Fallout Equestria: All That Remains

Chapter 7: What We Hold Dear
“You reap what you sow.”

CRACK

The striped mare fell to the dirt in front of me as a stream of blood began to trickle to the ground from her nose. She hardly made a sound as she fell; only sniffing roughly to pull some of the blood back into her body. Once again, she rose casually, looking over to me with regret as I wound up for another strike. My hoof flew into her eye, throwing Seer back into the dust and ash again while the others watched on in shock.

Charmer pulled the still form of Little Doc into her chest, not seeming to care that her belly was drenched in the filly’s cooling blood. The green coated pony never said a word in protest as I continued to beat Seer, her eyes locked on the two of us despite seeming dead and empty. Felix was following us with each strike, stepping forward behind me each time I had to get closer for a strong hit.

“Shayle! Stop, she didn’t know!” he yelled before grabbing my tail to try and pull me back.

I whipped my tail out of his grip and shooed him away with it, never taking my eyes off of Seer. “Yes she did, she knew something was up,” I growled before slamming a hoof down on the mare’s chest, finally getting a grunt of pain out of her. “And she’s going to tell me why!”

“She won’t if you keep hitting her!” Felix yelled again, this time jumping on my back and trying to pull me down to the ground. I didn’t understand why he cared. Seer had obviously lied to us from the beginning, and I think she knew Xion before that day. I couldn’t prove it, but he already knew her name, and none of ours.

I ignored the colt pulling on my neck and drove my hoof into Seer’s chest again, ignoring the blood that sprayed from her mouth as I realized I had just stomped on her wound from the day before. Noticing that, I stomped on the same spot again, and another splash of blood stained the dirt under her jaw.

“Please…wait,” she coughed.

“Why?” I growled again, raising my hoof for another strike.

“Let me explain,” she begged weakly, her eyes turning up to me in pain.

“Fine, but no more lies!” I snapped, placing my hoof down hard beside her, just to make sure she knew what would happen if I thought she was tricking me again.

The mare painfully lifted herself from the dirt, coughing roughly with every movement. “I’m sorry about your friend,” she told us regretfully, waving a hoof lightly at Doc’s cold body. “But I wasn’t allowed to stop it.”

“You knew it would happen?” I was going to kick her again, right in the jaw this time.

“Yes, but he was going to kill all of us if I warned you.” Seer leaned away from me slightly and winced at the effort. “He was testing you.”

“Why?”

“To see who you’re loyal to.” Seer frowned as she explained, still trying to keep just out of my reach. “Ponies or Zebras, he wanted to know which side you’re on. You came rushing to Shanty so fast he thought you had betrayed Caesar.”

My eyes widened as I backed away slightly, a hurt look crossing my face. “How…why…what would make him think that? We were just checking to see if they were okay!” I would never betray the one who had done so much for us! He gave me and Felix a home, he gave us safety from the Wasteland, and above all he was the one who ensured we lived on after the war. True, he didn’t do any of that directly, but he was our leader, the one who made sure all of it was possible at all.

“That was why. He thought you were pony sympathizers,” she told me with an ‘isn’t it obvious?’ tone.

“Why didn’t you tell him it wasn’t true?”

“Because I didn’t know myself. I’ve only known you for two days Shayle, I don’t know anything about you…or I didn’t.” She frowned as she said the last part, looking away for a moment.

“So what did choosing someone to die prove?” I asked venomously.

“It would have proven what you hold sacred. If you’d chosen one of the ponies, he would have known you are devoted to Caesar. If you chose me or Felix, he probably would have shot you for treason instead.”

My blood ran cold and knocked me to my haunches. I was a single word from death only minutes before, and I had never known it. I had even been considering telling Xion to kill Seer, I hated her so much, but if I had then that…that…bastard, would have killed me. I never had an actual choice, there were only two options, and neither of them was right.

“Why would he even give me Felix as an option then? He had to know I would never even think of doing that!” I said, panicked.

“I don’t know Shayle. Xion…he isn’t exactly all there,” Seer replied with a shake of her head. “None of them are.”

“But, they’re soldiers! They must be reasonable?” I pointed out.

“No, not in these days,” Seer told me matter-of-factly. “Maybe they were before, I don’t know, but soldiers like them, they don’t have issues doing things that a zebra with morals would question.”

I actually believed her this time. Everything I’d seen in Shanty proved what she told me, and there was no doubt in my mind that something was wrong with every one of those four zebras. They burned down a town, watched the survivors as they suffered through every second of grief and fear, and they smiled the entire time.

“So, they’ll do anything?” I asked fearfully, not really sure if I wanted to know that answer.

“As long as it doesn’t hurt the Remnant, yes.”

I looked over to Doc’s blood soaked corpse and a sense of dread swept over my body. If they were testing me, what did I just prove about myself by choosing to keep everyone alive? Had I shown loyalty to Caesar, or did Xion’s twisted mind somehow see me as a traitor now? I doubted it did, because according to Seer I would probably be dead if he thought that about me, but the thought still lingered in my mind.

“Shayle?” Charmer finally spoke up after realizing I was staring at Doc; I don’t know how long I had. “If you’re done…can we do a funeral? Please?”

I turned my gaze away from the dead filly, looking up to Charmer’s dead eye as she stared at me blankly. I slowly nodded once my mind processed what she had asked, before thinking of something else. “Do you know where any other bodies are? We should bury them too.”

Charmer stared at me for a few seconds without reacting. “No, I never saw any,” she told me flatly.

I nodded and looked around, not sure where she planned to do a funeral. “If you want, go find a place to bury her. I’ll look for others,” I told her glumly. I didn’t expect to find anyone else, but maybe their bodies were mixed in with their toppled houses.

She didn’t respond. The mare slowly stood up and placed Doc across her back, walking out toward the highway without saying a word to anyone. Felix frowned up to me and followed after her, his own walk no more lively than Charmer’s.

