Fallout Equestria: Out of the Icebox

Chapters

Part 1, Day 1 (+66,792)
Part 1, Day 2 (+66,792)
Part 1, Day 2 (+66,792) Evening (nsfw)
Part 1, Day 3 (+66,792)
Part 1, Day 4 (+66,792) First
Part 1, Day 4 (+66,792) Second
Part 1, Day 4 (+66,792) Evening (nsfw)

Part 1, Day 1 (+66,792)

“Ponies built a society of Friendship and Love, but their neighbors found their beliefs… naive, to say the least.”

Gryphon Rampage in Small Equestrian Town

May 20th, (indistinct)

Horror struck the small Equestrian town of Acros yesterday, when Aya Coldcrest, a local gryphon, apparently snapped. In a rampage that lasted almost half an hour, four ponies were killed and nearly a dozen were injured before Aya was finally captured and arrested by the Acros Police Department (APD). She has been placed in short-term confinement pending her trial, but reasons for the rampage are still unclear. Some sources suspect a zebra infiltrator’s influence, but Aya herself refused to comment on…

(continued page A4)
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MAS Aids Confinement of Dangerous Criminals

July 15th, (indistinct)

After a recent uprising of crimes across Equestria, the justice system, formerly headed by the Princesses, has been overwhelmed. Several proposals have been offered for dealing with the masses of prisoners filling the country’s prisons, and a new innovation by the MAS has been put into action. Nearly a hundred cryogenic tanks have been constructed in a new wing of the small-town Acros Prison, and already some of the most dangerous prisoners across Equestria have been placed in cryogenic slumber until they can be properly placed on trial. Some of the killers already on the list include the Hawthorn Killer, and last month’s Butcher of Acros, responsible for six deaths and several attempted murders after her imprisonment.

(continued on page A2)
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It took me a minute to remember where I was, but when I remembered was just as stupid as when I’d been told. That stupid warden’s face, the stupid voice he made trying to be official… I remembered his words from earlier in the afternoon, but they felt like an eternity ago.

“Alright, Aya. In compliance with the new decrees from the department of justice… actually, buck this. You’ll just sit there wanting to kill me no matter how long I take.” He was right, but I was smart enough to not move when six separate Pinks had guns pointed at me. “The jails are too full, the department wants to free up more common space, so we’re sticking you and a bunch of other solitary freaks in some Ministry icebox. Feel free to resist, a corpse takes way less paperwork than one of these things.”

Naturally, me not being an idiot… I let them stick me in a box like an idiot. For something built like an egg , it was sure as hell not built to fit a gryphon. Once my wings were all nice and tucked in, they closed the thing up, the warden hit a whole bunch of buttons on some fancy-ass panel, and I got to watch my ass get iced over.

Seeing as I was still alive to think through all of this, I guess it worked. Seeing as I was awake, I guess the thing got turned off. But all I could see was white and... some little words?

/Good morning, Prisoner B2179 “Aya Coldcrest”!/

What

/You have been fitted with a PCMAS Reformation chip!/

the

/Any illegal actions will be recorded, and the Department of Justice will be notified, as well as a small neuroelectric shock being applied!/

FUCK

/After your sentence, the chip can be removed by any certified Ministry of Department personnel! Please say “I accept” to accept these restrictions./

Like I had a fucking choice in the matter. It was hard to move my beak, though, because it turned out I was still surrounded with ice. I managed it anyway. “I accept, you little shit.”

/Insulting the chip will have no effect, as it is not sentient, and may be seen as a sign of poor mental health by the court./

/Acknowledged! Your cryogenic pod is now being opened!/

There was a distant clicking noise, and the field of white I was in suddenly grew warm, like a summer breeze. White faded to brown, and I found myself looking at a scene I had been viewing just a few minutes ago… from my perspective. The brand new cryogenic jail was ruined. The pod across from me was shattered apart, and a pony’s bones lay half out of it. The one next to it looked melted, the next one was just empty. The entire wall of the building across the room was destroyed like a bomb had hit it, rubble destroying a whole row of pods, a drab, cloudy day visible outside. The whole place was worn, like it had been out in the elements for years. I would’ve called that impossible, but how would I know? I’d been an icecube.

/Error! Your awakening team is not present! Please proceed to the Warden’s office immediately!/

Yep, the words weren’t appearing in front of me, they were just part of my vision. A little arrow appeared on the floor to guide me on my way, but I snorted. Like hell I was gonna-

/Warning! Proceed to the Warden’s office immediately! Failure to comply will result in a penalty!/

Well… fuck. If there was one thing I knew about the prison system, it was that they don’t make bluffs. And I really did not want to see what they thought was a fitting penalty to give a murderer. Scowling, I followed the arrow along the aisles of the room. Almost all of the pods were destroyed, and the ones that some poor sod had been put in now held some type of corpse. Lucky me, I guess. At the end of the room was the door to the cellblocks, knocked slightly open by something at some point. I pushed it open, figuring it couldn’t be nearly as bad as it was.

Just the other side of the door was a pile of skeletons. Pony skeletons, in very recognizable clothes. It was a heap of dead security guards. Looking down, I picked up one of their badges. Winter Slush, unicorn mare. Judging from the picture, she didn’t look like anyone I’d tried to kill. Too bad for her, I guess.

/Warning! Proceed to the Warden’s office!/

“Yeah yeah, I’m going. Don’t lose your feathers.”

I walked down through the cells, glancing in as I went by. Most of them held skeletons of one race or another. Some held multiples. Whatever had gone down in here, it was bad. My heart nearly stopped when I looked up and noticed that one of the anti-riot ceiling turrets was out. Thankfully, it was perfectly still, otherwise I’d have been dead the minute I stepped in the hall.

The warden’s office was up some stairs, past a security door. There was obviously no guard to key me through, but what I did have was the key I’d picked up. Pressing it to the pad, I headed up the stairs and keyed myself once more into the warden’s office. It was a big office, with a massive window to let him look down into the common area below. In the center of the room was a suitably massive desk, the warden still present at it. Well, I assumed that skeleton was his, anyway. Same with the pistol in his mouth.

/Warning! Situation updated, some settings will change.../

/… /

/Situation status updated: Emergency. Some restrictions have been removed!/

That gave me pause. “Restrictions?”

/Restrictions removed: jaywalking; self-defense; disturbing the peace; noise restrictions; and 37 others. Some penalties have been altered. Calculating new objectives…/

So they’d restricted all of that. Wow. I guess I was supposed to be a fucking model citizen then, glad I didn’t swear earlier. I bet that was fucking restricted. Glancing around the warden’s office, it was pretty basic. There was a safe in the corner, but it didn’t have a lock. One of those terminal opened ones, I guess. Wandering over to the desk, I put my claws up on the keyboard, but that was as far as I got.

/Warning! This terminal is Department of Justice property! Attempting to access this device will result in a penalty!/

“Fuuuuuuuck.”

Just out of curiosity, I reached over and tried to pick up the gun in the warden’s mouth. I didn’t even bother reading the warning that time. It was pretty obvious. So, no guns, no finding out what went fucking wrong… what the hell was I supposed to do now?

/Objectives updated!/

“Huh?”

/New objective: proceed to the nearest department of justice building for further instructions/

Alright, I guess that was what I was doing now. At least it wasn’t too definite of a goal. Something I could work around, anyway. I left the office once more, starting down the stairs to that hole I’d seen earlier. Easier than finding the actual door. No sooner was I approaching the cryo room door when it got slammed open and a stallion rushed through. He clearly wasn’t expecting to see me.

“Gryphon!”

Grabbing him by the throat was more reflexive than anything. I was fucking tired of people calling me by my race before anything else. Unfortunately, that’s about as far as I got.

/Warning! A punishment will be issued!/

“What oh shit I - gRAAA!”

THe punishment was… well, I was glad I’d avoided the others. It was like being dropped in boiling water, or fucking molten iron. Every nerve I had lit up like a fuse. I could feel my body convulsing, feel myself screaming, but there wasn’t shit that I could do about any of it. When the pain stopped after what felt like forever, it took my vision a moment to get back to normal. I was on the floor, and every muscle in my body was wrecked. I’d have probably pissed myself if I hadn’t emptied out before the icebox. The stallion wasn’t much better, laying a few feet away gagging. Whatever had hit me hadn’t hit him, but from the looks of it my convulsions had just about crushed his throat.

I dragged myself to my feet just in time for another pony to run through the door. Another stallion, a unicorn with a shotgun in his magic grip. Green hide, brown mane, some sort of leather armor. He gave me a look, then walked right over to the stallion on the floor, kicking him in the side. “The fuck did you think would happen! Thought you’d get away? Thought we wouldn’t take off your fucking head just cause you’re worth good caps?” His magic grip grabbed a collar I hadn’t noticed on the other stallion’s neck, and said stallion froze like his life depended on it. “Well?”

“I-I thought I could get away!”

The unicorn laughed, and it was a cold laugh. “Hell yeah, you get far enough away, maybe we’ll just give up and leave, right?” He tugged the collar. “You know what happens if this gets too far from me, right? Tick. Tick. Boom.” With each tick he gave the collar a tug, until he leaned in and whispered the last word into the horrified pony’s ear.

Only then did the unicorn finally take a look at me. “And who the buck are you? One of those buckers who helps bucking runners?”

Rule one of jail: act. If you don’t know what’s happening, you do. If you aren’t confident, you are. I snorted. “Seriously? I helped you catch the fucker and that’s how you fucking talk to me?”

“Sure you did. The fuck was all that screaming then?”

“He ran into me and I spilled the shit I was carrying. It wasn’t exactly shit that should touch skin. Why the hell do you think I tried to kill the fucker?”

The unicorn didn’t stop glaring, but his gun lowered ever so slightly. “Right. Since that’s all done, how about I take this fucker and go on my way, and you go on yours.”

“Fuck that, I’m coming with you.”

The gun rose again. “Really.”

Quick thinking time. Time had passed, the prison was empty, I was dressed as a prisoner… “Some bots deeper in ‘arrested’ me, stole all my shit and put me in the suit. I was about to try melting my way out when your boy bashed the door open for me.”

