Fallout Equestria: A Light Shining in Darkness

Chapter Six
“These lands are dangerous… best to be on a swivel.”

A softness touched my weak body as my mind slowly opened to the world, a rhythmic beeping touched the edge of my hearing along with some slightly fainter sounds that sounded very similar to words… a faint conversation.

“...please… you don’t understand… dangerous this procedure can be… could be damaged beyond any hope of recovery… needs time to rest.”

Who were they talking about?

“No, Doctor… you’re unwilling to comprehend just how dire the situation really is… won’t last too much longer… not without her… knows that!”

I struggled to open my eyes and a blurry light flooded my vision before slowly clearing just enough for me to make out the blurry shapes of the two voices. The first voice seemed to be some kind of white bird beak face and teal body. The second voice had a blurry white face and a gold mane, she stared down at me with a pair of almost glowing pinkish purple orbs as she leaned in close enough for me to feel her hot breath. I thought I noticed ghostly lighter pink circles that almost tightened and relaxed around her pupils as she scrutinized me.

She glanced over her shoulder to the first voice, “And you’re certain of who he is?”

“Undeniably,” the first voice answered, “His… match within expected margins. Do you… contact your-”

“No,” the second voice interrupted, turning away from me, “Keep him sedated… healed enough. I’ll inform her myself.”

The first voice turned to me and hung up a plastic iv bag filled with a clear, shiny orange fluid that flowed into the tubes. My vision almost immediately blurred and blackened as I lost consciousness again.

*** *** ***

My eye slowly opened, I saw I was under a warm blanket on a bed in a clean room with two tone walls made of a strange glossy material, a foggy window let in a dull gray light, and the sweet smell of rain.

There was a poster on the wall of a unicorn stallion with a white coat, shoulder length silky fiery golden mane, and a chest length beard. He was surrounded by a large group of children: ponies, zebras and even a few griffons, all looking up to him like he was Celestia herself and he held a newborn foal bundled up in swaddling cloth close to his chest with words printed below:

Baltimare’s future lays on the shoulders of our children, what kind of world will we leave for them?

-The Good Father

“The Good Father?” I murmured, sitting up only to be blinded by slight dizziness.

After my sight cleared again, I noticed that I was wearing a patient gown made of thin blue cloth. I looked around the room and noticed the couple tubes in my foreleg below my elbow trailing to a couple of empty iv bags hanging up on a stand beside me.

I wondered what was going on, was I a prisoner? Was I going to be put to death? Wait, if that was the case, why would they bother healing me? I glanced at the empty iv bag and pulled it closer to see what it was, Hydra.

“Hydra?” I muttered quietly to myself, I remembered Mashhad mentioned a creature in the Hayseed Swamp called Hydras, was it supposed to be connected?

Suddenly a small part of the wall slid open like a door and a young mare stepped in carrying a large cardboard box on her back. She had scars covering much of the right side of her face that must’ve been from a cancerous tumor that was removed and grafted over. She wore a small set of dull gray coveralls with a set of twelve numbers printed in blue ink on her collar and flanks with black stretchy fabric wrapped tightly around her lower fore and hindlegs, she also had a black plastic and metal collar with an alternating red and blue blinking light tugging at her neck, and a clunky old PipBuck similar to Ophia’s that grasped at her swollen, lumpy, and clubbed left foreleg.

When she glanced up at me, she dropped the box on the floor and gasped loudly.

“Ah’m so sorry mista,” she blatherly squeaked with a slight Swampfolk accent, terrified, “Ah didn’t mean no trespass.”

Feeling confused, I carefully swung my sore legs over the side of the bed, “Why’re you afraid?”

“Ah… That was wrong,” she almost timidly cried, collapsing on the floor, “Ah said the wrong thing again.”

“Well, you’re up,” another pony wearing a strange hooded protective suit made of a rubbery fabric material with a matching white bird beak mask stepped through the open door behind the mare, “Had a bet going whether you’d die or not, you owe me a hundred bucks now.”

The new mare picked up an ophthalmoscope from her suit’s belt and shined a soft light into my eye, “How’re you feeling? Any headaches?”

“I… Where am I?” I asked, blinking away the light, “Am I a prisoner?”

“Don’t worry, you’re in civilized lands now,” she said, pulling out a stethoscope and pressed it to my chest and back, “Please breath deep, I’m Doctor Tenderheart and you’re at Meadowbrook Memorial hospital in The Heights.”

“Where?” I asked, confused, “I… I was in Neightick last night.”

“Last night?” the doctor asked, “You were brought in almost four days ago.”

“Four days!?” I almost shouted.

“Well, just over ninety-six hours,” the doctor explained as she finished up her tests, “You seem to be doing alright now, just have to clean you up some.”

She handed me a small mirror, I hesitantly looked down into it, the left side of my face was wrapped in bandages with a thick line of dried blood. The doctor unwrapped them carefully, as they fell away and I was met with a startling scene, starting just below my left cheek a long pale line sliced up through my left eye, over my brow, and stopped just under my maneline, leaving a roughly diamond shaped patch of light pink skin surrounding the line splitting my face roughly in half. I tried to open my left eyelids, but they wouldn’t budge, they must’ve been paralyzed or even sealed shut.

“We tried to save your eye, but there wasn’t a whole lot that could be done,” Doctor Tenderheart explained, coming around with a large piece of curved black leather with a black elastic band, “Healing potions are wondrous inventions and we’ve made interesting strides since the Last Day, but even they can’t regrow severed organs or limbs, so we had to remove the eye before it possibly festered.”

I couldn’t believe this was happening.

“We’ve placed a temporary optical shell to keep the socket’s shape while it heals, the shell should dissolve in a couple of weeks. Your face should be fine and your coat should start growing back in a few days.”

I took the eyepatch and carefully put it over my sealed eye socket, it felt pretty comfortable. Looking in the mirror again, I noticed with my beard and mustache starting to grow in I almost looked unrecognizable compared to just a few days ago.

“How much do I owe you?”

Doctor Tenderheart unwrapped the rest of the bandages, “Five hundred bucks, no bartering.”

“Where’s my gear?”

The young mare picked up the box and placed it on the bed beside me, opening it up I saw my suit, armor, and gear.

“Thanks,” I said, she squeaked something and left.

I pulled out my bucks and paid her, she wished me a good day and left so I could get dressed. I dug through my saddle bag, my brush gun was gone, left back at Neightick, and my new heavy assault rifle was gone too, but I did have the spare magazines I’d swiped along with Light, but I only had the one magazine for it.

I’d need to find a primary weapon and an ammunition vendor or something before heading west to find Mom.

I pulled my suit on and was about to pull on my armor and gear when the door slid open again. An earth pony stallion and a zebra mare with dull purple stripes stepped in, both wearing matching dark blue uniforms with the golden dragon skull, spear, and rainbow lightning bolt on armbands on their left sleeves and as small pins on their matching white berets. I glanced down to the holsters on their hips and spotted a pair of compact submachine guns made of black polymers.

“Are you the Stable Dweller from Neightick?” the stallion asked.

I swallowed hard and nodded slowly.

“Then you’ll have to come with us,” the mare continued, “Councilor Redmayne has requested your presence.”

“Why?” I asked, glancing between them to see a griffon in a matching uniform standing in the hallway with a magical energy pistol modified for his talons, “I thought I was free to go.”

“You are,” the stallion answered, “Councilor Redmayne has some questions about Neightick first, we’ve already questioned the freed slaves and the Outcast.”

Outcast? “Um… okay,” I followed them out into the hallway.

The hallways were full of doctors and nurses dressed in lab coats and white rubber bodysuits and a few ponies, zebras and griffons in similar outfits to what that young filly was wearing plotting around doing different menial tasks like cleaning out trash cans or washing windows, I thought I recognized a griffon from Neightick. The soldiers led me down the hall down a flight of stairs to the ground level and out toward a pair of double doors leading to a lobby guarded by a pair of soldiers in the same dark blue uniforms and white berets. They saluted the soldiers escorting me and we stepped out into a walled off courtyard of green grass, a small white marble statue of an earth pony mare with a vibrantly painted multicolored bird beak mask holding a potion with a plaque on the circular base, Meadowbrook Memorial Hospital.

The soldiers led me out the gate into a street of cobblestones lined by two or three story buildings made from old bricks and wood panelings that were very well cared for by their owners, but now many were under reconstruction. Hundreds of ponies, zebras, and griffons walked or flew around the streets going about their daily tasks while other workers went about doing chores like emptying trash cans or cleaning out flooding storm drains. The place had an almost unusual dream-like quality to it, I wondered if pre-war Equestria was like this.

A couple metal wagons covered in a flat dark blue paint and the dragon skull crossed with a spear and rainbow lighting bolt on them were pulled down the street by soldiers wearing dark blue tarp cloaks over their matching uniforms, the crowds parted for the convoy to pass.

The soldiers led me up the street to a small field of short green grass with a tall branching elm tree with green leaves changing to yellows and reds and a fountain with an old bronze statue of a pegasus stallion wearing old looking armor made from black stoney dragon scales, he held a spear sparking with silver lightning bolts in his mouth as he swooped down at a monstrous snake-like dragon with dozens of wings bellowing golden fire up at the pegasus with a couple of flags on a tall flagpole nearby fluttering in the cold breeze.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at the statue.

“No questions,” the griffon gruffly ordered, pushing me along.

“Oh, that’s Flash Magnus,” the stallion answered, ignoring the griffon, “He led an army of dragonslayers and killed the Eternal dragon, Bahamut. His niece, Glorious Tempest established the Old Guard to honor her uncle’s sacrifice and defend Baltimare.”

Before I could ask anymore questions I was led across the park into a large four story building made from white stone with four columns in the front. A few more Old Guard soldiers stood at the double doors and inside the main T-shaped lobby, a semicircular desk with a mare tapping at a terminal. One of my escorts spoke with the mare and she pointed to a hallway to the left, they led me up some stairs to the top floor, past a few doors, and around a corner to a door labeled, Councilor E. Redmayne.

The room inside was small, a couple of windows letting in cold gray light showed me a view of a very tall wall made from dark concrete off in the distance. A small desk with an old terminal, a framed photograph and a couple of chairs sat in front of a couple of flags hanging on poles by the back wall.

The bigger flag had a gold seven pointed star in the center with seven five pointed stars of different colors surrounding it, red, blue, green, white/black, pink, gold, and gray. All on a field of deep blue. The smaller flag had the pink five pointed star on a white shield in the center of a deep blue field hung on a pole on the opposite side.

I sat down in one of the two chairs and waited for probably close to a half hour before I got really bored. I stepped over to the door and opened it a crack, the zebra and the earth pony stallion who escorted me were standing guard just outside.

“Did you need something?” the zebra mare asked.

“Uhh…” I quickly thought of something, “I haven’t had breakfast so I’m kind of hungry.”

The stallion nodded and went off to get something, leaving the zebra mare to guard the door. I sat back down and turned on my radio. I noticed that Red Eye’s signal sat dark, but DJ Pon3’s was still lit. A chorus of instruments were in a full jazzy swing as the song started quieting down before the DJ came back on.

“That was Full Night’s Last Swing and I’m DJ Pon3, but you all know who I am. It’s time for some news! This just coming in from old Haagenheim, do you all remember that Stable Dweller who killed Malys the Monstrous at The Nest what like a couple decades ago? Vanished up north without a trace? Can’t blame you if you can’t, I’m sure that most of you weren’t even born yet and the ones who can are few and far between. Well, a mare matching her description has been spotted near Fort Swelling and seemed headed to the Twin Brothers. Luck to you, Iron Angel. In other news coming in from Vanhoover-”

I clicked off the radio, Sturmkaller had mentioned fighting somebody called Malys at a place called The Nest and Tahka had mentioned that The Nest was somewhere between here and the Heartlands, maybe. And then there was the Beloved Daughter, why was she looking for Mom?

What was Mom’s past like?

Growing up in Stable Fifty-Two, she would often wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, more often than not she’d jump at loud sudden noises and she had unexplainable scars all over her body. I had always assumed they were from Radmole attacks, but after my brief experience out here….

The thought stopped when the door opened again, the earth pony stallion stepped in holding a small thermos in his mouth, he handed it to me explaining that it was a condensed meal for quick use between combat. I took a sip and tasted cold somewhat bland crawdad meat, carrots and green beans, I thanked him and he left. I stomached the cold liquid, but after a few sips I noticed that my hunger subsided. It was another few minutes before the door opened again letting in…

“Umeme!” I almost shouted, seeing the stallion safe and sound.

But then I noticed his stripes under his uniform, armor and cloak had been changed to match the green of his eyes. He offered me a tired smile, coming close, and hugging me tightly, I returned it.