Only me and Seer were left standing by the rubble of what was once Shanty’s town hall, but as far as I was concerned the other mare wasn’t even alive anymore. I turned away from the sight of Felix, Charmer and Doc to begin looking, making sure to avoid eye contact with Seer.

“Do you want any help?” she asked quietly from behind me, sounding almost sorry for what had happened.

I pretended not to hear her and walked around to the other side of the rubble.

* * *

I could only find a few bodies, but I knew that it wasn’t everyone who had lived in Shanty. I found a single guard first, I could only tell by the heavy armor he wore and the charred gun lying by the place where he fell before burning. He had holed up in Doc’s old clinic for his final stand, and even with his burned body I could see countless holes torn through him. I couldn’t imagine how Doc made it out of the clinic with a gunfight going on in the door, but it didn’t much matter anymore.

After that I checked Load’s old store, and found three more corpses. The shack hadn’t been burned like the others, but was instead blown into shards of metal by what must have been the rocket carried by the Scorpions. Load’s body was torn apart behind where the store had stood, peppered by shrapnel to the point that he was barely recognizable. Not far from him were two more bodies. The mayor looked like he had been sitting down when he died, with a single bullet hole through his head and cuts from shrapnel after the explosion from the store. I didn’t know what that meant, but he seemed to have the cleanest death so far. As I started to pick him up, I saw a blood coated hoof sticking out from behind a nearby rock. I gently placed the mayor back into the dirt, deciding to gather the other body as well so I didn’t forget to bring it over.

When I first rounded the rock, I jumped back in surprise as a pair of light red eyes met me, staring straight up at my own. I thought the pony was alive for a second, until I saw the rest of the body. At least seven holes were punched through his chest, each one stained with blood and dust, with another marring his face to the point he didn’t even look like a pony anymore. He was leaned sideways into the rock, his gun resting on the ground beside him while his hooves sat gently in his lap. It looked like he just gave up on fighting, as if he knew he was going to die. I frowned and moved to pick the buck up, and froze when I finally saw his cutiemark; a single grey ‘X’.

“Strike…” I mumbled softly, stepping back again at the realization. I just stared at him, silently mourning even before the funeral. I don’t know what it was about seeing him dead like that, but it made my mind wander through every moment we had spent together. From him shooting off the tip of my ear, to when he saved me from the snake on Charmer’s job, to him helping me buy my first gun from Load; something that was even more…special, after what Charmer told me. I wondered if he would still be mad at me for leaving Shanty like I did, and if he would have blamed me and Felix for what happened. I hoped that he wouldn’t, but that didn’t stop me for blaming myself. He had helped both of us so much, and when we left he was so angry, as if he had wanted us to stick around and just settle down in Shanty. But now he was dead, and we were the reason. I was the reason.

My eyes drifted to his hooves, and I slowly leaned down to pick up a small string from between them. I hadn’t noticed it before, probably because the blood had a strange way of distracting me from anything else. What looked like a string ended up being a little necklace, something I had never seen Strike wearing. At the bottom was a pair of rather small fangs with a rusty metal ring in the center. It didn’t look like anything Strike would have worn, it didn’t seem like his kind of thing. Maybe Charmer would wear it, but…

I quickly put the necklace in my bag. I don’t know why I did, probably because with everything Charmer had gone through already, and that she was going to learn that her buck was dead to once I got him down to the road, she didn’t need to know about the necklace. I would give it to her later, once she’d had time to grieve and move on, if that was even possible.

Barely able to hold back my own tears, I lifted Strike onto my back and solemnly made my way back to the road.

* * *

I had expected a scene of tears and screaming when I brought Strike’s body to the burial site, completely convinced that Charmer would collapse in sadness at the sight of her dead coltfriend. Instead, she remained just as lifeless as she had in the minutes after Doc’s death, barely moving a muscle as she watched me place the body beside the filly’s. I could never imagine how she felt right then, as she saw the bodies of everyone she knew and loved being lined up beside the road at the same time. I hoped that I would never have to know that feeling.

Felix sat nearby her, not trying to comfort her. I wanted to hug her and tell her it was okay, but that would be a lie I could never tell. I could have told her that they went to a better place, which would be true, but I doubted it would help her. So I walked back to get the mayor’s body to add into the lineup, unable to think of any way to comfort the mare as her life continued to turn to ash around her.

When I finally had each body lined up beside each other, Seer trotted up to the other side of the line, keeping distance from me and glancing toward me every few seconds. Her left eye had almost swollen entirely shut, leaving her only a sliver to look through on that side. Her nose and mouth weren’t bleeding anymore either, but small stains could be seen on the white coat of her muzzle. To my surprise, she slowly trotted to the first body, Load, and knelt down beside him. She muttered something over the pony’s devastated body, and carefully kissed his burned forehead. As creepy as it was, I didn’t feel the need to stop her, there didn’t seem to be any harm done. She passed down the line slowly, stopping to render each body the same respect until she reached Doc. The mare froze and looked over to me for a few seconds, as if she expected me to jump on her if she moved again. Her eyes briefly drifted to Charmer before she finally knelt down and performed the strange ceremony for the dead filly.

After she finished, Seer quickly backed away from us and looked down the line of the dead. “I’ll try to find a shovel,” she murmured, just loud enough for us to hear before quickly turning and leaving us alone again. I think that beating her for a while somehow knocked something loose under that beaded mane.

Digging the graves took quite a while, even with the shovel that Seer had found. We only had the one, and she insisted on being the one to dig, no matter how many times Felix and I offered to help. It may seem crazy that I wanted to help her, and I didn’t. I wanted to give the ponies of Shanty the burial they deserved, and if that meant helping Seer, so be it. I ended up using my hooves to dig, no matter how slow it was.