I could see the runner’s confusion. The door had been open when he got here, I hadn’t spilled anything. Fortunately, the unicorn was looking at me, not him. There were a few tense moments of me wondering if he bought my story, then he shrugged. “Buck it. There’s a hole back the way we came. Follow me.” He went first, then the other pony, then me in the back. The collared pony was looking at me in confusion, but I glared and gave a quick throat-cutting motion. I didn’t want him getting me fucking shot.

The unicorn led us back through the cryo room, through the hole I’d noted earlier. Outside was another pony, red, this one with a military battle saddle, an assault rifle on each side. He was watching over half a dozen more ponies, earth ponies and unicorns. All with the same collar that the runner had been wearing.

The unicorn called out to him. “Hey, Junklamp! I caught him!” I admit I was surprised, somewhere in between where I met him and the outdoors, the unicorn’s voice had suddenly caught a genteel, Canterlot-esque accent.

Junklamp turned around, grinning, then stopped as he saw me. “And the extra?”

“Helped me catch him. Insisted on coming along.”

That clearly didn’t relax the pony in front of me, and I was certainly nervous having two seperate machine guns in my direction. The fuck was going on out here? Fortunately, Junklamp apparently decided not to perforate me, lowering his guns a bit.

“She gonna help with the shipment? Cause I’m tired of dealing with these fucks running off.”

The (yet-unnamed) unicorn looked over at me. “Well? You want to give us a hand getting these slaves over to town? It ain’t that far.”

Slaves. I remembered that word from old, old equestrian history. Some kind of minotaur thing, I think, keeping other races to do their work for them. Come to think of it, the unicorn had mentioned the stallion he caught being worth… caps? I’d figure that out later. Right now there were two ponies here talking about slaves as though they were a perfectly normal thing. That meant that at the very least it was something everyone in the area would know about. Shit. Not like I had a choice.

“Sure, why not?”

“Excellent.” The unicorn clapped his hooves together. “Introductions, then. I am Scrapheap, this is Junklamp, the others need no introduction. And you are?”

“Butcher. Local, but I haven’t been around in a while.”

Scrapheap looked curious, but at least he didn’t press it. Good. “Alright then, Ms. Butcher. Let’s set off then, shall we?”

Scrapheap led the way, with the slaves behind him and Junklamp’s menacing presence behind them. I just sort of… hung around the edges of the group. Looked around a bit. The sky was overcast as far as the eye could see, and the land… well, the land I remembered was lush and green. Even the hilltop around the prison had been richly forested. Now the area was stones and cracked brown dirt, with the occasional horribly stunted or plain dead plant. A wasteland.

Apparently I was looking around with too much interest, since Scrapheap noticed. “See something out there?”

I shook my head. “Nah, I just occasionally like to look around and remember how it used to look.”

“You seen pictures or something?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

That… honestly told me everything I needed to know about the timeline. Equestria had been panicking over zebras getting megaspells, the reason they didn’t want to also be worrying about dangerous criminals. In a worst case scenario, one or both of us fired, and Equestria was ruined. Looking around, that was a check. As for how long ago that happened, well, long enough there were ponies who’d never seen a green Equestria. Like I said, everything I needed.

“Hold up.” Scrapheap stopped at the head of the caravan, and the rest of us stopped by consequence. “You hear that?” Once he pointed it out, the distant sound of gunshots was pretty obvious. He glanced at me. “Could be raiders, could be scavengers. Hell, this close, it could be other slavers. How about you wing it up there and check it out, Butcher?”

Nothing I disagreed with. I really didn’t want the only ponies I’d seen getting shot, and I was eager to see what sort of other groups were alive out here. Also, well, I realized that it had been far too long since I went out and properly flew. I gave Scrapheap a nod, then spread my wings and took to the cloudy sky. From up in the air, the whole world opened up like a book. I could see Scrapheap and the rest down below me. I could see miles, all the way to whatever was left of the distant town. The source of gunfire was perfectly obvious from up here, a mile away at most. Soaring through the air, I went that way.

When I arrived, I found probably the most one-sided gunfight of my life. Four ponies sat on a hill, taking lazy potshots at a pair huddled behind a broken down wagon. Certainly an ambush, however it had started originally. My look taken, I honestly would’ve flown back to Scrapheap if one of the pony’s firing hadn’t noticed me.

“Look! A feather fuck!”

Suddenly there were two shooters aiming at me, the original pony laughing at his own joke. Well, laughing until I landed claws first on his face. I hate a racist, and I’d worry about the system later.

/Objective added: Protect Equestrian citizens (1 of 4 hostiles defeated)/

Or not, I guess.

The stallion I landed on was most certainly dead. There was a reason my fights in prison were attempted murders and not just fights; a gryphon’s claws are very good against meaty little ponies. Lethally so.

The next pony was still re-aiming from sky to ground when I pounced on him. One claw punched into his neck, the other into his ribcage, and I threw him into the mare who was just starting to look at me. A bullet grazed my ribs and I spun around on the other standing stallion. His eyes were wide and jittery; he was no doubt high as a fucking kite. Grabbing the first stallion’s gun (a shotgun apparently) I emptied all five shells before the warning about guns not being allowed popped up. Too late. Druggie was fucking shredded.

I turned around to the mare, who was just wrestling herself out from under her deceased buddy. I could’ve let her live, let her run back to whatever rathole she crawled out of, but… fuck, I needed this. There’s no describing to a clawless creature how right it feels when your claws cut into your enemy, you prey. It’s the feeling of your whole body doing exactly what it was always meant to do. Before the pony could make some attempt to surrender, to no longer register as an enemy, I leapt across the distance between us and drove my claws into her neck.

There was the moment of breathless silence that follows in the wake of a fight, as adrenaline wore off and my body realized that all of my opponents had been killed. Apparently it was a similar moment for my implant, because no sooner was I ready to move when the popup appeared.

/Objective Complete: Protect Equestrian Citizens (4 of 4)/

/This has been recorded/

That right there had to be the most ominous “good work” I’d ever heard, but the system wasn’t giving me anymore to go on. I decided to just assume that meant something good, and turned my attention to the bodies. The ponies I’d just killed were a culmination of everything that could cause a pony to be in shitty shape. Just at a glance, I could see evidence of most of them being strung out on drugs, on drugs when I’d killed them, and generally malnourished. Eugh.

Come to think of it, these weren’t the only ponies here, were they? Looking down the hill, I saw two pony heads swiftly jerk back down into cover. I could deal with them when I got back. Taking to the air, I flew back to the rest of the group I was travelling with. I let out a whistle as I came in so that Junklamp wouldn’t twitch and perforate me, then came down fast right in front.

Scraphead looked me up and down, taking in the blood. “So?”

“Four druggies and racists, attacking a wagon. They pissed me off, so I killed them.I think two survivors by the wagon, no shape to fight though. We’re clear through the area.”

Scrapheap shared a look with Junklamp that I didn’t quite understand, then looked back at me with a grin. “Actually, with an extra guard, we aren’t quite over capacity. Mind leading us on over there?”

It took me a minute to realize what he was saying to me. Right, he sold ponies. Looking at his “stock”, I doubted that many of them had been born into this situation. New slaves had to come from somewhere, but could I do that to two ponies I had nothing against?

I didn’t know them.

I didn’t care about them.

I looked at Scrapheap and said, “Sure.”

The group moved far slower than I flew, the shuffling hoofsteps of the slaves dragging their speed down to a crawl. After longer than I’d have liked, we were close enough that I could fly off ahead and land to search the bodies I’d made. The ponies I’d left, an indigo unicorn mare and a blue filly, were just finishing placing their dead in a hole when I landed silently by the ones I’d killed.

The druggies had less “pockets” than little niches in their shitty armor they stuffed things in. I couldn’t take their guns, but it turned out the system would let me take all the other things they all didn’t need anymore: things like ammo, booze, food... chems, even. I didn’t think I’d be allowed to pick those up, but here I was. They were also carrying a bunch of bottle caps in various nooks and crannies, which seemed pretty stupid, but I remembered Scrapheap mentioning caps so I took them just in case.

“Help!”

I hadn’t even realized that the others had entered the valley until I heard the mare shout. Looking down, I saw the two survivors backing away from Scrapheap and Junklamp. Looking at me.

Flying down by the rest of them, I landed behind the two ponies, setting up a neat triangle of people on my side of the conflict around the two who weren’t. Faking my best Griff-ish accent, I spoke to Scrapheap like a two bit thug. “Hyu need some help over here, bozz?”

A true poker face on that stallion, and his accent was back. He shook his head, “No, Butcher, I believe this young miss was just having some worries about the fit of her collar.” He was holding two of said collars in his magic, the same type that the rest of his captured ponies were wearing. “I’m just politely convincing her that it’s somewhat safer than the other dangers of the wasteland.”

“Dangers?” I grinned. “Dangers like hungry gryphons munching legs?That is danger. Danger I am glad to demonstrate.”

Apparently the gryphon act was fairly good. Good enough that the filly between us whimpered, and I noticed the distinct stain of her wetting herself. The mare with her… well, she was a better actor at least. “You think that just because some raiders caught us off guard I’m going to just give in to slavers?”

Ah. Druggies are raiders, and we were apparently slavers. Scrapheap grinned back at her. “Oh, I’m sure a fellow unicorn could let off a spell before I could stop you. But do you really think that you can cast fast enough to drop three of us and live?”

I didn’t like the thought of a unicorn blasting me in the face with her magic, but I took it that Scrapheap had done this more than I had. What followed was a matter of split second actions. Scrapheap took a step forward. The mare took a step back. The mare bumped into me. She spun around like only an on-edge pony can. Scrapheap leapt forward, two collars latched on from the backs of necks.

The two survivors froze, facing me as Scrapheap leaned closer from behind them. “See, that wasn’t too hard, was it?”

It was hard seeing the change in the two ponies’ eyes when they realized what had just happened to them. It wasn’t until sometime later that I’d realize they weren’t afraid of what’d just happened: they were afraid of what it meant was coming. The fight visibly went out of the mare, and I watched as Junklamp stepped forward to clasp a magic inhibitor ring around her horn.

Leaving Junklamp to watch over the old and new slaves, me and Scrapheap stepped over to check over the wagon. It was full of all sorts of scrap metal and other… junk. If I’d seen this before prison, I’d certainly have thought it was headed to the landfill. Now, apparently, it was a pretty good haul.

Scrapheap switched back to his normal voice and I followed suit. “Butcher, see what was pulling this thing.”