“What happened to you?” I asked, looking over his new stripes, “What’re you doing here?”

“I told you, I’m Speculatores,” he mumbled, not really looking at me, “Even if we did save my Aunt Kaldi and my honor was restored, I’m still banished. I can never return to the Castrum.”

“What?” I stared up at the handsome stallion, looking for any sign that he was fucking with me… but no, he was serious, “Umeme… I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you, Ozzy,” he smiled at me again, making my heart lift a bit, “Are you okay, your eye?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” I smiled back, “I mean, no, my eye is… gone, but I think I’ll get the hang of this whole… cyclops thing.”

“Well, at least you look like a true Wastelander now,” He joked, I chuckled a bit.

We sat down in the chairs and waited for another few minutes before the door opened again. Councilor Redmayne was an elderly earth pony stallion with a balding mane and a chest length beard of fading copper. He wore a cleaned black suit with a solid pink tie and a small pin of the gold seven pointed star with seven five pointed stars.

“Well, good morning, you must be the Stable Dweller found at Neightick,” he greeted me politely, offering a courteous hoofshake before sitting down behind the desk, “Now, I’m certain that you have questions, to be frank the Council has some questions for you as well, if that’s that alright. We've already questioned your friend here.”

I nodded and he started reading from some papers, “Firstly, has Stable Fifty-Two decided to join the world?”

“I’m sorry?”

“We’ve attempted diplomacy with many stables across the North Shore, some like Stable Sixty-Three here in Baltimare and the Bullet Farmers of Stable Thirteen proved mutually profitable, while others like City Seventeen proved less… fruitful, and then others like Stable Ninety-One proved… well, proven to be rather problematic,” he drank some of his coffee before continuing, “We contacted Stable Fifty-Two shortly after the First Emergence War, but its leadership chose to continue their isolation, rather understandable, so further contact hasn’t been attempted since. So, has your stable chosen to join the world?”

“Um, not exactly,” I started, “I grew up believing that we were the sole remains of Equestria, we believed that the Surface was flooded with high levels of radiation and infested with mutated animals, I’m still trying to understand how things work up here.”

“Well, that’s rather interesting,” the Councilor commented, jotting something down, “We’ve heard similar stories from other heavily isolated communities and tribes. Now, in your own words, can you explain why you were at Neightick?”

I explained to the elderly stallion what had happened over the past two weeks, how I was looking for somebody important from my stable (keeping the fact that she was my Mom a secret for now), how the Outcasts would give me information about her if I helped them recover a kidnapped member who had been sold to the Regulators, so I went there to save her, then the Old Guard had attacked. The Councilor nodded and commented that Umeme had given a similar story.

Councilor Redmayne explained to me what had happened at the slaver town, the Regulators were found to be attacking and enslaving smaller townships and farmsteads in a Baltimare Territory called The Fringe and were planning to sell them to slavers across the Wastelands. So the Council, Baltimare’s elected leadership, sent in a special branch of the Old Guard called the Iudicium to eliminate the Regulators and recover the slaves. Because I wasn’t a Regulator and Umeme was an Outcast, we were sent with the freed slaves to the town of Meadowbrook in a place called The Heights.

I asked him what The Heights were and he explained that the Horseshoe Bay Union had seven states, they were Bayview, Fell’s Point, Inner Harbor, Klawstone, New Mondawmin, Port Aedstuath, and The Heights. Then there were territories scattered around the North Shore, they were the Black Isles, Gizzardpool, the Seastar Isles, Seaward Shoals, the Seven Sisters, Sokolov, most recently Splintered Rock, The Ashes, and The Fringe with the capital of Hightown being located in Inner Harbor.

He went on to explain that Baltimare’s Council had outlawed slavery within all state borders in the years following the Last Day, but it was still in a legal gray zone in most outer territories such as Gizzardpool, the Seastar Isles and the Seven Sisters. He explained that Baltimare’s constitution guaranteed and protected the rights of all citizens and visiting civilians like me and that purposefully harmful discrimination based on things like gender, ethnicity, species, sexual identities/attractions, and personal beliefs including political/religious (so long as said beliefs did not advocate violence or discrimination) was strictly illegal, though again the subject was a bit of a gray zone in the outer territories like Gizzardpool and Sokolov.

I asked the Councilor what the best way out of Baltimare to head to Haagenheim was and he explained that because Neightick and The Fringe was locked down by the Old Guard for the foreseeable future, the best way would be through the Hayseed Swamp, but if we got the approval of a high ranking member of the Old Guard, then we would be allowed one way passage through The Fringe. Umeme asked who we could ask and he told us about an old friend from his days in the Old Guard called Colonel Basken stationed at Pylon Twenty-Eight to the north.

*** *** ***

Baltimare was a massive city, but despite boasting a population of over several hundred thousand, most had consolidated themselves into towns around important locations, such as the Meadowbrook Memorial hospital. This meant that the buildings surrounding the towns were mostly left in ruin. According to a female griffon trader, the state of Inner Harbor was mostly flooded with salt water from the Bay, requiring the usage of boats and barges to get to Hightown if you couldn’t fly. The Heights were in a far better condition as many buildings were still standing and a few even had electricity, making the state a good place to live.

I looked up at the ruined two and three story buildings we passed, most were covered in vines, trees, bushes and other vegetation that shifted around in the omnipresent cold wind with dozens of animals like squirrels, mutated rabbits, rats the size of house cats, packs of feral dogs, hairy wild pigs and varies birds like pigeons, crows and hawks making The Heights resemble the forests from pre-war textbooks back in Stable Fifty-Two. One bird thing I noticed was large and covered in thick patchy dark red fur and scaly skin with long black feathers on the two pairs of wings, it was perched on a tilting lamppost and glared at us with a pair of light silver eyes. It screeched at us before the wings unfolded to the span of almost three ponies and flew away. I glanced down at my PipBuck’s map, Pylon Twenty-Eight was a few more hours to the northwest on the border between The Heights and The Ashes, after a quick bit of math in my head, we’d probably reach it by late afternoon, Fort Swelling however was closer to three days at least to the west. Seeing as how he had nowhere to go, Umeme elected to come with me to find my Mom and I was thankful for the assistance and company from the handsome stallion.

The hard gray light of the sun hung high above the slate gray skies when we came across a ruined bridge spanning a rushing river cutting through the town that was flooding from all the rain from the past few days. The sharp increase of water was causing some buildings and trees to lean dangerously on both sides, we glanced around for a way across before Umeme spotted a building a little ways up river that had partially collapsed forming a makeshift bridge.

“You sure?” I hesitantly asked, the rushing water looming a few feet below made my stomach churn slightly.

“Do you see another way?” He had a point.

I pressed my hoof against the rotting wood and old cracked bricks and almost jumped back when they shifted slightly. Umeme groaned into his hoof and pushed passed me, carefully making it about halfway before a section broke off and crumpled into the river.

“UMEME!” I shouted, the stallion quickly jumped the rest of the way and landed in a tilted house on the opposite bank with a heavy roll.

“Piece of cake,” he shouted nonchalantly over the rushing water, “Come on over.”

I exhaled and looked glumly down at the now thinner bridge, I glanced around the banks for any other way across, but no. I touched my hoof down on the bricks again and slowly carefully made my way across, putting one hoof in front of the other and keeping my eyes focused on Umeme.

“OZZY!” Umeme suddenly shouted, pointing a hoof up the river.

Glancing over I saw that a large rusty pre-war wagon wreck was being tumbled by the rushing waters and was barreling toward me. I picked up my pace and was about halfway across when suddenly-

CRAAACK!

The bricks under me started to wobble and sink and the wagon was just a few yards away from crashing into the bridge. I summoned my strength and jumped the rest of the way just as the wagon crashed into and destroyed the spot I was just a moment before.

BOOOOM!

Time slowed to a near crawl as I sailed through the cold air toward Umeme… but came up just short. Slamming hard against the bank and nearly losing my breath and strength. I started sliding back, Umeme quickly grabbed at my forelegs, my hindhooves scrambled for any purchase on the steep muddy bank, finding a thick tree root, I quickly jumped up and collapsed next to my companion. I glanced back at the bridge and saw most of it was being swept away with the wagon.

“See, piece of cake,” Umeme started chuckling to himself before getting up.

A screeching sound caught our attention, looking up I saw the same strange mutated bird from before perched on another lamppost across the river, watching us with its light silver eyes.

We continued down the road for a couple more hours before coming across a small trading town in a small grove of white birch trees that my PipBuck labeled as Grove Street Station.

The gate guard asked for our papers and we pulled out the small books backed in brown leather that Councilor Redmayne gave us. The book had a small picture of the owner with basic information about them along with their genetic details to ensure proper ownership.

The town had a small square with a couple of merchants and a food stand. I perused the merchants for bullets and found a bolt action hunting rifle with a dark oak wood stock chambered for 7.62mm, but it didn’t accept my heavy assault rifle magazines, having an integrated five round magazine. I bought it, a pistol holster, and a hundred 45 Auto bullets for the rest of my bucks.

Umeme and I sat down at a park bench to eat a lunch of potato soup, we discussed what we were going to do after leaving the country and I mentioned going to Fort Swelling and then heading up to Haagenheim.

“I don’t like it,” Umeme muttered, I asked why, “Fort Swelling is under Enclave control and there are the tribes and raider gangs to consider.”

“Fort Swelling is still the best chance to find Doctor Rose, Sturmkaller mentioned that she headed west.”

“Well, I still don’t like going to those fascists for help,” he muttered, finishing up his soup.

“Hey, what was your mom like?” I asked.

“Why?” he glanced up, looking a little annoyed.

“Just curious,” I shrugged, “we are gonna be working together, may as well get to know each other.”

“Yeah, well you know what they say about curiosity, right?”

Okay, he was sensitive about his life. I nodded, we finished up and got on the way.

*** *** ***

The gray light hung low in the clouds when we finally reached sight of our destination, a military base was built out of the crumbling buildings around the almost one hundred foot tall five sided obelisk looming over the fifty foot tall reinforced concrete walls that spread out to the horizon on either side. A number of guards patrolled the base’s walls, the pair standing by the front gate noticed us approaching.

“Papers?” a female griffon with a combat shotgun asked, we pulled out our books and she opened the doors after checking them, “Welcome to Pylon Twenty-Eight.”

The base was rather small with probably close to three thousand ponies, zebras, and griffons (both normal and ghoul) in matching uniforms and armor going about their tasks, eating, or relaxing by playing card games or listening to music in the buildings and dozens of tents that lined the street leading up to the pair of massive blast doors under the obelisk.

Umeme and I made our way through the base to the gate when suddenly an air vehicle I had seen from the attack on Neightick came out of the sky and hovered above a cleared flat pad between the buildings and the wall and slowly descended before landing on three wheels, the vehicle slightly resembled a dark blue dragonfly with a slightly different Old Guard emblem the golden dragon skull had a pair of outstretched feathered wings along with the crossed spear and rainbow lightning bolt on the fuselage, and a pair of spinning propellers on either side of the craft that could angle themselves to go in any direction. I noticed the armament was rather strong with a chin mounted magical energy gatling gun, mounted heavy barreled machine guns, and a pair of missile launchers.

When the propellers stopped spinning, side doors slid open and a small group of soldiers stepped out and began unloading crates for the landing pad crew to check before sending the packages to some tents on the side.

“Excuse me,” I caught a zebra ghoul with splotchy orange stripes’ attention, “Can we cross the gate?”

“Not very likely,” the ghoul answered a little slurred, her jaw hanging open slightly, a bit like she’d had a stroke, “not with the Ashbourne in the area.”

“Ashbourne?” I asked, “What’s that?”

“Go talk with the Colonel, he controls the gate.”

“And where is he?”

She pointed a hoof to the obelisk, Umeme and I stepped over to a set of stairs and questioned the soldier standing guard, he allowed us to climb the steep steps to come up on top of the Wall. I glanced around and saw for miles, I spotted some bright lights almost straight southeast that I guessed was Meadowbrook. I glanced north and saw a ruined suburb and landscape mostly buried in a sea of rainbow colored ashes that wafted and drifted around in the almost oddly stifling hot breeze that after the almost omnipresent coldness since I first entered this world felt very unnerving to me.

The Wall was heavily fortified with hundreds of machine gun and artillery emplacements behind sandbag walls and a few dozen ponies or zebras, I couldn’t really tell, wearing clunky powered armor stained dark blue with white trim, each one with a pair of modified light howitzers or grenade machine guns on the integrated battle saddles with large wooden and metal crates of ammunition labeled,

5000, 50 BMG, Belt

5000, 7.62mm, Belt

150, 20mm Artillery, Tungsten Canister Shot

100, 25mm Grenade, High Explosive Incendiary

I caught a bit of a conversation of a couple Old Guard soldiers stationed at a howitzer as we approached the obelisk.