Moving most of the bodies wasn’t too hard either. Me and Seer took care of that part, being the only two in a condition to do so at all. Felix was too small to help lift the bodies, and Charmer still hadn’t said a word or moved a muscle since I brought Strike over to the highway. Every minute that went on she seemed to be getting worse, and I was starting to get worried that she’d never want to leave that spot. I didn’t blame her at all.

Once Doc was finally in her grave along with the others, Seer and I stepped to the side of Felix and Charmer, looking over the bodies again. I don’t know why, but seeing them all in the graves like that hit me harder than when they were collapsed with the town, or leaning against a rock behind Load’s shop. I didn’t realize it until right then, but somewhere deep down I had convinced myself that they weren’t really dead, or that they could magically jump up and act like nothing happened. In the graves though, that is when the realization that they were gone truly hit me.

I looked to the others to make sure I wasn’t the only one, and was slightly relieved that Felix had started to break as well. Charmer had stood up to look over the bodies, but the same lifeless expression lingered over her face. This couldn’t have been her first funeral, not in the Wasteland. I’d only been out in it a few days and had seen more death than in my entire life before that point, and I shuddered to imagine how much she and Seer must have seen. But I guess everyone has their limits, and Charmer had finally reached hers at the sight of Doc and Strike.

So we all stood there, looking at the graves for Caesar knows how long. Nobody said a word, the silence only being broken once or twice by distant gunfire. As the light from the cloud-shielded sun began to dim, Seer slowly lifted the shovel from the dirt beside her. I didn’t know if I was ready to bury them all yet, but it was probably safest to do it before night. I stepped forward with the mare, only to be stopped by Charmer’s voice.

“When I first showed up in Shanty, with my Momma,” she began quietly, her gaze locked on the mayor’s body. “Merry Scroll told her it was no place fit for a filly my age. He said we should keep goin’, but Momma said no. She bet him that if I could get a job in town before her, we would stay; if not we would leave. He of course agreed, but he didn’t know that I already knew how to play flute. He had a shack built for us three days later.”

I didn’t understand what she was doing at first, but it still stopped us from burying the bodies as long as she spoke. It only took a few seconds after that for me to figure it out though, and I quietly stepped back to the line and looked at each body in order.

“Load was like Grandpa, always offerin’ to help Momma with her chores.” Charmer sat down as she spoke, and for a second I thought I saw some life coming back to her face. “Later I learned that he just wanted under her tail, but he was still good to me even after she turned him down.” The corner of her eyes began to water slowly, and I was left again to wonder why she was doing that to herself. “He used to take me out behind the hills and show me how to use any new guns he scavenged. Momma hated it so much.”

The mare looked to the next body, and a small grin broke the corner of her mouth for a second. “Bullwhip was my first buck after Momma died. He was always nice, and even let me sneak a few bullets out of his bags from time to time for shootin’ practice. After a few months with him, Strike came to town on a caravan. Bullwhip tried to fight him over a bottle a’ whiskey, and Strike whipped him.” She actually chuckled, something I thought would be impossible for her at the time. Sure, it was more of a sobbing chuckle, but it was still there. “After that, I was in bed with him before Bullwhip could stand up.”

My cheeks burned as I quickly looked away, not sure why that was appropriate for her to bring up at a funeral, especially with Felix around. The mare froze as her head turned to the next body, and any momentary happiness she had gained from the stories about her younger life was gone. “Strike…he was the best thing that ever happened to me.” The mare sniffled as she looked over the body, and suddenly I was even more glad I hadn’t shown her the necklace he had been holding when he died. “Came back every few months with the caravan, and one day he decided to settle down here. He protected me, but still let me fight for myself if I could handle it. He wasn’t exactly nice, but he was always kind to me, and never did anythin’ to hurt me if he could help it.” Her voice started to crack as she spoke, and I knew that she’d brought herself back to the edge. At least she was talking this time, instead of acting like she was already dead. “Bastard courted me for two years without proposin’, but those were the best two years of my life.”

Finally, her gaze reached Doc’s resting body, and the mare broke completely. “Doc…her Momma was the town doctor since I showed up. When she was born, we were all so happy to have her. She was the sweetest thing.” The mare shook her head briefly before looking back up to the body. “Her Momma died when she was only five, and all of us pitched in to help her grow up. The day she got her cutiemark, Neishka had been in a pissy mood and bit my hoof. I ran up to the clinic to find Little Doc studyin’ her Momma’s notes. We never really had any emergencies around here, so she’d never done much medical work before.” Thankfully, Charmer chuckled again between her sobs. “I thought I was gonna die with that filly workin’ on me. But a few hours later I was all fixed, and that little girl was bouncin’ around like a Bloatsprite hollerin’ about her new cutiemark.”

I grinned a little at that, because I instantly pictured Felix the day his glyph showed up. He had done the same thing, jumping around my room in joy to show off his glyph as I congratulated him and tried to calm him down. That was when I realized why Charmer had told all those stories about the townsponies. She was remembering the good times with them, the times that made her happy rather than focus on the sadness. And it was contagious. I could have never pictured myself smiling at a funeral, but there I was, sitting with a grin on my face as Charmer just tried to pull herself out of the darkness.

* * *

I took the first guard shift of the night, deciding that Seer would need at least some time to recover and possibly let her eye open again so that she could see better in the dark. We were the only two who were going to take a shift, giving Charmer time to rest after what had happened, and Felix couldn’t shoot anyways. I hoped that nothing would happen during the night; we didn’t have any more medical supplies if somebody got hurt, and I was the only one that was actually fully capable at the time. I didn’t know how well Seer could do in a fight after what I’d done to her, and I didn’t expect Charmer to be up to fighting either, plus we only had my pistol and Seer’s rifle.

As I rounded the rubble again I glanced over to the tarp where the others were sleeping; Doc’s hiding spot after the attack. There wasn’t much space in there, but it was just enough for three of us to get inside and rest if we didn’t mind being cramped. I turned my eyes back out to the Wasteland, barely able to see beyond the edge of town in the darkness of the night. The clouds must have been thicker than usual, because it was one of the darker nights I’d seen in my life. Maybe the ash from the fire somehow made it darker.