“Got it.”

I hopped up to the front, and stopped. The thing that had been pulling the cart… well, it wasn’t a cow, and it wasn’t a pony. I mean, I hadn’t seen a cow in quite a while, but I was pretty sure that they only had a single head, not two.

“Some fucked up cow thing, Scrapheap.”

He came around the end of the wagon, gave the thing a look, then gave me an incredulous look. “Seriously? You don’t even know what to call a Brahmin?”

Shit, got caught out. I shrugged. “We, uh, have a different source of meat back where I’m from.”

“I don’t want to ask, do I?”

“Nope. Speaking of meat, though...” I looked down at the cow. Weirdly mutated or not, meat was meat, and even in prewar Equestria it was near impossible to get a steak.

Scrapheap shrugged. “Knew a gryphon wouldn’t pass up a steak. I’m not leaving all this salvage out here for some scav, but it’ll take a bit to hook up the slaves to this wagon, so you’re free to try butchering that thing while I’m at it. I’m not waiting if you take too long, though.”

“Obviously.”

I blanked out what he was doing as I pushed my claws into fresh, red meat. No need for a knife here, that’s for sure. It was something I’d only gotten a chance to do once before, cleaning up meat. Cut hide from meat, meat from bone, wrap meat in hide… the whole thing was so lean it was making me drool. I’d probably grabbed a few dozen pounds of raw beef when Scrapheap called me over. Wiping off my bloody claws on the brahmin’s hide, I found that he had, true to his word, hooked up four slaves to the front of the wagon.

“You ready to move, Butcher?”

“Yeah, just gotta load this up!”

I tossed the bloody bundles in the back of the wagon, where the rest of the slaves were piled haphazardly among the salvage. Me and the other two were on foot, presumably to be more vigilant. I was still somewhat covered in blood, but my feathers kept it off me, unlike a pony where gore soaks right through fur and dries onto flesh.

With two slavers, a dozen slaves, and a skilled bluffer, we travelled once again through the wasteland.
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We travelled until nearly nightfall, because Scrapheap wanted to push to some sort of structure for sleep. We ended up at some half-blown-down pre-war house, the slaves locked securely in the only really intact room of the house. The wagon parked just outside, we three lit up a fire in the stone-floored kitchen. I got to roast up a lump of the beef I’d harvested (which was just as delicious as I’d hoped and remembered) and I was quite surprised when Scrapheap and Junklamp had some for themselves as well. Then Scrapheap left us to go give the surroundings a look.

I pulled out one of the beers that I’d looted from the raiders I killed earlier, which drew a curious look from Junklamp, the first not really hostile or suspicious response I’d gotten from him. “Where’d you get that? Also, you got some to share?”

“Raiders from earlier, of course. And sharing…” I pulled open my prison jumpsuit, the only place I really had to stash stuff. “I got some shit in here, yeah. Only one beer, some swill that might be booze, a bit of chems.”

Junklamp took note of a small part of my collection. “You’ve got Dash and Mint-Als? I know a trick with those.”

I handed over the drugs in question, thn sat back to nurse my beer and watch his “trick”. Junklamp popped off the vial from the Dash inhaler, popped in some Mint-Als, and shook the whole batch up. In a few seconds the mix went from orange to a sickly green, and Junklamp grinned. “We originally came up with this stuff to keep slaves complacent, but this way is just a bit more fun.”

His tone made me nervous, but he just popped the inhaler in his mouth and took a deep whiff. In a matter of seconds, his pupils swelled until there was no iris left, and the incredibly serious stallion started giggling like a schoolfilly as he slowly fell over onto his back. No sooner was he waving his hooves in the air then Scrapheap got back.

“Hey, place is clear. No easy ways for the slaves to get out and…” He cut off as he took in the scene. Me drinking, Junklamp giggling and batting at imaginary stars. “I see I forgot to mention something.”

“Yeah?”

“We aren’t safe, idiots. We’re out here in the bucking wasteland, in a small, raider-attackable group. I didn’t think I needed to tell you idiots not to get drunk or fucked up on drugs.”

I took a long look at him, then slowly slid my beer away as he sighed. “For the sake of Celestia’s fucked ass. Just save it until we get to town tomorrow, all right? I’ll keep first watch with this idiot.”

I nodded, and since I didn’t quite trust the two I was with, I winged my way up to what was left of the second story of the house. There was plenty of room for a lone gryphon to curl up on ratty old carpet, and thus I did.

Just as I closed my eyes, I got one last intrusion from a half-forgotten passenger.

/Daily Report:/

/Misdeeds noted: 3/

/Punishments issued: 1/

/Objectives completed: 2/

/Good deeds: 1/

/Report sent/

/Goodnight/

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Footnote: Level Up! (Level 3)

New Perk Added: Frosty - After so long on ice, other colds just don’t compare. Cold environments affect you 75% less, cold weapons are 30% less effective against you. Being cold does not make you more vulnerable to disease.

Personal Perk Added: Anti-Racist - Whether as a result of raising or experience, you hate racism with a passion. You are 20% more accurate and have a 15% higher critical chance when your opponent has insulted your race, and half that bonus if they've insulted another race in your hearing.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading!
For everyone who read my other story, it is still technically in progress, but I haven't felt inspired about it for a while. This story is entirely digital (so no copying over for me to do) and hopefully will get a bit farther.
The cover art is, of course, a placeholder. I'd borrow someone's art of a gryphon in a prison jumpsuit, but it's a bit hard because I haven't even decided what Aya looks like yet.
Until next time!

Edit: It took until chapter three to decide on Aya's appearance, but I finally settled on a rust-brown body, and steel grey feathers for the head. Of course, most of that is under the orange prison jumpsuit, which I have no real plans to remove anytime soon.

Part 1, Day 2 (+66,792)

“Some ponies say there’s no rest for the wicked. They’re wrong, of course. What the wicked are truly denied is friends.”

I woke up to my second ever day in the wasteland, and to a cold drizzle of rain on my face.

Also, to some asshole shouting.

“Get the buck down here, you idiot bird! Time to get moving!”

I hopped down to the ground floor, shaking off some water that hung onto my feathers. The wagon was already loaded, the slaves were hooked up, and Scrapheap was waiting impatiently. I was surprised he’d wasted the time to wake me rather than leave without, but then I saw how hungover Junklamp looked. I’d never seen anyone make a multi-drug cocktail like that, so I could only guess what kind of side effects he was going through.

“Well, I’m up now, Scrap.”

The unicorn slaver glared at me, but snorted and turned back to the wagon. “We’re getting to Acros today, so we get to unload all this baggage and get paid. You get some of a share, but you weren’t here the whole trip, you know.”

“Yeah, I know, let’s move, right?”

“Right.”
______________________________________________________________________________

From that point onwards, we were travelling through what was left of Acros. The ruins of the towns that I’d once called home. It was… unique, seeing the buildings that had lasted the test of time. Rich, arrogant ponies’ homes that were little more than dust in the wind, next to a coffee shop that looked like it would open any second now. I’d thought the way time ravaged the countryside was strange; the way it changed the town was even more pronounced. Like the buildings just rolled dice to see how crushed they’d end up.

Scrapheap was ever vigilant as we went through the ruins, and by consequence, so was I. I had no desire to find out what kind of things the wasteland considered dangerous, when one of us was loaded with two seperate assault rifles. I’d seen the raiders yesterday, and after the way a cow was mutated, I suspected I wouldn’t like how actually dangerous animals ended up.

Thankfully, after all the travelling yesterday, we were pretty close to our destination: the downtown area. I remembered that area pretty clearly; after all, I ‘d been in jail there, gone to trial there, had ponies throw bottles at me there. Downtown was where every hardy government building had been built in the town, and I could see why a group would settle down there.

What I wasn’t expecting was what a post-war settlement would look like. I could see the clock tower on the courthouse from a distance, so I knew we were getting close. The rain was even drizzling off so we got a clear view. We came around a building, and the fort was visible. Several entire blocks of the town had been fortified by destroying everything near them. A few of the houses I remembered had been torn down to foundations, creating a wall at least two stories tall all around the slaver fortress. We were headed straight across the clear area towards a street-wide gate in the wall I was pretty sure had been welded together out of entire skywagons.

The closer we got to the gate, the more guns I noticed in our direction. At least one sniper, a few mounted machineguns, several pony-portable guns… we were downrange of an arsenal. Scrapheap didn’t seem too worried as he pulled the cart right up to the gate before ordering the slaves to a stop.

My skywagon theory was about spot-on, because just to the right of the gate was an entire van with the front end sticking out towards us. We’d only waited for a minute before the van’s passenger door opened and a coal-black unicorn in fucking power armor stepped out of it, helmet off. He looked straight to Scrapheap. “Name?”

“Scrapheap, returning catcher.”

“Declarations?”

“Two helpers, one temporary, one permanent. Fourteen total slaves, and a confiscated wagonload of scrap.”

“One moment.”

The stallion cast some sort of spell, throwing a field of light over all of us and the wagon, before apparently being satisfied. He turned and nodded to someone we couldn’t see on the wall above. “Head on in.”

The gates were a truly impressive sight as they swung open. Wide as the street, thicker than a pony, two stories tall, they came open to allow us in. The streets inside were far more full than I’d expected. I’d thought that there’d be a few dozen ponies. What lived there was hundreds of ponies, packing the streets and going in and out of the buildings. Just from the gate I could see signs for shops selling guns, food, ammo, and every other conceivable thing.

Especially slaves.

I hadn’t been sure how prominent slaves would be, but they were everywhere. In collars. In chains. In cages. Being sold in store windows, on auction platforms, from the backs of wagons. Our wagonload was totally unremarkable as it trundled through the street.

The three of us hopped up top with the slaves, just so Scrapheap could see over the crowd. The lack of rain had significantly improved his mood. “Alright, we just have to go meet with Salt Shackle, the head of this whole place. Then we can sell off this batch and get on with our lives.”

He steered the wagon straight to the center of the town, and parked it outside of the courthouse. Several armed ponies watched over it while the three of us headed inside. The lobby was just how I remembered: fancy, large, and obnoxious. A reception desk in the center, doors to either side, stairs on either side leading up to a second floor balcony. The receptionist was, surprisingly, a slave herself, but she pointed us up the stairs.