“Any word from Splintered Rock?” one asked, drinking from a thermos.

“Nothing good, that’s for sure,” the second answered, puffing on a cigarette, “I’ve heard that the raiders from Wintersburg and the Snow Legs of Last Wick aren’t making things any easier.”

“I’d kill myself if I was stationed in that frozen hellscape,” the first commented.

A pair of unicorns, a stallion and a mare, were working on a partially disassembled suit of power armor in a small tent. As I got closer I noticed that the manes of both ponies were long dreadlocks with shaved sides and were entwined with colorful insulated power cords that trailed down to their mid backs. Thousands of lines of ones and zeros were burned into their hides head to hoof like a page of a book and big golden Fives were stitched into the backs of their sleeveless stable suits.

“Evening,” I greeted them, approaching, “Never thought I’d see other Stable Dwellers out here, nice to meet you two.”

The pair glanced up at me, then between each other, then back to me before the stallion stepped forward and spoke… at least I think he was speaking, he whistled in short shrill bursts interjected by clicking his tongue.

“I’m sorry?”

He brought up his clunky PipBuck and repeated his message, after a few moments a robotic voice spoke, “Though you might be Stableblood, you are not kin, please leave us to do our holy work.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, my name’s Ozzy, who are you two?”

“My Bonded and I are Cyphers from Seaward Shoals, are you from the College?”

“No, I’m from Stable Fifty-Two,” I gestured to my collar, “What’s the College?”

The mare murmured something to the stallion, he clicked and whistled something into his PipBuck, “Dwellers of Stable Sixty-Three, run the Baltimare University in Bayview, founding member of the Union, acts as their arcane science center… pompous… arrogant… view themselves as the legacy of The Holy Builders, like City Seventeen, fools.”

“I take it that you don’t like them, then.”

The stallion nodded, he clicked and whistled, “They are so wrapped in the power of the Old, they do not see the beauty in the New.”

Umeme called me over, I thanked the pair for talking with me before I hurried over. He asked a soldier standing guard at a door in the obelisk if we could see the Colonel and he asked for our papers, showing him he opened the door for us and we stepped inside to a small office, a soldier sat at a small desk typing at a terminal. She glanced up and noticed us.

“Evening,” she greeted us politely, “Can I help you two?”

“We need to cross the gate and we were told the Colonel had the authority to open it for us,” Umeme answered, stepping up to the desk.

“No offense meant, sirs,” the soldier started, glancing between us, “But Colonel Basken is a very busy stallion and doesn’t really have the time or patience to deal with civilians.”

“Councilor Redmayne granted us permission,” I said, pulling out my book for her to see, “We won’t take long and then you won’t have to deal with us again.”

She glanced over the book and after a moment she clicked a button on an intercom in the wall beside her, “Colonel Basken, sir, the stallions Councilor Redmayne radioed about are here.”

“Send them in,” a cold voice answered through the speaker, the soldier glanced at us and nodded at the door to the left, we thanked her and entered the office.

The unicorn stallion was middle aged, probably sixty, with a long silvering black mane tightly pulled back into a long braid adorned by several shark teeth and small snail shells trailed down his right shoulder, amber coat and light silver eyes. He wore a cleaned dark blue uniform under a matching dark blue overcoat with three colored cords over his left shoulder with a small outstretched silver dragon holding a torch with red gem fire on a couple black patches on his collar tabs, a large peaked officer’s cap made of white wool with gold wreath trim sat on the desk beside a terminal and a machete the size of my leg with a bleached bone handle wrapped in black cord in a black plastic sheath. The officer drank steaming black coffee from a stainless white coffee cup as he looked over some papers on a clipboard wrapped in silver magic while the mutated bird from earlier sat on a perch beside a closed window to the right of the desk, the bird glared at us with a pair of umber brown eyes.

Standing opposite the officer was a zebra stallion with inverted colors, white stripes on a black body, he wore a dark blue overcoat over a white uniform like the Beloved Daughter, his face was covered in a fancy matte black respirator, a pair of foggy black goggles were pulled onto his forehead, and he had a fancy looking magical energy pistol holstered on his hip.

“I’ll be sure to fill out a report, Vigilant Son Dadryl,” He muttered, placing the papers aside, “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

The zebra saluted and left without another word, he glanced at me as he pulled down his goggles before stepping out the door. His eyes had strange almost invisible pink circles around the pupils that shrank ever so slightly like a camera lens, I shivered slightly as he passed me.

“I’m Colonel Augustus Basken of the Blacktyde, Eddy radioed ahead to expect a pair of stallions matching your descriptions,” the officer gestured to the two chairs in front of his desk, we sat down, “As I understand it, you two want passage through The Fringe, I cannot allow that right now.”

“Why not?” Umeme asked.

“Because I need some assurance that the two of you are worth the risk to my reputation,” the Colonel explained, taking a drink of his coffee, “Even if Eddy vouches for you.”

“So what can we do to convince you?” Umeme asked.

The Colonel tapped his terminal and the small device hummed to life and a holographic map appeared just above the emitter, the map had such impossibly lifelike resolution that it felt like I could reach out and touch the ashes floating in the air, “The Ashes has been an active war zone since the end of the First Emergence War, when the Fillinois Plains were engulfed in a fungus-like plant.”

“Okay… how dangerous is it?” I asked, “Is it poisonous?”

“I wish it only was,” he muttered, taking a long swig from his drink, the projection zoomed out and scrolled further north to show us the ruins of a massive city a little bigger than Baltimare with a couple dozen skeletal skyscrapers surrounding a single building towering above all others near the center, all were covered in the twisting tendrils of vegetation that resembled a monstrous eldritch beast, “It’s said that in a span of mere hours this fungus consumed the entirety of Chicoltgo and most of the Fillinois Plains, devouring tens of thousands of lives and covering hundreds of square miles of irradiated city and farmland in a rainbow spectrum of colors that we now call The Myre.” the Colonel leaned forward, “A single spore can lead to the destruction of an entire city, if it got into Baltimare… well, it’s my sworn duty to ensure that never happens.”

“So what do you need from us?” Umeme asked, straight to the point, “You seem to have over three thousand able bodied soldiers.”

“One of my Second-in-Commands, Captain Fafnira, took a company of soldiers into The Ashes about three weeks ago to look for possible Ashbourne hideouts, we haven’t received word about their progress for a few days now. My other Second-in-Command, Major Grubolezhenka, took a battalion of troops to reinforce the lockdown in The Fringe. I can’t risk the Wall’s safety by sending out any more of my remaining troops, so I’d like to hire you two to go out into The Ashes and bring Captain Fafnira and her company back. Do this, I’ll grant you both safe passage through The Fringe.”

“Deal,” I said quickly.

“Wait a second, who even are these Ashbourne?” Umeme asked, wanting to at least know what to expect first.

“A raider tribe that’s been a constant thorn in our sides, they’re like radroaches,” the Colonel explained, pulling up an image of a pony wearing an incredibly piecemeal set of steel and leather armor over a shabby environmental suit and makeshift breathing equipment with bulky goggles and was covered head to hoof in thick ashes, “We’ve destroyed them so many times now only for them to show up again years later.”

“What do they do?”

“Typical raider things, they climb the Wall and attack towns, murdering hardworking folk, stealing their goods,” the Colonel shrugged, “You Outcasts deal with Swampfolk, right, can’t be too different.”

“Deal,” I repeated.

*** *** ***

The following morning, the gates closed behind us with a loud hiss and red lights flooded the small space before the gates in front of us opened with a loud hiss letting in a gush of harsh heat, red light and ash. Umeme and I thankfully wore protective full body environment suits made of a strange dark blue plastic-like fabric material reinforced with combat armor plates offering limited protection, Umeme had his cloak buckled around his shoulders over his gear. I felt my gas mask chafing at my face and neck, but I was very thankful for the cleaner air.

Bringing our weapons to the ready, Umeme and I stepped out into The Ashes.

According to the Colonel and my PipBuck the suburb was once called Rosedale, but now was a part of Ashes Section Twenty-Eight. We stepped out into a four lane road with a few scattered pre-war vehicles and ruined buildings similar to those in The Heights.

Two paths presented themselves to us, the four lane road headed north toward Chicoltgo and the other headed northwest. We had a vague idea of where to start, the Colonel mentioned a location called the Rosedale Hotel, it was an Old Guard field base before it was abandoned during the Second Emergence War. He gave us an access card to deactivate the building’s security systems if they were still functional. The problem was that the base was deep in the buried maze of a suburb and most likely would require moving through some collapsed buildings that could be full of Goddesses knew what. We headed north.

We were taking it at a reasonable pace, with such a large area to cover and the possibility of Ashbourne hiding in any number of places. My E.F.S. wasn’t being very helpful either, a yellow tick that could’ve been a raider more often turned out to be a mutant animal like crickets the size of house cats or packs of hungry feral dogs.

We were a couple blocks in when we came across a large ash hill that blocked the road, so we had to find a detour by taking a tight alley between two collapsed buildings, I carefully got down on my knees and elbows and belly crawled under the rumble for a few yards before finally coming upon a small shadowy rectangular alcove behind a few more ruined buildings with a few rusted benches mostly buried and a flickering light from a couple vending machines cast shadows across the ash hills, Sparkle-Cola and Sunrise Sarsaparilla, with a third a couple yards away: Ironshod’s Ammo Emporium. My PipBuck pinged and my E.F.S. flashed a name, Orion Solutions First Office.

We crossed the small park and entered into a building’s lobby through the blown open front doors, the room was a bit small with a semicircular heavily charred desk at the center with sandbag reinforcements and partially melted steel barricades on either side. I noticed the old concrete walls looked… melted? The steel rebar was twisted and drooping, reaching out with my magic I tried to bend the steel and to my surprise it moved like a cooked noodle. But how was that possible? Surely concrete couldn’t melt… could it?

“Ozzy,” Umeme caught my attention, he was kneeling beside something partially buried in ash.

A body… he was kneeling beside a heavily charred corpse wearing a protective armor suit that was partially melted into her blackened flesh leaning against a barricade with a large hole in her forehead just above her melted gas mask from where she was shot. I glanced around the lobby and noticed close to a dozen similarly charred corpses half buried in the ash, meaning they must’ve been dead for a couple of days at least. Umeme knelt down and started picking them over, but came up empty.

My PipBuck suddenly pinged and the Investigator scanned the bodies through my suit sleeve, the device pinged again and projected a scrambled scene of a few soldiers defending intact barricades, a couple of the soldiers already laid dead where they were now. Suddenly the front doors exploded inward and a number of ponies, zebras, and griffons funneled in.

“Sergeant, we need to fall back!” a soldier shouted over the gunfire to another soldier, “Alert the Wall!”

“Never!” the second soldier shouted back, “We are the Old Guard, the Fighting Spirit of Balti-”

Suddenly the second soldier’s head exploded, painting the wall with blood, brain and bits of skull. The first soldier scrambled out of frame just as a couple of crazed ponies jumped over the desk screaming for blood.

“GIT YER ASS BACK HERE CITY BOY!”

Suddenly a monstrous almost earsplitting thunderous roar ripped through the projection shaking the walls around us, the crazed ponies tried to jump back to safety, but most of the lobby was engulfed in what looked like flames.

“What… was that?” Umeme asked, getting up.

“I don’t know,” I rubbed my hood covered ears, “It also just occurred to me that we didn’t ask the Colonel what Captain Fafnira looks like.”

“We find her company, then they’ll get us to her.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“Come on, let’s go.”

*** *** ***

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

I ducked behind an old desk as the wall mounted turrets spat their bullets at me. Umeme targeted a turret and the offending machine exploded in a shower of twisted metal and sparks. I slipped into S.A.T.S. and got off a couple shots from my hunting rifle at the remaining turret, before time resumed and it exploded, the domed machine managed to get a shot off that sliced through my environment suit’s built in upper foreleg armor plate. I collapsed back in the ash on the floor and clutched at my wounded upper leg.

We’d been in the office building for probably close to a couple of hours now and had probably explored a third of the large twisting maze of hallways and rooms. We were finding a lot of ancient skeletons with long rusted weapons and ancient rusty suits of bulky power armor marked by a set of gears with a sword in a red apple outline with pony skeletons trapped inside. Then there were fresher bodies of both Old Guard and Ashbourne buried under ash.

The building probably hadn’t been explored in the centuries after the Last Day and it’s pre-war robot security had gone dormant and were buried in ash or under rubble. But it looked like they had reactivated when the Old Guard and the Ashbourne’s fighting triggered it and were quickly slaughtered.

