Fallout Equestria: Desperados

Fallout Equestria: Desperados

Distortion, Part 2

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"Studying the phenomenon that is Slowtrot’s current existence, it helped explain some of the magic of this world. It still confounds me how any of it actually works. This included Slowtrot telling me that there were once ponies who could control the sun and moon. That is to say that my own explanation of how my home also works made no sense to them either. We just come from two very different worlds.

Still, I have been able to figure out that the magic of this world has some solid rules to it, much like the laws of reality involving gravity and such. One of them is that time can never truly be altered, only a time loop or a parallel pocket timeline, as no pony has ever changed the past, only visited it.

Another rule of magic is that everything is magic, to some extent. From the flesh and blood, to the rock and metal, it’s all magic. Because of this, life seems to be far more malleable. Able to change forms and imprint their magic onto other things. A pony can be turned into a rock, and a rock can become a living pony. This would mean, and I’m speculating on this, that even the dead have magic to them, something that greatly puts me at a state of unease." ~ Azure Dice

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As a foal, I dreamt of having the ability to time travel. I also dreamt of being able to fly by farting, and now that one of them had come true. I wished it was the other.

Now that I’m fully aware of what was happening, I realized that returning to the NCRCF was not like I had just popped in from somewhere else. Nothing so sudden as that. It was as though the place I was in faded from reality and the place I now was in shimmered to life. The amazement of it all was severely dampened by the sight of the mare, Railway, hanging by a noose of bedsheets in front of me.

I struggled to keep the food in my stomach down as I looked away only to see the prison in utter shambles. The prisoners werein a standoff with the guards. Both sides were armed with rifles with quite a few had already been killed on both sides.

The guards were held up in the main building of the prison, guns poking out of windows and doors, taking pot shots at the prisoners. I could only guess that it meant they were pinned down. This meant I should be mostly free to move about so long as they could not get me in their sights.

I trotted off to one of the prisoners hiding behind some rubble. I needed to know where my friends were, if I had been left behind or not.

“Hey, do you know-” The pony then screamed and fainted before I could finish my question.

“Well this might be more difficult than I thought.” I openly pointed out to myself.

“The fuck did you come from, Sugger?” the sultry voice of Cherry Knot asked me from behind me.

I sighed in relief as I saw her. “Trust me, you wouldn't believe any of what I just went through. Can you tell me if Harp and Star are still here?”

“Slowtrot!” The look of shock formed on her face as she took a step back, taking a few seconds before she calmed down and took a breath before answering. “Right. I’ll not ask.

“As for your friends, they're in the mess hall. You should hurry. There's not much time left.”

I nodded and galloped to the mess hall where I saw a crowd of ponies. Among them was Star Charter. Her NCRCF uniform was drenched in blood and torn up. Next to her was Harp Melody laying on a table. She was covered in blood and breathing with a wheeze.

“Stay awake, Harp!” Star shouted. “You're going to get through this. You have to.”

The pain in her voice was all I needed to know this was not good. As I trotted over, the other ponies saw me and parted ways, letting me get close.

Seeing it up close, it was bad. Harp was bandaged up all over. Her blood had seeped through and stained it all red. Her face was also torn up and an eye was covered. As she breathed, blood would bubble out.

“What happened?” I asked softly, unsure what to do.

“What do you fucking think! She got shot. Shot a whole damn lot. If Amralt hadn’t gotten her out of that damn bulldozer and bandaged her up, she’d be dead already. But even with all the healing bandages, she has already lost too much blood…” Star squeezed onto Harp’s hoof, tears flowing from her eyes. “Why did I get you involved in this mess in the first place? Why am I so stupid?”

A smile formed on my face, knowing that now my weird luck was my friend's good fortune. “Star, I just recently met your prophet again when I fell through time… again.”

She glared at me, “Not the fucking time, Slowtrot.”

Pulling out theLazarus serum, I looked at the strange red liquid inside. “She shot me in the face and for a moment, I was dead.”