Just at the base of said stairs, Scrapheap turned to me. “Wait here. We’ve been through before, so talking to Salt won’t take long. Rather keep this as simple as possible.”

“Got it.”

So I stood and waited as the two of them headed on up the stairs, heading through the huge office doors on the balcony.

Then I waited.

And waited some more.

I was starting to wonder what happened to them when the question was answered for me. The office door crashed open as Scrapheap came flying out. He just nicked the railing, then smashed against the wall over the door we’d come in. By the time he hit the floor, there was no doubt at all that he was dead.

The mare that stormed out of said office was the largest pony I’d ever seen. She was twice the size of a normal pony, with gunmetal blue fur and a flaming red mane. Where her name had come from was a total mystery to me. She stormed down the stairs, right past me and Scrapheap’s corpse, out to the wagon we’d rode in on.

“SON OF A BITCH!”

I and every other pony on the street stood back as Salt Shackle slammed her hooves into the ground hard enough that the asphalt street around her cracked. She had, I noticed, aimed away from all the ponies around her, but the display of sheer power was still plenty terrifying. Then just like that, she was calm, stepping back into the lobby and looking over to the receptionist. “Anypony else come in with those two?”

I didn’t really want the mare’s attention on me, but it wasn’t like I was going to avoid it. Instead, I raised a claw. “I did, ma’am.”

She stared at me a moment, then snorted. “Ma’am, huh? I like that. Follow me to my office.”

She headed back up the stairs, and I swallowed nervously before I followed. Her office was grand, probably once some judge’s. A huge oaken desk sat in the middle of it, but the desk still looked a little small with Salt seated behind it. Being dwarfed by the mare speaking to me was… uncomfortable, to say the least.

“So, do you know what just happened?”

“My travelling companions just died?”

“Exactly. I assume you don’t know why.”

“No Ma’am.”

“They died because the wagon you so helpfully rode into my town formerly belonged to one of the few merchants I could convince to travel here. Now it is here, and he is not, and I would appreciate an explanation.”

Apparently explaining hadn’t gone so well for Scrapheap and Junklamp, but I gave it my own try. “We encountered the wagon yesterday, under attack by raiders. I was scouting ahead, got fired at, and killed the raiders before returning to our group. I led the others to the wagon, where the two survivors were burying their dead, then started looting the bodies. I was called over to help get the collars on them, then I butchered their brahmin while Scrapheap hooked slaves up to the wagon. Then we travelled here.”

“Assuming that was all true, who were the two survivors?”

“An… indigo unicorn mare, and… an earth pony filly. I think she was blue.”

Salt turned to a guard that I hadn’t even noticed behind me. “Go get them.”

The guard obeyed, and I got to sit off to the side as Salt interrogated the two recently-enslaved ponies. They backed my story, though they added details that I didn’t even know, like the caravan master being called Powderburn and the leadup to the encounter with raiders. Like I’d thought, it was an ambush. I did feel a little bad, since the filly thought I’d come to save them. Whoops.

Once the explanation was done, Salt sent them away, still collared. “So, noe that your story is backed up, I can take it that you are the current owner of the caravan and its contents.”

“Thank you ma’am.”

“How long have you been in this business?”

“A few days, ma’am.”

“Then I will give you a choice. You can take your merchandise out on the street and try selling it there, or you can sell it to me. I’ll offer you five hundred caps a head for the slave, two thousand for the delivery Powderburn was supposed to make. Nine thousand in total for you, now that you don;t have to split it.”

I really had no idea what caps were worth, but I had to guess that she wasn’t horribly cheating me. “Deal.”

Salt scratched out a note, and handed it over to me. “Take this to the… “receptionist” downstairs. She’ll get you the caps.” I started towards the door, but she called my attention back halfway. “Oh, and my personal shops are the block to your left as you leave. I’d welcome some of those caps back, naturally.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

I headed out, and gave the note to the receptionist as ordered. She ended up leading me deeper into the building, giving the note to a guard, so on and so forth, but the moral of the tale is that I got paid. The wagon and everything in it was gone when I got back, which made me a bit sad. I’d had some perfectly good steaks loaded up in there.

Now that I wasn’t with anypony, and I wasn’t escorting any goods, I got to look around the city. The slavers and other ponies around the area were pretty rough looking, and I’m sure that a lone mare would’ve been in trouble. A gryphon at least commanded some respect, especially seeing as I hadn’t bothered to clean the blood off from yesterday. The slaves were in… pretty varied shape, actually, depending on the seller. There were a few places where the slaves looked healthier than the surrounding buyers, and there were places where the slaves on sale looked a few steps out of a shallow grave. If nothing else, though, wandering the markets gave me a fair idea of the value of caps. The prices I’d gotten were… actually pretty good, for slaves that Salt hadn’t even inspected before her offer.

The most notable building in the market that wasn’t the main hall was tucked away in the back alleys, almost out of view of the street. I only noticed it because I noticed a few slavers hauling a chained mare off the street. I’d figured they were going to rape her, but when I glanced after them I found I wasn’t quite right. They were taking her to a business, a brothel, by the looks of it. And smell of it. Holy hell did I smell it. The kind of smell that put a little itch under my tail. Come to think of it, it’d been a while since I scratched that itch… but that was a thought for later.

Inevitably, though, wandering the market led me to the place that Salt had pointed me. A small collared mare sat just outside the door of a full-block complex, with a practiced customer service smile. I’d have thought she was a normal employee at the stores I was used to.

“Welcome to the Salt Market! What are you here for today?”

What I was there for… hell, at that point I had a list.“I’m looking for some barding…”

“Wooden building, high quality goods are on the second floor!”

“...food…”

“Restaurants and vendors are to your right!”

“...and sex.”

That didn’t even faze her. “What kind?”

It did faze me, though. “Say what?”

“If you’re looking to rent a slave for a night, then they’re on the third floor of the jail. If you want to just buy a slave to keep, they’re on the first two floors of the jail!”

I… kept that in mind as I walked past her. I had been thinking like a bar or something, but I supposed a slave-based market would certainly point me towards their products. It was certainly an intriguing thought, especially if they had something- well, someone to my tastes. That after shopping. Shopping first.
______________________________________________________________________________

Several hours of haggling later, I was done. Salt’s products, and her merchants, were a step above the stuff on the street, and my limited knowledge of the wasteland economy was a bit of a problem in our haggling. In the end I got gryphon-fitted leather barding to cover my full torso, and a little leather bag on my back to carry the rest in. “The rest” being food, some medical supplies, water. Booze, and a blanket. No weapons though, the implant still yelled at me about those. Not that I needed a gun when my claws could tear a pony up just fine.

In the end, outfitted like a proper wasteland slaver and a nearly a thousand caps lighter, I ended up in front of the jail. The slave-selling part of the Salt Market.

The first floor was the sort of simple slaves that I saw all over the streets, a few at a time shoved into cells for buyers to look at. Salt was at least smart enough to not shove mares and stallions in the same ones. Looking over them gave me a good chance to think over what I wanted. There were workers in here too, not slaves this time, and after a while a young unicorn mare approached me.

“Are you here as a buyer?”

“Yep.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Something that can keep up with me, and something I can fuck when I need to relax.”

To my surprise, the casual mention of sex made her blush. “A gryphon, then? We have a few on the second floor...”

I snorted. “Spoken like someone who’s never fucked a male gryphon.”

The mare actually cowered a little. “Did… did I say something wrong?”

“Nah, but anybody who's ever had one of those things inside them would understand. A gryphon’s dick is covered in little knobs. Unless they’re very strong or you’re really loose, they’re gonna be yanking that thing out each time they want to thrust.” The mare was pink all the way to her ears, so I smirked a bit as I kept explaining, “See, a gryphon is great sex if you want to walk funny for a few days. I want sex, so I’m here for a pony. Pegasus, preferably.”

“Um, r-right. We have a few on the second floor as well…”

She led me up the stairs to the fabled second floor. It was obvious that this floor was the premium products; it was cleaner, brighter, and even had guards posted at the intersections. The slaves we were passing had been put in single cells, rather than the group cells I’d seen down below. The mare showing me around led me to the back, to a short hall with three seperate guards: two just at the start of it, and one at the back. Sadly, there were only as many slaves here as there were guards.

“So, um, here’s all the pegasi we have.”

The first pegasus was… broken. I was picking up some words being around slavers all day. Not that there hadn’t been prisoners like him back in the days I remembered. There was no life in his eyes, no real motivation. I half expected I’d have to tell him when to get hard. I’d have gone right past him if I hadn’t noticed something about his flank.

“The fuck happened to his cutie mark?”

The mare took a look, and sounded the most business-like she had since I’d met her. “He’s a Dashite. You know, one of those pegasi that got banished from the clouds? I hear the other pegasi do that to every one of them.”

I shuddered a bit as I looked at the burned black flesh on the stallion’s flank, making some sort of cloud and thunder mark, then carried on to the second cell. The pegasus inside was unfortunately a mare, but if I’d been a male I’d have bought her in an instant. Sure, she had the same mark as the last one, but she had silky brown fur and the sort of flanks I wasn’t sure a pony could fly with. Seriously, what did she eat to get an ass like that?

Coughing aside such thoughts, I proceeded to the last cell, and finally found something possible worthwhile. The stallion inside had sky-blue fur, a dirty yellow mane, and the only intact cutie mark in the hall. Looked like a lightning bolt, or maybe a laser? The damn things never made much sense to me anyway.

“How much for this one?”

“Well, he’s a surface born pegasus, so he’s rare as-is, we just haven’t found a good buyer. We priced him at a thousand caps.”

A thousand caps was… a lot. As much as I’d spent on all the rest of my stuff. No wonder Salt had so much money. “Can I inspect him?”

“Of course.” The mare nodded to the guard by us, and he came forward to unlock the cage. Stepping inside, I looked even closer at the pegasus, who stood obediently still, though he didn’t have a collar at the moment. I suspected the guard outside was plenty of incentive to behave.

“Your name?”

“Storm Rider, ma’am.”

Not a bad name, as ponies’ weird-ass names went. What mattered to me though was that there was no anger in his answer, nothing that told my prison instincts “watch your back” or anything like that. He looked like a perfect mix of obedient and independent. A perfect slave.

There was just one thing I needed to check, really. Without a word of warning, I ducked low and swept his legs out from under him, knocking him on his back.

