Fallout Equestria: Wandering Woes

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.