I didn’t know how long I had been out on guard, but it was getting harder and harder to stay awake even walking around. That was around the time I realized we had no way to tell what time it was, so I couldn’t wake up Seer for her shift at the right time. Wonderful. I could always wake her up early, or late, or whenever I was about to fall asleep, but I didn’t know if she had enough time for the swelling in her eye to go down. If it was hard for me to see with both eyes, I was worried that she might not be able to see a threat approaching in the night until it was too late.

“You look tired,” a soft voice called behind me. I spun around with my pistol at the ready to find Seer staring at me from just outside the tarp. “Go get some sleep.” Her eye didn’t look like it had healed very much, but it was open a little wider than it had been at the funeral earlier in the day.

“Are you going to be okay with that eye?” I asked, not so much caring about her eye, but more for the safety of Charmer, Felix and myself.

“I still have one,” she countered. “Have you seen anything?”

I shook my head as I walked toward her, anxious to get some sleep. She nodded in understanding and pulled the rifle from her back, leaving it to hang under her chin like the first time we’d met. A soft clink pulled my attention to that same strange ball hanging down from the sight. I’d seen it three times now, and I couldn’t stand not asking anymore.

“What is that thing on your rifle?”

The mare looked at me quizzically for a few seconds, then turned her gaze down to the necklace-looking-thing. “Oh, it’s a charm.”

“A charm? Why is it on your gun?”

“It, um…gives good luck to my bullets,” she explained nervously, quickly trotting by me.

“Is that how you killed that robot so quickly yesterday?” I asked with a cocked eyebrow, turning away from the shelter to face her.

She sighed and stopped walking. “That’s part of it. The rest is a story for another time. Now, go get some sleep.”

So she was back to being bossy Seer again? “Why can’t you just tell me what you said? I saw you whispering something before you shot it.”

Seer turned back to me with a stern look. “It wouldn’t help you, so just let it go.”

“Why not? Do I need one of those little charms for it to help?”

“Shayle, just go to bed,” she finally snapped. “Maybe I’ll tell you one day, but now isn’t the time.”

“Fine,” I growled before turning back to the tent. “It’s just a stupid piece of metal,” I mumbled under my breath before pulling back the tarp to go inside.

I shrugged the bags off my back and onto the ground just outside the tarp, there wasn’t enough room inside for them and all of us to sleep, so I placed them beside the others. My gun stayed in my holster on my hoof though; if we got attacked during Seer’s shift I wanted to be ready. I grinned a little at the sight of Charmer holding Felix close to her, like a mother holding a child who couldn’t sleep. If it had been anyone else I might have gotten worried, but they had been through a lot, and if it helped them sleep to be close to each other I wasn’t going to argue.

I squeezed myself under the table at the back of the hole we were spending the night in and curled up as comfortably as I could; trying not to make too much noise that might wake the other two up. Trying to get to sleep was harder than it should have been with how tired I was. My mind was going crazy with thoughts about why Seer wouldn’t tell me about the charm or what she said, like it was some weird secret only she was allowed to know. Maybe I shouldn’t have even asked, because at least when I didn’t know what the charm was I could still sleep. Now I still didn’t completely know what it was and I was busy trying to figure out why her little whispers magically made her bullets incredibly lucky.

Stupid mysterious zebra.

* * *

Waking up was painful. I hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep after my shift, and my body begged for me to go back to sleep as we trotted down the highway toward what would hopefully be Charmer’s new home. It felt strange taking someone else to find somewhere to live only a few days after I’d found my new home, and the circumstances that caused it made it even worse. Thankfully, the green mare was more lively than she had been before the funeral. I had expected her to take a little longer to recover, but telling the stories about each of the dead townsponies must have been better for her than I thought.

“What is this town called?” Felix asked as we followed Seer. He was still staying close to Charmer while we walked, and I was starting to worry that when we got to wherever we were going the two would break down without each other.

“Spur,” Seer replied calmly. “Not the friendliest ponies, but I don’t think they’ll shoot at us right away.”

“You don’t think they will?” I asked with a worried tone.

“It depends on their mood.” That didn’t instill any confidence in me.

“What if they do?” Charmer prodded quietly.

“Then we’ll have to try somewhere else,” Seer told her with a sigh.

I really didn’t want to have to walk all the way around New Oatleans to the other town Seer had mentioned the day before. I would do it if we had to so Charmer could be safe, but it would put us even further behind on our job from Caesar’s Stand, and we were already on our second day away from searching. I didn’t know if the officer we were doing it for had a timeline to keep, but if he did I would rather not keep him waiting.

“Can you tell us about Spur?” Felix asked after a few minutes of silence.

“No, zebras aren’t exactly welcome there,” Seer replied bluntly. “All I know is the name.”

Well, there went our distraction from the boring walk.

“It’s built around an old Equestrian Airbase,” Charmer spoke up. “Spurris.” Thank you Charmer, but they weren’t really creative with that name were they? “From what Momma used to tell me, the founders were a group of scavengers hopin’ to find a stash of pre-war weapons they could sell for a quick cap. When they got there, it was still mostly intact after the war, so they camped out for a little while.”

“And they ended up staying?” Felix questioned brightly, seemingly excited to be learning something new.

“Exactly,” Charmer replied with a grin. “Traders who visited the camp felt safer there than in the Wasteland, so they stuck around and eventually the camp turned into a pretty big town. Now they don’t sell their weapons at all, instead they keep ‘em to defend themselves. It’s one of the safest towns around here.”

“Safer than Caesar’s Stand?” Felix looked at her with a puzzled look.

“I wouldn’t know. Ponies can’t go there…so I guess Spur is like our version of that town.”