From what I’d seen so far the robots had a couple types, one that had tracks and glass domed heads with what looked like real brains and the other was on hovering jets with multiple limbs ending in different weapons like plasma welding torches and buzzsaws.

The thought of real fleshy brains being used in ponicidal robots made me sick, about as sick as the thought of eating other people or raping and killing children. The two hundred years of constant operation, probably little to no maintenance, and the hostile environment of The Ashes also did horrible things to their sanity.

“DIE MINISTRY PIGS!” A hovering robot shouted on screeching speakers, a jet of oily gel sprayed the walls and my desk before a blistering flame shot out from the welding torch.

Umeme pulled me to the safety of a small bathroom before targeting the robot’s propulsion jet, the metal casing dented under the concentrated explosions before the hovering robot staggered mid flight. The robot crashed into a rusty fire extinguisher on the wall, which caused a cloud of ancient soapy foam to explode, smothering most of the fire out before it could get too out of control.

Many of the hallways and rooms were blocked by ash that piled in from outside and it was taking a ridiculous amount of our time to find a way through. We had climbed to an upper floor when turrets mounted in the walls and on the ceiling flipped out and started shooting at us with armor piercing bullets. We’d already killed a few turrets and robots, but the building’s long dead owners had been rather enthusiastic with defence, my E.F.S. told me there were at least another four hostiles moving around on this floor alone. I focused my magic on the bleeding gash in my upper leg covering it in a small pink cloud and the bleeding stopped leaving a small pink line. Umeme helped me up and we continued down the hallway, weapons at the ready.

We entered a side room and found it mostly buried in ash from a hole in the collapsed ceiling, but in the corner was a broken window letting in harsh ash and red light on a hot wind and an Ashbourne corpse lay slumped in a swivel chair with a hoof-made rifle beside them.

A poster on the wall showed a smiling elderly earth pony mare with obtrusively pink coloration, her curly cotton ball mane was streak in silver making her look like a candy cane and her large blue eyes bore into my soul even through the ancient poster. Bold words printed below her proclaimed that PINKIE PIE IS WATCHING YOU FOREVER! Somebody had added another word across the mare’s face, WHORE!

“Well,” Umeme muttered, glancing out the window, “We’re not getting down through here.”

Turning away from the poster I glanced out the window, we were easily a few stories off of the massive ash hills overlooking a large six lane highway that sliced north and south before being stopped by the Wall. The Ashes spread out eastward to the horizon line with the skeletal remains of another suburb off in the distance.

Umeme went back to the hallway, but I took a moment to pick over the corpse’s saddle bag and came up with a couple rolls of bandages and a small box of 7.62mm bullets with black painted tips. I put the bullets in my saddle bag and picked up the rifle to look it over, the weapon was made from steel and copper pipes that was screwed and lashed onto a stock of roughly shaped wood by wire wrapped around the long steel pipe barrel and bent steel plates forming a makeshift receiver with a long bolt used as the trigger, the bolt was made from a solid cylinder block of steel with a bolt screwed in the side as the handle and was locked closed by a heavy gauge spring. I opened the chamber and a spent casing tumbled out into the ash on the floor, picking it up I noticed something exceptionally scary, the primer had flattened and was blackened from burns. The bullet had failed to overpressure.

Picking up some more of the spent bullet cases on the floor, all of their primers had flattened and were blackened from burns. In all of my years working as a gunsmith I could honestly say that this rifle scared me.

Guns were supposed to be meticulously crafted devices that, if constructed correctly, should contain the pressure from firing the bullet it was chambered for and if there was a failure, a good gun should be built to fail in the safest way possible to limit harm to the shooter.

That is why shitty hoof-made guns fucking terrify me. Thankfully it was useless, the receiver spring was broken and the bolt hung open. But the scope looked to be in reasonable shape, so I carefully unscrewed it from its base and attached it to my own hunting rifle before following Umeme.

We continued down the hallway and rounded a corner before finding a massive hole going down several floors, dust and ash hung in the stagnant air. A desk hanging on the edge a floor down tilted the rest of the way and went tumbling down into a large pile of rubble and ash at the bottom.

“Great,” Umeme muttered, glancing around for a way down.

Suddenly bullets shot up at us from a couple of turrets a couple floors down, we backpedaled away from the edge and the bullets stopped. I loaded the black tipped bullets into my rifle before getting down on my belly and crawled up to just before the edge, Umeme picked up a skull and chucked it over the edge.

The turrets fell for the trick, shooting at the new object as it plummeted toward the rubble and ash pile. I quickly aimed at the machines and time slowed into a crawl as I slipped into S.A.T.S. targeting their shells. Time quickly corrected itself and one machine sparked and exploded, but the second bullet missed its target. The machine noticed me and swung up with murderous intent, bullets peppered the ceiling above me. I reeled back and waited for S.A.T.S. to recharge, when it did, I scooted back to the edge, time slowed to a crawl again as I slipped back into S.A.T.S. my scope’s crosshairs squared on the machine, I targeted its sensor and fired off a bullet.

Time corrected itself and the machine exploded this time.

Umeme and I backtracked down the hallway to find a way down, we went back to the restroom with a broken toilet, a leaky sink gurgling with filthy water and a closed window. Umeme pried it open and a gust of ash flew in, the window opened up to a rusty old fire escape that hung slightly precariously on rusty chains and bolts. Umeme glanced at me for a moment and I shook my head, but he climbed onto it anyway.

“Why ask for my opinion if you do the thing anyway?” I asked rhetorically.

“Illusion of choice?” he replied.

I facehoofed on my gas mask before watching him scoot across the ancient steel structure, he was most of the way across when the fire escape groaned threateningly.

“UMEME!” I shouted, the stallion quickly jumped into an open window just before his perch collapsed down several stories into the hidden alcove below.

“You okay?” I shouted over the wind, he waved a hoof back.

“There has to be another way through.”

Hopefully.

*** *** ***

Attention to all Orion Solutions Inc employees:

In conjunction with our improved safety and protection protocols, all employees in pay grades 4 to 7 are to be issued with a standard law enforcement grade firearm. This firearm is to be worn in the issued holster at all times when on company property, failure to comply or failure to keep your issued firearm in proper maintenance will result in immediate disciplinary action including possible termination under employee uniform policy 15-G.

In the event of an incursion of any Orion Solutions Inc private properties by government forces, all pay grade 1, 2, 4, and 5 employees are required to protect all Orion Solutions Inc proprietary properties and Star grade personnel. All pay grade 1, 2, 4, and 5 employees are therefore required to attend at least three to four Defense and Teamwork-Building weekend programs this month, any failure to comply will result in immediate disciplinary action including possible termination under employee attendance policy 9-H.

I’d read that same message across the few working terminals I’d hacked into now, it didn’t make any more sense to me now than the first time. I closed off the terminal and trekked back into the hallway.

The overhead lights flickered on for a few seconds before vanishing again as I ventured through cautiously, my flashlight’s beam slicing through the dust and ash that filled the stagnant air like a knife. This floor was much lower and was buried in ash blocking out the harsh light and hot wind from outside, making the space much cooler by comparison, a welcomed change. On the peeling walls were more posters from the Ministries, so far all had been defaced saying things like, LIARS!, THIEVES!, TRAITORS!, and FALSE IDOLS!

There were also a lot more skeletons and broken robots down here, often in defensive positions by blocked off doors and hallways. Passing a mare’s bathroom I rounded a couple of corners and was stopped by yet another blockage, I retraced my steps to the mare’s bathroom and carefully opened the door, it squealed on its rusty hinges. The small room inside was mostly flooded by filthy murky water bubbling up from the broken plumbing, checking the stalls I found a griffon skeleton huddled in one of the middle ones. The skeleton was clutching a small locket to their chest, carefully picking up the jewelry, I saw a small picture of a young griffon inside. I carefully returned the locket and continued checking the stalls before coming across a shattered wall that led to a large office room that was a mess of partially buried desks and filing cabinets.

Stepping inside, I plotted between the desks searching each one I could for anything of use, finding dozens of rounds of armor piercing ammunition for Light. As I searched the room I caught the soft faded green light of another working terminal, flicking it on, the green screen hummed to life. Along with the constant message from before there was additional information.

Evacuation Policy, Employee Version:

We here at Orion Solutions Inc value your commitment to the company. In the possible event of a federal raid, or worse, it is the duty of all employees to bodyguard and ensure the safe evacuation of all personnel in the following order:

1. Presidents of Orion Solutions Inc Companies
2. Members of Executive Management
3. All Star grade Personnel on property
4. Members of Mid-Level Management/Floor Supervisors
5. Employees with Bronze, Black and Gold Level clearance
6. Employees with Orange and Purple Level clearance
7. Employees with Blue and Green Level clearance
8. Employees with White and Red Level clearance

Once all of the above have been safely evacuated from the property, we encourage you to make your way to your assigned evacuation zones. To better ensure your safety, we are issuing military grade armor-piercing ammunition to all pay grade 1, 2, 4, and 5 employees.

I looked through the rest of the terminal and found a private message that wasn’t on the other sparse working terminals.

Re: Ollie:

I heard that Morale got her. Charges of suspected illentent against the Crown, right. MoM agents broke down her door in the middle of the night and hauled her whole family off somewhere. Probably got sent up north to the Smiling Isles.

Management is a complete oil fire, they’re positive Ollie is gonna spill something, or even worse.

Fuck these peashooters, I’m headed to Shining Jade’s in St Haul tonight to pick up my husband’s shotgun.

PS: Thanks again for those Blue Notes, I know they must’ve cost their weight in gold.

I closed out of the terminal and continued on my way, suddenly a large explosion rocked the building from somewhere upstairs, support beams cracked as the ceiling above me splintered.

I jumped out a door just before the room was buried, dust and ash kicked up and clouded around me choking my filters. Clicking on my flashlight, I carefully stood and leaned against the wall as I stumbled down the hall for a few yards before bumping into another blockage. Looking around for a way through, I spotted a cover leaning on the wall, moving it to the side I found a tight tunnel made from an air conditioning duct. After making sure it was clear enough for me to squeeze through, I holstered my rifle and pulled out Light, I got down on my belly and crawled into the duct.

The duct creaked and groaned and banged as I concentrated on putting one hoof after the other, my suit occasionally snagging on the odd bit of metal. After a few twists and turns I found a grate, thankful for the exit, I pushed my body against it and after a few swift wacks, it popped off tumbling down… and me with it.

The sudden light blinded me as I tumbled down several feet into a pile of ash, fixing my mask, looking around. I was back in the room with the massive hole near the middle. I straightened myself out and picked up Light, just then bullets rang out from an upper floor. A smoking robot plummeted into the rubble pile below, I glanced up and saw Umeme.

“What happened?” I shouted up.

“Leaky gas pipes, I threw a grenade.” He shouted back, “Can you see a way up?”

I glanced around my floor before spotting a set of stairs across the hole, I pointed it out to Umeme and he agreed.

“Okay, we’ll meet up later.”

*** *** ***

I was getting really tired of this place when I finally made it to Umeme’s floor. I sat down on a small stool next to a makeshift barricade and took a few moments to catch my breath, my throat was dry and my lungs hurt.

“Umeme!” I hoarsely shouted, “Where are you?”

Suddenly a brain-bot rolled out of a room and aimed its claws at me, a beam of red energy shot out and melted an apple shaped wall clock beside me, I ducked behind the barricade.

“Surrender, Ministry Dog!” the robot shouted, a couple more beams shot at me, making the metal desk start to glow dangerously.

I readied my rifle for the fight when suddenly the robot exploded, when the hallway stilled I got up and saw Umeme standing over the smoking headless metal corpse, claws twitching.

“Umeme!” My heart swelled as I scrambled up and hugged him.

“Now then,” He lowered his rifle and grinned at me, “Shall we get out of here?”

I nodded.

“I think there’s a way out this way,” he gestured down the hall he came from.

As we made our way down the narrow hallway I noticed that the large rooms with a lot of desks were being replaced by more private offices with just a few desks. We came out to an open room with a single semicircular desk and a logo of a blue seven pointed shooting star with a silver sword as the seventh point painted on the wall behind it. The room was littered with skeletons and a few more suits of rusty power armor buried in ash and rubble.

“I know this place,” I whispered mostly to myself.

“What?” Umeme asked.

I was about to repeat myself when a loud clicking echoed out and suddenly the logo section of the wall slid open revealing something that could only be described as the mutant bastard of a Steel Ranger and a monstrously huge crab. Its four powerful legs ended in wicked spikes that carried it above the desk and crushed the bones of long dead skeletons. I counted three weapons, a pair of miniguns and a rotating missile launcher on its domed back.