/Warning! Do not attack ponies!/

I could hear sounds of surprise from the two slavers in the hall, but what I’d come for was sitting right in front of me, Storm being too afraid to hide it. Perfect.

I turned back to the slaver mare with a grin on my face. “I’ll take him.”
______________________________________________________________________________

I admit, I expected some sort of fanfare when I bought a slave, but it was more like shopping for skywagons back in my day. They brought Storm out of his cage, put a collar on him, and sold me a detonator. (another hundred caps, apparently they weren’t too easy to make) There was a bit of warning about him being my responsibility now (boring) and another about making sure he didn’t murder me in my sleep (not boring). Then I forked over some caps, and walked out with Storm Rider following me close.

Of course, then I had to buy him saddlebags, (I sure as fuck wasn’t carrying his food) and said food to fill them up with. By the time I was all done with my shopping, I realized that it was already getting on into the evening, and I hadn’t even eaten since last night. The way my stomach was growling had a couple slaves and other ponies keeping their distance. So I walked over to one of the bars that served food too, and ordered some dinner. Storm obviously wasn’t planning on joining me, and I basically had to shove his feathered ass in a chair. I wasn’t really used to this slave thing.

Storm was obviously uncomfortable being across the table from me, though it was hard for me to pin down just one reason he would. There were probably lots. He wasn’t speaking, though. Probably trained not to.

Finally I broke the silence. “So, what do you think?”

“Um… of what, Master?”

“Ugh. Never call me that again, first off. Call me Butcher, or ma’am if that title is too hard for you.”

“Yes, Ma- um, Butcher.”

“Good. Now, I wanted to know what you thought of me.”

“... I don’t know. I’m not sure what you bought me for, or how you’re treating me?”

“Easy. I bought you because I’m horny as a dragon right now, and I’m treating you weird because I’ve never had a slave before. They didn’t even exist, back where I’m from.”

He sat there for a good long time mulling that over. “...Sex?”

“I can explain the subject, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out, flyboy.”

“...yes ma’am.”

The food came about then. I’d ordered some radscorpion steaks, more out of curiosity than anything else. I could see Storm’s hesitation about eating it, like he wasn’t sure it was really for him. Oh, right, did he eat meat? There were several ponies in here doing so. After a minute of me staring at him staring at his food, I spoke up. “You gonna eat that, or am I gonna have to? Trust me, you’ll need the protein.”

That finally got him eating, and I bit into my steak as well. It was a bit rubbery, but juicy too. Drips od scorpion juice were running down my beak as I took to eating with gusto. Like I said, I hadn’t eaten all day. I ended up ordering another one, and eating that one with just as much ferocity. Scorpion was expensive, but I had the caps, and it was good.

It was dark by the time we were done eating, but this bar was everything. Bar, restaurant, and most importantly, inn. I’d already rented a room that I happily pulled Storm Rider up to. My belly was full of meat, and soon even more important parts of me would be too.

The room was spartan; just a bed and a bathroom in the back. I locked the door as we entered, shedding my barding. When I turned back, Storm gulped nervously. “A-are you really going to…”

I smirked, pushing him back onto the bed, his legs up in the air. “We certainly are, flyboy. And believe me, I am going to get my money’s worth.”

/Daily Report:/

/Misdeeds noted: 2/

/Punishments issued: 0/

/Objectives completed: 0/

/Good deeds: 0/

/Report sent/

/Goodnight/

_____________________________________________________________________

Footnote: Level Up! (Level 4)

New Perk Added: Hard Love - Having sex with anyone, as long as you are a consenting partner, gives you the Lover’s Embrace buff for 12 hours afterwards. There is a chance your partner suffers a temporary penalty to Strength or Endurance.

Author's Note

Fun Chapter Notes:
1. This is probably the fastest I've ever written a chapter for any story I've ever worked on
2. Storm Rider almost had a blue/pink color scheme, and the name Cotton Candy. It took me a minute to decide that I really didn't want to name my slave character Cotton anything.
3. Still not sure what Aya looks like
4. I skipped out on a lot of market time and eavesdropping here, so Aya does now have some idea about the wasteland around her. At least, from slaver's point of view.

Part 1, Day 2 (+66,792) Evening (nsfw)

Author's Note

Yes, this chapter contains close descriptions of sex. IF THAT BOTHERS YOU, JUST SKIP IT. I don't mind, I promise.
So here's the not-suitable-for-minors sexy bit.
Content: Semi-consensual sex, sex with a slave, stallion/gryphon sex
Just something I spammed out last night, idk if more will follow. I mean, Aya isn't gonna stop, but I don't know how much of that I'll write.

So... yeah. Not suitable for minors, women are fine. Picks up where the last chapter leaves off.

Part 1, Day 2 (+66,792) Evening (nsfw)

I took in Storm Rider’s form for a minute as he blushed awkwardly. Looking at him, I’d have been tempted to take him for a ride even before prison and my time jump. He was just a good looking stallion, and that was just who I needed right now.

Storm let out a light whimper as I lowered my head between his legs, closer to the too-soft cock laying there. “Relaaax, I’m just getting you ready.”

I slid my tongue out, slowly running it up the length of his cock, teasing it into hardness. I wasn’t about to just jump into this. I was gonna get all that I could out if him. I’d missed so much about this… the musky scent, the taste… perfect. I slid my tongue up Storm’s shaft, teasing his flared tip, then back down to the base, teasing the leatherhard skin of his full balls. My mouth was full of stallion flavor, and I could feel a tingling spreading down my spine. Not quite yet… I slid my tongue lower, teasing his ponut, making him gasp. Now he was rock-hard, and the tingle was all the way down between my legs. Ready to be satisfied.

I pulled my tongue away from Storm’s crotch, but the whimper he let out this time was needy. I was in control, both of us knew that, but we both so desperately needed to get off. I lifted myself onto the bed for the first time, and there he was nervous again. I couldn’t even help giggling like a hatchling.

“Come on, I told you you’ll figure it out, didn’t I?”

Spreading my legs over him, I could feel the hot presence of his stallionhood against my needy slit. Just then, I wanted nothing more than to slam my hips all the way down to his… but I also wanted to enjoy this.

Storm groaned in pleasure as I slowly lowered my hips, feeling him slide inch by inch into my horny body. I couldn’t help but let out a little gasp myself.

“F-fuck, this is why I like stallions…”

A gryphon’s cock is narrow tipped, wide based, and covered in little flares so it goes in easy and comes out hard. Compared to that, a stallion’s cock… you start at the flare, the thickest point opening you up, and that smooth thickness just keeps filling you up. It took all the control I had to keep my legs firm as I slowly slid myself down Storm’s stallionhood, feeling myself stretch out with his girth filling a need perfectly. When my hips finally touched his balls, I almost couldn’t have asked for anything more.

Almost.

“H-here come the main event, flyboy…”

I slid myself up his shaft, feeling my core empty as gravity pulled him out, then back down, once again perfectly filled. Then again, a bit faster. By the third cycle, I could feel a bit of reflexive motion in his hips; pulling him out just that extra inch, then helping it plunge back in.

“Th-that’s the way you do it…”

I started moving faster. Feeling him in, out. Full, empty. I was getting closer and closer to the edge, and it was easy to see that he was too.

“I… I’m going to…”

“Cum?” I smirked as best I could in my sex-drunk state, clasping a claw around his base, “Not until I let you, flyboy. Money’s… worth.”

I said that, but I wasn’t much farther off than he was. I tried to hold it back as long as I could. Focus on the sensation, the feelings, but that just made me that much closer. There was nothing for it as I let go.

“Cum, flyboy!”

We orgasmed at about the same time, and my mind was overwhelmed in an instant as hot stallion seed shot into me. I could hear Storm whinny, I was pretty sure I squawked, but it was all drowned out in a white sea of pleasure, an orgasm a hundred years overdue. When I came to, I was laying exhausted on top of him, his shaft still half inside me as I dripped our juices. I rolled off of him when I could, too satisfied to care about much.

“H-how was that, Butcher?”

I let out a little groan, still feeling myself full of cum, slowly leaking its way out of me.

“That? That… was… perfect.”

Part of me wanted to climb back on top of him and go again, but a bigger part of me said that was the perfect end to an otherwise long day. Still grinning, I drifted off to sleep.

Part 1, Day 3 (+66,792)

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Part 1, Day 4 (+66,792) First

“I regret to announce that — though, as I said, eleventy-one years is far too short a time to spend among you — this is the END. I am going. I am leaving NOW. GOOD-BYE!” - Bilbo Baggins, Lord of the Rings

Waking up in my own bed felt… simultaneously nostalgic and painful. And at that moment, I could barely even remember how I’d gotten there. Sitting up, I looked around the room with the slightest headache of a hangover. It was dustier than I remembered… and right there in the middle of the floor was Storm Rider, who’d apparently placed both of our bags in the corner, and pulled the sheets over me.

Climbing out of bed, I gave him a nudge, and he started awake. “Hey, Storm. Anything happen while I was out?”

He stood quickly, trying to act more awake then he was, for sure. “N-not really, you stumbled in, explored the house, then lay down and relayed your entire life story before you passed out. Nothing happened after that that I heard.”

“How… ‘entire’ is ‘my entire life story’?”

“You… started with how happy your parents were about the house, and ended with… something about chips and ice?”

“Shit, that all actually happened? Well,” I placed a claw on his head, making him tense, “I guess you know more about me then any other pony alive does. Fuck, you probably know more than any pony ever did.”

I think that Storm kind of expected me to kill him right there, my claws hanging down the back of his neck. I didn’t, obviously. Instead I stood up and pulled my bag back on. “You ready to go?”

“Ready, yeah.”

“Good. I should’ve left this damn place yesterday. Fuck, I should’ve left a few hundred years ago.”

I walked out of my room, and to my parent’s room again. This time, when I put my claw on the door handle, I was stone cold sober. This time, I was leaving. I opened the door.

On my parents’ bed lat two gryphon skeletons, protected from the corrosions of time by the house around them, locked in an eternal embrace by death. Seeing them like that brought a sad little smile to my face.

“Mom? Dad? I wanted to stop by one last time. I love you two, I know you love me too, and I wish I could say that I’m going out to the world to make you proud. I can’t promise that much. Just that I’m going out into the world, on my own, like you always said I would, and I’m gonna be myself as hard as I can.”

