Maybe I don’t have a magic touch. And maybe I don’t have a talent as such.

***

I don’t know how long we consolidated ourselves within the clinic. It was stuffy and uncomfortable being underground for so long. We had to adjust to the new environment mentally like all Stable dwellers, or so Helix claimed. The PipBuck on my arm said it was well into the afternoon, around four to be precise. With our time limit running out it was decided we’d set the next phase of our plans in motion.

I sent two sisters to find what Helix described as a maintenance office so we could find a way to deal with the rest of the Jellybean clones. It wasn’t much but it was our best source for a clue.

That left five of us to deal with mom who was more than off-put by the new additions to the family. We were equally concerned about her being a former cannibal and trapper. Currently she was studying one of the sisters carefully. I believe she’s trying to do what I did and find any sort of indication that there was something wrong. Try being the key word since she sighed and wrapped the new clone in her usual loving embrace.

“I just don’t understand where I went wrong. I didn’t know you were so….lonely. I thought you enjoyed the solitude like your brother, Clear. And your…your clones…they're perfect. How can this be possible? What kind of magic show are you running down here, brain?”

Helix Twist, for all her growing number of issues that needed solving, was surprisingly relaxed and open with mom. “You’re witnessing the beginning of an era. One that will show only a fraction of the potential the old Equestria could bring upon the world. The wonderful fusion of magic and machines I and Doctor Doublit created…that is my answer to you, ma’am.”

“From what I could tell, all of us are perfect copies of each other. There’s no difference between us.” I wanted to say more, we all did, but Helix stepped in and continued for me. Much to my chagrin…she had a nasty habit of doing that.

“That’s why I’ve taken such an invested interest in your daughter. Not only does she have the proper ability to function after the cloning process, but her mental faculties have proven remarkably resilient. It used to take weeks of training to properly prepare a pony to become a clone or witness themselves outside of a mirror. However, Muddy Waters has adjusted to the mental strain with relative ease. Surprising as this is, I have to commend your ability to raise such a fascinating creature, Grove.”

“Creature?!”

What a back-hoofed compliment! I didn’t think you could insult and praise someone in only two words, but there it was. Naturally we stomped our hooves in anger, but mom shushed us immediately. And naturally we obeyed without question.

“That’s enough, Muddy. Now, as much as I want to grill you for answers, I’m having trouble coming to terms with so many…so many…well daughters. Tell me, Muddy. Why this? That’s all I want to know.”

That’s something I wanted to know too. To be truthful to myself, I already had an idea why. Best guess was that I just didn’t find the appeal of interaction, so I never bothered. However, when it came to myself? I didn’t have any trouble speaking to myself. Yeah, that would normally sound weird and be a good sign of some troubles in the noggin, but not when it’s applied to me!

“I can’t explain it, mom. It’s hard to talk to others. It’s hard to talk in general. To others I mean.”

A collection of nods from the Muddies confirmed I had hit the nail on the head. With that, mom sighed and patted me on the head. “It’s alright, dear. Everypony has something going on that’s not always right or makes sense, but that’s what makes us special. Someday you’ll find yourself and everything will just click into place afterwards. If it can happen to a former trapper, it can happen to anypony.”

“I’d still like to hear the story of how you and dad met.”

“I wanna know what it’s like being a trapper!”

“Forget about that, teach us how you do those amazing hoof to hoof techniques! You were amazing out there.”

Another thing mom and I would have to get used to was the fact every thought I had now had a voice. Whether it came from me personally or from a thought I could possibly have, so long as there were enough Muddy Waters around every opinion and every idea would have a say now.

Grove managed to pull through far better than I would have. “I’ll tell you the story later tonight, it’s hardships no pony should have to endure, and you need a lot of knowledge of pony innards and hoof combat before I can teach you anything…which I won’t, because it’s too dangerous.”

“Aaaaaaaw!”

“Maybe we’ll try again another day.”

You can’t blame a mare for trying. I applaud the effort, but I knew she’d say no. Pretty sure we all did.

“Hey hey! Somethings coming!” One of my sisters called out as she prepared her empty rifle. Sure enough after becoming silent the sounds of hoofsteps echoed from wall to wall. From the hallway outside somepony was moving towards us as the sounds got louder and louder.

My heart raced as we prepared for confrontation, but surprisingly mom wasn’t bothered at all. In fact she smiled and patted the guard Muddy on the head. “It’s okay, calm down girls. I can’t believe you don’t recognize the sound of your own four hooves. No, wait…eight hooves. There’s two outside.”