I then presented the apple shaped glass bottle to Star. “This can save her. Even if she dies, it will save her.”

She looked at the bottle, then up at me, her eyes going wide. “Slowtrot, your eyes…”

Taking the cap off to reveal the needle, I injected the serum into Harp, causing her to cough up blood. Then I took one of the blue vials of Peitho and I injected that into Harp as well.

A few seconds passed, then she gasped. Her legs burst into a running motion which caused Harp to scramble off the table and to the ground.

Both Star and I quickly jumped onto the table to see if she was okay.

“I’m… still alive?” Harp asked herself as she rubbed her head. “And I don’t feel any pain. It’s all gone.”

Star lept and gave Harp a tight hug. “Oh thank the prophet you're alive!”

Harp struggled to push Star away but found the mare too strong. “You could at least not invoke that pony.”

I then chuckled nervously. “Actually, this time it’s entirely accurate.”

Harp’s head snapped to me. “Slow…” a look of shock then formed on her face. “Your eyes! They’re bleeding!”

I quickly rubbed my eyes which smeared even more blood on the white coat I had on. “So they are.”

As though grabbed by some big wooly monster, I found myself brought into a tight hug from behind as Amralt lifted me up off the ground. “Pony friend is back! Yak thought you were lost!”

“Put him down, you big oaf!” Bitter yelled as she ran in followed by Cherry and several other prisoners holding guns.

A quick moment passed as Amralt slowly put me back down. The Zebra eyed me with suspicion before sighing. “You three are just insane! You know that?”

I looked at my friends, hoping they would explain to me what exactly happened.

Star was the one to do it. “Well Harp went on a rampage in the fucking killdozer and I wrestled several guns away from the guards while getting shot at several times.”

“The bitch might as well be an immortal berserker, maybe as fearsome as the doom bunny,” Bitter said as she threw a piece of bread to Star.

My friend looked at the hard loaf with disappointment.

“Star, have one of these!” I offered her as I pulled out a survival food package.

She looked at it with suspicion before opening it. What popped out was a fully cooked large meal of burger and hay fries. Drool quickly seeped from Star's mouth before she dug in.

“Just insane!” Bitter repeated again, then she took a deep breath. “Bad news. The plan has failed. Spritz predicted our ambush. She had several sticks of powder charges prepared and had stolen several healing potions. She also has taken the spark batteries, so we are not going anywhere.”

With her muzzle covered in sauce, Star smiled as she looked over at Harp. “Lucky we don’t need the spark batteries anymore.”

Harp took a deep breath as she removed her bandages. “What is Spritz doing right now, and where is the bulldozer?”

“You’re… healed? This madness does not stop.” Bitter ranted before she took another deep breath before giving us an answer. “The bitch is trying to push her way to the armory, but other bitch, Ginger, has managed to rally the rest of the guards to stop her. The damned bulldozer is where you left it near the exit. Tire Fire is currently protecting it.”

“Have you finished loading the train carts?” Star checked.

Bitter nodded. “Everything is ready. What food, sheets and explosives we could get our hooves on has been loaded. All we need is the bulldozer to get moving.”

“So we're still doing this?” I asked my friends.

“Well, Star was. I had already accepted that I was going to die,” Harp told me. Her voice had a grim inflection.

Star slapped her on the back. “Well fuck that! We’re all getting the fuck out of here. Now let's go before our good fortune runs out.”

“Yes. This place has been smashed. We go find a new place and smash it.” Amralt announced jovially.

We all rushed out. As a group, we made our way to the train carts. Star, Harp, and I then split off and galloped to the bulldozer Daisy Chain. As I ran by, I saw the severed head of Warden Dynamite. His head was on a spike with a stick of a powder charge in his mouth like it was a cigar.

Reaching the bulldozer, Tire Fire didn’t look shocked to see us. In his hooves was the LMG service rifle. “Spitting in the eye of death. I like that in a mare.”

“Not the fucking time, Tire,” Harp complained to him as she jumped onto the back of the vehicle and began to shimmer. “Slowtrot, can you drive this?”