“Just without the soldiers,” Seer added. “They camp out closer to the city.”

“Yeah,” the pony agreed, sounding surprisingly warm toward our guide after what had happened. “Spur doesn’t like Steel Rangers any more than zebras, they’re worried that the soldiers would take all their guns.”

“Who are the Steel Rangers?” I asked from the back of the group. I’d heard them mentioned twice now, and they sounded like they were important around New Oatleans.

“They’re what remain of the Equestrian Military,” Charmer explained. “Except instead of defendin’ anyone, they just hoard weapons and pre-war technology for their own use. If ya’ can’t give ‘em any of that, they don’t care about ya’.”

That was surprising to hear. Why was it that the pony government, or whatever they had in the Wasteland, didn’t feel the need to protect their own kind? I didn’t understand. “Why don’t they help you?”

“They just don’t,” Charmer clarified. “If ya’ want to know, feel free to try askin’ one of them.”

I think I’ll pass.

“What do they look like?” Felix asked curiously. I don’t know why he asked, I was picturing ponies in armor and carrying rifles like the Remnant soldiers did. Not the Scorpions of course, just the regular soldiers who I’d seen much of my life.

“Robotic ponies,” Charmer told us with an oblivious look. “You’ve never seen them before?” We both shook our heads. “Wow…well I’m sure ya’ will eventually. They’re everywhere around here except near Caesar’s Stand. But most are in New Oatleans or just South of there.”

“Why’s that?” I asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“Because there’s a war going on there,” Seer interrupted. “You didn’t think we were fighting Raiders there did you?”

“Well…no…but I just thought they were regular soldiers, like the Remnant.”

Charmer chuckled and shook her head slowly before looking back at me with an amused stare. “You thought there was an organized army of ponies like back in the old days?”

“Yeah, you just said the Steel Rangers were. Don’t ponies have other soldiers too?” I was officially confused. Charmer and Seer stopped in front of me and turned with a look that screamed ‘are you serious?’

“Shayle…the Steel Rangers aren’t a pony army, they’re their own army,” Seer explained flatly.

“Okay, so what do the ponies have for an army?”

“We don’t.” Charmer deadpanned. “The only pony armies are the Steel Rangers, and Red Eye’s slavers to the North. But those’re private armies. They only serve themselves.” She looked at me for a few more seconds, then frowned. “How did ya’ not know any of this?”

What? I’m a zebra, how was I supposed to know about pony army stuff? Besides, I grew up with the Remnant, never went to school, and only knew anything about the Wasteland from stories the elders told me! Was all of this stuff really common knowledge for everyone that wasn’t me?

“I never learned it,” I explained with a scowl. “Why would this stuff be important anyways? It’s not like knowing it makes a huge difference to me.”

“Because if you don’t know who will and won’t shoot you, you won’t survive out here,” Seer pointed out flatly. “Almost everyone that isn’t a zebra wants to kill you and me, Shayle. You’re lucky you found Shanty first, because otherwise you’d be dead.”

That had to be a lie. Not everyone could hate zebras or try to kill us on sight, that would just be ridiculous! Raiders and bandits might, but they tried to kill everyone, not just zebras. Then again, Charmer and Strike had shot at us the first time we met, and only stopped because Felix explained that we weren’t Remnant. I turned my gaze to Charmer, hoping that she would say Seer was just exaggerating. Instead, I was met with a sad nod that she was right.

“But…why does everyone hate us?” I asked sadly, not sure if I wanted to know.

“The same reason we’re supposed to hate them,” Felix answered quietly. “Remember the elders telling us about how ponies ruined the world and are evil?” I nodded. “They think the same thing about us.”

“Not all of us,” Charmer corrected. “Some of us know ya’ aren’t evil, Shayle. Most ponies do, but most ponies have never seen a zebra before. Around New Oatleans it used to be different, but when the Remnant and Steel Rangers showed up, that changed.”

“Why?” Felix asked with a quizzical look.

“Because they’re both extremists,” Charmer answered confidently. I was shocked to see Seer nodding in agreement in front of her. “The Steel Rangers only want technology, and don’t care what they have to do to get it. And the Remnant only want to kill every pony they see.”

That couldn’t be true, the Scorpions hadn’t killed her or Doc before I showed up!

“Of course, that’s just in general,” Seer added matter-of-factly. “There are always those on either side who don’t agree with what their leaders say or do, but what the majority does becomes the norm.”

“That’s why we thought you were Remnant at first,” Charmer spoke up again. “Most zebras around here are, and we couldn’t take the chance.” So they shot at us.

I knew that the Wasteland was pretty bad, and that there was a lot of stuff that would try to kill me, but until that moment I never knew that everyone who wasn’t a zebra would shoot me just because of my stripes. When I was younger I was always told ponies were evil, and that they caused all of the bad stuff in our lives, but it was never something I could believe. Zebras caused pain in life too; in fact the only pain I had ever known before leaving home was caused by a zebra. But what they were telling me made it sound like there were almost no good ponies or zebras at all. I had been lucky to run into two ponies who didn’t care if I was a zebra, they only thought I was some kind of murderer, which was apparently what the Remnant were. I still didn’t believe that part, even if Seer had agreed with it. They had protected me and my brother from the Wasteland all our lives, how could they be evil like Charmer said?

“So, who are we safe around?” I asked with a frown.

Seer and Charmer looked at each other for a moment, then back to us, as if they both knew we wouldn’t like the answer.

“Us,” Charmer replied with a ghost of a grin, something that helped me a little.

But that feeling of safety was quickly ruined by an unearthly scream that nearly threw me to my haunches. I had seen Seer replying, but never got to hear what she said in comparison to Charmer’s answer over the scream of something hungry. I didn’t even need to ask what it was, because I’d already heard it once in the past week.

