Sludge and Funberry were currently trotting in a cave.

She was impressed. “I still can’t believe that the entrance to that Stable was located in a cave. I mean, I can understand why no one in their right mind would ever think to look for the entrance in a cave,” said the green mare in a mixture of disbelief and amazement. “But still, I have to say that it’s a pretty amazing idea.”

After they had left the Stable, they ended up in a cave, and it took them a while to even make it near its entrance.

The pretty stallion nodded, impressed as well. “Yeah, there are tons of Stables spread throughout different places in Equestria and each of them have hidden entrances, making it hard for anypony to find them,” he explained.

Sludge looked around, an eyebrow raised. “Then what’s with the dead bodies?” she asked,confused.

Around them were the dead bodies of ponies wearing leather armor parts with spikes.

“Oh, those are just some raiders I had to fight against in order to get here to the stable,” said Funberry, a nonchalant tone in his voice. “They were really hard to take care of when my only weapon was a pistol.” The tone of the pretty stallion’s voice was of annoyance as he complained.

The green mare was impressed. Funberry was able to defeat all of these ponies with just one gun and the only spells that he knows.

She saw some of the raiders' weapons. “Then why not take some of their weapons and whatever supplies they have with you? I mean, they’re not using them anymore, are they?” suggested Sludge.

As soon as the green mare had said that, the pretty stallion stopped in his tracks, realizing that she was right. The unicorn had never actually thought of taking their stuff as he was more interested in getting to the stable and surviving.

Funberry hummed. “Hmm. I guess we can see if they have anything important on them and bring it with us,” said the pretty stallion. He winced from the pain in his jaw. “Ugh. And see if one of them has a healing potion while I’m at it.”

The two then started searching through all of the dead raiders’ stuff. Sludge had gone and checked the dead body of a unicorn stallion that was a few feet away from her. The green mare only suggested they do this because she knew that they’ll need more weapons, plus the ammo, once the revolver becomes useless.

“Ugh. This one’s useless to me,” thought Sludge.

The dead raider had a shotgun and shotgun ammo on them, plus some of the same weird medical supplies that Funberry had in his saddlebags, including some that the pretty stallion didn’t have. Unfortunately, the shotgun was something that she couldn't use. The green mare decided to just take the medical stuff and pack it away into her saddlebags.

“Score,” Funberry said in relief.

Sludge heard him say that and turned around to see that, floating in the pretty stallion’s magic, was a bottle filled with some sort of liquid.

She grinned. “You seem excited to see that stuff,” said the green mare.

He looked back at her, grinning. “Of course I am. This stuff will heal my jaw in an instant,” said Funberry. “Now I won’t have to suffer from aching jaw pain from when you clocked me in the face with that table leg.”

Sludge only chuckled. Then, she watched as the pretty stallion removed the top from the bottle, and started drinking it. As soon as Funberry was finished, he tossed the bottle to the side, causing it to shatter against the cave wall on impact. The pretty stallion started moving his jaw around without wincing in pain.

He sighed. “Much better,” muttered Funberry, relieved.

The pretty stallion did not want to start a journey with an aching jaw that wound up bothering him every day until the two of them had eventually made it to a town with a medic. Funberry would rather deal with the pain now than later. He then continued to look through the dead raider’s stuff.

“So it was some kind of potion that heals injuries. That explains what these ones are,” thought the green mare. She looked down at the medical supplies as among them were some healing potions. “Even after I fell through that table, I still feel fine, so I don’t need to use one right now. These will be useful for when someone ends up injured later in the future.”

After Sludge pocketed the medical supplies into her saddlebags, she moved on to the other raiders.

Few Minutes Later

So far, they had ended up with a few medical supplies, some weird-looking food of different brands, bottled drinks, some guns, grenades, ammo, lots of bottle caps that were evenly split between the both of them, and even some weapons. After packing up the stuff, except for the weapons that they would have a hard time carrying around, the two were now continuing on their way out of the cave.

The green mare had chosen a baseball bat, a dagger, half of the grenades, a revolver, and a ‘Needler Pistol’ as the pretty stallion had called it thanks to the information from the PipBuck. “So, after we leave this cave, where are we heading to?” she asked.

Funberry had chosen a double barrel shotgun, the other half of the grenades, and an automatic rifle. He had also gotten his pistol back from Sludge since she had a new weapon to replace it. “From what I’ve heard, there’s a Stable near Neighagra Falls. We’ll have to travel past Hoofington to get there,” informed the pretty stallion. “I’ve got the location marked on my PipBuck.”

Now the green mare had questions that needed answering. “Okay, first of all, how long would it take for us to travel from here to the Stable on f-hoof, and if there are other ways to travel?” asked Sludge.

He hummed before shrugging. “I don’t know. Probably a few days on hoof,” guessed Funberry.

She was shocked to hear that. “A few days?!” thought the green mare.

“And as for other modes of transportation, I heard that back then, there used to be trains running around, but from the way the world is right now, I think they stopped working,” continued the pretty stallion.

Sludge wasn’t planning to give up on the idea. “But what if there are some working right now? Could we use them to travel much faster than on hoof?” she asked.

He thought about it before nodding. “Yeah, we could, but finding a working one and getting it to work could be a bit hard to do,” answered Funberry.