I reached into my backpack, and pulled out a lighter. Sparking it, I held it to the corner of their bed, and watched the flames spread.

“Bye Mom. Bye Dad. I’ll see you both someday.”

Then I walked out of the room, and left my life to burn.
_____________________________________________________________________

I said that, when I left the slaver fort, there was no real moral to that escape. That was still true. But leaving the town I’d grown up in, and leaving my childhood in flames? That had a moral. That was symbolic. I was leaving behind everything in life that I’d ever known, leaving it destroyed even, and travelling out into a world I barely understood, to some vague objective at the other end of the world, with a stallion I didn’t know a thing about.

Like any young adult, really.

Since I didn’t want to be followed, we took to the air, as fast as we could go, in the direction I knew for northwest. The map Salt sold to me had a couple of wasteland settlements marked on the map, though the fact that she’d probably learned about them from slavers gave me pause. Given the slavers I’d listened to as I shopped the other day, the towns had pretty were just as likely to be real towns as they were to be raider fortresses, or plain burned to the ground. The town I was heading for tonight though was just labelled “Runfeld”. I couldn’t remember a town there by that name, but it didn’t seem to be too near the beaten path, so I deemed it a safe bet to stay the night in.

Assuming, of course, that we got there safely.

Judging by the ground beneath us, that wasn’t exactly a foregone conclusion. Every large rock and fallen tree seemed to be home to some weird animal. Half of them Storm could identify, the other half were… just plain strange. Mutants like three-headed dogs and what I was fairly sure was a winged snake. We didn’t fly close enough to make sure.

We passed over a crashed truck, which had several spilled barrels of rainbow fluid. Storm informed me that it was called “taint”, and I vaguely remembered something similar in a factory I’d once toured for school. Looking at the creatures that moved in the truck’s vicinity, I was very glad I was high up in the air.

Eventually, though, we had to land to have something to eat. I tried to pick a rock where I didn’t think anything would sneak up on us, but like I said, everything in the wasteland was apparently a shelter for some critter or another. We ended up having to fight off some giant roaches (“radroaches”, I was informed) just to sit down and enjoy some jerky. The jerky made up for it though. Meat was a luxury food in pre-war Equestria. I’d barely had any at home, and certainly never had any in prison. If I could have meat, I was going to, every chance I could possibly get. When Storm told me that some ponies would eat the radroaches we’d just killed, I ended up carrying some radroach meat with me too.

We’d had an early lunch, but it was afternoon by the time that I saw my first ponies. Six ponies, two being led on ropes by the other four. At first I thought they were slavers, but a lower swoop revealed frames far too gaunt to be like any slaver I’d seen. Slavers took care of their appearances, because they had something to sell. Raiders, though, didn’t need to bother with that.

I focused my sight down on the two ponies being led along. “Um, implant? Can you give me a quest to help them out?”

/Negative. Danger cannot be confirmed/

I started to point out that they were being led along on a rope, then cut myself off as I realized that I was leading Storm along by the pack of explosives on his neck. Expanding the catalog of “threats” for my implant wasn’t exactly in my best interest.

I looked over to Storm, flying besides me. “I can’t attack them head on, they have to attack me first! If it goes south, drop on them or something!”

I started to drop down towards the group before Storm could respond. About halfway down I remembered the warning the slavers had given me about not trusting your slaves if you could help it, but, I mean, I’d literally passed out in a drug haze the night before, and I woke up alive. That counted for something. That and… I didn’t really like the thought that I might’ve fucked someone I couldn’t trust.

I swooped down to a hover just in front of the raiders, a grin on my face. “Hey guys! How’s it going?”

And then I got shot in the chest.

Shot in the chest with… I think a .32. Something small enough that my armor stopped it, but a bullet was still plenty big enough to take the wind out of me. I dropped a few feet before I regained my stability, and then there was no time for waiting for my implant to realize it was self-defense. I dove down at the leading raider (also the one who just fucking shot me) but he was with it enough to actually dodge out of the way, and I barely raked him.

Well fuck, now I was down on the ground with a bunch of raiders. Still manageable, though. I’d fought against bigger gangs in my short stint in open prison, I just had to kill them this time. Landing on my forelegs, I swung my hinds around in a sweeping attack. The two closer raiders dodged back, but the one mare was too slow, and I clawed her right across the face and neck.

“Buck! Radish is down!”

Seriously? These were supposed to be terrifying raiders! The fuck kind of name was Radish?

A distracting one, apparently, because in the moment I focused on that the earth stallion who’d shouted slammed a combat knife into the base of my wing. Thankfully, I didn’t fully need wings to fight, or I’d have been right out. Still hurt like a buck from Luna though, and I squawked in pain. Grabbing the offending stallion by the neck, I slammed his head into my claws hard enough the tips came out near his ears.

As I looked at the last two raiders… my heart sank a bit. Both of them had taken cover behind their whimpering prisoners, and were pointing guns much larger than .32s at me. The one on the left, an ugly unicorn stallion with more scars than face, sneered at me. “Alright, birdy, how about you stand nice and still so we can perforate you.”

Two guns were plenty of dissuasion for my instinct to tear off what remained of his face. Shit. I needed a bluff, and I needed it fast. “I’d love to, but there’s one thing you don’t seem to be taking into consideration.”

“Oh yeah?”

My bluff became much more real when I noticed a streak of blue in the cloudy grey sky. “Air superiority, you little bitch.”

Storm Rider had no technique, in fact, I’d wager that he’d never been in a fight before, but he used one of the most effective rookie tactics a pegasus could: he landed all-four-hooves-first on the back of the raider who’d been threatening me. There was a gunshot as the stallion reflexively pulled his trigger (of course that would be a reflex in the wastes) but he’d lost focus on his gun and the shot disappeared.

My back was… sort of killing me with the whole “there being a knife stuck in it,” but there was also one raider left, and he was turning his gun towards my slave. With a combined squawk of pain and battle cry, I leapt at him, splitting his attention as his gun was right between the two of us. He finally started pointing it at me a moment too late, and I was already tackling him over the hostage he was hiding behind. He went tumbling head over hooves, I went tumbling head over claws, and holy fuck did that drive in the knife. Worst idea I’d ever had.

Still, that attack certainly hadn’t killed him, and I really didn’t want him to shoot me, so I staggered to my feet. An action that was apparently unnecessary, as I turned towards my opponent. He was still on the ground, and standing over him was the mare he’d been using as a hostage. With tear-filled eyes, the hostage slammed her hooves down onto the raider’s face. Then again, and again, and again.

I didn’t stop her. For a long time, I was just sitting there with the realization of what the wasteland meant slowly sinking in. I was a predator, I killed ponies, that was a given. Storm was mine, he fought like me. But the wasteland was a place where I could sit in shock as I watched a crying, unarmed mare crush a downed enemy’s head until it was far from recognizable as a pony.

The pony who finally stopped the mare was, in fact, the other hostage. She stepped forward and just put a hoof on the other mare’s shoulder. The bloody mare looked down at… what was left of the stallion’s head, and then she just sat there. And cried.

The other hostage turned to me. She was an earth pony, with a teal mane and a coat so dirty I wasn’t really sure what color it was. Still, she gave me the slightest of smiles and a quiet, “Thank you.”

I… honestly wasn’t sure what to do here. I wasn’t sure if I’d come down here to kill raiders or to save the mares in front of me. With how I felt about ponies in general, I was leaning towards the former. That didn’t change the fact that I’d saved them.

“Um, you’re welcome, I think? Are you two… ok?”

The mare winced, and I could see her tail tense. There were a lot of stains on her flanks, and the pattern… oh. “No. We aren’t. But now we have a chance to be, one day. I can’t pay you for this-”

“I didn’t do it for caps.” That was true, really. I’d done it to kill some shitty ponies.

I’m not sure if she understood what I meant by that, but she nodded anyway. I looked over at Storm, who was standing still by the other pony. “How about her?”

“I don’t know… her horn is…”

Horn? I’d assumed that the mare was an earth pony, but now I took a closer look. Her mane had swung to the side with her head down, and I could see that her horn had been smashed off her head. I don’t want to say that lightly. It was nauseating, and frightening. If a gryphon loses their wings, they have claws. Their claws, they have their beak. If we lost something, we had something else. Unicorns… everything a unicorn has is packed up in their horn. Breaking a horn was a deeper violation of a pony than rape was, hell, probably deeper than murder was.

There weren’t a lot of things that could make me care about a pony.

Walking over to the mare, I slipped a claw up under the rope on her neck, and cut it away. She just stared at me, as wordless as ever. “You’re free now, alright?”

I turned to the mare who, you know, talked. “Do you know where you are?” She shook her head, so I pointed, “Back that way is Acros, the slaver city. You probably don’t want to go there.” Opposite direction. “We’re headed to a settlement called Runfeld, that way. I don’t know what it’s like yet, but it’s probably your best bet for the closest safe area. Take the raider’s shit, I don’t need it.”

“A-alright.” I started to get ready to fly… then was swiftly reminded I still had a fucking combat knife stuck in my WING.

“On second thought, I think I’ll hang around for a bit. Hey Storm?” He trotted over curiously. “I kind of… have a knife in my wing. Can you pull that out?”

I closed my eyes, bracing myself as he walked around behind me. I could feel him put his hooves on either side of the knife, and I had to stifle a wince when he bit it, making it wiggle. I just had to be ready for- “OH fuck me with a mountain that hurt!”

Sow the fuck was pulling the knife out more painful than when it went in? I fumbled around in my pack for one of the healing potions I’d bought and poured it back. We never could’ve afforded these before, so I was glad to feel that it worked just as advertised. After a minute I flexed my wing. It was stiff, but I could move it. I’d just rather not fly on it immediately.

“Fuuuuck. Hell with it, I guess I’m walking with you guys. I’m Butcher, flyboy here is Storm Rider.”

The mare looked pretty relieved, learning I wasn’t leaving them to the wasteland. “Oh! I’m Sea Breeze, and… I don’t know her name. They had her before me.”

Since I was groundbound, I helped loot the dead raiders while Storm did a quick aerial patrol. He couldn’t go too far with the collar, but he could at least keep an eye over the area. Breeze and… Nameless Unicorn were far better at looting bodies than me, if that could be considered a skill. Seemed that’s been something they did for the raiders, outside of… other things. Breeze tried to offer me their guns, but I turned them down for me. I couldn’t use them. After some thought, I handed one to Storm.

