Author's Note

The Hiatus is over *YAY*
After now the chapters will come out a bit faster (or at least won´t take this long),
also The Insignium will get it´s next chapter soon.

Chapter 6: The Writer´s Revenge

I woke up again but neither in the flower field nor in my bed. Instead I sat at what looked like an old wood table. On the other end sat a pony with a black fedora black suit and crimson red tie, but as I looked closer, I realized that he was no ordinary pony, instead he was an earth pony skeleton with two glowing crimson orbs as eyes.

“Who or what are you?”, I asked surprised,

“I have many names, the dealer, the tradesman, or just the boney motherfucker.”, he answered while balancing a prewar bit on his right forehoof, “but I’m way more interested in who you are.”, he added,

“Why that?”, I asked with a dumbfounded look on my face,

“You see”, he explained, “I am the wasteland, I see, hear and smell everything, but I can’t see what ponies are thinking and in certain towns, villages and towers my presence is not strong enough to understand everything that’s going on. So, tell me what is this file of yours all about?”,

“Why should I tell you?”, I asked back with full intention to keep the secret,

“Because I can give you what you desire the most.”, he said and flung his hoof across the table and a card fell out of his sleeve and landed in front of me, the card showed me and Diamond kissing,

“No!”, I insisted, “I won’t fall for your tricks!”, “Well if you think this is a trick then you can go, but beware of the one named Iron Cutter!”, he said and pointed to a door behind me and I just stood up and walked through it. I woke up back in Sweet Apple Acres, I slowly rolled out of my bed and walked out the door. Bone was already looting the place for anything useful and Diamond once more made her surprisingly tasty burgers.

“So, eat then we walk the rest of the way!”, Bone ordered in a stern voice,

“Calm down Bone, we just woke up!”, Diamond said, Bone just answered,

“I don’t care, we are in the ruins of a Farmhouse from two centuries ago and possible already surrounded by Raiders and or Slavers, do you want to get…”,

“BONE!”, I quickly interrupted him before he could bring this topic back up, “Let’s just eat for now!”, I ordered to the visible delight of the little white Unicorn mare. After we ate, we quickly looted the rest of the place and then we trotted towards Ponyville, or whatever was left of the Village. We trotted through a village that seemed to be looted already but nobody was there, we continued walking until we arrived at a tree that seems to be a hollowed out tree turned into a library and Diamond squealed of joy and nearly ran off if I didn’t bite her tail and stopped her.

“Watch out!”, I hissed. We walked into what my pip buck marked as the Golden Oak Library and were greeted by a sight that made me and Diamond gag: The floor was laid out with corpses in raider attire, Bone just walked over to a few and took a closer look,

“Killed by gunfire and looted most likely by other raiders.”, he said.

“We should better get out here before they return! “, I ordered,

“Oh don’t worry she won’t be back any time soon”, a pony voice announced from the stairs, I and Bone pointed our weapons at him while Diamond just let go a yelp and hid behind me,

“Who. Are. You?”, I asked with the most frightening voice I could,

“I’m Iron Cutter and I took over this place after the stable dweller cleared it.”, he explained, “Why don’t you come upstairs with me for a tea.”. I didn’t really listen to most of it my ears perked at the name Iron Cutter and I remember what the tradesman said:

” Beware of the one called Iron Cutter!”.

“I´m not sure of this…”, I whispered to the other two,

“Neither do I.”, Bone said and kept his weapons on Iron Cutter,

“Ugh… why do you pony folk have to make it always this complicated!”, Iron grunted and gave a short whistle… I got hit by something on the back of my head and everything went black …. That boney motherfucker was right! I woke up this time in a room not chained to anything just lying on a chair next to yet another table this one was made out of glass and had some buttons on the other end right next to a Chair with even more and a strange pony sitting in it.

He was an earth pony with darkish brown coat, a deep black mane, a black coat and a badge over his right eye. Only after taking a closer look at what I assumed is another faction leader I fully took in my surroundings and saw that Diamond and Bone sat in chairs next to me.