“Shit, ferals!” Seer screamed as she spun to face the hills North of us. The rifle snapped forward as she lifted it to fire, and instantly began putting bullets into the hill. I pulled out my own pistol as Felix dove behind me, turning to the hills to see a swarm of rotting bodies bounding toward us. It didn’t seem possible for them to be moving that fast, but I didn’t bother to complain as I joined in with Seer’s gunfire.

One and two at a time the beasts fell to the dirt, only to be trampled by the group as they tried to reach their new meal. I wasn’t about to let that happen. Unfortunately, I didn’t think I had enough bullets to stop them before they overwhelmed us, and even Seer was starting to look worried as the swarm continued to approach us.

“Let’s just run for it,” Charmer pleaded from behind us. “We have a better chance of making it to Spur than trying to fight them off.”

Seer continued to fire until her rifle clicked on empty, then dropped it to hang from her neck again as she screamed in frustration. “Go, now,” she commanded as she switched out the magazine.

Charmer and Felix took off immediately, not bothering to argue with the other zebra as she opened fire again. I stayed beside her for a second, considering sticking behind with her, but that would leave the others defenseless if Seer went down.

I tuned and bolted after the others, still holding the half-loaded pistol in my jaw as I tried to catch up with them. It wasn’t too hard considering one of them was badly burned, and the other refused to leave her behind. Behind me, I could still hear the shots of Seer’s rifle occasionally accented by a scream from a fallen ghoul. Ahead of us was a pair of hills with a large barricade built across it, and almost a half mile behind that I could see a fence around a concrete tower.

I dropped my pistol into my bag as we ran, hoping I wouldn’t need it in a hurry. “Please tell me that’s not as far as it looks!” I yelled to Charmer.

“It’s not…as far as it looks,” she replied between gasps for air.

“Yes it is!” Felix argued from beside her with a panicked look.

“She didn’t ask…for the truth.”

I spun my head around when I realized that the gunfire had stopped, and expected to see a mass of rotting bodies climbing over a screaming mare. Instead, I saw a mass of rotting bodies stumbling over each other to try and reach a screaming mare as she bolted toward us as fast as she could. I never expected Seer of all zebras to look like a frightened filly, but I suppose a mob of flesh-eating monsters had that effect on everyone.

As we ran, I became acutely aware of a soft thumping in the air. At first I thought it might be gunfire, but it sounded too heavy, not like the popping I usually noticed with guns in the distance. And I wasn’t the only one to notice either.

“What’s that sound?” Felix asked nobody in particular, more focused on running than directing his question toward anyone in particular.

“Who cares? Just keep running!” Seer screamed as she finally caught up with us.

As we reached the two hills, the thumping grew to deafening levels, and a burst of air blasted down on us as…something flew over us.

I craned my head to watch the metal whatever it was shoot over us and go into a hover over the swarm of charging ghouls. “What…the hell…” I asked with a look of awe.

The clatter of gunfire tore through the air, somehow louder than the thumping of the machine as it continued to hover over the mob. Spurts of sickly colored fluid sprayed from the ghouls as a wall of bullets tore through them, peppered with bits of rotten flesh and some limbs. I would have commented on how disgusting it was, but I was too busy thanking Caesar that a giant flying thing was saving our lives.

We all came to a stop just before the barricade in the road, falling to our rumps to catch our breath and watch as the last few ghouls were torn apart.

“That…is…awesome,” Seer commented as she gasped for air, a rather creepy grin curled over her muzzle. I barely heard her over the thumping in the air, but I had to agree. Whatever that thing was, I wanted it.

Once all of the ghouls had perished, the machine spun around in the air to face us, and a pair of cannons on either side of the body swiveled their barrels right at us. A wall of dirt and rocks swept over us as it turned, stinging my eyes and probably adding a few bruises to all of us as the rocks peppered us.

“Still awesome?” Charmer asked with a rasp beside me.

“Remain where you are,” a magnified voice blared from somewhere on the machine as it continued to aim at us. “Security forces will arrive shortly.”

I couldn’t tell you if that was good or bad to me at the time, because I was still just glad to be alive.

The machine continued to hover over us while we waited. The sound coming from it pounded the air constantly, slowly causing my head to pound along with it until I thought I would be deaf forever. The guns never moved from us, and trying to ignore them was proving to be impossible after seeing what they’d done to the ferals that had been chasing us.

Felix, Charmer and myself all sat there looking around in worry as we waited for the ‘security forces’ to arrive from wherever they were at, but Seer had decided to take the chance to clean her rifle. She had somehow gone from screaming like a frightened foal to calmly cleaning her gun while being aimed at by a pair of machine guns. She was crazy, there was no other way to describe it.

“How are you so calm?” I shouted to her over the din of the rotor blades on the machine.

“What do you mean? It’s just a gunship,” she replied without looking up from her rifle.

“So, those were just ghouls and you were screaming!”

She stopped and turned her eyes up to me. “Being eaten alive is a little different than being blown to pieces.”

“How?” I shouted, throwing my hooves in the air.

“Being eaten hurts a lot more.”

I deadpanned and turned away from her, not even caring to think of an argument against that.

After a few more minutes the gunship pulled away from us and rose to the sky, finally relieving our ears and heads of the constant thumping. Unfortunately it left behind a constant ringing that almost made it harder to hear than the machine did. All of us looked over to see a trio of ponies walking up to us; one on either side of the lead pony with a pair of rifles slung on their back in some strange contraption, with the lead pony carrying a shotgun across his back.

“What are you doing out here?” the leader asked gruffly, but I barely heard him through the ringing in my head.

Charmer stood up and looked over to them, an action which was returned with the sound of loading rifles from the two ponies in the back. “We don’t mean any trouble,” the green mare promised louder than she probably needed to. “I’m from Shanty, and-”

The lead pony recoiled slightly at the sight of Charmer’s bandages, and his tone quickly changed. “I’m so sorry miss, I didn’t realize.” The pony looked to the rest of us and cocked an eyebrow. “But why are you with stripes?” We’re right here!

