor that I doubt these dumbasses had the common sense to search before screaming their hearts out.

“Hey, Chicken Wings, why don’t you two search the upper floors? They might have hidden them up there; I’ll search around here for anything of value, and since Melody seems so attached to the two dumbasses over there, they can search whatever counts as a basement in this building.” I call out to the rest of the group, none of them seem to find any reason to argue with me about any of that, not that I’m surprised, as we start to search. I find several interesting books lying around, most were in crappy condition but a few things were salvageable inside of a bookshelf.

Hearing a call from downstairs, I relay it to the birds upstairs; if they come, they come. I look over the room as I head towards the basement entrance; most of the bodies on the floor were charred or ash at this point, may their souls find the peace they don’t deserve, and several bookshelves were scattered around the area as the insides of ponies were draped around the sides of the building like a festival was being had here, a disturbing one that only the truly sick could enjoy, but a festival nonetheless. Stepping over several piles of rocks and debris, lighting what body parts I could on fire. Even if I can’t get rid of their entire bodies, may this bring them some peace, I finally reach the staircase leading down. It’s dark, oh well, nothing a light spell couldn’t fix.

I start heading down the stairs with my horn glowing; how these ponies navigate this hellhole without light I couldn’t say. I reach the bottom as I hear the birds land behind me, my E.F.S pointing me towards the three down here, or, 5? Ah, that’s what they were calling about. Well time to see what all the fuss is about, and if it was worth it to almost die... again.

At least it was fun, and I got a book.

Chapter 8: Ships and Stories

Chapter 8: Ships and Stories
(Roasted)

Walking deeper into this basement, I notice a few things at first glance; firstly, the only light down here, aside from my own, was from Melody. Smart enough to light the way, but not smart enough to stay out of harm’s way; seems fitting for our group. The second thing I notice is that the bird brains have come up behind me, the sounds of their light steps almost imperceivable. The last thing I noticed was a mare with a dull blue coat and a sunset red mane that fades into orange, sitting next to an almost skeletal gray pegasus with messy blonde hair wearing a rugged engineer's outfit. I assume that this is the Ma and Ditzy pair we’ve been told about; I vaguely recognized Ditzy from the few times I’ve been in New Appleloosa but never had much of a chance to talk to her, considering she has no tongue. I’ve stayed my distance as most do for me. The three of them are having what appears to be a pleasant conversation with each other as Ditzy just stands politely to the side, I would assume waiting for one of the members of my band of asshats to open the cage they are stuck in.

“This is the stallion you said was like a son to you? The handsome, strong, and fearless son that was amazing in every way!?” Melody proclaims gesturing to Tolson with a stunned look on her face before continuing, “I mean just look at it, that really is a face only a mother could love!” Tolson gives her a smile as he tilts his head; I’m not entirely sure he knows that they are even talking about him.

“Well of course hon, this is the finest fellow you will ever meet; maybe not the cleanest, but look at that handsome face!” Ma replies in what I would assume is a country accent; huh, do they even have ‘countries’ any more? She proceeds to gesture to Tolson, “He may have a few edges on him, but inside of that torn apart body is a heart of gold and a soul of silver to match!” Ma seems to have the happiest smile on her face. Tolson proceeds to sit on his rump looking at the bars. Junker is… staring at his flank for some reason; welp, this is what I deal with now.

“I’ve seen his insides, Serabelle, his heart is a black pit of death and depression. His “soul”, I’m fairly certain, is burning in whatever hell resides in this stallion’s stomach. How does he even process food? What kind of creature is he? How does he work? Why isn’t he dead?!” Melody seems to be either getting more frustrated with every question, or more tired as she eventually just slams her skull against Tolson’s chest with a sigh. Tolson then proceeds to pat her head in a form of either gambling or comfort, if he even knows what that is. Melody, I think, is comforted but I’m not entirely sure. Junker on the other hoof just starts scooting closer to Tolson with a… would that be counted as ‘maniacal’ on such a young looking face? It’s like looking at a foal that is intent on killing you, but also looks so Celestia-damned innocent. Sends shivers down my spine. Ma gets the biggest smile on her face as she leans against the bars almost swooning at the two of them as Melody gets out her needles, Tolson’s open wounds bleeding into her stark-white mane.

“Awww, Tolson, you got a marefriend~ I didn’t think you would have it in you. I know I’ve said your handsome a lot, but oh boy, I did not expect a mare to actually be interested in you! Well done!” Tolson looks at her confused as Melody’s needles stop halfway into his wound. “She is a mare, and she is my friend, it's like you and Miss Ditzy, Ma. I'm not sure why you're getting so happy. Is it because I made another friend? Also, do you want out of there? Those bars do not look very comfy.”

Ma gives a chuckle at this and looks at Ditzy with a shrug before gesturing towards the bars. “Ah yes, if you would be so kind, Tolson that would be lovely; I would do it myself, but I feel that would be rude, and you can show off all those big muscles to your new little marefriend! Ah, my heart swells with pride~”

I have a feeling Ma enjoys either torturing those around Tolson, or making jokes about Tolson he simply doesn’t get, as he just shrugs and stands up. Melody actually growls at him as he has a scalpel stuck inside of his chest frame and Melody hangs onto it, being dragged along for the ride. He pulls it out easily when he realizes Melody is slowing him down. What both shocked and horrified me, however, was when Tolson ripped the metal door off its hinges, an impressive feat, one that I’m sure even the cybernetic enhancements I create would have difficulty handling. On top of that, it would appear most of the muscles in his forelegs are pulsing. Melody immediately backhands him and tiredly shoves another syringe into his chest as the muscles in his forearms calm down. I wonder if she will kill him at this rate or if she will kill herself first.

“What’s wrong, Cyclops, see something you like? Is there a book over here? You also look like someone just hit you with a building, Ma is stronger than I am, so this isn’t that impressive in the slightest,” Tolson says with a shrug as he looks back at me; my mouth must have dropped, as I can feel Melody telekinetically forcing it back into place. If Ma is even stronger than that, then I will have to remain on her good side. With how many ponies Tolson killed outside, I’m sure Ma would turn me into paste. “I’m fine, Bonehead, just got taken aback a bit.” I righten myself once more; can’t be too unprofessional in the eyes of such a mare after all. Speaking of, she steps out of the cage almost in a regal fashion, patting Melody’s head softly, and thanking the bird brains and I for coming all this way to get her and Ditzy... before she turns to Tolson and I swear a fire is lit inside of her skull.

“Now then, Tolson, would you mind repeating to me exactly what you called this poor gentlemen that made him call you a rather fitting, albeit somewhat offensive nickname?” Tolson for the first time, almost seemed apologetic I suppose. Similar to as if a foal got caught pulling drugs out of their parent’s stash. “Well Ma you see, it’s how we are to one another. I call him Cyclops cause he’s a one eyed wil... jerk I mean, and he calls me Bonehead ‘cause his brain is the size of an amoeba.” She seems to take a breath for a moment, and looks back at me with the kindest eyes I’ve seen in many years; oddly enough, it was terrifying, “I apologize for my son’s behavior; he’s a bit of a shit head.” She moved so fast I swear she gave herself whiplash and slammed her back hoof into Tolson’s head so hard his entire body lifted off the ground and he flew into the bars of the cage, creating a dent in them the size of Tolson’s entire head. Melody gave off a deep sigh before standing in front of Ma and proceeding to yell at her, “I just bloody fixed the bastard! Do you have any idea how many ponies he killed above and how much damage they did to his Celestia-forsaken body?! He got hit with a sledgehammer the size of me, and it flattened nearly every internal organ he has; the amount of health potions he would need to even function after that was astonishing, albeit lower than the number I would use on other ponies, but most would ALSO BE DEAD! And now he has brain damage? Keeping anypony in this group alive is going to be a challenge that I’ll have to endure EVERY FIVE SECONDS!!!”

Ma just watched her patiently, Tolson not moving from where he was; I wonder if he was dead. After Melody finished her rant, Ma turned back to Tolson before asking him, “Did you ask even a single one of those raiders if you could just get us without killing anyone?” Tolson simply uttered, “Yes, and they told me to kill them for the answer, so I obliged.” She sighs before resting her hoof on one of the bars as it bends inwards slightly. “Was this before or after you slaughtered everyone they cared for?”

Tolson sat there for a moment, his head bending the bars as he twisted it to look at her. I think the area where his brain began, and the walnut ended, just broke into pieces. “Kinda both? To be fair, they attacked the big guy first.” Ma puts her hoof on his back, if not for the fire in her eyes, it appeared to be her almost consoling him. “And did you ask them why they attacked him? Did you give them mercy, Tolson?” I think he just about crapped himself before he answered.

“Not really, the first one that died kinda was a blur-” He seemed like he was about to continue before Ma proceeded to punch him, not just through the bars he was stuck in, but also the bottom of the cage, and partly into the floor. “I don’t give half a radroach’s ass about your excuses, boy! You fight an enemy and they attack first, you ask them why! Then you give them a chance to explain their actions, and then you pull off their heads and feed it to them! You do, NOT, EVER, MURDER. Before you give them mercy! Do you hear me, boy?! They could have had a family, children, husbands or wives in this hellhole of a world we live in, and you could have destroyed that simply because they hit your friend! I’m sure if you had asked the first one where I was, and if you could just get me out, you wouldn’t have had to kill so many of them! Or waste as much ammo. Learn from this, Tolson, or you’re no better than a crazed raider who wishes he were dead.” With that she turned away from him and looked to the rest of the group, the fire in her eyes having cooled down. “And do apologize to your mare friend for healing you so damn often; she’s just wasting her supplies with how fast you heal in the first place.” As he starts working himself out of the hole he got buried in, he finally turns back to the rest of the group, “I apologize that you’re all blind as bats and didn’t notice I heal quickly. ”

I swear I heard the wall crack as his head went through it once Ma kicked him; I’m not entirely sure what Tolson is made of, but I’m truly amazed he can withstand this kind of punishment without so much as blinking past the normal expression he wears. The rest of the group just watches on in shock and horror as he pulls his skull out of the wall, blood flooding across his face as the cuts start to close themselves up, albeit slightly slower than when Melody does it for him. Ma glares at him as Junker seems to approach his backside once more; I’m still not sure what he is looking at, but honestly, I would not like to know. As Ma turns her head back around she asked us what we were getting paid to do all this; a mare of standards at least, even though she's unbearably violent. Maybe that's how she keeps Tolson in check; whether it’s cause she can kill him or there is genuine respect there, is yet to be seen.

Rogue takes this opportunity to talk with her, discussing some payment options as well as how to find other sources of information and payment; I would have been much more invested in this conversation but the sudden movement of the hulking body of Junker caught my eye as he lunged forwards with a knife in his mouth before carving a bloody circle on Tolson’s flank as Tolson simply looks at him in surprise with an eyebrow raised. “You have a tic-tac-toe board on your butt! I wanna play!” Junker says around the knife in his mouth, practically hopping in place. Tolson proceeded to raise both his eyebrows, take the knife, and mark an x before handing the knife back; the two of them seemed to play for a moment as blood freely drips down Tolson’s flank. At this point, everyone in the room had gone quiet and were staring, Melody’s eyes seemed like they were on fire as she raised her needles rubbing them together with a growl as she watched.

“Tic-tac-toe, three in a row! I won! Yaaaay!!” Junker said, bouncing up then spinning Tolson to his other side, “Wanna play again?!” He seemed rather ecstatic; Tolson, on the other hoof, was not. Tolson proceeded to grab the knife and mark three x’s in his flank before doing a line between them. “Awww! Come on, why are you such a sore loser! I don’t think that counts anyways.”

Melody slowly starts walking over to the two of them before grabbing both of their skulls and bashing them together with a resounding “Thunk” that echoes throughout the basement. Ma gives off a laugh before continuing her conversation with Rogue. “If you really want bits, feel free to take some contracts around the bar; we often have a surplus of them, although they have you go all around Equestria.” Rogue nodded and replied, “Thank you Ma’am, I’ll be sure to remember that. Do you and your companion need an escort back to the town?”

During this exchange of information, Melody is currently strangling the two giants over in the corner; they may be bigger than her, but I swear she must be drowning in drugs with how hard she is beating them into the ground. Rogue, who seems rather unfazed by all this. looks over to Ditzy as she walks to him with what appears to be a mini-chalkboard and writes on it “Thank you, but Tolson is fine; he protects well.”

As Rogue starts to reply while staring at this chalkboard, my eye starts twitching under my eyepatch. I growl softly before reaching into my bag, the other conversations around me fading into the background as I grab a kit. Opening up the kit, I sigh and pull out the last of my painkillers; gonna have to make a trip back home soon; haven’t been there in years. The pain in my eye shoots up, breaking my train of thought before I slam my syringe gun against my temple; the brief stab of pain slowly starts cooling down, and the twitching in my eye eases as I take a sigh of relief. Opening up my good eye, I see everyone staring at me; Melody smacks away Junker’s hoof as he is trying to get his drugs back, before she starts walking over to me.

“What happened to your eye?” She asks as she leans in, lifting my eyepatch and looking over it concerned; her voice is rather grating as she immediately regains her medical pony nature. “It’s fine, I’ve had this since I was young. It makes my eye hypersensitive and gives me a massive headache if I stress it too far, I use this to deal with the headache once it hits me,” I raise the now empty syringe as she grabs it in her magic, I assume from the glow that she’s scanning it as I shake my head, “You’re not going to be able to understand what’s inside of there. It's a painkiller synthesized by the scientists in my town, but I haven't been back there in years; I’ve been unable to refill, what with it being inside of the desert.”

Ditzy at this point started wiping at her chalkboard before tapping at it with her chalk and showing it to me, “I assume from your pipbuck, and your town being in the desert, you lived in the town around vault 64; if you’re going back there, you should take a group with you.” I look at her curiously as Melody lets my eyepatch fall back over my now closed eye, the throbbing subsiding for the moment. “Hrm, has it gotten that dangerous? Well, if you would all like to follow, you are more than welcome to; I shall be moving out as soon as possible, as my eye shall only get worse.” I grab my saddlebags with a sigh looking over the group.

On hearing this, Junker got really excited, “A vault?! I heard that they have really advanced tech in those; I really want to go!” He runs up to Ma, “Can I go Ma?! Can I, can I?!”

As that was going on, Rogue walks over to me, “Vision and I shall accompany you on your travels. Vision could possibly find some bits there or something to drink, or even kill something, and I shall search for the secrets behind your vault. Every one of them is made differently and it shall be fascinating to see how this one differs.”