I couldn’t figure out how she can hear so well through walls made of metal. It took another couple of seconds before I could even see them in the PibBuck’s compass and sure enough there were two blue dots. Maybe it had something to do with her background as a trapper.

Moments later the door opened and two members of the family stepped inside. My sisters had returned, one of which was carrying a box on her back. It had a single word on it scribbled in black marker. Banzai.

“You’re not gonna believe what we found! Loot and valuables for days! Days I tell you. Tools, building materials, metal, you name it.”

The sister carrying the box set it down for us to see. There was a myriad of unknown tools and such within the box, all of which would fetch a mighty fine price back home. I could see the stacks of caps we’d get if we brought this to the market. Every single worker would sell their foals for tools preserved in such great condition.

“This was all in the maintenance office? I thought it was just an office?” I asked with confusion evident in myself and all my sisters who stayed behind with me.

“That’s what we thought, but damn…it’s practically a supply closet in there. If we sell that office off, we could be rich.”

My first sister approached the box to take a look inside personally. Then she turned the box to the side to take a look at the word written on the side. “What the heck is a banzai?”

“Maybe I can be of assistance once again.” The faint blue light of Helix’s mono-eye washed over us as her brain case descended from the ceiling. “If I recall, Banzai was the name of Bean's stray cat.”

“So what…we just pacify a bunch of feral science experiments with fluffy critters?” One sister had the mind to crack jokes to lighten the mood, but Helix’s eye stared at us motionlessly.

Then she giggled, or maybe it was just static. “I’m pleased at the effort to bring ideas to the table. Jellybean did love his cats. Perhaps it’s not too farfetched to make the attempt, however silly it might be.” Before we could retort, she vanished into the ceiling as a gentle static hummed in my head as the tasks updated within my Pipbuck. In the left corner of my vision, the words Below the Surface, appeared with a laundry list of tasks beneath it.

• Restore the Stable to working order.
• Restore food production
• Restore Project Double Mirror
• Deal with the Jelly Bean clones
• Optional: (Find a way to pacify the Jellybean clones)

“You just had to open your mouth.”

“Girls, behave.” Mom stood in the middle of our number with a commanding presence. “Let’s hurry up and get sorted. There’s a lot to cover and we’re running out of time. We have a lot of bits and pieces to mop up off the floor before it starts turning sour and we still have the goal of helping your big brother. Now, I have a suggestion that will solve the second issue.”

Right. If we wanted to keep the stable to ourselves, letting all the clone corpses rot was going to make that very unpleasant. The sisters who stayed behind would have to solve that problem themselves.

“Are we not going to loot this place?”

“We could be rich! We could have everything we ever needed…”

Grove stomped her hoof to silence the growing protest. “We don’t need to ransack this place, girls. This isn’t ours to do as we please with, it belongs to somepony and you need to respect that. Now, despite the gunshot to my shoulder, I think Helix is a respectable mare brain. These tools you want to sell aren’t yours. They’re her’s. And so is everything here…”

“While technically, you are correct Miss Grove…” The speakers screeched to life as the electronic voice of Helix Twist blared through with a loud pop. “...There are things here I’d be willing to part with. In a gesture of good faith and as a reward for your hard work.”

She’s listening to us even when she’s not around. So much for privacy.

“There are over one hundred living domiciles within this stable. Many of the former residents had to evacuate in a semi-rushed fashion. I have no doubt there might be things you can find within. I’ll leave the doors unlocked when you’re not busy. Feel free to take residence here as well. After all…”

“We have much work to do. Together.”

***

And just like that, we had our objectives. Helix had a massive list of things she needed us to do both inside the stable and outside. We already knew what had to be done inside, which was clean up duty.

One of mom’s ideas for us was to store some of the more well off bodies to feed the Jellybean clones. As much as I’d rather not share with those freaks, the hostile clones were the only ones capable of maintaining the Stable. A fact I’d have to remedy myself somehow. Another one of mom’s ideas was to sell water instead of scrap or valuables despite the offer made to us by Helix.

We did not have fresh water on the surface, nor the resources to reliably purify it. Purifiers were expensive to make and didn’t last long without needing new parts. That left the people of the Centennial River to almost exclusively survive off of brahmin milk and the occasional fruit juice. Explaining what a brahmin was to Helix wasn’t easy. Down here was a source of infinite clean water and all it took was the turning of a faucet. Liquid gold at the tip of our hooves! No brahmin or caps needed!