“So where is the file?”, he asked hooves crossed,

“Up in your ass”, Bone replied crossly, Diamond just groaned,

“Am I the only one here with manners? I´m Starry Diamond, this here is Fire Strife and this sailor mouthed individual is Bone. And what’s your name?”,

“I´m the Director.”, he replied simply,

“Ok Mr. Director we don’t have this file you´re going on about so if you kindly could show us the way out-”, Bone began chuckling and as I followed his gaze I could see why. For some reason they positioned our weapons right in the corner and Bone started lifting his pistol when a stallion popped into the door with booze and a gun levitating next to him,

“You still didn’t escape? Gah why do I always have to do everything myself!”, he flung the weapon around and shot the two guards, “Now follow me!”, we just all stood there stunned for a second before running after him, we ran for ages through tunnels and even if he obviously was drunk out of his mind the unicorn stallion was still knowing where exactly to go, after ages we arrived once more at a hatch the unicorn quickly threw open.

Hell, the wasteland might have been dark but the artificial lights of the bunker made even the little light it had blinding. As my eyes adjusted, I saw that we were out in nothingness and the closest thing my pip buck marked was a location called Splendid Valley right next to a heavy radiation warning.

“Follow me so I can get you away from here!”, the stallion announced and walked to a ship I only then saw, the ship actually was quite impressing, it was reinforced by stainless steel and had what looked like canons sticking out of the side, five to each side and had an open steering wheel sitting on a higher point on the back of it. After all that I finally took a closer look at our rescuer,

he was a rather huge stallion with grey coat a small beard a kind of messy but also kind of clean grey-blueish mane and a rusty blue chest plate, with a sapphire in the middle, he also seemingly always has booze in his magical grip. He took a deep sip of the bottle and introduced himself:

“Hello I´m Captain Mitch, me and my merry bunch are the crew of the Jolly Bat.”, “He-”, I started but was cut of by a groan coming from the hatch behind Captain Mitch:

“Dad! I told you a thousand times stop with the drinking you are getting delusional if you drink so much!”, said a earth pony mare, “I don’t want you telling those poor guys the story of how you made Twilight Sparkle into an alicorn, she was just a unicorn!”, the mare added.

She was smaller than the captain but still a little bigger than Diamond, she had a light pink coat and a mane with brown and purple stripes,

“Oh Amy darling you are making that up I don’t get delusional and I did make her an alicorn same as you gave the original crusaders their cutie marks!”,

“No I didn’t dad!”, she shot back and then walked past him to us, “I´m sorry my dad is drinking since ever and his huge imagination doesn’t make things better either, so allow me to introduce myself, I´m Amy and I’m the actual captain of the ship that is actual called the Writer´s Revenge which was just another alcohol idea of my Dad, let me introduce you to the crew.”, she trotted down the hatch and into the kitchen where another stallion sat on a chair with a small table with cupcakes on it, “This is Dave our blind cook.”, I took him in closer, he was a unicorn with light green coat a brown tail and a grey cap covering all his mane,

“Oh good if he´s blind he won’t realize.”, Bone whispered and grabbed a cupcake in his magic, but Dave seemed to not have it and he raised a bamboo stick roughly his height and gave Bone a slap against the horn, who quickly lost his magic grip and catched it with his stick and brought it right back onto the table,

“He is blind but that doesn’t mean he´s oblivious.”, Amy said with a chuckle and walked out motioning us to once more follow her. We walked into a room in the back that was filled with different generators and a mare came out under one of them and said:

“Ok Amy the flux generator is running again we can leave as soon as Mitch got those folks- Oh, I see you’re already here you nice looking bunch”, she looked in our general direction and I could see Diamond blushing like crazy,

“This is Gillian our technician.”, Amy explained,

“N- Nice to meet you.”, Diamond stuttered and I mustered the little technician from top to bottom was roughly the size of Diamond and had a light yellow coat and a brown mane with a light blue bow on her tail. We all walked up for one to talk with Amy about our course and to get Diamond out of there before she broke completely.

“So where do you need to go?”, Amy asked looking at a map strapped to a table in what I would assume are her quarters, “The Everfree Forest.”, I said, “

Oh good we are already on the river leading to the Everfree.”,she answered,

“Aren’t you going to tell them that this is dangerous?”, Diamond asked hoping to hear Amy telling us of but she said,

“I pulled a drunk Stallion out of a cave full of Guls, the Everfree will be a peach.”. She led us back up to the deck and shouted back down the hatch:

“Gillian start the generators were leaving!”, she trotted up to the steering wheel and put the lever to full speed and we left of.