I nod to him as Tolson speaks up, “Well, Cyclops, as much as I would enjoy seeing you get your flank beaten to the ground by all kinds of creatures, I shall be joining Ma and Ditzy for their travel home; I don’t want them kidnapped again if I can help it.” Melody was about to speak up but Ma put her hoof on Melody’s head, “And this dear little filly shall join your group, as they will need her healing far more than Tolson shall, at least for the time being.”

Melody appears to pout for a moment before walking over to Junker and jumping onto his back; it was an almost entertaining sight. “Fine, but I’m taking this drug filled maniac with me. Tolson, I swear to Celestia, if you get killed before I can kill you, I will personally abuse your grave.”

He shrugged and stood up as I looked over our little gathering.“Hrm, well then it appears it is decided. Us five shall head to my town, you three shall head back to Appleloosa; we’ll regroup once I get my painkillers and we shall see about other plans once we finish,” The rest of the group either shrugged or nodded in agreement, and we started to head out of the basement we were in; as we started climbing the stairs, I swear I could hear, “Don’t worry Melody, I’ll plan the wedding for you~!” from Ma as I start shaking my head.

Several days and nights of traveling passed and the first thing said was, “It’s too hot! When are we gonna get there?” I sigh as I hear Junker complaining behind me, the searing heat of the setting sun blasting down upon the five of us as we walk on. I know this desert like the back of my hoof, so heading back home, even after so long, is not that difficult. Melody, who’s on top of Junker, has been rubbing a water soaked cloth all over him and has been for the last hour we’ve been walking, even the Bird Brains have gotten quiet to conserve their energy. “We’ll get there when we get there; it’s not that much further of a walk, although we may want to set up camp for the night.”

“How can you possibly know that, Cyclops? For the last hour, I’ve seen sand, some more sand, and just a little bit more sand. I’m surprised my eyeballs aren’t just sand!” Vision states with his head low, sweat dripping off his muzzle splattering the ground.

“Simple. I lived here for most of my life, and explored the desert every day. Those mountains in the distance,” I gesture to the mountain peaks; from this distance, to most they would look exactly the same. To me, however, they were a guide. “They would help me find my way, no matter where in the desert I may be.”

Looking around, I motion for the group to stop, Junker practically falls to the ground exhausted; even a giant like him gets tired sometimes, it seems. Looking at the mountains, I see the sun finally setting; the last rays of it falling down, causing the world to be sprayed in hundreds of colors as I pull out my canteen taking a swig of its refreshing water. “We should set up camp; night has fallen, and as we have seen, it gets rather cold. It shouldn’t take too much longer to get to town, so we’ll get some sleep and keep walking once the sun rises.”

Rogue immediately sets to making a fire with the supplies he gathered from Hope, a bit of kinder, some rocks, and a small fire quickly lights. Considering how the wildlife out here are, tents would be rather useless, so we simply sit around the fire. The past couple of nights have been silent, the group seemed to prefer to remain silent aside from Junker and Melody; although they seem to keep to themselves more than anything else. Junker did not seem to take this heat as well as the others, so he’s been keeping to himself a lot; odd change of pace, considering what the last week has been like.

Sitting around the bonfire, I begin to focus on each part of our ragtag band. Junker is sitting next to the fire watching the flame flicker like a foal. Melody is sitting next to him watching him closely with a soft sigh. Rogue is walking around the perimeter keeping an eye on the darkness as Vision is cleaning his rifle. Silence reigns as I give off a sigh and add another twig from our dwindling pile.

Junker looks up at me as his trance was broken by the twig’s crackling, “So, um... Mr. Cashew, why are you here?” He sits up, looking at me with an almost childlike smile; the look of pure innocence upon his face astonishes me, one such as him should not be able to exist in this world. Before I can respond, he opens his mouth with a smile, “I’m here because I don’t really have anywhere else to go. I never knew my family, and I don’t really have any friends. I’ve been meaning to get away from that junkyard for some time now; it’s a nice place and all, but Martha was getting a bit too clingy, if you know what I mean.”

I looked at him a bit confused as the rest of the group laid down for the night, Rogue being the only one still standing. I shrug, “A long time ago, about 5 years or so, I left my hometown, the wonderful city of San Toyetic. It was a nice town back then, calm, but always full of life. The vault was always an issue but we survived. I left originally because I wanted to explore, to learn about the world and explore cybernetics. After I left, I joined a company, and learned cybernetics, and eventually left because I learned this company, like every other one in the wasteland, was using what I made for evil. Selling my work to the highest bidder and then profiting off of their death, or off of the kills they make, etc, After that, I went from town to town, exploring and learning, until I eventually came upon all of you.”

After I explained my story, albeit in less detail then they likely wished for. Why they expected the full story to be told to ponies I just met, I haven't a clue; likely they were as naive as Junker here. Speaking of him, he’s laying next to the fire with a soft smile, softly muttering, “Ooh wow, sounds like you’ve had a real adventure!” He speaks a bit louder to get everypony’s attention. “What about everyone else? What brought all of you here?”

Melody giggles as she sits next to him and leans against his side; considering his size, I would imagine it was like laying on a pillow made of muscle. “My story is simple and sweet,” She pauses for a moment with a yawn as she looks into the fire, “Loved music since I was a filly, but was taught how to be a medical pony. Learned the code, and been using it ever since; fixing up broken bones, taking care of disease, and just generally trying not to die. Certainly not the worst life.”

At this point, even the smile on my face was evident, albeit small. Junker was like a foal around us, seeming to have the time of his life. I hope he will always feel this way, his foal-like innocence is a nice break from reality; it would be such a crying shame to see him crushed like the rest of us. Vision speaks up with a grin as he lifts up his gun, looking over it as he cleans what has to be the only thing in our mini camp that doesn’t have a speck of sand on it. “My story is a fun one, full of pain, betrayal, hurt... So like most of the wasteland!” He puts the gun down next to him as he lays down for the night, his grin never fading. “I was top of my class, best fighter around and any that decided to pick a fight quickly lost their teeth, had to get Rogue out of more situations then I care to count. I left my home in the sky to find who killed my mother and to help Rogue survive down here. Meeting you guys was a twist of luck; the more we got in our little party, the easier it will be to survive.” Rogue grunted when his name was said but did nothing else, his eyes scanning the wasteland for even the slightest movement.

At some point, Junker fell right to sleep as his steady breathing could be heard, his eyes closed and a lazy smile laying across his face. Melody was laying on him yawning again, “We should all get some sleep, long day ahead of us. You boys switch out with each other if you feel the need, but I’m going to get my full sleep. It will be interesting to see where you used to live, Roasted, I just hope we can get out of there in one piece.”

I grunt in acknowledgement as Melody drifts off to sleep as well. Looking back at our small campfire, I allow myself to drift off too. I truly hope tomorrow goes as well as you believe it will, Melody, it’s been far too long since I’ve been back there… I wonder how my cat is doing.

Chapter 10: Leaving Home

Chapter 10: Leaving Home
(Rogue)

“Let this be a lesson for you boy; sometimes those closest to you will betray you, and sometimes no matter how easy the mission is... you can still lose everything.” Major Skies’ words to Vision echoed in my ears louder than my racing heart, the warm sticky coating of blood covering the gloves over my hooves, chilling me to my core. The tears flowing down my face obscures my vision and fogs my helmet. How could they think I killed her?

As I start being pulled into the cloud layer by the guards surrounding me, my thoughts fade into what happened on the ground.

The team had just hit the ground and through the radio I could hear Commander Wave saying, “Vision and Stormy, head to the west; me and Rogue will take the east. Spread out, watch each other’s backs, and kill any ponies you see. Most around here have been turned insane, and will very likely try to kill you.” She then nodded at me as we started walking towards the east. It was a simple enough mission; recon and air checks, mostly. We were primarily sent down here in order to check the radiation levels, which Commander Wave was doing as we walked, as well as checking out the fauna and general inhabitants to see if it was hospitable for us.

The next few hours were rather quiet, we walked around, checked a tree, checked the bushes, and kept walking. The endless silence continued as radio silence was in effect; it often was on ground missions, just in case. I had just started to relax as I watched Commander Wave move up slightly to check the radioactivity of an apple hanging from a branch… and then it happened. The sound of that sniper bullet flying through the air and slamming into Commander Wave followed by a constant flow of bullets slamming into her body before she dropped to the ground will haunt me till the end of my days. Without even thinking, I grabbed my assault rifle and immediately started spraying down where the bullets had come from, making sure to conserve ammo while hiding behind the tree next to me. Seconds go by in silence before I step out from behind the tree and start blasting forwards again spraying into the bushes as I near the Commander’s body, my eyes filling up with tears before I blink them away.

Hearing the click of my assault rifle, I realized I had run out of ammo. Shaking my head slightly, I heard hoofbeats crashing to the floor. Turning, I see Vision standing there, looking like a ghost had torn its way through his heart. “I’m so sorry,” I tried to say, but the words choked in my throat before I looked back at the Commander, and then to my still smoking gun. I immediately tossed it to the side. Stormy gave me a cold look, one that shot through my soul before I heard rustling in the bushes behind me, I immediately started dashing towards Vision, but Stormy was faster than me. Good thing too, as I was only about halfway to Vision by the time the bullet shot out from the bushes. Stormy stood up from Vision as blood started leaking onto the ground; it seemed to only be a flesh wound thankfully. As he stood, I looked him in the eyes, and it was at that point I knew.

Even after that bullet was shot, he still believed I killed her.

A door creaks open and I open my eyes with a startle; they burnt softly from the tears I’ve been shedding. I stand up with a shake of my head as I stare forwards, right into those burning eyes of Stormy Skies. I wobble slightly as I feel a burning sensation in my flank, flesh burn wounds making themselves known.

“Why did you kill her?” He stares at me as he walks through the door, slowly closing it as the words leave his mouth.

“What? You heard the gunshot, you saw the wound. Your brother almost got killed too! How can you possibly still think I killed her? She… she was like a mother to me too.” As I finished that sentence, Stormy’s hoof slammed itself into my stomach, all the air in my lungs flew out of me as I started to cough.

“Don’t, you dare say that, Traitor. I know what I saw; my mother’s body was riddled with holes and you probably took her sniper and shot her through her heart yourself. My brother only almost died because you shot at us when we came to find the two of you. Your family would be so disappointed… if they were still alive.” The coldness in his voice and those damned eyes make me so angry, every fiber of my being was screaming to beat him bloody, to turn him into a ruined mess.

But no; that’s what he’s hoping for. He’s hoping to make an example out of me. I know how these interrogations work, I’ve watched more than enough throughout my life. I look up at him before spitting onto his face. “Says the liar. Do what you want to me, but my story will never change. Vision knows what happened, even if you refuse to accept the truth.”

He sighs softly and turns around, wiping the spittle off his cheek before tapping on the door. “So you say, we’ll find out the truth eventually, scum. Normally you would be sent to the world below, forced to live amongst the barbarians and die of that radiation; a slow, painful, excruciating death. But for what you have done to Commander Sun Wave, your penalty is public execution. After you have confessed, or not. If you confess to your crime, however, maybe, just maybe Major Skies will grant you a quick death. Don’t bet on it though.” After that, he shut the door, the resounding bang being the only sound ringing in my head as the darkness closed in on me. With my thoughts I am alone, and the tears start to fall again... why? Why did this happen to me?

A few hours pass in complete darkness, there are no windows in this room to make it so no one can escape. I decided to spend the time walking around the room with my hoof on the wall. It’s a barren room for the most part, the only thing inside of it was the interrogation table. The walls themselves were made out of the usual hardened clouds that we use for almost everything. They may be clouds but they are as firm as stone; even if I did try bashing my way out, I would break more bones than wall. With a sigh, I sat in the middle of the room taking in the silence and turning my thoughts to when Commander Wave died. She was shot through the heart with a sniper rifle’s bullet, although the shot was quickly followed by an assault rifle; that much was clear to me. Having been around Vision for so long, a sniper rifle’s boom is unmistakable. From the speed of the shots and the positioning of the bullet spray, I have to assume it was 2 ponies, likely lying in ambush, although why they didn’t take out both Commander Wave and I is still a mystery to me.

As I continue contemplating who these two mystery ponies are, I hear the slow creak of the door opening. Looking up as the light starts filtering in, I sigh as I prepare for another interrogation from Stormy. Instead of Stormy walking through those doors, I see Vision standing there. He looks crestfallen, his typical happy demeanor stomped to the ground as he looks at me with tears in his eyes. “Did you do it?”

I sigh as I get to my hooves, my flank burning like a hole in my side as I grit my teeth looking him in the eyes. “You know me Vision, she was like a mother to me; of course I didn’t kill her… How could I have?” I wipe my hoof across my face, tears stinging my eyes as he takes a deep sigh and stands to the side of the door. “Come on Rogue, I ain’t letting my best friend die for someone else’s cruelty. We’re gonna find Mom’s killer, and we’re gonna make him pay. Damn all those who try to stop us.”

For the first time since I was escorted to the clouds I smile, and I start to walk out the doors. The air was different out here, in that jail cell there was very little movement for the air while the doors were sealed so it got very stuffy in there very quickly, this air was free, wild, and fresh. “Alright Vision, let's gear up before we go.”

He nods as we start sneaking towards the armory. I was always better at making plans and doing the methodical work than Vision was, so I started making a plan in my head. First we head to the armory, we get our guns, then we go to the storeroom and get some supplies. There’s a lot of food in there and I doubt we’ll be coming back, considering how the pegasi treat deserters, especially traitors. Once we get all the supplies we can, we’ll head out the back entrance; from Vision’s stories, he and his mother used to go out that way all the time when she took him on solo missions. Shockingly, his rebellious antics will actually help us out here. From there, we fly to the ground and just try to survive and get on our feet.

I relay this information to Vision in a hushed voice, my blood starting to pump as we continue making our way throughout the compound. The armory isn’t particularly far from us, although nothing really is considering the size of the base. Even I could probably make it from one end to the other in only a couple of minutes while flying. There was a guard posted outside, like always; not really needed, since nothing comes up here, but you can’t be too sure. I motioned for Vision to stay back for a moment, I was trained for most of my life to fight back, unfortunately, I was never really good at that. Instead, I focused on where to hit and when to dodge by analyzing my opponent before they get a chance to fight back. In this case, the guard was on a small chair made of clouds; a rather common sight in this town, half asleep on this overcast night. The area was shrouded in very little light, but there was just enough to see he wasn’t wearing his armor, just the jacket top most pegasi wore when they aren’t on an official mission, this meant that it was very easy for me to sneak up behind him and slam my hoof down onto his neck at a pressure point, knocking him out cold. He wouldn’t be permanently injured, and I doubt this would work the same way on other species, but for now, he wouldn’t be a bother as I motion to Vision to get into the armory.