So we loaded up as much water as we could, filling every bottle and water skin we had. Rough was going to have to change his business model, but he’d have to cope with how things turned out.

The rest of our missions were from Helix herself…

Find somepony to help restore Project Mirror Mirror. Find a way to deal with the remaining Jellybean clones. Find a way to fix the Stable door.

“Don’t mean to sound like a gloomy foal, but these tasks seem kind of…I don’t know…Impossible? Where are we supposed to find a pony with the smarts to fix either of these things?” One of the new sisters spoke up as the rest looked on with expectant glances.

“I’m sure you’ll find somepony. It’s a vast existence we live in, after all.” Helix had yet to return, but the stable carried her voice and sight all over the place. “I’ve waited around one hundred and fifty years for this. I can afford a few more. Just find somepony you can trust.”

With that, the speakers went dead. Now all that was left to do was go home and rest. “Alrighty then. Here’s the plan…” I noticed each of my new sister’s were already pairing up with each other, finding their own bonded sibling to attach themselves to. All except one who sat dejected by herself. I made sure to pull this one next to me and my own favored sister. “We’re going to go home and come back tomorrow with food and supplies. I want everypony to clean up as much as possible. Leave the mopping for later, just focus on getting rid of the corpses. After that, we clear the rest of the Stable.”

I didn’t expect my other selves to be very happy with doing this, and they weren’t, but they nodded anyway. This was just something that needed doing no matter how disgusting it was.

We left soon after. Taking the freight elevator back to the top most floor we eventually returned to the surface with the setting sun greeting us as much as it could from behind the unending cloud layer. Honestly I was just glad the hard part was over and we only got moderately hurt this time. With my new sister’s safe and our bags full of future caps, I’d say this was a huge win for our family.

“It’s been years since I cooked up pony meat…” Not what I wanted to hear from the mare who raised me!

“Mom what the actual fuck?!” My sister and I’s voices echoed together, our collective shock and disgust only making Grove laugh.

“Oh don’t be that way, I’m mostly kidding. But honestly, Muddy…we don’t have a way to feed those clones. Yours or that stallion’s. It will take all the water we have to buy enough food and that’s assuming we feed that Jelly fellow…himself…” It was a grim reality, but no worse than what we dealt with daily in the wasteland. It’s an eat or be eaten world up here. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

“Yes. We do.” Sister responded with a cold understanding.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be coming back tomorrow to deliver the food for you. I’ll cut up the clones and prepare them so none of my daughters have to. Just promise you’ll keep this a secret. All of it…my past, the Stable, all of it.” The slight warble in her voice, I could have sworn mom sounded almost scared. Who wouldn’t? Her daughter found out she was a cannibal in the past and was taking it a little too well. Not to mention the horrors down beneath our hooves we were responsible for now.

“To our graves. None of us will say a word.” Reassurance. Not just for her, but for us too. This Stable was our secret we’d never give up. It was rightfully ours! And what happened in the Stable is going to stay in the Stable. No matter the cost.

***

Five blips on the compass, all red. Hostiles were right in front of us on the path hidden in the bushes. The tall grass and sickly green vegetation hid many creatures, but with SATS I had a good idea what was looking to jump us. The silhouettes of five ponies could be seen and the first one targeted was identified as a…longshoreman? That wasn’t right. That was the nickname given to residents of Point Wayward.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed that coming ambush. Mom put herself in front of us protectively and whispered low. “Muddy, stay behind me. We’re not alone…”

There was no chance I could hit any of them if I wanted to. SATS gave me a zero percent chance to land any shots. Not to mention I’d used up everything I had in the fight below ground. All we had was mom, but she was still limping heavily from the gunshot wound to her shoulder.

The bushes rustled as the group slowly began to emerge, aware that we weren’t about to come any closer. I spotted two stallions and three mares all armed with various lever action rifles in various states of misuse. All of them were pointing those rifles at us confirming their hostility.

“I was wondering when you would show back here, you little shit. You know how long me and my crew spent waiting for you out in this shithole?!” A single stallion stood in front of the rest with his eyes locked on me for some reason.

I was confused for a moment before realizing who these ponies were. These were the hired guns Rough set us up to meet to get their help this morning. “You’re those ponies from this morning, the mercenaries…”

“Yeah, the one’s your brother said would get a juicy gig today and never did! I should have known that story was full of crap!” In the fading light of the closing day I could see his anger plastered over a rough earth ponies face. Then he began to advance on us, his weapon swaying to point at each of us.