I just jumped into the driver's seat. Once I am inside, I notice that it was covered in blood splatter and its door hung off a single hinge now. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I looked down at all the levers. Truthfully I had never driven anything like this before, but it couldn't be all that hard to do.

As Daisy Chain roared to life, I took a moment to just pull a few levers. After a short bit of trial and error, I finally got the bulldozer to back up. We were good to go!

*Bang!*

“Where do you think you're going?” Spritz spoke up, surrounded by several of her followers.

I immediately stopped the tractor and waved at Spritz. “Oh, you know. Places.”

“Slowtrot, let me handle this.” Harp told me as she climbed down from the tractor.

Spritz trotted over to Harp, dwarfing my friend considerably in both height and in intimidation.

“You're looking well for a dead mare,” Spritz said coldly. “And he’s back from wherever he vanished to as well, I see..”

“Well, we're all full of surprises. And I heard you blew up one of the towers,” Harp commented evenly.

A big smile formed on Spritzes face, showing a missing tooth. “No help from your other friends, though they did give me a fun time.” Her face then tightened up to a serious scowl. “Give me one good reason I should not order my ponies to gun you down and take everything for ourselves.”

Harp lifted up her pipbuck. “Because this will not work for you if we are dead. Also, I told Bitter to blow the supplies of food if you try to take us hostage. Your not a dumb mare. Far from it, so I doubt you will risk wandering out into the wasteland without food, water, or a shelter. All that will happen is your eventual re-capture and execution. With more NCR on their way, and the guards fortified in the main building, which has the armory I may add, you don’t have many choices.”

“And what? I just let you leave?” Spitz said with gritted teeth.

Shaking her head, Harp then sighed. “No. You would just force our hoof. Best to deny the NCR just as much as us. Either a win win, or a lose lose. That’s our option. Anyways, you could easily just cut everypony off and go it alone. The easiest way for you to survive, but then you would have to build that following of yours from scratch. Then again, who knows how long that will take and, in that time, the NCR would be sending their best guns after you. I would think so.”

There was a glint of rage in Spritz eyes. It didn’t go away even as she motioned her followers to lower their guns. “I now see why the NCR would want you for their own. That tongue of yours, along with your wit, would make you an excellent scribe in the Ranger. If only you were born as one of us and not some hybrid freak.”

“Words I’m quite familiar with, so save your tongue. The sooner we leave, the less chance the NCR will make chase,” Harp replied coldly.

A huff came from Spritz. Her breath caused Harp’s mane to bob. “Fine. Send a pony to tell that stripe to not blow all the food and we’ll take the cart at the front of the train. But be sure that, if you try anything, remember that you're not the only pony with explosives.”

We watched as Spritz and her followers trotted away. Some of them split off to the ponies keeping the NCR guards pinned down.

“You sure about this, Harp?” Star asked with nervous uncertainty.

Harp looked back at us. One of her eyes was now bloodshot and starting to bleed. “Ya… we just need to get out of here. The problem between us and Spritz can be ironed out once we're free of this mess.”

Star hopped off the tractor and gave Harp a hug. “By iron, I hope you mean beat her with an iron?”

A chuckle came from Harp. “Let's just hope it does not come to that.”

Letting go of Harp, Star then wiped the blood from her eye. “Now just don’t go overworking yourself, and please… don’t let yourself get hurt like that ever again.”

“No promises.” Harp replied with a smile.

Star laughed. “Ya. Well, at least try.” With that, she totted off to where the traincarts were and Harp returned to the tractor.

“So… you want my new mask?” I offered Harp, unsure what to actually say.

She looked at me with an eyebrow raised. “Uhh… you keep it. The thing looks like somepony died with it on.”

The engine roared back to life and I carefully drove the makeshift tank to the traincarts. A few pot shots from the NCR bounced harmlessly off it’s armor as Harp and Tire Fire stayed out of their line of sight.