Upon entering the armory, Vision gave off a small whistle, no matter how many times we walk in here, it’s always amazing to us. On each side of the room are walls lined with all different types of guns, enough for every pony in the compound and then some. There’s assault rifles, low powered snipers, side arms, even a machine gun for if we ever get into serious combat. No explosives though; it’d be hard to use a rocket launcher without a lot of possible injuries, and landmines would just fall through the clouds.

Vision stepped to the door to keep watch as he said, “Grab what you need and the ammo you can carry,but leave some space for supplies. I’m fine here; I got my trusty sniper and Silver Fang.” He gestures to the handgun on his hip; he has been using that thing for as long as I have known him. A small smile crosses my face before I head deeper into the army. All soldiers in the encampment have been trained to a minor degree with every type of weapon on base; however the only one that I’ve ever had much luck with is the assault rifle, with large magazines to rain down suppressing fire or to rip your enemies apart. I spot a rack of them and grab the closest one to me, along with an extended mag mod and several magazines that I quickly shove into the bag as I sling the rifle over my shoulders and head back to Vision.

Now that we’ve gotten our equipment, our only obstacle left aside from actually getting out of here was food. “Alright, I’m ready to go. While I was grabbing my rifle, I came up with a plan; we should go for the mess hall and then for your old escape point.” He nods in response, the plan was simple, although slightly difficult to execute. The compound was quite easy to traverse; however, there’s a lot of guards on duty throughout the area, so Vision and I had to sneak through it. Instead of what should have been maybe half an hour, it instead took almost 2 hours; eventually, we got to the mess hall and the food storage behind it. After that, Vision’s escape route was just barely ahead of it.

Stocked up on food, water, as well as guns and ammo, Vision and I were well on our way to getting out of this hellhole, even if it was the only home we ever knew. As we finally got to Vision’s runaway area, I looked around; it was at the edge of the wall, way in the back behind almost everything else. When you have a base made of clouds, getting out isn’t very difficult, but considering how thick the clouds are for the walls, it would take several hours; hours that we don’t have. As such, this location was perfect; it wasn’t a big hole in the wall, but it was sizable enough for a single pony to get through, obscured by surrounding thinner cloud layers. I breathed a sigh of relief as I realized we were about to make it out. The burning in my flank made me wince, but we didn’t have time to focus on that right now. I walk over to the hole as Vision starts swiping at it, preparing to leap through it, but then it hit me.

I was about to leave home; it might not have been the best home, it might not have been the kindest, and sure I may have gotten the ever living shit kicked out of me for the last decade, but it was the only home I ever knew. I paused, and I turned around to look at the little area I could see, to say farewell to that which I have known for so long. As I turned around, I realized that it wasn’t the Storeroom I was looking at; it was a mass of armor and flesh. Slowly looking up, I looked into the eyes of Major Blackened Skies, eyes full of pain, betrayal, and hate. I paled as I backed up, Vision walking in front of me.

“What are you doing here, dad?” He asked, his voice carrying a low menacing tone to it as he stood tall ready to protect me, although he barely reached his dad’s shoulders. “I could ask you the same thing, boy. You and this traitor here should not be so far away, tomorrow’s a big day after all.” His voice was cold, calculating, angry. I could feel it through my bones even though he spoke softly. I wonder where his backup was, or if he came here alone.

“We’re going to leave, I’m not going to let my best friend die just because someone framed him for my mother’s murder. We’re gonna find out who actually killed her, and we’re gonna make him pay. If you want to stand in our way, so be it, but we are leaving,” Vision punctuated that last sentence with a hoof stomp. His dad’s facial expressions didn’t change in the slightest.

“So, you’re planning on going on down to the surface, with barely any supplies, for a potentially long journey, that could rather easily kill you, in the middle of enemy territory, to find the supposed murderer of my wife, and then kill him yourself? I knew you were an idiot, Vision, but I’m amazed by this.” He growled in a low tone, not moving in the slightest and yet looking like a wall preparing to crush us with a single flick of his hoof.

“I’m not an idiot, I know what I’m doing. If you want Rogue to die, why not let us go down into the wasteland? Just tell everyone he escaped, kidnapped me, and since you’re so sure it’ll kill us down there, we’ll never be in your mane again. After all, dad, I’m just a disappointment to you anyways, aren’t I?” For the first time in this whole conversation, Blackened finally moved. He raised a single hoof, and placed it on Vision’s shoulder as he winced ever so slightly. Blackened’s voice had an... odd quality to it now, but I am not too sure what it was.

“You were never a disappointment to me. Stupid, yes, and an idiot more often than not, but never a disappointment. If you wish to follow your friend to the pits of hell, then there is nothing I can do about it. After all, even if I capture you and him, you’ll still find a way down there, even if you have to bring his chopped off head with you on a pike. Know this though, boy...” He moves his hoof back and he steels his face once more. “If you leave, you are henceforth banished from this compound, you will be missing in action and presumed dead. If you ever come back here, I will kill you myself. As for you...” He turns to me, his gaze colder than ice. “If you come back again, I will kill you, unless there is absolute, undeniable proof you did not kill my wife. There will be a kill on sight order for you in every branch of the enclave, there will be nowhere in the skies to run, and you will likely be hunted for the rest of your life. Either you will stay here and die the easy way, or you’ll run down to the ground and die the hard way. Either way, you will die, or you will prove your strength.” He bows his head slightly to the both of us, before turning around with a soft sigh. “Leave, before I change my mind.”

With that, Vision and I quickly ran through the escape hole, flying down to the ground below; after several minutes, we hit the ground, both of us breathing harshly; even the air down here burning whenever we took a breath. Radiation was a bitch, it seemed. Shaking my head, I looked over at Vision; he looked quite shaken up, but he turned to me with a sad smile. “I'm glad you’re with me, dude. If I’m gonna face hell, I might as well do it with my best friend.”

I grin at him. “Hey, I’m gonna die anyways, right? Might as well go out with a bang; if you’re gonna fall, make sure you take’m with you.” I look around the area; it seems like a semi-barren wasteland. Makes sense, considering how the encampment moved on its cloud bed that we wouldn’t be dropping in the same forest area; unfortunately, this meant we have no idea where we are going. “Alright, it appears to mostly be barren for at least several miles, let’s take to the skies and fly around, see if we can find a town, and just go from there, I guess.” He nods with a sigh.

It was hot, humid, and painful down here, but at least it’s better than dying. We take to the skies, trying to find any signs of life in this area. All my thoughts are on right now is finding who killed Commander Wave, and making sure they stop breathing.

Chapter 11: Reunion

Chapter 111: Reunion
(Rogue)

As I walk up yet another small dry hill, I sigh and take a drink from my canteen. The walk from Vault 64 took much longer than Vision and I were expecting, around 5 days' travel, but New Appleloosa was just in front of us and we had a significant quantity of supplies and information in our packs so the trip was well worth it.

Vision walks up next to me as we look at the town we left over a week ago, seemed like quite a while, even though it wasn’t. “What’s our next step, Rogue? We have a lot of supplies now and the research of the Vault itself; not sure how useful the Vault stuff is, but it could get us some caps if we find the right person.”

I shrug softly and take another swig before answering. “We could trade our supplies if we need to, but I think we can use all of it, so I would be hesitant to get rid of any. Most of the knowledge on the vault I think I’ll give to Ma since it’s not super useful to us, she might give us some caps for it. More importantly, giving it to her will ensure it won’t fall into the hooves of anyone that would trouble us. After that, we should check out the contract boards, see if there’s anything up for us to find and head out to. We have about a week before the deadline for the group comes up, so we’ll spend that week getting information and getting set up; if they arrive before that point, then they’ll get time to rest, but regardless of their arrival time we’ll be leaving in 9 days on the dot. As usual, don't piss anyone off too much and we’ll meet up at Ma’s when that day arrives. Aside from that, you can do whatever you think is best.” He nods and stretches his wings lightly before taking to the air; his pack was much lighter than mine, so he’d be able to watch the surroundings better and get to higher ground in case something attacked us.

“9 days, got it. I’ll check out the bounty boards, see if there’s anything interesting in there, and I’ll also spend some time in Whiskey’s bar, see if any information spills out of their loose lips. I’ll see ya back here when I see ya; best of luck, Rogue.” He then takes off, flying directly for, and then through, the gates of the town. I sigh softly and shake my head with a small smile; his antics are strange, but he does make this journey more bearable at least. Well, time to get my plan in motion. I’ll offload all of this Vault 64 info to Ma first, lighten everything in case I need to make a quick retreat.

Stepping off the dusty dune, I start making my way to the town itself. Outside the town are several railroad tracks leading in various directions. The ground is dusty, the air is dry, and the sky is dark and gray from the massive cloud coverage above. Around the city was a ring of boxcars forming a wall of sorts, these boxcars were also inside of the town forming many of the houses and other buildings; the crane that moved these massive containers appears to still be operational, although currently it doesn’t seem to be in use. All in all, not the worst atmosphere, especially for down here. Although the constant lack of sunlight is not the greatest feeling, it does seem to make everything much more dreary, considering this is a radiation soaked tomb down here I’m not surprised by it, but it is still difficult.

I walk through the front gates of the town, two earth ponies are standing watch at the top of the gate; they seem particularly bored and like they haven’t done much in the last few hours. The town must be quiet in that case, which is good considering. Although based on their lax attitudes, as I pass them, it seems like this town doesn’t get a lot of combat in it in the first place. This could be a good base of operations for the time being, especially since we don’t have any real target just yet. After Ma, I should look to see if there’s any form of permanent lodging here. If we’re going to stay for prolonged periods of time, it would be best to have a place to stay.

Walking through the town is just as quiet as it was outside, most of the ponies here are either inside of their homes or inside of the bar itself. It doesn’t seem like this weather bodes well for anyone’s general state of mind... That could be useful for any targets in the future.

I approached what appears to be the general item store, it was closed when we first arrived in the town which makes sense considering its name: Ditzy Doo's Absolutely Everything. Given how close the two of them seemed, it makes sense that Ditzy and Ma would be in likely the same building. At the very least, Ditzy would know where Ma is and one of them could take this information off my hooves.

I shuffle the bags on my flank as I walk into the store, the weight digging into them as I look around. True to its name, it has a large variety of items, some more random than others such as a toilet brush sitting next to a container of shotgun shells. Looking forwards at the front desk, I see Ditzy’s skeletal form standing there patiently, the chalkboard against her chest barely moving. I walk up as I greet her. “Hello Miss Ditzy. Considering the name of your shop I was wondering if you would be interested in getting a lot of information gathered from Vault 64, a few days of travel away inside of the desert. Specifically, it is information regarding the creation of the vault, the genetic experiments they produced within the vault, as well as several different chems that can be made from various desert dwelling creatures’ venoms.” I drop the bag of items next to me and step to the side, she looks intrigued for a moment before hopping over the counter and proceeding to look through the bag, quickly but efficiently. After a couple of minutes, she raises her head and then grabs some chalk and starts writing on her board. “This is an incredible find, lots that can be created and these chems are things I’ve never even considered possible before… For all of this, I would give you a thousand caps.”

A thousand caps? That’s quite a hefty amount and far more than I was expecting. Still though, considering how much ammo we go through, how high-price sniper bullets can be, how expensive the house in town may come out to be, as well as any medical supplies that Melody may require. A thousand is small compared to that amount. “A thousand is nice, however considering our expenses a thousand caps might not be enough. I would need caps for housing, as well as ammo and other supplies. How about 1500 caps? That should be enough.”

She nods softly and wipes her board with her foreleg again to clear it. “I unfortunately do not have that many caps. However, if you are looking for a house, we have an empty one a couple buildings down, it’s a red train car. If you would like to use that, you are welcome to it, and I can supply you some healing salves and some chems as well alongside the 1000. That should satisfy your supply issue and your housing problem.” I raise my eyebrow at her as I read. She’s a strange one for certain, but she is very good at haggling. Not only did she bring the price down to her original number, which is likely smaller than what she has, but she also managed to find a solution to my main issue and can supply us with simple needs, which would certainly be less than the 500 cap difference. Very impressive. “1000 caps plus general supplies including basic food and a few medical necessities determined by Melody if she arrives, or myself, if she doesn’t, and the red train car as lodging. That sounds like a good deal to me. I will take you up on it.”

Ditzy grins before she hops over the counter again and rushes into the back room. I can hear a few things getting shuffled and a voice that I assume is Ma’s likely asking Ditzy what’s going on. After a few minutes, that assumption is confirmed, as Ma steps out with Ditzy who hands me a fairly hefty bag full of caps. She proceeds to start filling her own saddlebag with the various notebooks, journals, papers, and various ingredients and the like that I brought from Vault 64. Ma looks at the massive amount that Ditzy is filling her bags with and simply shrugs. “Should have figured it was some trading being done. Hello again, Mister Rogue, did you find everything you were looking for? The contracts board recently got updated so if you haven’t taken a look at that yet I would suggest you do so, assuming of course you’re still lookin’ for some payment options.” She grins as she shakes her head watching Ditzy fiddle with her bags, before returning her gaze to me.

“I’ll be looking at that in a few minutes, ma’am. I figured I would drop off this sizable collection before continuing on my way so it doesn’t weigh me down any. Where’s the board currently?” I reply back with my usual demeanor, Ma is nice enough but especially after seeing her deal with Tolson I would rather not say anything that might be taken a bad way. She has some kind of edge to some of her words, possibly some buried rage. It’s a wonder she and Tolson haven’t killed each other yet.

“Oh please, don’t call me ma’am… I ain’t old enough for that yet. Stick to Ma, everyone calls me it nowadays and it just feels better. The board itself is on the other side of the building when you exit the doors. If you follow me, I’ll take ya to it and answer any questions you have ‘bout the area.” She starts walking past me looking at everything with a broad smile. She walks with a slight twinge of her right hind leg, possibly an old injury. The muscle under her fur coat is hard to see from any distance but as she gets closer to me to pass, I can see how well defined it is. It’s like ropes under her skin running across sheets of metal; the sheer amount of power held within those muscles is absolutely insane, and yet she walks with the grace of a thief. I wonder how long it took her to learn how to move her body with that level of ease. I follow her as she leads me outside the doors and to the left, the other side of where I came in. As she said, there is a large board on there a bit away from the entrance holding all kinds of interesting missions. Most are bounties, some smaller folks worth 50 to a couple hundred caps. As well as a few higher bounties, the most dangerous seems to be someone with a 50 thousand bit bounty. Considering our group barely worked together enough to take down someone with a 10mm pistol, I doubt these would fare well for us; as such, I’ll simply ignore them for now.