He continued “Me and my gang passed up some good work thinking we were gonna have it made today. Seeing as that didn’t happen, we decided the best way to make up for our losses was to take whatever you found out there in the swamps.”

With a rack of the lever the stallion chambered the first round and kept his rifle centered on mom. “So that’s it then…you’re just going to kill us? All over a lost score?” Mom spoke with as much bravado as she could, but it seemed like a futile effort.

“Drop everything you got and I’ll consider it.”

“Bastard…” I whispered under my breath as I dropped the bag full of our newly acquired water and supplies. All that effort and cost just to have somepony else rob us blind in the middle of the swamps. If ever there was a pony I’d remember it would be him. I’d remember that face and make him pay for this.

As his goons kept watch on us, the leader grabbed the backpack full of our things and took it with him, tossing it over his shoulder towards the group with a happy smile. The weight of the bag being a clear indicator that he’d hit a haul just as hoped. His patience having paid off, he shouted “Take the bag Dry Spell and make your magic useful. It’s heavy.”

A unicorn mare in the back grabbed the bag mid flight with the glow of telekinesis before turning to her boss. “The fuck are you saying my name out loud, jackass?! Now they know who I am!”

“It’s ‘cuz I wasn’t planning on letting ‘em live, idiot.” This pony was a real bastard, but he wasn’t stupid. As he produced a knife, I figured he knew if he shot us any trappers would hear it and come hunting. “It’ll be a lot less painless if you stand still. Can’t have you screaming back to Wayward.”

For what it was worth, mom stood between us and the gang that was about to finish us off. I wanted to cry, run, fight, anything other than sit here and let them kill us. I noticed something new once mom blocked our line of sight. Something I’d neglected to watch once the gang stepped forward.

The red dots on the compass multiplied.

The thunk of something fast and quiet hitting meat sounded over the group, followed by the massive thud of gallons of water and supplies hitting the soggy dirt. The lead stallion turned back to find the mare holding our things was very much gone. A crossbow bolt sticking from the side of her head as her dot vanished along with the traces of life in her eyes.

Mom wasted no time in charging the stallion, a hoof already finding its purchase beneath his jaw in a bone shattering strike that cracked his teeth so hard that the knife he once held split into pieces along with the teeth that once carried them. “RUN.” She screamed.

Before I ran I could see them. Trappers. Three of them were already here attacking anything that moved. The group of them looked just like mom when we first saw her earlier today, faces concealed and bodies clad in leather backed armor made from the prey they hunted.

Gunfire erupted as the gang that ambushed us was ambushed in kind. Another of their number quickly succumbed as two trappers opened fire with some kind of hunting rifles and the third reloaded a nasty crossbow. Bullets ripped through the brush and trees as we turned tail and ran for our lives. Screams echoed through the swamp as the wounded grew in number.

“Kill! Kill for the Moore!!!”

The air cracked as the bullets roared past us. I turned to see mom still fighting as she grabbed a rifle from one of the gang ponies and broke it’s stock over the head of an attacking trapper before turning what was left of it on the pony she stole it from.

I watched as mom killed others, but these ponies weren’t some freak science projects from below ground. These were ponies like us, they were our neighbors maybe. I watched ponies from my hometown fall victim to death’s jaws.

I couldn’t watch anymore. I fled alongside my sister into the thinning swamp towards the river in a vain attempt to escape. Even over the gunshots and screams of pain I could hear something following us with a sinister buzzing of wings. “Sis, we got…we got bloatsprites on our ass.”

“You’re damn right you dooo! Ah ha he heee!”

A lone trapper was following us and closing fast. Some crazed pony was completely covered from hoof to mane in some kind of leather armor that resembled a butcher's coat, his face concealed by a gas mask resembling a bird. Behind him was a swarm of bloatsprites.

“Go my pretties, kill. Kill for the Moore!” Another gunshot whizzed past us. We weren’t going to be able to get away at this rate and no amount of fighting would save us. Not if he was attacking us with a bunch of those damned mutated bugs he was using like attack dogs. Speaking of bugs, one of the bloatsprites landed on my sister’s back and bit into her mane and yanked hard.

She responded by flicking her head to the side and smashing the cursed creature into a tree as we swiftly ran by. Bile and bug juices splatter across her face and head as the trapper chasing screams in rage.