Things then went quickly as the traincarts were attached to Daisy Chain, and any prisoner who wanted to escape rushed over to get in. As Spritz’s followers abandoned their post to join us, the NCR became more bold in trying to stop us. The exchange of gunfire resulted in a few ponies falling, but we were able to get the NCR to duck their heads back into safety long enough to make it out the exit. We even ended up knocking over the fence in the process.

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With only the moonlight to illuminate our path, to say I was nervous about going over some random cliff was very much true. All I could do was follow the road map on my pipbuck and hope there were no sinkholes between us and stable 27.

“Got to say, you three should just become Desperado’s.” Tire Fire said to me out of the blue.

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Oh, are you getting soft now?”

He jabbed me on the shoulder. “Fucking no way. Just saying that, after all this shit, you three have more than proven that you're tough enough to ride with us. I mean, just by bringing this fucking bulldozer with you is going to make elder papa real happy. It’s no tank, but nothings stopping us from attaching a cannon to it.”

I chuckled at the thought. “Now that will be a sight to see.” I imagine them putting on some party cannon on top of Daisy Chain and calling it a day.

“Say, don’t you have your own tanks? I’m just curious,” I asked, wondering how prepared they are for war.

“Some, and a few armored trucks we converted too, but they’re all kept in storage for the time we need them,” He answered before grimacing. “Elder Papa said we used to have a lot more, but the tank ghouls in the north west took them. Supposedly it was a real nasty battle between the old war vets, and in the end, the tank ghouls won. We got to keep most of the light tanks. They took all the heavy bruisers.”

“Those tank ghouls sound really dangerous to have beaten the Desperados,” I commented.

He nodded. “Ya, but we respect them for that. They’re the main reason why we don’t move further north in the west. That, and the construction gangers.”

I again cocked an eyebrow. “Construction gangers?”

“Ya. Assholes, the lot of them. But they do repair the roads in the northwest and aren't shy about getting into a fight. Elder Papa also said we got into a fight with the biggest gang of them long ago too. The Road Crew, they're called. We wanted to take them to route 50 to work for us. Not as nasty of a fight as with the tank ghouls, but they knew how to dig in and fortify. So we ended up giving up and agreeing to not fuck with them. They still haven't forgotten and always charge us more to use their road’s. The fuckers.”

It was odd to have Tire Fire tell me about their losses, so I had to ask. “I’m guessing you all got some plan to get back at them then?”

He groaned. “Fuck no. Not when they got a fucking dragon as their queen. And. from what I heard, the bitch is smart. too. A dangerous combination, as Elder Papa would say.”

Now I was even more curious. “Then why are you telling me? I thought your kind hated talking about failures?”

I got another jab on the shoulder, this time hader. “Fuck you! We respect those who fight us properly and win. But… before all this mess happened, when I caught Dead Axle, she did mention that you told her she should try and convince Elder Papa to change how we do things.”

Tire Fire then huffed. “Don’t get me wrong. I love my little sisters, so I’m only saying this so that you don't end up hurting her. But the only times we change how we do things is when we have to. No way Elder Papa will change his mind when we're doing just fine with the way things are.”

I get it now. He’s hoping I’ll tell her to not try and change their leader’s minds if we meet again. Save her from embarrassment if the idea is shot down.

“It’s up to her, not me.” I said as I kept my eyes on the road. “But maybe you should talk to Harp. She's the smart one, not me.”

“Ya… you’re right,” he agreed as he shifted his body to leave me and return to the top of the bulldozer. “One more thing: If I catch you trying to fuck my sister again, I will beat the living shit out of you.”

I kept a straight face and nodded, knowing that it was likely not some idle threat but a promise.

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It had been hours since we left. I was having trouble keeping my eyes open, but we had finally made it. My pipbuck indicated that the Stable was nearby, but all I could see was an empty lot under the moonlight.

Ponies began shuffling out soon after I had stopped. The two groups kept as far away from each other as possible without wandering off. Star Charter then trotted over, looking a bit more fresh then I probably did.