There are also a couple of notable bounty hunters on here too, odd that they would be put on display but considering one of them has 60 confirmed bounties she has completed, it might be a scare tactic. That bounty hunter specifically does look a bit young in the photo, almost the size of a filly, but I assume it’s either an older picture or the photo simply didn’t take very well. In either case, unless one of us gets a bounty, which seems to be unlikely, they won’t matter either.

I turn my attention to the main missions, some are smaller scale, get someone bread, deliver a letter, drive out a few ghouls, etc. most of which seem like they could work for a starting mission but none appear to be worth it in terms of the compensation. Finally my eyes land on one that seems promising.

“Slavers have taken a group of civilians from Dodge City, they have either arrived or will be arriving in Old Appleloosa soon, and from there will likely be taken to Rottingham. Return the civilians to Dodge City with as few casualties as possible. Reward 2K caps, 200 less for each casualty, see Doctor Wheat Grass upon completion.”

Returning a bunch of slaves from a raider camp doesn’t seem that hard; effectively, it’s just slightly upscaled from what we just came back from doing a few days ago, no deaths would be difficult however considering the team. I take the contract down and show it to Ma. “Where might these towns be?”

Ma looks at the contract with a nod and a somewhat solemn look on her face. “Ah, this one. This was posted a couple days ago, after they had been captured… One of our scouts did the recon and Doctor Grass put out the reward numbers. It’s a fairly common routine we’ve seen, they take ponies from a nearby town, bring them to Old Appleloosa for various reasons, and then after a few weeks they get moved to Rottingham. After that, we never see any of them again. Dodge City is a day or two to the east of here. Old Appleloosa is the same to the south although the ground isn’t the most steady so if you’ll be going down there stay on the tracks. The ground underneath was reinforced in order to withstand the train so it’s some of the only parts that don’t have pitfalls scattered across the ground. Once you get about halfway there, you can either go the slightly longer but safer way, which is along the mountain tops; it’ll add about 2 more days to your journey. Or you can go along the tracks themselves… The only danger with that is pretty obvious with the train passing through there every now and again for trades. However, we haven’t gotten anything back from them for a while now, so there’s no telling when the train would pass through, and there isn’t anywhere for you to escape if it does.”

She takes a deep breath before shaking her head and handing back the contract to me. “Rottingham is a bit northwest of the Canterlot ruins, not much is up there and it’s a very long journey by hoof, so your best bet would be catching them in Old Appleloosa. I’m not entirely sure myself how they transport so many ponies such a distance, likely some form of magic, but once they set out on the road to Rottingham it’s unlikely you’ll be able to catch up. Considering this was posted a few days ago and they usually stay in Old Appleloosa for around 2-3 weeks, possibly to stock up on supplies, you probably have around 2 weeks before they leave at least. ”

I nod, rolling up the contract to put it into my bag. “You have my thanks, Ma. You sure do know a lot about this town, huh? Have you been here for a while?”

She looks me up and down for a moment before her cheerful grin returns to her face and she runs a hoof through her mane. “I’ve been here for most of my life actually; didn’t have a family to call my own, was orphaned before I could even walk or so I was told. I spent my days learning to survive, fighting, trading, shootin’. Ms. Ditzy took me in and showed me the ropes… said I had some sorta promise showin’ or something. Since then I decided I wanted to be like her, help folks the best I can, and did pretty well till Tolson showed up. Lots of hurdles he presented but ain’t nothin a mother can’t fix. I treat that boy like my own flesh and blood, I treat a lot of folks like that since him. He’s a good boy, just a bit rough around the edges till you get to know him, a heart of gold and a face to match.” She shakes her head and turns towards the doors to Ditzy’s shop. “Could you do me a favor and check up on him? The poor boy hasn’t had much company lately and while I appreciate his help, always have, he’s a loner at heart and I get worried bout him sometimes. He’s in the blue house on the other side of town. Well, I say ‘house’, but everything’s a train car ‘round here… Anyways, he’ll be in there.”

A loner at heart, huh? Sounds quite like Vision. I’m not sure how well I’d get along with him, he doesn’t seem to be the nicest person, although honestly neither was Vision back in the academy. He used to punch ponies if they said the wrong word and they kept a distance from him. He’s one of my closest friends and I can’t imagine what it would be like for him without someone like me to keep him in check. I wonder if Tolson is the same way.

“I’ll pay him a visit in a moment then. Thank you for all of your help, Ma, it has been quite informative.” She smiles at me before heading in through the doors. Such a sweet smile, you would never think she could break steel... What a dangerous combo. I nod to her and shuffle my pack before turning to look at the train cars on the other side of town, efficient to make housing out of them. If Tolson becomes close to the party, maybe we could use it as a secondary housing in case our first one here gets looted.

I started my walk to the blue train car that Ma had gestured to; it was the only blue one on that side of town, so it was pretty clear which one she had meant. The clop of my hooves against the ground was rather peaceful as they were dulled by the soft dirt under me and I idly wondered what Vision was up to in the bar; from the sounds of it, he hadn't started a bar fight yet which was good. Upon arriving at the door I shrugged my shoulders back and tapped my hoof against it, waiting for a response. After a few minutes, Tolson opens the door and stares at me…

Neither of us said anything for another couple of minutes.

Tolson rests against the door and says, “Are you going to say something Automatic Bisectomy, or are we just going to keep standing here?”

I take a few moments to stare at him, attempting to rack my brain for a response to such an… interesting statement. “Um… Ma told me to check up on ya, she said something about you being alone a lot and figured I could keep you company. It’s not my first choice, or my current interest, but I figured it could be an interesting time.” I shrug my gun against my shoulder, moving its weight to better rest on my haunches as I look past his shoulders to see if I can observe anything in his house. From what I can see, there is an edge of a terminal, but aside from that, it’s almost as barren as he is; the room seems to be slightly green but that may just be my eyes adjusting to the dark of the house.

He looks at me deadpan for a moment, the tension in the air seems palpable. “Uh huh. So, what was your first choice then?” His body language suggests that he seems to be exceedingly bored… that, or he just straight up doesn’t care. I can’t quite tell, which is impressive, but also vaguely worrying.

“I was planning on going over to a house that Ms. Ditzy suggested my group take lodging in, I have to wait for my companions to come back so scouting the area out, getting provisions and setting up camp is my first instinct. If they don’t come back from the hellhole that they went into, then Vision and I will simply go on the contract Ma gave us alone. Not the best idea to go on a dangerous mission with only the two of us, but we need the caps.” I shrug, staring at him, returning that same cold uncaring body language he is presenting.

“Which house?”

“The red one a couple buildings away from Ms. Ditzy’s shop.” I’m not entirely sure where he’s going with this line of questioning, and I’m starting to feel a bit awkward just standing here staring at him. I should end this conversation soon if it doesn’t go further, although he could be a helpful asset in the future like he was in Hope. “Do you know the building?”

He hasn’t moved at all since the start of the conversation and continues to hold that same rigid posture. “Good news, that building isn’t one that the owner blew their brains out in. Should be suitable. Provisions should be easily attainable through Whiskey’s, especially since Chicken Wings loves to start stuff and drink his worries away.”

I tilt my head for a second trying to figure out what he means, then I realize he’s talking about Vision. He seems to nickname everyone he encounters, except Ma and Ms. Ditzy. I wonder if it’s a habit from his past. “Well, that’s good to know at least. Once my crew gets back, should be in around a week or so, we’re going to be going on a contract that Ma gave us to save some civilians that are being transported to Old Appleloosa to be used as slaves. Would you be interested in coming along? Since Ma said I should check up on you since you're often alone I assume she meant to have you join us if you're interested.” While it’s not my first option to have him come along, he seemed to be quite competent in massacring large groups, so as long as he’s aware of who's on his team it should be fine.

Immediately after I asked this, I started to regret the question as he started to smile. Normally that wouldn’t be an issue; however, the way he smiled is what truly unnerved me, it’s also the same disturbing smile that he had back inside of Hope, directly before he commenced the slaughter. His mouth slowly pulls backwards into a smile, far wider than it should have been able to without splitting his lips. I not only could see his front row of teeth, but I could also see the back row almost glinting in the light. The oddest part, aside from the sheer joy seeming to radiate from this pony who previously was like a stone pillar, is that his teeth were absolutely flawless. Considering the general state of the world, flawless teeth are not a common sight, never mind half-decent teeth. Even my own teeth have nicks and some are jagged just from being on missions and eating the food we do.

“Well, if Ma’s mentioning me, that means I got a new job… Good, I’ve been getting bored.” The way he says this is probably the most unnerving part of this entire conversation, even past his teeth. He seems to be taking a strange amount of pleasure in the words as they flow from his lips. I honestly preferred when he was emotionless.

“Right... Uh, well, the group should be back within the week as I said. The scheduled time for us to leave will be in 9 days; with or without the rest of the party, that shall be when we depart. If you are inclined to join, be sure to be at the gates at that time. Also, the contract we are making specifies that the more civilians we bring back alive, the more pay we get. As such, while you can kill as many slavers as you deem necessary, keep the innocents out of your sights as best you can. I’m still not sure how well this group will handle a mission like this one, so I’ll be trying to keep an eye on things as best as I can.” I stand up a bit straighter and look back over my shoulder as prep work starts to flow through my head.

“See you at 0500 on the dot on the 9th day. I’ll make sure to bring… eh, 30 shells.” At this he simply turns around and walks back inside, leaving the door open as I turn my head back to him. I was intending to ask why 30 shells specifically, but figured he had some reason for it. I shrug and turn back towards the rest of the town and start making my way to the red house. Based on his statement it might be a regularity that people kill themselves here, I’m not particularly surprised but it does make me wonder about the general mentality and morality that this town holds. If the people’s morale is that low it could be a problem if this becomes a long term situation. Here’s hoping he’s simply exaggerating.

The nine days have finally passed, Melody, Junker, and Marrow got into town a couple of days ago, seeming rather tired but accomplished. I had let them rest for a bit before I decided to fill them in on everything we have up to date. We have quite a bit of caps that we’ll be spending primarily on ammo, food, and medicine if we can find any traders for it. We have a mission to head down south to Old Appaloosa to save people, and that Tolson would be joining us for the time being as per Ma’s request.

The party seems fairly alright with all of that was stated, Marrow being the first to pipe up out of the group. “Before we decide to head on our way it might be best if we find out the path we’ll be taking first. Do you have a map?” Thankfully Ma was nice enough to hand me one a few days ago, she was only willing to accept 5 caps for the map and wouldn’t let me push it, so I put it down on the table.

“Ma said that the path was rather difficult, the ground around the tracks is loose and has a lot of pitfalls, so we should stay on the tracks as much as possible. That being said,” I move my hoof to where the mountain area is down south. “She said around here is when we have a split off point. We can either go across the rails, which would be heavily dangerous as there is no ground surrounding that stretch of tracks, and we have no idea when the train will move through there. Or we can take the mountains, but it’d likely add another two or so days to our trip.”

Melody props herself up onto the table we’re all seated around, she being the only one that is too small to properly make herself seen, and states “Considering most of us can’t fly like you two I suggest the mountains. It’ll take longer, but it will be safer in the long run. I can heal many things, but a puddle of goo is not one of them.” The others seem to nod in agreement.

“Fair point, the mountains we shall take then. Considering it is cold up there and likely will be snowing I’ll be sure to pack up some torches and sleeping bags for all of us. It’s a dangerous trip for certain but we’ll at least be putting a name for ourselves out there which, for our party, might be necessary. It’ll at the very least make sure that when we encounter problems like slavers, they’ll have a possible reason to not shoot first.” I shoot a glance at Vision as I say this. As much as I believe that our group having a name for itself will be a good plan, I also know I have to keep both Vision and myself out of that name as much as possible. His family will certainly make things an issue if we became well known. Vision nods to me, seeming to read my thoughts.

Tolson speaks up for the first time since the full crew has gathered, looking at all of the ponies around the table. “I’ll be blunt, the mountains are cold and I’m not dragging frozen ponies off a mountain. So if you die, I'm gonna take your supplies, and divy them up to everyone else here. Y’all ain't allowed to die… So don’t. Ma told me to keep ponies safe, so you're going to be alive. I will drag your happy soul back into your broken bodies if I have to, if at all possible.”

The group gets a bit quiet for a moment, then I speak up again. “Rough paths are those that get traveled with caution. I’ll see to our preparations, we should all meet up at the front gate in about an hour. Get what you need to get done, done.” I start making my way to Ditzy’s store knowing that if anyone is going to back out, they’ll do so when I get to the gates.

After a while I stepped out of Ditzy’s store, it took her a bit to find everything as it was rather scattered around the store but eventually I ended up with around 12 torches, 7 sleeping bags, in case one gets damaged, several weeks of rations, and frankly some hope. I arrived at the gates to see the full party surprisingly there. Tolson, Junker, Melody, Marrow, and Vision chatting with one another as the day slowly passes, all looking up as I arrive and getting to their hooves. I nod at them and start making my way to the gates stepping onto the tracks that lead south, the rest behind me.

We aren’t the greatest group in the world, in fact I can probably name you 12 problems with our team right off the top of my head. But they’ve at least proven themselves somewhat competent, stubborn, and either stupid or determined. Down in this hellhole that’s really all you can ask for. I’ll put my faith in them for now, who knows what dangers face us ahead. I can only hope we’ll survive them.

Chapter 12: The Frozen Path

Chapter 12: The Frozen Path
(Rogue)

“And then I said, ‘Why the long face?’ but no one seemed to have gotten the joke. It was kinda sad but I didn’t let it stop me!” Junker says happily near the middle of the group as we’re walking; he’s been telling these stories for the last couple of days of the journey, and for the most part, it’s been the only sound we’ve heard. The rest of the group, aside from Melody, has been rather quiet. His aggravating jokes, however, come to a rest as we are finally approaching the mountains in front of us.