“No, noooo! I raised that one from a maggot to a proud sprite I tell ya. From a fucking maggot!” His roars of rage overpowered even the sounds of the countless wings buzzing all around us. Bloatsprites were swarming us like roaches to rot. By this point I found it laughable.

What a horribly stupid way to go. Bloatsprites of all things. No bigger than the head of a pony and squishy like overripe fruit, but here we were. “You’re fucking insane!” I didn’t get a chance to say anything further. Before I knew it my legs were swept from under me and the cloudy green sky greeted my vision. The next thing to greet me was the barrel of a gun.

“Let me give a parting bit of wisdom, little rabbit. Life ain’t measured in time. It’s measured in calories. And I’ll be sure to get my fill when I cook your fat over a spit!” His voice, so full of childlike glee, was the most aggravating thing to listen to.

Without thinking I activated SATS and time slowed to a snail’s crawl. The trapper in his strange and creepy armor stared down at me with his emotionless bird mask, a horn sticking through its forehead glowing blue. Unicorns and their fucking magic, go figure. I aimed straight for his floating rifle and targeted it once. I was glad it considered my earth pony hooves as weapons, because the moment I released the targeting system my hoof shot for the gun, knocking the barrel to the side just as the bullet left its deadly home and splatted the left side of my head with mud.

He must have been spooked by the seemingly unimaginable reflexes for his own reflexes faltered when my right hoof smashed against his stupid mask and shattered the glass goggles within. Now his roars of anger turned to screams of agony as glass filled his eyes.

“Y-you whore! You worthless scab! Fuuuuck!!!” The nameless trapper screamed and screamed, but for all the hollering he did, it didn’t help his situation. I took the rifle he used against me into my teeth and checked how many shots were left. Two. That was plenty. I didn’t need SATS to put this monster down, I just had to put the barrel against his chest and press the trigger.

BANG

Blood erupted from a fresh wound like a blooming flower growing out of his chest. For all the pained wheezing coming from the bird mask, he still stood despite the damage. I wanted to be angry, but found myself relieved I wasn’t going to be eaten by a cannibal. “You can eat my entire ass, stupid bastard.” That armor, whatever it was made of, wasn’t going to save him a second time. I was going to make sure of it. As I racked the bolt to chamber a new round, I heard my own voice screaming in a mix of pain and anger behind me. Sister!

My bonded sister was surrounded by bloatsprites and taking them on as best she could. Insect blood and bits of bloatsprite caked her clothing as she wailed on them with nothing but her hooves. They popped and flattened under her fury and disgust with great ease, but there were a dozen or more attacking her from all sides!

“Gaaaagh! That really hurts!”

The Pipbuck she had attached to her hoof made an amazing club as it bent and tore the putrid monster’s bodies with each bash of its metal frame. With each sprite smashed, three more would replace it and the bite marks were starting to take their toll.

My solution was brutal and effective. The rifle was now my club that broke the flying vermin again and again, caking the butt of my newly acquired gun with ichor that brought bile rising through my throat. The smell of bloatsprite innards was eye watering. Even after the last sprite fell to the sisters, one pest still remained.

The clone me was eager to dish out the pain dealt to her as fire blazed in her eyes. Our hearts raced as we approached the wounded trapper. “Unicorn magic isn’t going to stop me from tanning your hide you fucking raider. Ya got nothing left…” Sister spoke low and menacingly which sent a shiver down my spine. My own voice seemed foreign to me, but I enjoyed the display.

The trapper still stood in his place, blood dripping from the shattered eye socket of the mask and from the wound in his chest. He struggled to breath, but still he laughed at us, mocking us.

“Don’t need it…..Just need….a little kick…” He should be dead, but he persisted longer than he should have. Without warning he pressed the nose of his bird mask into his face and grunted in pain as the sound of some pressurized injection erupted from the beak.

I saw the bar above his name in the EFS start to rise.

“Oh no you don’t!” I raised the rifle to fire, but before I could even line up the shot his magic activated and jerked the rifle into the ground barrel first. Accidently, I squeezed the trigger once he jerked the rifle and I tried to wrestle it back. With a boom the barrel exploded, sending little bits of shrapnel into my hooves and cheek.

“Sister!!!” The trapper rushed forward on newfound strength. His hooves kicked my sister aside before he was on me again. I raised what was left of the rifle to block him as he grappled it, both of our hooves now fighting for purchase on the ruined weapon.

I could see his purple eye through the smashed goggles of his mask. It wasn’t bleeding anymore, but there was still glass penetrating his skin around the socket. The eye was completely repaired. “What’s the matter, can’t stand the sight of blood?”