“Oh,” I muttered under my breath, “That just isn’t fair.”

“This is private property, Ministry Dogs!” the robot shouted, weaponry raising to the ready, “Surrender now and your deaths will be swift!”

“RUN!” Umeme shouted, quickly grabbing me, we sprinted back down the hallway.

A rocket arrowed past us and exploded as we rounded a corner, the walls behind splintering loudly as the crab-bot crashed after us. We rounded another corner that led to the room with the large gaping hole, the crab-bot thundered past before correcting itself and charging down the hallway, spike legs kicking up dust, ash and debris. As we sprinted I noticed a pipe jutting out of the wall just before the hole, the crab-bot was barreling at us and the distance closing quickly.

I grabbed Umeme’s cloak just before jumping up and grabbing the pipe. We swung around just out of reach as the crab-bot flew past us and plummeted several stories into the chasm, landing with a thunderous crash. My lungs burned in my chest and my filters restricted my breathing, Umeme handed me a couple clean circular filters, I thanked him. Holding my breath, I carefully replaced my mostly clogged filters with the newer ones and cleaner air filled my lungs.

“Did we kill it?” I asked, calming my heartbeat.

“I don’t think that it’s getting back up anytime soon,” Umeme answered, glancing over the edge.

I scooted over and glanced down. The crab-bot was pinned twitching and sparking underneath a large support beam.

*** *** ***

The crab-bot was guarding the Orion Solutions Inc Executives’ offices. Each office labeled by a small rusty brass plaque with their names and the departments they were in charge of. The desks were reinforced with plates of thick steel, to be used as a quick barricade should the attackers manage to get this far.

Many of the private offices were occupied by the skeletons of long dead people, some had holes in their skulls saying that they had committed suicide instead of fighting off their attackers. We searched every room for anything of use, Umeme found more armor-piercing ammunition, but there wasn’t too much else of note so we continued on to the next office, Jonagold-Office of Intercompany Affairs.

The office was smaller than all of the others, the glass of the window was broken and jagged letting in harsh red light and ash on the hot breeze. An L shaped desk in the center had a working terminal and Umeme pointed out a small safe hidden in the corner. Activating the hacking system I had to back out four times before the password illuminated, Convergence, inside the boxy computer were three options, Read emails, Reboot connection to company mainframe, and Unlock safe. Umeme went to check on the next room while I unlocked the safe and tried to reboot the connection… Unknown Error.

Evacuation Policy, Executive Version:

In the possible event of a federal raid, or worse, it is the duty of all employees to bodyguard and ensure the safe evacuation of all personnel in the following order:

1. Presidents of Orion Solutions Inc Companies
2. Members of Executive Management
3. All Star grade Personnel on property
4. Members of Mid-Level Management/Floor Supervisors
5. Employees with Bronze, Black and Gold Level clearance
6. Employees with Orange and Purple Level clearance
7. Employees with Blue and Green Level clearance
8. Employees with White and Red Level clearance

Once all of the above have been safely evacuated from the property, we encourage you to proceed to the location of your objectives assigned by Doctor Orion.

Below that was a second message.

Ms Jonagold, your objective and its location are below:

Objective: Redirect all spark generators to Orion Solutions First Offices
Location: Hippocampus Energy Station #30, Rosedale, Horseshoe Bay

Checking the safe I found a couple old faded bags of pre-war money and some old folders with business papers, worthless, but behind those were a couple small manila colored boxes, each with the picture of a small rampant dragon wearing a crown on a checkered shield with words printed below,

Donaustahl GmbH
50, 9mm
Vollmetall Mantel Runden

“Anything?” Umeme asked.

“Some pre-war money and these cartridges,” I pulled them out and showed him, “Your pistol uses them, right?”

“Yes, thank you,” he took the bullets and put them in his saddle bags for later, “I found another locked safe in the next room.”

After a few moments of looking it over, I determined it could be opened if we had a lockpick. Umeme gave a half hearted chuckle through his gas mask and whipped out a small bobby pin and his long curved knife, after a few moments and one more bobby pin, the lock clicked open.

Looking through it I found an old leather bound book with a small gold sword on the cover, quickly opening it, the pages were blank, but I found a small plain looking key hidden deep inside. Picking it up I was about to throw it back into the safe with the book when I swore I felt the tiniest ghostly echo of something at the far edge of my mind, much like when I found Light. I don’t know why, but I carefully placed the key into one of my bandolier’s pockets for later.

“Anything good?” Umeme asked, I showed him the blank book and he shrugged, tossing it aside, “The Ancients were weird sometimes.”

We continued through the executive offices to a set of double doors that must’ve led to the President’s office suite, a small rusty plaque by the doors read Pozzelle Fiddle-President, the small waiting room outside was full of dozens of skeletons of ponies, zebras, and even a few griffons all in tattered faded fabrics that must’ve been business suits. The skeletons were piled up on the doors, like they were trying to get inside.

Umeme checked the locks and after a dozen bobby pins and just as many words that seemed like curses to me, the doors swung opened.

The office suite inside was much larger than the others with three large windows on the back wall that were cracked and splintered, but they still held against The Ashes outside so the office was very clean. Before the windows was a large semicircular desk with a single terminal in the center, on either side were large bookcases full of old books, and on the hardwood floor was a large carpet of what looked like a star chart.

Bouncing about the room was a small spherical robot that was cleaning the furniture and surfaces by scanning them with a small green light. Umeme checked the bookcases and found several small hidden safes, picking them all cost him a couple bobby pins, but he was netted with a small plastic security passcard, he nickered lowly at the irony. I checked the terminal only to find it unlocked, a small mercy. Along with the Executive Evacuation Policy, there was another more personal letter.

Polly,

We have known each other since our days at Monacolt and we have grown our company to an incredible scale these many years.

But, if you’re finally reading this message, then the time has come. Make your way to your assigned evacuation zone and proceed to Site A, further instruction will be provided upon your arrival, I will ensure the safety of Pottis and Pippy. All other company presidents will proceed to their assigned zones for the activation of Project Aegis.

May history remember us as saviors instead of traitors.

Orion

I closed out of the terminal and glanced around the office, noticing that one of the bookcases on the wall was slightly out of alignment. Stepping over, I pulled it open and exposed an elevator. Pressing the button, the doors slid open and Umeme and I stepped inside and the doors slid closed. The elevator lurched before slowly descending for a long time, a soft bit of jazz started playing from hidden speakers.

*** *** ***

Finally at the bottom, the doors slid open and we saw a long empty hallway, the overhead lights flickered on and I noticed the white glossy surfaces were impossibly clean, not a speck of dust anywhere. After the harshness of The Ashes… this place felt… I reached up and removed my gas mask, to my shock the air was just as clean as Stable Fifty-Two.

“This is creepy,” Umeme muttered, taking off his own gas mask.

I stepped forward and he followed, our hooves clicked on the glossy floors as we approached a door with a small glassy domed magic eye.

I took the passcard from Umeme and pressed it against the eye, the eye scanned the card and beeped happily, “Welcome, Mrs President.”

Inner mechanisms in the door hissed and grinded as it slid open, revealing a small circular room inside, the curved walls were lined in exceptionally advanced looking computer machinery with a chest height pedestal in the center.

“This is REALLY creepy,” Umeme repeated, looking around for an exit.

I stepped closer to the pedestal, its big red button glowed and dimmed a soft red light, a terminal screen beside it lit up and the machinery around us slowly hummed to life and some gemstones embedded in the center of the floor and in the ceiling that were aligned in a rectangle with dozens of cords trialing into the machinery.

I raised my hoof to the button, but Umeme stopped me, “What are you doing?”

“This place was attacked by the pre-war military, not just regular soldiers, but Steel Rangers,” I glanced down at the pedestal, “And this place was expecting them too, all the armor piercing bullets, robots and weapons. Why?”

“Obviously they were traitors,” he retorted, waving his hoof around the room, “This stuff could set off a megaspell for all we know, do you really want to find out?”

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Before he could stop me again, I pressed the big button and the machinery kicked into gear. The room started to violently shake as the gemstones lit up, a rectangular outline made of piercing white light appeared like a doorway… but then it flickered out and the room went quiet and still again.

Confused, I glanced down at the screen,

ERROR
Insufficient power reserve….

*** *** ***

“That was incredibly stupid of you,” Umeme grumbled over his shoulder, “This whole place could’ve gone up in green fire, then what?”

“But it didn’t have enough power,” I countered, “Amazing that building was still standing with all that damage.”

“It was still stupid and careless,” Umeme stopped and quickly turned on me, “If we are going to be traveling together, you need to be more careful, think something through before doing it. What if you repaired a gun, but forgot a pin?”

“I’ve honestly never been that drunk.” That was stupid.

He glared daggers down at me, clearly fighting the urge to hit me for my smart mouth, but he lowered his hoof and continued down the street. It was getting dark when we entered a small fenced in triangular park of long dead grass surrounding a burnt skeletal tree with an old burnt wooden swing that swayed slightly in the softer hot breeze. As we explored the suburb I noticed how a lot of the buildings and homes were boarded up, like the pre-war inhabitants had escaped, but were convinced that they could return.

“It actually isn’t too bad,” I commented, Umeme glanced at me for a moment, “Well I’m not saying I’d like to have a summer home here, but the way the ashes drift around does make it look quite lovely.”

We split up to search the park for any sign of a battle, dusting through the ash piles I mostly found scrap cans or the occasional bleached skeleton of long dead ponies or zebras.

Suddenly my E.F.S. flashed a yellow marker, raising my rifle to the ready I spotted a large hole in a collapsed two story house across the northwest street. A cricket scuttled into the street and looked around, I lowered my rifle and shook my head. The crickets weren’t worth the bullets so I’d been squishing them under my hooves, plotting into the street I was about to squish the ugly bug… when my E.F.S. flashed a red marker behind it.

My ears perked up when something very large slowly moved around in the collapsed house and flattened when a massively long shiny black scorpion-like tail with a knife length barb dripping with glistening fluid slowly reached out from the darkness and deftly stabbed the cricket through its back and pulled it into the hole.

My heart plummeted in a cold rush as the creature seemed to focus its attention on the intruder who just blithely clopped by its den. A carrion stench wafted out that was so foul I swore I could smell it through my filters. The creature slowly crawled out from the darkness and I got far more of a view of it than I could’ve ever possibly wanted. It looked like a large hulking lion with short beige fur, no mane, a pair of massive bat wings, and the long scorpion tail.

It glared down at me with a pair of sickly yellow eyes and licked its red bloody lips sending a hard cold shiver up my spine, there was only one thing I could say… “Holy shit.”

“OZZY!” Umeme shouted, “GET DOWN!”

Suddenly a trio of small explosions ripped one of the creature’s ears in half, it roared in pain and glared around for where its new hidden assailant had come from. Using the moment of confusion, I somehow summoned my strength, spun around on the spot, and bucked both my hindhooves up into its face.

Easily one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever had, it was like kicking a fucking brick wall!

Instead of knocking it back, I sent myself forward in a faceplant. The creature glared down at me with a bloody head and nose, lifting its massive forepaw up it brought down the knife length claws on my back. If it hadn’t been for my suit’s built in armor, the blow would’ve definitely severed my spine… instead, a white hot sharp pain sliced through my back and my body screamed in pain.

The creature loomed over me, blood dripping onto my mask, obscuring my vision, I swallowed a hard lump in my throat and time slowed to a near crawl as it raised its bloody claws to kill me, but then a faint shimmering caught my eye and another trio of explosions to its shoulders drew the creature’s attention again. Time sped up again as I wiped the blood from my visor and somehow managed to get to my hooves before sprinting as fast as my body and the ash would allow me.

The chase was short, the creature was at least several stacked apple carts.

The scorpion tail swiped at my side, sending me flying. I hit the street and rolled into a wagon, my head was in a daze. The creature charged, tail barb flicking this way and that as I struggled to my hooves.

“Over here, you overgrown kitten!” Umeme shouted, spraying more explosions at the creature, “Ozzy, run!”

Blood and flesh erupted from the creature’s foreleg, it stumbled, claws missing my face by mere inches and crashed into a streetlight, ripping it out of the sidewalk and toppled with a loud thud. It roared in pain as it slowly struggled to its feet. Umeme’s hoofprints dashed across the ash covered street, he materialized by my side and pulled me to stand.

We sprinted down an alley, the creature bounding up behind us quickly. We rounded a corner into a street, the creature over shot us and slammed into a wagon sending up a cloud of ash before stumbling up and resuming its chase. We sprinted into a second alley, the creature bounding closer and closer.