“The mountains appear quite colder than I was expecting; the snow is deep even a few hundred feet up. Are we sure this is going to go well?” Melody asks with a worried tone, she packed quite a few things that we got from Miss Ditzy, but she is correct in that the snow is burying most of the landscape in front of us the higher up we look. Marrow speaks up for the first time in possibly the last few days.

“We will be fine. The landscape around here was heavily affected by the radiation and so the snow is much more dense and constant; however, with my magic and our outfits we shall be fine. The worst we should face is that it’s cold, but beyond that it should be just like the last couple of days... Lots of bad jokes and horrible timing,” He seems to be rather frustrated even if he’s not putting it into his words. I assume we have all gotten annoyed by Junker’s jokes, but they have been the only real conversation lately, so it wasn’t the worst thing.

I shrug while listening to them and simply start walking forwards, starting the ascent up the mountain as the rest of them follow. I don’t like this path in the slightest; too many dangers that I can’t predict. I don’t mind the cold, nor does Vision, as we have been enduring it for most of our lives since we lived above the cloud layer. However, the cold is not what concerns me up here... From what I have gathered so far, the main dangers that are lurking for us are either bounty hunters, of which there seemed to have been plenty, or various bandits or even a ghoul if we’re unlucky. Given the radiation and the mutations it can cause, there are also many other dangers I can’t even imagine that could be lurking up ahead. I slow down for a second to grab a coat out of Junker’s pack, putting it on in preparation for the long journey; everyone does the same with the exception of Tolson, for some reason. I’m rather surprised at that, but it’s not the most concerning thing I’ve watched him do lately, so if he wants to freeze, I’ll leave him to it.

The walk up takes hours, and every few minutes the cold seems to grow deeper. Eventually, we reach a point where it starts to flatten out a bit; the snow here is several feet deep and it’s hard to see, not to mention the chilly air is causing my lungs to hurt with every breath. After another few minutes of walking, we wander into what appears to be the ruins of a small town. Hopefully it was from before the weather became frigid, as I can’t imagine living in this cold. We take a second to correct our placement on the mountain, as walking blindly will end up making us lose more ground than we will make, and thankfully there’s no wind to muffle any noise.

I pause as faintly I swear I could hear something. Tolson’s ear also twitches as he looks around; good, I’m not the only one that heard it. I strain my ears, waiting for something… anything… Finally, I hear it again. It sounds like a filly yelling out. Why would a child be up so far in the mountains? Before I can wonder much more, I start hearing some other voices; several adult males. Looking in the direction of the voices, I gesture to Vision to scout ahead; at this point the shouting is starting to get louder and the rest of the party can hear it. Stealth will likely be the best strategy here as they haven’t spotted us yet, so I have Junker and Melody stay back. His size and weight will cause a lot of problems, and her size will cause her to sink into the snow, which could have its own health risks.

Tolson, Vision, Marrow, and I start heading towards the sound. As we move across the snow and crest the hill, Vision pulls out his sniper. “I see three males, and a filly... It looks to me like they are threatening her.”

Kinda odd, considering we’re in the mountains, and it’s deserted around here. It does feel strange, certainly like a trap. However, if it were a trap, I’d have to wonder how they would know that anypony might be coming through here in the first place, and why they would use a filly as bait. She’s barely taller than the snow, similar to Melody’s height.

“It is strange, however I don’t think we have reason to be concerned. Tolson, you should head back to the rest and find somewhere to make camp. It’s going to get dark soon, and we can’t sleep out in the snow or we’ll freeze to death. I don’t want to scare the filly, so we’ll take them out relatively quickly; Vision, you’ll get the first shot, and after that I’ll slam into the second’s legs to knock him over and have Marrow impale the third. Make sense?” Everyone nods at that as Tolson simply turns around and walks away; he may not be the most attentive individual, but at least he listens.

The next few moments are exceptionally quick. I run forwards through the snow, letting it muffle my hoofprints with Marrow directly behind me; as we get close enough, the filly sees us and a brief moment of a mix between worry and hope flashes across her face before Vision’s shot rings out and the one furthest in the back has his head explode across the snow. Seconds later as the other two turn to look at their fallen friend, I slam my rifle into the middle one’s side and unload several bullets into him, as Marrow uses his telekinesis to slam his shortsword right through his skull. The bandits barely had the time to register what had happened before they were all on the ground dead. I stand up and shake the snow off my gun before sliding it back onto my shoulders, looking at the filly. “Are you alright? Did they harm you?”

She stands up, a look of worry washing over her face as she seems to try to hide her expression; she has a deep blue coat with a silver mane, she almost blends into the snow. “I’m okay, my name is Shimmering Rain. Uh… thank you for saving me, I wandered away from my parents and haven’t been able to find them and these men found me. They shouldn’t be too far away though.” She starts to shuffle away from us, although I notice that her gaze looks behind me as Vision lands and there seems to be a glint of recognition for just a moment before it disappears.

“Shimmering Rain? Huh, that sounds kinda familiar... Are you from New Appleloosa by chance? If you want, we can take you to your parents if they are close by.” She shakes her head rather vigorously; I wonder if we scared her with our demonstration. “No, no. Thank you, but I can find them. And uh, yeah I’m from there. We left from there a bit ago and we are traveling now. Um… T-thank you for the help, but I have to go!” And with that, she turns around and takes off through the snow. Considering how deep it is, it’s more like she’s jumping through most of the snow, but it’s surprisingly effective, especially for how young she seems to be.

“Well, that was odd. Did you know her, Rogue? She seemed to recognize us a bit. Considering we’ve been in New Appleloosa for a while, I wouldn’t be surprised if our faces spread around a bit but it’s still strange.” Vision asks as he shoulders his rifle as well.

I shake my head. “No, never seen her before. You are correct in that this was very odd though; it’s also odd that her parents would take her here in the first place. A snowy mountain is no place for fillies… Although, considering how it is down here, I doubt anywhere is.”

At this point Marrow speaks up. “Whatever is the case, we've done our good deed for the day, let’s head back to camp. Hopefully Tolson has found somewhere to make do for the night, if not we’re going to be in for a long search.”

I sigh, the prospect of being out here during the night is not an enjoyable one. We are closer to the cloud layer so a bit of sunshine is getting through and the gray of the day is unpleasant, but as night starts to fall that gray is gradually getting darker and the temperature is dropping incredibly quickly. Even with my coat, I can still feel the wind digging into my side.

Turning around with the two, we start heading back to the other half of the group; after a few minutes, we reconnect with them and Melody is holding what appears to be a torch, seeming to use it for warmth. Considering her size, I’m not surprised the cold is getting to her... Weirdly enough, Tolson is nowhere to be seen. “Hey Melody, where did Tolson go? Is he off chasing a random chair he found?”

She shakes her head as she shivers, the torch floating next to her. “No, he went to go find some kind of cave; he said if he didn’t come back by the time you all got here just to keep moving forwards and he’ll find us.” I nod at that; it’s a smart tactic, although one I’m surprised he thought of. I beckon the group onward as the wind starts to pick up a bit. The freezing cold is starting to dig even deeper as the snow is getting disturbed and flying up to hit us. After around an hour or so, Tolson comes back to the party. The wind is threatening to ramp up even harder, and the sun has almost completely fallen away now, and the temperature has dropped even lower. “I really hope you have some good news, Tolson, it’s not looking good out here.”

He nods although even I can barely see it through the snow whipping around. “I found a small cave; it’s a bit ahead, but we should be careful. If the wind picks up any more it could start-” He’s interrupted by the sound of snow being heavily shifted above us. Although I haven’t been in snowy terrain for quite some time, it’s very easy to assume what that sound was… the beginning of an avalanche.

We all look at each other for a moment before we start to run hard; however before we can get more than a few feet, Junker seems to hit something and it causes him to stagger as the object pops out of the ground. The object in question appears to be some kind of skeleton, one that starts to move as it is dragged out of the ground... Dammit, I wasn’t expecting a ghoul to show up, and this is not a good time for it.

The ghoul sits up as Junker reels back, before it lets out a piercing scream. This scream is followed by quite a few more screams, practically filling the surrounding area before Junker jumps onto the creature, cutting its scream short. Unfortunately the scream did its job as a horde appeared around us, as well as the sound of more snow shifting above. While the avalanche is not as immediate as I first thought, it’s definitely getting disrupted and that means it could fall on us at any second.

Danger seems to fill every corner of our lives and now we are facing down a horde of ghouls and may get buried alive in the dead of night with a blizzard forming. How could this night possibly get worse?

Prologue: Monsters and Machines

Author's Note

Hey my dudes. welcome to this lovely series. Hopefully I should be updating this semi regularly, however if you check out my main youtube Purgatory Corner you'll see I am getting myself quite busy so this might be a bit difficult to keep up with. Hope you all enjoy this series though and lemme know what you think! This is the first piece of literature I've ever made, so throw me your comments and I will make sure to read them all. Thank you!

Prologue: Monsters and Machines

Prologue: Monsters and Machines

“My name is [redacted information] and I am, well was, a security guard for the 4th batch of experiments in Fillydelphia, labeled 4-01 to 4-50, or as we more commonly say it, 400 to 450, and these were my logs.” A deep sigh rings out before a cracked hoof presses down on the pipbuck, a whirling sound is heard as the tape rewinds.

Day 1:

I’ve been in Fillydelphia for quite a few years now; the city looks the same as it did when I started. A slave camp like no other, fires burning in the factories, slaves being thrown from one place to another, many being tortured, and others still just being forced to do manual labor, not the worst life for some. The worst part being Fillydelphia Crater, a hell hole of incredible size and terror; ponies sent down there would get radiation poisoning within days, and be trapped down there for years.

Not the best thing to watch, listen to, or smell. By Celestia, the smell was one of the worst parts.

But enough about that terror of a city; my original job was watching over the slaves and making sure they did their jobs. Not the most entertaining of lives, but it kept me on my hooves and kept me awake at least. I must have done something amazing however, as I got offered a promotion; likely cause some poor bastard got killed by one of the slaves. Considering it was a pay raise, an incredible one at that, and I could at least get away from that smell, I took it. That was… not the brightest decision I’ve ever made, but hey the pay was worth it.

Day 2

I gathered up what little I had after a good night’s sleep, well as good a night as you can have with all the slaves crying and wailing and, in many cases dying, around you. The sounds still echo to this day.

After I got my stuff, a saddle bag full of different tools, some everyday tools to fix anything broken. Screwdriver, hammer, nails, and some more… painful items.

Such as my knife -I call him Rusty- a whip, and a few other tools I use on the slaves when they get rowdy.

I finally got approached by one of the higher ups, never found out his name, no one ever really used names, only numbers, and he brought me further into the city. I’ve been on the outer edges of Filly for most of my time here; the last two decades of hell I would call’em. As such getting to go further in was a very odd experience.

The screams around me slowly faded, not quite sure if that was helping the atmosphere, or making it worse.

Eventually the stallion brought me to a plain looking building; plain looking as the rest of them, although with less smoke surrounding us, as we have now exited the main industrial area. Inside was very different from what I was used to, it looked so much cleaner, so white the light practically bounced off every surface.

There was also an odd smell practically clinging everywhere, it was so very familiar but I couldn’t place it. At the end of the hall, there was a blue light and a grated door, what clearly looked like an elevator.

“An elevator? Haven’t seen one of those in more years than I care to count. Why are we going down if I may ask?” I question as I turn to look at the higher up.

“What’s your number, son?” He said as he kept walking forwards, not missing a beat as he slammed a hoof against the button, likely calling the elevator up.

“4427614” I said snapping to attention, the action long since drilled into my skull.

“Good, you still remember. That is the only name you will be given, and will be the only way we will refer to you. If you learn another guard’s number, remember it and use it, or don’t speak,” he cracked his neck before looking at a door adjacent to us. “To answer your question, we are going down for your reassignment; however, you can take the stairs if you like.”

I decided against doing so.

After a few minutes the elevator came up, and the stallion and I walked inside. Going down was one of the tensest moments of my entire career. Finally the elevator stopped, and we got out; the lower levels were similar to the ground floor, all shiny, all white.

The smell, however, had only grown stronger, reminded me of the outer edges. Still couldn’t place it and it was starting to bug me with how clean everything was.

The only sounds that could be heard in this… I suppose we could call it, ‘cell block’, were the faint sounds of singing. I’ve long since forgotten what music had sounded like, if anyone did have music in the other edges, it would almost constantly be overridden by the screams, so we just stopped having music at all.

Turning to the higher up, I ask simply, “Who’s making that music?”

His expression didn’t change, always as cold as steel, pretty fitting for the surrounding area. “Experiment 426, she sings most every day, we do not quite understand why. We have long since stopped trying to beat it out of her, as she continues even if we beat every inch of her body to a pulp. As long as she can speak, she starts to sing, and if we force her to stop, well... You’ll find out soon enough. Experiment 427 makes it very clear.”

I raised my eyebrow at that, but decided to keep my mouth shut as he continues along. “Your main job here is very similar, albeit much more difficult than the one you had with the slaves. You are to keep watch of Experiment Block 4; there are 50 experiments in this block, all of which are under your watch, and the various guards around you.”

As the higher up finished saying this, we approached what looked to be a series of monitors; each monitor focusing on a different cell, or a group of cells. There were also around 4 other guards sitting and watching with extreme focus. This was kinda strange to me, as this job sounds like it should be rather easy. A singing pony to provide music, a bunch of cells, some empty, almost all filled, and some getting “experiments” thrown in. The fact that the other 4 guards stood at extreme attention, almost filled me with dread.

“So my job is basically to be a foal sitter to a bunch of monitors and listen to music all day? Sounds simple enough; when do I start, and where am I focusing?” I say as I sit down, the chair was decently comfy, albeit I’ve been walking or sleeping on the ground for the last two decades, so I’m sure even a rock filled sack would feel nice right about now.

“You have the most difficult job, you get to watch Experiment 426, 427, as well as 447. That one,” he pointed to another monitor with a rather large brown stallion on it. The stallion had a black mane and was curled up in a corner, barely moving. I actually had to strain my eyes to catch him breathing. “Is one of the most dangerous experiments in the entire block, however, he is also the most stupid, and likely the easiest to take care of. Give him food, water, and leave him alone.” Stupid, and simple; sounds like every slave I’ve ever dealt with.

The stallion points to another monitor with two cells on it, rather than the one cell he showed previously. This cell showed an actually almost attractive female pony; a very small and petite pony with long, extremely matted, and almost purple hair, with the ends somewhat black. This was likely because it got stained with her blood, but it might be her original for all I knew. She had cuts and bruises all over her body, making it an odd shade of black and blue; almost impossible to tell what her original color was, but I swear I saw some green in there. Her mouth, however, was likely the worst part of her, all dry and cracked; I wonder if she ever closed the damn thing. Although there was no sound playing on the monitor she still sang loud enough to be heard.