“Just can’t stand the sight of you!” My sister wasn’t done yet. With a surprise shoulder check she tackled him away from me. He responded by blasting her with magic, knocking her aside again with a pained yelp. I responded by smashing the leftovers of the rifle against his head just like mom did.

And yet the trapper wasn’t going down. He was far stronger than the Jellybean clones. It made me wonder just how strong the trapper hunting parties were out here in the watery wasteland. “Yeah? Yeah?! YEAH?! Who else wants some?! I’ll fucking kill you all!” He roared with animalistic fury. Pain wasn’t going to bring this pony down and I had no more tricks up my sleeve. Our eyes locked.

“I do…”

Before I knew it, mom was on him like a leech. Her stolen lever action rifle wrapped around the trapper's neck tightly as she began strangling the life from the monstrous trapper stallion. Grove wasn’t letting go now matter how hard his body flailed and no matter how much he struggled Grove kept choking the air from his lungs with the cold wrath of an enraged mother. His last ditch attempt to free himself was to waddle his way to the stream nearby and plunge back first into the water.

I ran to the waters edge screaming for her to surface, but only bubbles answered my calls. “Mom! Mom, get out of there!”

I waited with racing heartbeats flooding my ears. With each second my fear and adrenaline grew as I wagered my own chances with jumping in. Before long, a dot disappeared from the compass with only a blue dot remaining. It belonged to mom.

Like a seapony she emerged from the water with heavy, rattling coughs. Water poured from her mouth as she inhaled air greedily between coughs and gags. I was at her side in an instant to help her out of the stream and onto land. Together, we’d survived the attacks. Mom wasn’t interested in that though. “Muddy…your sister…”

Wait, where was the other me? The last I saw her she was… “Muddy!!!” Hurt. And I had no idea just how bad she might be injured. I did not see where she ended up after being blasted by that unicorn's magic, but she couldn’t have gotten far. “Muddy?! Sister, where are you?” My shouts echoed through the damp air, but I got no response.

Her blue mark still appeared on the compass at the top of my vision, so she must still be alive. “Sister, hang on! I’m coming!” No matter how fast I got there, the feeling I wasn’t going to make it on time tore into me. It was just one blast of magic from that trapper, how bad could it be? As my hooves churned through mud and marshy soil I reached the small, sunken pond my sister landed in, but much to my own shock her wound was bad. Very bad.

Half submerged in water was my clone, her chest sizzling with magic damage. Dad’s old red jumpsuit he wore on the boats was melting to her flesh from the intensity of the magic she took to the torso. Before I could even process what I was seeing, I was fishing out the healing potion we’d saved up and immediately started helping her drink it as best I could.

“Come on sis, stay with me. We…we only just started. You can’t let a unicorn end ya!” Those words came as a whisper as I held my sister’s head in my hooves and forced the healing potion down her throat. Slowly her health rose on the bar given to her by my EFS. She’d live, but the pain was noticeable on her features. It would only get worse as I took a small blade and began to cut away the melted material. “How are you holding up?”

“M…..Murky….” Through gritted teeth my sister looked up at me and began to speak. At first I thought she was talking crazy, but she continued. “My name…I want…want to be called…Murky Waters.”

A name. Here she was suffering in a hole in the ground with magic burns over her chest and she came up with a name for herself. “It’s very fitting, sis. I’m sure it’s been on your mind for a while, huh?” The blade cut through the uniform with ease, then it cut through seared flesh which held parts of the fabric to her chest in a blackened mess.

“Fuck! Y-y-yeah….yeah it was. I know it was bad for you too…gagh! Easy with the knife you horse!”

“Stand still! It comes off now, or it can come off after infection sets in. Your choice, Murky.” Murky spat on the ground and shoved the damaged remains of her mask in her mouth to avoid screaming or biting off her own tongue. Med-X was added to the grocery list after this. “Mom should be on her way. When she gets over here we’re going home, together.”

Before I was finished cutting the fabric away, Murky spit out her own makeshift gag. “W-ha…no, no. The water, our stuff, big bro’s shop?” The worry in her eyes, it hurts to think about our failure, but life isn’t always about winning. It was a pill we were going to have to swallow sooner rather than later.

“We should be grateful to Luna above that we’re even still alive. We nearly lost our lives today! Again!”