“If a train’s the only way for us to travel quicker to whatever place you said we have to go, then finding a working train is very important. Are there any places near or a bit far from us that have train stations?” asked the green mare.

The pretty stallion had to stop in order to start fiddling with the device around his left hoof while looking at the screen. “Manehattan, Fillydelphia, Hoofington, and Hollow Shades,” answered Funberry.

“Towns and cities with horse puns in the name. Greeeeat,” thought Sludge, upset. “And which ones are the closest to our current location?”

He checked the screen of his device again. Then, the pretty stallion frowned for some reason. “Manehattan,” said Funberry apathetically.

She noticed that the pretty stallion seemed unhappy once he had mentioned Manehattan.

“Is something wrong?” asked the green mare. “I have a feeling that it’s about ‘Manehattan’.”

Funberry quickly changed his frown into a smile and looked perky. “Nope! Everything’s fine here!” lied the pretty stallion. “So, let’s go to Manehattan to find ourselves a train!” He then started trotting away.

Funberry’s fake cheer did not fool Sludge one bit. She saw that while his smile said, ‘Let’s go to Manehattan’, the pretty stallion’s eyes were full of fear that were saying ‘I do not want to go to Manehattan’. There was only one thing for the green mare to do.

Sludge shook her head. “Nah. Maybe while we’re on the way, we could go and see if Hoofington has a working train instead?” offered the green mare, trotting after him. “After that, we can ride the train all the way if they take us to those waterfalls. How’s that sound?”

That shocked the pretty stallion so much that he ended up stopping in place. Funberry knew that he needed to answer Sludge quickly as the two of them were almost near the cave’s entrance.

“Uh…Sounds good,” said the pretty stallion. That made him feel relieved on the inside. Funberry trotted after her in order to keep up. “Hoofington it is, then.”

Sludge smiled. “Great. And now my second question. What is a PipBuck?” asked the green mare, curious.

That made the pretty stallion confused. “A PipBuck is a device that I’ve been using to check the map. It’s also what you’re wearing around your left hoof,” he informed.

“Oh, so that’s what this thing on my hoof is? I found it in the room where we first met,” she explained. “I didn’t know what it was, but I decided to put it on anyway. Well, after I checked to see if it was trapped first.”

Funberry was shocked again. Sludge had not only found the only PipBuck in the entire Stable, but she had also put it on despite not knowing anything about it. The pretty stallion snapped out of his shock, and then he told the green mare about the many functions of the PipBuck.

Few Minutes Later

Thanks to the explanation, Sludge now knew how to use the little machine. They trotted out of the cave, and the moment they did, the green mare became shocked. The land had been charred. Ruins of buildings and debris from the past dotted the landscape like they had been growing from the land itself. The ground was bare and sterile, but brown grass still grew about haphazardly in very small patches. The trees, or what was left of them, looked like used matchsticks: They possessed no leaves, their bark seemed brittle and sensitive, and most had already toppled over, exposing their shrunken and disheveled roots. As for the sky, it was covered in a roiling sea of clouds tinged a pale green. She had spotted a green lightning bolt traveling between two of the vaporous bodies, making her hope that no rain would fall from those horrific giants.

“What the hell? This is what the land of Equestria looks like outside of the cave?” thought Sludge. “Looks like something must’ve happened to turn it this way. I don’t know what, but it must’ve been terrible.” The green mare looked at Funberry, smirking. “You ready? It’s going to be one long adventure to Hoofington.”

The pretty stallion nodded, smirking right back. “Yeah. I am,” he said, confident.

“Then lead the way,” she said.

“I shall,” he said.

The two started heading in the direction of Hoofington.

Sludge:

• New Perks:

1. Ally’s Feelings: Unique dialogue options appear when chatting with an ally and they’re hiding something. The closer the bond, the more they’ll open up.

• Skill Note:

1. Gained Guns, Ammo, Melee Weapons, Health Potions, Medical Supplies, and Food.
2. Lost Revolver and Revolver Ammo.

• Footnote: Level Up

Funberry:

• New Perks:

1. Hidden Past: An unexplainable part of the past is kept secret. Until the bonds are close, the information will remain hidden. A certain amount of trust will unlock some information.

• Skill Note:

1. Gained Guns, Ammo, and Melee Weapons
2. Regained Revolver and Ammo

• Footnote: Level Up

Author's Note

They had chosen weapons that they believed would be useful for them:

• Sludge had chosen the baseball bat to replace the table leg that she left behind, the spiked ponyshoes for when she had to fight hoof-to-hoof, and as for the Needler Pistol, she thought that it might come in handy one day in the future. The grenades because Funberry recommended that she takes some with her just in case.
• As for Funberry, the shotgun was for when he's up against his opponents at close range, the automatic rifle fires much faster (he knows from experience of being shot at), and the grenades are for when there are ponies throwing grenades right at him. After all, it's only fair that he should be throwing grenades right back at them too.

Even though Sludge doesn't want to walk, or "trot", for days to another city or town as a pony, she's willing to do it. The reason is that she doesn't want to force Funberry to go to Manehattan if he doesn't want to go to there. Also, the reason why Funberry doesn't want to go to Manehattan will be revealed on a future chapter.

The Psychopath proofread this chapter. They're also the one who made the description of the Wasteland too.

Comments are welcome.