“This is Experiment 426. As I said previously, she sings constantly whenever Experiment 427 is inside of his cell, she will begin to sing. As I said before, we don’t know exactly why; but when we have made her stop before, he started to go on a rampage, so we let her sing, makes our lives easier, even if it is rather irritating. Do what you wish with her. She will let you do anything and everything without hesitation, just give her food and water twice a day, and you’ll be fine.”

He pointed to the last one he gave me watch over, Experiment 427. The camera didn’t show very good detail for any of the ponies, but this one was even stranger. The cameras give everything an odd green tint. This pony appears, however, to be even greener; with scarring all over his body, random metal extruding from random points, and when he looked at the camera, those eyes could kill a stallion just from a glare. It sent shivers down my spine; maybe this won’t be that easy after all.

“This is, by far, the most actively dangerous experiment you will have to deal with. He has ripped more ponies to shreds then many of the slaves in the The Pit, he’s also a rather special case. If you’re careful, he will not be able to get you; his cell bars are made from triple-reinforced iron, only damn things that hold the bastard. So when you give him food and water, slip it through the holes in the door. Do not, I repeat, do not, enter his cell. You are replacing the last pony that did that.”

Day 3

Today was an odd day; the higher ups told me to start using these terminals to log down anything interesting, for “scientific reasons,” they said, I call bullshit, but whatever, the pay was incentive enough to keep my mouth shut and just do the job. It was a rather effective system, although greatly tedious. I did a few for the other two days, which I assume have been listened to; I shall continue as such.

Nothing much happened, mostly just figuring everything out, and settling in for the long run. Today, however, is when things got interesting.

My first task of the day was to check up on Experiment 447, as the higher up had previously said he was rather simple to take care of; throw some food in his cell with some water, and leave. Watching on the cameras was very strange; whenever he would start moving, the cameras would start to static. I was very concerned with this at first, but another guard told me to wait. In doing so, it went back to normal and the food was gone, but the experiment didn’t seem to have moved at all. I do wonder what the higher ups do to these things, but as the saying goes: "Our job is not to reason why, but do and die"

After dealing with Experiment 447, I went to go check up on the other two. Experiment 426 was fairly simple to handle; she was still singing, and after a day of listening to this tune, I was getting rather annoyed at it. However, considering the warnings, I just dealt with it. She was lying on her side, looking almost dead; if not for that song I would assume she was. Staring at her, I paused for a moment, actually listening to the song. I realized that I hadn’t actually listened to the lyrics before, even though I’ve been down here for a while now.

Fire burns in the evening tide

A wall so tall and bright,

Summer comes to a close with a fall of dawn, on the evening tide.

We cry some more ‘til we’re told, don't cry, don't cry

Evermore, on an evening tide

Don't cry, don't cry, till night time

Say goodnight, my foal

Goodnight, my filly

‘Til we see that outer wall.

Huh, I wonder if that actually has some meaning to it, it seems to be looping constantly. Looking over to Experiment 427, I noticed he was leaning against the wall. He was staring at me with a glare that both made me pity him, and fear him. That look almost felt like he was sliding a ghost along my skin and dragging my very soul out of my body. Oddly he wasn’t moving; just watching. I assume this was because of Experiment 426’s singing, but I would rather not make sure of this.

Sliding over the food for Experiment 426, the usual bread and water they made us give all of these poor creatures, I went over to Experiment 427’s cage; being curious on how he would react. Surprisingly he did, well, nothing. He just sat there against the wall, staring. If not for the breathing I would swear he had died and gone to whatever is after this hell of a life. I grabbed his plate of food and slowly pushed it under the door, keeping my eyes on him the entire way. Once I stepped away he started moving, scaring the living crap out of me, but he moved slowly; leaning forwards and grabbing the plate of food and taking a bite. The scary thing, however, is that he didn’t just bite the food, he bit through the entire metal tray the bread was on, his teeth sliding through the metal and bread like a hot knife through butter. It was one of the stranger things I’ve ever seen; although I once saw a pony being turned into liquid within 2 seconds because a unicorn was especially pissed, so this wasn’t too bad. Smelled better too.

Day 15

Today, I finally understand why all these preparations are necessary for these creatures; they are truly hell’s creations. I’ve decided “Experiment” was too odd of a term, so as such I shall now label them, “Subjects.” It’s such a kind word for such a horrifying creation; I honestly have no idea what the higher ups plan on doing with these things, but I hope it either doesn’t happen, or I’m dead before it does.

Now before I get into why I feel this way, I should sum up the last couple weeks. I’ve been here for a while now, and got into a routine of sorts; wake up, get my food, ask the other guards to bring me up to date as we are on different shifts. Get the Subject’s foods, deliver, and leave, simple right? Until now the answer was “yes.” Now, however, things have changed. Every couple of days, the higher ups would send some ponies down, and they would start experimenting on the Subjects; namely 426 and 427.

Subject 447, however, was a curious one. They experimented on him almost every day, doing anything and everything they could think of, like beating him senseless, breaking his bones, shoving rotten food at him. Then they tested for more super power-esque abilities; testing for super speed, super strength, telekinesis. You name it, they tested for it. Nothing seemed to work on him, and the frown that was practically etched into his face seemed to grow deeper every day. Some nights, I thought I could hear him cry.

Today was the day they released him; I dunno what they did with him, but considering what they did with the other subjects on a daily basis, I cannot imagine that they just let him go.

Now for the other subjects, 426, and 427; to give you a bit of context, the two of them are usually experimented on in their cells. Apparently the higher ups thought it produced better results to have the two of them be forced to watch what happens to each other. This has produced… well, some kind of results at least. 426’s experiments, I would say, are more akin to torture. They’ve beaten her, broken her, ripped her apart, and put her back together again. The only time I’ve ever heard her stop singing is when she started screaming. This had a, well, rather terrifying effect on Subject 427; once she started screaming he started to fight. He practically broke both of his forelegs the first time this had happened; he ripped the chains right off the walls and started beating the guards to death with them while screaming and crying. The guards, for some reason, seemed to be used to this; only 2 of them died as the others reacted with seemingly practiced ease. One of them practically ripped off his arm when they pulled him back and slammed him into the wall. The strangest thing, however, and maybe one of the… saddest, was that after this happened, Subject 426 started singing again. She had 2 broken back legs, a broken foreleg, and I am fairly certain at least 4 ribs were snapped, and yet she was still singing. They started breaking even more of her; dragging blades along her sides and legs, digging them into her back, ripping through her scalp, and yet even through all of that she hadn’t faltered again in her singing.

For Subject 427, the experiments were even worse. On 3 different occasions, I could’ve sworn I saw them remove most of his organs and then put them back in. Many times adding metal piece after metal piece; I’m surprised he’s still alive at this point. However, I've also seen his healing factor in action, so I’m not too surprised. They must have put him on one hell of a concoction, because I’ve watched him heal fatal wounds in minutes; stitching his ribs back together and sliding his insides back inside. The horrors that have been captured shall never fade from my memory, and every single night that damned Subject 426’s singing brings it all back. These creatures can’t even be counted as ponies any more; some of them I don’t even think realize they were once ponies, and I don’t think I would want them to.

Day 20

Today was a rather uneventful day, but I figured I would log it down regardless. The other guards seems to take their calm days as if they will never come around again, although, after what I saw a few days ago, I can’t quite blame them. The screams of those that have died echo through my skull; very similar to the slaves, but with as much quiet as we get down here, it’s… almost worse. The only real noise that is made besides the occasional screaming from the experiments is Subject 426. She continues to sing every day; she’s one of the only subjects that doesn’t get taken out of their cells. I have no idea what kind of actual experiments are really done to her, but I’m assuming they are mainly psychological, alongside from the actual torture.

Subject 427, however, is a very different case, although I have not seen him kill anypony since day 15, he is now taken out of his cell every hour or two during what I imagine is the daytime, which apparently is also the only period of time Subject 426 stops singing. I am essentially the caretaker of these two as Subject 447 was released, as I said about a week or so ago. As such, during this downtime I make sure to give Subject 426 water just to make sure she doesn’t kill herself singing, or lose her voice and make Subject 427 go on a rampage again. Speaking of him, I got a bit off track; the experiments are rather...I suppose the word is ‘harsh,’ for him; I am not honestly sure how his body handles all of it. He is often taken out of his cell to do these experiments, where I’m sure they do all kinds of crazy things to him, although, sometimes they do it in his cell. This seems to have a particular effect on Subject 426, for some reason; she starts to sing louder whenever he goes through this in his cell; whether this is to stop him from going on a rampage, or just trying to stop his pain, I am unsure about. Whatever is the case, I would rather him not go on another killing spree with me in the crossfire; so I just let her sing. We’ve all gotten rather accustomed to hearing her voice at this point, anyways.

To explain Subject 427’s…experiments in a bit more detail; the higher ups appear to be turning him into a cyborg of sorts, not quite a full one, but close enough. A lot of his insides have been replaced by metal; unfortunately I’ve had the displeasure of witnessing this firsthand. This somehow has been increasing his strength, his regenerate capabilities, as well as his general rage. Aside from that, he appears to be in peak condition. Sadly, this makes it that much harder to keep him restrained. When it comes to the sounds of his screams, layered on top of 426’s singing; it almost sounds like music. Haunting music that shakes you deep to your core, I’m not sure if I will ever get these sounds out of my head, and on some days, I’m not sure if we are doing the right thing. However, that same old sentence rings through my head, “Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die.”

For my final note, the higher ups told me Subject 427 was going to be released into The Pit today, and that he would be out for a while. From what they told me, I can only assume they are putting him in such a place to see how the experiments on him will handle it, how his body itself will handle this hell, and more importantly, if they can control him through it.

For the next couple days, Subject 426 said not a single word, and sang not a single syllable. Today has been one of the quietest days since I started, and from what I’ve been told, since the project started. I barely got any sleep that night, and the nights that followed; the screams in my head raged on, and on...

Day 30

Alarms and warnings are flaring across the pipbuck, and a sharp voice rings out.

This is guard 4427614; I am assuming you have heard my previous recordings, if so then you know about the experiments and the horrors we have had to witness here. I don’t have much time but I’ll try to get everything out for you, this was meant for the higher ups but I am assuming that’s not going to happen. If you can hear this, be prepared.

The past couple days have been hell for me; hell for all the guards really. Without Subject 426’s constant singing it was just dead silence, watching screen after screen; switching from one experiment to another. Considering these subjects weren’t my duty to take care of, all I could do was watch. Some had remarkable powers, like the ability to control fire, and play with it like putty; the ability to control water, and ice, you name it and these ponies could do it. It made me wonder what the other floors were like. It wasn’t completely quiet, however. Apparently the higher ups figured they could do more with Subject 426, considering she wasn’t singing anymore, so they started to break her. They did everything you can possibly imagine; from whipping, breaking, degrading, to more…well let’s just say it was not a pleasant time.

As the days passed, the treatments got worse. Slowly, ever so slowly, I watched this poor filly get broken; on the outside, and on the inside. By the time we have reached the 30th day, this poor mare was practically a dog. This was also...the beginning of true hell.

On the dawn of the 30th day, they brought back in Subject 427, and he looked like hell. Spending 10 days straight in the radiation pit and he looked like he was practically expelling the radiation; more metal was forced into his body, and I cannot even imagine what else they did to him on the inside. On top of that, the psychological aspect must have been horrifying; however, nothing, and I repeat nothing at all, could have been worse than what happened once he got back into his cell, and Subject 426 did not begin to sing.

At first he looked confused, likely wondering if they had actually killed her, but she got up; she looked at him, and I am sure, as I have seen it many times in the last couple days, that he saw nothing but the dead husk of the poor filly’s body. At first he didn’t seem to process it. He slumped against his wall as she practically barked like a damn dog. He didn’t even notice the ponies coming in and sticking him full of more and more needles.

I honestly thought for a few hours, that he had simply given up. That this was his way of saying he couldn’t go on anymore. However, then one guard had the pure gall to tell him she deserved it. I don’t think it would have been possible to see that guard’s head come off with the naked eye, in fact I’m not sure if his body actually registered what happened, hell I’m not sure if I had registered it yet. The guards surrounding him immediately sprung into action, give them what shit you will, but they are at least responsive when their lives are at stake.

The first guard tried to knock out 427 as fast as possible, considering he broke the cell bars with the other guard’s head, that was a very smart idea. 427, however, was having none of that. Quicker than the stallion could pull out his gun, his arms were on the floor and 427’s teeth were in his neck. The last guard didn’t last much longer, a single blow to the head and his brain matter was lining the floors, and walls, and everywhere really. After this, Subject 427 went to 426’s cell, broke it open, and held her. I still do not know their connection, and maybe I never will. Considering there was no audio on the cameras, I couldn’t make out anything they were saying. From the looks of it, 427 was trying to convince 426 to go, to leave, yet 426 just couldn’t go. Whether this was because she was so psychologically tortured to a point that she was unable to leave, or maybe because she was physically unable to go, I am not sure. For everyone hearing this; this entire exchange lasted less than 3 minutes from the death of the first stallion to 427 standing up from 426. While staring in shock, and pure horror, I will always have this burned into my brain; Subject 427 stood up, and looked into the camera. The look of pure rage and pain on his face shook me to my very core, and then he started walking. The last thing I heard before the screams was Subject 426 singing once again; I do not know if it was one last ditch effort to get him to calm down, or if her brain just defaulted, or something else entirely.

Fire burns in the evening tide

A wall so tall and bright,

Summer comes to a close with a fall of dawn, on the evening tide

We cry some more ‘til we’re told, don't cry, don't cry

This will be the last of my logs, I am currently hiding in the backroom, hoping, praying that he won’t find me, and the only thing I can hear is subject 426 singing, and finishing her never ending song.

Evermore, on an evening tide

Don't cry, don't cry, ‘til night time

Say goodnight, my foal,

Goodnight, my filly,

‘Til we see that outer wall

Forever you have stood,

Time for you to go

Subject 427 is no longer a pony; it is a machine, a monster, a pure abomination, and something I hope the world can survive. If you ever encounter it, be afraid. My name is [redacted information] and I am, well was, a security guard for the 4th batch of experiments in Fillydelphia, labeled 4-01 to 4-50, or as we more commonly said it, 400 to 450, and these were my logs.