Umeme quickly spun around and fired some more bullets at a rusty old fire escape causing it to fall behind us, blocking the creature for a few precious moments. We entered a large plaza in front of a large multistory building that had a ruined neon sign of a rose labeled as Rosedale Hotel. We veered east to a nook in the high brick walls and jumped over a dumpster. The creature had gotten past the fire escape and was bounding through the plaza, crashing through wagons buried in ash hills. We rounded a corner and Umeme took a moment to spray some aimed explosions, slowing the hulking beast slightly before his rifle clicked loudly, the bolt jammed closed.

The creature slammed into the dumpster, paws flailing trying to get to us, barbed tail striking holes in the walls. I pulled out Light and slipped into the crystal clearness of S.A.T.S. before firing a few bullets into the trapped creature. The first bullet struck the creature’s shoulders and wings and the last couple struck its tail, slicing the barb so it hung on by a thread.

The creature roared in pain, backing off just enough for us to feverishly dig through the hill and find a partially boarded up window. I bashed at the weakened boards with the butt of my rifle. The rusty nails quickly gave out under my strikes and the boards fell a dozen feet down into the semi buried staircase. Umeme scrambled through the small opening and plopped onto the ash below, I quickly followed just before the creature slammed into the window.

We scrambled up the stairs away from the creature to a safer spot, the creature thrashed around to get through the window, but soon stopped and slunk off annoyed. We hurried into a room with a large ruined bed and took a moment to breath.

“What was that damned thing?” I asked, trying to catch my breath.

“Manticore,” Umeme answered, taking a moment to clear his rifle and failing.

“Manticore?” I repeated, if I went the rest of my life never seeing that damned thing again, it’d be too soon.

“Very little in the world can hurt them,” Umeme continued, still trying to clear his rifle and still failing, “Thankfully that one was young.”

“I might be able to fix that for you,” I offered, my partner sighed heavily before handing over his rifle.

I removed the magazine to make it safer before carefully examining it. Taking out my tool kit, I got to work, but after a few minutes and field stripping the firearm, I found myself at a loss of how to fix the problem with the parts at hand. Umeme silently reassembled his rifle and took mine in exchange and we got up to start looking around for the company of soldiers like we were supposed to.

*** *** ***

The hotel was in an incredibly horrid state like most of The Ashes, the flowery wallpaper was peeling off of the groaning and creaking walls around us, the overhead lights flickered dimly and with the sun dropping quickly, my flashlight was a necessity. Umeme took the lead, my hunting rifle at the ready. Most of the dangers so far were large crickets that had managed to dig their way inside, another danger was the manticore stacking us outside.

As we plotted around the maze of rooms and hallways I noticed how there weren’t any clear signs of any recent habitation, all of the corpses so far were ancient skeletons mostly buried in ash or debris. But that thought quickly changed when Umeme’s foreleg stopped me, I glanced down and noticed a thin wire close to the floor, glancing around I spotted a small cloth bundle hanging from the ceiling by a similar thin wire. I carefully reached up with my magic and Umeme used his knife to cut the wire and the bundle fell into my magic grasp, bringing it down I untied the top and was greeted by three to four frag grenades, he handed me one. We rounded a corner and spotted a zebra corpse dressed in dark blue armored gear with a combat shotgun slumped against a wall beside a door.

“Ok,” I said, picking up the shotgun, “We know the company was here recently at least.”

The weapon was broken sadly, its bolt had come off of its broken guide rods and springs and it had no magazine, if I had the parts I thought I could fix it though. I slung it over my shoulder with the bag of loose 12 Gauge shells with red bands.

Umeme pushed open the door and we entered a large dining room full of ruined furniture and several long tables, one was broken in half by a large chandelier that had fallen from the high ceiling. The room was littered with dozens of fresh corpses of both Ashbourne and Old Guard strewn about the place leading toward a set of double doors across the room.

“Be careful,” Umeme muttered, glancing around for any hostels.

I looked around at the high walls and noticed a badly faded mural that started at the stained glass windows and wrapped around the room before stopping back at the other side of the same windows.

The first panel showed unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies working together to build a small town on the banks of a large bay.

The second panel showed a now much larger town being attacked by a horde of hundreds of dragons led by a monstrous snake-like black dragon with dozens of wings. The town was being defended by a pegasus wearing ancient armor made from black dragon scales and held a spear sparking with rainbow colored lightning bolts leading an army of thousands of ponies with similar armor and weapons against the dragon horde.

The third panel showed an earth pony wearing a set of strange looking icy blue plate armor and an animal pelt on his shoulders kneeling before a unicorn wearing a set of old looking steel armor with a dark blue cloak with the golden dragon skull, spear and rainbow lightning bolt of the Old Guard and a golden crown shaped with seven points, the earth pony was holding up a black axe with a long handle, both leaders were before massive armies hundreds strong.

The fourth panel showed a pegasus wearing the same armor, cloak and crown as the third panel leading an army of ponies against an army of griffons, kneeling before her was a griffon wearing armor made with gray discs and holding up a gold egg.

The fifth panel showed a unicorn leading an army of ponies and griffons against an army of zebras in a devastated swampland, kneeling before the unicorn was a zebra wearing a set of lorica segmentata and offering up their sword.

The sixth panel showed an earth pony wearing the cloak and armor leading an army of ponies, griffons, and zebras. The earth pony knelt before Celestia herself, offering up their crown.

The seventh and final panel showed the bay from the first panel now with a massive cityscape spreading far and wide with ponies, zebras, and griffons under a flag of a seven pointed star outlined by a glorious golden sun on a field of red.

“Ozzy, are you okay?” Umeme caught my attention, he gestured for me to follow him through the double doors.

“Uh, yeah,” I answered, turning away from the murals.

Suddenly one of the large windows exploded in a shower of colorful glass shards as the manticore jumped through landing hard, its tremendous weight snapping a long table in half like a dry twig.

“OZZY RUN!” Umeme shouted, pulling out a grenade and chucking the metal apple at the manticore.

BOOM!

The grenade exploded, kicking up dust, ash and debris. I dove through the double doors just before and the manticore leapt at us. Umeme dove out of the way and the large beast slammed into the doors, snapping them on their ancient hinges and locking them shut.

“UMEME!” I shouted.

“Go on, Ozzy!” his voice shouted from behind the doors, “We’ll meet up later!”

The manticore pounced again and the gunshots grew distant. I felt my heart drop in my chest, I was alone again.

*** *** ***

The body of a cricket crunched grossly under my hoof, I quickly scraped the guts off on an old suitcase. I was on one of the middle floors in the hotel’s east wing and from what I had seen so far this section was far more built up and reinforced by the Old Guard. The windows were boarded up, the narrow dark hallways were cleared enough of ashes for me to take off my gas mask and breathe easy, well easier at least and the choke points were barricaded with furniture and guarded by turrets. This choke point was a medium room with a staircase leading upstairs and the corpses of dead Old Guard and Ashbourne.

A couple red blips suddenly flashed on my E.F.S. and bullets ripped through my armor and dug into my leg, flank and shoulder, making me shout in pain. I rolled back into cover and shot back at a turret on the ceiling and one on the wall upstairs, my regular bullets only dented their domed armor. I switched over to my armor piercing bullets and the turrets exploded. I lowered Light and focused on wrapping my bleeding wounds in bandages for now, I’d need to find more healing potions soon.

I got up and pushed my way through the choke point making my way up the stairs to the upper level, a dead griffon soldier was slumped against the railing with another combat shotgun and a box magazine in her limp hands. I carefully removed the weapon and checked it over, its receiver was bent inward likely from a heavy bladed weapon.

I slung it over my shoulder with the other one for later and continued to investigate, sneaking down the hall I passed a number of bedrooms with rows of cots till I came to a pair of double doors guarded by some more turrets. I picked up a rock and chucked it in front of their sightlines, the turrets flipped out and shot at the flying object, vaporising it before it reached the floor. I slipped into S.A.T.S. and targeted them, time corrected itself and one exploded, alerting the remaining one, it swung around and started shooting at me, a bullet sliced my shoulder pauldron. I ducked back and checked, but thankfully didn’t find any blood this time. Reloading Light, I waited for the robot to stop before I slid out, aimed and fired.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

The turret sparked and died.

I reloaded Light, got up and stepped over to the door, Special Event Suite. Checking the knob I found it was locked and probably barred from the inside.

“You must be the Headquarters,” I muttered to myself, knocking on the worn wood, “Is anypony in there?”

No answer.

“Colonel Basken sent me to find Captain Fafnira, is anypony in there?”

Again, no answer. I reached into my saddle bag and pulled out a grenade from earlier. Placing it carefully on the floor, my magic hooked on the pin before I carefully backed up around the corner for safety.

“It can’t be this easy,” I muttered, covering my ears with my hooves, I yanked the pin free.

KA-BOOM!

The explosion rocked the walls, kicking up a cloud of ash and debris and it took a while for everything to settle. I got up and glanced around the corner, the walls were blackened and charred and the doors hung open on their old hinges.

“Well,” I muttered, “It was that easy.”

The room inside was partially illuminated by a couple of old pop vending machines with flickering screens advertising their ancient products to the hotel’s long dead visitors. Lining the walls were probably a hundred wood and metal crates full of food, drinking water and other such useful supplies. Enough for a small army. At the center was a long table with a map and some books. Plotting around carefully, I checked both vending machines for anything of value, but they were empty.

Checking the map I saw that it showed Rosedale and the surrounding Ashes and several places were marked in red ink, Pawnshop? Metro Station? Bank? Clothing Shop? Collapsed Tunnel? Office Building? and Energy Station? The office and tunnel were slashed out. My PipBuck pinged, my map had marked the approximate locations, except for the office building which was Orion Solutions. According to the map the closest location was the pawnshop, it was just a couple blocks away down the street.

I checked the crates for anything of use and found an environment suit repair kit, some healing potions in sealed thermoses marked by pink butterflies and red crosses for easy storage, a couple meals ready to eat and bottles of clean water and a dozen loaded magazines of red band 12 Gauge shells. Sitting down I cleared some space, placed my two shotguns on the table and got out my tool kit. The shotguns lifted an inch or so off the table and my magic slowly started to strip all of the parts. I examined each part individually, my repair assist helping me to select the better looking option for each. Once I had all of the needed parts, I started reassembling a shotgun, fitting the last piece in place and loading the box magazine with the red band 12 Gauge shells, twelve rounds. Loading the magazine and cocking the bolt back, I had a working combat shotgun.

I took out the repair kit, it had small gray patches of the same plastic-like material as my suit, a steel sewing needle and a small spool of black thread. Loading up my repair assist, I glanced down at my suit, unclasping the damaged armor plates, after applying my anesthetic spell I carefully removed the bullets, healed up the wounds and patched up my stable suit and environment suit, once I was done I strapped on fresh replacement armor plates.

I ate one of the MREs, a lukewarm oatmeal with strawberries, despite the lackluster quality of the meal, I felt a surge of energy and wholeness. As I was about to leave to go find Umeme, a loud rumbling outside the boarded up windows caught my attention. Quickly ducking under the table, a harsh white light shone through the gaps of the boards and bathed the room. A cricket scuttled in from the hallway, crossing the spotlight’s path.

SHLING!

Like a swift breeze, the cricket’s body was sliced diagonally and its legs twitched as it slumped open spilling blood and innards. My breath caught in my throat, my hooves clutching my shotgun as the spotlight slowly glanced around, after what felt like an agonizing eternity the spotlight left and the room fell silent. Carefully getting up, I scrambled through the doors to find Umeme so we could find the soldiers, get the hell out of dodge and get back on track to finding Mom.

*** *** ***

I swiftly kicked out my hoof and the vent flew off its rusty screws, crashing on the floor below. I carefully squirmed my way out and glanced around the room, it was rather large with dozens of countertops, refrigerators and stoves like the Kitchens back in Stable Fifty-Two. Most of the room was buried in ash that was drifting in through the small high up windows and the door leading out was blocked by an overturned refrigerator acting as a quick barricade.

I looked around for a way to climb down when I noticed a dark shape huddled beside a fridge in the corner.

BLAM!

Suddenly a gunshot rang out and a bullet struck the wall beside me. I lost my footing and tumbled hard into an ash pile.

“Wait! Wait!” I shouted, stumbling up and getting into cover when I noticed my attacker, “Umeme!?”

He looked up at me, “Ozzy?”

I carefully hurried over to him, there was a huge gash in his suit’s armor plate reaching down through his trousers, deep into his left hindleg spilling blood into the ashes on the floor, “What happened?”

“The man-COUGH-ticore,” He grinned and coughed in pain, “it left me a love swipe before my grenades could scare it off.”

“Let me check your leg,” he scooted a bit so I could start my work, my anesthetic spell working on his nerves, allowing him to relax.