“So we're here. Where's the stable?” Star asked.

Harp slowly got off Daisy Chain. She yawned as she rubbed her eyes. “They're normally underground or under a mountain like with the last one. Look for any way to go down. Like a cave or a swear system.”

Star nodded and ran off to the others, relaying the advice.

It didn’t take long before somepony found something. Star, Bitter, and Cherry returned to us.

Star then relaid what she found to us. “There's a pony hole cover nearby. Spritz already flipped it open and went down with her followers. She thinks that, even if the stable is fake, it would still make a safe place to rest for the night. I imagine she wants to make sure she has the upper hoof in whatever space might be down there.” She then looked back to where the pony hole was. “Several of her followers stayed behind to keep an eye on us.”

Harp nodded. “Understandable. We’ll go down soon enough. Just make sure your guns are ready if she tries anything.”

Star then looked at the two other mares and they nodded before trotting over to the pony hole.

Looking at Harp, I then had to ask, “Did you become the leader of a bunch of escaped cons?”

She shrugged. “Probably. They were leaderless before we showed up, so maybe we are just filling in that space for now. Anyways, we're going to need their help if we're going to take out Spritz before she comes for use.”

I sighed. “If only we could talk things out and go our separate ways.”

Harp then lifted up her pipbuck. “Ya… if only.”

After a short break, we trotted to the others and followed them down into the sewers. There, one of Spritz's followers was waiting for us, panting after having run over to the ladder.

“Ya, you're right. There’s a stable,” he said before motioning for us to follow him.

Just as we had told everypony, there was the big metal gear door with the number 27 printed on it in faded yellow paint. In front of it were several skeletons, some having been pushed aside long ago. Others just sat in front of the door with their ragged clothing still on.

“Looks like some wastlanders found this place long ago and starved to death,” Bitter said, looking at the old boans. “Not an uncommon occurrence. This place is far away from any settlement, or source of food and water. My guess, they were scavengers who ventured out too far and ran out of rations.”

I carefully looked at the bones that had been pushed to the side. Different kinds of familiar looking decade clothing were mixed in the pile, including what looked like the remains of a dark blue police cap “They probably came here from the prison when the bombs fell. Maybe residents that didn’t get here in time.”

“The folly of ponies messing with tech they had no right to touch.” Spritz said as she trotted over to the skeletons in front of the door and kicked them out of the way. The bones scattered across the floor. “Now get this fucking door open like you said you could.”

Both Harp and I gave Star a nod. She trotted to the door control panel. Pulling a cable that was attached to the panel and attaching it to her pipbuck, lights almost immediately began to flash as a siren wenton and off. The door then hisses before it was pulled out and rolled out of the way.

A stale gust of wind greeted us along with a cold and dark silence.

Spritz then looked at us. “Ladies first,” she invited.

The three of us sighed.

Star was the first to trot in with a service rifle slung over her shoulder. Harp followed after Star and I took up the tail end. Bitter and Cherry stayed back with the others, guns ready. As soon as we stepped inside, the lights flickered to life, illuminating the stable.

Unlike Stable 24, there was no mud or profanity laden graffiti everywhere. Just the rust of neglect inside the large room. It looked like the entrance doubled as a reception room as right at the far end was a long desk with old faded Stable-Tec advertisements posters behind it.

There were also the bones of long dead stable dwellers on either side of the room.

“Looks like they killed each other.” Harp said as she pointed out several skeletons. Some behind sandbags and with long rusted over helmets on. There were also the remains of guns near them. Time had made sure they would never shoot again. “You can see, they have arm bands. Red on one side, blue on the other. The colors are also painted on the doors too.”

She was right. There was even a line in the middle of the entry room going right to the stable door. Markings from bullet impacts could also be seen on either side of the walls, further proving her assumption correct.

I also noted that there were only two doors. “So which side should we go? Red or Blue?” I asked.