Chapter 9: Old Pains Never Fade

Chapter 9: Old Pains Never Fade
(Roasted)

Approaching a new sand dune, I stop near the top and look back towards the group. “Past this hill is my home. I haven’t been here in several years, but you should all treat it like most towns; don’t be hostile or they will end you. Treat them fairly, and they will do the same.” The others in the group nodded. Junker yelled out “We’re there!? Whooooooooo!” I sigh once more and walk to the top of the hill, stopping with horror as I look upon my old hometown.

I expected to find a small town that I left so many years ago, small bits of activity bustling through the streets, small, soft and warm lights in almost every house, and regular-sized guards protecting the perimeter and ensuring no desert creatures would fare against them. Instead I find a ghost town, no activity, no lights, no guards, no life to be seen. Vision walked up next to me and looked over the town “Huh... ya know, when you said they will end us, I didn’t realize they did that to each other as well.” I look to my side before smacking Vision hard across the face with my hoof, sending him tumbling down the sand dune before he hits the bottom, unable to fly due to the amount of sand collecting over his wings he spits out onto the ground. “Yup, may have deserved that one.”

I continue to look over the town as the rest of the group starts sliding down the dune. The town itself wasn’t a very big one, sitting on either sides of a ravine; it did pose a rather intimidating form. Small houses dotting the area, a small fence just past the houses forming the perimeter and all of it was quiet, it seems almost deserted from the pure lack of activity in the town. It had an almost haunting presence to it. Not the best chances for getting my painkiller, but a small chance is as good as any, I suppose.

Junker comes up over the hill in a hurry only to stop dead in his tracks. “Where is everypony? Are they hiding and going to jump out and surprise us?!” I sigh at his never ending optimism as I follow everyone down the dune as the atmosphere seems to grow darker. The blazing sun almost seems to dim as a cold wind blows over us. As I get to the bottom of the dune, I look up towards the entrance to the town, memories flow through me as I remember the hundreds of times I have gone through these gates with a smile on my face; sometimes with friends, sometimes alone. The rest of the group stops at the gate, a sense of foreboding seems to flow through it, the silence was likely what was making everyone so hesitant.

Standing up a bit straighter, I walk through the gates, slowly making my way into the town; the rest of the group shrugs and follows, all keeping mostly to the ground. Even Junker manages to quietly move his hulking frame without too much trouble. How he’s accomplishing this, I have no idea, that pony is a walking paradox. Looking around, the bad feeling in the back of my mind grows stronger. Not a soul is moving, the houses are clean... everything about this town seems almost spotless aside from the collection of sand along the porches and windows, none of it disturbed.

As we go in further we reach a small clearing. Ahead of us, I see the rather sizable ravine going through the center of town, two rope bridges connecting this side to the higher one. The two sides of the town were separated based on importance as it was originally a vault turned into a vault town. The higher ups, such as the overseer and the scientists, were on the higher side, protected from most of the desert as well as from the experiments in the vault itself. The other side were the less important ponies, ones that could die without being noticed, and further below was the vault itself right at the base of the ravine. The ravine was meant to protect us from the experiments in the vault; however, it seems it did not quite do its duty.

I look around as I hear Vision’s wings flap, he slowly takes to the sky and lands on a nearby building, the sand on it shifting as he looks around. The air is still for a second before I see a marker appear on my E.F.S... No, not just one marker. Hundreds. I pull out my katana and start whirling around looking for the creatures my E.F.S are picking up; the rest of the group are all on guard but mostly watching me. Not a single thing around us has moved, not even the sand has shifted since Vision went up. I look over at the other end of the ravine, no red markers over there it seemed. Looking back at the others, I gesture to head across the bridge; if we can get to my folks’ house over there, we can make it to the overseer’s house just a bit further. From there, we should be able to get our bearings for the time being. I’m not sure what is out here, but I really don’t want to stick around to find out.

Junker starts moving across the bridge first; his weight seems almost too much for the bridge to handle as the wood starts to crack and some ropes snap. Rogue flies under it, trying as best as he can to support some of Junker’s weight, with Melody traveling quickly behind him. As they are about half way over, I get onto the other rope bridge while walking slowly backwards; it looks a bit more weathered than the one the group was traveling on, but it should keep my weight. As the group continued moving further across the bridge, all of their weight together, but most likely Junker’s more than anyone’s else's, started to cause the ground to shift where the bridge supports are anchored, the shifting gets stronger as Junker started to move faster across the bridge yelling something that for the life of me I couldn’t make out. The red markers started going crazy again as I watched the ground. My pipbuck must be glitching again as the only thing moving was the sand. Vision flies past me covering us from the sky as we slowly make our way over; as soon as we get to the other side Junker practically leaps off the bridge, causing it to shake and bounce. At this point, hundreds of creatures started flowing out of the ground like the sand was water. They appear to be a mix of scorpions, lizards, and snakes of sorts, and seem to slide across the sand almost like it was an ocean they were swimming in. They start to swarm the area, some with tails practically dripping with venom, others with no legs, and some with many legs reminding me of spiders.

I reach up and wipe off some sweat from my forehead as the others stare in horror at the mass of monsters gathering. I growl a bit and throw my hoof forwards at my parents house, the others following as I use my magic to open up the doors, my E.F.S is flooded with red behind us but none appear to be over here... for now at least. As I open the door, I stare in horror at what I see; while the outside was practically untouched and spotless, the inside was not. Inside of this building were the bodies of countless ponies, many wearing the Vault 64 garb and others who have modified it into other types of clothing such as shirts or coats, but all of them were dead. Many of them were ripped apart, bones crushed, long since dried blood covering the walls and the floor. Inside of the building there were teachers, engineers, and crafts ponies, all of the lower class citizens, As the group starts to head into the building, the smell quickly gets to many of them, Junker rushes off with Melody after pausing for a moment to say, “Whoo wee, it smells like something died in here!” Junker must not have noticed the countless bodies that litter the floor and walls. Melody keeps a close eye on him as they go deeper into the rather large house. I noticed not a single high ranking pony was in here, which is rather odd, considering this is the higher up’s side of the ravine. I assume then that the Overseer and his group of counselors, as well as most of the higher class ponies I had expected to find would be inside of the City Hall a bit further in.

I growl as my breathing increases slightly; looking over the bodies, I do not see my parents, so I take a deep breath and begin to use my magic to start grabbing everything around us, books, ammo, anything of particular importance I can think of I stored in my bags; everything else I left where it lay. Looking around the room, I spot a map of the area which I proceed to levitate over and put it onto a nearby table, the dried blood rubs against the back of the paper but it’s too old to stain it. My eye starts twitching heavily and I bow my head; the stress is starting to get to me. Vision looks at me as he moves closer to the table, his face cold as stone. “What kind of things was this town up to? You said they experimented on things, was that what we saw outside?”

I looked up tiredly at him, “This town was originally Vault 64; after my grandparents opened up the doors, we built a town around it. This vault’s purpose was experimentation to figure out the best ways to produce potent cures and healing; to do this, we took the natural creatures surrounding us, spiders, snakes, scorpions, you name it, and we mixed them together. A scorpion’s venom mixing with a snake’s produces a venom twice as strong and deadly, and creates a serum many times more potent than our healing potions.”

Vision looked at me with the glare of a trained soldier, clearly not agreeing with these experiments, before walking over to the front door, flinging it open and flying away. A loud thump on the roof signaling where he was going. I sigh as Rogue walks over, “So, where do we go from here? Considering the state of the town, I can only assume we are still looking for your painkillers?”

I look over at the map; it’s crude but it has all the main areas, including the Town Hall just a bit to the north. I use my horn to slash at a nearby pony, a bit of blood leaking out as I straighten up once more and look at the map. I start trailing out a path as my vision starts to blur, pain flooding as I double over. Rogue takes a step closer, keeping me up as I sigh; these bursts of pain are getting more frequent. “We need to get to the Town Hall, there will probably be some kind of directions down to the Vault and a password to open the doors if they were closed. If we’re lucky, we might find someone still alive. If we do, I will make sure they don’t stay that way.” I point a hoof over to the pile of bodies lining the house.

Rogue looks at me a bit concerned as he checks out the map; giving off a small sigh, he turns around and heads for the door. “What you do with the survivors is of no matter to me. Getting there won’t be too difficult, as long as we keep quiet. They seem to only be able to sense us through sound and vibrations, so stay low, stay quiet, and we’ll make it. Don’t lose your head.” He says this with a low tone in his voice, I assume he cares more about surviving this encounter than he actually does about my health or any survivors there may be. Can’t say that I blame him.

Junker at this point decides to walk back into the room, gingerly stepping around the dead bodies as he looks at everyone. “Hey guys, you might wanna lower your voices; everypony is trying to take a nap. They must have partied a bit too hard last night and got the wine everywhere.” I stare at Junker and as much as I didn’t want to believe Junker was this dumb, I know all to well that he is indeed, this dumb.

“Is your IQ actually this low, or are you making fun of us?! They aren’t asleep, you idiot, they are dead and have been for a very. Long. Time.” I growl those last words as Junker just stares at me unblinkingly, then he slowly starts to pat me on the shoulder. “There, there, Roasted. I understand; you're not the smartest, or the best sighted, but even you should be able to tell they are just sleeping, silly!”

I sigh again and my breath hitches, another flare going through my head before I rest against the table; this group is stressing me out more than I’m used to. I’m going to need to get those painkillers in bulk just to put up with Junker in general. I groan as I stand up, heading to the door as I look at Rogue; he seems to be going over the map and scouting out the area. Noticing me, he speaks up. “The fastest path to the Town Hall is down this road, in a couple of turns we should find it. This town isn’t as big as I thought it would be, but the path down to the Vault looks to be a very dangerous and deadly one. I can only hope that you're right about there being something that can help us in the Town Hall, cause otherwise we aren’t making it down there.” I nod and we start walking, all of us keeping low to the ground except for Vision who is flying above us keeping watch over all of us.

After a few minutes, we come up to the Town Hall; it’s the biggest house on this side of the Ravine, originally only for the higher ups but judging from the state of my folks’ house they let in the commoners as well once things got bad enough. The red markers on my pipbuck die down as we continue on. This side seems to be in more disarray, it seems like the monsters don’t like this side as much for some reason; might be how disconnected it is from the rest of the desert. This half of the city is essentially on top of a massive outcropping of stone lifting it above the rest of the desert and keeping it from most creatures surrounding us. The Town Hall itself was not much to look at; it was just like every other house made of sandstone and clay and whatever else they had on hoof. It was just bigger and had a fancy roof.

Rogue motions everyone to keep quiet as we get to the doors. Melody is on top of Junker making sure he doesn’t get too loud as Vision keeps watch over us as he lands on the building and I pull out my katana, close range fighting wasn’t my forte but if something was alive, I don’t want to take any chances.

Rogue attempts to push the door open but oddly enough it was locked; considering the state of everything, it’s not quite odd but no other houses we’ve seen so far have been locked, so it is somewhat worrying. As he starts fiddling with the door, we hear something inside, sounds like worried hoofsteps... and from the sounds of it, they have a gun.

I immediately push Rogue out of the way slamming him into the ground seconds before we hear gunshots ringing out and blasting holes around where Rogue’s head and torso used to be. I can hear his breath picking up as Junker immediately jumps backwards, pulling Melody down and shielding her with his body. Looking at the door, I see a single red marker appear on my E.F.S before I send my katana towards it; within a second, there is a piercing scream as my katana finds its mark.

Standing up, I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding as I press my body against the side of the door frame; considering the situation, I imagine this is a survivor of the village. Judging from the angle I sent my katana, I would assume I hit its leg, which would knock out any typical earth pony; however, since this is the Town Hall, and all of the higher ups were unicorns, I have to assume it is one. Judging from the sound it made and the hole it made in the door, the gun was a 10mm pistol; not the most dangerous gun, but taking a bullet in these conditions would end poorly for any of us.

Rogue is crouched down where I dropped him, but his gun was out and pointed directly at the door in case something came out without me seeing it; so far, the marker hasn’t moved but if it’s a unicorn like I’m assuming, it doesn’t need to move to kill us with ease. Junker has moved out of the way with Melody taking shelter into a nearby house while Vision is staying up on the roof; likely to make sure nothing sneaks up from behind while we deal with the problem below. Good, we’re working like a team; a highly dysfunctional team even at the best of times, but a team, nonetheless. After a few moments of pure silence, I notice a very small stream of blood flowing past the door, likely from the wound I inflicted. If I go in now, I would imagine there would be a bullet waiting for me. Diplomacy could work in this situation, so taking a deep breath, I call out, “Whoever is behind this door, I must warn you; if you extend this fight any longer, you will likely start feeling woozy from blood loss and then you will most certainly die. I do not wish to be out here for much longer with the threat of these creatures looming over us, so if you would kindly lay down your weapon, we can possibly make a deal.”

A few more moments pass, making me wonder if I hit something vital with my katana before a faintly familiar voice speaks up. “Roasted? Is that you? I thought you left so many years ago. Yes, yes, you may come in then, ‘fraid I’m not likely to last much longer even if you were to come in here guns blazin.” The 10mm pistol quickly hits the ground as I lean in front of the door, seeing the face of the former Overseer, Kimbo. A ragged weary old stallion with a salt and pepper beard and a tannish brown coat covered in blood stains, looks like he hasn’t bathed in weeks, nor does he look like he’s eaten in days.

I look at him as my eye twitches, rage flaring as I start walking forwards, the pulsing intensifying to an unbelievable degree as I rip my katana out of his leg and slam him against the wall holding it up to his throat as I practically spit at him, “Why are you still alive? What happened to this town? How could you possibly abandon the other ponies in this village? Why are those monsters free?”

He groans as blood starts flowing freely out of his leg before he takes a deep sharp breath. “I am alive because I have to be, Roasted, you of all ponies should know that. I know the past of this town and I know the ingredients and recipes that have been passed down for generations. I wish I could have saved more ponies but I could not risk it. I brought the lower class up the bridge and the higher class up here, but after the slaughter in your parents’ home, many of the ponies here shot themselves. Grief overtook more lives than I could say; your parents left you a note in case you ever came back, but they didn’t believe you would. As to why the monsters are free, well, it was an accident.”

I growl deeply, my vision turning red from anger as my blade digs into his neck, blood starting to trickle down it as he winces slightly, but seems to give up after a moment. “What do you mean, an accident?”