“They saved me,” Charmer explained calmly. “And they brought me here to try and keep me safe.”

“Well this is certainly the right place for that,” the lead buck told her with a nod. He looked up and waved into the air, and I was suddenly aware that the machine had been circling over us since it lifted off. After the leader waved, it wobbled slightly before speeding back toward the structure in the distance; I guessed that was Spur. “Unfortunately they cannot come any further.”

To my surprise, Charmer frowned at that. “So you’ll let me stay?”

“Of course. You’ve lost your home, why would we turn a fellow pony away after such a thing?”

The mare turned to us, looking between me and Felix sadly. “Well…thanks again…”

That didn’t sound very reassuring. “Are you going to be okay?” I asked with my own frown.

“I…” she looked back to Spur longingly, but quickly turned her eyes back on us. “I don’t know.”

“What’s wrong?” Felix asked as he stepped toward her.

“I just don’t know if I wanna leave ya’,” she explained somberly. “After what happened to Shanty, you’re all I have left. It sounds stupid, but ya’ll are the closest thing I have to family.”

I stepped forward and placed a hoof on her shoulder, trying to grin for her sake. “But this could be home for you. You’ll be safe, and I’m sure they’ll take care of you.” The guard pony nodded in assurance behind her.

“It won’t be home without somepony who actually cares,” Charmer argued quietly. “Can’t I stay with you, just for a while?”

I couldn’t believe it. She had the chance at a home where she would be safe and with her own kind, but she wanted to throw that away just to stay with some zebras she barely knew? Why didn’t she tell us that before we walked all the way out here?

“I’m sorry Charmer, but like you said, you wouldn’t be welcome in Caesar’s Stand with us.” I hated to tell her no like that, but staying in Spur would be better for her. Even if she didn’t want to see us leave, she could make better friends there, ones that wouldn’t bring her trouble and death.

“I know, but,” the mare shook her head. “Never mind. Go live your life.”

At this point Felix was glaring at me like he had back when I forced him to leave Shanty. He knew as well as I did that she couldn’t stay with us, so why was he so upset that I turned her down? It was for her safety, and there was nowhere else for her to go! We could take her to the other town, but would she really change her mind by that point? She seemed set on staying with us no matter where we tried to take her, and I doubted a more zebra-friendly town would change that.

Charmer pulled away from me and turned to Felix, wrapping her hooves around him in a tight embrace. “Take care of yourself buddy,” she told him softly, looking like she didn’t intend to release him.

Felix quickly returned the hug and sniffled. “You too.”

I don’t know when those two became so close, or when they started looking like a mother and her son, but when they released that hug I just cracked. As horrible of an idea as it was, Charmer had already been through enough loss and misery without me forcing her away from the last two zebras she knew.

“Fine,” I grumbled softly as Charmer trotted to the guards. “You can come with us.”

“What?” Seer snapped behind me. “Shayle, she’s got nowhere to go! What are you going to do, dump her in a ditch outside town every night?”

“No,” I corrected her sternly. “We’ll find somewhere close to Caesar’s Stand and spend the nights there. You and Felix can sleep in town, and me and Charmer will meet you in the mornings to keep looking for that stuff on our list.” Like I said, it was probably a bad idea.

“You would do that for me?” Charmer asked sappily, her frown finally starting to turn up to a ghost of a grin.

“Yes. Like you said, what’s home without someone who cares?”

“I can’t stay with you?” Felix asked grumpily.

Oh come on, was I really the only one who cared about safety? “Felix, it won’t be safe out of town, you should stay there with Seer and I’m sure she will watch out for you until we figure out what to do.” I shot a glare over to Seer to drive my point home and make sure she understood, but she was still drilling holes in my head with her stare.

“Yeah, I’ll watch out for you,” she finally agreed, even if she sounded like she wanted to club my face in with that rifle.

Felix grumbled and trotted over to Charmer.

“So…you aren’t staying?” the lead guard finally asked. He looked like we had been talking in some foreign language.

“No,” Charmer confirmed happily. “But thank ya’ for the offer.”

The three guards stared at the group of us for a few seconds before turning away with bewildered glances. Now that we’d gotten that out of the way, all I had to do was find a place for me and Charmer to spend the night near Caesar’s Stand. Easy enough, right?

* * *

Wrong.

As the sun began to set behind the clouds overhead, we finally found a shack about a mile out of Caesar’s Stand that would have to work as me and Charmer’s home until she had enough time to get over what happened. I hoped it wouldn’t take long for her, but after losing that much, I wasn’t planning on a night in Caesar’s Stand for a while. Because that was my luck; I found a nice place to live with my brother, only to be dragged back out after a few days. At least I could see the lights of Caesar’s Stand from the field our temporary home was in.

It wasn’t anything special, but at least the structure had walls and a sturdy roof for us to sleep under. And I didn’t plan to spend much time there outside of sleeping; I still had a job to do after all. I just hoped nothing would happen to us while we rested each night. First things first though, we had to clear it out. Of course it was too much to hope for an empty shack, such a thing could never exist in the Wasteland. The one we’d found was currently the home of a group of five ponies. At first Charmer argued that we couldn’t take a home away from the group of traders, but she quickly changed her mind when we found out what they were trading. The five we saw at first were definitely traders, but their merchandise came into view after a few minutes of watching; a trio of chained and blindfolded foals.

“So, how do you want to kill them?” Charmer growled beside me.

“The most painful way possible,” Seer suggested, already unslinging her rifle.

“Agreed,” I hissed from between them.

The only one who seemed a little put off by our decision was Felix, who had stopped a few feet behind us. “Do they really deserve that?” he asked shyly.

“Yes, yes they do,” Seer answered roughly. “If there’s one thing you don’t do, it’s treat foals like property.”