“But we never had this kind of trouble before. We looted the bits of the bayou and eastern swamps for years. Why attack us now…?” Tears were gathering up ready to spill as the pain of today’s events were taking their toll.

Two hooves found purchase on our heads suddenly. I would have jumped had the hoof not kept me in place. “Because, girls…things aren’t going so well these last few years. For anyone. It’s not the first time ponies have gotten desperate, or bold, and it won’t be the last.” Mom moved past me to grab the newly dubbed Murky Waters from the ground and hoisted her across her back with relative ease despite the swelling face and battered body from the fight. Grove looked worse than both of us, but managed to force a smile as she walked on shaky hooves.

“M-momma…? Why are…why are trappers so strong? That unicorn kicked like an earth pony.”

Mom just sighed heavily as we walked back east towards the river and away from the deeply setting sun. “Well, when I was your age I…” Grove didn’t get the chance to finish speaking once the sound of a gun chambering a round filled the air. The worst part was there was nothing red on the compass, only blue. In fact there was a lot of blue, but none of it I could spot with my eyes, nor abusing the SATS to try and target creatures through the bushes and trees.

“Cuz, little mare, we ain’t got no choice.” From above!

No, the voice wasn’t from above, but when I looked I found the eyes of a trapper looking down from the tree pointing a familiar crossbow at us. “You oughta watch ya’ self my friend.” A mare’s voice whispered in my ear so soft I almost didn’t hear it, but I knew she was close from the feeling of a pony’s breath on my neck. The feeling of a barrel of a gun pressing into my chin came shortly after. “You smell that? That right there is the smell of fish stank. You ponies reek of Point Wayward, yet you got one o’ our armors wrapping your ugly hide. Tell me, trapper, who’s group you with?”

The mare walked in front of me and took my weapon from me. Another unicorn with a similar bird mask adorning her features, only this one was covered in a cowl and had no eye protection. I could see the bloodshot eyes, irises shrunk and wild with a hunger in them that scared me. Just like the other member of her group she too was followed by insects, but her’s were disgusting bloodbugs. They followed her every hoofstep and orbited her body like flies around dung.

“Don’t be shy now, I don’t bite the living. Can’t say the same for my pretties. Ha!” The trapper mare stepped in front of mom and locked eyes with her.

Mom just scowled and spit on the ground before answering. “I ain’t with a group. Haven’t been for years. I…” Mom stepped back as the trapper levitated a sinister looking blade inches from her eyes.

“And yet you wear our armor? And don’t think I didn’t notice the blood stainin’ your pretty little teeth. You might think you’re some civilized city mare, but deep deep down in your soul you’ll always enjoy the ways of the Moore.” I couldn’t see her face, nor the face of the pony in the tree staring down at us, but I could tell every word she spoke was spoken with the widest grin possible. I had to wonder with all the dots flooding the compass if there were more trappers lying in wait, or if they were just more critters buzzing around. “Hey, little mare. You’re almost an adult aintcha?”

Now she was talking to me? Why? “I’m sixteen…about to be seventeen.”

“Well ain’t that something. Glad to hear it! Just means that you’re old enough to travel to the Moore, little one.” I must have worn my confusion like I wear my hat because the trapper mare just barked a revolting laughter before pressing the gun further into my chin. “If you wanna see your momma and sister again, you ain’t got no choice.”

BANG BANG

Too fast, everything was happening too fast. Before I knew what was happening, two bullets hit me in the chest. They didn’t penetrate my skin, but shattered the moment they impacted my ribcage and released a green ooze that numbed my senses and forced time to come to a crawl around me.

The world spun as I dropped to my knees and watched as mom was shot in the flank by a crossbow. She too dropped shortly after, but to me it felt like a lifetime watching her go down so easily. Whatever they hit us with, it worked its way through our system and left us helpless. Then the mare returned, her eyes boring down on me like a hawk bore down on fresh meat.

“Travel north, little one. Follow the river till ya get to the Moore. Our kin, your kin, will be waiting…” Her voice echoed in my head as if she was speaking with a thousand voices all chiming in to give me my new orders. I had no choice in the matter. I certainly had no choice in the coming hoof that smashed into my face seconds later.

The last thoughts running through my mind before blackness took a hold of me was how they managed to trick the compass. Surely there was a mistake…surely.

***

The sensation of floating is all I feel now. Maybe it was the drugs coursing through my body, or maybe it was the fact I was currently under water and unable to breath. Below me was the wreckage of a wooden ship mangled beyond repair. Its shattered remains hung in the water like a silent grave just beneath the waves with rotting planks floating lazily around me. I was about to begin swimming to the surface when I felt the rush of water beneath me, alerting me to the fact I wasn’t the only one down here.