“What I mean, Roasted, is we were training a pony to take over the job, to cross breed the creatures, to keep them sedated, and to keep them from getting loose, and one simply didn’t lock the gates after he fed them, and they got loose. It was an unfortunate accident and the town paid for it, but everything we’ve learned is in this house; every experiment, every creature we’ve bred, every potion we’ve made, every advancement... I couldn’t let it fall into the wrong hoofs. If you mean to kill me Roasted, then do so. I’ve lived far longer than I should have, but at least take the knowledge and do something with it. I may be old, but I ain’t stupid; I know you’ve hated me for more years then I could count. So at least do me a favor and make it quick.”

I growl and close my eyes, my head throbbing even harder as my magic dispels for a moment, the sound of my blade and his body hitting the ground were the last sounds I could hear as the throbbing intensifies, my eye feeling like it’s going to pop out of my skull before I open my eyes once more, my vision red before I grab my sword and take a single slice, Kimbo’s head rolling off his shoulders. For a few seconds, I stand there, my head throbbing and the red tint of my vision slowly fading before I look down at my katana to find a large slab of metal blocking it.

Junker stands before me, stopping me from killing this bastard. “Junker, what the hell are you doing?! This pony must pay for what he has done here!” For the first time since I have met him, Junker actually looks serious for a change. “I don’t know what happened between you and him, or anything that has happened in this town, all I know is that you are about to murder a pony in cold blood.”

Shock fills me, I never thought somepony like him would have the balls to get in the way of my revenge. “How can you be so fucking STUPID! This pony is just as much of a monster as those creatures outside!” Rage, pure rage pumps through my veins as this hulking dimwitted naive cretin stands between me and MY justice. I slash at him with my katana, all my rage focusing on trying to either get him to move… or kill him.

As Junker swiftly deflects my attacks, I see that the ‘slab of metal’ is actually a large buster sword that looks like a metal beam that he sharpened into the shape of a sword. “Roasted, please try to understand. If you plan to go down this path, you may never return from it. Revenge is never the answer!”

My vision goes red once more, I feel rage, pain, and this damn throbbing eye pounding in my skull! I continue my onslaught of attacks. “You're blinded by your own damn self righteousness! You’re just a naive little child who doesn’t understand the truth of this dark twisted reality!”

Every attack I unleash onto him he blocks, the sound of metal slamming against metal, the screaming of our blades as he swings that massive chunk of metal like a toy resounds throughout the building, and yet, he never attacks back. Even when I openly give him chances to, he refuses to take the blow. What is he doing; if he wants to stop me, then he will have to fight back or he will die.

“So what? I don’t think I’m some hero; I’m just trying to stop a friend of mine from doing something that he WILL come to regret later.” My attacks start to slow down; I look at this hulking mammoth and his pleading eyes before I slam my sword against his and hold it there.

“I’ve seen what happens when good ponies turn bad, I’ve seen pain, I’ve seen horrors that one can barely believe, and in all my travels I have seen what was truly lost in this world. Kindness, Loyalty, Honesty, Generosity and Laughter; the elements that make up friendship itself. If you slaughter this pony, all you will be doing is becoming something much worse than even the horrors that you wish to take from this world. Worse yet, you will make monsters from those that are close to you, the ones that truly care for you, even if they don’t know, or show it yet.”

I look at this insane creature, this madman. Friendship? The world doesn’t run on such childish things. Growling softly, I look up at him, my vision going back to normal as the throbbing dies down softly. “The world changed after the mega spells hit; ponies have changed, and I am a monster in my own right. Long ago there were heroes, kind ponies, practically gods; nowadays they have been lost to the world, buried and broken like everything around us. Stand down, Junker. This stallion needs to pay for his sins; that’s all any of us can do anymore.”

“Never!” He breaks out of the clash and slams his sword down hard enough it cracks the floor. “Heroes, monsters, they are all the same thing! Just ponies trying to live! Who are you to decide who lives or dies? Just because he wronged you in the past?”

I look at him, anger filling my veins as I look at this child, a naive stupid child that believes rainbows and laughter will save the world, pathetic. “The monsters of the past dictate how the creatures of the future shall walk. We cannot escape our destinies no matter how hard we try. I am a monster; I have committed more atrocities than I can even name. More spilt blood will not dirty my soul more than the rest already have. If he dies, justice will be served for my parents and all those in this town. If he survives, their souls will not move on in peace. Sometimes Junker, you must do the dirty deeds to make this world a better place; slaughtering murderers and filth like him who do not deserve to live just means there will be less like him in the world later. Even if I must become an unspeakable horror, at least I can save the world from many more arising!”

I slam my sword into him once more, the rage behind my swing pushing him down slightly causing the floor to crack under the pressure. Strangely though, he doesn’t seem to be afraid; he’s not even struggling to hold his sword in place, he just looks… like he’s pitying me.

“I don’t know what it is that has caused you to be like this, and I don’t know why you are filled with so much hate, but there is always a better way. Now, stand down Roasted, put away your weapon. I don’t wanna have to hurt you,” He says in a voice I haven’t heard from him before; he was speaking deeply, calmly, and sharply. He thinks that will scare me? The poor fool is more naive than I thought, but I’ll play his little game for now.

I look up at him and take a step back, sliding my katana back into its sheath on my back; he seems to relax for just a moment, with just the smallest dropping of his shoulders before I look past him, right at Kimbo as my horn lights up, his head in my magic as I begin to twist. I expect to hear the sound of his neck snapping before I feel the familiar sensation of a hoof slamming into my cheek, breaking multiple parts of my jaw as well as my shoulder as I slam into the wall, my magic dispelling before it could snap Kimbo’s neck as I groan from my position on the floor. Junker moved faster than I could even see and managed to hit me and fling me all the way into the side of the door, leaving a massive dent in it as Melody finally steps through the door, shoving a healing potion down my throat as I can feel my bones begin to mend themselves.

Junker walks over to me, slower this time before putting his hoof on my shoulder; it was both a gentle touch, and a death threat at the same time. “I told you, Roasted. If you try to kill this stallion, I will hurt you. I will not let you kill in cold blood as long as I have a say in the matter. Killing someone who is shooting at you, or trying to kill you is one thing, but killing a man in cold blood is another entirely. Look at him, he is not long for this world as it is. Let go of your vengeance and walk away.” He looks back at the stallion as Melody heads over to him, gently closing up the wound in his leg. “Go upstairs, go to your room, and stay there until we leave. You will be safe, for as long as I am here. I’m sorry I cannot help more.”

He looks, shocked I suppose; almost sad before he bows his head and heads up the stairs, disappearing from sight. Junker looks back down at me, his friendly smile appearing once more as I can feel the bones in my jaw reforming and cracking back into place. “Welp, now that that’s done, how ‘bout we go and get those painkillers to fix up that ol’ eye, shall we? Rogue, what we got?”

Rogue, during this whole period of time, was already searching the area and shoving papers into folders. When Junker mentions his name, he nods at us before pulling up some notes he was looking through and splaying them out on the nearby table; they are detailed instructions on how to get down to the vault and what type of creatures are down there, and the different instructions on how to take care of each of them. This must be what the Overseer used to teach the new caretakers when they appeared. He also handed me a letter, on it was my name in bold, which must be the letter from my parents Kimbo mentioned. I groan as I put it into my bag, not the time or the place for such a letter. Standing up, I sigh, the death of the overseer will come in time; this thought gives me a small bit of grim satisfaction. Those painkillers will help me deal with the battering in my skull and ease my headaches, but they are getting more frequent, and considering I almost killed Junker, much more violent.

Popping my neck, I overhear Junker whining to Melody about his Joy. Now that I have calmed down, I still think his ideals are childish, but I can’t help but be filled with a small degree of… what I think is hope. That maybe, this world isn’t as dark as I once thought. But, the reality isn’t so black or white, one day he will come to understand that. Then he will know why I do what I do.

Rogue pointed at some sections of the map, “It would appear this is the fastest and most practical path there. However, considering this place has all of the info on the vault and everything inside, I shall be taking it all back to New Appleloosa with Vision, so from here on out the two of you will be on your own. Once you get your painkillers, come back to New Appleloosa and we’ll regroup there and get some more contracts; this may be a strange group we have here,” he seems to cast an odd glance towards me at that. “But at least it works, and there is more strength in numbers, so as long as you two don’t kill each other, it would be great to have you join us for some contracts. If you aren’t back in 2 weeks, we’ll be leaving you behind.”

I groan as I take the map of his and put it into my bag; a trip down to the vault with deadly and dangerous creatures with this clumsy oaf by my side. Oh, joy. Rogue takes this moment to start gathering everything and grabs a walky talky, muttering something into it before Vision walks through the door, who immediately gets to gathering up the books and objects around them, working in almost perfect harmony.

I shake my head at the change of atmosphere before turning around and walking out the door. Melody hops onto Junker as he walks behind me. She doesn’t seem very talkative at the moment, probably doesn’t want to spark an argument. Junker on the other hoof, seems as happy and as bright as if we were going to his favorite place in Equestria; what a child.

After a few hours, we finally made it down the cliffside all the way down to the vault; it was a difficult journey, a lot of steep cliffs, a lot of painful jumps, and more. Once, I had to use my magic to make sure we didn’t get crushed to death by falling rocks. I’m starting to overuse my magic and it is making my headache so much worse. Junker’s constant string of questions about the Vault isn’t helping, either.

Jumping down the last step, I hit the bottom of the crevice, a bit of dust forming around me. Junker lands behind me, his weight shaking the area as I look up at the massive metal vault door. It’s intimidating, but the inside was lit up with lanterns, likely made from a unicorn’s magic to keep the area in constant light. From the sounds of it, there aren’t any creatures around, but I can’t let my guard down. Junker seems to be cheerful, but he’s walking like he’s a thief; it’s an odd combination but as long as he doesn’t get in the way, we won’t die today.

As we head into the Vault, the metal floor seems to welcome us in as the hot sand fades to a cold metal. Heading deeper in, we see cages and pens; most open, some destroyed. It appears that the caretakers repurposed the vault rooms to be animal pens, useful for preventing any from attacking the caretakers if they take the proper precautions; the poor fools.

Just like every other vault I can imagine, the area is very bare with a simple layout; a main hallway that branches down the area, and to the left and the right are doors leading into the different pens. There is a single 4-way intersection which branches off to 2 different laboratories as well as the overseer’s office down the center. The silence in the area was extremely unnerving, the only sounds being Junker’s hoof steps and my own. I hope our luck holds; after exerting myself against Junker without those painkillers, I would be functionally useless in combat now. Upon reaching the intersection, I handed Melody one of the empty vials of painkiller I had and sent them to the lab on the right while I went to the left; hopefully, if we split up, we’ll have a higher chance of finding some painkillers in less time, or perhaps double the amount.

On our separate ways, I walk down the path; just as dreadful and dreary as I remember it. The last time I was here so many years ago, it was not quite as silent, but it certainly was just as drab and irritating walking down these halls. Metal walls, metal floor, metal ceiling, all of it the same boring silver color. As I walk into the lab room, I sigh; there was so much here I used to play around with; being scientifically minded in our town wasn’t a rarity, but it certainly wasn’t common, so as a foal, I spent a significant amount of time buried in these labs studying everything I possibly could. They had all kinds of equipment in these labs, namely microscopes, cabinets, small scale freezers used to contain poisons and blood samples, and most importantly to me, the painkillers. Opening up one of the freezers, about half my height, I shiver softly at the blast of cold air, the vault may be deserted and run down but the power still works; these painkillers don’t need to be cold to work, but after being synthesized, the ingredients form together the best if immediately frozen. Looking inside, I start shuffling some of the different bottles around, the clinking of the glass bothering me slightly, very loud in such a quiet area, but eventually I do find my target. A batch of painkillers; judging from the location inside of the freezer, it appears to be one of their last batches, but it was enough to last me at least quite a while. I start shuffling the bottles into my own container and seal it up, doing the same with several other possibly useful containers around before shoving them into my bag. I spot as I’m standing up the list of ingredients to make one of these, and looking around the room I spot them in various corners and after a few minutes of searching I find more inside of the cabinets.

Well, that should do it then; this was a pretty large hall, so it should last me for several more years. Walking to the door, I look back for a moment, closing my eyes and wishing things were better.

Once my prayers were said for those who have fallen, I made my way back to the Intersection and on the way there I found a small, broken cat. It reminded me of my own pet, white fur with a black head, but it's back legs were practically ripped off, it was still breathing though shockingly. If it's made it this long I would imagine it has a strong will, maybe I could save it. I gently put it in my bag pushing a painkiller into it's side, and waited; thankfully, it wasn’t a long wait. The anxiety in me was growing with every passing second, but it gave me a bit of time, which I then used to inject another shot of painkiller into my eye, the sweet soothing release of pain was almost like being shot in the head, I would imagine, my first genuine smile appeared as I sat down.

A few minutes later, Junker and Melody came back from their path, Junker’s bag was stacked to the brim full of items and odds and ends, as was the significantly smaller bag on Melody’s back. Nodding to the both of them, we start heading out the way we came in; it was a short walk, but one that was painful with every step we made, even the smallest creature could take us down quite quickly if we weren’t careful; we slowly crept out of the vault making as little sound as possible, and finally the rays of the setting sun shone down upon us once more, and we were again faced with the mountain.

I sigh softly as I look at Melody and Junker. “This shall be where we part ways for now, you two head back to New Appleloosa, I’ll join you there before you leave in 2 weeks; for now, I have something to take care of.”

Junker pipes up with a smile. “Okie dokie lokie! Parting is such sweet sorrow, but for now, take care of yourself Roasted, and don’t go back to that stallion; he’s been through enough.” With those last few sentences, he seemed to get a bit more serious but his happy pep came back into his step rather quickly.

I shake my head as I start walking down the center of the crevice. “He’ll die soon enough, going back there will just ease precious time, or even kill me. No, I’ll be heading to my lab to work on making more painkillers; I only have so much.” As I say this, Melody calls after me. “Hey, before you go,” and tosses a bag at me when I turn around, it was more painkillers and ingredients with a duplicate of the recipe inside. “Found these while getting my own items in the lab; figured you would appreciate it.” I smile softly at this poor little filly, dragged from hell into a worse hell with Junker, then I continue my trek back towards my lab.

She’s a smart filly with a good heart, but if she sticks around Junker and Tolson, I doubt she will survive. I feel bad for her, but that’s the way it is in this world. You either die protecting those you love, or you survive on your own; I wonder how it will end for me.