Harp frowned as she checked her pipbuck. “It’s all mirrored. Practically two stables built side by side, so I don’t think it matters which way we go. I’m also detecting life signs on both sides, but Order doesn't think they’re ponies.”

A chuckle came from Spritz as she trotted in. “Then I’ll take the red side, you can take the blue. If what you say is true, then we can just guard the doors and not fuck with each other.”

There was a momentary pause before Harp nodded. “Ya. Let's do that and get some rest. Other than these doors, there’s three other connecting doors. The one next to the overmare’s rooms just passed these doors. Another door down in the antrum, and a door further down in maintenance.”

Spritz carefully looked at the map on Harps pipbuck before pushing it away. “Alright, we stay on our sides and, after we all get some proper rest, we can talk about what happens next.”

With the split agreed on, the escaped prisoners began filing down into the entryway. Prisoners who had a gun went in first with Spritz leading her followers and Star leading ours. As it turned out, the stable was infested with radroaches so everypony was excited to have some fresh meat.

Once the way was clear, everypony else entered the stable. The layout itself was quite straight forward with both the overmare’s office, security, medical, and storage up front. But, unfortunately, all except for the overmars office happened to be locked. It was something for us to deal with later, so we moved on.

Down a stairway, we then entered the atrium. Two of it’s floors were high and had enough room for ponies to comfortably move around. It reminded me a bit of the R&D Stable’s atrium, but cut in half, making it feel big and small at the same time. The first floor had the cafeteria, lounge, and restrooms. There was also the door to the other side which had furniture stacked up and thus blocking it. The second floor housed rooms for entertainment and what looked like a classroom. Both floors had entrances to the residential area where only the first floor had the door to maintenance and the orchard.

We didn’t explore any further since we were all too tired to do anymore fighting with oversized cockroaches.

Oddly the atrium had a big window that gave us a view of the other atuam along with Spritz’s followers who were also settling down.

I didn’t count how many ponies that had come with us before, but now that everypony had gathered, there were a good hundred of us on both sides give or take five or six ponies. Just seeing them all standing next to each other really set it home to how big this prison break was. If it was just the three of us then maybe the NCR could just let it pass, but not around two hundred ponies.

And we were currently leading the smaller half of them.

With a few ponies given the guns and taking guard duty, everypony else settled in for the night. Star, Harp and I took the overmaer’s office, it being away from the others. Not much of worth could be found here. Even the big terminal was not working which left us with the overmare’s personal terminal to be looked at later.

Right now we just needed to get some sleep.

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My eyes shot open within the dark overmare’s office. The sound of... something, woke me up.

It could have been anything, including something being horribly dangerous. So, getting up and picking up one of the NCR pistols, I trotted to the door. I hoped it was not Spritz making her move on us.

With a press of a button, the door hissed and opened, thus bathing the room in bright artificial light.

Stepping out, I saw brightly colored ponies in clean stable barding standing in the hallway. On their fetlock, they had a pipbuck 2000. It was an older and more blocky version than my pipbuck 3200.

Even stranger was the stable itself was clean. Not a speck of rust to be seen.

“Hey… excuse me,” I called out, but they didn’t pay me any mind.

Leaving the ponies be, I trotted down the hallway. I passed by the other rooms. In security there were ponies doing some training while wearing bulky looking stable barding. The medical room had a filly getting her teeth looked at and several ponies were moving a few things out of storage.

Further down I saw an active atrium. Ponies were hanging out. Some were playing games. Others were just eating. It was an active and healthy stable, much like how Stable-Tec had advertised them to be.

As I trotted among them, I saw the widow on the other side where a colt was making funny faces at a colt on the opposite side of the mirror. They were having fun being foals until an older mare, likely his mother, trotted over and pulled the colt away. She looked upset. A little angry, too. She clearly scolded the poor colt.

“Hey now, they're just having fun.” I told the mare, but she ignored me.

It was not my place to interfere, but it didn’t stop me from getting annoyed.