That's when I saw it emerging from beyond the wooden ship. It was massive, unbelievably so compared to anything I’d ever seen or heard of. Its body was the head of a dragon with multiple sets of eyes on each side. Behind it was no less than a dozen tentacles longer than most pre-war vessels. Those slitted eyes all looked in various directions in search for something.

That’s when I looked down at it, and each eye it had rotated to look back at me with unfeeling gazes.

In my heart I knew I’d never make it out of this alive, so I sat and waited. We stared at each other for what felt like hours, but slowly it began to sink beneath the depths where sunlight never reached. The last I saw of the leviathan was the glow of its eyes piercing the abyss below me as it retreated…

…and again I drowned with lungs full of radioactive water.

***

It was dark when I awoke. The nightmares that tore at my sanity when I slept only got more vivid with each one. The world was still a blur to me and my senses fed me all kinds of strange sensations, but a couple of things were clear to me as I struggled to my hooves.

My outfit was stripped from me and only bandages remained where my pocket covered jacket once was. A trapper stood over me with a crossbow strapped across his back. Last, but not least, my backpack was lying in the dirt between us. The only light we had was a planted torch on the side of a well traveled path. The road to Wayward.

“I hope…you won’t resent us for this. When we saw your family getting robbed, I thought we were just going to kill those five attacking you since you looked like one of us. Trappers don’t kill trappers, but…boss was like a shark and he was smelling blood ya see.” The faceless trapper stood still with every bit of his features obscured just like his comrades. The eyes of the bird mask reflected the torchlight, making him appear terrifying in the dark like some sort of night creature.

“Why’d you take my mom and sister? What did we ever do to you people?” I whispered, unable to form any more strength from my voice.

“The trapper clans don’t take kindly to lone wolves. Your momma is in deep shit, so that’s why. Your sister is…a way of making sure you come to collect. Or pay. It’ll take a lot from you to set them free.”

His hoof kicked my water filled backpack. An understanding was starting to form in my drug-addled mind about the situation I was in. “If you wanted something from me, why not take the water?” I whispered again.

“Who said anything about paying with material things?” His grumbling response left me confused, with more questions being added to the growing list.

What could they possibly want from me then? I was a nopony, who had nothing. “What do you want then? What could a pony like me possibly offer in return for my family?”

The trapper was silent and unmoving, but eventually after a moment he stirred. “Travel to the Moore, make your blood known to our master, Broadsides. If he acknowledges you and your sister, you might get out of this alive. You're the spawn of trappers after all.”

“And if he doesn’t?” I asked, yet I was afraid of the answer.

“It depends on Broadsides. Be there tomorrow before sundown, otherwise I can’t promise your momma won’t end up a stew or steak.”

The bird mask wearing trapper brushed past me without another word and strode into the night, vanishing from my sight, then my compass shortly after.

With the crinkle of static, words appeared on the side of my vision.

The Jaw of Death: Rescue Vivid Grove and Murky Waters from the Moore.

Sure enough, a marker appeared on my compass pointing somewhere north east of where I found myself. I don’t know how the Pipbuck knew where I was supposed to go, but even with the help I was lost on what to do. I needed to rely on somepony for help, anypony willing to save me. The only problem was…I was alone. Nopony was going to rescue us this time.

My chest stung as the drugs faded and my mind cleared. Looking down, I saw how bruised and swollen my chest was where I’d been shot. I also noticed something else upon a quick inspection of my body. Adorning my flanks was a cutie mark, a pair of pale hooves raising a strange symbol to the sky like an offering. It looked like a sideways eight as green as my own eyes. I knew the color well given how much I’d been staring at my own face the past few days.

Maybe I didn’t have a crazy special talent to help me conquer the wasteland, but I was done being a nopony. I was done with the way I used to be.

I was done feeling worthless.

***

Level up: level 4

Perk added: Lone Wanderer

-You don’t need anypony to hold you back. When travelling alone you gain +5 damage threshold. Travelling with clones doesn’t negate this.

Author's Note

It's been a while. Long story short, I moved apartments, got a new job, got very tired of writing the entire fic on my phone, waited a year to get a crappy laptop and finally got a new job as a security guard. Took me a while to get things settled, but I can freely write on a laptop now while at work!
Expect updates to actually happen again!