Being a slave sure didn’t keep him from looking at me incredulously. “Are… are you sure?”

I shrugged. “You heard my story yesterday. I literally can’t use a gun, and if you were going to kill me you’ve had at least two chances just since I bought you.”

He took it, but the interaction had gotten Breeze’s attention. She looked at Storm, and it was like she hadn’t noticed the collar on his neck. “Is… is he a slave?”

“My slave, yeah. And to be clear, I bought him because I was horny, and ‘traumatized foalnapping victim’ isn’t exactly my type.”

“You’re a slaver?”

“Not anymore, really. I worked as one for a bit, the guy who hired me died, now I’m wandering.”

Oddly enough, the casual mention that I was a “former” slaver (I mean, you have the job until you find a better one, right?) didn’t really put the mares at ease. Given where I’d just rescued them from, I wondered if they’d have reacted better if I told them my other past: cryo cell mass murderer.

I pocketed another tube of Dash, since Breeze had said she didn’t want the chems, and stood up. “Alright, if we’re gonna get to that town, we should get moving. I don’t think anypony followed me this far, but I’d rather not be the idiot that hung around to find out.”

In retrospect, I was probably saying about every thing I possibly could that would make the two mares I’d helped trust me less, but eh. They probably wouldn’t shoot me. Not until we hit town, at least. I waved Storm down, and together, the four of us started along the path my compass marked.
_____________________________________________________________________

“I fucking… hate… the wasteland.”

I panted as I shoved… something off me. I think it was a deer, but the teeth were way too sharp for one of those. You know, all the animals and shit down below were neat from the sky, but from down here they were fucking dangerous.

“So, chip, I really can’t use guns, right?”

/Confirmation: Firearm use is restricted for non-military citizens/

“So… if I joined the military I could use a gun?”

/Confirmed/

“Please add an objective for me to join the army.”

/Objective added: Join the Equestrian Army/

Once again, I remembered that ponies were staring, and I was talking to myself… about joining a several-dozen-years-gone army. Thankfully Storm was able to pretend that was somewhat normal.

“So… you want the meat off the deer?”

I shook my head. At the rate this was going, if I tried to eat every weird thing that attacked me, I’d end up fat or as mutated as they all were. Also, I’d run out of room in my meat bag. Standing up again, I looked around. “Shouldn’t we be close to the town by now? We’ve been travelling almost the whole day.”

Storm shrugged. “Who knows? It’s not like somebody got to carefully measure that map. Maybe we’ll be able to see it from that hill up there, though.”

I had to agree with him. The hill ahead was massive, like a dirt plateau. It ramped right up to about forty feet tall, and spread out to at least half a mile wide. The group of us tromped our way along that way, and shockingly made it the last half mile to the hill completely unmolested by weird wildlife. It was a hill, the dirt was firm, and even the ponies could ascend it without difficulty.

Then we reached the top, and found ourselves on a large, round dirt ridge. It was quite a bit bigger than I’d first assumed, but what mattered was that we didn’t step onto a hilltop. We stepped onto what was, in fact, the outer wall of a settlement. Completely hidden from the surrounding area, maybe twenty feet in from the ridge we stood on, was another wall of metal and wood scraps, nearly as tall as the first. And behind that was, as far as I could tell, a town. We’d have missed it completely if we’d gone around the damn hill.

Unfortunately, from where we stood, there was no gate in sight, or any guards on the walls, so we had to go around the town until we found one or the other. Not at the top of the ridge, of course. I was too much a fan of not getting shot from the wasteland. Instead, we got down and wandered along the gap between the two.

We got about thirty degrees around the place before we finally found somepony sitting up on the wall. He was an amber earth pony buck, in metal armor that told he was probably a guard like we wanted. He also didn’t seem… particularly attentive. That is, he was sitting in a chair sleeping.

Since flying up to him seemed like a terrible idea, I just yelled from where I was. “Hey, you!”

The guard exploded into motion, with no real coordination. His chair went flying, a Sparkle Cola went flying, and he just about dropped his rifle right off the wall in front of us. Then he finally woke up, looked down… and saw us just kind of standing there. Personally, I had to hold back a bit of a laugh. That’d been a show right there.

“Who- who’s there?”

After how well trying to explain my past had gone last time, I’d discussed with Storm what my backstory would be next time I got asked. Time to test that out. “Two mercenaries, and two raider refugees.” Breeze said that was probably the best term for what they were, at least, the best that could be said in public.

“Mercenaries? What group?”

“None! Solo operative!”

“What are you here for?”

“I just want to get us into the town! Where’s the frickin’ gate?”

He winced, rubbing a hoof along the back of his head. “Oh, the gate… there kind of… isn’t one, right now.” I raised an eyebrow at him, and he stammered on. “B-but you have wings, right? I can show you where the gate normally is, and you can fly in!”

“If I’m just gonna fly over the wall, couldn’t I do that right here?”

He glanced down behind him and shook his head. “It’d make ponies nervous if we just let gryphons and the like fly over the walls wherever they wanted.”

Yeah, I couldn’t really argue that point. So we stayed on the ground outside while the guard walked along the wall. Not that I was done talking to him, of course.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Um… Bug Fossil. You?”

I’d long since given up on ponies and their stupid names, so I skipped right over that topic of conversation. They seriously couldn’t name him Amber? “Butcher. The others are Storm Rider, Sea breeze, and a mare with no name.”

Fossil (Bug?) jerked. “The mare with no name?”

What? A reference I understood? I sighed with mock sadness. “Nah, unfortunately not. She just doesn’t talk, so I don’t know her name.”

“Oh. Right.”

There was a bit of silence as we went a little farther yet. I guess we’d basically come up to the back of the town. “So… what happened to the gate, anyway?”

“Raiders, of course. We think they were trying to get the gate open so more of them could come in, but they got caught, and blew up the mechanism instead. Now nopony can open the gate.”

“Seriously? How damn heavy is the gate?”

“Well…” Fossil grinned for the first time since we’d met him, “You’ll understand when you see it.”

We came around a curve (well, the whole wall was curved, but you get it) and Fossil laughed. “Here’s the gate!”

I looked at the gate, and it was instantly obvious why nopony could move the thing. Fuck, I’d be surprised if a minotaur could.

Because welded into the center of the town’s gate was a stable door.

_____________________________________________________________________

Footnote: Level Up! (Level 5)

New Perk Added: Fuck the Ground - You’ve developed a particular dislike for walking any distance where flying is a perfectly feasible option. You travel 20% faster overland while airborne, but have 30% more random encounters when you’re on the ground. You’re the first to take this perk, so you get to name it!

Author's Note

Took me a bit to figure out what I'm doing with this town, but I think I've got it. As always, leave me a comment on anything!

Also... that just seemed like the kind of perk that Aya would have.

Edit: I cut this off because that just really felt like an end-of-chapter statement. Not because I have something big planned, because I do not plan that far ahead.

Part 1, Day 4 (+66,792) Second

There are very few who deserve slavery, and they are often at the wrong end of the whip.

With a wave from Fossil, me and Storm set down, and set down the two ponies we were carrying. There were two more of Runfeld’s ponies waiting for us as we landed; one armored stallion with a drab brown and green for his hair and mane, and one white-maned, orange unicorn stallion with a mechanic’s jumpsuit and welding goggles. The armored pony looked vaguely impressed by our entrance, the unicorn was glaring at… all of us, I think. More Storm than the others.

The guard whistled.“You know, I thought that the gate getting stuck was the end of visitors for a while. Forgot that the wall doesn’t really affect everypony.”

The unicorn grumbled, perfectly loud enough to hear just fine. “Yeah, cause the only one’s that fly are gryphons and pegasi.” The tone he used to say pegasi… brought back some memories of before that I didn’t like. I remembered hearing that pegasi weren’t popular, I suppose running into a bigot was inevitable, though it was a lot more complicated in a town.

I grinned, trying to very little menace into it. “He’s surface born, if it helps.” That was supposed to help, right?

The unicorn snorted. “Oh? He tell you that?”

“The mare who sold him to me did.”

That unsettled the situation right there. The guard coughed. “So, I think this is about the time I’m supposed to ask who you are and what you’re doing in this town.”

“I’m Butcher. Mercenary. He’s Storm Rider. The two mares with us had an… encounter with some raiders. I can’t do anything for them, so I brought them here. Nearest town.”

“And how did you come into possession of a slave?”

Seems that wasn’t so popular outside Acros. I’d thought that Breeze was nervous because of what she’d been. ”My last job, and last employer I suppose, ended in Acros. I got a souvenir, then hauled my ass out of there before I could become one.”

“We don’t tend to allow slavers in our town.”

Huh. Even right by the slaver city… “Can I help a bit?” I turned to Storm. “Hey. Knowing that my life probably depends on your answer, and your life in no way depends on mine, have I done anything to you that you have a problem with?”

“You flipped me over to look at my dick when you first saw me.”

“Well, hopefully being horny isn’t a shootable offense, but I’m fucked either way. Besides that?”

For a tense moment I wondered if Storm was going to get me shot, but he sighed instead. “No… you haven’t.”

Honestly, everypony but (maybe including) me looked surprised. I could tell the guard wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, either. “Well… we’d still prefer the collar be off, for the comfort of the townsponies.”

“Well, if you know how to get the thing off, be my guest.”

He glanced at the mechanic unicorn. “Molotov here should have the skills to do it.”

I shrugged. “I’m willing to let him try if he’s willing to try, but,” I glared at the unicorn in question, “if he takes off Storm’s head, I will very carefully demonstrate how I got my name.”

He glared back. “I’m not some sort of amateur.”

“Then why don’t you demonstrate?”

“I need some tools from my shop.”

“Then might as well lead us there, huh?”

The guard (still hadn’t learned his name) looked between the two of us.”Well… um, looks like you two know what you’re doing. I’ll get back to my job, I think.” He looked over at Breeze and Nameless. “If you two could follow me, I’ll see what I can do.” With that, the three of them wandered away, leaving me and Storm with the racist unicorn I was trying not to murder.

“So,” said Molotov, “I guess you two are following me.”
_____________________________________________________________________

Molotov led us through town to a large building at its center. When he opened up the door, I was expecting a garage or workshop or something. I didn’t get that. Instead, the inside of the building was a large open space, with two guards standing besides a stairway down into the ground.