“I promised Saluem that I’d keep an eye on you,” I muttered, carefully moving the torn flesh around and saw his leg bone poking through his blood deep inside.

I took out a healing potion and poured in the pink liquid, before focusing my healing spell on the wound and new flesh slowly started to rise like baking bread and stitch itself in with the existing flesh till what was left was a thin pale line in his coat. I took out an MRE for him to eat, he seemed better when he finished.

“Thank you,” Umeme muttered quietly, examining my work, “Did you find anything?”

“I know where the Old Guard might be,” he glanced up at me, I pulled up my PipBuck’s map and showed him, “I found a map in their headquarters detailing possible Ashbourne locations, that office building was one of them and there’s another one in a pawnshop just down the street.”

He nodded and asked if there was anything else, I showed him my new combat shotgun and the red band shells, he whistled appreciatively and explained that they were incendiary.

Learning this, my lips curled into a shifty grin.

*** *** ***

We were outside the Nifty Fifty’s Thrifty pawnshop and it looked like the Old Guard had been correct about it being an Ashbourne base, the windows of the three story tall brick and wood siding building were boarded up and reinforced with weathered rusty sheet steel.

The problem was that the alleyways and streets outside were full of feral dogs all sulking about looking for any food, a couple were ripping an Ashbourne corpse apart to get at the bloody meat within its shredded environment armor. Umeme had suggested we find a better way around and I pointed out a collapsed radio tower resting on the roof of a tall home that reached the pawnshop. So now we were trying to break into the home, but when Umeme started to pick the lock an ancient alarm set off, blaring into The Ashes alerting every dog in hearing range.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

My combat shotgun sprayed its fiery lead buckshot at a feral dog’s neck, burning away its patchy fur and barbecuing its flesh, the mongrel gave a gurgling growl before it collapsed in the ash piled up by the wall. I quickly wheeled around and blasted twice into another mongrel scrambling through the hole under the fence.

“Almost got it!” Umeme shouted back trying to concentrate, his bobby pins twisting expertly in the lock.

A dog jumped at me, I lined up the shot and pulled the trigger… only for nothing to happen. I quickly swung my shotgun’s buttstock into the mongrel’s neck using its momentum to slam it into an ash pile, slipping into S.A.T.S. I pulled out Light and fired a few rounds into its guts, killing it.

“Anytime now would be perfect-” I shouted, getting up and slamming in a fresh magazine and blasting at a couple more snarling dogs “-but you know, no rush!”

“Almost… almost… got it!” Umeme shouted victoriously, swinging open the door and jumping inside.

I jumped in after him, but just before we slammed the door closed, a mongrel’s head slammed snarling through the gap. I quickly jabbed my shotgun’s smoking muzzle into its eye socket making it pull back barking in pain. Umeme quickly slammed the door shut and the locks slid into place with a hiss.

“Well,” Umeme chuckled to me, “At least we’re safer.”

The house was in surprisingly good condition, especially considering The Ashes outside, all of the windows were boarded up with metal plates. We stood in a small kitchen with a doorway to a dining room with a small table with a couple chairs and a narrow hallway to another small room with a couple stuffed chairs by an old radio playing some scratchy static. Another small sphere robot hovered about cleaning up the scant amount of dust allowed to accumulate.

“Greetings, sirs,” the sphere chirped at us politely, “I’m sorry, but the Fiddles are quite busy right now, I’m going to have to ask you two to vacate the premises or I will be forced to call for law enforcement.”

“The Fiddles?” I asked, glancing at the number of old framed photographs of a family on the walls.

One photo caught my eye, the mare was in a white dress with a bouquet of flowers and the stallion was in a suit, both stood in front of a crowd dressed in formal wear in front of a massive crescent waterfall with lots of rainbows, Pottis and Pozzelle Fiddle’s Wedding at Neighagra Falls. What caught my eye was the familiar stallion standing between the couple. He had a short fiery gold mane, I thought back to where I’d seen him, but the sphere caught my attention.

“We’re from the office,” I told the cleaning sphere, “Dr Orion had an important message for Mrs Fiddle, to be delivered face to face.”

The sphere took several tense moments before it chirped, “Alright then, sirs, Mrs Fiddle is upstairs with her son, Pippy, good day, sirs.”

Umeme and I silently stepped up a creaky staircase to a bedroom on the second floor, my friend leaned close and whispered, “How did you know what to say?”

“The office building,” I answered, “The president was called Fiddle, I took a chance and it paid off.”

“Clever,” Umeme whinnied quietly.

The bedroom looked to be made up for a young colt, with old faded posters on the walls showed a pair of old superheroines, one a unicorn with a bob cut dazzling jet black mane wearing a stunning dark green dress with a triple barreled revolver, and a graceful fencing rapier in dazzling white magic. The other a pegasus wearing a long black trench coat with a silver scarf and a black fedora covering her face, and wielding an old fashioned looking light automatic rifle in her hooves. Both were lighting up the shadowy baddies surrounding the dynamic duo with a ghostly looking earth pony stallion wearing old fashioned fancy clothing behind them.

Stellar Pearl and Amethyst Delight as

The Silver Bullet and the Mysterious Mistress in

The Lair of the Ghostly Baron of Old Buhrvaria

Guest starring Kristoff von Waltz

The poster advertised that the movie was supposed to release across Equestria the month after the Last Day. I felt a little bad for the colt, excitedly waiting for his heroes to save the day. On a bookshelf in the corner by the small bed were some colorful letter blocks arranged to spell, Pippy.

I followed Umeme as we continued up to the attic, pushing open the door we found the small attic was covered in ashes and a headless Old Guard corpse leaning against a window sill with a zebra rifle in their armored hooves beside the collapsed radio tower that spawned the street, resting on a couple streetlights and an advertisement showing off stuff that the pawnshop sold (Fast Cash, Stereos, Colored TVs, Computers, Power tools, Kitchen supplies, and so much much more, all at reasonable prices!) to the flat roof of the pawnshop. The rusty metal and broken wires and cables dangled and swayed in the wind over thirty feet above the dog riddled streets. Umeme quickly inspected the zebra rifle and slung it over his shoulder with his broken one and handed me back my hunting rifle.

“I might be able to repair your rifle with that new one’s parts,” I offered.

“No need,” he explained, showing me the different rifles, “They have different enchantments worked into the metal. I’ve been told that you could seriously damage the weapon if you mix up parts that aren’t prepared beforehand.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” I said, zebra weapons were so different compared to ours.

“Right then,” Umeme said, placing a testing hoof on the makeshift bridge, the steel held… for now, “I’ll go first.”

Quickly remembering the collapsed bridge… and the fire escape I suggested that we find a safer way, but we didn’t see any, so Umeme started across. He slowly inched across, careful to not fall… and be ripped apart by the feral dogs. It was a long time before he was across, he got up on the roof and waved me across.

I carefully got down on the tower and slowly inched across, keeping my eye focused on Umeme… not looking down… not thinking about the feral dogs below me… waiting to rip my body- Dammit… I squeezed my eye shut before inching forward again. It felt like an eternity before my hooves bumped into something, looking up I had made it. I scrambled up, straightening my suit and Umeme chuckled to himself as he tried to unlock a door leading down. After a few moments, the door unlocked and we entered, closing out The Ashes behind us.

*** *** ***

Nifty Fifty’s Thrifty was in terrible shape, the ceiling lights flickered and sparked ghostly and ash drifted in through cracks. We held our guns at the ready as we climbed down the stairs to the ground floor, a cricket scuttled into another room. Umeme glanced inside and after he said it was clear.

The trapezoidal room had rows and rows of glass display cabinets that once showed off their ancient contents, the walls were decorated by posters and artworks and a couple vending machines sat in the corner by the wall displaying overpriced pop and cigarettes for sale, but now most of the cabinets had been looted long ago, the posters and artworks were disfigured with ancient graffiti, the vending machines were smashed into and looted, and the room was covered in the bloody corpses of dozens of Ashbourne and Old Guard.

“Holy shit,” I breathed, looking around the carnage.

“Look around,” Umeme said, checking everything.

I followed suit, but it was very scant finding. I pulled out a number of old newspapers all in broken frames. The picture on the front page showed a massive broken statue of a zebra stallion wearing lorica segmentata armor and holding an outstretched sword. Beside the statue was a tall flagpole with a large battle ragged flag: a white rampant zebra in a golden wreath in the canton on the hoist side and thirteen arrows went along the purple field, twelve black and one gold in the middle. The monument was in front of a massive burning city.

Equestria Daily

Struggle for the Crownlands

After the death of the dragon Brimstone over the skies of Hoofington and the subsequent routing of the zebra legions at the combined efforts of the Old Guard of Baltimare, the Royal Valkyrja of the Haagenheim Protectorate, and the Volunteer Corps of the Crystal Empire, the Caesar’s forces have been pushed back hundreds of miles to the border city of Mondawmin.

Taking the city with the aid of the Eternal dragon, Sahloknir, the combined forces have pushed the zebra legions even further back to the city of Rhodes just fifty miles west of the zebra capital of Roam, the deepest any Equestrian force has ever reached in the war’s long torrent history.

In desperation, the Caesar is reported to have called for…

The story dominated the page and pushed other stories to the side like Protests in Detrot heat up as mining production increases and Reconstruction of Foaledo begins amidst suspected corruption and Residents riot as Ministry of Peace evacuation efforts continue in New Horsesleans.

“Hey, Umeme,” I asked, showing him the newspaper, “Have you ever heard of Rhodes?”

He stared at the newspaper for a long time before he admitted with shaky breath, “Y-yes, my mother told me of her time in that place. Rhodes was our second greatest city, behind Roam itself. It’s said that almost a hundred million soldiers and civilian militants died in the defense of the city and the Crownlands for years. Then the bombs were dropped, the sky was sealed, and the War was over.”

“What happened to it?”

“There’s a great many stories and legends, some say that the armies fighting over the city died when the Caesar called upon Gurzil and his holy light purged the city of life. The spirits of those slaughtered soaked into the earth and the city is said to be haunted to this day, the Praetorian Order doesn’t even dare enter.”

“Do you believe that?”

“The city is highly irradiated, one of the few of our cities that are in fact, something had to have caused that, either a megaspell or Gurzil’s wrath.”

“Who’s Gurzil?” I asked.

“The two headed minotaur god of war and peace,” Umeme alberated, when I gave him a confused look, “You know, a balance of chaos and order. If there’s too much chaos the earth will fall into a quagmire like it is now, but if there’s too much order the earth will stagnate and life will die out.”

“Wait, you have gods?” I asked a little more confused, “Then what’re the spirits?”

“The spirits predate the official gods of Roam, you see back in Elysium there were thousands of nameless spirits in all things, but each tribe has a specific god that they usually honor above the others. My mother’s tribe honors Gurzil, for example.”

I felt slightly more confused at that.

*** *** ***

After another few minutes I was in an upper room full of old radios softly emitting garbled static when Umeme called me into a side room on the first floor that was full of empty gun racks and looted cabinets, Umeme was holding a long barreled rifle with a strange looking S curved stock.

“What is that?” I asked, taking the rifle and looking it over, it was very heavy, probably fifteen pounds, the hexagonal barrel maybe just under thirty inches long, the bolt handle was curved down out of the way and the rear sights were circle apertures.

“I’ve heard of these guns, it’s a Somnambuli Jezail, they were used by an ancient pony tribe called the Somnambuli and were long range sniper rifles,” Umeme explained, admiring the ancient firearm, “It’s said that when we invaded a massive desert in southeastern Equestria called Somnambula the natives took to the mountain border and would pick us off when we marched through the narrow canyon roads and then disappear before our artillery would shatter open the area. I’ve heard that the Caesar was so impressed by their resilience that he had offered their princess a place in the Empire, but apparently she declined.”

I opened the chamber and found that its face was filled in making it useless.

*** *** ***

It was probably another half hour before Umeme called me over to the checkout counter, he pointed out a button hidden in a safe he unlocked. Pressing the button, the cigarette vending machine suddenly slid to the side revealing a door, opening it revealed an old staircase with spots of blood leading down to a basement with a dozen makeshift beds and cots, an old stove in the corner, a door under the stairs, and a doorway leading to a smaller room that had caved in and was buried in ash. A few overhead pipes leaking more murky toxic water onto the cement floor and dozens of stolen Baltimare supply crates lining the cinder block wall by a staircase in a narrow tunnel leading under the street.

“Look around,” Umeme said.

I checked the crates for anything, but they were empty. Disappointed, I glanced around at the small basement, wondering what had happened here. I noticed a few spots of blood on the floor leading to the stairway closet door. I got Umeme’s attention and motioned to the door, he nodded and held up his new rifle. I knocked on the door-

BLAM!