Taking a deep breath, I readied myself to say it again, but then another pony trotted right through me! The air in my lungs slowly leaked out as I started to become aware that there was no way that this stable was still alive. No… we had entered a dead stable full of skeletons.

The ponies here were all already dead.

Their heads then turned to me. Rheir eyes were white like the zombie-ponies from the old horror movies. None of them moved. They just stared at me liflessley.

*Thud*

My head turned back to the window and I saw faces pressed upon it. There were more empty eyes looking at me.

“Uhhh… sorry for disturbing you,” I said. As I backed up, my hoof crunced onto something.

Looking down, I saw that my hoof had stepped inside a skeltons rib cage. The dead pony’s jaw was wide open as though screaming in pain. Around its neck was a cable tied in the form of a noose.

The low ringing sound of static filled my ears as I began to hear voices. All were muffled and filled with fear and hate.

. . .

“It’s their fault.”

“I saw them mocking us, I know it.”

“Again one of them fucked up down in maintenance.”

“They're planning something, I know it!”

“I heard that the ponies on that side were stripe sympathizers.”

“Doesn't our stock of food look smaller than it should? You think they're stealing ours?”

“You heard what they said to me, accusing me of trying to sabatosh them, all paranoid, the lot of them.”

“I saw them being real shifty, as though they're plotting something they don’t want us to know.”

“Have you ever seen their school room? I was told it was a mess, and they don’t teach their foals anything. No wonder they're so illiterate and uncivilized.”

“If I catch one of them even looking at my daughter again, I will go over there and beat the fucking shit out of them!”

“Their so dumb. You see how they can't even wave at us properly?”

“You see that stallion on the other side with that dumb over gelled mane and black stable barding? He is clearly up to no good.”

“You heard? One of them tried to come over to our side, tried to talk to my son. I know he’s in his rebellious stage. I can handle that, but if he starts talking to that whore, I could never live down the shame.”

“They're sneaking in. Trust me. I heard the door to the other side opened last night. I think they're planning to attack us.”

“Overmare, you must do something. I know that one of their colts was eyeing my daughter. The one that looks like a gangster. He must be planning on assaulting my little princess!”

“Damn rat bastards! Think they can come and go as they please. Maybe some blast caps at their hooves will teach ‘em to stay on their side.”

“I know that you're all worried about the other stable becoming more aggressive. As your Overmare, I promise you I will make sure they stay contained on the other side. Security is already putting in new measures to ensure no trespassing will happen in the future.”

“Ha! Chat, that damn gangster, snuck in and gave him a good one/two of my hooves. Teach him to come after our mares.”

“Overmare, they attacked my boy. Hurt him real bad. You must do something. I want justice! I will not stand as those savages just do as they want!”

. . .

The voices would not stop. More fears, more accusations, and more calling to attack the other. I didn't know who was talking about who. Was it all from this side, or was it both sides shouting at me? All I knew was that I had to get away.

Turning to run, I tripped and fell. I landed in another pile of bones. Pushing myself up, I saw the vents spewing some sort of smoke which made it hard to breathe. I wheezed as I struggled for air, crawling to get away, wherever that might be.

Again my eyes shot open as I sat up in a cold sweat. My breathing was shallow and quick. I was back in the dimly lit and decrepit overmare’s office. The acrid stale air was assaulting my nose.

“You alright, Slowtrot?” Star asked. The food packets from Despoines were lined up on the Overmare’s desk. She looked at the packets, then back at me before smiling. “Hungry?”

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-Reputation-

-Spritz’s Convicts-

Sides have been picked, and some trust has been lost, but that doesn't mean they don’t think you can’t be brought into their way of thinking. It’s all about establishing who is in charge, which would be Spritz.

-Ganger Alliance Convicts-

In need of leadership, the three have stepped up and have given results, thus making them the new bosses. Now there is one big problem to deal with, and it’s up to the bosses to deal with Spritz.

-Mutation-

Harp and Slowtrot have received the Lazarus Mutation, and now have a minor health regeneration. The effects of using Peitho causes it to accelerate.