I paused, remembering the gate of the town. “Wait, is this a-”

Molotov sighed as he walked past the guards, who didn’t stop any of us. “The town is built around an unfinished stable. The houses might be on the surface, but if we have to retreat underground, we’ve got everything important down here. Hell, half the town lives down here anyway.”

“And I can just… walk right in?”

“I can wal- trot right in. You’re with me, so you get in too. You’d probably get shot, normally, trying to come in with a slave.”

Yeah… looked like I needed to get that collar off Storm. The tunnels Molotov led us down into were concrete, until we passed through the rather distinctive hole that the stable door should’ve been in, and then it was the distinctive metal halls of the stable. At first I couldn’t believe there’d been a stable so close to my home… until I remembered the town I’d lived in once more. Those fuckers would’ve done their best not to tell us if Stable-tec built a stable down the street.

Since nopony had spoken for a little while, Storm looked over at me. “Are… are you really okay with me getting the collar off?”

I shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be? I spent some caps, but I’ll earn more, and if you listened to my multiple explanations, I bought you because I was horny. So worst case, you go your own way. I have to find someone to watch my back, and track down somepony else next time.”

Molotov cast me a sideways glance. “Track down?”

“Locate, find, seduce? Do I look like someone who cares about the specific terminology for finding someone to fuck?” I went back to ignoring him. “Anyway, easy version, you’ll be better off and I’ll live. Given you aren’t an asshole, there’s no reason for me to not take the collar off.”

I’m sure some measure of that whole line of logic thoroughly confused the ponies in the conversation, but I probably got the message across. Finally we arrived at Molotov’s office or whatever you call it. It was some large stable room that had been filled with every conceivable tool for every conceivable job. I couldn’t even name most of the bigger ones. There were a couple of other ponies around working on stuff, but they didn’t give us much mind and neither did we pay attention to them.

Molotov walked into this incredible dispensary of mechanics, shuffled through a pile… and picked up a screwdriver. I gave him my best incredulous look. “Seriously?!”

“What?”

“You said you needed the tools from here!”

“I did. Most of those things are set up so you can’t use direct magic on them, so I need a tool to get them off.”

My mind was blown by the fact that a pony in a mechanic’s jumpsuit wasn’t just… carrying a screwdriver around, but who knew what he’d been working on I guess. Mostly at the time I just let it go because he was getting Storm’s collar off. Molotov lifted the screwdriver in his telekinetic grasp, and I watched closely as he went through the meticulous process of taking off the collar. The only thing actually holding the collar on was a buckle… connected to some explosives, connected to a few tamper detection enchantments, connected to… and so on and so forth. It ended up being something of a half-hour ordeal of poking and prodding until Molotov figured the thing out, and it fell right off.

Storm sat there in shock for a moment, his collar now laying discarded on the ground, his neck open and free for the first time since I’d seen him. He slowly lifted up a hoof, touching his bare throat. I guess, until then, what was going on hadn’t really set in.

“Am I really…”

“Free? Yeah. Merry… Hearth's Warming, or whatever I’m supposed to say to that.” Storm slowly raised his hoof, reached over… and bonked it against my shoulder. I raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Just making sure that this is real.”

“Well, it is.” I noticed Molotov in the background holding Storm’s collar. “What’s your plan with that?”

“I was planning to let the idiots here practice on it until one of them sets it off. Why?”

“I was hoping to get it back.”

Holy shit, if looks could kill. Actually, I was pretty sure Molotov was about to kill me when I quickly retracted my words. “Wait! I’m a mercenary, okay? If I have to catch someone, I don’t have a lot of ways to keep them running away!”

“Same thing can be said about slaves, and you aren’t exactly the glowing image of ‘trustworthy’, Ms. I-walked-in-with-a-slave.”

“Fair enough.”

I’d actually kind of wanted that, but it wasn’t really worth the loss of whatever goodwill I might have earned here. I sighed and headed for the door, since I’d rather not be around long enough for Molotov to start being racist again. A set of hooves fell in behind me as I stepped into the hall, not quite sure where I was going. But I picked a direction and set off and didn’t look back at who was following me.

“The collar was my payment. I’m not paying any more.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to ask for payment… maybe a split, you know?”

I turned my head to look at Storm. “You’re free, you know. You can stop following me if you want.”

“And if I don’t want to?”

“Then that’s up to you isn’t it?”

I turned back and started walking again, but this time I was a little happier about it. I’d have gotten over it if he left, but the wasteland is a much weaker nightmare when you’re with someone you trust.

Still, we were still lost in some town’s stable, and I did need to do something. I stopped the next local pony that passed me, a young little unicorn mare. She froze and looked up at me with more than a little fear in her eyes.

“You know where I can get some food down here?”

She pointed a shaky hoof the way we were going anyway. “J-just go to the next corner a-and follow the signs to the cafeteria hall...”

Of course it was something I probably could’ve found out myself. I gave the shaking little mare a nod and stepped out of her way. “Thanks. Have a good day.”

I didn’t need the manners, but it was a little way to make up for scaring the shit out of her. After she scampered off, I heard Storm chuckle. “You can’t do anything without scaring somepony, can you?”

“Fuck off, Storm. I spent the last few months in prison, I have an excuse.”

“Right, right.”

I realized in retrospect that I had no idea who Storm was. Without the collar, all my control of him was gone. He could do anything, say anything, and I could do just as much to him as I could to any other pony. Now I got to see how he’d actually act.

We followed the mare’s directions (and the obvious fucking signs) through the slight maze of halls towards food. The stable was… unlike how I’d heard stables were supposed to be. Some of the halls were the metal walls that I’d heard of, with electrical auto-opening doors and bright lights built into the ceiling. But off the main hall there were plenty of other tunnels with stone and dirt walls, far from professionally straight. I had to guess that they were hoof-dug.

We arrived at the cafeteria, which was an unwelcome callback to being school-aged. It was a large room, with a few dozen metal tables meant to fit probably a hundred ponies eating at once. Thankfully there weren’t that many in here at the moment, but there were enough to have an uncomfortable number of eyes on our winged pair. Ignoring the silence that followed me into the room, I strode across to a large window where a scarlet mare was sitting. Beside her was a list of prices, in front of her was a selection of… mushrooms. Hoof-sized, head-sized, sliced, skewered; there was certainly a variety of things that I hadn’t thought ponies could eat.

The mare smiled at me. “Welcome! What can I get for you?”

I ran an eye over her selection. “You… certainly have a unique selection.”

“Yep! You noticed that most of the town is underground, right? There’s not a lot of crops that grow easy down here, and it’s not like we’ve been getting many traders lately, so… mushrooms!”

“Do you buy other foods, then?”

That grabbed her interest. “I mean, we do if it’s good. What do you have?”

I pulled out my meat bag. “Just some things I hunted today. Meat from, um… radroaches, a scorpion, and… I think it was a frog.” There was a moment where the mare just looked at me, and I was nervous. Was eating meat a slaver thing? Had I said too much or- “...is something wrong?”

“What? No, no! Just, most scavengers who offer to sell me food are like ‘here’s some berries from a balefire crater’ or ‘i have an extra snack cake from a house last week’. I basically forgot hunting was a thing around here!”

“So you’ll buy it?”

“Yeah, just let me…” she lifted the bag in her magic, testing its weight. “That’s… about twenty pounds of meat…” she checked inside, “and it’s definitely all still good. Call it two hundred caps, unless you want some cooked up for you.”

That made my eyes bug out a bit. Storm was an expensive slave, and he only cost me a thousand caps. So I could earn that back with just a few bags of meat? Plus, most of the prices on her board were single digits caps amounts. “Um, n-no, I was planning to sell all that for now.”

The mare giggles at my shocked face. “The price? That much meat is normally a bit less, but with the gate as it is, meat’s a bit of us luxury good for us grounded types. I’d be willing to pay for a few more deliveries, if you want to bring them.”

That was a pretty good offer, as the caps went. But it was something to think about tomorrow. “I might take you up on that offer, then. But for now, we’d like to order some food.”

“Sure thing! Just tell the guards you’re hunting for Cherry Cola if you decide to do it!”

I’d never had mushrooms before, and neither had Storm, but we were both willing to try them. At Cherry’s advice, we got a variety, and took them back to the table. They were… different, though I hesitate to call them good or bad. The texture was entirely dependent on how you bit them, either rubbery or fleshy, and the flavors were all over the place for the various types.

Storm looked over at me. “So? What do you think?”

“I mean, I prefer meat, but it’s nice to try something new every so often. You?”

“I meant, they’re good, but I feel like I should’ve had some more protein.”

“Oh?” I leaned closer, grinning, and noticed a hint of purple on his blue face.

He looked away, “I-I just don’t have the caps to get my own room, and you’re the type of roommate to-”

I licked him, turning him totally purple and shutting him up. “Well, to celebrate your newfound freedom, I’ll let you be the top this time.”

Leading the blushing stallion up to Cherry’s counter, I asked about rooms for the night, and she gave me a wink with the directions. The area for visitors to stay in Runfeld was a small side hallway, part of the original stable construction, run by an older brown earth pony. “There’s showers and bathrooms at the end of the hall. You two are in room seven right over there.”

Once I paid for our stay, I enjoyed the luxury of probably the best showers still available, warm water running over me, cleaning away sweat and dirt and blood. When I was dry, I headed back to the room; it was a simple two room set-up, an open room and a bedroom. I’d arrived before Storm, so I set my gear off to the side, and waited on the bed. When my pegasus companion showed up, I was waiting, and pulled him onto the bed with me before he could protest.

“I hope you liked that shower, cause you’re gonna need another one soon…”

/Daily Report:/

/Misdeeds noted: 2/

/Punishments issued: 0/

/Objectives completed: 0/

/Good deeds: 2/

/Report sent/

/Goodnight/

_____________________________________________________________________

Footnote: Progress to next level - 30%

Author's Note

A little shorter chapter, though it's wrapping up the day in Runfeld.
Pretty straightforward, but as always leave a comment if you're curious about anything.
I have to write a paper, so the next teen-appropriate chapter will be a bit. The next inappropriate chapter is already ready to go.

Part 1, Day 4 (+66,792) Evening (nsfw)

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