Suddenly a gunshot rang out from behind the door as a bullet hole ripped through the wood and struck an old pipe in the ceiling. Umeme was about to return fire but I stopped him.

“Listen, we’re not your enemies, we’re just trying to find survivors to help.”

“You won’t take me alive, Ashskins!” the occupant shouted briskly.

“We’re not Ashbourne,” I stated as calmly as possible, “My name’s Ozzy, Colonel Basken sent us.”

There was a long silence before a metal clicking came from inside. The door slowly opened slightly and the muzzle of a 12.7mm pistol held up in a griffon’s talons poked out. The griffon was a bit on the smaller side at just about my and Umeme’s height and they were dressed in an Old Guard environmental suit with slightly dented plate armor. They lowered their pistol and pulled up their modified gas mask revealing a face with muted beige feathers, her black beak had small beads of red blood dripping down the corner, staining the muted white feathers of her neck. She stared up at me with a pair of tan bloodshot eyes.

“You’re really not with the Ashbourne?” she asked in a rough, dry and heavily accented voice.

“No, Colonel Basken sent us to find Captain Fafnira and her company.”

“Thank the Egg,” she breathed in relief, holstering her pistol and offering me her hand, “Melskaya Valentinaeva Lyubov-COUGH!- Private Fi-First Class, call me Mel. How many did you bring?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Soldiers, you did bring more soldiers from the Wall… right?”

We shook our heads.

“Blyat-” She started before coughing heavily, blood spilling into her armored fist.

With Umeme’s help, we got the griffon off of the floor and over to a clean enough cot to lie down, as we carefully pulled off her dented chestplate, I noticed that her breathing was very shallow and was difficult for her, maybe because of the several inches of rusty steel shrapnel sticking out just below her rib cage and likely sliced through her innards. I heard Umeme gag and vomit behind me, I knelt down and got to work.

“What happened?” I asked, my anesthetic magic carefully touching the flesh around the shrapnel to examine it.

“Sukas-” she coughed more blood into her fist again, “-got us while we were resting up after attacking Se-COUGH! COUGH!-Seneca Station, they came after us at the Hotel, we fought them back here then-COUGH! COUGH!-then-COUGH! COUGH! COUGH! COUGH!” she doubled over in a coughing fit, fresh blood spilling out.

“Be careful,” I ordered her.

I didn’t know how deep the shrapnel went, but there would definitely be serious internal bleeding if she kept moving around.

“Sorry,” she grimaced, laying back, “The fighting attracted some manticores, there was chaos, I think an explosion happened-COUGH!-I ended up down here.”

“Do you know where your company could be?” I asked, carefully removing a piece of shrapnel a couple inches long from under her wing shoulder.

“Probably at the bank,” Mel grimaced through her teeth, “T-that was the next target, the Captain m-might be there.”

Okay, that was something at least, “Can you take us there?”

“Can you fix me?”

“I don’t really know griffon anatomy, but I should be able to get you to more proper care.”

Mel reached out her hand to shake my hoof, “Then by my honor, Ozzy, I will get you there.”

*** *** ***

The makeshift tunnel had led us into Rosedale’s utilities system, dozens and dozens of tunnels honeycombing under most of the ruined suburb. Since I had the flashlight, I took point, my combat shotgun ready for anything. We followed my PipBuck’s map and Mel’s directions through the tunnels till we came across a locked metal door.

Umeme got to work and with two bobby pins, the door hissed as it slid open and we were almost overwhelmed by the horrendous gaseous air spewing out of burst sewer pipes. Even with the mucky air being filtered, I very nearly vomited into my gas mask from the little stench that slipped through. Two centuries of filth, rotting corpses, garbage and other unmentionable detritus had only made the stagnant air even worse than The Ashes above.

“C’mon,” Mel said, carefully picking her way across the horrific sludge, Umeme and I followed.

We followed our guide through the tunnel for a couple of turns before we came to a T-section, Mel directed us to take the left tunnel and after rounding a corner, we came upon a collapse blocking the tunnel. We backtracked to the T-section and headed straight. We passed a sealed door that was buckled inward and after rounding a corner, we came on another sealed door. Umeme got out his bobby pins and his knife and got to work, but after three pins, Mel told him to stop before she climbed through a small concealed hatch in the wall and disappeared for a few tense moments before the sealed door slowly slid open. We stepped into a far more open tunnel with a pair of rusty steel tracks running along on the floor and a blue tile stripe about halfway up with the label Tepid Station pointed what my PipBuck told me was eastward to a massive cave-in of ash, concrete, earth and twisted rusty steel and sparking overhead lights ran along the ceiling beside rusty pipes that occasionally leaked black sludgy water.

“Where are we?” I asked our guide.

“These old metro tunnels used to be connected to Baltimare,” she explained, taking off her gas mask so her voice bounced about the tunnel, “but they were cut off during the First Emergence War and they haven’t exactly been in the best condition since. This tunnel leads to Marigold Station, that’s close to the bank.”

We followed the tunnels to the south for a while before we were stopped by a large rusty train car on the rusty tracks blocking most of the tunnel, Mel reached up to open the door and climb inside before helping us. The train car was littered in ancient skeletons, ponies, zebras and griffons, all slumped in the ruined seats lining the walls or on the floor.

“Be careful,” Mel said, taking the lead, “Never know what you’ll find in these tunnels.”

We followed the griffon through the car into a second and then a third before we came to the fourth train car that had collapsed in the middle offering just enough room to shimmy through. Mel tossed her saddle bag through the opening and climbed through after it, Umeme and I followed as Mel continued talking, “Cave-ins, explosive gas, animals that burrow in from upside, these lands are dangerous, best be on a swivel.”

We continued through the tunnel before Mel stopped us, ahead of us the tunnel curved west into another cave-in.

“Well, shit,” Mel muttered quietly, she looked at my map and decided on a different path, “This way.”

She tried to open a utility door, but it wasn’t budging so Umeme took a crack at it getting out his bobby pins and knife, he struggled for a while before an all too familiar low rumbling made my blood run cold.

“What was that?” Mel asked.

I pointed my flashlight back down the tunnel, nothing happened for a few cold moments before from the stagnant damp gloom the manticore slowly emerged, hunched over to crawl through the cramped tunnel.

“Yajtza!” Mel shouted, it seemed like a swear.

Its face was covered in ashy blood dripping out from a wound in its left eye and its tail was missing its barb. Its good eye glared into my soul before its roar rocked the tunnel’s curved walls causing dust and rubble to fall.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

Mel’s pistol roared back, hot fifty caliber lead slamming into the beast, only making it mad. It charged at us, I lifted my combat shotgun and fiery buckshot slammed into the now enraged beast. Mel and I ducked as it stumbled past us and slammed into some rubble, but its tail slammed into Mel, sweeping the griffon into the wall beside Umeme and she stumbled up weakly with the zebra’s help.

“Focus on the door!” I shouted at Umeme, slipping into the clarity of S.A.T.S. as the manticore got up and roared at me.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

My combat shotgun unloaded at the large pipes running along the curved ceiling, rancid blackened sewage spurted out, spraying the manticore. The beast roared in frustration, jumping around crushing debris, desperately trying to swipe the black gunk out of its face.

“OZZY!” Mel shouted as the door slid open.

I jumped out of the way and ran to the door, the manticore roared and pounced at me, a claw swiping at my covered tail just before the door slid shut. I collapsed on top of Umeme and he wrapped his arms around me. I looked up into his beautiful green eyes and I wrapped my arms around and hugged him tightly.

“Well, that was fun,” Mel chuckled, getting our attention, “Not to interrupt you two, but nightlight’s wasting, boys.”

We got up and made our way down the hallway to a door, Umeme unlocked it and we entered, the room was small and full of old pipes and some old machinery clunking away in solitude.

Mel led us through another door and hallway to a second room full of lockers and benches and a collapsed staircase leading topside. The lockers were all empty save for an old pornographic magazine featuring a kneeling female griffon drenched in the jizz of a dozen pony and zebra stallions circling her called Golden Nest. Sneaking the magazine into my saddle bag for later, we continued down a dry hallway with a couple turns and came upon a door that was jammed open about halfway off the grated floor by heavy steel beams welded into place with just enough room for a pony to crawl through.

Umeme pushed his rifle and saddle bags through before he slipped inside, when he said it was clear Mel and I followed. The room inside was large with dozens of old computer machinery lining the walls, a few of them were somehow still operating, lights blinking and tape reels spinning. Wires and cables lined the tile floor to the tall cylindrical chamber sectioned off by old reinforced windows in the center, glancing inside I saw that the chamber dropped down for dozens of feet before disappearing in cloudy darkness, looking up the chamber had a massive bladed fan a dozen feet across before it opened up to The Ashes dozens of feet up.

“What is this?” Umeme asked, looking through the window.

“Air filtration,” Mel explained, stepping over to a terminal in the wall beside a barred door, “You’ll find rooms like this in the metro systems across the North Shore, especially down in the Tsardom.”

“What are they for?” I asked.

“Filtering air, it’s kind of in the name,” the griffon explained, before the door clicked and swung open and she lead us through the tunnels, “Cities across the Tsardom converted their metro tunnels into massive stables that could hold tens of thousands during the Great War, I’m from Sokolov Bay and many of our stations are still used as towns and settlements and I’ve heard stories that some of Stalliongrad’s stations like Polis are even more impressive even after two hundred years.”

We came to a T-section, the right hallway was caved-in so we went left and entered another collapsed metro tunnel with a white tile stripe and the words Marigold Station headed west. We followed the tracks for a while before we heard gunshots, picking up our pace till we came across a number of sandbags and barricades leading up to a large metal wall blocking the station with a small door in the center.

Mel banged on the door, “Anyone in there?”

A slit in the door opened and a pony with a gun peered through, “Password.”

“Oswyk, it’s me, open the fucking door!” Mel shouted.

“Mel?” they asked and the slit closed before the door slowly opened.

As we stepped through, I felt a sharp sting and my body collapsed as the world went dark.

*** *** ***

“What’s the big idea!” I heard Umeme shout in the soupy distance.

“He could’ve been Ashborne!” another voice shouted back.

When I came too, I found myself in a makeshift hospital, dozens of injured soldiers lined the walls of a quartered off stretch of hallway while doctors in white bird masks moved around helping those they could as best they could. Umeme and Mel were shouting at a soldier holding a rifle outside the doorway. A doctor pony came over and sat beside me preparing a potion.

“What happened?” I asked, leaning up on my elbow.

“Careful,” he said, voice muffled by the mask, “You got hit by manticore venom and your body had an allergic reaction.”

“Manticore venom?” I asked, “Those fucking things use venom too?!”

“Yes, they use it to paralyze their prey to eat later, it can be extracted from the venom sack in their tail and we use it to capture raiders. But an allergic reaction isn’t unheard of and can easily prove deadly if not quickly counter-acted with antivenom or specialized healing potions.”

“Ozzy,” Umeme came up and wrapped his arms around me, “Thank the spirits you’re alright.”

“How long was I out?” I asked, Mel came up.

“Just a few minutes,” Mel answered.

When the doctor cleared me, we were taken to the commanding officer. The station’s condition was much like the base in the Rosedale Hotel and the pawnshop, cleared of ashes and rubble and heavily reinforced by the Old Guard and close to two hundred soldiers of all types preparing themselves for battle by cleaning their guns or checking over supply crates. Mel led us to some rooms in the back of the station, inside one was a zebra with light blue horizontal stripes wearing a suit of combat armor over his environmental suit, he was overlooking a map of Rosedale with small colored pieces of glass detailing troop placements.

“First Sergeant Henlyus,” Mel saluted the older taller zebra, who saluted back, “The Colonel sent these two mercs from the Wall.”

“Really?” The zebra glanced down at Umeme and I with a pair of tired light blue eyes, “What news from Colonel Basken? Where are the reinforcements?”

“None, sir, we-”

“Sir?” the zebra asked sternly, “Listen here, merc, I’m not a sir, I work for a living, got it?”

“Sorry, si-Sergeant,” I quickly corrected before continuing, “The Colonel sent us to find out what happened to Captain Fafnira and your company.”

“The Captain is topside leading the rest of the company to the south of the Ashbourne outpost we’re trying to take, if you’re really here by the Colonel’s request then help us in our mission and I’ll personally make sure that you’re both paid well.”

Umeme and I exchanged looks before we nodded.

Level Up: Trait Acquired: Judged: You have felt the fire of the Soul of Judgement… and were deemed Innocent at the cost of your eye and the left side of your face. You are now 15% less accurate at long to extreme range even with the help of your Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell.

Skill Note: Guns: 50%, Medicine: 40%