I nodded in agreement and readied my pistol before looking over at an unarmed Charmer. “Neeth a gum?” Talking around a pistol didn’t work very well.

“No, I’m sure I’ll find a better way ta’ kill ‘em.” If we were talking about anyone else, that would have sounded horrible.

“Great, let’s go,” Seer growled anxiously before lifting her rifle and charging forward.

I jumped up and followed her, waiting to shoot until she started the fight. Charmer did her best to keep up, but I could tell the burns were still hurting her under the bandages as she ran. One of the slavers must have seen us charging, because he darted into the shack screaming. Before we were half way there, the first bullets began to fly by us as they opened fire. Seer instantly returned the favor, sending a burst of fire toward them with every step she took.

I had seen her in a fight before, but this was different. The mare hardly looked like she was aiming, and the speed of her rifle’s shots was erratic. Bullets pinged everywhere around the slavers, but never actually hit them, and yet she didn’t slow down or try to fix her aim. I quickly joined in the fire, but tried to actually hit my targets rather than just scare them.

One of my rounds bit into one of the slaver’s eye with a splash of blood, and she fell with a scream to roll around in pain. I internally celebrated the first time I’d actually hit something while running, and quickly changed targets as Seer reached the shack. Before I knew what was happening, the mare had leaped toward one of the slavers and swung her rifle like a bat. The heated barrel cracked into the stallion’s head with a pop I could hear almost twenty feet behind the apparently very upset mare. Just like mine had, her target toppled with a scream as Seer pinned him down and started stomping his chest with all four hooves. His shouts for mercy quickly faded as his lungs popped one at a time under the weight of her blows, and soon his chest folded in like a crumpled cigarette pack.

My next target ate two bullets as I continued to fire over Seer, killing him instantly. Charmer was close behind me as we entered the shed, and I froze at the sight of the last to slavers holding shotguns to the heads of two colts.

“Don’t come any closer!” one of them ordered. “We’ll kill ‘em! Ah swear we will.” How did he talk around that gun so well?

“And then we’ll kill you,” Charmer promised beside me.

The two slavers looked at each other for a moment before turning back to us and lowering their guns. “Okay, we give up. Just…let us go.”

Nope.

A bullet flashed by my ear and flew right between the eyes of the first buck, throwing him forward to his chest as the back of his head blew out on the wall. Charmer squealed and dove to the side as I went the other way. Even if she hadn’t been aiming at me, Seer’s bullet was way too close. The second pony lifted his shotgun and fired at Seer, knocking the rifle from her mouth and adding a few new cuts to her face. Charmer quickly ran forward and jumped on him, screaming something I dare not repeat as she pummeled him into the floor.

And that was that. Charmer finished up with the final slaver, jamming his skull in with one last punch as his body quivered in misery. When she finally stood and turned back to me, half of her bandages had unraveled from her effort, revealing a disturbing rippled skin with no sign of regrown coat. At least the potions had done something to fix her up.

“Never do that again,” the green mare hissed to the other zebra between heavy breaths.

“Hey, it worked right?” Seer argued, not seeming to be bothered by the lightly bleeding gashes in her face.

“Yes, but you almost took my head off.”

I glanced between the two and nodded along with Charmer. “At least warn us next time?” I requested, not expecting her to agree.

“I’ll consider it.” The other zebra lifted her rifle and sighed at the damage before slinging it over her back and looking around. “This looks nice and cozy.”

“Um…hello?” Oh, yeah, the foals were still chained up.

I trotted over to them and stared at the chains for a moment before moving to search each of the slavers for a key. Charmer knelt down beside the foals as I looked, quietly assuring them that we were helping. The two colts looked pretty happy for that, but the filly still looked skeptical.

“Are you gonna take us home?” she asked quietly. She looked like she’d been out in the wastes for years, and I think she took most of the dirt with her; I couldn’t even tell what color her coat was supposed to be. What I could tell was that there was a thin trickle of dried blood running down the inside of her back legs, and that her tail was clamped under her like a vise.

The amount of control it took to not start shooting dead slavers was astonishing.

Before I lost it, I quickly ran outside to check the last few slavers for a key. Seer checked the one she had clobbered while I checked the buck I’d killed second. Still no key. Only one body left.

And it was still breathing.

“Please…” the mare squealed. “Help me.” She still held a hoof up to the eye I’d shot out at the start of the fight, looking up to me pleadingly with her remaining eye.

“Go on Shayle, help her out of her misery,” Seer hissed behind me.

I nodded and pulled the pistol from my holster, taking aim to finish the mare off.

“Shayle?” I froze as Felix’s voice called out from behind me. I didn’t turn around, I couldn’t risk the mare trying anything if I pulled the gun away. “She’s not armed…she just wants help.” He sounded like he was going to cry. Why he was upset, I don’t know.

“It’s okay Felix, she was a bad, bad pony,” Seer tried to assure him. “And your sister is punishing her for what she did to those foals in there.”

“Why though? Did you ask if she had a good reason?”

A good reason?! For selling foals? What reason could ever be good enough?

“There is no good reason Felix,” Seer told him softly. “Now, do you want to go inside and help the other kids?”

I could feel Felix’s eyes locked on me as I held the pistol steady on the mare’s shaking head, begging me not to do it for one reason or another. After a few seconds, I heard his little hooves trotting toward the shack, and eventually fade away.

“Please…” the mare begged one last time.

Sorry Felix.

Bang

Footnote: Level Up! (Guns 45)

New Perk: Quick Draw- Weapon Equipping and Holstering is now 50% faster

Author’s Notes: Once again, a huge thanks to Kkat and Somber for writing their amazing stories and creating the sandbox I now play around in. This wouldn’t have been possible without you, and I could never thank you two enough for that. For this chapter, thank you two the Project Horizons discussion group for helping me find details needed for a certain element. And of course thank you to my pre-readers for continuing to make sure I don’t mess this up!